Crake
2017-09-13, 10:00 AM
So over in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535962-How-can-a-cleric-overcome-spell-resistance-with-Power-Stones-or-Dorjes), a discussion began about the very clearly non-RAW implications of mind switching, or for that matter, possessing via the use of magic jar or other such effect, with outsiders, and other creatures that lack a dual nature: outsiders, elementals, incorporeal undead, and arguably other incorporeal creatures. I'm starting a new thread for two reasons, firstly because the discussion at hand is highly irrelevant to the thread at hand, and secondly to get the opinion of others who might be interested in the topic, but wouldn't notice behind the title of the previous thread (afroakuma's input would actually be quite great, being the expert on planes and all).
Keep in mind this is not a discussion on RAW, this is a discussion on theoretical magical fantasy metaphysics, so please refrain from using RAW as your argument for things. As we can see, RAW leads to many inconsistencies, and is generally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I'll let others read the undoctored posts over there if they want, though I'll paste the last few posts:
Understand me when I say that this is, by very clear RAW totally not how any of these effects are supposed to work, but in my games I run any kind of soul swapping, possession, or any other such effects used on creatures without a dual nature to be a very bad idea. Worst case your consciousness is lost to the ether, and your body is possessed by the creature, which may or may not be a problem for them (after all, they could just kill the body to release themselves) while you simply die, best case it simply doesn't work. Magic jar for example, you would attempt to possess the creature, it's body/soul would enter the gem, leaving you with nothing to posess, meaning your soul would go back to the gem, which would then release the creature, netting you no real effect.
I think the designers just never really considered the implications of attempting to displace the soul of a creature that lacked a dual nature.
As others have pointed out, By RAW True Mind Switch exchanges your mind and soul for their mind (not soul).
In addition, since we have type changes, the outsider turns into a dual natured creature and the caster becomes a single natured creature. How this happens is up for interpretation but nothing stops a humanoid swapping with an outsider to become an outsider, and an outsider swapping with a humanoid to become a humanoid.
I'm not gonna argue with you on the point, because as I said, by RAW, it's perfectly clear that the spell would function. I'm just giving my own personal take on the matter, because to me it makes no sense that you could swap your mind and soul for just their mind. I believe the intent there was that you swap your mind and soul for their mind and soul, because otherwise that leaves you with two souls, and them with none, which, as I said, makes no sense. The clone spell makes it quite clear that without a soul, a body is simply inert, and there's quite a lot of fluff that supports the idea that the soul is the consciousness, meaning the soul is the mind. I believe that mind switch was simply clarifying that swapping the mind also includes the soul, meaning you couldn't use mind switch to, for example, escape your fate of being damned to hell upon your death.
Again, repeatedly making it incredibly clear this is not at all RAW. By clear and obvious RAW, it works, but then, by clear and obvious RAW, you can also heal a dying man by dunking his head in water and drowning him for a round, so I wouldn't exactly treat RAW as gospel.
I understand your point, I do. The problem here is that it makes absolutely no goddamn sense that a soul can be a physical body, a living body that needs to breath at that too. It's not an incorporeal body like a ghost either. It's a body whose limbs can be chopped off and regrown indefinitely. So if I chop a Pit Fiend's arm off, is his soul split in two? Then when his limb regenerates, now his soul increased in mass or soul mass? Why i can't I turn carve that dead chopped off limb into a statue and animate it with animate object? So now we have a piece of the soul animated by a semblance of intelligence. What if I cast permanency, awaken construct, and greater humanoid essence on that animated pit fiend arm, and then true mind switch that? Now my soul is possessing a piece of rotting pit Fiend Soul and moving it about like my own body.
So the point here is, you don't nitpick, split hairs, or dissect d&d's world mechanics in hopes it would "make sense", because it never will, because the d&d authors went for simplicity and fun without even bothering to make everything make sense at the atomic level. So it's fun to think outsiders don't have the dual nature, but logically it just won't make any sense, ever, especially when interacted with all the other stuff in d&d like regeneration and stuff. In the above example I just proved a soul can possess a part of a soul that makes up a body. So likewise I can rip out the consciousness part of an outsider's soul, put it in my body, and put my soul into the body parts of his soul, and control that permanently, because if I can permanently control a piece of soul that makes up a body that is also completely separate from the pit fiend's consciousness, then no reason I can't do the same to a bigger piece, a piece so big it's the entire pit fiend body minus its mind.
Well, as per the fiendish codexes, dead outsider matter returns to it's plane of origin shortly after being killed (the outer planes literally being constructed of "soulstuff" so to speak), so the pit fiend's arm would simply dissipate, presumably weakening the pit fiend's soul as that portion of it's soul is essentially destroyed, but thanks to it's ability to regenerate, it has the ability to restore that power. A lesser fiend without regeneration would be left without that limb, and their soul as a result permanently weakened until they recieved a regenerate spell or something similar.
While I understand that some tables and players prefer a simpler experience, I enjoy understanding how things work in the game world, so when someone does ask a question like "what happens when I cut off a pit fiend's arm", I can follow a line of logic that will lead me to an answer, just like I gave you above.
