How to beat a Wizard using Astral Projection?

[Nettlekid]

What you see is what you get. At high levels, no one who can cast Astral Projection is going to be walking around on their own. In fact, as long as you can Shapechange into a Nightmare or Planar Bind one for your own purposes, you can have your copy striding around as you will. This has the negative consequences of making your whole self able to be dispelled, going *poof* in AMFs, and giving you the Githyanki Silver Sword vulnerability, but those are trivial to avoid as a high level caster and a small price to pay for effective invulnerability otherwise. So how could another caster get around it? In a battle between two wizards, one or both using Astral Projection, how can one beat the other?

I've been trying to think of some way of using something like Planar Binding to draw the wizard's real body into the circle (since most wizards will keep their bodies on another plane, or even their own demiplane) but that only works on actual outsiders, not simply extraplanar. Is there something that might work on extraplanar, like a reverse-Dismissal? Or alternatively, what are other ways of rooting out the wizard's hiding place?

[Carth]

Githyanki silver swords specifically only function on the astral plane (per MotP), where you presumably won't be spending a lot of time. But if you can plane shift them there somehow, then you're in business.

Astral dreadnoughts (from MotP) can sunder silver cords in a very limited number of circumstances, and aren't limited in what plane they can use this ability on. As I say though, the circumstances you can attack a cord with a dreadnought are very limited, limited enough that this is barely worth consideration.

There exists the snare astral travel spell, but it's SR:yes and will negates. Targeting a caster's best save isn't a good idea, and this also doesn't prevent them from taking several kinds of actions.

AMF works, but they can just dismiss their projection, arguably.

Finally, you can of course track down the original body.

[Ravenica]

is it possible to find someones cord and follow it back to their future corpse?

[Jack_Simth]

Astral Projection, used in that manner, really only protects against death.

If the Astral Projection can't take an action, they can't do anything... including return to their natural body. Anything that prevents actions without killing will work (at least as well as it would on a Wizard not using Astral Projection). Trap the Soul, Flesh to Stone, Imprisonment, and many, many other spells are still useful. Trap the Soul is especially useful if you can research the Wizard's True Name, and get it to accept a trigger object (no save or SR, that way).

[Arundel]

is it possible to find someones cord and follow it back to their future corpse?

That gets into some interesting planar questions, which are.......interestingly covered in the core rules.

I don't think so?

[Ravenica]

That gets into some interesting planar questions, which are.......interestingly covered in the core rules.

I don't think so?
interesting heh well I know it's possible in pathfinder so it was worth asking XD

[Nettlekid]

Maybe I wasn't clear. It's not too difficult to stop a wizard who's using Astral Projection from being a nuisance, such as the aforementioned use of Antimagic Field. My main question is how to find their real body. How, when they spend every hour of the day marching around in a ghostly clone-suit, can I track down and kill (or hold captive against their Astral self) their real flesh-and-bone body?

[ArcturusV]

Well, if the Wizard is foolish enough to count only on Astral Shenanigans and isn't otherwise paying attention/based on your interpretation of the rules as written, Mindrape and similar mind effecting spells may matter. Of course they probably have Mindblank on a trinket. So when they manifest a physical body on a plane, they'd be immune to it. But ambush them in the Astral Plane, and they wouldn't have a physical copy, and be very vulnerable to that.

Of course if they were foolish enough to ignore spells/effects that say "Screweth You, Enchantment School!"... which might happen, people underestimate it, then just laugh at them. Laugh and laugh.

[Jack_Simth]

Maybe I wasn't clear. It's not too difficult to stop a wizard who's using Astral Projection from being a nuisance, such as the aforementioned use of Antimagic Field. My main question is how to find their real body. How, when they spend every hour of the day marching around in a ghostly clone-suit, can I track down and kill (or hold captive against their Astral self) their real flesh-and-bone body?Oh, that. So you're looking for information. Well, Discern Location might do it, as long as their real body isn't Mind Blanked (it may or may not be). Commune and Contact Other Plane arguably bypass Mind Blank. Hypercognition (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/hypercognition.htm) can arguably do it, and metafaculty (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/metafaculty.htm) explicitly can. Then, of course, there's the funny question of whether or not the stasis from Astral Projection keeps your spells from expiring - it's quite possible that the body isn't going to be Mind Blanked.

[Ace Nex]

Maybe I wasn't clear. It's not too difficult to stop a wizard who's using Astral Projection from being a nuisance, such as the aforementioned use of Antimagic Field. My main question is how to find their real body. How, when they spend every hour of the day marching around in a ghostly clone-suit, can I track down and kill (or hold captive against their Astral self) their real flesh-and-bone body?

Assuming they aren't magically protected via Non-detection. mind blank, or alternative means, a number of divination spells can find their location. Scrying (If you have it narrowed down to a plane, otherwise they get +5 on the save), Contact Other Plane (Gods and Demi-Gods generally are able to find someone or know where they are), Discern Location (Unless they have mind blank), all of those could work.

