Yes I know the mechanics of the spell.
You can't target individual creatures, yet guides and posters on here keep saying it's super overpowered. How do you maneuver into a situation where you can actually use it to good effect?
For example suppose there's a monster I want to possess.
If the monster's HD = party level, then I'm just as likely to possess another party member than I am to possess the monster.
If the monster's HD < party level, then I'll just target my own familiar. Unless the monster's HD < the HD of my familiar. (and in that case there's no reason to possess that monster in the first place).
So I'm thinking the only scenario when you can actually use the spell is when you know for sure the monster is of a higher HD than any member in your party... That seems extremely limited.
The spell says you can only target low or high HD... Extremely imprecise.
It's one of those "cinematic" spells that go great with villains, or "in-between" adventures spells that get the plot moving along, not so much for player-characters on the move, in my humble opinion.
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It's a spell that's cast more out of a sense of desperation or shortsightedness on the part of the caster.
Or...a sense of excitement/insanity!
The spell requires line of effect from the Jar to the targets.
Create cover somehow (you're at least a 9th level Wizard) and the 'enemy life force' will be the only valid target.
It could be as simple as throwing the jar into a room and shutting the door behind it.
The 'sense a difference of 4 or more HD' is for when the targets are all mixed up. You're not blind and there's no reason why you can't simply orient yourself if your party is in a logical group somewhere. If everyone is thrashing around in melee, it would be impossible.
Don't forget to Reduce Person yourself before you get started. You don't want your lifeless body to be too much of an inconvenience to your party.
Tomos: That's a great idea actually. I'll consider it for emergencies :P
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Thanks!
Another trick: if you have a suitable familiar, have them carry the jar right up next to the target (invisible, of course).
Give a pep talk before you cast the spell and tell it something like "fly the gem right over there, behind the bbeg so I know who's who"
You may not be able to distinguish between life forces, but your familiar sure can.
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Magic Jar is a strategic spell that is not really suitable for tactical combat.
There's an old post explaining how to use Magic Jar to destroy (not kill, destroy ... ) an army. Essentially, you stash your body safely and send your soul jar to infiltrate the army. Have a sneaky ally around to help. Place your Soul Jar as you would a purloined letter. After waiting a while to dispel any suspicion, start to possess people in the camp, one by one. Mess with the soldiers in all sorts of horrible and bizarre ways.
E.g. Soldier in barracks murders sleeping friends. Officer tries to murder the general. Strange suicide pacts. Sabotage of every shape and size. Poisoned food, over and over. Bizarre, horrifying murder-suicides. Weird stuff.
Unless an adventuring party shows up to help solve the mystery, that army will cease to function well as an army.
Have your familiar nearby, for an aerial rescue of your Soul Jar, should it look like your ploy might be unmasked.
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The primary purpose of Magic Jar is to survive death. Once your soul jar has possessed a suitable victim the wizard is free to continue 'life' in the new body. It helps if you Feeblemind the victim.
What does one call this sort of permanent possession? It's sort of like being a lich, but not quite. Suggestions?
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Magic Jar is a strategic spell that is not really suitable for tactical combat.
There's an old post explaining how to use Magic Jar to destroy (not kill, destroy ... ) an army. Essentially, you stash your body safely and send your soul jar to infiltrate the army. Have a sneaky ally around to help. Place your Soul Jar as you would a purloined letter. After waiting a while to dispel any suspicion, start to possess people in the camp, one by one. Mess with the soldiers in all sorts of horrible and bizarre ways.
E.g. Soldier in barracks murders sleeping friends. Officer tries to murder the general. Strange suicide pacts. Sabotage of every shape and size. Poisoned food, over and over. Bizarre, horrifying murder-suicides. Weird stuff.
Unless an adventuring party shows up to help solve the mystery, that army will cease to function well as an army.
Have your familiar nearby, for an aerial rescue of your Soul Jar, should it look like your ploy might be unmasked.
I like your idea. I think that would be lots of fun to do in a campaign and it would probably be hilarious to act out.
The spell works fine in combat with a little forethought. There are risks, but if you're creative it can be very nasty.
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Don't listen to the naysayers. Magic jar is actually one of the most powerful spells available to a wizard, and probably the best necromancy spell in the book. You just need to be a little creative to use it properly. Here's a few pointers:
1) First off, you need to have eschew materials so you can cast spells in other bodies (remember, you keep all mental abilities, which includes spellcasting, but you still need to be ABLE to cast).
