The Gaming Den

Astral Projection wrote:The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane.

Magic Jar wrote:By casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body. The spell ends when you send your soul back to your own body, leaving the receptacle empty.

Astral Projection is neither specifically a physical copy (the ability to form new bodies WITH your astral copy is a physical thing, but it's also not described as a process of copying and anything that happens to a secondary physical manifestation actually does happen to the astral copy), nor is described as the same process as magic jar, which is described specifically as a body swap and even lists what counts as a body and what doesn't. Polymorph very specifically changes a bunch of things about you, and neither copies nor creates anything.

Experience is weird, because it's an incredibly meta concept and you get experience for defeating encounters. The standard for getting XP is already "whatever you can convince your DM you contributed to the overcoming of, for whatever definition of 'contributed' and 'overcoming' your DM will accept."

You didn't copypasta the right bits:

SRD: Astral Projection wrote: By freeing your spirit from your physical body, this spell allows you to project an astral body onto another plane altogether.

You can bring the astral forms of other willing creatures with you, provided that these subjects are linked in a circle with you at the time of the casting. These fellow travelers are dependent upon you and must accompany you at all times. If something happens to you during the journey, your companions are stranded wherever you left them.

You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how "freeing your spirit from your physical body" is supposed to mean that you create a copy of your soul with all of your spells and didn't just move your soul. It seems pretty clear that you get one soul and "astral copy" is special terminology.

The similarities with magic jar are pretty close. Both seem to remove the soul and leave the original body comatose (or "lifeless" in the case of magic jar). Both have you snapping back to your original body if killed.

Magic jar makes it clear about what abilities go with the body and which ones belong to the soul. This is why spellcasters who have possessed a new body can cast their spells and can't use the body's spells.

The material from Manual of the Planes specifically clarifies that "most" forms of damage and death do not follow the body back and that doesn't seem necessary if the assumption wasn't that the spell does not duplicate your soul. The rules on silver cords also make a strong case for a single soul being shared between the astral/materialized body and the original.

The fact that magic items between the two forms are tied is just another piece of evidence. Removing the originals causes the astral ones to vanish and they all share charges between them. Regardless of whether the caster can dupe his soul, it's obvious that the souls of magic items don't dupe.

A multiple-soul interpretation just doesn't have the weight of the evidence in the same way as a single-soul interpretation.

K wrote:You didn't copypasta the right bits:

No, you mean I copypasta'd the bits you don't want to consider. But let's look at your parts: dig up in the SRD where "freeing your spirit from your physical body" has any mechanical representation in the game whatsoever, or tell me how that particular English phrase maps in a way to mechanics that makes any sense whatsoever and isn't just you "this is how I think it should work, so that's obviously what this part means in order to make me right." Copy is an unambiguous English word with a very clear mechanical representation: there was one, now there are two. Freeing your spirit has no such analogue, whatsoever, and if you want to analyze that part of it you're not even pretending to look at what the actual spell does and instead have gone straight into MTP what you feel the spell does. It's senseless fluffy gibberish. There's no point in analyzing that. It's like reading (Melf's) Acid Arrow's first sentence ("A magical arrow of acid springs from your hand and speeds to its target.") and ruling that it's a longbow attack that does acid damage. Why did you stop reading? The rest of the spell tells you how it actually works. Use that instead. The part that is actually clear-cut rules.

I am perfectly willing to have a discussion with you about what "freeing your spirit" means if you can do so using actual rules which define that concept. But you can't. D&D does not actually have a mechanical mind-body duality, and instead it just enumerates what any given spell does on a case by case basis, and any actual connection you're attempting to draw has no mechanical basis and is merely a "here's something vaguely similar fluff-wise, so I'm going to port rules text from this spell to that spell in order to make me happy."

K, red hearings are red. As long as PCs participate in and overcome encounters they get xp. All this talk about the fluff of single/multiple souls is irrellevent to any rules that could support your the position that astral projection and magic jar deny characters xp, of which there are none.

Copying spells was a dumb idea that leads to dumb arguements because the rules are too vague; the primary source of astral projection, which is in the PHB, trumps optional rules in a setting book, and a "duped" new staff (that lasts for the spell's duration) works with the rules presented in astral projection.

