Magic Jar is INSANELY BROKEN in D&D 5e! - Advanced Guide to Magic Jar
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
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One combo that I've heard of, which I'm surprised wasn't mentioned, is the True Polymorph/Magic Jar combo. Essentially, you start off by casting Magic Jar on yourself. Then, you have an ally (or a Simulacrum) cast True Polymorph on your body. While True Polymorph replaces your _body's_ game statistics, your _soul_ is unaffected, since it's in the jar. That means you get to retain everything that isn't related to your body. Concentration on True Polymorph is then maintained for an hour, and once you re-enter your body, you're now permanently whatever you want, until dispelled. Clone the True Polymorphed body and revive as the Clone somehow (once the Clone matures), and the change is _guaranteed_ permanent.
While this won't result in you having as many hit points and stuff as the Possession method, there's no need to carry around a body, and if the Jar breaks, oh well. You're not tied to it anyway. The benefits of this method is that the creature you turn yourself into doesn't _have_ to be Humanoid. It can be anything whose CR you match (I'd also recommend going with a creature that possessess a Spellcasting feature, just in case, due to True Polymorph's restrictions). For instance, if you're a level 17 Wizard, you can turn yourself into an Androsphinx that can cast Antimagic Field on itself. That way, you can't be hurt by magical *_or_* non-magical attacks. Plus, you'd have the spellcasting capabilities of an Androsphinx _on top of_ your personal class features, in this situation.
The only issue with this combo, that I can see, is that it requires a 9th level spell, which means that the game's probably over by that point anyway. To circumvent this, one could always use Spell Scrolls and a very high Arcana check. You can fund these scrolls early-game via spells like Fabricate and the like. Your level might stop you from turning into an Androsphinx, possibly, but you can turn yourself into anything else whose CR you match. For example, if you're a level 11 Wizard, as in the video, you can turn yourself into Chishinix, Hashutu, Voalsh, or a Mind Flayer Clairvoyant, all from Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. All of them have both the Spellcasting feature _and_ Legendary Resistances.
You're also only one level away from turning yourself into an Adult Topaz Dragon, from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. This in turn will allow you to cast Fabricate once a day, requiring *_No Material Components._* That means you can just snap your fingers, and priceless artifacts will just magically appear in front of you. You can literally just _make money._ Plus, the Change Shape feature means that you can always just make yourself look like the old you, while retaining all the stats (except size) of the _new_ you. That way, you won't frighten every villager in a five-mile radius, whenever you need to visit the magic shop for new wands and stuff, or to sell all those rare relics that you just snapped into existence.
But Kobold, now we want to know about Nystul's Magic Aura!
TLDR: Make all of your magic items no longer magic looking or change your creature type to Ooze or Monstrosity and become immune to a large amount of spells under 5th level.
Or for this video, change any creature to humanoid and take them over. Including the tarrasque.
Spells and magical effects treat target of the spell as if they are X creature type. Step 1: convince a creature of your choice to be willing for the spell to work. Step 2: funny shenanigans with spells which didn't work on em before and which now do.
It also makes objects count as creatures if you target them. I don't recommend you do that unless your table is ready to understand how the hell does awaken work on whatever object you target.
The "maybe RAI" interpretation meanwhile makes the spell borderline useless, to the point it's barely worth a 1st level slot. There is no good way to rules it
@@gammalolman580 That is definitely not how it is intended or even written. For the purposes of detection alone, does this spell alter those things. " You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects, such as detect magic, that detect magical auras." "You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects that detect creature types"
Spells like "hold person" don't "detect" a creature type.
🐊 I might make the video for him! 🐊 -Gator
@@interactiveTodd I never said what I wrote was the RAI... But your response completely shows why the spell is something Kobold is against: the intent is unknown, and how the spell is written is even worse, leading to endless debates about how it works and how it should work. Like even if I rebuke what you say, the spell's writing is bad enough that you could make whatever "RAI" argument. Thus I won't really say anything against or in favor of whatever interpretation
Magic jar has been favourite spell D&D for about 20 years now. I love the silly things it enables.
