The Joys of Magic Jarring ... Tricks & Optimizations

[User3]

I'm in the process of creating a new 14th level wizard. One of his central themes and primary schticks was going to be based on his obsession and manipulation of the the 5th level spell ... Magic Jar.

A spell I've always admired reading about in the PHB, but have never seen anyone actually play it at the table before. Most comments I've gotten from my fellow gamers have been centered around such negatives as "there's too much text to read", "the spell is too wonky with rules", & "porting around the inert caster body is a pain in the ass".

Well, I want to find workable solutions to those problems while simultaneously min/maxing the hell out of this cool spell.

A quick search here at the Gaming Den found lots & lots of posts that mention Magic Jar. Most of them were not detailed "tricks & uses". Seems a lot of folks here have some extremely interesting uses of Magic Jar, but the tricks seem to be implied within the context of a given post.

So ... I figured a new thread to compile all this data might be of value. And who knows, all the new game mechanics published as of recent might have some cool combinatorial mechanics with the Magic Jar spell.

I'll try to post some ideas, tricks, abuses, and min/maxing details in the next day or 2. Until then, I welcome all your sagacious insight on the Magic Jar spell.

[Username17]

When your body is inert you can actually cast spells on it. It's an object. Spells don't pop off just because they aren't hanging on a legal target anymore, so you can steal a body, cast object affecting spells on your own body, and then go back to your body and benefit from object-only spells. Crazy stuff like shrink item or reinforce are yours for the taking. Ever wanted to be diminutive or have a hardness value? You can totally do that.

Personal spells follow you when you jump into a new body, so you can body hop to your hearts content without sacrificing much of anything.

-Username17

[Fwib]

1162797357[/unixtime]]Personal spells follow you when you jump into a new body, so you can body hop to your hearts content without sacrificing much of anything.

Oooh! where does it say that? *does the happy joy dance*

[AlphaNerd]

Personal

The spell affects only you.

It says you, not your body. Take that as you will. Everything else is probably Sage or FAQ or something.

Edit: Also, the RAW say:

Hardness

Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. Whenever an object takes damage, subtract its hardness from the damage.

So, while you might have a hardness value, it doesn't matter, as you are not an object, unless hardness is mentioned elsewhere.

[User3]

The Personal~You angle is very interesting. I'll have to look up and see if Magic Jar has been FAQ'ed.

Along the inert "body =object" lines, I was thinking last night how that would be interesting to cast Shrink Item followed by Permanency on your inert body after it is off Jarring in other hosts. Since spells only check the legal status of a target at the time of casting, you could have the rather interesting ability to shrink yourself into a small piece of cloth via command word (and have others utter the command word to unshrink you) even while not Jarring and while fully alive.

If there are rules issues I'm off on here, just yell.

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Also, I highly recommend Jarring fanatics to get the Eschew Materials feat so they don't have to lug around a spell component pouch if they intend on jumping around from host to host a lot.

I'm assuming that the Surrogate Spellcasting feat (Savage Species) might have value as well. In case you Jar into a body incapable of of performing the appropriate somatic gesturing for spellcasting. The Whispercast swift action spell from Lords of Madness might help here as well.

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Familiar selection is important for a Magic Jar afficionado as well. You want a familiar that is capable of porting around your jar/crystal with stealth and security. Imp. Familiars might be better here as some have inherent flight and invisibility capability. You may also want a familiar who can effectively combo-up with the spell Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability (Spell Compendium). That way he can cast Dispel Magic to suppress a Prot. from Evil on an opponent before you attempt to Jar into the enemy.

...

More later.

Any other ideas?

[Sir Neil]

So, while you might have a hardness value, it doesn't matter, as you are not an object, unless hardness is mentioned elsewhere.

The hardness Frank's referring to isn't inherent to the body, it's the result of the reinforce spell.

At least, that's what I'm getting from the context.

