Find steed + magic jar

[Eslin]

Find steed shares self targeted spells with your steed while you're mounted.

Magic jar targets yourself.

Cast magic jar, return to your own body, have your horse possess your choice of enemy humanoids (it gets any abilities not based on class levels, which is most of them).

Enjoy the 5E version of the leadership feat!

[pwykersotz]

Nice trick. Offhand, I don't see anything RAW that would stop this, except for the ambiguity of whether you control your mounts soul to tell it what to possess. It also costs 500gp per attempt, but that's a deterrent, not a show stopper.

[Grynning]

Now you have a possessed humanoid with the mind and temperament of a talking horse or dog with an Int of 6. The steed-possessing-a-humanoid would still probably act like a horse or a dog. Which is amusing but not very practical.

[hymer]

It seems to pair classes with little in common. Paladin 5 to get Find Steed, and Wizard 11 to get Magic Jar. Or are they on other lists? I wish the spell descriptions would say who can cast them.

[Callin]

Couldnt straight Bard do it?

[hymer]

Couldnt straight Bard do it?

The Lore college gives two spells from any list (note the singular), but at level 6, so 3rd level or less. So, I guess not.

[Eslin]

Nice trick. Offhand, I don't see anything RAW that would stop this, except for the ambiguity of whether you control your mounts soul to tell it what to possess. It also costs 500gp per attempt, but that's a deterrent, not a show stopper.

You don't exactly control your mount's soul, but 'unusually intelligent, strong and loyal', 'you have an instinctive bond that lets you fight as a seamless unit', 'communicate with it telepathically' - I'd say it possesses who you want it to unless there's a good reason for it not to.


Now you have a possessed humanoid with the mind and temperament of a talking horse or dog with an Int of 6. The steed-possessing-a-humanoid would still probably act like a horse or a dog. Which is amusing but not very practical.

'you summon a spirit that assumes the form of', 'takes on a form you choose' - the spirit is used to assuming forms to serve you, it isn't the spirit of a dog or horse.


The Lore college gives two spells from any list (note the singular), but at level 6, so 3rd level or less. So, I guess not.

So, I guess so. Magical aptitude gives spells at 10, 14 and 18 as well.

[Grynning]

'you summon a spirit that assumes the form of', 'takes on a form you choose' - the spirit is used to assuming forms to serve you, it isn't the spirit of a dog or horse.


It doesn't give any stats for the spirit besides those of the animal though, and it's intelligence is still set at 6 with the Wis and Cha of the mount form you had it take.
This is also something that while it *may* work by RAW (which is extremely dubious, and it's obviously not RAI on the spell) that will never happen at a table with a sane DM.

[Eslin]

It doesn't give any stats for the spirit besides those of the animal though, and it's intelligence is still set at 6 with the Wis and Cha of the mount form you had it take.
This is also something that while it *may* work by RAW (which is extremely dubious, and it's obviously not RAI on the spell) that will never happen at a table with a sane DM.

Its int is set at 6 if it's lower than that naturally - you can get smarter mounts. And int 6 is sentient, so it'll be functional. It just needs the wisdom to get stuff done, you can do the thinking for it, what with being telepathically bonded.

And it's not dubious whether it works RAW - find steed lets you share self cast stuff with your mount, magic jar is self cast. What's the problem?

[Grynning]

And it's not dubious whether it works RAW - find steed lets you share self cast stuff with your mount, magic jar is self cast. What's the problem?

Magic jar is pretty clear that it is not intended to have multiple "origin" bodies in play. Two souls can't both occupy the jar simultaneously, as stated by the last paragraph of the spell, and there's no rule that states if you get to choose when you and your "spirit steed's soul" would enter it. The spell would probably fail right away with both of you getting bounced back to your bodies when you cast it, since they would both try to enter the jar and be unable to because there can't be two souls in it at once. It's also highly debatable as to whether a summoned creature of any kind has a soul to put into the jar (since souls are an actual rules construct in D&D - note the stipulations on the various resurrection spells).

[Eslin]

Magic jar is pretty clear that it is not intended to have multiple "origin" bodies in play. Two souls can't both occupy the jar simultaneously, as stated by the last paragraph of the spell, and there's no rule that states if you get to choose when you and your "spirit steed's soul" would enter it. The spell would probably fail right away with both of you getting bounced back to your bodies when you cast it, since they would both try to enter the jar and be unable to because there can't be two souls in it at once. It's also highly debatable as to whether a summoned creature of any kind has a soul to put into the jar (since souls are an actual rules construct in D&D - note the stipulations on the various resurrection spells).

The last paragraph says nothing about two souls not being able to enter the same jar, most likely because the designers never thought of it. Nor does any paragraph.

And the summoned creature is pretty much nothing BUT a soul, it just takes the form of a mount for you. Hence it being uniquely adapted to take over someone else's body, a nice little bonus.

[Grynning]

Well, have fun trying to talk a DM into letting it work. Would not fly at 99% of the tables out there. It's just silly RAW abuse like people used to talk about all the time on the 3.5 boards but that never actually saw play for the same reason.

Note: I am not anti-RAW per se, and you'll see me answering questions in the RAW FAQ all the time. But there's a difference between following RAW when it's important for the system, and abusing it when it's poorly worded and ill-conceived.

[Eslin]

Except it isn't. For stuff like lightning bolt and cone of cold, yeah, even if it's technically RAW it's obviously just loophole abusing.

But find steed is supposed to let you share self cast stuff - what's the problem with searching for the really interesting self cast stuff and letting your mount do it too?