Ah the think I got away with in 3.5
The best shenanigans I have heard involving this spell involved simulacrums using true polymorph to turn into an adult gold dragon and a ghost. The ghost attacks the dragon until it becomes ancient, then magic jar and death ward are used. And then repeat with other simulacrums. Given enough down time you could have an army of dragons.
That's hilarious.
I generally lean on the shenanigans side of interpretations but I think there is a strong RAW objection to be made to this. Magical aging can be reversed with greater restoration, however greater restoration undoes *debilitating* effects. Now, there are two ways to interpret this, given the ambiguity.
The one that is more linguistically intuitive and likely the one that most DM's will go with is thus: greater restoration only reverses debilitating effects. Haunting visage is listed as something to be cured by greater restoration, and so it must be debilitating. Empowering a dragon would not be debilitating, so haunting visage would at best not work and at worst inflict progeria on the poor baby dragon.
The alternate interpretation, however, argues that because "can" is ambiguous in English it does not mean "you have the ability to" (cure with greater restoration), but rather "you might". (Probability vs permission)
It’s like every fantasy story, where the way eldritch horrors are unleashed upon this world is not by a bunch of bearded men in identical outfits chanting around a glowing circle, but by smowmen using a spell meant for turning people into sheep in very janky ways.
Ok, hear me out:
> Magic Jar's component that you inhabit is a gemstone.
> Imprisonment's component (specifically the Minimus Containment version of it) is also a gemstone.
> Get yourself a very expensive gemstone, cast Magic Jar as normal then possess a humanoid of your choosing.
> Then cast Imprisonment on your unconscious body, trapping it within the gemstone.
> The gemstone now becomes completely indestructible and unaffected by all magic outside of a 9th Level Dispel Magic.
> Specify that the Imprisonment spell will end if your soul ever tries returning to your body.
> You now have an easy-to-carry, nigh indestructible magic jar (that also carries around your body), and even if the spells end on you, the gemstone isn't consumed and you can repeat the process all over again free of charge.
The only nitpick I have is that Magic Jar specifies it breaks the container when the spell ends so the gem will not be reusable if both spells end (but if Magic Jar ends first, I'd agree that the power of a 9th level spell overrides its destruction effect). Otherwise, yes, that would work quite well. Of course, you're well into the end/post-game by the time you can cast Imprisonment . . .
Note that the soul of whoever's body you steal is trapped in there as well...
@@BahamutEx Good point. And they aren't going to be happy with you . . .
So, the angry soul would do what? Possess your confined body?
@@prophetzarquon1922 it'd be a part of the gem itself, as the gem is the magic jar.
Without the context of Magic Jar being a level 6 spell, "A kobold rants about a magic jar for 20 minutes" just sounds like someone is filling a jar with cookies every night and the kobold doesn't know where they're coming from.
Um, I accept bottomless jars of cookies! No questions asked!
Mayhaps the jar is disappearing the cookies, maybe it’s not even magic someone’s just stealing their cookies and the kobold’s gone mad.
We all know what it is, we've read its description, we watch for the hacks
Those last few minutes probably broke most people’s brains. Well done
3:56 "You should edit that out" he did not edit that out chat. Also sadge, magic aura banned from here (understandably).
honestly, this spell is extremely powerful. Side note: some monsters can turn into humanoids while not keeping their creature type, including MM metallic dragons and some fiends. If you knock out an ancient metallic dragon in their humanoid form as Tiamat intended, you can magic jar into them!
Except it's (Magic Aura) not really that powerful. NMA explicitly talks about divination spells and effects and about changing how creatures are perceived by divinatory spells and conditional triggers (like Symbol or Glyph of Warding). The notion that a second-level spell can, without a save, change the validity of a target for any other spell is incredibly silly and clearly ignores substantial portions of the spell description that provide necessary context.
But yeah, Magic Jar, contextually, can be wild horseshit if played right.
