Multiple castings of Magic Jar...

[Cheeseweasel]

So, if you're a necromantically-inclined fellow, with access to the Magic Jar spell, and you're outfitting your stronghold...

...naturally, you'll be including several stashed foci for your Magic Jar spell, on the grounds that possessing unwanted intruders is a good idea.

Can one:
*cast Magic Jar and possess someone
*use their stolen body to cast it a second time, on someone else
*keep the original possessee trapped in the first Magic Jar
*rinse and repeat?

Obviously also wanting some hidden closets to stuff unconscious bodies into while thinning the ranks of the invaders. (Stronghold-building, remember?)

Or does victim number one just end up in victim number two's body? Or in YOUR body, hideous thought?

[Dennis Baker]

Not even sure this would work, but if it did, it would require one gem per casting and each time the soul would go into a new gem.

[Cheeseweasel]

I was banking on the requirement for multiple foci (gems) to allow the scheme to work. As long as my leaving the body to go to a DIFFERENT focus (with a different casting) doesn't free the first (and subsequent) victim, I don't mind getting multiple gems; they aren't horribly expensive, and the thought of catching a whole group of people with it just seems, well, "magically delicious." [Is it wrong that I want to use this for a Fey-blooded Sorcerer?]

[VRMH]

A devious GM may decide you return to your second host body, when your second Magic Jar spell ends - even when you already returned to your own body when the first Magic Jar spell ended.

[VRMH]

edit: Or rather, your first host body, when the second spell ends.

[Cheeseweasel]

If this works, at all, I have high hopes of having every body but mine quite secured long before the duration passes. Then cancel things in proper order, first up/last down.

[Carbon D. Metric]

Remember, adventurers NEVER have ideal work conditions.

[Cheeseweasel]

Except, C.D.M., in this case I'm dealing with prepared ground, where I've had plenty of time to set my predation in motion. I'll be intimately aware of the terrain and construction, able to move about unhindered and without setting off any of the multiple traps and hung spell effects that the unwelcome sods invading my home will either trigger or have to spend some time disabling (while I continue to assault them).

The joys of Knowledge/Engineering, Craft/Traps, and a Lyre of Building... throw on simple Alarm spells, some Clairvoyance, and mundane peepholes, and I ought to be able to deal with those pesky heroes.

...this whole exercise is a favor for a friend of mine who's got a group of PCs around 13th level who have been steamrollering the minions of an unnnamed (unmade) BBEG. So he asked me to make up a cohort for the BBEG, and I opted for a Necromancer 12/Rogue 3 (having 15 levels to play with). Was considering tactics when the idea of multiple Magic Jar attacks and how effective it could be.

"My" job is to lure the PCs into this stronghold I've built, and then see how many of them I can sideline so that the lesser minions can effectively assault the PC base of operations...

I'll know they're coming, and with the 5th-level Pearl of Power I'm toting I can cast 4 Magic Jars in a day (using it in my first victim's body while I secure my own helpless form). While I don't expect all 4 to succeed, I'm betting I can capture their main tank and possibly their skill monkey... anything else would be gravy.

I don't know their builds, though I know it's a Fighter, a Ranger, a Druid and a Rogue/Shadowdancer.

The Druid is the problematic one for Magic Jarring, while the Rogue/Shadowdancer is the one most likely to elude the physical obstacles to free movement (obviously). My hope is that he'll be busy enough disabling devices that I can pin him down during one of those attempts.

Mapping the place out is entertaining; lots of secret doors, hidden passages and chambers, observation points, etc. Heavily decorated as a temple to Asmodeus, leading around and around towards a "vault" (red herring of the first water). And not actually a temple... I don't worship that jumped-up devil; just more confusion to my enemies...

[VRMH]

It might be easier to kill yourself while in a host.
Creepier too, for anyone who witnesses it.

[tonyz]

Have a few deep wells around the place. Possess someone, then walk over to the well and throw yourself into it. Be sure to arrange for nasty traps at the bottom (poisoned spikes, stinking clouds, undead to bat up anyone who arrives at the bottom). After they die, just reanimate them.

Oh, and if you have undead wandering around, make sure each of them has a spell component pouch so if you possess them you can cast spells in their body.

[HaraldKlak]

tonyz wrote:

Have a few deep wells around the place. Possess someone, then walk over to the well and throw yourself into it.

Not too deep wells... You need to stay within that medium range of the gem...

[Cheeseweasel]

Yes, well >ahem< -- I'm trying not to TPK his regular players; they've been running these characters for about a year and a half, and it would kinda suck for them to get killed off by a cohort... so I'm aiming for catch-and-geas-and-release. Nothing horribly-permanent. Just a little sompin'-sompin' to send them haring off into far-away regions for a half a year of game time...

...so when they come back, their prosperous port town is in ruins and they know the wrath of the Unnamed One.

[VRMH]

...so when they come back, their prosperous town has been turned into a hive of scum and villainy, by Simulacrums sent to replace them covertly.

[Cheeseweasel]

Exactly. You see where this could end up... That and some doppelgangers replacing various people among the survivors.

Happy Evil Overlord Thought Of The Day.