2) The spell is most powerful when combined with a persistent metamagic, as failing a possession is a real bummer (you can't retry on that creature).
3) Your body needs to be very safe, ideally shrunk and in a safe place like a bag of holding on your familiar.
4) The spell is best combined with physically powerful creatures who can speak and have hands, so that you aren't limiting your spellcasting options.
5) You need a way of controlling line of effect as the spell is useless if you can only see a big bunch of enemies and friends. The easiest way to do this is to have your familiar or an ally carry the jar in a box with only a small opening on one side. The box is pointed in the direction of an enemy. This works best with an invisible, flying familiar who can simply hover above the battlefield.
6) If you accidentally possess a friend, simply leave the body and return to the gem. You've wasted a round but done no permanent damage.
Now, some creative uses:
1) You don't use this spell once combat has begun, you use it BEFORE combat to destroy an entire encounter. Send in your invisible familiar with your gem in a box. Possess the first monster and use it to kill the next. When your original monster dies, simply possess the next one. Against unintelligent enemies or enemies without true seeing, this basically makes the encounter a free win.
2) Cast summon monster or planar binding and then magic jar to possess the monster you just summoned. There are SO MANY exploits you can do with this combo. The most obvious is the use of blood money to drain the strength of your summoned monster instead of you (and allowing you to waive the material component on ridiculously expensive spells). You can also use the summoned monster to scout ahead (and when it dies you keep all the info), deliberately retrieve or trip traps, fool monsters of a similar kind, use useful passive abilities, milk for poison etc etc etc etc.
3) Remember, as long as your body is within range of the spell, all you lose when the gem is destroyed is a measly 100 GP. Possess a summoned monster (or nearby creature) and march it into the next group of enemies whilst carrying the gem. Either fight till you die or, if it's a summoned creature, return the soul and possess a new enemy (plus the summon keeps fighting for you in the meantime! Cool!). The gem is now on the ground, but remind your DM unless there is a spellcaster who can identify the spell, there is no sign that the gem is the source of the possession. This works exceptionally well against animals or other unintelligent, souled creatures who the DM cannot magically grant an understanding of the spell. Continue to possess and kill enemies until you win the encounter or your DM snaps and kills you/your entire party out of spite.
4)Of course, even if there are intelligent spellcasters who say 'smash the gem!'.... they still need to GET to the gem which is likely an attended object on you or your summoned monster/ally/familiar. And if they get to it, so what? You lose 100 GP and go back to your body.
5) It might be worth going out of range of the spell if you don't care too much about dying - by high level, raise dead isn't that expensive and if you can waive the material cost somehow (UMD blood money?) there's nothing stopping you from taking the body or gem as far as you want in the timeframe.
6) The spell lasts a long time. Don't be afraid to use it to keep a surrendered enemy captive with no chance of shenanigans.
7) Remember that mindless undead creatures and constructs do not have souls. As a necromancer you probably have a few skeleton buddies. They make a great gem-carrying substitute as you never risk confusing them with an enemy and wasting a turn.
Hope all that helps!
It simply requires a party member or familiar's help to set off during an adventure, or for a BBEG to lay some groundwork before they encounter the party.
It's a really fantastic trap if set up well. As long as your body is secure and nearby, there are no downsides to using the spell. It's really hard for the spell to truly "fail" as you get so many opportunities for a possession, and even if the enemy figures out what is going on, you can just end the spell whenever you want and dimension door out of danger.
The targets of the spell have to
- figure out what's going on
- Stop you form possessing them
- Start looking for you body
- find your body
- Kill you
All while sustaining as few casualties from their allies attacking them, and somehow without ever letting you know that they're doing the first three steps.
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@Blakmane: Awesome ideas.
You don't have to take Eschew Materials. All you need is to carry multiple spell component pouches around (you do that right?) and have your familiar hand one off to you. Come up with a signal, like a signature dance move or something that will let the familiar know you're ready for the pouch.
I love that Blood Money idea. Make them cast Symbol of Death or something like that and drain it all away!
I wouldn't put my body into a bag of holding for this. Too risky. There are no rules for how to get out of one without destroying the bag.
Reduce Person yourself and hop into the Barbarian's backpack. Most PCs will weigh about 20lbs with this spell active. Anyone could carry you around with no sweat.