@@KiithnarasAshaa the actual wording of the spell is weird in that it allows other interesting readings. I won't debate about it, just know that there is a reason the spell is banned from this channel
Yeah, the problem is that Magic Aura _explicitly_ changes targeting viability; its RAW wording is powerful AF for a 2nd Lvl spell.
About a month ago, I did an insane amount of research on this spell and its applications for my campaign. This video came out with comedic timing, AFTER I have watched literally every single other video on YT about Magic Jar, in addition to reading several blog posts.
This video compiles almost everything I learned perfectly. While I'm upset at the time I effectively wasted, I can definitively say that this is the best video on Magic Jar on UA-cam. Thank you.
For anyone curious, the only things not covered in this video are some very strange edgecases that are unlikely to come up anyway. Since the spell works strangely, it has some very odd interactions. That said, be covered the most useful information, and even alludes a bit to the oddities of the spell that cause these edgecases in the first place. Death Ward in particular is one of the weird interactions that doesn't get brought up often.
If you want to make magic jar even more cursed, flavor it as when you are put into the jar, you become a tiny figurine of yourself.
Very cool magic jar. I hope no 4channer gets access to it.
The fact that this spell is a CHA save is insane. Even high level, intelligent creatures often have a lacking CHA save bonus probably because the designers saw that there are hardly any spells that force a CHA save and figured it wasn't necessary. There are also a lot of really powerful creatures that are stupid so have bad mental saves, and then once you possess them you retain your mental stats so you don't also become stupid. What's even crazier is that even with no shenanigans or "tech", the way the spell is clearly designed to be used (possessing a creature) IS the strong part of the spell. This is genuinely one of those "once it's in play, you have to consider it in every single monster you make" kind of spells. As a DM, if I knew a player had this spell I would be afraid of making a really powerful creature that could be vulnerable to it because it would completely break the game.
"It's just a prank bro"
The prank:
This is one of those spells that - as I looked back to previous editions and the shenanigans they did there - I look and simply imagine the possibilities. It's a really good "Man look at how magical I am" spell. Great stuff! (If complicated)
I wanna hear about Nystul's Magic Aura so bad now. I already know how it works and what the exploits are, but I still wanna hear about it so bad.
A slight mention of the spell created a debate in the comments already so if Kobold makes a video on it the comment section will become hell.
@@gammalolman580 You're implying comment sections aren't hell by default . . . :P
Use wish as a draconic bloodline sorcerer to cast magic jar. Possess your friend. Use your bonus action to grow dragon wings. End the spell. Your friend now has dragon wings that grant a fly speed, although he lacks the ability to dismiss them with a bonus action.
Magic Jar has always been a campaign-changer. It's a bit less impressive in 5e but still pretty rad.
Almost no one plays to the levels you get it, so Magic Jar is almost exclusively a villain spell, but it's a fantastic one.
You know the video will be wiered when the first two words are 'Magic Jar'
Wiered?
I'd read that magazine
Using this to come in to a level 11 party as a champion, leading the party to believe you are a eldritch knight fighter, only to have your host body die at some point and go back into your true goblin form that you shoved into your backpack seems hilariously devious.
The Adventure Zone really said “yeah, I ain’t reading all that.”
Imagine being a Genie Warlock and using your Vessel as the container, keeping your body inside so it's always "within 100 feet" of both you and your body. The fact that the container is destroyed when the spell ends could be inconvenient though.
[Edit: Yes, I suppose it _was_ a bit naive of me not to immediately realize that some people would look at this hypothetical "imagine if you could do this" and interpret it as though I was saying "you definitely can do this".)
The one time I ever saw Nystul's Magic Aura used was in a 3.5 Edition game back in college. The wizard had obtained a dagger that was enchanted with Nystal's Magic Aura, and was going nuts trying to identify what enchantment was being hidden because no matter what he did he only got "It's enchanted with the 'nondetection' effect of Magic Aura". It turned out that no, the dagger really didn't have any other effect, and was _only_ enchanted with Nystul's Magic Aura.
You can't use an already magical vessel as a Magic Jar component
also your body is on a different plane of existence, not within 100ft
@@strahlungsopferdimension, not plane.