[Grynning]

But find steed is supposed to let you share self cast stuff - what's the problem with searching for the really interesting self cast stuff and letting your mount do it too?

I'm fairly certain you're being sarcastic, but I'll bite, why not? Magic Jar is a only a "self" range spell because of what it says on the entry. Its effect is not only on yourself, as you later attempt possession which causes a saving throw. You are reading the letter of the rules, but ignoring the intent, which is that you use the spell to possess another body yourself, not to put summoned critter spirits into and turn into minions.
This "combo" you've come up with creates a situation where you are able to, potentially, completely remove an enemy and gain a somewhat powerful ally without taking any of the risk associated with the spell. It's definitely abusive. It also requires building an otherwise suboptimal character specifically around this two-spell combo, which indicates that it was not intended by design. Is it as overpowered as some 9th level spells? Eh, probably not, but you can do it a level earlier and it's something that would be irritating to the DM and probably to other players, so attempting to use it would be, in my opinion, demonstrative of a lack of consideration for the other people at the table.

[Eslin]

Honestly, it's not really suboptimal - you want find steed as a bard anyway, so you're only blowing one other spell on magic jar. And there are plenty of uses for the horse while you're riding it, spells like produce flame and vampiric touch are self cast and let the horse double your fun with them.

And yes, it allows you to avoid the risk of the spell. That's the entire point of the combo - magic jar has a dozen ways to kill you, so you get the horse to do it instead of you. It's no different from sending the horse out to trigger traps so they don't get you.

[hymer]

Magical aptitude gives spells at 10, 14 and 18 as well.

Oh, right. Silly me.

[Eslin]

Seriously, the whole 'anyone's spell list' thing is just as good as it would have been in 3.5. Every class has a few really good spells (find mount, swift quiver, contagion, arcane gate, animate dead), and bard gets to pick and choose the lot.

[Callin]

The Lore college gives two spells from any list (note the singular), but at level 6, so 3rd level or less. So, I guess not.

I was Away from Book when I asked cus I remember them getting an ability to get other spells.

10th lvl Magical Secrets gives 2 spells from any list, again at 14th and again at 18th. Regular Bard not even College of Lore. So yea Bard could do it.

and Ninja'd cus I most likely glossed over it... sorry haha

[NightofOnions]

Ok, so, most Dms would probably disallow this without giving it much thought. However, there is a reason why this doesn't work RAW (though I did have to read the spell a few times to find it). The first paragraph in the spell description says the following:


The only action you can take is to project your soul up to 100 feet out of the container, either returning to your living body (and ending the spell) or attempting to possess a humanoids body

So basically once you return to your own body, the spell immediately ends. End of story. Then, at the bottom of the spell description it tells us what happens to everyone's souls when the spell ends.


If the container is destroyed or the spell ends, your soul immediately returns to your body ... If another creature's soul is in the container when it is destroyed, the creature's soul returns to its body if the body is alive and within 100 feet.

Everyone goes back to their own bodies when the spell ends. It doesn't matter if you were in the middle of possessing someone; you are sent back to your body and whoever's soul is in the container is sent back to his/her. Nothing in the spell suggests the same wouldn't happen to your steed's soul so we can assume the whole process is a wash and everyone goes back to their own bodies.

Trying to use the spell in the way you described does nothing but waste 500gp (the container is destroyed when the spell ends) and make someone really angry. That said, there is really nothing RAW that says you can't possess two bodies at once by using your stead. So if your dm is cool with that, knock yourself out but RAI it seems pretty obvious the spell is really just supposed to affect you and a single target especially since the spell specifically prevents you from leaping from body to body and forces you to go back to the container whenever you want to possess someone new.

[Eslin]

I can only see one way around that, other than getting the DM to rule that ending the spell on you doesn't end it on your horse, and it's pretty hardcore.

Cast harm on yourself, drop your maximum hit points low. Cast a contingent damage spell, targeting yourself - lightning bolt, for style, just make sure it's enough to instantly kill you. Make the condition 'the exact instant I cast magic jar on myself and my steed, before my soul leaves my body'. The spell targets you, but you're dead before it can come into effect, so your steed's the only target - now have the party cleric cast revivify on you and enjoy having murdered yourself just to make a spell work.
God I missed the 3.5 style asspull maneuvering :smallbiggrin:




Or just do what I planned to do with magic jar anyway, and permanently steal the body of someone with better stats than you. Then put your body and the gem in a demiplane or teleport both to the moon or something. Or if your DM's particularly dispel happy, just carry your body around/put it in a bag of holding and cast contingent contagion (slimy doom) (dispel condition: my soul is no longer in this body) on yourself.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Pretty sure this is actually useless because the Find Steed spell uses "also" in reference to self targeting spells such that it targets you and the horse together not you and the horse separately.

Ergo with Magic Jar... congrats you and your horse are now possessing one body.

[Eslin]

Except that's not how it works. Magic jar targets self, find steed lets you target the horse as well, now you're both in the gem, and you can both take actions to possess someone.

If it worked the way you're implying if you self casted haste, the horse would have to take the exact same actions you did with your extra action.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Haste is a different buff it applying to both of you wouldn't do anything else to restrict your actions. Its a 'passive' benefit for a list of effect to the target and it is made to target more then just you anyways. You wouldn't via Find Steed be able to cast it on just the horse though.

However you may still be right depending on the exact wording of Magic Jar to see if it can support both of you in the jar at once, but that's not in basic so I can't just check quickly. But you both would have to go into the jar.

[Eslin]

Yes, and then you both possess different targets.