Can golems reason?

[Celebrim]

I would say, "No." I'm not even sure 'going to investigate' is within its mental powers. Generally, I'd either have them as sentries or patrolling a fixed path in a purely mechanical way. "Go have a look around." is far too complex of an instruction IMO, for an Int 0 creature.

Having accepted such instructions, the Golem is likely to be as straight forward in applying them as possible. I would suggest that the Golem tries to bash its way through the door and if necessary the wall, even if this was a suicidal course of action.

As for the Wisdom vs. Intelligence debate, as I interpret it, Int 0 and Wisdom 11 gives it reasonably sophisticated perception and response to stimuli (it can identify friend from foe, it can respond in fairly sophisticated ways to attacks, hazards and other immediate events), but absolutely zero long term planning ability. It's a creature more or less entirely of the now and it acts as if the things it can immediately percieve are basically the entire universe. Out of sight is literally out of mind, and planning anything two steps ahead is impossible. It's like a chess program that can analyze position, recognize peices it can take, and detect check and mate, but has no ability to look more than its own first move into the future. It might detect that it pawn can take the queen, but not that if its bishop takes a knight that it would immediately be taken by a pawn. It can recognize that a has strategic control of a square and that said square affords its queen greater control of the board, but not that putting it there lets its opponent immediately fork its king and queen with its knight or even that by going somewhere else on the edge of the board it would then be one move from check mating its opponent. And like the chess program, it's completely unable to adapt itself to being anything other than what it is.

 

[Bullgrit]

I've always run golems as having zero memory. Close the door and be silent, you cease to exist. So that means a golem could not hear/see the PCs in one place and then walk another way to get to them. As soon as the golem lost sensory input from the PCs, it "forgets" them.

Bullgrit

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There's a hostile NPC who's been captured by the PCs who's making sure that the golem can hear them. He wants the golem to kill the PCs, but has no ability to command the golem himself -- indeed, the golem considers the NPC to be another unauthorized intruder. (And he is, by any measure but his own.)

 

[Umbran]

It's like a chess program that can analyze position, recognize peices it can take, and detect check and mate, but has no ability to look more than its own first move into the future.

I'm not so sure. By 3e rules, Wisdom covers both "common sense" and "intuition". So, while I'd not have the thing choosing optimal routes or plan strategies (that requires analysis and planning), trying a second route when the first completely fails to allow the orders to be fulfilled doesn't sound outside either of those descriptions.

With an Int 0, I wouldn't call it automatic, but allowing the golem a check seems reasonable, to me.

 

[howandwhy99]

I would say a golem has Intelligence, but not Wisdom beyond the accuracy of it's creator's wisdom partially put into its limited programing.

IOW, it doesn't Learn. It repeats the same actions over and over and does not change its programming based upon sensory input from its environment. Foes are identified, so it attacks or defends or behaves however it is programmed. It does not learn how to act differently from perceiving the behaviors of those it meets.

 

[Xris Robin]

4E Golems seem to have an INT 3.

 

[was]

my initial response was no...but then i realized that i had never stopped and tried to start a conversation with one

 

[Janx]

My sense is to look at the problem in real life, and see how much applies to the Golem.

Translated to real life, the golem has voice recognition and object recognition. You can tell it to carry something and bring it to you, and it can recognize your words and identify the object you are referring to, and then execute actions to complete the instruction.

Since the golem is able to walk around obstructions (pillars, big obstacles), it also has pathing capability.

You can also instruct it to attack, and it figures out how to get past the targets defenses. If it did not, it would keep making the same punching motion, which would inherently be easy to predict, block and avoid, hence lowering its BAB.

So that speaks to some level of sophistication in processing ability.

If we compare this to video game AI capabilities, its probably comparable. Bear in mind, writing game AI is hard, and even today, while enemies appear to do smart things, they are not THINKING, they are executing clever situational routines. routines which one could assume count as pre-coded in a golem.


Thus, the golem can patrol the open areas exposed to it, and effectively knows the routes to any location in its territory. If it needs to get to location X that is known to it, then it knows the routes that would get it there.

The ability to interact with world objects seems part of the concept of golems. It seems it would normally have the ability to open doors and pick up things. it probably does not consider using those objects (you never see a guy in halo pick up a box and throw it at you).

So, I would accept that a golem can actively get to anywhere in its zone. So when it hears a noise and has 2 ways to go, it will try one, and if that fails, try the other.

It can also open doors, even the small one. if it can sense the threat, it would certainly try to claw at them as part of its attack orders.

it probably can't open the portculis, so if it tried that way, it would probably stop at the gate.

Once the threat is out of range, I suspect it would move on to its normal routine.

I would expect the golem to not destroy any structure, as part of its respect the world algorthm. You really can't have a golem trying to move THROUGH obstacles as part of normal programming, or you will have serious problems in every day usage. So, like video game enemies, walls and other "massive" objects are treated as impenetrable and not attempted to break through.

 

[Mark CMG]

Can golems reason?

This type of discussion is the sort of thing I would have two guys in a tavern debating to the point that it breaks out into a fight and interupts the player characters while they are planning their next caper. Or, what the players overhear when seeking some healing at the local temple to get some healing done as they chance upon two clerics in the courtyard. Or, better yet, both in the same day.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I am ready to support our Golem overlords.