An intelligent item can be a Character with class levels?

[Conradine]

An item that is intelligent and able to permanently possess a body could develop experience , class levels , skills , feats ecc. as a normal character?

[GrayDeath]

Develope? No (unless you explain the trick to produce exp from nothing?^^).

Earn? Sure, why not?

I am not sure that there isnt a well hidden specific rule against it, mind, but we have done it and let the Item become awakened (so effectively an Awakened Construct Item^^), but i seem to remember MM7 telling us that any construct with an int score can advance, even if few do.

If a houseruling interests you:

We have ruled as such:

Intelligent Items that are in possesion and wielded by a character cannot advance on their own. Their "owner" must allow it/awaken them.

From thqat moment onward thiugh, they can choose class levels (logically sound ones^^) and advance as normal.

[schreier]

We had an item familiar amulet that we added the ability of a figurine of wondrous power to (onyx dog). We allowed the dog to earn experience while in dog form, and get class levels ... We locked in mental attributes by the familiar, and restricted use of class abilities to when in dog form

[Thurbane]

This topic pops up quite often: RAW, there are no official rules for playing an intelligent item as a character.

It either requires a healthy dose of home-brewing, or I believe there might be some 3rd party books that offer up some rules.

[Doctor Despair]

This topic pops up quite often: RAW, there are no official rules for playing an intelligent item as a character.

It either requires a healthy dose of home-brewing, or I believe there might be some 3rd party books that offer up some rules.

You could deduct wbl for a PAO. Actually, now that I think about it...

1. Your character takes leadership; your cohort has item familiar, but lost their item familiar at ECL 7 or less

2. Your character is ECL 9

3. During level-up, your character is PAO'd into an item

4. Your cohort selects you as an item familiar

5. As your cohort is ECL 7, you gain mental stats again, making you a creature again. You have your old int, you gain a new int (does it lower?), and you gain wis/cha scores again.

6. As a creature, I think that makes you a construct. If you are humanoid in shape, you can be Awakened, although notably this allows a construct to gain scores, not add to scores. 3d6 will probably be higher than the 10 or 12 your mental scores normally have though.

Edit:

If you are a creature but have no type, that might even be better, as you wouldn't detect as a creature.

As an item with no physical scores, you can't do SVM components, but a psionic character could still manifest. Psionic Dominate would be kind of funny in this regard.

[Anthrowhale]

There is an obscure 3.0 psionic power called 'steal steel' which allows a character to possess a blade.

[Conradine]

There is a class , the Rage Smith ( Races of Renown: Wrath & Rage ) who enable a non-spellcaster orc or half orc to create magic weapons and armor at high personal cost. The pinnacle of his class ( appropriately named Swan Song ) costs him his own life: his soul is bound to his creation which becomes a powerful intelligent item.

So I asked myself: what about a cursed armour that encases his wearer and turn his body into a vessel for the Rage Smith's will?

[unseenmage]

Two ways I can think of to give the item a body of it's own.

Use the item combining rules to add Figurine of Wondrous Power abilities to it.
OR
Use the 3.0 version of the Flying weapon enhancement to make it into a pseudo animated object.

[StSword]

Well that depends, is your table up for third party PF material?

Because Four Horsemen Present: Living Items is a thing.

"I am a longsword, like my father was before me."

[Dalmosh]

Fiend of Possession is a playable way to be a magic weapon.

One of my players had a character built this way, but once he realised how powerful FoP was he barely occupied his sword, preferring to be an ethereal spirit entity.

If I recall, I used a Limited Wish to grant the sword the ability to "speak", which seems to do the job in Construct building (as in Nimblewright), and charged it and the cost of the blade to his wealth by level.
Psion levels are pretty great for such a character if you can fit them in.... FoP is a difficult Prestige Class to access.

[Doctor Despair]

Fiend of Possession is a playable way to be a magic weapon.

