[Ultimate Magic] Twin Soul Question (Beast-bonded witch archetype)

[Patrick Gurdgiel]

Ok, to this ability seems a bit vague and confusing. Wondering if anyone had any thoughts or if we could get some official answers. The ability says:

Quote:

Twin Soul (Su): At 10th-level, if the witch or her familiar
is gravely injured or about to die, the soul of the dying one
immediately transfers to the other’s body. The two souls
share the surviving body peaceably, can communicate
freely, and both retain their ability to think and reason.
The host may allow the guest soul to take over the body
temporarily or reclaim it as a move action. They can
persist in this state indefinitely, or the guest can return
to its own body (if available) by touch, transfer into a
suitable vessel (such as a clone), or take over another body
as if using magic jar (with no receptacle). This replaces the
witch’s major hex at 10th-level.

Ok, so the questions...

1 - The soul transfer at death appears to have an infinite range, correct?

Now the harder ones...

2 - The guest can return to it's own body by touch - does the body need a raise dead or does it just need to be healed back to a non-dead condition?

3 - The guest can take over another body as if using magaic jar with no receptacle - what does that mean?
a - If you successfully take over another body, what is the duration? Does it mirror the magic jar spell?
b - If not permanent, what happens to your soul at the end? There is no recepticle or original live body - do you bounce back to your partner's body?
c - What happens if the attempt fails? There is no recepticle, so do you go back to your partner's body?
d - Can you voluntarily go back to your partner's body (technically its not the recepticle).

4 - Can the witch die, go into it's familiar, magic jar a target, the familiar dies and joins the witch in the magic jar body, then the familiar can possess a body, etc... or does this only work if one of the two original bodies are alive?

As I read the magic jar part it seems to work like this to me:
1 - You can take a full round action per magic jar to try and possess a body
2 - The duration is the same as magic jar (hours per level)
3 - You cannot go back to your partner's body voluntarily, but if any reason you were a "soul without a home", you "die" - which sends you right back to your familiar's body.

Not that most witches are going to want to kill themselves of familiars voluntarily, but when it happens, this seems to be a really confusing effect.

[Quandary]

Yeah... I also think the magic jar part needs a DC stated, since this is a Su ability, and `working like magic jar` doesn`t indicate it shares the DC (by Paizo`s stated general guidelines, I could see this being treated as 1 spell level lower than real Magic Jar, but since that guideline isn`t in the rules, the DC should be included). I suppose since it`s a Su ability, this `pseudo-Magic Jar` would bypass SR.

It`s also not clear to me what the soul `not in control of the body` can DO besides communicate with the other soul (witch/familiar), i.e. can they take any solely mental (/non-physical) actions, which could include Su abilities (including this one, e.g. transferring to another body), and so forth? Is the `non-controlling` Soul aware of normal sensory stimuli, or are they solely dependent on communication with the `controlling` soul? I suppose it would default to `as if you were in a Magic Jar receptacle` when a soul is not `in control`, but that could be made clearer.

Another issue is this scenario obviously is relevant to people`s concerns about `fragile familiars floating around the battlefield`. If a familiar dies and transfers to the master`s body, can the master still commune with it to prepare spells? (or vice versa, if caster dies and goes into familiar`s body, but lets familiar retain control)

[Patrick Gurdgiel]

Quandary wrote:

Another issue is this scenario obviously is relevant to people`s concerns about `fragile familiars floating around the battlefield`. If a familiar dies and transfers to the master`s body, can the master still commune with it to prepare spells? (or vice versa, if caster dies and goes into familiar`s body, but lets familiar retain control)

I have to say it's definitely nice to be able to use your familiar without the horrible death penalty and "scribed" scroll loss associated with witch familiars.

Even if you can't have the familiar give you spells while it's in you, presumably you could let it "magic jar" out to something else and you commune with it then.

As I think of it, this is definitely prone to abuse. It seems like the intent was to make a familiar more like in 4E - "death" isn't as catastrophic an issue.

I could see some min-max players intentionally kill their familiar and keep it as a twin soul by default. Then in combat you try to have your familiar posses each enemy until it gets one. At that point your familiar has basically dominated one of the enemies (probably creating a dramatic swing in the battle) until the enemy is killed - then it pops back to you and you can repeat.

If I were to change it, I think I would have said that once per "death"/soul jump the partner can attempt to use the magic jar ability (with the same duration). If the soul is supposed to jump back into its own body or the recepticle as part of the magic jar spell, it jumps back to the living partner's body. I would also have said that if you have the dead partner's dead body and have repaired any fatal damage (or mabye just X gold), you can perform a 1 hour ritual when you would prepare spells to restore the dead partner to it's appropriate body (or summon up/create a new one).

It seems like it's meant to be a "get out of death free" card like the reincarnated druid, but there are some serious offensive aplications too. (Oh, and on the DC, I would have figured it would use the scaling hex dc as that's the prevaling setup for the witch abilities - which makes it even worse.)

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Patrick Gurdgiel wrote:

Quandary wrote:

Another issue is this scenario obviously is relevant to people`s concerns about `fragile familiars floating around the battlefield`. If a familiar dies and transfers to the master`s body, can the master still commune with it to prepare spells? (or vice versa, if caster dies and goes into familiar`s body, but lets familiar retain control)

I have to say it's definitely nice to be able to use your familiar without the horrible death penalty and "scribed" scroll loss associated with witch familiars.

Even if you can't have the familiar give you spells while it's in you, presumably you could let it "magic jar" out to something else and you commune with it then.

As I think of it, this is definitely prone to abuse. It seems like the intent was to make a familiar more like in 4E - "death" isn't as catastrophic an issue.

I could see some min-max players intentionally kill their familiar and keep it as a twin soul by default. Then in combat you try to have your familiar posses each enemy until it gets one. At that point your familiar has basically dominated one of the enemies (probably creating a dramatic swing in the battle) until the enemy is killed - then it pops back to you and you can repeat.

If I were to change it, I think I would have said that once per "death"/soul jump the partner can attempt to use the magic jar ability (with the same duration). If the soul is supposed to jump back into its own body or the recepticle as part of the magic jar spell, it jumps back to the living partner's body. I would also have said that if you have the dead partner's dead body and have repaired any fatal damage (or mabye just X gold), you can perform a 1 hour ritual when you would prepare spells to restore the dead partner to it's appropriate body (or summon up/create a new one).

It seems like it's meant to be a "get out of death free" card like the reincarnated druid, but there are some serious offensive aplications too. (Oh, and on the DC, I would have figured it would use...

It's actually even worse then that, a good min/maxer will kill that familiar and keep it inside of them from that point on.

You get a permanent indestructible spellbook,
A free protection from Mind Control & Mind Reading (you fail the save give the familiar control of the body)
Free Magic Jar at will to control anyone you want without sacrificing your own gear/spellcasting/etc.
AND if you have an improved familiar whatever mental abilities they had you can now use yourself.

All for the cost of a single major Hex.

[Quandary]

Yeah. And it`s not like Witch`s were weak before.
Full Casting plus Hexes at equivalent or higher DC of max spell level.
Sounds balanced to me.

[SeaJay]

My question is is it a touch attack or is it the range of Magic Jar?

[Amrel]

SeaJay wrote:

My question is is it a touch attack or is it the range of Magic Jar?

Only the part that says its touch is as such. Magic Jar operates just like magic jar but with no receptacle.