Hicks wrote:K, red hearings are red. As long as PCs participate in and overcome encounters they get xp. All this talk about the fluff of single/multiple souls is irrellevent to any rules that could support your position that astral projection and magic jar deny characters xp, of which there are none.

If there is one soul, then you get XP. If you copy souls, then you don't because the soul with the new XP vanishes when the spell ends.

Hicks wrote:Copying spells was a dumb idea that leads to dumb arguements because the rules are too vague; the primary source of astral projection, which is in the PHB, trumps optional rules in a setting book, and a "duped" new staff (that lasts for the spell's duration) works with the rules presented in astral projection.

Are you seriously trying to pretend that the setting-agnostic book that gives any meaningful details on the Astral Plane and specifically clarifies the spell and how the spell works doesn't apply?

Ok, I'm done then. If this is no longer a rules discussion about rules that actually exist in the books, there is nothing to add other than "cool story, bro."

DSMatticus wrote:

K wrote:You didn't copypasta the right bits:

No, you mean I copypasta'd the bits you don't want to consider. But let's look at your parts: dig up in the SRD where "freeing your spirit from your physical body" has any mechanical representation in the game whatsoever, or tell me how that particular English phrase maps in a way to mechanics that makes any sense whatsoever and isn't just you "this is how I think it should work, so that's obviously what this part means in order to make me right." Copy is an unambiguous English word with a very clear mechanical representation: there was one, now there are two. Freeing your spirit has no such analogue, whatsoever, and if you want to analyze that part of it you're not even pretending to look at what the actual spell does and instead have gone straight into MTP what you feel the spell does. It's senseless fluffy gibberish. There's no point in analyzing that. It's like reading (Melf's) Acid Arrow's first sentence ("A magical arrow of acid springs from your hand and speeds to its target.") and ruling that it's a longbow attack that does acid damage. Why did you stop reading? The rest of the spell tells you how it actually works. Use that instead. The part that is actually clear-cut rules.

If you aren't going to use text from the spell to interpret what the spell does, then there is no discussion here.

You arbitrary decision to decide that "astral copy" means something and "frees your spirit from your physical body" doesn't mean something is not defensible. You don't get to ignore text that enlightens other text or break up terms so that they mean different things and still be taken seriously.

There is no copying of souls in magic jar or astral projection. Magic jar removes your soul, shoves it in a gem, and allows you to put a targeted creature's soul in the gem for the privilege of putting your soul inside the target creature's body. Astral projection doesn't copy your soul, or involve souls at all; your"astral self" is always connected to your physical body by way of an invisible and incorporeal silver cord. In both spells, no soul is copied and everyone knows where everyone else's soul is. Regardless of interpretation, specific rules trump general rules, and both those spells do not have a specific clause that denies a character XP for using them to overcome encounters; those spells do not deny xp.

Thanks, it is a cool story. I couldn't have done it without you because it was wrong as originally presented, and you forced me to reexamine the rules to make it work.

And I choose to ignore the book because I can't read it, and because of blah-blah core trumps supplements blah; just like I ignore the polymorph subschool in the PHB II, or the samurai class in Complete Warrior, or anything in the Expanded Psionics Handbook, I don't have those books and can't shouldn't argue about things I don't know about if I wanted to argue honestly.

K wrote:You don't get to ignore text that enlightens other text or break up terms so that they mean different things and still be taken seriously.

Okay. So, go to the rulebooks, and show me how the rules define the act of "freeing your spirit from your physical body." Because while copy is a very clear, completely unambiguous English word describing a very simple process, that is not. So seriously, just give me a book and page number that tells me what freeing your spirit from your physical body actually means in rules text. Show me a way to construct rulings from it in a way that is not totally arbitrarium. Based on actual rules instead of some circular this is what I think the rules should be, therefore freeing your spirit from your body means this.

DSMatticus wrote:

K wrote:You don't get to ignore text that enlightens other text or break up terms so that they mean different things and still be taken seriously.

Okay. So, go to the rulebooks, and show me how the rules define the act of "freeing your spirit from your physical body." Because while copy is a very clear, completely unambiguous English word describing a very simple process, that is not. So seriously, just give me a book and page number that tells me what freeing your spirit from your physical body actually means in rules text. Show me a way to construct rulings from it in a way that is not totally arbitrarium. Based on actual rules instead of some circular this is what I think the rules should be, therefore freeing your spirit from your body means this.

Why do you insist that "copy" is the word being used?

