OK, so my group is going to face a shadow demon soon with the Incorporeality quality.
Let me see if I get this right:
- only magic works
- even magic only does 50 % of the damage
- incorporeal sources or Force damage works as normal
- the demons damage reduction is in addition to this, so if a character attacks him with a steel longsword +1, he does 50 % of the damage and then 10 hp are reduced after that.
- Other magical effects that do not cause direct damage, has a 50 % chance of succeeding, in addition to spell resistance and saving throw
- Non-magical special effects (like Bleed) does not work
- he ignores natural armor, armor and shields
Man, this is going to be one tough fight...
Armor bonus generated by force effects works. In other words mage armor, shield and ablative armor help.
Positive energy does work, too. So Channel energy, lay on hands, disrupt undead and similar is nice to have.
Holy water works, too but must be poured over him instead of thrown. The exception is if you have an alchemist. He could throw the holy water at the square, dealing splash damage.
EDIT: I missed the demon part in shadow demon. So something of what I wrote is not true (I though we'd be talking about an undead)
If you are high enough level sunbeam and/or sunburst should work well against a shadow demon.
Both spells have: "Any creatures to which sunlight is harmful or unnatural take double damage." And this kind of demon has sunlight powerlessness, so it should apply.
Perhaps there are lower levels that have this as well.
Keep in mind that you must have magic arrows to be able to shoot him as well, just having a magic bow is not enough to hit incorporeal creatures.
Incorrect.
The enhancement bonus from a ranged weapon does not stack with the enhancement bonus from ammunition. Only the higher of the two enhancement bonuses applies. Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon.
The enhancement bonus, the ability to overcome damage reduction, and the alignment of the weapon all apply to the projectiles fired from that weapon. I'd be surprised if this wasn't intended to apply to the ability to hit incorporeal creatures as well. The designers can't exactly spell out projectile rules for every rules case involving magic weapon interaction.
Daylight doesn't work.
My players have surprised me before, but I cannot understand why a Shadow Demon only has a CR of 7. This seems like a TPK waiting to happen. It's for the Serpent's SKull AP. I can remove it, but I am also intrigued to see how they will cope.
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Daylight doesn't work.
My players have surprised me before, but I cannot understand why a Shadow Demon only has a CR of 7. This seems like a TPK waiting to happen. It's for the Serpent's SKull AP. I can remove it, but I am also intrigued to see how they will cope.
When I ran that encounter, my party ended up running away. It's really tough on an unprepared group. Consider that a super-smashy barbarian with 24 raging strength power attacking with a +1 greatsword averages 2 points of damage per hit versus this thing. I recommend letting the party get away with clever tricks to flee. If your party never considers running it very much could be a TPK. After running, the group scouted out a path to lead the following group well wide of the demon. It cost them a travel day or two but not their lives.
Another group of my friends beat it, but they had a magus who could turn his sword into a force effect - even then it was a close thing.
Used one of these beasties once...
It used it's magic jar SLA to possess the rogue...fun stuff, that encounter.
Depending on the level of the characters and their specific classes, there are several ways around incorporeal creatures (by in large - incorporeal is a really powerful buff and rather common among undead). If the players have heads up about powerful undead, there is a ghost touch ability that can be added to weapons. Most incorporeal creatures do negative energy damage. Clerics have a spell that negates negative energy. Wizards have spells that grant ghost touch and other spells that negate incorporeal creature's benefits for being incorporeal. Various classes allow 1 minute buffs that can grant ghost touch to their weapons. Monks are pretty screwed against incorporeals.
Also, you can get the Ghost Touch property on the player's weapons to ensure that their attacks will hit an incorporeal creature normally, for the cost of a +1 enhancement bonus. A ghost touch weapon deals damage normally against incorporeal creatures, regardless of its bonus. An incorporeal creature's 50% reduction in damage from corporeal sources does not apply to attacks made against it with ghost touch weapons. The weapon can be picked up and moved by an incorporeal creature at any time. A manifesting ghost can wield the weapon against corporeal foes. Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as both corporeal or incorporeal. So be careful if your party decides to get ghost touch weapons (I always made sure to have one such weapon with any class, just in case mind you) so give the shadow demon some henchmen (if said demon doesn't already have henchmen with it) to keep the party occupied if they possess Ghost Touch weapons.
