3.P - Fun With A Dumb Idea

[unseenmage]

Int Magic Items are Constructs.
Greater Humanoid Essence an Int Magic Item.
Hit it with Vampirism or Lycanthropy.
Profit?

Werewolf magic ring changes right off your finger under the moon.
Rampages for a while.
Then transforms in the woods.
Is now a magic ring laying in the woods... D'oh!

A talking magic sword with vampire superpowers sounds way cooler.

Any other fun to be had with this idea?

EDIT: The Mineralize Warrior spell from the Underdark book applies the Mineral Warrior (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/mineralwarrior.shtml) template to our item. Items without move speeds dont gain a burrow speed, sadly. And I'm pretty sure nothing happens when you increase a non ability. But still cool!

[daremetoidareyo]

Int Magic Items are Constructs.
Greater Humanoid Essence an Int Magic Item.
Hit it with Vampirism or Lycanthropy.
Profit?

Werewolf magic ring changes right off your finger under the moon.
Rampages for a while.
Then transforms in the woods.
Is now a magic ring laying in the woods... D'oh!

A talking magic sword with vampire superpowers sounds way cooler.

Any other fun to be had with this idea?

hybrid form is funny. Half wolf, half sword.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

hybrid form is funny. Half wolf, half sword.Hello, Dark Souls. Is that you?

[unseenmage]

hybrid form is funny. Half wolf, half sword.
Haha! Agreed, I hadn't even thought of that yet.


Additionally, there are actually some items with bite attacks that could transmit vampirism/lycanthropy while still in item form.



Beaststrike Club (http://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Beaststrike%20Cl ub)
Belt of Teeth (http://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Belt%20of%20Te eth)
Blood Chest (http://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Blood%20Chest)
Chomper (http://aonprd.com/MagicCursedDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Chomper)
Figurine of Wondrous Power (http://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Figurine%20of% 20Wondrous%20PowerBasalt%20Dragon)
Key-Wound Rattler (http://aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Key-wound%20rattler)
Migrus Locker (http://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Migrus%20Locke r)
Mouthpiece of the Dominion (http://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Mouthpiece%20o f%20the%20Dominion)
Snakebiter Arrow (http://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Snakebiter%20Arr ow)
Staff of the Hooded Cobra (http://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Staff%20of%20the %20Hooded%20Cobra)



Interestingly, the Figurines of Wondrous Power have their own alternate forms so a magic curse giving an Int Magic Item an alternate form curse isnt so unusual to my mind.

Also, there is ONE mundane equipment item that bites, the Key-Wound Rattler. And maybe Bear Traps if you can convince your GM.

EDIT: A player in our IRL game points out in response to my claiming vampiric items would be cool...


Until you dunk it in a river for 3 rounds and it's destroyed.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

So...sticks-to-snakes is still a thing, apparently.

[unseenmage]

Looks like FoWP are the only vampire-able items.
And only a few have the HD for it.

Bronze Griffin (5 HD)
Hematite Cougar (5 HD)
Golden Lions (5 HD each)
Marble Elephant (11 HD)
Ivory Goats (Travail only; 6 HD)
Basalt Dragon (Flame Drake only; 6 HD)
|- if mythic: Young (11 HD)/Adult (17 HD)/Ancient (25 HD) Red Dragon

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Now that sounds like the premise for an adventure if I've ever heard one. The players get this swanky new magic item... and then everywhere they go, people start turning into vampires or werewolves, and they can't figure out why or what the source is. Meanwhile, the item subtly sabotages their efforts...

[WhamBamSam]

You can follow up your Greater Humanoid Essence with Essence of the Dragon to make a dragon sword which can then gain dragon-specific templates. For instance, have your werewolf sword assume animal form to drink some Dracolich Brew, and because of the way Dracolich's Paralyzing Touch is written, it probably applies to every enemy that you hit with the weapon.

If there's a useful template that you can apply to an animal, magical beast, aberration, or outsider you can replace Essence of the Dragon with Aspect of the Wolf, Aspect of the Wolf+Awaken/Planar Familiar, Aberrate, or Fiendform. Aspect of the Wolf and Fiendform require the item to be able to use UMD to cast the spell on itself.

EDIT: A weapon that gains some regenerating undead template might be handy if you're using something like Tremendous Charge that can cause it to break.

[unseenmage]

You can follow up your Greater Humanoid Essence with Essence of the Dragon to make a dragon sword which can then gain dragon-specific templates. For instance, have your werewolf sword assume animal form to drink some Dracolich Brew, and because of the way Dracolich's Paralyzing Touch is written, it probably applies to every enemy that you hit with the weapon.

