So I've been toying with an idea for a while of a Necro Wizard who uses Clone to remain immortal. At a whopping 1800 years old (Give or take a few years) she has quite the arsenal in her spell book, notably Magic Jar and Soul Cage. So the concept was to create a necromancer that takes a hostage, removes their soul in one fashion or another and cages it. Then, since the target does not have a soul and (per my DM and my logic) wouldn't make a saving throw, their body would be mine for the taking. In the instance I favored most, a Goliath body that is strong enough to carry my necromancer in a coffin of some sort on his back and still able to wield weapons and such due to a 'large' creature's carrying capacity.
So now comes the concern I have. While there are a great many ways to remove a soul from a body without death, I was wondering if anyone would be able to reasonably assume that death wouldn't be a possible factor. Say, a killing, but otherwise none fatal blow slays the target. Perhaps years of torment and torture but keeping vital organs intact. When the victim dies, cage the soul, mend the body (likely with spells like Life Transference, and then possess it with Soul Cage.
I don't think removing the soul through any other means invokes a rot on the body, but death TYPICALLY does. Gentle Repose delays the body's decay, but pennies must be maintained on the eyes which limits sight and must be recast to maintain. There is Revivify that technically does not have the text inclusion of "If the soul is free and willing" but isn't available to my wizard without cross classing or delegating the task.
Thoughts?
PS. My DM thinks this body snatching thing could be OP if I use another PC specifically for a shell. Thoughts on that as well?
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
I think this would kind of be along the lines of a Lich after they revive. It all sounds full proof, but I’m not looking at all of it closely to argue against it.
If your DM is letting you, I would just go with it. If you do find any kinks in the chain, just homebrew a spell that lets you be able to do so.
It doesn’t sound that far off from what I have done for some of my players. One, a dwarf, has Aasimar blood which lets him use their powers for a time. Another morphs with his wolf to get stronger and fast for a few turns. Then I have some that had blood of other races like the dwarf and get minor things from them.
Its all how your DM will let you get away with it and what you can think up.
Well he won' let me lol. We did have a ruling saying there couldn' be a save if the body had no soul at the time and that' the premise im going on. Is that I need more situations where I can set up those souless situations. The original concept was derived from a backstory idea that my wizard was in a previous group where a goliath lost his soul via a deck of many things and I took his body until we could find it.
Also lich live through some other means involving undeath and souls. This is closer to say orochimaru in naruto.
Lol, he's worried because I am good at finding a way to weave various skills and feats together to make a vastly overpowered character. He's right to be worried lol.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
If your goal is to be a body snatching wizard, magic jar is really your only option short of further house ruling on your DM's part. And it should be noted that magic jar can't be used on corpses due to them being treated as objects, so if your idea was to easily possess the dead then your DM has to further dig their own grave (har har) by letting you do that. But regardless of such, you can easily possess bodies if you either target low CHA humanoids or use feeblemind beforehand (hopefully on low INT humanoids). Of course, you will have to repair your new body afterward and honestly if your only goal is immortality then you could use that 8th-level spell slot much more effectively with clone.
As for body snatching potentially being overpowered, it's about as overpowered as your DM allows. For example, the material component could be fairly hard to come by if your DM wants it to be. And even if your DM doesn't make a point to keep such things out of your Orochimaru hands, it's still pretty costly. So really you shouldn't be doing this trick a ton and even if you somehow are, your DM can always do as I said with the material component or start getting really nasty by targeting your body and/or whatever becomes your container. But there are loads of safety measures you can employ to mitigate such a reaction, though I'd recommend not carting your body around with you in such an obvious fashion as you risk it being destroyed fairly easily regardless of your DM's inclinations to screw with you.
If your goal is to be a body snatching wizard, magic jar is really your only option short of further house ruling on your DM's part. And it should be noted that magic jar can't be used on corpses due to them being treated as objects, so if your idea was to easily possess the dead then your DM has to further dig their own grave (har har) by letting you do that. But regardless of such, you can easily possess bodies if you either target low CHA humanoids or use feeblemind beforehand (hopefully on low INT humanoids). Of course, you will have to repair your new body afterward and honestly if your only goal is immortality then you could use that 8th-level spell slot much more effectively with clone.
As for body snatching potentially being overpowered, it's about as overpowered as your DM allows. For example, the material component could be fairly hard to come by if your DM wants it to be. And even if your DM doesn't make a point to keep such things out of your Orochimaru hands, it's still pretty costly. So really you shouldn't be doing this trick a ton and even if you somehow are, your DM can always do as I said with the material component or start getting really nasty by targeting your body and/or whatever becomes your container. But there are loads of safety measures you can employ to mitigate such a reaction, though I'd recommend not carting your body around with you in such an obvious fashion as you risk it being destroyed fairly easily regardless of your DM's inclinations to screw with you.
