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Last night this topis came up.
My cleric dropped a Nimbus of Light on 3 Shadows, the GM wanted them to only take half damage because they were incorporeal but incorporeal undead take full damage from channel energy. Does the Nimbus of light count as the same damage as channel energy?
Before all the forum trolls that only play home games jump on this just to copy and paste rules i'll paste them first.
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.
Nimbus of Light (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot nimbus of light for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. This acts as a daylight spell. In addition, undead within this radius take an amount of damage equal to your cleric level each round that they remain inside the nimbus. Spells and spell-like abilities with the darkness descriptor are automatically dispelled if brought inside this nimbus. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
Well, the damage of Nimbus of Light is not mentioned to be like channeled energy, or even positive energy.
Since it makes no mention of it, there is no presumable reason to think so. It looks like incorporeal undead will take half damage from Nimbus of Light.
Everything you need is in the stuff you quoted:
(I bolded the important bits)
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. ... Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source. ...
and
Nimbus of Light (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot nimbus of light for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. This acts as a daylight spell. In addition, undead within this radius take an amount of damage equal to your cleric level each round that they remain inside the nimbus. ...
So, Nimbus of Light is a supernatural ability that acts as a spell and spells do half damage to incorporeal undead, so Nimbus of Light does half damage to incorporeal undead.
If it were otherwise, Nimbus of Light would need explicit wording that says so; without such, the general rule applies.
Yup. Half damage.
Wow that sucks. The Sun Domain is even worse now.
Though I'd like to state that light is hardly a corporeal source. And its a supernatural ability.
