Is Magic Jar just the most awesome spell

[yorkshiredave]

It use to be incredibly good in e3.5 but now the duration has become unlimited, all you need do is not get caught in a slain body and you and your familiar can create remote mayhem indefinitely.

[Morukai]

It's a risky proposition. You have to save against your own DC if the body you inhabit dies, and you better be within 100' of your original body (which also better not be destroyed).

It's also not a good idea to let an abjurer figure out what's going on, because they'll dispel it (and, again, you had better be within 100' of your original, healthy body, or you die).

Why would your familiar have anything to do with mayhem here?

[Daishain]

It is indeed fairly neat, but it does come with some drawbacks

Perhaps most notable, your body won't last forever while you're mucking about. Once its gone, the next time you get hit with a dispel, or walk into an AMF, you're dead. The same holds true if you leave the area where your body was left.

I came up with a workaround for this via the imprisonment spell, but it requires some DM interpretation.

[Segev]

I'm personally bugged that being forced out of the borrowed body needs your original body nearby; all it should take is the gem. It's not mind-swap; it's magic jar.

[Fwiffo86]

Pretty sure this would start an argument about magical theory. Sorry, I didn't attend the College of Eight Candles, or Hogwartz, or even take online transmutation classes.

[mr_odd]

Pretty sure this would start an argument about magical theory. Sorry, I didn't attend the College of Eight Candles, or Hogwartz, or even take online transmutation classes.

It's okay. Alexandria's School of the Arcane Arts has a terrific program online. Tuition isn't bad and if you put in some extra work, you can get a masters in your school of choice in four years.

[MaxWilson]

It use to be incredibly good in e3.5 but now the duration has become unlimited, all you need do is not get caught in a slain body and you and your familiar can create remote mayhem indefinitely.

How and how often is this better than creating remote mayhem in your own body with a Disguise Self active?

P.S. I'll give you this: Magic Jar + Clone is nice.

[Daishain]

How and how often is this better than creating remote mayhem in your own body with a Disguise Self active?

That's easy enough.

When you get caught doing mayhem, you have a patsy literally right there to take both the blame and the beating for you.

If you need to kill a monarch for instance, no disguise spell in the world will let you escape a horde of angry guards running towards you after the deed is done. But careful preparation with magic jar will.

[MaxWilson]

That's easy enough.

When you get caught doing mayhem, you have a patsy literally right there to take both the blame and the beating for you.

how often this comes into play is pretty close to directly a function of how risky your plans are.

So we're talking about intrigue and not combat, right? The downside is that the patsy knows where your magic jar is and has seen everything happening. If you'd just kidnapped him and Disguise Self'ed yourself, you'd still have a patsy, and that patsy would be totally ignorant. I see some advantages to Magic Jar here but they are minor--I'm not seeing any abuse potential.

Edit: just saw your edit.


If you need to kill a monarch for instance, no disguise spell in the world will let you escape a horde of angry guards running towards you after the deed is done. But careful preparation with magic jar will.

Dimension Door has a range greater than Magic Jar. I'd rather be 500' away than 100'.

[Daishain]

So we're talking about intrigue and not combat, right? The downside is that the patsy knows where your magic jar is and has seen everything happening. If you'd just kidnapped him and Disguise Self'ed yourself, you'd still have a patsy, and that patsy would be totally ignorant. I see some advantages to Magic Jar here but they are minor--I'm not seeing any abuse potential.

Edit: just saw your edit.



Dimension Door has a range greater than Magic Jar. I'd rather be 500' away than 100'.
Combat works pretty well too, just need to abandon ship before the host gets killed.

as for the latter, I'd rather be 100' away with no one looking for me than 500' away with an entire kingdom doing exactly that. Even if your fall guy isn't just killed on the spot, and if his claims of having been possessed are believed, it will take likely hours for them to confirm his story. Plenty of time to erase your remaining tracks and be well on your way.

[MaxWilson]

Combat works pretty well too, just need to abandon ship before the host gets killed.

as for the latter, I'd rather be 100' away with no one looking for me than 500' away with an entire kingdom doing exactly that. Even if your fall guy isn't just killed on the spot, and if his claims of having been possessed are believed, it will take likely hours for them to confirm his story. Plenty of time to erase your remaining tracks and be well on your way.