It's "astral copy." It's a term that specifically applies to this spell.

See, there is the actual line:

SRD: Astral Projection wrote:The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane.

The spell then goes on to define in general terms what an astral copy does and how it's separate from your physical body and follows a number of other unique rules and how your spirit is not in your body any more.

Now, I get that you don't want to actually read anything else about souls in DnD, so I won't bore you with page numbers because you've already decided that text doesn't matter and that you are going to selectively not read text.

Hicks wrote:There is no copying of souls in magic jar or astral projection. Magic jar removes your soul, shoves it in a gem, and allows you to put a targeted creature's soul in the gem for the privilege of putting your soul inside the target creature's body. Astral projection doesn't copy your soul, or involve souls at all; your"astral self" is always connected to your physical body by way of an invisible and incorporeal silver cord. In both spells, no soul is copied and everyone knows where everyone else's soul is. Regardless of interpretation, specific rules trump general rules, and both those spells do not have a specific clause that denies a character XP for using them to overcome encounters; those spells do not deny xp.

You miss the point. If the Astral Projection is not you, then you get extra spells and don't get XP. If it is you like in magic jar, then you get the XP but don't get extra spells.

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If specific text trumps general, then Astral Projection doesn't copy spells or give you extra uses of charged items because it doesn't say that it does.

The astral projection is you, it does not say your spells are copied (I'm siding with you here, and have been this entire page).

Astral projection does specifically say that it copies your equipment at the time it was cast, your items are duplicated into new and separate items. It says:

Astral Projection wrote: You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation. The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter.

If your new body dies you go back into your old body, as it was sleeping at the time and took no damage, and when your new equipment is used and disappears at the end of the spell, your old equipment that was with your sleeping body is ready and as unused as you left it.

Yeah, there is no copying of spells and you can't re-project from an astral projection body. But it does say right out that it makes a physical copy of all your equipment. Depending on what your equipment does, that could be fairly broken. For example, Astral Projecting with a Staff of the Archmagi and then breaking it in half to suicide bomb yourself right back to your real body is all kinds of bullshit.

Astral Projection is simply an incredibly problematic spell. It doesn't do anything that would remotely justify its stupidly high level except the part where it duplicates wish economy equipment and renders you essentially deathproof (except against a small number of Astral monsters you could go five campaigns without ever meeting). And those things are game disruptive.

-Username17

So... you can't get extra Planar Bindings through Astral Projection because it merely makes an Astral Copy of your body that your soul moves into. And you can't get extra uses of charged items because the Manual of the Planes specifies this in its expanded rules on the Astral Plane.

So there is no way using Nightmares can help with Planar Binding at all. Glad that's sorted out.

Hicks wrote:The astral projection is you, it does not say your spells are copied (I'm siding with you here, and have been this entire page).

Astral projection does specifically say that it copies your equipment at the time it was cast, your items are duplicated into new and separate items. It says:

Astral Projection wrote: You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation. The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter.

If your new body dies you go back into your old body, as it was sleeping at the time and took no damage, and when your new equipment is used and disappears at the end of the spell, your old equipment that was with your sleeping body is ready and as unused as you left it.

You know, it doesn't actually say that it forms new magic items, right? I mean, equipment in the Equipment section is not magical, so by a strict reading of the rules then it makes things found in the Equipment section.

It also doesn't say that your equipment is unharmed either when the astral copy is damaged or used. It only has a clause for your physical body that is defined as being separate from your equipment.

If you want to go by a "the spell only does exactly what it says it does," then all of your assumptions in this thread are invalid.

FrankTrollman wrote:you can't re-project from an astral projection body.

Would you explain your line of reasoning here?

I believe the word "equipment" refers back to the phrase "all that you wear or carry". And since when did a newly crafted wand of fireball drain an identical, separate, and previously crafted wand of fireball?

Hicks wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:you can't re-project from an astral projection body.

Would you explain your line of reasoning here?

You're already affected by the spell astral projection, as evidenced by the fact that you can have the effect dispelled from either your original body or your projected one. If you cast Astral Projection again, it at best restarts the effect - dumping your projected body into the astral plane next to your original physical one.

The original body doesn't ever stop being the original body, and remains one if for some reason astral projection is cast a second time.

