D&D 5E Magic Jar: is it a pc spell?(update 2, the continuing saga - how it's working for my character)

[Mort]

Ok, let me pick your collective brains one more time!

Wow this spell really makes you think about specific wordings and effects. It's an interesting exercise.

I have contingency - which requires a symbolic focus: a 'statue carved in a likeness of yourself'. You must have the focus on your person in order for the contingency to work.

Hmm, while it's implied, the spell doesn't actually say it must be "on you." when the contingency takes effect.

I use magic jar to leave my body.

Does the contingency work on the new body?
If so, does the statue need to be on my original body or the body I'm currently borrowing?
Maybe it only works on the original body, regardless of where my soul is housed?

Thoughts?

Kind of poses the metaphysical question of who "you" are the fleshy body husk or the current residence of the soul.

Not sure I can answer that with certainty. I think for ease of use "you" are the body you are currently inhabiting. But I'm not really basing that on anything - and may be proved wrong from the books!

 

[MarkB]

Ok, let me pick your collective brains one more time!

I have contingency - which requires a symbolic focus: a 'statue carved in a likeness of yourself'. You must have the focus on your person in order for the contingency to work.

I use magic jar to leave my body.

Does the contingency work on the new body?
If so, does the statue need to be on my original body or the body I'm currently borrowing?
Maybe it only works on the original body, regardless of where my soul is housed?

Thoughts?

I'd say that it needs to resemble and be on the person of the person you're currently possessing. I'd also suggest that you can use fabricate to re-shape your existing focus to match your new body.

EDIT: Or stone shape.

 

[TheSword]

The secret chest works for the caster of the spell. It doesn’t work for your mate. So you can’t hide in a secret chest and have them bring you back.

The only way I can see it working is if you possess the creature first... cast secret chest in their body and then send the chest to the ethereal plane to keep your body safe.

The problem with that being that if the jar breaks you’re on different plane so you die for good.

 

[TheSword]

Ok, let me pick your collective brains one more time!

I have contingency - which requires a symbolic focus: a 'statue carved in a likeness of yourself'. You must have the focus on your person in order for the contingency to work.

I use magic jar to leave my body.

Does the contingency work on the new body?
If so, does the statue need to be on my original body or the body I'm currently borrowing?
Maybe it only works on the original body, regardless of where my soul is housed?

Thoughts?

I remember a really fun contingency/magic jar situation in the fiction though it’s slightly different though wrong edition. Not often you see it mentioned. FR of course!

An archmage has a contingency spell on himself to teleport himself back to his tower if he falls unconscious. However he enters an area protected a Mage’s Sanctum. So if he dies the contingency won’t work. He reaches a locked temple door so casts magic jar and projects himself through it to possess one of the priests inside and manages to kill the others.

He sets off a trap though, after discovering what he came for, which consumes all the wards in the palace to destroy the palace and everything in it which destroys his stolen body, sending him instantly back into his normal body which was then knocked unconscious. As there was no more Mage’s Sanctum he is teleported back to his lair. At which point he slowly regenerates because of a ring (different edition). It’s a cool scene in the book and also typifies how powerful wizards were in 3e.

I am inclined to believe that because the contingency is keyed to your appearance that it wouldn’t work on the soul, but rather the body. I’d probably extend that to all spells with a range of self... I wouldn’t expect mage armour to follow your soul, or spells like it either.

Though thinking about it would telepathic Bond would follow your soul or not?

Interesting questions about an interesting spell.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

So, we found a bunch of Arch Mages who had their souls 'eaten'. They are empty husks. My character used the excuse "I can keep them alive by possessing their body and having them eat and stuff". The timing was really good. The DM didn't know I was going to take Magic Jar.

Logistically, this is difficult but it managed to pacify the Paladin.

I put my little body in the Secret chest and now I am sporting a brand new Arch Mage body with 18HD and magic resistance. If that body dies, I have two other backups.

The DM said the contingency is tied to the focus which has to look like the body but I can use Fabricate to change the looks.

Telepathic bond is tied to the soul. That was the determination. Which means I can speak from the Jar.

The Paladin is Carrying the Jar so it's always close at hand (and he gets resistance from his Charisma which is good for my Jar).

We've only played one session. I haven't needed to have my real body (which is in the secret chest) on-hand. It makes me nervous though, as we are in a Wizard's tower and I'm worried about an anti-magic room or trap. It would be nice to have my original body close by (and not on eatheral plane) in case funny stuff happens.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

As an aside, the last session was super-fun to rp a different person.

I kept asking people to repeat themselves, "what was that? Goodness, this body has terrible hearing" and, "Oh! Sorry about the smell. This body doesn't seem to stomach onions very well. My other body could eat anything! Youth is wasted on the young! But not on me!"

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Just an update as I resurrect this thread. I've had a few months to play with Magic Jar as a PC. It's pretty fun.

My character has been running around in an old man's body for a while. The original body is in 'back-up' mode in Leamand's Secret Chest**.

-The tabaxi monk is currently carrying the crystal and tries to keep it within 100 feet of me, in case I jump into a body and get killed.
- I try to keep a portent available in case I need to make a charisma save or die.

It's been satisfying to totally destroy one or two encounters. My 11th level wizard took over an 18th level barbarian in a super-tough fight but going from 68hp to 221hp was super rad.

But it was scary as hell. There were many spell casters with dispel magic. We/DM adjudicated that a dispel magic doesn't dispel the magic jar if it's cast on a possessed body, it has to be cast on the gem (or the person carrying the gem).

