secret chest

[Braininthejar2]

Is there any way to recover a secret chest of another caster if I have his miniature, and the "lost luggage" deadline hasn't passed yet, or is he the only one who can do it?

[Lord of Shadows]

The relevant part of the spell appears to be, "If the miniature of the chest is lost or destroyed, there is no way, even with a wish spell, that the large chest can be summoned back, although an extraplanar expedition might be mounted to find it."

If the original caster is still alive, whoever has the mini-chest is on a ticking clock until they are found. There is likely nothing they can do to recover the chest.

If the original caster has died, it is likely that the same condition as quoted above would apply. A wish or miracle might return it, or may just give a clue where it can be found.

Some DM's might house rule the Use Magic Device skill to allow an attempt, although neither 3.x nor Pathfinder (not even their "Unchained" rules) allows emulating a specific creature.

Hopefully some others will chime in with ideas...

[Thurbane]

I can just imagine there is a mass of chests floating on the Ethereal, like the Great Pacific garbage gyre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch).

[Phhase]

Since the chest is more or less the key to the lock, I don't really see why another caster couldn't retrieve the chest if in possession of it. Although I would rule the the caster must know the spell in order to.

[Lord of Shadows]

I can just imagine there is a mass of chests floating on the Ethereal, like the Great Pacific garbage gyre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch).

LOL

I did come across this over on RPG Stack Exchange: What happens to the contents of Secret Chest when the caster dies (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/100239/what-happens-to-the-contents-of-leomunds-secret-chest-when-the-caster-dies)?

The basic response was: "The chest is only "irretrievably lost" once the effect of the spell ends. Until that point, it is hidden on the Ethereal Plane. While the nature of that hiding is unspecified, it certainly seems possible that you could travel to the Ethereal Plane and look for the chest there" once it becomes lost and not hidden.

There was also some additional content. Apparently in the module Dwellers of the Forbidden City there is an NPC wizard with a secret chest and the text states that, "the players may summon the chest using the miniature chest the wizard has."

[DarkSoul]

Incantatrix 8 should be able to Snatch control of it if they have the miniature chest.

[Jowgen]

The Ethereal plane is a vast place. It has layers to it, most of them falling into the Deep Ethereal, where stuff like the Ethergaunts (FF) live, and the actual prison of bloody Tharduzin is hidden. Plus, the Spirit World form OA might be one of the layers depending on how it is worked into the cosmology, if at all.

Now from the spell description we know that the chest isn't in some corner that is impossible to reach within the ethereal. The magic of the spell keeps it concealed from denizens of the plane of the plane for a time (it couldn't guarantee traceability for the initial period otherwise), and after that it can be tracked down with effort. What does this effort look like?

Well, considering you can't just wander around looking for it (with any statistically significant chance of success) you'll almost invariably have to rely on some form of divination magic. Locate object has too short a range and arguably doesn't work across layers. Discern Location seems like it should work, provided you have the miniature.

The Planar Tracking feat might work. A Gate Compass (PlH p. 83) might similarly be able to get you close enough for Locate Object to work, if you have the miniature. Both are kinda grey area.

[Braininthejar2]

Discern Location seems like it should work,

In what circumstances would it yield useful information? It gives the location as a sentence. In a prime material, "in the drwo city of Zxyggalar, under the high priestess Devra's bed" is sufficiently descriptive. In an infinite plane, not so much, especially if the chest is drifting somewhere away from recognisable landmarks.

Also not being able to bring the chest back is an interesting limitation of Wish. How does that work? Are you normally unable to wish an object to you if you don't know it's approximate location?

[Lord of Shadows]

Also not being able to bring the chest back is an interesting limitation of Wish. How does that work? Are you normally unable to wish an object to you if you don't know it's approximate location?

There is always the old switcheroo where, if the wish can't bring the object to you, maybe it can take you to the object. With associated consequences, of course...