Analysis of incorporeal together with DR


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

There seems to be a bit of confusion on the boards how to handle incorporeal together with DR.

Incorporeal and Damage Reduction
Incorporeal or damage reduction; which comes first?

Damage Reduction (Ex or Su):
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.

The entry indicates the amount of damage ignored (usually 5 to 15 points) and the type of weapon that negates the ability.

Some monsters are vulnerable to piercing, bludgeoning, or slashing damage. Others are vulnerable to certain materials, such as adamantine, alchemical silver, or cold-forged iron. Attacks from weapons that are not of the correct type or made of the correct material have their damage reduced, although a high enhancement bonus can overcome some forms of damage reduction.

Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures' natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons—that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures' natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Some monsters are vulnerable to good-, evil-, chaotic-, or lawful-aligned weapons, such as from an align weapon spell or the holy magical weapon property. A creature with an alignment subtype (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful) can overcome this type of damage reduction with its natural weapons and weapons it wields as if the weapons or natural weapons had an alignment (or alignments) that matched the subtype(s) of the creature.

When a damage reduction entry has a dash (—) after the slash, no weapon negates the damage reduction.

A few creatures are harmed by more than one kind of weapon, such as “cold iron or magic.” A weapon that inflicts damage of either of these types overcomes this damage reduction.

A few other creatures require combinations of different types of attacks to overcome their damage reduction (such as “magic and silver”), and a weapon must be both types to overcome this type of damage reduction. A weapon that is only one type is still subject to damage reduction.

Format: DR 5/silver; Location: Defensive Abilities.

Incorporeal (Ex):
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source. Although it is not a magical attack, holy water affects incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature (except for channel energy). Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally.

An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (minimum +1, even if the creature's Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

An incorporeal creature's attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Perception checks if it doesn't wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to its melee attacks, ranged attacks, and CMB. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

Format: incorporeal; Location: Defensive Abilities.

So, DR reduces the damage dealt by X and incorporeal reduces the damage dealt by 50%. However, nowhere in the rules does it state in which order you should calculate these reductions. And this matters, since if you start by calculating the incorporeal reduction first, the DR effectively becomes doubled. So it seems a bit odd that the rules don't state in which order these should be calculated, but if you understand where the rules comes from it suddenly becomes clear. Since PRPG is based on the 3.5 ruleset, the rules for incorporeal is based on those rules.

Incporporeal Subtype 3.5:
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature’s Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Listen checks if it doesn’t wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

In these rules incorporeal instead works similar to miss chance, i.e. you have a 50% chance that the damage registers. This means that DR in 3.5 was only reduced from the damage 50% of the time, when damage was registered.

The conclusion must then be that if incorporeal together with DR is supposed to work similar to the way it did in 3.5, the reduction from DR must be calculated before the reduction from incorporeal.


Doing it your way would keep the effectiveness of 3.x

Doing it the other way round (which result in vastly superior effect) would keep true to the 'if in doubt, layered defenses are applied in the order that are most beneficial to the creature' approach that has been the standard way of thinking since I can remember the Sage Advice from 3.x

From all I have read from the Devs so far, they tend to follow the second school of thought.

Which, of course, makes incorporeal creature with DR extremely resilient (in my opinion, too resilient for their CR, but then again, that may be only me...)


As I said, that's the way it should be calculated if it's supposed to work like in 3.5. If it's supposed to work the other way in PRPG there should be a FAQ entry about it.

The main reason I started look into this was because of the shadow demon. This is a CR 7 creature with DR 10/cold iron or good, and if you calculate the 50% reduction first it effectively has a DR of 20. If you look in the bestiaries the only creatures with a DR of 20 or better are creatures with a CR of 20+.


evilash wrote:
... if you calculate the 50% reduction first it effectively has a DR of 20.

.

Actually, it effectively sports a DR 20, and halve the rest. Which is quite superior to a mere DR 20.
.

But yes, the Shadow Demon is my prime example of 'too resilient for their CR', as it packs a lot of abilities on top of that DR, at a rather low CR. (Granted, you can add insult to injury by tossing an advanced young Shadow Demon at your players, which is considerably nastier at the same CR... but I am digressing).


Incorp prevents can prevent contact and thus should be resolved first. DR requires contact.

As to the CR of the shadow demon, the crippling weakness they have to light more than makes up for it. Their Daylight Powerlessness is triggered by bright light, NOT just sunlight!

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