DISSECTION OF A DRETCH
Dead outsider matter (dretch corpse) fully dissected and analyzed.
DEATH
...
Outside the Abyss: If a demon is killed on another plane,
its body eventually returns to the Abyss—unless trapped
through magical means, such as a dimensional anchor spell.
(See the Demonic Death Throes sidebar for more details on
how demon bodies sometimes disappear.) No matter what
happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss,
its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where
it is then be reformed as a new demon.
So according to the fiendish codex I
1. Outsider's bodies don't fall back to their plane.
2. Only their "essence" falls back to their plane.
3. Their soul is made up of essence and body, two separate things.
4. My example works the way I said it does.
5. True Mind Switch and Magic Jar displaces essence instead of the entire soul.
Carrying on from there: Lets follow this through. If we keep reading Fiendish Codex I we find this:
Capturing a dretch outside the Abyss is difficult, and keeping the creature’s body from returning to its home plane after death is almost unheard of. Even so, one ancient student of the Black Scrolls inexplicably did so and managed to document his findings.
So we know that keeping the body from dissipating is very hard/impossible to do consistently. Most fiend arms would dissipate, but ok, let's say that it doesn't. Let's say you get ahold of a dretch corpse. That corpse is essentially a destroyed soul. It's soulstuff. You could animate it with animate object, just the same as you could animate a rock on the abyss, which is likewise made up of soulstuff. What you would then have is a rock being animated by magic, which can be dispelled of course. Then, by casting awaken construct, you place a fresh soul in control of the animating magic, essentially having a soul that is controlling the animation of other soulstuff. Note that in this case, the soul in charge of the animated object is not actually controlling the object, but rather the magic cast on the object. The second that spell is dispelled, the construct returns to being an inert object.
So in this case, the animating soul is not actually within the soul matter, but rather in control of a spell cast on the soul matter. Casting mind switch on the animated object would simply replace yourself as the one controlling the animation.
So as you can see, there's a big difference between this, swapping your soul with that of a soul that is animating a "body", and trying to cast mind switch on an actual outsider (since, in this case, the "creature" is a construct, not an outsider). Since an actual outsider's mind, body and soul are all one entity, when you try to mind switch with the outsider, you don't swap with something inside the outsider, that's controlling it's body's actions, you're swapping with the outsider itself, body and everything.
I suppose you can imagine it like this: A soul is a pilot, and the body is like a suit. Casting mind switch swaps the pilots in two suits, but now if a pilot is outside of their suit, if you swap yourself with that pilot, you're just left outside without a suit. Now imagine you're powerless without your suit, but that pilot isn't, you've essentially given him your suit, made yourself powerless, and if he wants, he can destroy your suit and step out, leaving you floating about, incapable of anything, while he can return to his normal daily life. In the above example with the animated outsider corpse, that's like making a suit out of a dead body, and then putting someone else inside that suit.
Keep in mind this is not a discussion on RAW, this is a discussion on theoretical magical fantasy metaphysics, so please refrain from using RAW as your argument for things. As we can see, RAW leads to many inconsistencies, and is generally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I'll let others read the undoctored posts over there if they want, though I'll paste the last few posts:
Understand me when I say that this is, by very clear RAW totally not how any of these effects are supposed to work, but in my games I run any kind of soul swapping, possession, or any other such effects used on creatures without a dual nature to be a very bad idea. Worst case your consciousness is lost to the ether, and your body is possessed by the creature, which may or may not be a problem for them (after all, they could just kill the body to release themselves) while you simply die, best case it simply doesn't work. Magic jar for example, you would attempt to possess the creature, it's body/soul would enter the gem, leaving you with nothing to posess, meaning your soul would go back to the gem, which would then release the creature, netting you no real effect.
I think the designers just never really considered the implications of attempting to displace the soul of a creature that lacked a dual nature.
As others have pointed out, By RAW True Mind Switch exchanges your mind and soul for their mind (not soul).
In addition, since we have type changes, the outsider turns into a dual natured creature and the caster becomes a single natured creature. How this happens is up for interpretation but nothing stops a humanoid swapping with an outsider to become an outsider, and an outsider swapping with a humanoid to become a humanoid.
I'm not gonna argue with you on the point, because as I said, by RAW, it's perfectly clear that the spell would function. I'm just giving my own personal take on the matter, because to me it makes no sense that you could swap your mind and soul for just their mind. I believe the intent there was that you swap your mind and soul for their mind and soul, because otherwise that leaves you with two souls, and them with none, which, as I said, makes no sense. The clone spell makes it quite clear that without a soul, a body is simply inert, and there's quite a lot of fluff that supports the idea that the soul is the consciousness, meaning the soul is the mind. I believe that mind switch was simply clarifying that swapping the mind also includes the soul, meaning you couldn't use mind switch to, for example, escape your fate of being damned to hell upon your death.
Again, repeatedly making it incredibly clear this is not at all RAW. By clear and obvious RAW, it works, but then, by clear and obvious RAW, you can also heal a dying man by dunking his head in water and drowning him for a round, so I wouldn't exactly treat RAW as gospel.