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Why don't you sit down, drink some of this here tea, and let Old Granny Hama show you how it's done. :D
Osirion spirit jars are a must. Also, the Penetrating Possession and Spirit Vision feats are quite useful too.
Combined with eschew materials and a little bit of planning, you'll be the terror they never suspected. Why, even a crippled little old granny could turn out to possess the strength of giants, easily able to snap a neck.
For spells that can't benefit from those feats, such as magic jar which is too high level for such metamagic, she must first change her form into something that doesn't have any broken bones or severed nerves, such as a shadow (a form which is still capable of spellcasting as far as I know). Turning into most creatures would still leaver her paralyzed, which is why a shadow is ideal--it has no bones, nerves, or other organs at all.
That's why her background story says she possesses people through her shadow, which is really only true until she finds a healthy body from which she can cast spells normally.
As a merchant, she managed to get her hands on a mammoth, which is the body she possesses most of the time. Once within its body, she casts alter self to take humanoid form (dumping the beast's stats, but having obvious benefits). Once in humanoid form, she can use a command word to activate her greater hat of disguise, which lets her stay in said humanoid form indefinitely.
Her real body, as well as her circlet of persuasion, headband of alluring charisma, and Osirian spirit jars, are magically shrunk and stowed away in her locket via a binding effect. This way, she can better hide the secrets of her vulnerabilities while keeping them close at hand (should someone dispel her magic jar effect or something similar). Furthermore, minimus containment says nothing about the target being unconscious, so should she be forced to return to her body, she can cast spells from inside the locket (such as to project her shadow or renew magic jar).
Since magic jar says you use your mental stats and skills, her circlet of persuasion grants its benefits even though he host body is also wearing a headband item. Kind of a slot work around.
The big thing about the Osirian spirit jars is that they allow her to keep her host victims trapped even when the duration for magic jar runs out. This is pretty important, since no one wants a confused woolly mammoth running around trampling everything (though even that is fairly unlikely since it is a trained beast of burden--and likely charmed whats more).
Still, not having an enemy escape your possession and getting his revenge is pretty darned cool, especially when you consider that she can keep up to three victims perpetually trapped (allowing her a great deal of versatility with the spell, provided she can get the three bodies about).
If you think this spell isn't terrific, you aren't using it right.
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- Cast Magic Jar
- Cast Binding (Minimus Containment) and store your body in the same gem used for Magic Jar
You body doesn't need to breathe, read, or sleep and doesn't age, and as far as I can tell, you are still fully functional in the gem, you just can't escape. So if your Magic Jar expires, you can simply cast Magic Jar again, targeting your "prison" as the focus.
Also, you can extend Magic Jar (making it a 6th level spell) and use a Persistent Rod (if you craft one) to make Magic Jar, essentially, an 'all day' spell.
Bonus, with this combination, you're effectively immortal, or at least won't die of age. You can keep adventuring by possessing other bodies and using them as expendable sources.
[Edit] Get into a discussion with my sister over the Percy Jackson movies and I get ninja'd by 20 minutes :(
Osirion spirit jars
These seem like a good idea until someone casts dispel magic on you and you are trapped forever in a jar. Sticking to the base gem is a better idea because you're never at risk of being trapped due to a stray dispel.
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Why don't you sit down, drink some of this here tea, and let Old Granny Hama show you how it's done. :D
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
I remember your Hama concept. Love it.
It's a bit too rich for my blood though. Great risk, great expenditure of wealth.Spirit Vision is a darned good feat for this, but the 15 Wis requirement is steep.
Penetrating Possession is very cool, but Sorcerer-only I'd guess.
Beast-Bonded witch...
Just saying... if you want to abuse Magic Jar...
I'm not 100% this is rules legit, but our human fighter was disappointed to learn he could not get Darkvision and Permanency cast on himself. So I magic jared him, cast darkvision, permanency, and gave him his body back.
LOL! Very clever! Many are the threads where I've asked about exactly that. [LINK 1] [LINK 2] [LINK 3] [LINK 4] [LINK 5]
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It's a spell that's cast more out of a sense of desperation or shortsightedness on the part of the caster.Or...a sense of excitement/insanity!
The spell requires line of effect from the Jar to the targets.
Create cover somehow (you're at least a 9th level Wizard) and the 'enemy life force' will be the only valid target.
