Intelligent Items

[Stryyke]

Obviously they are expensive, can be ornery, and a general pain in the posterior. Would having an intelligent magical staff be worth the effort?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Obviously they are expensive, can be ornery, and a general pain in the posterior. Would having an intelligent magical staff be worth the effort?Psicrystals are basically intelligent magic items, and they're definitely worthwhile.

A staff? Depends on how well its personality and goals synch with the character carrying it.

[RoboEmperor]

Obviously they are expensive, can be ornery, and a general pain in the posterior. Would having an intelligent magical staff be worth the effort?

You can make simulacra of intelligent items so yes it's worth the effort.

[Saintheart]

Obviously they are expensive, can be ornery, and a general pain in the posterior. Would having an intelligent magical staff be worth the effort?

From the DM standpoint, yes, because it gives the DM an annoying disembodied voice in the party and a chance to generally play Lilarcor from Baldur's Gate 2.

[unseenmage]

With the MIC combining magic items rules and the fact that Int Magic Items can expressly activate their all of own superpowers means that yes, they are very worthwhile.

[Bronk]

Obviously they are expensive, can be ornery, and a general pain in the posterior. Would having an intelligent magical staff be worth the effort?

You can get around most of those problems by using an Item Familiar...

[Malphegor]

Part of it is adding an extra character with their own skills into the fray without needing to have it have motivations beyond 'being a staff'.

For example, you could let your magic staff take watch at night rather than spend a spell.

It's also kind of a power move where you don't talk, your magic stick talks on your behalf. You're that powerful that your weapons are free-thinking individuals that obey you. The very items you carry are so magic they speak.

I dunno, it's something that's at least interesting on a 'yeah, who the hell do you think I am? I have a supermagic item!' aspect.

[Necroticplague]

Depends on what else the staff can do.

[Stryyke]

Depends on what else the staff can do.

Intelligent staff +3 -- Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 18 -- Telepathy
Lesser Powers: At Will -- Detect Magic, 3/day -- Zone of Truth, 3/day -- Cure Moderate Wounds
Greater Powers: 1/day -- Dimensional Anchor, At Will -- Detect Thoughts
Ego Score 19

I was thinking about this.
I'm a 10 Sorcerer/2 Demonologist, so I thought this would be thematically appropriate. The Detect thoughts can be essentially "always on" independent of my personal concentration (which as a side effect essentially reveals invisible creatures), and with telepathy, my staff can warn me silently.

Zone of Truth is to force summoned demons to be truthful.

Cure Moderate is for if I get into a pickle. I'm an Ogre Mage, though, so I have regen, but having an emergency heal in case I'm incapacitated seems prudent when dealing with demons that could escape and come after me.

+3 is so that I can attack and hit pretty much anything.

Does this seem reasonable?

[Bronk]

Intelligent staff +3 -- Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 18 -- Telepathy
Lesser Powers: At Will -- Detect Magic, 3/day -- Zone of Truth, 3/day -- Cure Moderate Wounds
Greater Powers: 1/day -- Dimensional Anchor, At Will -- Detect Thoughts
Ego Score 19

I was thinking about this.
I'm a 10 Sorcerer/2 Demonologist, so I thought this would be thematically appropriate. The Detect thoughts can be essentially "always on" independent of my personal concentration (which as a side effect essentially reveals invisible creatures), and with telepathy, my staff can warn me silently.

Zone of Truth is to force summoned demons to be truthful.

Cure Moderate is for if I get into a pickle. I'm an Ogre Mage, though, so I have regen, but having an emergency heal in case I'm incapacitated seems prudent when dealing with demons that could escape and come after me.

+3 is so that I can attack and hit pretty much anything.

Does this seem reasonable?

I think it depends on how much gold you have... It looks like as an ogre mage you're probably in epic at ECL24, so can you afford for the base to be a Staff of Power? That would get you some additional spells, plus that staff is rechargeable and can double as a weapon. If you're using a quarterstaff as a base, you can enchant the other end with a minimal +1, then add helpful enchantments to that end like eager and warning.

You might still want to start with the non-intelligent version of this first, then try taking the Item Familiar feat when you hit 18HD at your next level. They're less expensive to upgrade and they're loyal by default, so you wouldn't have to worry about its ego score.

[GrayDeath]

In my experience it depends a lot on compatible Alignments and Goals.

The Abilities of most Intelligent Items are useful to very useful, and depending on what you can put them onto basewise the resulting item can be extremely powerful (in our most recent campaign my Intelligent Flamberge was luckily as lawful evil as my Character and in addition to draining 1d2 levels per hit had a nice ability that let it consume other magical items for a chance of copying their abilities (granted I was only lukcy once out of 4 tries, but that try got me Vorpal, so ...yeah^^). Oh, and detect Magic/Thoughts at will, combined with Heroism 1/day are nice as well.


To sum it up, as long as its not actively fighting ypou and your DM is not an ass, they are always worth it. :)