Well, I was trying to have a live body by reviving them somehow but that at least rules out the gentle repose idea. So that just leaves pulling souls out of bodies. I honestly did not think of feeblemind, that was a slick idea. I always thought of eliminating the roll entirely but if I can' have that, feeblemind is good too. I also considered geas or suggestion on a grave cleric for revivify
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
I posted this on GD with little response.
So I've been toying with an idea for a while of a Necro Wizard who uses Clone to remain immortal. At a whopping 1800 years old (Give or take a few years) she has quite the arsenal in her spell book, notably Magic Jar and Soul Cage. So the concept was to create a necromancer that takes a hostage, removes their soul in one fashion or another and cages it. Then, since the target does not have a soul and (per my DM and my logic) wouldn't make a saving throw, their body would be mine for the taking. In the instance I favored most, a Goliath body that is strong enough to carry my necromancer in a coffin of some sort on his back and still able to wield weapons and such due to a 'large' creature's carrying capacity.
So now comes the concern I have. While there are a great many ways to remove a soul from a body without death, I was wondering if anyone would be able to reasonably assume that death wouldn't be a possible factor. Say, a killing, but otherwise none fatal blow slays the target. Perhaps years of torment and torture but keeping vital organs intact. When the victim dies, cage the soul, mend the body (likely with spells like Life Transference, and then possess it with Soul Cage.
I don't think removing the soul through any other means invokes a rot on the body, but death TYPICALLY does. Gentle Repose delays the body's decay, but pennies must be maintained on the eyes which limits sight and must be recast to maintain. There is Revivify that technically does not have the text inclusion of "If the soul is free and willing" but isn't available to my wizard without cross classing or delegating the task.
Thoughts?
PS. My DM thinks this body snatching thing could be OP if I use another PC specifically for a shell. Thoughts on that as well?
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
I think this would kind of be along the lines of a Lich after they revive. It all sounds full proof, but I’m not looking at all of it closely to argue against it.
If your DM is letting you, I would just go with it. If you do find any kinks in the chain, just homebrew a spell that lets you be able to do so.
It doesn’t sound that far off from what I have done for some of my players. One, a dwarf, has Aasimar blood which lets him use their powers for a time. Another morphs with his wolf to get stronger and fast for a few turns. Then I have some that had blood of other races like the dwarf and get minor things from them.
Its all how your DM will let you get away with it and what you can think up.
Well he won' let me lol. We did have a ruling saying there couldn' be a save if the body had no soul at the time and that' the premise im going on. Is that I need more situations where I can set up those souless situations. The original concept was derived from a backstory idea that my wizard was in a previous group where a goliath lost his soul via a deck of many things and I took his body until we could find it.
Also lich live through some other means involving undeath and souls. This is closer to say orochimaru in naruto.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
You could find someone you like body wise and groom them for you. Maybe do this like a love interest that just gives you their body.
Free the bodies and make them into glaciers until your ready to crack them open and take the new body out.
You have many options it just sounds like your DM is trying to make it so hard you give up on trying to do this.
Lol, he's worried because I am good at finding a way to weave various skills and feats together to make a vastly overpowered character. He's right to be worried lol.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
If your goal is to be a body snatching wizard, magic jar is really your only option short of further house ruling on your DM's part. And it should be noted that magic jar can't be used on corpses due to them being treated as objects, so if your idea was to easily possess the dead then your DM has to further dig their own grave (har har) by letting you do that. But regardless of such, you can easily possess bodies if you either target low CHA humanoids or use feeblemind beforehand (hopefully on low INT humanoids). Of course, you will have to repair your new body afterward and honestly if your only goal is immortality then you could use that 8th-level spell slot much more effectively with clone.
As for body snatching potentially being overpowered, it's about as overpowered as your DM allows. For example, the material component could be fairly hard to come by if your DM wants it to be. And even if your DM doesn't make a point to keep such things out of your Orochimaru hands, it's still pretty costly. So really you shouldn't be doing this trick a ton and even if you somehow are, your DM can always do as I said with the material component or start getting really nasty by targeting your body and/or whatever becomes your container. But there are loads of safety measures you can employ to mitigate such a reaction, though I'd recommend not carting your body around with you in such an obvious fashion as you risk it being destroyed fairly easily regardless of your DM's inclinations to screw with you.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
Necrobump, but I read a method with magic jar once that is applicable here. Just posting for posterity if others like me are searching:
1. Pick a victim.
2. Cast Magic Jar on them.
3. Move their jar outside of the 100 foot radius.
4. Walk back to your still living, soulless body.
5. Cast Magic Jar on your old body!
6. Cancel Magic Jar #1; You return to your original body (Already there); Victim dies for being too far.
7. Cancel Magic Jar #2; You return to your "Home" body, aka the victim.
8. Enjoy your new lease on life.
This would fail at step 5. As your body is an invalid target for the spell.
This is old lore from before the Spell Plague but an item like this could be what you’re looking for in concept.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ghearufu