Twin Soul and Animate Dead


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

If a Beast-Bonded Witch uses her Twin Soul ability to inhabit her familiar's body, then Animated her own corpse, what happens?
Can she return to her own body, even though it's undead?


No. Once her body is animated it is an undead creature. The fact that the body used to be hers does not matter.

There is also this issue:

Quote:
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

.

The "if available" assumes the body is still alive. If is not alive. It is just empowered by necromantic energy.
In the game returning a soul to the body(a corpse) restores it to life. There are spells that do that. Magic Jar which is what this ability references does not.

Grand Lodge

Undead are not immune to magic jar. Can you simply use it as a suitable vessel?


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Undead are not immune to magic jar. Can you simply use it as a suitable vessel?

Here is the thing. Twin soul is designed to allows you to return to your body, not actually Magic Jar someone, even though it references that spell.

A creature is not just a body. You using necromantic energy to allow it move around in no way makes it a valid target for Twin Soul anymore so than if it was still a corpse.

If you want to actually magic jar it the creature needs to have a soul, and animated bodies don't have souls.

Grand Lodge

Isn't the "or take over another body as if using magic jar" part exactly as noted?


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

The point of the ability is to allow you to not die, and return to your body later. It is not meant to give you the zombie lord or skeletal champion template for free which is kind of what you would be getting.

RAI-->As an example if I am down to 1 hp I jump to my familiar's body.
I kill the bad guy, then jump back to my regular body.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

It says "take over another body as if using magic jar". You are correct.

RAW:

Quote:
By casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body. The spell ends when you send your soul back to your own body, leaving the receptacle empty. To cast the spell, the magic jar must be within spell range and you must know where it is, though you do not need line of sight or line of effect to it. When you transfer your soul upon casting, your body is, as near as anyone can tell, dead.

Now the twin soul ability says no receptable is needed which leads me to believe the other soul is booted, and since it has no body they are dead.

In your case the undead creature has no soul to kick out. It is just one operating unit, not a soul and a body which can be separated. It should fail for that reason. Magic jar does not say it allows two consciousnesses to reside in one body. The creature is undead, but having charisma and wisdom it is self-aware and therefore conscious.
It stands to reason that it kicks the other soul out to make sure that only one consciousness is in the body unlike Marionette Possession which is designed to allow two souls(creatures) to share one body.

.

Grand Lodge

So, it would work on the hireling, but not the animated corpse?

I am not really seeing anything preventing anyone from using magic jar on something without an intelligence. As far as I can tell, you can use it on an animated object. It all looks RAW to me.
What am I missing?


It has nothing to do with it not having an intelligence score. It has to do with the part about kicking the soul out and sharing bodies that I was talking about in my last post.

Those are two things that have to be overcome. The "two creatures sharing one body" is why I brought up "Marionette Possession". It specifically allows you to enter a creature's body without kicking the creature out. Magic Jar does not. You can't really kick a zombie's soul out because it has no soul to kick out so going strictly by RAW it won't work.

Grand Lodge

How do you define what does, and does not have a soul?
Can I use this on a golem, being powered by an elemental spirit and all?
Does an ooze have a soul?

I just want to know the extent of this ability.


blackbloodtroll wrote:

How do you define what does, and does not have a soul?

Can I use this on a golem, being powered by an elemental spirit and all?
Does an ooze have a soul?

I just want to know the extent of this ability.

A soul is possess by living creatures. Neither constructs or undead are alive.

You used magic to animate a body, just like you can use magic to animate an object. That does not give it a soul.
Even when you make a golem it does not have a soul.
Elementals are outsiders with a body and soul as one unit. Binding it to a golem does not give the golem a soul.

Everything(that is not a construct or undead) else to my knowledge either has a soul or is either a part of a soul.

Outsiders as an example have their bodies and souls as one unit, which is why it is hard to bring them back to life. This is not a problem for PC races because killing someone is basically just seperating the body and the soul, and resurrection magic just calls the soul back to the body or a body in the case of reincarnation.

edit:Basically the creature(not necessisarily the body of the creature) must have come into existence with its own soul. That undead thing that came from your body came into existence as a zombie/skeleton without a soul.

The golem came into existence without a soul. It is just using something else's life force to animate it.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would use this ability to loop hole my way into playing an undead creature.