One of my players had a character built this way, but once he realised how powerful FoP was he barely occupied his sword, preferring to be an ethereal spirit entity.

That seems way more playable than PAOing yourself, haha. If you really want your character to have to stay in the item, slap a cleverly worded Geas/Quest on the character that requires them to stay in the item (except for possessing the bearer of the item).

[Gruftzwerg]

Here are 2 unconventional methods:

1)Polymorph any Object

A nonmagical object cannot be made into a magic item with this spell. Magic items aren’t affected by this spell.

This spell cannot create material of great intrinsic value, such as copper, silver, gems, silk, gold, platinum, mithral, or adamantine. It also cannot reproduce the special properties of cold iron in order to overcome the damage reduction of certain creatures.

Read the bold sentence carefully. It only denies you to turn a nonmagical object into an magic item. Thus a RAW reading suggests that you may turn a creature into a magic/intelligent item. This way the creature doesn't loose its INT score. Note that this doesn't turn the target into specific magic items (so no special bonuses and effects). It is just a magic item, not more not less. Here a thread where I started a discussion around it some while ago.

Note that the restriction for material of great intrinsic value don't forbid all magic items, just some. Steel for magic weapons is still available and the masterwork requirement for magic items can also be accomplished by an exquisite design, engravements and such things.

2) Polymorph any Object + Symbionts
Take a masterwork sword and use Polymorph any Object to turn it temporary into a human.
Now you can apply e.g. Symbiotic template to it, while it is in human form. Wait until PaO ends and you have an intelligent item with mental stats. Now enchant it as a magic weapon as normal. I have used a deluxe variant of this for the Sword of Kusanagi in my new Orochimaru build (see signature).

Edit: Bonus

3) Polymorph any Object, Magic Jar, Imprision Possessor
PaO the desired target item/object again temporary into a human.
Use Magic Jar to switch bodies.
Fix the switch with casting Imprision Possessor afterwards on yourself.
Dispell Imprision Possessor after Magic Jars duration ends (if you want. not needed).

[nijineko]

Yes, you can.

As per the Intelligent Items entry in the 3.5 DMG, Intelligent items are treated as creatures, specifically constructs. Thus they can gain XP, and can be characters. Savage Species supports this (3.0 but still valid), though warns that playing as a construct could potentially be fun as a one-shot but also would likely be very difficult over all considering that you can be destroyed, lack mobility by default, lack methods to manipulate other objects, many objects are controlled - such as the ego check for intelligent items, and so forth.)

Especially the Ego check, not many players are willing to play a character that can explicitly lose control of their character if they happen to lose an Ego contest... but I supposed if the game allows mind control spells and psionics anyway, it's somewhat of a risk regardless. And even if they did lose one, the RP opportunities are still fun. It is possible that a DM may rule that a subordinated Intelligent item doesn't gain XP, or becomes effectively a cohort or follower with the odd XP rules that entails, so check with your DM as to their decision first!!

Since intelligent items are construct type creatures that have INT, WIS, and CHA and thus can learn, there is no rule preventing them from gaining HD as Constructs with their XP. In fact, the MM1 specifically states that if any creature (including constructs) that has an INT of at least 3 then they can advance by either HD or by taking class levels. (Note that HD/HP does NOT equal health.)

Advancing by Construct HD might have the odd side effect of changing the size of the Intelligent item... thus an intelligent sword for a medium creature that somehow managed to advance as a construct might become sized for a large creature... which could be amusing in it's own right, so keep that in mind.

Thus, if a player wants to, and a DM is willing, there is no rule forbidding or preventing it, and actually are rules for supporting it. Note that some of the rules I referenced are vague in the details other than saying "it is so", so be forewarned.

I seem to have posted something about this sometime in the past... ah, here it is: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/110561/30200.


I have a sudden mental image of an intelligent table knife that gains levels/HD and takes the Leadership feat and raises an army of cutlery to rebel against the nasty humanoid who misuse their tableware.... Very amusing.