Magic Jar is INSANELY BROKEN in D&D 5e! - Advanced Guide to Magic Jar 

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.

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

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.

Ah the think I got away with in 3.5

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.

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

Very cool magic jar. I hope no 4channer gets access to it.

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.

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.

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

Wiered?

I'd read that magazine

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.

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!

Just read that spell and... why..? I'm trying to think of a reason to use this besides to fuck with onlookers

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?

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.

Idk enough about Savage worlds. Sorry.

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

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?

Make it a jar of pickles, & all bets are off.

You use it for dungeons. As for public or whatever, you can hide it in a cart or something.

The casting time of "1 minute" makes it not super usable in combat, though there are ways around that.

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.

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.