Legacy Umbrellas and Magic Jars

Okay, so my current campaign is reaching the "This is getting crazy" level they always do, but a few situations in particular require some extra attention, and I'd like any input people here feel like giving.

For whatever reason, we decided that in this campaign, we're all going to be pure casters of one bent or another. (Archivist, Wizard, Dread Necromancer, Cloistered Cleric, and I'm a Sorcerer)
It's been a pretty cool game, lot of craziness when you have 5 team members who can warp reality around them.

But our wizard has gotten himself into a fair bit of trouble with the Magic Jar spell. He cast it on ring with a nice gem set in it, and used it to swap bodies with someone we needed to "change their mind" about something, and fast, and at the end of a vary long story, his body got incinerated.
Some good news for us. The DM is letting him prolong the spell with repeated castings. He also ruled that other spellcasters could contribute, so the dread necromancer 'loaned' him a casting of it for the rest of the day, and the wizard prepared an EXTENDED magic jar, giving him 26 hours between needing to cast it. He actually prepared it twice, 'just in case'. He's also preparing a couple of Dispel spells to counterspell with (in case he needs to keep the 'magic jar' spell intact), and the DM is letting him reasearch some spells to act as wards to make the magic jar harder to interrupt.
So now he's wearing the ring which is the focus, and we're in our current situation. Two problems. We're trying to find some way to get his body back, or at least produce a new body that his soul can go back into permanently to get him out of needing to cast Extended Magic Jar and a host of wards every morning. The DM might very well let us do it with a limited wish, but does anyone have any ideas for alternative options? Something made for this situation would be preferable.

Issue two, is that our wizard has realized "Hey, I can just cast Extended Magic Jar every morning and hop bodies anytime one starts to get too roughed up or familiar!", so now he's got a second ring to use as a transference, and he's keeping a few Magic Jar scolls and an extra preperation in case he wants to swap bodies.
He has discussed, in detail, a plan to hire an attractive prostitute, swap bodies, use her body to seduce some (exact words) "braindead beefcake", and drop his mind into a body with some high Strength and Constitution.
Our DM has noted that, switching bodies to solve a problem was allready sketchy, switching bodies to boost your hitpoints is going to be going down the evil path.
Our group is allready on the dark and moody side all around the board, so we're cool with the party averaging a little more evil, but it does seem like a dangerous road he's treading down. I think the idea of having a 'body hopper' in the party could be a lot of fun, but I want to be prepared when thigns turn sour. Anyone have any ideas for making this safer, for the wizard and the party as a whole?

I'm thinking about suggesting that we try to get the wizard a new body, and then suggest the cleric or archivist cast "Gentle Repose" on it every now and then, and keep it stuffed in a bag of holding. That way, if worse came to worse, we'd be dragging our wizard out of a bag of holding instead of bringing him back from the dead.

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Issue two is a lot more light hearted.

I decided at the start of this campaign that if none of us were going to be fighters in any real sense, and that we weren't going to be carrying a lot of weapons, I'd like to have something a little on the unique side. Something to keep in my hand when I'm not casting a spell. Something with a little style.

And then I thought, for some weird reason, about Mary Poppins.

That's when I decided I wanted an umbrella. A MASTERWORK umbrella. An enchanted umbrella. Now I'm a sorcerer with a magical umbrella, and life is good.

Now, it's not truly a 'legacy' weapon, but the umbrella is certainly growing in power with me. The DM is encouraging it, and everyone's quite fond of the imagery it invokes. I've even been carrying an umbrella to the gaming sessions.

The first enchantments I had put on it, low level, involved making it very durable and giving it extra hardness and hitpoints to resist sundering. Because I started swinging the sucked in combat and using it as a target for Magic Weapon spells (when it comes up, which is rarely).
But not being a warrior, I didn't continue putting too much effort into turning my umbrella into an instrument of war. I had much greater plans for it. The next enchanment was obvious. Anyone opening the umbrella (and one other person, assuming light loads) is under the effect of a constant featherfall spell. How could I NOT do that?
Next was Gust of Wind. Five times a day, you can open the umbrella with a command word to produce a gust of wind spell. (...the command word is Huffenpuff :smallbiggrin: ).
As a saftey mechanism, if you're holding the umbrella wrong at any time you open it, it uses a Gust of Wind per day BACKWARDS and tears the umbrella away from you (so if anyone other than me gets ahold of it, they probably won't have it for long).
Eventually, I got it to the point where it would let me fly for increasing durations and maneuvarability. around level 11 I finally got it to the point where I can fly anytime I have my umbrella, with good maneuvarability. I can't bring anyone with me (or more than a light load), but the featherfall will still work if I need to grab someone.
I've also got it 'charged' and capable of throwing lightning bolts. The charges get depleted, but I have a homebrew spell I can cast to sap charges from other magical things and feed my umbrella.

