Ways to put a soul (PC) into a construct.

[Jiruharudo]

Ladies and gentlegiants,

Im working on a character that builds constructs and devices. (Effigy Master/Artificer-esque)

Follower of Gond, and i want to make him an old man. Like really old. And frail.

And thus he made a construct body (perhaps several) and put is soul inside that construct while keeping his old frail body in a box (not to be confused with coffin)

The real question here is ..How?

I figure an adaptation of Magic Jar could do the trick. But its vague, since construct don't have a soul to trade.

Any suggestions?

[Pugwampy]

Normally i would suggest sell your soul to a devil but since you are using that currency umm...

Buy your DM a double cheese and bacon burger , and then beg him for that .

[Thurbane]

I'm not overly familiar with the Psionic Sandwich trick, but if you can put your consciousness into food, I'm sure you could put it into a Construct...

[Âmesang]

I'd like to think a variant magic jar could be used; that's the fun thing about spell research, after all.

…at least I hope so, 'cause I've a character who needs to transfer an ancient spellcaster's soul from a crystal sphere to a new body in order to communicate with him (apparently shattering the sphere won't release his soul as trap the soul would, and he's been trapped for so long that no form of resurrection will reconstitute him).

[Thurbane]

Reading up on the Psionic Sandwich trick, would this work:

Polymorph Any Object on a construct of your choice to turn it into a Human (or other similar being)
Use Magic Jar to get your soul into the newly created human - there's shenanigans involving casting it twice that make the effect permanent (see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15173473&postcount=14))
One the PAO runs out, your mind/soul is still inside the Construct

I also believe there's a Dragonlance specific spell or item that lets you jump into another body, too, but I'm having trouble finding it.

[MisterKaws]

Using PAO would likely turn you into mindless as soon as the polymorph ended.

Just use Awaken Construct and them try to either cheese Magic Jar or do a True Mind Switch with some psionic cheese.

I'd advise the use of Thought Bottles to immediately kill the old body and ignore the possible level loss, plus the XP costs.

[Segev]

I figure an adaptation of Magic Jar could do the trick. But its vague, since construct don't have a soul to trade.

Any suggestions?

Acually, magic jar works as written. Even without a soul to "trade," what magic jar does is send yours into the creature you choose. The jar is just left empty, rather than holding a soul, since there's nothing to exchange.

By the RAW, you can target any creature with it. The one difficulty is if your DM decides that constructs lack a "life force" for you to sense and attack. Interestingly, undead have a "life force" that just happens to be powered by negative energy, per the spell. It calls out that only sentient undead have ("or are") souls, but it actually isn't necessary that they have a soul for the spell to work, as written.

[Darrin]

Doc Roc's Commodore Guff (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?200516-3-x-I-have-brought-you-Devastation) trick should work here. Core, and much simpler than the Psionic Sandwich thing: just cast magic jar twice.

[Thurbane]

Since constructs are fairly specifically called out as non-living in the rules, I'm not sure you'd be able to sense it's life force from inside the jar so you could jump in?

Undead are the obvious comparison, and they are allowed (if intelligent) in the Magic Jar description, so maybe...


You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (alive and wounded, with 3 or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (alive with 4 or more hit points), undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct).

[MisterKaws]

Since constructs are fairly specifically called out as non-living in the rules, I'm not sure you'd be able to sense it's life force from inside the jar so you could jump in?

Undead are the obvious comparison, and they are allowed (if intelligent) in the Magic Jar description, so maybe...

So no choice but to do a True Mind Switch shuffle? That's kinda hard.

At least you can try to use Wish to just create a Power Stone for it yourself, but it'll cost A LOT of XP. Use of Thought Bottle is advised; that's an entire level's XP.

[Seppo87]

Instead of finding RAW loopholes that only make sense in a meta/tippyesque perspective wouldn't it be much easier to house rule it?

Take the Lich, remove undead stuff, insert construct stuff, gauge LA by eye adding "we're still testing it", done... ?