@@hulmhochberg8129 in DnD those terms are interchangeable, at least functionally.
@@strahlungsopfer no they are not.
And we have an example right here.
Its an extra dimensional space within the material plane. As opposed to like "demiplane" wich creates an extra dimensional space within the astral plane.
If you are high enough level, Imprisonemnt: Minimus Containment is a nice way to keep your original body safe, easily transportable, and within 100 feet of you.
Though it might not be worth it since you could just get true polymorph at that point.
i recently had a player come up with the idea that Horn of Silent Alarm does not need consent of the contacted creature. so you can just blast it in the middle of the night to annoy people you disslike. this is why i have trust issues with my players and they even tell me upfront.
Oh. My. God. A cursed _Horn of Silent Alarm_ that won't let you complete a Long Rest, would be *_brutal!_* Other people won't even know what the victim is talking about! That's Epic tier gaslighting material.
I've been pondering a _Living Spell_ of _Alarm,_ that would drive enemies away by denying them sleep.
A coven of Night Hags, a Deep Dragon, a Topaz Dragon... What else can deny a Long Rest?
That's _powerful._ I hope your player has fun with it!
Kobold is surprisingly embarrassed to be naked, given that he used to do all his early videos that way before he got his plaid.
There is of course one particularly fun tech for magic jar if your DM allows a loose interpretation of how concentration and self-targeting spells work.
Step 1: Cast magic jar.
Step 2: Possess the fighter in the party. You usually have one.
Step 3: Cast Tenser's Transformation.
Step 4: Return either to the jar or to your body.
Step 5: Watch martial stocks skyrocket.
As a DM, this is my favorite spell
Yeaaah baby, this is what I’ve waiting for!
Funny thing is if you chain the right spells together you remove all risks. Make an altar to put your body on and set it to go off on if a corpse is lying on it and put any revival spell there. Now even if you die you’d just come back to your original body if anything happens. Use a sturdy metal container so it doesn’t get destroyed quickly. When you possess someone put the container in that body and now it can’t be destroyed without killing the possed creature first and you have a few turns at least before they figure out you’re hiding in there. Anyone that tries getting close to dispose of the body and they can get possessed and implanted with the jar. Chain this with clone spell later and sequester on the original body to keep it forever safe and you’re safe forever
This spell seems like it should be on the warlock spell list
And thus we march upon [Some place], demanding a video on Nystul's Magic Aura
This is such a fun spell if everyone's on board.
MAGIC JAR VIDEO, LETSGOOOOOOO
Magic jar is one of my favorite spells
Thanks for this video! I mostly agree with your assessments. Here's where I disagree slightly (in case anyone cares about my opinion :P ).
HP (7:24): Your new body has the HP of the creature you've commandeered. Your soul retains your normal HP for those things that can either target a soul directly (are there any in vanilla D&D?) OR when you return to your own body.
Clone (16:42): I'd argue that your Jar would have to be more than 100 feet from your favored form otherwise your soul isn't "free". BUT, since you're in control of your form and the Jar's location (probably), this is probably a non-issue. I'm only mentioning the caveat because you said "without worry", implying there isn't a way to prevent the transfer.
I used this spell on one of my “boss”characters in combination with the contingency spell.
They thought they dropped him and then suddenly the fighter unloaded on the wizard and ended up killed the entire party.
It’s crazy what you can do with it
I think the not keeping any class levels of the target is for two cases. When the wizard is possessing a PC or for when a PC wizard is possessing an NPC the DM created with class levels. I think most DMs when making an NPC that is actually important will often simply make a character using the normal character creation methods if the NPC isn't a monster or something.
This feature of the spell keeps the PC wizards from stealing these NPCs classes and adding it to their own. It also keeps any NPC wizards from stealing the PCs classes too. And I guess it also keeps PCs from stealing the classes of their fellow PCs in the event of PvP.
If you want to look for some really messed up spells, Skinsend from Pathfinder is probably my favourite.
Just read that spell and... why..? I'm trying to think of a reason to use this besides to fuck with onlookers
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE MY WIZARD JUST GOT THIS SPELL!!!
