Talk:Self-Binding Jar (3.5e Equipment)

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Luigifan18 favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!

I'll admit — I took a look at the name of this article and assumed it was either some sort of fantasy BDSM gear or some sort of trap designed to get people to trap themselves in a soul bind or trap the soul effect. So I was a bit surprised when I saw that it was actually designed to facilitate the use of magic jar instead. As written, magic jar is an entertaining body-surf spell with the unfortunate drawbacks of leaving your own body at risk of being ganked and not allowing your spirit to wander too far away from a central point. This nifty magic item solves both of those problems, albeit at the cost of making it slightly more obvious that the user is possessing something. (Sure, someone could smash the jewel, but that's trickier than coup-de-gracing a significantly larger and softer immobile body, and smashing the jewel is even harder when it's embedded into a possessed host's body, so I can consider the "vulnerable body" weakness alleviated.) I'm sure it'll be a favorite of subterfuge-loving wizards everywhere. However, I do have one little nitpick. It's an easily fixed problem, but it's jarring nonetheless. I find it odd that this item's caster level is 7; magic jar is a 5th-level spell, so the minimum class/caster level for a wizard casting it is 9 (and for a sorcerer, the minimum class/caster level is 10). (A Viewtiful Monarch only needs a class/caster level of 5 to cast magic jar, but by that point, she's at least a 13th-level character, and I'm not even entirely sure why I put magic jar on the Viewtiful Monarch spell list, considering that it's not a particularly flashy spell.) So, considering that you need a character level of at least 9 to cast magic jar, why is this a level 7 item?