[Username17]

And once creaturs have hardness it works normally. Like with the Animated Object Creatures from the Monster Manual.

-Username17

[Fwib]

Where do I find Reinforce, I am hoping it is the instantaneous duration spell to add hardness that I remember seeing but couldn't find before. Hardening I can find in SpC just fine.

[MrWaeseL]

Maybe in Stronghold Builder's Guide?

[User3]

I just checked this list - but no go. Then again, it's not been updated by WotC since 12/5.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/spells

[User3]

1162855037[/unixtime]]And once creaturs have hardness it works normally. Like with the Animated Object Creatures from the Monster Manual.

-Username17

Due to the "legality check" at the time of the casting I presume.

And to the best of my knowledge, I don't think there are rules that state the Hardness Factor is lost if the object-form character converts back into the living flesh-form character.

Neat ..

[AlphaNerd]

1162855037[/unixtime]]And once creaturs have hardness it works normally. Like with the Animated Object Creatures from the Monster Manual.

-Username17

From an entirely pedantic viewpoint, hardness does nothing for creatures, as it only affects damage done to objects. Yes, even Animated Object. The Animated Object description should read something like "hardness(ex) - damage dealing spells and attacks deal damage as if the animated object were an object with hardness equivalent to that of the material it was made out of." This may be too pedantic of a reading for everyone, but when you're talking about cheese, I'll talk about pedantic rules interpretations. Of course, this only covers a small bit of the potential cheese that magic jar entails.

Joshua

[User3]

Just what your body actually becomes is a matter of debate (don't expect the rules or the Sage to be any help). Its either an object or an unconcious person, which means that different effects can totally be abused. You DM will hate you either way.

That being said, here are some things that are 100% legal:

--Several spells exist that blow up your own body. I guess that thematic and dramatic(and rhymes, and you know it does) and works fine in a "I'm about to die and I'm taking some guys with me", but when you are in someone elses body and they blow up and you return to your own flesh, that usually means its all power and no cost.

--Corrupt spells. The ability damage goes to the host. Fun.

--Weird self spells. Several spells/feats/class features do weird things to you in order to help someone else(or you). Abuse that.

--Find a way to not need to breathe, so you can carry around your body in a Bag of holding or something. Since this spell lasts several hours, you will want to play your whole adventure as some other creature. Keep that body in range fo when you get killed in monster form or the spell is dispelled.

--Take a level of Mindbender. Its a cheap way to get Telepathy, which you'll need to talk to the party in most forms. Eschew Materials and Surrogate spellcasting are good choices too,

--Note that getting into a receptacle does not require line of effect. This means that with a Crystal ball, you can enter places and kill everyone without ever needing to be there. Its a permutation of scrying and die.

-Consider getting MJ as a spell-like(from Archmage, for example). You can make a strong argument that this lets you use any object as a receptacle. I like adamantine bricks.

-Don't forget that while you are in some dude's body, his soul is in your receptacle. Imprison Posessor can kill him when the spell ends, or you can destroy his soul by using it as a spell component(check BoVD) or for item creation.

-Polymorph is a great combo with MJ. Abuse it.

-Put Protection from E. on your friends, so you don't accidently posess them. If you can't, use Animate Dead to make one big Skeleton, as the spell lets you tel between undead and other guys when you choose possession targets.

--Inject in nonlethal ways of killing dudes so you can redeem them for full value on the field of combat. I like Flesh to Stone for tht purpose.

[User3]

1163709084[/unixtime]]Just what your body actually becomes is a matter of debate (don't expect the rules or the Sage to be any help). Its either an object or an unconcious person, which means that different effects can totally be abused. You DM will hate you either way.

Hmm. Let's look at the SRD again.

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.

If the body is lifeless (whether temporary or not), I can't see any other argument than that of it being a D&D-defined object. The lifeless body is bereft of a soul, any form of sentience ... it's completely empty.

Therefore, all object abuse should be legal.