With resurrection and a failed saving throw, this spell turns a hammer and 500gp into an instant death spell.
1 minute cast time.
Plus you turn yourself into the magic jar with the spell. So an enemy could just react to you casting the spell, and instantly destroy the jar, NOT killing you, cause your catatonic, alive, body is right there.
Bro is using the Futurama mind swapping equations to cheese magic jar.
That Futurama sketch was actually riffing on use of Magic Jar (& similar) in older editions of D&D; it's a classic bit. I think it's even in a movie or two?
AAhhh, one of my fav-o-rite spells! I hope to one day play a Lore bard with this and animate dead to run a spooky traveling caravel. Think Something Wicked this way Comes, but less evil soul sucking and more fun skeletons doing spooky dances and running carnival games.
this sounds incredibly fun to use as a DM
Great video. Especially the methods section on making it permanent.
I have often thought about making a murder mystery campaign or quest, where part of the solution to the mystery is that the perpetrator used magic jar to interact with another obscure spell to frame somebody else for murder using their own body.
12:32 That is VERY interesting and has repercussions for True Polymorph and Shapechange, too.
Also for shapeshifters like Couatls, Devas, and Metallic Dragons.
It’s been YEARS since I’ve seen naked kobold!
Nystul's magic aura... "You choose a creature type and other spells and magical effects treat the target as if it were a creature of that type or of that alignment"
Oh I get it! So a Tarrasque CR 30 is just a Humanoid to Magic Jar.
Still that's ignoring the description of the spells magic jar is not a detection spell
The description of the spell talks about a paladin class feature and an abiuration spell, neither are divination spells. The wording is very confusing but RAW it works as Kobold described
The wording about class features and class levels is a holdover from 3rd edition. Wotc forgot to rewrite magic jar when they redesigned how monsters work for 5e.
This is one of the spells that should just have an "NPC only" tag
Honestly, quite a few spells need an "NPC only" tag, because giving it to players is basically asking for ridiculous cheese.
No? The dm just has to do it well.
It's very clearly a "magic jar"
Anyone with truesight would see your true form from over 100 feet.
You couldn't use magic jar on a king, because everyone in the kingdom with true sight would immediately KOS you the second they see you, cause you're just using the kings body.
By 12th level, isn't that kind of the idea?
Gator and Kobold - there is probably only room for one non-5e system in your life and you are already doing YT charity by making WWN videos (love those btw) but I think you would really like Savage Worlds. It's classless so there's a ton of room for customization, there are a lot of good combat options available to everyone (screen an alley, taunt/distract an opponent) and really good martials, every caster gets metamagic, all dice explode... it's AWESOME
Idk enough about Savage worlds. Sorry.
The deathward strategy to me sounds like instead of dropping to 0 hit points you drop to 1 hit point which means your souls doesn’t get kicked out of the controlled body yet and death ward ends, then when you take another point of damage later on you die with your jar too far away and that’s it
I used this to great effect in my last campaign as a DM. It was fun describing how the PC failed the charisma save and was sucked into the jar. Lucky for them the wizard was friendly and just needed to borrow the body for a bit.
One of my favourite but very niche spell combos is glyph of warding magic jar. If someone’s slowly dying or maybe a frail npc wants to come on a quest, you can use this to get them to cast magic jar themselves.
Use a Floating Disc spell... "Yes, that should help you keep a low profile."
You use it for dungeons. As for public or whatever, you can hide it in a cart or something.
You know this spell might be fun to have on your BBEG. It can give them Lich like Qualities without being undead and it could be fun if suddenly their favorite NPC turns on them while saying things they definitely shouldn’t know about the BBEG that they had killed like a week ago.
Magic Jar should be used only by villains honestly
Its more fun letting the DM make players get scared because a Jar of Mayo could ruin them
Make it a jar of pickles, & all bets are off.
