I am playing a venerable human sorceress (witch theme), soon to be level 10. That means I will finally get the long awaited magic jar spell.
It also means I will finally be able to shed my mortal form and steal that of a younger, stronger, healthier creature's to do with as I please.
As a sorcerer with multiple castings, I intend to find a powerful form (such as a troll perhaps) and stay in it for as long as I can with repeat castings (to extend the ongoing duration) while I continue to gain in power and, eventually, reach immortal lichdom.
However, I cannot trust my evil party mates to NOT slay my helpless body while I am away in the meantime. It would be a shame if they trapped my spirit in my host body and all it took to finish me off for true was a simple dispel magic.
My thread is two-fold:
1) How do you best protect your helpless body when you leave it behind?
...and...
2) If you were an evil witch sorcerer with magic jar, what cool/fun/evil things would you do with it?
I will start off with a few brain storms of my own:
- I was thinking that (for #2) if I were to ever be attacked, I would use my venerable appearance and extremely high bluff skill to feign death after the first blow. I would then cast a silenced/stilled magic jar to possess my attacker.
- Possess some random passerby and use magic to disguise the host body as my true body. When my party mates get around to actually "slaying me in my sleep" that is when I go into my normal body (or a second extra) and pop out from hiding to slay them in turn.
If it helps, here are my stats as they stand now: Hama and party (downloadable PDFs in a ZIP file).
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If you can get access to the spells; shackle your venerable self to something sturdy ('cause your feeble old body is gonna struggle once it's got troll in it!), cast flesh to stone, and then shrink item (to both reduce the petrified body and to change it to a cloth-like consistency). Tuck it away in the lower levels of your clothing, where it is unlikely to be pickpocketed, and remember to recast shrink item from time to time, so that nobody sees the statue of your old body that you are mysteriously carrying around in your bloomers.
UMDing a scroll of Imprisonment or Temporal Stasis (followed by digging a hole and burying the body) could also provide a solution.
Sequester is sadly temporary. [Beaker] Sadly temporary... [/Beaker]
Some sort of planar binding deal might allow you to barter with a planar creature to take the body of your other self far away, to be imprisoned or contained in another dimension, but there's no way in heck I'd trust any outsider with that task!
Baleful Polymorphing your old body into the form of a Small, Tiny or Diminutive creature before doing one of the above could make the petrified or sequestered body easier to tote around.
Feign Death is no longer a core spell, but your Sorceress could perhaps craft an item that uses Deep Slumber as a prereq or something that acts as a one-shot dose of 'coma powder' or something and puts someone in a state of suspended animation until they are kissed by a prince or whatever. In that deathless sleep, they wouldn't need food, water, air, etc. and you could stow them in a Bag of Holding.
Some other item or items that allow a body to survive without food, water and air, such as a Ring of Sustenance / Necklace of Adaptation combo, could also allow a securely manacled, gagged, bound, etc. person to be tossed into a Bag of Holding or Portable Hole, although that's getting wicked expensive...
Make up some insane bogus reason why no one will miss your former body, such as creating a duplicate of the old biddie, perhaps by attracting a Changeling as a cohort, or using a Simulacrum, and have 'her' explain that the Troll is her permanantly polymorphed former Familiar, and that she's channeling her spells through the 'dumb brute,' which is how it seems to be casting spells while she just stands around, controlling it. When some wag says, 'Polymorph doesn't work that way' or 'Share spells with your familiar doesn't work that way,' tell them that you researched a special version that does, although you had to sacrifice the souls of some people that were pissing you off to do it, and possibly have sex with the troll (but ladies don't talk about such things) and that it's about time for the next monthly sacrifice to maintain the enhanced binding...
Meanwhile, your real body is tucked away in stony-cloth-form in your troll-self's knickers. If they kill the stooge pretending to be you, sad, but you can hire another one. (Or replace it with magic, using a scroll of Simulacrum.)
Set you have a problem with the ingenious idea you present:
Shrink item won't work on magical stuff.