[Flickerdart]

Note that by RAW, Astral Projection only works on the Material Plane: "You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation... If the second body or the astral form is slain, the cord simply returns to your body where it rests on the Material Plane, thereby reviving it from its state of suspended animation. " Therefore, wherever the party's bodies are, they are not in an impregnable demiplane. Possibly, they might carry their own bodies to said demiplane after projecting, but since the spell only revives you from suspended animation while on the Material Plane, at best they'd need someone to bring the bodies back out after they die, and at worst they're trapped that way forever.

[Crake]

using something like Planar Binding to draw the wizard's real body into the circle

You mean like this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)?

Just make your own demiplane, then everything is considered extraplanar, including the wizard's original body, no save, no SR, just bam. That said, if his real body is wearing some kind of permanent dimensional anchor item, then there's just no way to get it, and if he's storing his body on a demiplane, you'll probably have a hard time getting there, although I suppose it's reasonable to assume that a wish, or maybe if your DM is nice a gate spell can get you there, as long as you know where "there" is.

[TuggyNE]

Just make your own demiplane, then everything is considered extraplanar, including the wizard's original body, no save, no SR, just bam.

Be aware that at this point RAW legalism might stop the plan, since (lesser/greater) planar binding have weird interactions with [extraplanar], as detailed in Dysfunctional Rules I, p46.

[Scow2]

That gets into some interesting planar questions, which are.......interestingly covered in the core rules.

I don't think so?

Actually, there's no reason you can't.
First off: The silvery cord is always present, and attached to both bodies, regardless of where they are. The cord's just invisible and incorporeally attached to the body when it's on any plane other than the astral plane. The only way you travel between planes with Astral Projection is through the Astral Plane, so you still have that cord connecting your body through all three involved planes (The material plane, the Astral plane, and the destination plane). If you can travel to and from astral plane yourself, you can follow the cord like any other cord (Assuming you can see it). While a Silver Sword can only cut cords while on the Astral Plane, neither the body nor the wizard's projected spirit need to be on the plane. It can cut the cord on the Astral plane (Githyanki? More like Gankyathi).

Also, if the wizard has Dimensional Anchor, he can't use Astral Projection.
That said, if his real body is wearing some kind of permanent dimensional anchor item, then there's just no way to get it.
If he has a permanent Dimensional Anchor, he can't use Astral Projection.

[Carth]

Actually, there's no reason you can't.
First off: The silvery cord is always present, and attached to both bodies, regardless of where they are. The cord's just invisible and incorporeally attached to the body when it's on any plane other than the astral plane. The only way you travel between planes with Astral Projection is through the Astral Plane, so you still have that cord connecting your body through all three involved planes (The material plane, the Astral plane, and the destination plane). If you can travel to and from astral plane yourself, you can follow the cord like any other cord (Assuming you can see it). While a Silver Sword can only cut cords while on the Astral Plane, neither the body nor the wizard's projected spirit need to be on the plane. It can cut the cord on the Astral plane (Githyanki? More like Gankyathi).


This is not correct. Crack open MotP, a silver cord only trails behind the traveler for a few feet before disappearing.

[ArcturusV]

Ah, but the spell itself says the cord is always there. Invisible and ethereal, but there. So See Invisibility, you'd be able to see it. I'm not sure if the 'Disappear' you mention however just refers to the Invisibility, or the No Longer There sort. However since the whole point of the Silver Cords of the Astral plane is to tie your spirit to your body so you don't get lost and wander forever... I'm thinking the former.

[tyckspoon]

My main question is how to find their real body. How, when they spend every hour of the day marching around in a ghostly clone-suit, can I track down and kill (or hold captive against their Astral self) their real flesh-and-bone body?

Wish yourself there. As long as you can unambiguously identify where you want to end up ("Next to the primary body of the Wizard Astral The Projector, greatest foe of Prime The Material, yadda yadda..") no printed effect I know of can stop you from using Wish to get somewhere- that 'regardless of local conditions' clause on this use of Wish is incredibly broad. You don't necessarily have to even know where it is you actually want to wind up.

(Personally, I'd either change this power of Wish or build it into the world- everything capable of casting Wish exists in a sort of 'an armed society is a polite society' detente, because if you piss somebody/thing off to the extent that they are willing to expend Wishes on you it is intensely difficult to really defend against a well-executed Wish gank.)

[TuggyNE]

(Personally, I'd either change this power of Wish or build it into the world- everything capable of casting Wish exists in a sort of 'an armed society is a polite society' detente, because if you piss somebody/thing off to the extent that they are willing to expend Wishes on you it is intensely difficult to really defend against a well-executed Wish gank.)

"Intensely difficult" as in "arguably one of the larger unsolved problems of TO". (Well, without turning all possible targets into Monty or something.)