I'm definitely intrigued by Nystul's, seems pretty crazy...
you could stack forms with this and true polymorph. you magic jar some powerful person and do the switcheroo to make it permanent, then magic jar another person, then true polymorph yourself, then shapechange in combat. when the shapechange drops you go back to the true poly form, then when that drops you go back to the second magic jar form, then when that dies albeit with that nasty charisma save you go back to the first, permanent, magic jar form. each time you drop you also revert to a different stat blocks abilities meaning you get more resources to fight what would obviously be a very difficult fight.
it's the final form of the "this isn't even my final form" trope in 5e.
You're right, Magic Jar is insanely broken. It's almost like it was conceptually ripped from earlier editions and shoehorned into 5e with very little forethought into the complications and ambiguities.
Pair this with the 9th level spell Imprisonment; Minimus Containment
Trap yourself in the gemstone; Then infuse your soul into the crystal; Then Jump back and forth between the gemstone and another body while keeping your physical body safe.
Great video, only thing I'd have loved to see added is good targets for the spell, or addressing using magic jar on dragon's who have the ability to shapechange into humanoids. (The best targets, if you can get them to fail the save to take over the body while their in humanoid form.)
Honestly I would homebrew Magic Jar to just be hat you do not gain any features that could be obtained through class features (I'm leaning toward multiattack counting as extra attack)
This really does seem like a DM spell, which gave me the thought, what if there were spells only in the DMG or that have a tag for adventure/campaign books to mark as a character-specific spell? It could make NPC wizards feel more unique/like academics, pushing forward to new spells and also makes sense keep them secret to give them the upper hand. Why would Bigby make a combat spell just so any other 9th level caster could pull up on him with the same magic hand? Or if you have a spell that maintains your wizard tower from degredation, someone could reverse engineer it to nullify it or actively destroy it.
I don't think that permanent body swap with the MJ would work. When you cast the MJ the second time the first spell is suppressed as if it were not casted at all. The result would be:
The first soul from the first jar would return its body and your original body would be treated as if your starting body. When you break the first jar the first presently suppressed spell ends as if it were never were casted and when after that you end the second spell you will return to your original body. The MJ cannot be double active since the target is you and there is only one of you.
Also the MJ won't "kill" you it will just remove you from the body you swapped to. If your soul cannot return you die except it you have death ward on. I believe that you would return to your original body and not die even if you otherwise would.
Tip: use arcane lock on the jar and it becomes MUCH harder to break, even by the spell’s ending cost, oh, and nothing keeps it from stacking
Never played wizard or bard so i never heard about it but wow. Possess a body, tie hands/feet/wings, jump off cliff, insta win. This spell is crazy
The casting time of "1 minute" makes it not super usable in combat, though there are ways around that.
On Jar juggling.
My opinion is that since the your soul is not native to the new body, without the jar there is nothing holding you there no matter how much finagling you may attempt.
since jar destruction, or dispelling jettisons you out, it means the spell is actively keeping you there, rather than actively ripping you out when expired.
furthermore, you also have to ask "can a leech have multiple phylacteries?".
I know its ultimately up to the DM, but this seems way too rule lawyer-y to allow. like, peak byurocracy.
Here's a broken combo with Magic Jar:
Layout: (C) (A) (B)
1. Stand at point (A) 60 feet from a "humanoid" enemy which stands at point (B) (Magic Jar requires a "humanoid" target).
2. Cast Magic Jar and possess the enemy's body at point (B). Your original body and the magic jar both fall on the floor, still at point (A)
3. Using "quicken" from metamagic, cast catapult (as a bonus action) on the magic jar (the gem with the enemy's soul in it), sending it flying 90 ft in the opposite direction, so it lands at point (C).
4. With the enemy's soul in the magic jar now 150 ft away from its original body, end the spell. According to magic jar, since the soul is 150 ft from the original body, the enemy dies. Since you are within 100 ft of your body, your soul returns to your body. You can now kill ANY "humanoid" enemy within 1 turn so long as you can cause the enemy to fail the CHARISMA save for possession. Have fun!
