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From Magic Jar:
"If the spell ends while you are in the magic jar, you return to your body (or die if your body is out of range or destroyed). If the spell ends while you are in a host, you return to your body (or die, if it is out of range of your current position), and the soul in the magic jar returns to its body (or dies if it is out of range)."
With Magic Jar, clearly, the location of your body is critical.
agree
The caster's body must be "in play" during the duration of the spell. The same would be true of Shadow Projection, Skin Send, and any other spell that leaves the caster's body behind, unable to protect itself.
disagree
There is nothing in the text that references where the body must stay during the duration, placement only matters when the duration ends or your host dies. If you want to argue that if the spell ends and the body is in a "hammerspace" due to bag of holding or porter and that would cause death, I could see that interpretation. If you want to say that no items go with the porter when he disappears, I can even see that interpretation (but if this is true, there should be rules that outline where those things get dropped, which leads me to think this is not the case.) I can not see anything anywhere that directly prohibits where a body can go more so than anything else.
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While Mike's post you quoted does clarify how the Porter behaves, what happens to the stuff he is carrying still isn't mentioned. While I don't think it reads that way, I couldn't fault a GM for ruling everything the porter is carrying is dropped; I said as much several times in this thread.
The argument I have been making was against the insertion of special rules for dead bodies where none seem to exist.
Under a Bleeding Sun, if your GM shares this interpretation I suggest you or a party member carry your focus jar and put your body in a bag of holding. Your body is defiantly not going to be taking damage or make saves and if your familiar does die, you should be fine unless the party TPKs. You just hop back into the gem on "death", and either try to possess something else or wait until they dig your body out of the bag.
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Just as my own thoughts on the matter ... I think one of the key things for my understanding of the vanity (and I happen to have a porter, as well) is that Mark Moreland described it as being like "Nodwick". I can't believe that there's very many of you who haven't read Nodwick.
When combat ends, he comes wobbling up, sometimes having been blasted by Dragon fire, but, somehow still managing to have lived through it. It doesn't explain how or why, but, he's there. We all know he should be dead, and we know that when Piffany patches him up with duct tape, she's not actually casting a healing spell ... but, there he is, all the same, having made it through combat.
...
Also, Mike called out "in the background". He's not in another plane, or another dimension, he's just out of sight, hiding, under a rock, catching up around the corner where he had to stop to tie his show "off map", or whatever.
He carries whatever he's given. And if that happens to be a dead (or inanimate) body, then the carries it. And our fragile and precious Necklace of Fireballs is just as safe from being damaged as is a body. I don't think that I am comfortable with saying that a spell effect created by someone else other than the porter can't effect the equipment or whatever carried by the porter. I understand that the porter himself can't do anything, but, in this case, I don't think that he is, other than providing the precise function of the vanity.
I don't think that I would say that a "Called" weapon wouldn't appear to the owner of it, simply because the porter has gone hiding, is tying his shoe just off map, or is otherwise "faded into the background". Then the porter would actually be preventing a character from taking an action simply by his presence, and the spell even calls out that it still works even if being carried by another person. And if that spell can work, there's no reason why a Magic Jar wouldn't work, following the same logic. The porter didn't take any action, he didn't "do" anything.
The only thing that's left to be decided is what square the body occupies when it suddenly becomes animate again! :D
Of course, as always, GMs are a fickle lot, and there's bound to be variance on it. :)
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You are very clearly in what you think is RAI rather than RAW. You want bodies to be a liability and therefore want to make special provisions to make that happen.
I do not think the body must be special liability. I think the spells authors fully plan on you moving the body to a safe place. I also think the porter's intended purpose was to move things. So I don't agree with your RAI.
I told you another way earlier in which the body for Magic Jar is in no danger and it doesn't involve the porter. For shadow projection, there is no distance limitation on the body and shadow; leave it at home or in the pathfinder lodge with a 1k shawl of life keeping and your body is never in danger. Bodies do not have to be liabilities.
The extra benefit clause for vanities is very clearly spelled out. The vanities cannot make skill checks, help lift you to a higher ledge, act as a lookout, block charging lanes, or do anything else you would have a normal person do that is not in their defined purpose. Moving things is the defined purpose of a porter.
If you think the porter drops the body by RAW that is fine, I do think there is some wiggle room for that interpretation, but that means he would senselessly drop the ring you had him carrying too. Lets not make special rules about mechanics for only certain things because we think that is RAI and then present it as RAW.
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Will is 100% correct.
When RAW isn't 100% clear, we have to make a coomon sense interpretation of what is RAI.
In this case, limiting invulnerability fir game balance reasons and maintaining the balance already written into the rules, are certainly common sense.