It could be as simple as throwing the jar into a room and shutting the door behind it.The 'sense a difference of 4 or more HD' is for when the targets are all mixed up. You're not blind and there's no reason why you can't simply orient yourself if your party is in a logical group somewhere. If everyone is thrashing around in melee, it would be impossible.
Don't forget to Reduce Person yourself before you get started. You don't want your lifeless body to be too much of an inconvenience to your party.
You do not need line of effect from the jar.
"While in the magic jar, you can sense and attack any life force within 10 feet per caster level (and on the same plane of existence). You do need line of effect from the jar to the creatures."
So I'm thinking the only scenario when you can actually use the spell is when you know for sure the monster is of a higher HD than any member in your party... That seems extremely limited.
The spell says you can only target low or high HD... Extremely imprecise.
You can also tell the difference between living creatures and intelligent undead, so there's another source of targets.
In our Age of Worms campaign, my alchemist had her tumour familiar drink an extract of Magic Jar and told it to possess anything (a) stronger than the party or (b) any intelligent undead. It didn't work very well, but the idea is kind of neat in practice (hey, the familiar wasn't doing much otherwise).
You do not need line of effect from the jar."While in the magic jar, you can sense and attack any life force within 10 feet per caster level (and on the same plane of existence). You do need line of effect from the jar to the creatures."
Read that paragraph again.
...or by Shadow Demons who don't need a receptable and simply occupy the target in question.
Is there any rules text that says that this is how magic jar works without a receptacle.
I mean, I would probably run it that way, but AFAIK there are no rules that explain how that works at all. There are other abilities that work like this as well - the occult mystery Project Psyche(Su) ability also functions as magic jar without a receptacle.
Btw, a neat trick for mitigating the risk of possessing allies with magic jar is to try to possess the entire party before using the jar to hit enemies. Once the entire party passes their saves the jar can be safely used around allies - the worst thing that can happen is the magic jar user wastes a turn failing to possess a party member.
And unlike what Tomos claims, you have NO senses from the magic jar other than the presence of life forces. You do not have sight, nor do you have sound. It's generally a spell used by eitehr NPC mages looking to catch the first schmuck that comes within range, or by Shadow Demons who don't need a receptable and simply occupy the target in question.
The lack of actual vision is problematic,but can be somewhat negated by logical processing of information.
E.G. I'm going to be in a gem in my teammate's hand, so he'll be a life force that appears stationary to me. He is then going to hand me directly to that person, which will then appear stationary to me as well. Once that second life force appears stationary, I will target it, hoping that my teammate has done his job. I should ignore all other life forces that appear until I am fully stationary again.
I wouldn't rely on that strategy, though. It's much safer to have your gem treated as a grenade and thrown into a room of known enemies.
I feel as though I'm missing something obvious about this spell. I've read a couple threads where it sounded like casters could use this spell to get a permanent new body. From what I can see, it's an hour/level duration, and Permanency doesn't have Magic Jar on the list of normal things you can make permanent. Am I misunderstanding this, and people basically use it to hijack a body, chill in it, then when the duration is up, pop back to the original body and cast it again? Or is there a way to make it permanent that I'm not aware of?
I feel as though I'm missing something obvious about this spell. I've read a couple threads where it sounded like casters could use this spell to get a permanent new body. From what I can see, it's an hour/level duration, and Permanency doesn't have Magic Jar on the list of normal things you can make permanent. Am I misunderstanding this, and people basically use it to hijack a body, chill in it, then when the duration is up, pop back to the original body and cast it again? Or is there a way to make it permanent that I'm not aware of?
Spirit Jars makes possession permanent, but you do need to have an active magic jar effect if you wish you "shuffle" your spirit around.
I feel as though I'm missing something obvious about this spell. I've read a couple threads where it sounded like casters could use this spell to get a permanent new body. From what I can see, it's an hour/level duration, and Permanency doesn't have Magic Jar on the list of normal things you can make permanent. Am I misunderstanding this, and people basically use it to hijack a body, chill in it, then when the duration is up, pop back to the original body and cast it again? Or is there a way to make it permanent that I'm not aware of?Spirit Jars makes possession permanent, but you do need to have an active magic jar effect if you wish you "shuffle" your spirit around.
Definitely hadn't seen that item before, thanks for the information!
How does a wand of Magic Jar work for a Summoner.