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So, last night I was GMing a PFS scenario, and a group of first-level characters was really hurting in a combat with some ghouls. 6 characters and an animal companion ended up with one bleeding out and two paralyzed, all in a tiny space with almost no room to maneuver.
The sorcerer, who was in the front lines after the great paralysis attack, doesn't know anything about undead (in-character), and so cast sleep on them.
Just to be sure, I check the bestiary entry. "Defensive abilities: channel resistance +2" What? No undead traits? Really?
In the absence of "Undead Traits," and in the interest of moving things along, I ruled that the sleep affected the ghoul, even though I was pretty sure that was wrong.
This morning, I checked the PRD, and while it's still missing Undead Traits, the description of "Undead" does say, "immune to mind-effecting, etc." I know I made a bad call last night, and so that's not the question.
Rather, the questions are:
1) Is this missing from the bestiary or left out intentionally?
2) Everything in "Undead Traits" seems to fall under the description of the Undead monster type. Is there any point to having Undead Traits at all? Is it just a reminder of the defensive part of the monster type attributes?
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I think its just a reminder. If it is undead it has the undead traits unless noted otherwise. Undead don't sleep.
Now why Dragons are immune to sleep is beyond me. Dragons are after all notorious for sleeping long periods.
Being of the Undead type, a Ghoul has all the undead traits listed at the end of the Bestiary, even if they are not listed in its own monster page.
That saves space but it is true that it can can also create some confusion as in a rush a GM might forget some abilities or immunities, especially if he doesn't have the actual book or pdf with him, but just the monster page.
The defensive part of the stat block is for unusual defenses that a creature has. Which generally means the abilities they wouldn't normally have. A ghoul being an undead creature by creature type gets the undead traits. This isn't noted in the defensive section of the stat block because it isn't considered unusual.
So yes it is intentional.
So, last night I was GMing a PFS scenario, and a group of first-level characters was really hurting in a combat with some ghouls. 6 characters and an animal companion ended up with one bleeding out and two paralyzed, all in a tiny space with almost no room to maneuver.
The sorcerer, who was in the front lines after the great paralysis attack, doesn't know anything about undead (in-character), and so cast sleep on them.
Just to be sure, I check the bestiary entry. "Defensive abilities: channel resistance +2" What? No undead traits? Really?
In the absence of "Undead Traits," and in the interest of moving things along, I ruled that the sleep affected the ghoul, even though I was pretty sure that was wrong.
This morning, I checked the PRD, and while it's still missing Undead Traits, the description of "Undead" does say, "immune to mind-effecting, etc." I know I made a bad call last night, and so that's not the question.
Rather, the questions are:
1) Is this missing from the bestiary or left out intentionally?
2) Everything in "Undead Traits" seems to fall under the description of the Undead monster type. Is there any point to having Undead Traits at all? Is it just a reminder of the defensive part of the monster type attributes?
Now why Dragons are immune to sleep is beyond me. Dragons are after all notorious for sleeping long periods.
Because dragons are the MASTERS of sleeping. They sleep when they want to and for however long they want to! Woe to those who try to mess with their sleep schedule!
(Truthfully though, yea, I think they should actually get save penalties vs sleep)
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I disagree with people saying that it was intentional. I think that it was just a typo.
I say this since devourer, ghost, Shadows, greater Shadows, lich, mohrg, mummy, skeleton, skeletal champion, vampire, wight, wraith, and zombie all have the "Immune undead traits" listed under defense.
Ghouls and Spectres are both missing it even though I believe that they should also have it.
Happler is right.
I thought the undead traits were not listed in the ghoul just to save space, but as Happler says, the other undead have the undead traits mentionned.
So it must be a omission for the ghoul (and spectre).
That should be in the errata.
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Granted, I'm glad my character was spared. However, I think this problem is prevalent in a few more written scenarios.
I've seen an undead barbarian, who should be immune to his own morale bonus from rage; my wife is currently preparing a scenario that encourages the big bad to cast rage on his ghast minions. What's up with that?
For those who (like me) come to this thread late, I'll note that I just referenced the 3.5 Monster Manual, and both the Ghoul and the Spectre have undead traits, so it would appear to confirm that this is a simple omission. If Paizo is listening, it would be very nice for us if you would update the online PRD and digital copies of the Bestiary that we've bought, so those of us in a hurry don't have to rely on our memories!
Now why Dragons are immune to sleep is beyond me. Dragons are after all notorious for sleeping long periods.
They already got a millennia's worth of sleep in ahead of time.