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Shrink item won't work on magical stuff.
As an instantaneous spell, the 'magic' of flesh to stone comes and goes at the instant of casting 'although the consequences might be long-lasting.' The statue-that-used-to-be-a-person wouldn't detect as magical. It's just a big person-shaped rock.
Similarly, the stone is specifically said in the spell description to not be (or detect as) a living thing anymore, so any prohibition on using shrink item of living things should also not be an issue.
I was more concerned with the ongoing magic jar spell actually.
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I was more concerned with the ongoing magic jar spell actually.
Ah, good point. I have no idea how that would work... Really, as much as I like the idea, it's entirely possible that the magic jar spell abruptly ends when the body becomes a statue (since it's no longer eligible to sustain the spell), and not a body, which could be awkward for the now-petrified sorceress and the now free to leave (after petulantly breaking the statue into a thousand tiny pieces) troll...
Heh. Back to the drawing board!
Actually magic jar only puts the soul of the person that you posess into the jewel/jar/whatever that you cast magic jar onto not into your former body. Your former body is then left as, pretty much, a lifeless corpse until the point that the spell ends or you are forced to return to it (death of your new body, dispel magic, etc.) at that point you would be forced to return to your shrunk, flesh to stoned body and most likely have an enraged troll on your hands (or be in its pants as the case may be) and since the spell is cast on the jewel (etc) not your body, your body would not count as magical, however I dont think that particular spell [shrink item] would work on a humanoid alive or dead, I am not sure.
You could put your body into a Secret Chest and just have to worry about carrying the chest figure around with you. Hell you could put the figure in a glove of storing for extra measure. Then sovereign glue the glove to your hand. That way unless you wander into an AMF or something nobody could get it from you.
The downside to this is if you die in your host body... You'll need a trusted compatriot if universal solvent to remove the glove, summon the chest, unlock it and retrieve your body before Magic Jar expires. Or you die for good.
Casting Flesh to Stone on you body would be a good way to keep from aging, but annoying as you have to reverse it whenever you need to go back to your body.
You will want to be very thorough with your GM regarding how he will want to resolve refreshing Magic Jar. Cause it may not be as constantly fool proof as you think.
I would Magic Jar a Nymph, and use Disguise Self to remain looking like me, but a younger, prettier me. ESPECIALLY if you still get the DR and Nature's Grace abilities from the Nymph!
I don't much care for the petrification idea. Should I be forced to abandon the spell, I go back to my original body, which would leave me petrified (or killed possibly).
Using the secret chest would likely get me killed too as my body would be on a different plane. Once the spell ended, my spirit could not get to my body and I would die.
So far the only thing that sounds nice is maybe shrink item (since my lifeless body is effectively a corpse and corpses are objects).
you could get a coffin that automatically shrinks you and itself and then keep it in your pocket as a "good luck charm" then if you ever get sent back to your body you just speak the command word and voila you are your normal size again.
you could get a coffin that automatically shrinks you and itself and then keep it in your pocket as a "good luck charm" then if you ever get sent back to your body you just speak the command word and voila you are your normal size again.
That's an interesting idea, provided the GM allows for such a homebrew item.
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I've always used Magic Jar with my NPC monsters. Recently, for example, a really cool Mummy Sorcerer cast Magic Jar on some local Demons (the PCs were in the Abyss) and used the Demons to fight the PCs.
Of course, the reason I had the Mummy use Magic Jar was because I knew that would likely be the only way the PCs could defeat her -- her CR was too high for the PCs.
So once the PCs fought through and, really, manuevered through the Demons they got to the Mummy and got a free round of smacking her while prone and by the time she got up they could beat her. Then they just had to get the relic she had and get back to the Prime Material Plane.
.........
For a PC, though, especially one in an evil party, I dunno.
I would start by making a "deal" with the most mercenary of the PCs.
Sell him some schtick about how, once you guys are all dead you will be in a position to get his soul back from the 9 Hells.