-Username17

Why could you not cast astral projection on the new body, have it go comatose, project your astral body into the astral plane, and thereafter form a new physical body? Most spells cast on the new body don't affect the original body, and a clear silvery cord can be drawn from the original body, to the new body, to the newest body.

FrankTrollman wrote:The original body doesn't ever stop being the original body, and remains one if for some reason astral projection is cast a second time.

Actually, I wanna point out that Astral Projection never mentions original body. The target is 'you,' and it fairly consistently refers to 'you' or 'physical body' throughout the text, never 'original body'. Astral Projection allows you to manifest a second physical body by entering any plane.

So you cast AP, move right back onto the physical giving you a second physical body, cast AP from your second physical body, and all of the spell text will apply without problem. I still think the same effect rules would only allow one such effect to be active at a time, meaning when you cast AP the second time the first one has to turn off, which kills the second physical form, which kills the third astral form, which dumps you back in your original body. The text in question that leads to that is fairly ambiguous.

K wrote:I mean, equipment in the Equipment section is not magical, so by a strict reading of the rules then it makes things found in the Equipment section.

Animal Growth wrote:All equipment worn or carried by an animal is similarly enlarged by the spell, though this change has no effect on the magical properties of any such equipment.

Just an example, but equipment can absolutely be magical. The reason magic items like +2 swords don't show up in the Equipment chapter of the PHB you are referring to is because they are busy being in the DMG. A +2 longsword is simultaneously equipment (a longsword) and a magic item (object with magic properties). Those are not incompatible classifications. The phrase non-magical equipment shows up all over the place precisely because there is a subset of equipment which is magical. And AP absolutely does make new copies. Core only, duplicating expendables through Astral Projection is rock solid, even if you are for some reason convinced that all of Magic Jar's rules text is in Astral Projection only invisible.

Hicks wrote:Why could you not cast astral projection on the new body, have it go comatose, project your astral body into the astral plane, and thereafter form a new physical body? Most spells cast on the new body don't affect the original body, and a clear silvery cord can be drawn from the original body, to the new body, to the newest body.

You can't cast two Astral projections and end up with two copies for the same reason you can't cast two Polymorphs and turn yourself into two trolls. It's a currently ongoing effect so casting it again doesn't do anything except reset the original effect.

Astral Projection actually specifically mentions that it counts as an ongoing effect on both the original you and on the duplicate. So you can't get a new effect going by casting it on the duplicate nor can you get a new effect going by going back and casting it on the comatose original. In either case the same effect is already ongoing and you can at best overwrite the original casting with a new casting.

-Username17

So in summary:

1) The spell slot cloning doesn't work because it is stupid and made up...

2) Hicks thinks he discovered the ability to clone scrolls of gate through Astral Projection, even though people have been doing that since Core 3.0, and Manual of the Planes specifically added additional rules to stop it.

Ok Frank; thanks for breaking that down for me.

Hey Kaelik, how about I found out about a topic about a game rule that I couldn't find in the den's archives or Tomes and wanted to discuss how it worked, because it wasn't discussed before, and we everybody else who is not you all learned stuff in the process? I learned there are rules in a book I don't have that solved a problem I didn't know about till last night.

Hicks wrote:Hey Kaelik, how about I found out about a topic about a game rule that I couldn't find in the den's archives or Tomes and wanted to discuss how it worked, because it wasn't discussed before, and we everybody else who is not you all learned stuff in the process? I learned there are rules in a book I don't have that solved a problem I didn't know about till last night.

No Hicks, no one but you learned anything, because this has been talked about before in the Den, and it was discussed previously.

Everyone but you already knew about this. Frank explicitly talked about Gate scroll cloning by AP a long ass time ago.

You are just stupid.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=134088

There, a thread from 2010 where Carthaz figures it out, and says "everyone else probably already knows" and then we all say, "yeah pretty much."

Here is a thread from 2004 that calls Astral Projection a spell that breaks the Wealth system:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=4718

And the entire argument in the thread is about how fabricate doesn't break the wealth system, with absolutely no talk about how AP doesn't, because everyone already knows that it does.

Here is Frank in 2004:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=3093

FrankTrollman wrote:How about an Astral Projection Equipment doublage?

Just so you know: you're mean, to other people, on the internet.

Though not often wrong, I was being stupid.

Thanks K and Frank for teaching me a new thing, and Kaelik for teaching me it wasn't a new thing.