If there's a useful template that you can apply to an animal, magical beast, aberration, or outsider you can replace Essence of the Dragon with Aspect of the Wolf, Aspect of the Wolf+Awaken/Planar Familiar, Aberrate, or Fiendform. Aspect of the Wolf and Fiendform require the item to be able to use UMD to cast the spell on itself.

EDIT: A weapon that gains some regenerating undead template might be handy if you're using something like Tremendous Charge that can cause it to break.

Very cool. Definitely going to have to chase down some interesting feat chains here.

[WhamBamSam]

Looking through a list of templates for ones that can be acquired, Wendigo seems potentially rad. Assuming you can maintain control over the thing it can fly or Wind Walk around tracking for you and deal some Wis damage to your enemies.

EDIT: Thinking about Wendigo, and indeed Lycanthrope, how are we keeping Greater Humanoid Essence up long enough for the disease to incubate?

[unseenmage]

...

EDIT: Thinking about Wendigo, and indeed Lycanthrope, how are we keeping Greater Humanoid Essence up long enough for the disease to incubate?

No clue. Probably a custom magic thingamabob of constant human-ness.
Would really suck to require epic wizardry to pull this off.

[WhamBamSam]

No clue. Probably a custom magic thingamabob of constant human-ness.
Would really suck to require epic wizardry to pull this off.I suppose there's always Occular Persist with metamagic reduction, refreshed each day until the disease takes effect if we need to pull out the big guns.

[unseenmage]

So Figurines of Wondrous Power are weird. The item actually turns into a living creature. This means a vampiric IMI FoWP would be a living vampire?

So hold up. Is it the same creature over and over? Can it learn tricks? Does it get to wear equipment meant for creatures that alternate forms? Does it even have body slots as an item that's also a Construct? Does it age?

Hmm. Seems by RAW the item becomes simply 'a living creature' with no text supporting it becoming the same living creature.
That said, if the living form it takes is static and recreated from scratch over and over that could very well mean that our templates on its item form do not carry over to its creature form.
This is likely the best, most conservative reading.

On the other hand, if the living creature form is the same persistent creature every time it is activated then it can make memories, learn tricks, get hungry or thirsty or tired, become diseased or poisoned, even age! Albeit only when it is in its living form.
Though they're active for hours at a time I still don't think you'll be upgrading your draconic FoWP age category anytime soon.

Another question is, do the Intelligent Magic Item mental scores affect the living creature form? I remember participating in a thread on the matter (I believe Thurbane's thread, maybe?) and the result was a big fat maybe.
To me the answer again becomes; do FoWPs transform into a persistent form all their own or a static stat block?

One answer is more safe, the other is more fun. One is a better (more balanced anyway) item, the other leads to a richer narrative (eg the Drizzt panther FoWP).

Our GM's knee jerk reaction was to rule all FoWPs as summoning rather than changing forms. Not a great call IMHO.
For my own games they'll be persistent creatures capable of learning and being permanently scarred or enhanced in animal form.

FoWP are overpriced and underutilized as is. Might as well throw the quirky little things a bone.

For my part I also adore the idea of FoWP animal forms with lycanthrope, vampiric, etc superpowers when in either form.

Likely the best bet will be to go to other creatures with alternate forms and see if there are any precedents for creature superpowers disappearing or persisting between alternate forms.


When the figurine is tossed down and the correct command word spoken, it becomes a living creature of normal size (except when noted otherwise below). The creature obeys and serves its owner. Unless stated otherwise, the creature understands Common but does not speak.

If a figurine of wondrous power is broken or destroyed in its statuette form, it is forever ruined. All magic is lost, its power departed. If slain in animal form, the figurine simply reverts to a statuette that can be used again at a later time.

EDIT: Hey so assuming the Construct that is the Int Magic Item FoWP has an unlisted Alternate Form ability...

(Wait, is Alternate Form our best analogue for this creature changing forms?

I'm pretty sure that's what it would be if a creature could turn into an item.

And making the FoWP into an Int Magic Item Construct means it's a creature turning into another creature so Alternate Form seems appropriate.)

What happens to the hp of the thing when it changes forms?
Diseases? Poisons? Negative levels?

I am not knowledgeable enough about form changing magics to answer these. Can anyone else?

EDIT AGAIN: Bad. Bad idea. Alternate form retains HD of original. HD n/a item becomes animal with no HD and dies. Bad, bad idea.

[unseenmage]

Okay, to continue the FoWP derail a bit; I figure IntMI FoWP are most like reverse mimics. (Note to self: Homebrew up mimics with SLAs that pretend to be magic items.)