Realizing you're surrounded, pulling out your umbrella, flying 40 feet up, aiming down, and firing a lightning bolt at someone with it? Very fun.

ANYWAY, I had a point to talking about it. We're going to level up soon, and over the next 7 levels (assuming we survive, and assuming we don't decide to go epic) I'll have a chance to REALLY pump this thing up into a powerhouse object. We often play low magic, so going over the top and basically producing an artifact (with DM oversight) level umbrella... it's too tempting. The umbrella allready represents a huge chunk of my personal character wealth, and I'm not in the least bit ashamed to pour most of my gold, expendable XP, and favors and magic into this thing.

But I'd like to stay thematic to the "Skybound" storm thing. Chain lightning is obvious (and control weather springs to mind, but probably isn't what I'm going for).

Does anyone have any ideas for 'just plain cool' things I can do to this umbrella? using it to cast chain lightning and turning it into a shocking weapon are obvious. ANyone have anything else? :smallsmile:

first of all, why not put the guys soul into a construct, then he could be like a warforged... maybe use the magic jar like a phylactery and put it inside a golem's body like a batery powered robot. that gives the wizard the strength he wants, and maybe the dread necromancer guy you mentioned (being almost like a lich) coupld wip something up to make this happen.

secondly, that umbrella of yours sound so freiking awesome i almost fell out of my chair laughing. a cool spell for the umbrella could be defenstrating sphere its low level but fun, one of my favorites. mybe something like reality mealstrom from spell comp., you open the umbrella, or stab it into the air, and poke a hole through the universe!:smallsmile:

I don't know about your magic jar thing, but your umbrella is AWESOME! Seriously among the best weapons I've ever heard of! I mean, a masterwork enchanted umbrella that casts Feather Fall, blasts people with Gusts of Wind, flies, and throws Lightning Bolts? That's crazy awesome.

The DM is bringing it on himself a bit by letting the player protect himself so well against his main weakness (dispelling). It seems the DM doesn't mind the rather powerful way in which the player is using the spell.

Personally I'd allow the raise dead or (true) resurrection spells to use the magic jar as an extra focus to revive his original body simultaneously reuniting it with his soul.

If there are psions you could pay one of them to perform a true mindswitch (although I wouldn't recommend it, it's even more broken than magic jar).

PS. I think I'll houserule in some type of system shock if you try to magic jar into something with a base race of higher CR than your own if I ever run into problems with the spell.

While I haven't really played a game of Dnd yet, would it be possible for the wizard to become an intelligent magic item?

For example, he permanently bonds his soul into the ring and from then on he can telepathically communicate with his wearer and even take control of their body. Either just for a few moments so that he can cast spells (he can cast spells at his wizard level but needs to control a body to memories, prepare, and cast them) or he can attempt to possess them.

So he could either play as an intelligent magic item that helps out whoever wears him, or as a cursed item that takes control of the wearer.


Either that or you could get a piece of flesh from some still-living person, use "Clone" to create a lifeless but intact corpse and then homebrew a way to infuse his soul into the new body. Either via Raise Dead, Magic Jar, or by the previous Intelligent Item method where he has complete control over soulless bodies... though not sure what would happen if the donor died and their soul tried to go into the clone...

Oh.. damn. You don't have the wizard's body AT ALL, do you? Not even a bit? Otherwise you could clone it, of course. Well, true ressurection works, miracle/wish could probably duplicate his body without remains.

Having a shaped Storm Of Vengeance would be interesting. (There's a storm, but not on me!).

Let's see, umbrella powers... Umbrellas have connotations of shelter as well as weather, so many of these will play off of that.

Wind Wall is a logical extension of Gust of Wind. When you open it right, a whirling disk of wind appears a few feet in front of it, deflecting missiles.

A Tiny Hut-like shelter effect when planted in the ground?

A Magic Circle against Evil effect when open, so you can huddle beneath it against summoned or evil creatures.

Knock effect when you knock on a door or container with it, just because. Or perhaps even Passwall or Phase Door when knocking on a wall.

Endure Elements when open and held. That's the most basic umbrella effect!

How about Globe of Invulnerability or Lesser Globe of Invulnerability you can activate while open? The flavor is that you block spells with it... I like the image of you blocking fireballs with your umbrella. For more fun, Spell Turning.