Parasitic Soul


Rules Questions

Silver Crusade

Concerning Parasitic Soul

1. Can you use this spell to transfer your own soul? I'd say yes, but the wording leaves me wondering.

2. What part of the spell is actually permanent? If you cast this spell on yourself (assuming you can), are you now permanently in a gem, and then permanently able to possess creatures? What if you're dispelled out of the creature? Are you then once again in the gem, permanently?

3. If you've transferred another soul from a gem into a body and it gets dispelled out of it, does it reenter the gem, or is it destroyed?

4. If you're casting this on yourself (assuming you can), does the soul of the target get trapped in the gem, as per magic jar? Or does it get destroyed, as with the wording for transferring other souls?

5. Since the duration is permanent, does that mean that you get to keep the hitpoints of the target indefinitely, or do you eventually revert to own hitpoints modified by the new constitution score, as per major mind swap?

6. Is every use of this spell evil? What if you overtake an undead? Or what if you clone a body, animate it, and revive a stored soul by letting it enter the animated body?


2. Duration permanent (D) the duration is permanent it does not end unless you want it to.


yup i am pretty sure using unwilling people as receptacles to force your trapped souls into is evil. that and the wording for it makes it sound really evil. heck, it even says that it is of the evil domain.


FYI, I expect this may be republished in a few months in the forthcoming Book of the Damned hardcover. There it will presumably reference Possession rather than Magic Jar, which will makes this a little simpler.

1. I say yes, you "may" transfer a trapped soul, but that implies you can transfer your own as per a regular Magic Jar.

2. All of it is permanent. It's a permanent Magic Jar. The only difference is if you possess a creature that creature dies rather than having it's mind/soul suppressed. If you're dispelled the entire spell ends and you return to your body per Magic Jar, if your body is in range. If it's not, you (or the third party transferred soul) die. (Possession based would make this safer, if on the same plane as your body.)

3. I think it reenters the gem, if that spell hasn't been dispelled or its duration hasn't run out.

4. The target dies.

5. Since this spell predates the Major Mind Swap rules, you keep the target's HP. The same would be true for a Possession that you kept rolling over through recasting.

6. All [Evil] tagged spells are always evil when cast.

Contributor

Viondar wrote:

Concerning Parasitic Soul

1. Can you use this spell to transfer your own soul? I'd say yes, but the wording leaves me wondering.

2. What part of the spell is actually permanent? If you cast this spell on yourself (assuming you can), are you now permanently in a gem, and then permanently able to possess creatures? What if you're dispelled out of the creature? Are you then once again in the gem, permanently?

3. If you've transferred another soul from a gem into a body and it gets dispelled out of it, does it reenter the gem, or is it destroyed?

4. If you're casting this on yourself (assuming you can), does the soul of the target get trapped in the gem, as per magic jar? Or does it get destroyed, as with the wording for transferring other souls?

5. Since the duration is permanent, does that mean that you get to keep the hitpoints of the target indefinitely, or do you eventually revert to own hitpoints modified by the new constitution score, as per major mind swap?

6. Is every use of this spell evil? What if you overtake an undead? Or what if you clone a body, animate it, and revive a stored soul by letting it enter the animated body?

My answers aren't official as I'm not Paizo staff, but I wrote the spell for BotD3 (I also don't have the post development text in front of me as I'm in a restaurant on my phone).

1. IIRC yes, that was an option by intent, but not the only option.

2. Post transfer for the transferred soul is permanent. If you fail to transfer, try casting again. No free retries from the gem IMO.

3. Situational imo. Is the gem at location? If so it goes back to the gem I'd say.

4.I'd say destroyed.

5. I'd say the former, but really go with what's coolest for the game (this is why I don't write major rules content because I like wiggle room).

6. It is evil. It is grotesquely evil. It's contained within the in-setting grimoire 'Withered Footsteps of the Dire Shepherd' which is virtually worshipped by daemons like an unholy object (and complete copies appear to self edit for textual coherence). That name shows up elsewhere. It is very, very evil with a capital E.


