Smite Evil vs. Incorporeal foes

[Jinnobi33]

During our last gaming session, I threw a shadow at our party knowing full well the consequences of my actions. As they were all level 1 or 2 and had no magical items or arcane caster present, I thought it would leave it all on the capable hands of the cleric to deal with this monster. My paladin threw me for a loop, though, as he smites evil on the thing. I know that normal weapons pass through the creature, and smiting evil overcomes DR. DR is not being incorporeal, though, is it?

I could be wrong with my interpretation. I let him have it because I was unsure of the rule, but I saw nothing definitive in my rulebook.

[Aioran]

I did a quick google search for you, found this:

SMITE EVIL OVERCOME INCORPOREAL?.

wraithstrike wrote:

Smite does not make your weapon magical. When running low level adventures you might have to figure out how they are going to beat the encounter before you actually use it. I often do this, but once they get to higher levels they are on their own.

[Gauss]

Smite does not bypass incorporeality as it is not DR.

Other things smite does not bypass: Hardness or Regeneration.

Enjoy :)

Note: A level 2 paladin could use lay on hands on the shadow since lay on hands is positive energy.

- Gauss

[Jinnobi33]

Awesome. I am probably the nicest DM around. I don't argue with people, so I let it ride. When everyone left, I looked it up just to see but I still wasn't quite certain. I'll know next time, and his smite evil is gone for the day...

[DarkKnight27]

This just came up in a game i was running. Thankfully the paladin already had a magic weapon but if it wasn't for the extra damage he was doing from the Smite the encounter would have killed them (half of 35 points of damage is a lot better than half of 15 points).