I just love the THREE ways of keeping the new form, the only problem is that it's limited to humanoids, neither the Marillith, nor the Hundered Handed One's humanoid for the build(s) that I wanted unlimited reactions on and many other great creatures aren't either, I need dragons, celestials, fiends, fey and monstrosities (as well as giants for the aformentioned hundered handed one), not boring humanoids, most humanoids come as playable races already anyway in some shape or form
"This is gonna be a very long video"
Me: *looks at time stamp*
Me: we must have different ideas about what a long video is
Storing your body in a backpack is kinda suboptimal when there's that spell that allows you to lock a creature in a crystall until a possible trigger happens. Your body should count as a creature for this purpose, and the trigger can very much be "destruction of the magic jar". Spells with triggers are fun!
Also, if you want a body, but have problems obtaining one, one could create a simulacrum of themselves, true polymorph it into an appropriate form, then posses it and do the clone thing.
I was in a 20th level campaign, and used true poly on rocks, to get access to a CR9 humanoid of my choice. my DM ruled that any feature with the same name and ability as one found in a class or subclass was a class ability. which, fair. This is already broken, hotfixes are to be expected.
Sorcerer in the game I'm DMing has Magic Jarred themselves into an Ancient Bronze Dragon.
Step 1: Burn off Legendary Resistances
Step 1.1: Another caster optionally casts Bane on the dragon to improve odds
Step 2: Feeble Mind on the dragon
Step 3: Another caster uses Dominate Monster
Step 4: Force the dragon to use Change Shape to become a humanoid
Step 5: Magic Jar
One of my long time favorites. I use this until I can get true polymorph and clone ready.
You could start the players off as magic jar magicians in a 1 off campaign (high leveled) to have them go to town to save the world/end tge world, or fight a dark tournament arch of sorts
I love the spell magic jar. But i never managed to control a Dragon (who where changed into humanoid) :(
Hey, have you heard about DC20? Are you planning to do a review about the combat system and do some math to show us all your cool graphs and charts? 😃
What I want to know is how does this spell interact with the clone spell? Could you hop to the body made by the clone spell instead of back into the jar if you managed to set the cloned body up in time?
On top of that, could you potentally possess the clone without having to have someone eleses soul locked up in the magic jar, sonce if you possess a mature clone as far as I understand the clone has no soul of its own until you head into it.
You'd need to spend the action to possess the clone body.
With no soul in the clone, there will be no soul in the container.
@@Miranda17137 so would this be a way of using the power of this spell without most of the moral implications, or am I missing something? I ask because I have a wizard character that would definitely be interested in the power boost but isn't evil by any stretch
@Luna-tc3xj RAW, I think the clone instantly dies if the container is disturbed by anyone other than the 'true' occupant.
If I were DMing though I'd be fine with it.
I do want to bring up True Polymorph here as a way to Jar beyond what you normally could. Have someone else (or your simulacrum) True Poly a thing you wish to jar into a humanoid, possess it, then have the other caster drop true poly. Congratulations, you have jarred the Demogorgon.
I believe that it is common understanding that if if creature is no longer valid target to a spell (edit:) or affect (:edit) that spell (edit:) or affect (:edit) stops working.
@@SystemLordNemo if that were the case, Animate Objects would immediately fail as the targets are now creatures instead of objects
@@40Found I don't follow. The spell changes objects to creatures and then controls those creatures. I would say that this specific spell affects both creatures and objects. Both is one possibility too. What is the problem?
@@SystemLordNemo it targets objects. The targets are no longer objects and thus not valid targets under this assumption.
@@40Found The first casting of it; yes; but the spell states that it will also affect those specific creatures. The description of any spell has exact target group that are affected written in it. And if the target stops being valid target for the spell one should follow what is written.