I understand your point, I do. The problem here is that it makes absolutely no goddamn sense that a soul can be a physical body, a living body that needs to breath at that too. It's not an incorporeal body like a ghost either. It's a body whose limbs can be chopped off and regrown indefinitely. So if I chop a Pit Fiend's arm off, is his soul split in two? Then when his limb regenerates, now his soul increased in mass or soul mass? Why i can't I turn carve that dead chopped off limb into a statue and animate it with animate object? So now we have a piece of the soul animated by a semblance of intelligence. What if I cast permanency, awaken construct, and greater humanoid essence on that animated pit fiend arm, and then true mind switch that? Now my soul is possessing a piece of rotting pit Fiend Soul and moving it about like my own body.
So the point here is, you don't nitpick, split hairs, or dissect d&d's world mechanics in hopes it would "make sense", because it never will, because the d&d authors went for simplicity and fun without even bothering to make everything make sense at the atomic level. So it's fun to think outsiders don't have the dual nature, but logically it just won't make any sense, ever, especially when interacted with all the other stuff in d&d like regeneration and stuff. In the above example I just proved a soul can possess a part of a soul that makes up a body. So likewise I can rip out the consciousness part of an outsider's soul, put it in my body, and put my soul into the body parts of his soul, and control that permanently, because if I can permanently control a piece of soul that makes up a body that is also completely separate from the pit fiend's consciousness, then no reason I can't do the same to a bigger piece, a piece so big it's the entire pit fiend body minus its mind.
Well, as per the fiendish codexes, dead outsider matter returns to it's plane of origin shortly after being killed (the outer planes literally being constructed of "soulstuff" so to speak), so the pit fiend's arm would simply dissipate, presumably weakening the pit fiend's soul as that portion of it's soul is essentially destroyed, but thanks to it's ability to regenerate, it has the ability to restore that power. A lesser fiend without regeneration would be left without that limb, and their soul as a result permanently weakened until they recieved a regenerate spell or something similar.
While I understand that some tables and players prefer a simpler experience, I enjoy understanding how things work in the game world, so when someone does ask a question like "what happens when I cut off a pit fiend's arm", I can follow a line of logic that will lead me to an answer, just like I gave you above.
DISSECTION OF A DRETCH
Dead outsider matter (dretch corpse) fully dissected and analyzed.
DEATH
...
Outside the Abyss: If a demon is killed on another plane,
its body eventually returns to the Abyss—unless trapped
through magical means, such as a dimensional anchor spell.
(See the Demonic Death Throes sidebar for more details on
how demon bodies sometimes disappear.) No matter what
happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss,
its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where
it is then be reformed as a new demon.
So according to the fiendish codex I
1. Outsider's bodies don't fall back to their plane.
2. Only their "essence" falls back to their plane.
3. Their soul is made up of essence and body, two separate things.
4. My example works the way I said it does.
5. True Mind Switch and Magic Jar displaces essence instead of the entire soul.
Carrying on from there: Lets follow this through. If we keep reading Fiendish Codex I we find this:
Capturing a dretch outside the Abyss is difficult, and keeping the creature’s body from returning to its home plane after death is almost unheard of. Even so, one ancient student of the Black Scrolls inexplicably did so and managed to document his findings.
So we know that keeping the body from dissipating is very hard/impossible to do consistently. Most fiend arms would dissipate, but ok, let's say that it doesn't. Let's say you get ahold of a dretch corpse. That corpse is essentially a destroyed soul. It's soulstuff. You could animate it with animate object, just the same as you could animate a rock on the abyss, which is likewise made up of soulstuff. What you would then have is a rock being animated by magic, which can be dispelled of course. Then, by casting awaken construct, you place a fresh soul in control of the animating magic, essentially having a soul that is controlling the animation of other soulstuff. Note that in this case, the soul in charge of the animated object is not actually controlling the object, but rather the magic cast on the object. The second that spell is dispelled, the construct returns to being an inert object.
So in this case, the animating soul is not actually within the soul matter, but rather in control of a spell cast on the soul matter. Casting mind switch on the animated object would simply replace yourself as the one controlling the animation.
So as you can see, there's a big difference between this, swapping your soul with that of a soul that is animating a "body", and trying to cast mind switch on an actual outsider (since, in this case, the "creature" is a construct, not an outsider). Since an actual outsider's mind, body and soul are all one entity, when you try to mind switch with the outsider, you don't swap with something inside the outsider, that's controlling it's body's actions, you're swapping with the outsider itself, body and everything.
I suppose you can imagine it like this: A soul is a pilot, and the body is like a suit. Casting mind switch swaps the pilots in two suits, but now if a pilot is outside of their suit, if you swap yourself with that pilot, you're just left outside without a suit. Now imagine you're powerless without your suit, but that pilot isn't, you've essentially given him your suit, made yourself powerless, and if he wants, he can destroy your suit and step out, leaving you floating about, incapable of anything, while he can return to his normal daily life. In the above example with the animated outsider corpse, that's like making a suit out of a dead body, and then putting someone else inside that suit.