I'd rather be 500' away with the whole kingdom looking for someone else whom I've been impersonating up until after I teleported away. Magic Jar is superior for foiling Truesight, but otherwise I don't see the advantage.

If your fall guy gets killed on the spot, that suggests he was weak enough that you could have been killed on the spot too, since you were using his stats for the murder.

[rlc]

i guess that it would be considered a corner case, but it seems like it would be worth using if you wanted to get rid of both the monarch and the person you possessed.

[MaxWilson]

i guess that it would be considered a corner case, but it seems like it would be worth using if you wanted to get rid of both the monarch and the person you possessed.

I was about to say, "Dominate Person works just as well," but then I remembered that Dominate Person no longer works for days and weeks, but only a few seconds at a time. So yes, Magic Jar is the new Dominate Person.

[Eslin]

Most of the vulnerabilities can be circumvented by having find steed be the magic jar swapper. Doesn't matter if it dies, it just comes back!

[EugeneVoid]

Btw what is the big deal with Find Steed?

[MaxWilson]

Btw what is the big deal with Find Steed?

The fact that "any spell which targets only you also affects your steed". RAI this is for Fly/Haste/Invisibility/etc., but some people try to abuse it in horrifying ways. AFB so I can't remember if Magic Jar targets self or something else (the container?), but hopefully that answers your question.

[Eslin]

The fact that "any spell which targets only you also affects your steed". RAI this is for Fly/Haste/Invisibility/etc., but some people try to abuse it in horrifying ways. AFB so I can't remember if Magic Jar targets self or something else (the container?), but hopefully that answers your question.

Magic jar targets self, though if your DM decides that returning to your living body ends the spell for both you and the mount you basically have to kill yourself to get the spell to work.


Btw what is the big deal with Find Steed?

Lets you share self targeting spells. As above, it's nominally for buffs like haste and fly, but bards get access to every spell in the game and can get some pretty interesting combos going.

[MaxWilson]

Lets you share self targeting spells. As above, it's nominally for buffs like haste and fly, but bards get access to every spell in the game and can get some pretty interesting combos going.

You don't have to be a bard, you could just be a 17th level wizard and Wish for Find Steed.

[Eslin]

You don't have to be a bard, you could just be a 17th level wizard and Wish for Find Steed.

This is true, but bards can start such combos at 6 rather than 17.

[MaxWilson]

This is true, but bards can start such combos at 6 rather than 17.

Yep, just wanted to mention it in case anyone is playing a high-level campaign.

[Rezby]

Any of those pocket plane/demi plane spells or a bag of holding could lead to some interesting magic jar options, supposing the DM doesn't hate you.

[Shining Wrath]

This is true, but bards can start such combos at 6 rather than 17.

Sorcerers also get Wish, and considering their limited number of spells known it's even more useful for them than for Wizards.

Important note regarding Find Steed is that the spell must TARGET self only, which is not at all the same as RANGE self. The PHB uses "Self" as a range, but that means an effect emanates out from the caster, not that the caster is the only target.

[Aldurin]

I just always saw Magic Jar as upgrading your necromancer from "that goth guy in the party that makes corpses move" to "literally a mech pilot" if you can find an undead large enough for you to hollow out the torso and stuff your body in, covering the hole with armor and then assuming direct control of the undead. Now with the duration is off the charts so you can just have your familiar shove food into your unconscious body to keep you alive while you run around as a giant undead with spellcasting abilities.

[Grayson01]

I just always saw Magic Jar as upgrading your necromancer from "that goth guy in the party that makes corpses move" to "literally a mech pilot" if you can find an undead large enough for you to hollow out the torso and stuff your body in, covering the hole with armor and then assuming direct control of the undead. Now with the duration is off the charts so you can just have your familiar shove food into your unconscious body to keep you alive while you run around as a giant undead with spellcasting abilities.

AFB at the moment: But doesn't magic jar put your body in statis?

[Likantropos]

Diviner Wizard + True Polmorph + Something big and nasty + Magic Jar. Anyone wants to be a dragon?