Possession

Necromancy
Level: Necromancer 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal; see text
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level or until you return to your body
Saving Throw: Will negates; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
Spell Points: 9

You leave your body behind, and seek a new one.

When you cast this spell, your soul leaves your body, assuming a spirit form. While in the spirit form, you are aware of the strength (number of HD) and names (but not locations) of all living creatures within Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level) range. You do not detect creatures under an Aligned Protection spell while in your spirit form.

As a full-round action, you can attempt to possess any creature your spirit form has detected. A successful will save negates the possession attempt, but you can try again next round unless the creature moves out of Long range of your body, or otherwise protects itself from possession or mental control.

If the creature’s will save fails, you assume control of its body. If you are successful, your life force occupies the host body, and the host’s life force is suppressed as long as you remain. In game terms, your statistics become a rather complicated gestalt of your own statistics and that of the host body.

  • You keep your own Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.

  • You keep your own classes, which means you keep all class features except for those that would not be usable by the host body. (This includes your base attack bonus and base save bonuses, and your spellcasting ability.)

  • You keep your own alignment.

  • You keep your own skill ranks and feats.

  • You lose all your racial features, except for adjustments to your mental ability scores.

  • You use the host’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores.

  • You use the host’s hit points (but you do not know its exact hit point total). Rather than the host falling unconscious when reduced to 0 hit points, you act unhindered until the host’s hit point total reaches -10, at which point the host dies.

  • You use the host’s racial features, except for extraordinary and supernatural abilities, and adjustments to mental ability scores.

You possess the creature until the host dies, you are magically expelled, or you voluntarily leave the host, which is a free action (or until the spell’s duration ends, see below). If you leave a host’s body before the duration of the spell expires, you receive a new “zone” your spirit form can spy on, with a radius of Long (just as when the spell is cast initially), centered on the location of the host you just left. You can then attempt to possess another creature (or the same creature again) within that zone as normal. Choosing your own body as the “host” of possession ends the spell.

When the spell’s duration expires, you are sent back to your own body if your host at the time of expiration is within Long range of your own body. If the spell’s duration expires when the host is outside Long range, your spirit is lost, and you die. This makes it extremely dangerous to undertake long journeys in possessed bodies or to make multiple “jumps” between hosts. Rather than risk the spell expiring, you can cast the spell again (assuming your host is capable of using your spellcasting), effectively extending its duration. Casting the spell again while possessing a host does not change what body is your “real” body.

The host remains aware of what goes on throughout the possession, although it is completely unable to act (even mentally). If you force the host to undertake an action it finds particularly abhorrent (for example, using a host to kill its own family), the host can make a new saving throw against the possession as a full-round action, expelling you on a successful save.

Augment: If you spend an additional two spell points, the radius of the zone your spirit form is aware of increases to 1 mile/level.