Magic Jar, The soul, And Natural Attacks

[Amrel]

Ok, a few questions about the spell. Bear in mind that I know this is easily mediated by a GM, but I think its fun to discuss.

The relevant text is below

Magic Jar says the following about a body you possess.

Magic Jar:

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.

While in the magic jar, you can sense and attack any life force within 10 feet per caster level (and on the same plane of existence). You do need line of effect from the jar to the creatures. You cannot determine the exact creature types or positions of these creatures. In a group of life forces, you can sense a difference of 4 or more HD between one creature and another and can determine whether a life force is powered by positive or negative energy. (Undead creatures are powered by negative energy. Only sentient undead creatures have, or are, souls.)

You could choose to take over either a stronger or a weaker creature, but which particular stronger or weaker creature you attempt to possess is determined randomly.

Attempting to possess a body is a full-round action. It is blocked by protection from evil or a similar ward. You possess the body and force the creature's soul into the magic jar unless the subject succeeds on a Will save. Failure to take over the host leaves your life force in the magic jar, and the target automatically succeeds on further saving throws if you attempt to possess its body again.

If you are successful, your life force occupies the host body, and the host's life force is imprisoned in the magic jar. You keep your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities. The body retains its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities. A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal. You can't choose to activate the body's extraordinary or supernatural abilities. The creature's spells and spell-like abilities do not stay with the body.

As a standard action, you can shift freely from a host to the magic jar if within range, sending the trapped soul back to its body. The spell ends when you shift from the jar to your own body.

If the host body is slain, you return to the magic jar, if within range, and the life force of the host departs (it is dead). If the host body is slain beyond the range of the spell, both you and the host die. Any life force with nowhere to go is treated as slain.

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). Destroying the receptacle ends the spell, and the spell can be dispelled at either the magic jar or the host's location.

First, if I am a creature such as an outsider, can I use this spell? The text says my soul leaves my body, but outsiders do not have a separate soul. Their body and soul are one unit.

Second, If I take the form of a body with multiple natural attacks, say an octopus, can I make some or any of them? The spell text says that "A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two handed attacks) than normal."

I believe that the spell is saying that you can't make more weapon or unarmed attacks because of the extra limbs (what I think is probably the RAI). But it could be read to mean that if I took over an octopus I could only make a number of natural attacks with its tentacles equal to the number of attacks I can normally make?

Also in the above case would natural attacks that don't come from limbs (I am assuming that a head isn't a limb) still be confined?

Taking this to the extreme, if I had no natural attacks before, would any natural attack granted by a limb be unavailable to me, as long as the creature had more limbs than I, since these would be attacks above and beyond what I could normally make, granted by a creature with extra limbs?

[Byakko]

Concerning outsiders' dual nature:
Some of the text is flavor and some is mechanical. As we're talking rules, the key mechanical effect is that spells that restore souls to bodies don't work on outsiders; they instead require a limited wish, true resurrection, etc. If you're of native subtype, however, this doesn't even apply to you.
Thus, I'm going to say spells like magic jar work fine, both by and on outsiders, although there's some fluff to suggest otherwise. If you're an Aasimar or Tiefling, they definitely work, in any case.

Like you, I believe that quote about attacks is indeed referring to weapon-type attacks. The more recent, and similar, Marionette Possession spell even specifies that natural attacks are retained. In general, I would use the rules on polymorph as a basis on what you're able to use/do, unless otherwise specified by Magic Jar.

[Cuuniyevo]

Personally, I would rule that:

1.) Outsiders cannot normally cast Magic Jar or have Magic Jar cast on them, because of the dual nature, but an allowance can be made for incorporeal outsiders due to the following exceptions: Ataxian, Belier Devil, Invidiak, Gidim, Shadow Demon, Son of Perdition and Umbral Shepherd. With the exception of the Ataxian and the Belier Devil, they are all incorporeal; meaning that they have no body for the Magic Jar to use. Without exception, they all make reference to their power of possession under their special abilities, explaining how they can do it. In particular, all but two of them explicitly say that they use their possession ability without requiring a receptacle. The only two that don't detail their ability is the Shadow Demon and the example Invidiak, a CR 19 unique being whose write-up focuses on flavor text and tactics instead of detailing her 53 spells and spell-like abilities. Only 1 of the 53 gets a write-up. In Demons Revisited (page 29), the Invidiak are described as being able to use Magic Jar (like the other Shadow Demon linked above, which is a very similar kind of being), with limitations, and it does imply that it is only able to use its possessing ability because it has no body of its own.

2.) I think it is entirely reasonable to say that natural attacks still operate by their specific rules, and that the limitation to the number of attacks is in reference to BAB-derived weapon attacks.