This is a spell I will never touch, because none of my friends are optimisers and even as-is I'm holding back sometimes to give others the spotlight. If I were to use this spell I could basically do everything better than anybody else and that would be lame. So I simply go with more flavour for my options. :3
Fun fact! Want to possess a creature that isn't a humanoid? Cast Nystul's magic aura on them first to mask them as a humanoid. (You'll probably need to dominate them to make them willing tho)
Step 1: Find greatwyrm
Step 2: polymorph into commoner
Step 3: funny jar steal the "commoner's" body
Step 4: drop concentration
Step 5: You are a greatwyrm
New recurring boss: Spellcaster that hops bodies using Magic Jar, assuming the forms of powerful opponents the party has fought and killed (bringing them back using a cleric and hijacking their bodies, taking advantage of the fact that they were just dead).
weird but potentially fun spell ... and i would fall back on the DM's power to modify for the specific game/campaign
My favorite use of Magic Jar is to possess a simulacrum or clone of myself that I True Polymorph’d, so I can have the busted stat block and still have my spellcasting and mental stats in that form. What’s scarier than an adult silver dragon? A adult silver dragon casting meteor swarm or wish.
Of course my favorite use of the dragon wizard form is trolling the dm by finally letting the bard seduce a dragon, teamwork makes the dream work as they say.
But kobold, what about find greater steed? A bard can get it and magic jar from their magic secrets, and since the spell magic jar only targets yourself the bard can share it with their steed causing it’s soul to also enter the jar and be able to flow out and possess folk.
It’s Double possession Kobold! Wouldn’t that be cool
I love magic jar with my necro. Saved my bacon so many times and let me do shit like infiltration.
My favorite strategy with this is when my character gets to low HP and I know I'm about to die I'll just run up into the most powerful enemies face, taunt him, then hold my action to switch back into my jar whenever he attacks so he mulls whatever poor helpless fool I was possessing instead of me, then on my next turn I possess him!
18:27 absolutely not. Magic Jar doesn't damage you to kill you in this way. Death Ward specifically says "as a result of taking damage,"
But Kobold! CRX means a creature with CR equal to X is meant to be a moderate challenge to a party of four level X players! Meaning that a single player would be equal in power to, and can be expected to solo a CR X/4 creature! So the champion would be lvl36!
I get magic jar and alchemy jug mixed up all the time and went in to the video expecting to hear kobold talk about the combat potential of mayonnaise
What would you say would be a good place to start for taking a body made by the Clone spell and making it suitable for Magic Jar?
I am using this for my spy master villian
You can use imprisenment to hold your body. But I do not know if you can target a creature in a state like your body is.
What about my favorite tech: possesing dragon who polymorphs into humanoid form? :D
"In a new form, the dragon retains its alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistance, lair actions, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as this action. Its statistics and capabilities are otherwise replaced by those of the new form, except any class features or legendary actions of that form." so it should not retain its creature type so it is humanoid but it still has it's Change Shape ability which you now have.
🐊 strikes again
Yeah, I'm ruling that dispel magic in the body, the jar, or the possessed creature can kill you now!
Can Magic Jar be an instant death effect? If you stand next to your body while Possessing another but the Magic Jar is over 100ft away when it's dispelled it sounds like you would return to your body but the soul inside the container would die.
"If the container is destroyed or the spell ends, your soul immediately returns to your body. If your body is more than 100 feet away from you, or if your body is dead when you attempt to return to it, you die. If another creature's soul is in the container when it is destroyed, the creature's soul returns to its body if the body is alive and within 100 feet. Otherwise, that creature dies."
The section about not retaining class levels seems to me like it’s there for DM shenanigans. Obviously you’d want to not just spring this on a player with no warning, but collaborating with a player to infiltrate the party by having their character taken over by an evil wizard in a jar sounds like fun drama.
Could you use a glyph of warding to dispell the jar whenever you die ?
Mr. Kobold said this already, but I'll reiterate:
I think this is pretty obvious, but its open to interpretation that a creature's HD is consider a class feature. Both on a PCs character sheet, or a monster's stat-block. Making one a class feature and the other NOT a class feature is a ruling I would never assume a GM would make. Generally, you should assume it is the same for both, or neither.
Same with proficiencies, proficiency bonuses, and even spellcasting.
Generally, I would instead assume both would be counted as class features, meaning you lose the champion fighter's HP, HD, AND Proficiencies, replacing it with your own. In other words, it should be your character's knowledge and skills in the creature's body.