- We also read the fine print: you have to SEE the target within 100 feet to possess them.
This means the monk has to run around holding the gem out in the open. Which is a red flag for any spellcasters if their allies start acting funny. We've decided that the Magic Jar is better for infiltration than combat. It works well in combat if there are no spellcasters. I may try to put a permanent illusion on the gem...I'm not sure how yet. Maybe I can disguise it as a piece of jewelry or something.

The whole sight thing is a consideration if you ever want to set a magic jar up as an encounter. The gem has to be somewhere visible. Maybe hiding in plain sight or protected behind a magical/mundane transparent barrier.

Some Tricky stuff:

My character is in an unusual situation where the body he's in has no soul. I can just lie down and possess someone else without my original host running away. BUT. You can't jump from one body to another. You have to use an action to go to the soul, then another to the new victim. So, unless you are starting from the gem (like I do with the tabaxi) it takes 2 rounds. But it really saves on spell casting. It's, essentially, dominate without using a slot.

-Attuned magic items: DM has decided that attunement goes with the body and not the soul (in most cases). This means most of my best magic items are not readily available when I swap bodies (even if I have an ally carrying them for me) I've decided to have my original body attune to some extra items in case of dire emergencies

- Some spells follow the body and some follow the soul. Depends on the spell.

- Focus/spell components: I jumped into a barbarian's body and tried to cast 'Dawn' on my enemies only to find out that I had no Material components. (I considered taking the new metamagic feat to get subtle spell. Instead, I'm just going to have the monk carry an extra foci for me).

-OMG contingency is super complicated!
Cast contingency on myself. Jump bodies. I'm allowed to use the same casting and use fabricate to change the form of the material component. BUT WAIT! if it's attuned to the material component/body, it means I can cast contingency on several different bodies. My DM thought that would be fine until I told him I was going to inhabit most of the party and customize a contingency for each of them. So he veto'd that. We decided that you can only have one casting of contingency PER SOUL but the material component must look like the body you are in.

it makes contingency and Magic Jar a bit more tricky. Do you have it on the current body? or the sleeping body? What to do!

** only non-living materials can go in Leomand's Secret Chest. So that ruins my back-up of always having my original body in close proximity, if I need it(unless I turn my body to stone). I need another option. We just found a portable hole but I think the 'vacant body' still needs to breath. It's not in stasis or anything. Still working on it. Demi-plane is ideal but I'm not high enough level to cast it...although, I have a scroll...

Lastly, I've discovered that this is a powerful but risky tool. I've taken out insurance and have hired a Bard and bought the material components for a reincarnate spell. (I'm not too picky of what kind of body I get...I can always find a new one).

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

So to continue the update of how Magic Jar works as a PC character.

I find every adventure a bit nerve wracking. As mentioned previously, my character has taken over the body of an 18th level barbarian. Having 225hp is great but my character hates the body. He's starting to miss his old body - the logistics of keeping it around is quite tedious. I'm looking for a ring of sustenance or amulet of adaptation because I now have a portable hole that I can keep my body around for emergencies. We were ambushed and I lost all but 15hp. I don't have a good enough Charisma save to survive the death save and I managed to dim door away before I was insta-killed. There's a balance of just jumping out of the body and going back to the crystal but the barbarian is dangerous and allied with our enemies. And magic jar is expensive to cast.

This is the main reason I can't 'let the body go'. We want to use it to transfer property and funds from the organization that the barbarian is associated with to our own.

But I found a new solution! I hit 13th level and that means simulacrum!

I can make a simulacrum of myself while my intellect is in the barbarian, thus making a barbarian that is completely loyal to me who can cast spells. Then we can eschew the pesky body and I can find something more to my taste. The party is getting creeped out by my increasingly callous attitude towards other people's meat sacks. Fortunately, I still have 3 'soul-less' wizards whose bodies I can use at any time. Keeping them fed and clean is always a chore...and they're old...the whole reason I left my body was to avoid getting old! At least I won't ever have to sink to attempting to becoming a lich. Pathetic!

That said...this body swapping walks a line I always promised I'd never cross! But this seems the lesser evil of the necromantic magics.

Once I have Clone, I can build a body from a specimen of my choosing and finally have a new body without having to worry about this accursed gem!

huh, I seemed to have lapsed into talking in character...oops!

 

[Recil]

No one would have to lug anything. Leomands chest is in the eatheral plane. Round 1. Summon it and crawl in
Round 2 possess people
After combat, renter my body that’s in the chest, crawl out of the chest and dismiss the chest back to the ethereal plane

I’m a Divination wizard. I might save a good portent roll to survive.

overall I just wanted to try it. Seems like a great way to sneak into places too by pretending to be other people

Hmmm...the biggest can of worms I can think of is: Is the ethereal plane less than 100' away for the purposes of a magic jar? As a DM I'd probably rule that the magical effect of a magic jar cannot cross from the ethereal to the material (or inner or anywhere else) while others may disagree.

Second can of worms is the secret chest spell. At least in 5e, you have to touch the chest and a replica of it at the same time to send it to the ethereal, which I suppose you could do from inside it. But where are you recalling it to if you remain in the chest with the replica? Even a kind DM might say you return to the spot you originally sent it from, because that's where the replica exists in the ethereal. A mean DM might do far worse things. Trapped in the ethereal? portable hole in a bag of holding hijinx? It's at the very least a strange paradoxical state and I guess you could always just say 'it's magic' but that probably isn't what I'd do.

I'd probably say, "That's some craziness, roll a d20."