I have a really hard conundrum to adjudicate. I have a player that used the Doppleganger Simulacrum alchemist discovery to make a body and project into it to go on an adventure. This is fine.
The alchemist learns how to create a simulacrum, a soulless duplicate of his body, into which he can project his consciousness. As a full-round action, he may shift his consciousness from his current body to any one of his available doppelganger simulacra, which must be on the same plane as the alchemist. If killed in a simulacrum, he transfers to his own body automatically; if killed in his own body, he is dead. Unused simulacra (including his abandoned original body) appear to be lifeless corpses, though they do not decay. Creating a duplicate costs 1,000 gp in alchemical materials and requires 1 week to grow. The created simulacrum is a creature, not a supernatural effect.
However, the player has also taken to using Magic Jar, from a magic item (some sort of soul jar thing), on a Fire Giant while inside the doppleganger.
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.
My other players are talking OOC about the logistics of this and wondering how they interact. Since you project your consciousness into the simulacrum, does your soul transfer to it as its new "home" receptacle? If your soul is in your Prime body and you project into Unit A, for example, can you still use Magic Jar from the location of Unit A?
Lastly, the Doppleganger Simulacrum says that you return to your Prime body automatically on death. What form of travel is this? Ethereal? Teleportation? Would a Forbiddance or Dimensional Anchor stop this???
Do Simulacra even have souls to trap into the jar?
VRMH: That's where the question comes in about transferring your consciousness. The way the Doppleganger works is that it's a soulless duplicate of yourself, and you can project your consciousness into it. I'm just not sure if your consciousness includes your soul.
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My other players are talking OOC about the logistics of this and wondering how they interact. Since you project your consciousness into the simulacrum, does your soul transfer to it as its new "home" receptacle? If your soul is in your Prime body and you project into Unit A, for example, can you still use Magic Jar from the location of Unit A?
Treat every ability as its own effect, unless a spell or ability says that it works like Magic Jar (new: Possession). If there is no reference to Possession, then it does not interact with it out of the ordinary, so yes, the simulacrum body would be the new "home" receptacle.
Lastly, the Doppleganger Simulacrum says that you return to your Prime body automatically on death. What form of travel is this? Ethereal? Teleportation? Would a Forbiddance or Dimensional Anchor stop this???
Usually, the travel of souls cannot be inhibited unless an effect says that it can affect souls. Powerful necromancy like a Soul Bind spell or the magic behind the creation of Silver Swords might prevent such travel, but ordinary spells and abjurations cannot.
Adding to the circumstantial evidence, it notes that only intelligent undead have (or are)^ souls.
This indicates that the animus of a thing is irrelevant, but the sentience (or at least the mental mind/experiences of a thing, if any) are tied to the concept of soul and do not exist independently when dealing with specific, explicit creatures.
Of course on the other side of the coin, this creates a host of exceptionally unusual esoteric concepts, such as questioning whether an intelligent magic item has (or is)^ a soul.
And this is in addition to the question of whether or not necromantic energies somehow interfere with soul-based essences.
Like a clone: is that really you? (It is.)
And, see, if a creature is turned undead, it can't be raised until it's destroyed^^, which is often pointed to (even by developers at Paizo) as evidence that it messes with the soul (but they have not committed to this line of thought, 'cause baaaaaaaaaaaad), but if that's the case, what happens if someone has been dead for, say, a thousand or more years (well beyond the raise dead limit) and is subsequently animated? If they're animated as mindless, eh, no big, it' sucks, but there's no soul there, so meh. If they're animated as some sort of undead with a mind, however, what does that do to the soul? Are they ripped from their afterlife? From Pharasma's queu? Does Pharasma (goddess of prophecy) just not judge them until then? What about now that prophecy is unreliable?
And Mr. Jacobs has noted that she doesn't see every step along the way - she just knows the inevitable outcomes (and the possible, if unlikely, other outcomes), not always the path to get there or why.
In effect, this is asking a very interesting and deeeeeeeply insightful series of questions into the nature of souls in Golarion and related universe.
Or, IDK, man, it doesn't matter too much, unless it makes a major impact in your games, for the best gaming experience over-all. :D
EDIT: adding two lines and a minor correction or five
The magic wouldn't functionally "go off" if it's requirements weren't met...
Even coming from an item, if there is no prerquisite soul/body in range, the magic has no affect.
In the case of your game, in play, if the Doppleganger was allowed to activate the item, then the Doppleganger meets all the requisites of possessing the soul for the Magic Jar magics to happen.
Whether or not this is actually how they are supposed to interact is largely irrelevant because that is how they DO interact in your game (now).
Personally, I see the Doppleganger as a safeguard for the Alchemist... no way he puts his soul in it. The Doppleganger ia expendable, soul is safe... almost like the Doppleganger is a Lich, and the Alchemist its phylactery. And in this mindset, the Doppleganger CANNOT activate the Magic Jar item.
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Thanks everyone for the responses!
Reading through them, it seems the likely outcome is "No, the Doppleganger shouldn't have the soul, only the animation by the Alchemist's mental will". In that sense, and after having wrote that out, a parallel could be seen in the spell Projected Image, in which you can talk and sense and even cast spells through the created image of you.
The group is okay with a minor ret-con like that. The Doppleganger and the Magic Jar spell both have caused a fair bit of head-scratching and adjudication (such as whether Magic Jar on someone under a Mind-Affecting effect allows you to suppress/ignore the outcome of those effects, or what all buffs transfer between caster's old body and new). For the record, I think I found the magic item in question that the Alchemist uses.
I do agree that the Doppleganger Simulacrum seems RAI to be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for a dangerous situation, so I'll probably bring that up. The player would very much like to know the outcome and has asked about potentially swapping it out since he wouldn't have chosen it if he couldn't use things like Magic Jar through it.
@Tacticslion: No need to worry about the tone. I wasn't going to take it negatively when I read it. :)