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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 2376327" data-attributes="member: 141">The wording of disjoin soul has been nagging at me, so I finally sat down and wrote it all out.  This is the full bells-and-whistles version that affects corporeal undead and constructs as well as living creatures.  The wording is tricky; it's a kinda complicated spell.Disjoin SoulConjuration (Teleportation)Level: Sor/Wiz 8Components: V, S, MCasting time: 1 standard actionRange: TouchEffect: Corporeal creature touchedDuration: InstantaneousSaving Throw: Will special (see text)Spell resistance: NoThis spell attempts to rip the vital principle from a creature.  The only requirement is that the target have a body; disjoin soul is effective against constructs and undead as well as living creatures.  The subject is allowed a Will save.  Even if successful it must also make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be dazed for one round.  If the Will save is failed, the subject takes a 1d6 wisdom penalty and falls unconscious; it must also make a DC 15 Fortitude save or perish.  In other words, if the Fortitude save is unsuccessful a living creature dies while an undead or construct is destroyed.  The target's soul has been disjoined; most of it has been transported to a horribly alien plane where hostile conditions will soon annihilate it.  The fragment that remains with the body will sustain life (or a semblance thereof) for only a brief time.  Each round the subject makes a DC 15 wisdom check to see if its soul can intuit the way back to its body (to which it maintains a faint connection); if this check is unsuccessful it takes an additional 1d6 wisdom penalty and its body must make another DC 15 Fortitude save or perish.  This process is repeated each round (even if the body dies or is destroyed) until either the subject succeeds in its wisdom check or its effective wisdom has been reduced to zero.  If the wisdom check is successful the soul returns to its body; if the body is still alive it regains consciousness, but is dazed for the remainder of that round and the next.  Creatures subject to ability damage have the wisdom penalty converted to wisdom damage on a 1 for 1 basis; this wisdom damage persists until it is healed, either naturally or by magic.  The wisdom penalty otherwise persists for 24 hours.  If the body is dead when the soul returns to it (either because it failed a Fortitude save or for some other reason) there is no additional penalty; the creature may be raised or resurrected as normal.  However if disjoin soul reduces a subject's effective wisdom to zero it means the soul has been destroyed before it could return, and the body automatically perishes.  Someone whose soul has been destroyed cannot be raised from the dead or reincarnated until the soul has been restored.  Even a lich's phylactery will be ineffective if the lich's soul has been destroyed.  Restoring a destroyed soul requires a carefully worded wish or miracle.  The disjoin soul spell attempts to teleport the soul of an individual to another plane, and effects that block or redirect teleportation or planar travel will negate it.  A limited wish or stronger magic will allow a soul to find its way back even if the body is dead.  Magic which cures ability damage (like lesser restoration or heal) will restore a soul to a living body; the magic strengthens the tenuous link between body and soul and facilitates an immediate return.  In either of these cases the soul is treated as having succeeded in the wisdom check.  Other magic may have analogous effects on undead or constructs; harm, for example, benefits undead as heal does living beings.Material Component: 5,000 gp of powdered black opals.Notes:  This spell targets an unusual save (Will) for a potentially lethal spell.  (Will saves govern teleports and plane shifts.)  Even if the Will save is successful there is a small chance that the target will lose a round's worth of actions.  If the initial Will save is unsuccessful there is a decent chance that the victim will die and not be able to be raised.  Even if it survives it will be out of a fight for several rounds, which in high level combats is almost as bad as being killed.  The spell bypasses deathward and despite the Will save is not a mind affecting spell, and so is not blocked by mind blank or resisted by standard immunities to mind affecting effects.  It is high level and from a school (conjuration) whose attack spells often ignore spell resistance, but I decided that, like irresistable dance, it should require a touch attack if it didn't allow SR.  The material component is reminiscent of Symbol of Death.I made the round by round check a DC 15 check instead of a DC 20 check like that of maze.  That's because the spell reduces the ability the check is based on, and so the base DC should be easier.  Also the DC for the fortitude save is 15, the same as the save for death from massive damage, and making both numbers the same looked better.  I made it a wisdom penalty that may convert to wisdom damage so that it would affect creatures immune to ability damage.  Note that the spell specifically mentions undead and constructs, so their blanket immunity to effects requiring fortitude saves does not apply.  Disjoin soul is especially good at killing golems.It is almost but not quite a save-or-die spell; even a low wisdom rogue has a chance of recovering their soul naturally and recovering, especially if prompt healing is available, but the odd saving throw and disjoin soul's way of getting past resistances and immunities reminds me of the typeless damage (and fort save) of horrid wilting.  However, like horrid wilting there is a category of creatures who are not affected; in this case it is incorporeal creatures (who I consider "all soul" and so I think should be immune to being disjoined from their bodies).  The plane shifting aspect reminds me of maze.  Note that, like maze, PCs can't use disjoin soul on a villain they have dimensionally anchored.  I don't think it is quite a 9th level spell; even if the soul is destroyed the effect is not as hard to overcome as soul bind.  I peg it as a solid 8th level.  If it is too strong the limited range and expensive material component should keep it from causing problems in a campaign.</blockquote>

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