Sorry for the thread necro, but I don't think my silly little question is worth a new thread, and seeing as how the creator of the spell responded to this one, I'm hoping to get his opinion.

If you cast parasitic soul on a creature of another type, lets say a minotaur for this example, and then you meet an unfortunate end sometime later. What would happen if your party members reincarnated you? As far as I can tell your type changes to monstrous humanoid when you possess the minotaur, and reincarnation is supposed to make you a new body that's the same type of creature isn't it? So your new body would be another monstrous humanoid but you would no longer be subject to the restrictions on activating abilities that magic jar or parasitic soul impose. Am I interpreting this right? Because if so then I'm gonna go find a Dragon or some other baddie and take his body on a very lethal joy ride. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Contributor

Hyluss VanWyck wrote:

Sorry for the thread necro, but I don't think my silly little question is worth a new thread, and seeing as how the creator of the spell responded to this one, I'm hoping to get his opinion.

If you cast parasitic soul on a creature of another type, lets say a minotaur for this example, and then you meet an unfortunate end sometime later. What would happen if your party members reincarnated you? As far as I can tell your type changes to monstrous humanoid when you possess the minotaur, and reincarnation is supposed to make you a new body that's the same type of creature isn't it? So your new body would be another monstrous humanoid but you would no longer be subject to the restrictions on activating abilities that magic jar or parasitic soul impose. Am I interpreting this right? Because if so then I'm gonna go find a Dragon or some other baddie and take his body on a very lethal joy ride. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I can only speak to the version of the spell that ultimately made it into print, and do not take my reading of it as any sort of canonical rules advice, but yeah, IMO it's exploitable. It's very, brutally exploitable, and frankly it's exploitable by intent. It's also horrifically, unquestionably evil as it treats souls like reagents and commodities, and kills the target creature like snuffing out a candle, replacing its soul with another.

The original source of the spell in-game, in-setting was the daemon associated grimoire 'Withered Footsteps of the Dire Shepherd' which inexplicably self-corrects if the text is corrupted during translation or copying. The putative author's name (or title?) also shows up in the oddest places, but it originates a lot of soul-based spells and information on soul-devouring creatures. It's evil/Evil/EVIL, and use of the spell is likewise among the worst that's out there. It's exploitable but there's a metaphysical cost.

Dark Archive

Nah just cast protection from evil a few times and that soul is good as new. No cost then.


Todd Stewart wrote:

I can only speak to the version of the spell that ultimately made it into print, and do not take my reading of it as any sort of canonical rules advice, but yeah, IMO it's exploitable. It's very, brutally exploitable, and frankly it's exploitable by intent. It's also horrifically, unquestionably evil as it treats souls like reagents and commodities, and kills the target creature like snuffing out a candle, replacing its soul with another.

The original source of the spell in-game, in-setting was the daemon associated grimoire 'Withered Footsteps of the Dire Shepherd' which inexplicably self-corrects if the text is corrupted during translation or copying. The putative author's name (or title?) also shows up in the oddest places, but it originates a lot of soul-based spells and information on soul-devouring creatures. It's evil/Evil/EVIL, and use of the spell is likewise among the worst that's out there. It's exploitable but there's a metaphysical cost.

You have no idea how happy this makes me, I think I can convince my GM now, when the time comes. We're only level 9 right now but it's clear that by the end of this game we're gonna need every bit of power we can achieve, and I don't feel like dying at the hands of some rampaging demi-god, which may or may not be what we're up against. Plus my wizard doesn't have to sacrifice 20 virgins to achieve lichdom or go to hell, hooray!

Dark Archive

Sorry for the necro...

Lemme throw in a clone scenario, as one would do if you can cast 9th level spells... Fitting, as we're all about to see a bunch of Palpatine clones?

First, clone yourself before you do any soul transfer shenanigans. That way, if you get dispelled or whatever, your soul now goes to your clone if the gem isn't in range, or is destroyed.

Second, I know the spell is "evil" and it's an "evil" act to cast it, but... Clone your "victim" and then "Parasitic Soul" into that clone, not on a "living" person, and/or not destroying anyone's soul, yeah?

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