I would hide in my familiar's body (which would be an improved familiar potentially capable of casting spells, of course), then I would cast magic jar in a secluded location to take over my newly animated undead body.

Repeated castings of magic jar each day would allow me to maintain control of my original body (which shouldn't be too hard if the undead creature in question is mindless or otherwise loyal), which now grants me all sorts of undead immunities.


Ravingdork wrote:

I would use this ability to loop hole my way into playing an undead creature.

As RD is indirectly pointing out, even if the RAW did have a way to stop this it would be a loophole.

Grand Lodge

So, you couldn't use this on your own homunculus familiar?


blackbloodtroll wrote:
So, you couldn't use this on your own homunculus familiar?

Nope. I might allow Marionette Possession though if I were the GM.

Grand Lodge

What about the Elemental or Severed Head familiar?


blackbloodtroll wrote:
What about the Elemental or Severed Head familiar?

I am assuming those are in ultimate magic. I will check them out when I get back home in a few hours.

I am already thinking that my RAW and RAI answer will not match up though.

Grand Lodge

As long as you differentiate which is which, all is welcome.

Dark Archive

wraithstrike wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:
So, you couldn't use this on your own homunculus familiar?

Nope. I might allow Marionette Possession though if I were the GM.

This is where I have to disagree with you and that's only because your familiar has an exception on it that allows you to put your soul in it's body and control it. You couldn't do this to anyone else's familiar or any other homonculus you control but your familiar is explicitly allowed.

Grand Lodge

By your current stand wraithstike, you could not do this with an Arbiter familiar.


blackbloodtroll wrote:

If a Beast-Bonded Witch uses her Twin Soul ability to inhabit her familiar's body, then Animated her own corpse, what happens?

Can she return to her own body, even though it's undead?

Animating thebody doesn't grant the original soul the ability to remain in it. If the soul goes back to the animated corpse the soul would depart as from any other dead body.


blackbloodtroll wrote:
As long as you differentiate which is which, all is welcome.

I could not find a severed head familiar, but with if they are familars I think the rules give them a pass because it says you can share your body with your familiar, which would over ride any general rule.


Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:
So, you couldn't use this on your own homunculus familiar?

Nope. I might allow Marionette Possession though if I were the GM.

This is where I have to disagree with you and that's only because your familiar has an exception on it that allows you to put your soul in it's body and control it. You couldn't do this to anyone else's familiar or any other homonculus you control but your familiar is explicitly allowed.

A homonculus is not a familiar to my knowledge. It performs a similar role, but it does not advance like a familiar, nor can I find any language that says it is one.

Grand Lodge

Homunculus is a classic choice for the improved familiar feat. The severed head is an undead choice for an improved familiar.


I see it now. I don't see how I missed it before. With that said it qualifies.
PS:I actually had to use the browser's "search" feature to find it. smh.

Grand Lodge

I noticed it seems to have no save. This is a weird ability.


blackbloodtroll wrote:
I noticed it seems to have no save. This is a weird ability.

Maybe it should be FAQ'd.


The part that works like magic jar does have a save, since it works like magic jar. The transfer of the soul doesn't get a save, but it is the host who choosen which of them is in control.

The worst abuse of this ability is IMO killing your familiar, then have it use magic jar at will. While you'll miss the survivability of the ability, it really improves the potiential of the familiar.

Grand Lodge

Are there any undead or constructs with "souls"?


Nope, not in Pathfinder anyway. In Eberron you had the warforged, but even that was not an absolute yes, and they were considered to actually be alive.

As for undead, nope. The closest is a lich, and his soul is inside of a magical box.

Grand Lodge

This is weird, as your homunculus can place his "soul" into your body.
It's like magic jar, with less limitations.


blackbloodtroll wrote:

This is weird, as your homunculus can place his "soul" into your body.

It's like magic jar, with less limitations.

The ability was written for regular familiars, but by RAW even though the homunculus does not have a soul it seems that it works for it.

Another example would be an imp since they are outsider, and their souls and bodies are one unit.

This seems to just be another case where other possibilities were not though of.

Grand Lodge

Seems a bit hard to miss. Building an archetype focused on the familiar, and not being aware of improved familiars, is well, odd.

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