In PF IntMIs can have legs and a very slow move speed so their Construct-ness is really only threatened by having HD of n/a.

I just got done comparing IntMI to Magic Traps and it's pretty simple to extrapolate their CR that way, though likely inaccurate.

CR +1 for auto reset. (technically listed for mechanical traps but I think it counts)
CR +1*highest spell level (0th SL to 7th SL)
CR +1 for every 10 points of average damage their superpowers could deal.

Giving us a minimum CR of 1 up to a max of a lot since you could theoretically build in every damaging spell in the game.

I would love to know what their CR should be according to the PF monster building rules (http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary/monsterCreation.html) but those things literally give me a migraine every time I try to use them. Which sucks because I want so badly to use them.

I feel like it shouldn't be impossible to put a CR adjustment beside every IntMI superpower with a note stating how more higher SL superpowers relegate lower SL superpowers obsolete.


As for IntMI FoWP, since their living creature form has a CR one could just increase that by whatever an appropriate amount would be for them having a magic item alternate form that basically amounts to a magic trap (that activates an ego score fight when touched) would be.

I doubt this could even bump even a CR1 creature's CR up except that the Ego score fight is basically non-mind-affecting mind control and mind control in general deserves some CR.

Why give them CR at all you ask? Because if they can be vampires then they can be BBEGs and in that case CR is kinda important.
That and I'me also just spitballing through all the weird ramifications of treating IntMIs as Constructs, as legit creatures.
CR being a trait that IntMI just do not have I have to ask, what if they had it?

[unseenmage]

You can follow up your Greater Humanoid Essence with Essence of the Dragon to make a dragon sword which can then gain dragon-specific templates. For instance, have your werewolf sword assume animal form to drink some Dracolich Brew, and because of the way Dracolich's Paralyzing Touch is written, it probably applies to every enemy that you hit with the weapon.

If there's a useful template that you can apply to an animal, magical beast, aberration, or outsider you can replace Essence of the Dragon with Aspect of the Wolf, Aspect of the Wolf+Awaken/Planar Familiar, Aberrate, or Fiendform. Aspect of the Wolf and Fiendform require the item to be able to use UMD to cast the spell on itself.

EDIT: A weapon that gains some regenerating undead template might be handy if you're using something like Tremendous Charge that can cause it to break.

Was just hunting down these spells and wow are they handy. My current PF character is being allowed to research 3.x spells in a PF game because reasons so thanks for the additions to my lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?566090-3-P-What-Spells-From-3-x-Would-You-Want-a-PF-Wizard-to-Know&p=23286029#post23286029). :smallbiggrin:

Was wandering through these 3.x template lists (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=12219.0) sorted by type and lamenting that there's no easy method of finding the templates that players could have access to.

Still a lot of interesting ideas, especially as they're being applied to a magic item.


The PF template lists should be more useful for my current. characters since we can build any Construct with the Price by CR guidelines and I have access to a couple of 3rd party templates for changing anything into a Construct.

[unseenmage]

So I'm stumped on the HD as a non ability issue.

To my knowledge the current rules for handling non abilities wont help with creature statistics that aren't ability scores, will they?

[Thurbane]

You could throw a Nar-Fiendbond on the items to give it the Half-Fiend template.

Obviously you'll need to find a way to extend the duration of the GHE spell...

Although, how many "HD" does the item have? It probably won't get much in the way of SLAs.

[unseenmage]

Half-Golem (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/halfgolem.shtml) Intelligent Magic Item!

It's such a fantastically dumb idea. Imagine a talking magic sword with a great big honkin iron golem arm hanging off it.

It's so hilarious its inspiring.

I'm pretty sure one could even give the IntMI all four limbs though they'd be hardly functional.

That its alignment could suffer is rough. Theoretically one could force it to use a spell ability with an alignment tag to readjust its alignment.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Half-Golem (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/halfgolem.shtml) Intelligent Magic Item!

It's such a fantastically dumb idea. Imagine a talking magic sword with a great big honkin iron golem arm hanging off it.

It's so hilarious its inspiring.

I'm pretty sure one could even give the IntMI all four limbs though they'd be hardly functional.

That its alignment could suffer is rough. Theoretically one could force it to use a spell ability with an alignment tag to readjust its alignment.What happens if you create a weapon whose function is to assist the celestial planes but it's Chaotic Evil?

[unseenmage]

What happens if you create a weapon whose function is to assist the celestial planes but it's Chaotic Evil?

That's a really good question. One imagines it still follows its special purpose but does so in an evil manner.

A new BBEG is born that knows what it is doing is right even as it commits horrific evil to do so.