Please do not assume that I do not like rules loopholes, I love them. The Psionic Sandwich is one of my favorite. It's only when these things are taken seriously that I start feeling perplexed.

[MisterKaws]

Instead of finding RAW loopholes that only make sense in a meta/tippyesque perspective wouldn't it be much easier to house rule it?

Take the Lich, remove undead stuff, insert construct stuff, gauge LA by eye adding "we're still testing it", done... ?

Please do not assume that I do not like rules loopholes, I love them. The Psionic Sandwich is one of my favorite. It's only when these things are taken seriously that I start feeling perplexed.

Well, as long as the DM is fine with it and keeping an eye on the loophole's power level, I don't see why not.

[Zweisteine]

You could probably adapt Eberron's Warforged for this purpose.

There are three ways I could see this working.

The most rules-friendly way is probably the way that will suit you the least. By proceeding through the entire renegade master maker prestige class, you would essentially become a Warforged. But this takes a long time and will prevent other paths.

The slightly rules-bending method is to get a Warforged and use the magic jar trick. Ideally, the Warforged wants to be human.

The last way is probably the best, but will only work with an accommodating DM, because it essentially ignores the rules. Essentially, your character would build a Warforged body and transfer his soul to it (you might need the help of a high-level cleric to make sure nothing goes wrong). You'd have to work out how he did it (I recommend a machine with lots of tubes connecting your heads). The advantage is that by rules, this is essentially a change of race (though you might not lose all of your original racial features). In Savage Species, this can be achieved with a wish, though there may be difficulties, as that counts as an "advanced" use of the spell.

[Bakkan]

Instead of finding RAW loopholes that only make sense in a meta/tippyesque perspective wouldn't it be much easier to house rule it?

Take the Lich, remove undead stuff, insert construct stuff, gauge LA by eye adding "we're still testing it", done... ?

Please do not assume that I do not like rules loopholes, I love them. The Psionic Sandwich is one of my favorite. It's only when these things are taken seriously that I start feeling perplexed.

Easier, yes. For certain personality types (like mine) houseruling is not nearly as much fun as finding a way to do it within existing rules.

[Segev]

What if you magic jar out (into a willing or unwilling host, depending on your moral and ethical standards), cast polymorph any object on your body to transform it into a construct, and then return to your body? Your mind was outside it when the effect occurred, so your int shouldn't drop, I don't think.

[BWR]

Sounds like the soulmech from Dragonstar. Basically, an advanced robot body with a magitech element that puts someone's soul in there. No need to have any fancy extra rules for creating one, just make it a specific type of construct with some specific requirements that goes under Craft Construct. Mechanically, a Construct version of Necropolitan would be a good approximation if you don't want to dig up the "Starfarer's Handbook" for Dragonstar (something I recommend you do, because it's an awesome setting).

[Urpriest]

Come to think of it...

Awaken Construct requires a brain as a material component. Just make sure it's your brain.

[Thurbane]

What if you magic jar out (into a willing or unwilling host, depending on your moral and ethical standards), cast polymorph any object on your body to transform it into a construct, and then return to your body? Your mind was outside it when the effect occurred, so your int shouldn't drop, I don't think.

You'd need to PAO twice, to make it permanent, but that sounds good.

It doesn't exactly meet OP requirements of still having his body in stasis though.

Maybe a third PAO on the jar to make it into a copy of the original body? :smalltongue:

[Segev]

You'd need to PAO twice, to make it permanent, but that sounds good.

It doesn't exactly meet OP requirements of still having his body in stasis though.

Maybe a third PAO on the jar to make it into a copy of the original body? :smalltongue:

While I do love good cheese, I tend to fall on the side of the argument that thinks double-PAO doesn't work because the first spell's duration still ends, which puts your underlying "original" form back to normal, rendering the second form's duration-calculation impermanent.

You could get same kingdom and same class out of going for a Flesh Golem form, though, and that would also net you lower intelligence. (Even though it's a construct, it's still "animal" as opposed to "vegetable" or "mineral," and you can make it mammalian - which would be the default 'human-esq' shape anyway.)