(3.5) Permanent animated rope

[Talhvain]

I have a character concept that I think will be most enjoyable, however it would be even more so with a short length of rope that was animated to do certain things at certain times. Could I bother the playground for cheap options to do this? The character will not be a spellcaster so he will not have access to a familiar.

[Feantar]

All this isn't necessarily RAW, but it stands from a power equivalency standpoint.

You can get a permanently animated object through permanency, so I don't see why not a rope. Animate Rope essentially creates a tiny animated object with the bind property - that is mostly useless and cannot attack. Since they have similar durations you don't even have to take into consideration any multipliers for possible pricing. So it would cost you 500 XP, to cast a permanent animate rope. If someone else is casting it, it would cost 10 for animate rope plus 450 for the permanency spell, for a total of 2940 gp or 460 gp and 500 XP (if your DM rules you can pay the XP directly instead of the caster). Just remember that the rope will be very easily dispelled if it encounters any such spell.

There's a secondary way to get an animated rope cheaper. Coil the rope inside one cubic foot, and have the wizard cast Minor Servitor (From savage species) on it. That costs the standard 5th level spell fee (460 gp) plus 250 XP, or 1710 gp total. However that makes the object intelligent and just friendly towards its creator - not a slave.

A permanent animate rope magic item would be seriously expensive. It would cost 8000 gp; However, if you don't mind spending a standard action on a command word every 3 rounds (instead of the standard move action to command the rope), the cost declines to 5400 gp. If you want to spend a standard action each round (which seems insane, but whatever), the cost is just 1800 gp. You can lower the cost further by putting the requirement that the user has something akin to 4 ranks in Use Rope (which is reasonable, I think at least) for the continuous item and the greater and lesser versions of the command word item, for a final price of 7200, 4860 and 1620 gp respectively.

This pricing seems consistent with the price of the rope of climbing - which is a more limited version of the animate rope spell.

Finally, this is Pathfinder material, there's the animated object creation rules (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/animated-object/). For a rope, it would be a Tiny object with the Trip special ability, and the Flammable and, probably, Cloth construction flaws. It would cost (if it's a hemp rope) 1001 gp. (You can theoretically make it cost 0, but I think the formula is broken there).

[Talhvain]

that is mostly useless and cannot attack.

I do not want it to attack. I want it to tie itself into a noose and pull itself upwards when my character is pretending to be a dead man hanging.

[DrMotives]

An Urban Druid's Urban Companion can easily be an animated rope, if that class fits your character concept.

[Feantar]

I do not want it to attack. I want it to tie itself into a noose and pull itself upwards when my character is pretending to be a dead man hanging.

If that's your only use case, then you might be able to do that with a 50 ft silk rope (weights 5 lbs), or even a 25 ft hempen rope and mage hand. I am not sure if you can get it to tie itself, that's why I said might. An item of command word Mage Hand that requires use rope would cost 810 gp - and would work on many things besides the rope. It's a concentration spell, so it goes away the moment you stop concentrating, but if you're doing this for an ambush...

In case you want to limit this to a daily use, it would cost 162 gp.