RAW certainly does not allow invulnerability here.
If you can derive any mechanical benefit from the vanity other than exactly what it provides, then you are breaking RAW as noted by Mike Brock.
There are no loopholes that will allow extra benefits, no matter how hard you try to find them.
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Also, let's note that porter is an ambiguous carrying capacity. It gives you an extra 300 pounds. You have to designate what items comprise that extra weight. If you don't gave access to the items the items the porter carries in combat as Mke Brock gas ruled, then the weight of your armor cannot be designated to the porter.
Additionally, since it gives you an extra 300 lbs of carrying capacity, then you technically cannot designate your unconscious or dead body as something the porter carries. RAW, just saying.
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The range of the spell is 100 feet plus 10 feet/level, which at the minimum level to cast it is 230 feet. And if your body is outside that range when the spell ends or the host dies. You're dead on the spot.
So no, I'm definitely sure that "being safely away" is NOT the RAI for player use of this spell.
Also keep in mind that while your soul is in the magic jar you have no perceptive abilities beyond the presence of nearby life forces. And you can not distinguish friend or foe.
That is the range for Magic Jar, Shadow Projection has none. And I don't think you are really at risk of the spell running out, the duration is quite meaty, perhaps dispel magic is a concern.
I would expect the BSF to take steps to protect his helpless body while he was out of it, my 29 intelligence witch is most certainly going to take steps to secure that potential liability. The fact that the spell last so long gives you plenty of time to do it. The way it is written, it prevents you from making this decision on the fly in combat, but leaves the door wide open for those that want to plan on making this a lifestyle.
For the jar, if I was unable to tell who was what, I would probably just start picking people at random. I can see someone saying no PVP, but I think I would eventually hit an enemy or someone that would let me in and then I could reset my buffs accordingly.
Will is 100% correct.
When RAW isn't 100% clear, we have to make a coomon sense interpretation of what is RAI.
In this case, limiting invulnerability fir game balance reasons and maintaining the balance already written into the rules, are certainly common sense.
RAW certainly does not allow invulnerability here.
If you can derive any mechanical benefit from the vanity other than exactly what it provides, then you are breaking RAW as noted by Mike Brock.
There are no loopholes that will allow extra benefits, no matter how hard you try to find them.
That is a very high level of confidence to be invoking RAI.
And as long as everything drops, I can see the rules as consistent and a possible interpretation. I am not keen on the idea of "the armor is less likely to take damage than the body, so it is ok for the porter to take it out of combat." Does the porter with armor behave differently if fighting a rust monster?
As for magic jar and your suddestion, expect table variation for how a GM would use the rule to balance RAW, RAI, and common sense.
What would that look like? "I don't like the way these things interact so I am going to say that they don't."
Also, let's note that porter is an ambiguous carrying capacity. It gives you an extra 300 pounds. You have to designate what items comprise that extra weight. If you don't gave access to the items the items the porter carries in combat as Mke Brock gas ruled, then the weight of your armor cannot be designated to the porter.
Additionally, since it gives you an extra 300 lbs of carrying capacity, then you technically cannot designate your unconscious or dead body as something the porter carries. RAW, just saying.
I am still unsure if the items the porter is carrying are supposed to be inaccessible, or he just can't help you with them. I would go along with either call a GM made as long as they were consistent.
I am not completely following you, if you are saying that because I don't have a carrying capacity, it can't give me an extra 300 lbs cc, I would say that whatever body I am in does have a carrying capacity.
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If the porter is supposed to effectively "vanish" when combat starts, anything that he's carrying is downright inaccessible until he returns.
If you use a porter on a PFS table that I judge, I will make you write down a list of what that porter is carrying, and what you have on your person. I really seriously wish that this vanity had never darkened the doorstep of PFS play.
Oh come on. Nodwick is a classic, and players would find a way to cheese a toothpick if you let them.
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What in the Sam hells are you talking about?
Seriously.
How can you, with a straight face, even come close to thinking that a vanity that isn't supposed to furnish any other mechanical advantage than what it says it does, as clarified by Mike?
RAW, RAI, and common sense do not agree with you.
Either it takes what it is carrying to its hidey hole during combat or it doesn't. You don't get to pick and choose when you think that it is protecting something that would incur too much of a benefit. It is really that simple.
Unless Mike or John say otherwise, what he is carrying and what spells are in effect shouldn't even be part of the conversation.
You may not agree with me, but you are overvaluing your opinion to claim RAW, RAI, and common sense on your side.
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I'm going to keep a close eye on my porter. If he bolts for the corridor, I cast Vanish!