Also, make yourself as indispensible to the party as possible. When I have a group that wants to play all evil PCs it's cool, I just design a campaign where their enemies are too strong for them to fight each other -- they have to work together or the Hound Archons, Paladins and Lammasu will kick their asses!
If the party feels they could really use your services and would be greatly weakened without you, that's a good thing.
Finally, GET A CONTINGENCY SCROLL. If any enemies come within 10 feet of your body you immediate action back into your body. See if your DM will allow something like this.
Ooh! I didn't think of using contingency. That opens up several new possibilities!
Also, I wrote this big post about the situation I am in, in which the other players have continuously announced that they want to kill my character. I decided to make it, its own thread, however as it is off-topic here. Check it out if you want to help.
I've always used Magic Jar with my NPC monsters. Recently, for example, a really cool Mummy Sorcerer cast Magic Jar on some local Demons (the PCs were in the Abyss) and used the Demons to fight the PCs.
Of course, the reason I had the Mummy use Magic Jar was because I knew that would likely be the only way the PCs could defeat her -- her CR was too high for the PCs.
So once the PCs fought through and, really, manuevered through the Demons they got to the Mummy and got a free round of smacking her while prone and by the time she got up they could beat her. Then they just had to get the relic she had and get back to the Prime Material Plane.
.........
For a PC, though, especially one in an evil party, I dunno.
I would start by making a "deal" with the most mercenary of the PCs.
Sell him some schtick about how, once you guys are all dead you will be in a position to get his soul back from the 9 Hells.Also, make yourself as indispensible to the party as possible. When I have a group that wants to play all evil PCs it's cool, I just design a campaign where their enemies are too strong for them to fight each other -- they have to work together or the Hound Archons, Paladins and Lammasu will kick their asses!
If the party feels they could really use your services and would be greatly weakened without you, that's a good thing.
Finally, GET A CONTINGENCY SCROLL. If any enemies come within 10 feet of your body you immediate action back into your body. See if your DM will allow something like this.
Good idea with the Contingency scroll!
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Right up until they molatov your body from 11 feet away.
For anyone who is interested, this is what I ultimately ended up doing.
So what I do is I craft an adamantium statue that is large sized that has my Magic Jar gem set within its head. I make it the statue so that my body can fit within it. I get inside of it and possess object it, then wait for a suitable host for me to magic jar into. My body is protected at all times by 20 hardness. Plus my statue is then animated by animate object. Its an out right powerful combo!
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So what I do is I craft an adamantium statue that is large sized that has my Magic Jar gem set within its head. I make it the statue so that my body can fit within it. I get inside of it and possess object it, then wait for a suitable host for me to magic jar into. My body is protected at all times by 20 hardness. Plus my statue is then animated by animate object. Its an out right powerful combo!
Some times I cast shadow projection instead of magic jar. Usually if strength drain would be beneficial
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Right up until they molatov your body from 11 feet away.
For anyone who is interested, this is what I ultimately ended up doing.
I played a Mythic Beast bonded witch, my familiar was a construct and had regeneration. My witch took a level of Oracle to be able to cast silence spell for free. He also had the feats still spell and eschew materials. This way, i could cast spells immediately as soon as I took over a body. I took the Mythic ability that allowed me to share half my damage with my familiar. I would also often take over a body with high DR
I would also cast ablative armor.What this looks like is this:
Say I currently have DR 15, I get attacked for 80 damage.
First my familiar takes half, it is now 40 damage. Then my 15 DR kicks in, and its down to 25. Then my ablative armor kicks in and I take 20 lethal damage and 5 non lethal damage unless I am possesing an intelligent undead, and I am immune to nonlethal. In any case a low level heal will take out the non lethal easily.
Right up until they molatov your body from 11 feet away.
For anyone who is interested, this is what I ultimately ended up doing.
I have been following your old Magic Jar threads and they are excellent and very insightful. Thanks. Your Hama concoction is inspiring I like what you've done with her.