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Daylight doesn't work.
Why not?
Sunlight Powerlessness (Ex) A shadow demon is utterly powerless in bright light or natural sunlight and flees from it. A shadow demon caught in such light cannot attack and can take only a single move or standard action. A shadow demon that is possessing a creature using magic jar is not harmed by sunlight, but if it is struck by a sunbeam or sunburst spell while possessing a creature, the shadow demon is driven out of its host automatically.
Daylight
You touch an object when you cast this spell, causing the object to shed bright light in a 60-foot radius. This illumination increases the light level for an additional 60 feet by one step (darkness becomes dim light, dim light becomes normal light, and normal light becomes bright light). Creatures that take penalties in bright light take them while within the 60-foot radius of this magical light. Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by such light.
A Shadow Demon is affected by bright light or natural sunlight, Daylight affects creatures affected by bright light ergo the Shadow Demon is affected. T
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Actually, I ran into this "counts as magic for the purpose of damage reduction" argument before. There's a feat that allows your summoned Nature's Ally spells to treat their natural weapons "as magic for the purpose of damage reduction", and I was told that wouldn't help when fighting against incorporeal creatures.
Given that the wording is the same, I'm leaning towards non-magical ammunition not working either.
EDIT: found the feat. It's Sunlight Summons.
You forgot to bold the last part.
Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by such light.
Kryzbyn: The demon cannot use its magic jar in this encounter, because he has just used it with a Dire Ape (at least within the last 10 hours). A mistake made by the writers of the adventure as well.
Also, from the SRD:
Sunlight Powerlessness (Ex) If the creature is in sunlight (but not in an area of daylight or similar spells), it cannot attack and is staggered.
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Also, from the SRD:
Sunlight Powerlessness (Ex) If the creature is in sunlight (but not in an area of daylight or similar spells), it cannot attack and is staggered.
This is in fact the general universal rule for Sunlight Powerlessness, and it's exact language is used for some of the creatures that have this general weakness.
However, Quantum Steve above quoted, the specific Sunlight Powerlessness rule for the Shadow Demon. Shadow Demons are subject to their weakness in ANY bright light, not just sun light, because specific rules will trump the general rule for the situation.
Light spells of second level or lower won't work/effect them either.
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For those proposing ways a party can deal with this encounter, I'll add that:
The PC party will be about 5th level. This is probably the first incorporeal thing the PCs have fought in the AP, so ghost touch weapons are unlikely.
It's a really tough encounter run as written. The main thing going for the PCs are:
They don't have to kill it; there are ways to proceed without doing so.
It's part of a "one encounter every few days" sequence, so novaing is very viable.
Hmm...I haven't read this particular adventure, but I'd be tempted to put a shadow demon in some sort of cathedral where there are lots of balconies and staircases. Have him hang out inside of statues or in wall bas reliefs. He'd use his telekinesis to hurl PCs off of those stairs and balconies.
The players could have an additional weapon through the use of sunlight channeled in from outdoors using polished metal mirrors (found throughout) much like the scene in the movie Legend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5VMWNnFoi2g#t= 37
Complicate it further by allowing enough holy water to cover each of the statues or bas reliefs so it can't find refuge from the sun. If the demon were for some reason cursed or imprisoned here by its masters or its enemies, that would limit its greater teleportation ability, and give the PCs a shot at trapping it here to be destroyed.
Yes, it seems that Daylight may harm the demon. My mistake :)
Daylight doesn't work.
My players have surprised me before, but I cannot understand why a Shadow Demon only has a CR of 7. This seems like a TPK waiting to happen. It's for the Serpent's SKull AP. I can remove it, but I am also intrigued to see how they will cope.
For those proposing ways a party can deal with this encounter, I'll add that:
** spoiler omitted **
So both of you are worried about the one in Serpent's Skull?
----------------------------------------------
Zenj Spirit Fetish
Aura moderate abjuration; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 4,500 gp; Weight —
DeSCRIPTIOn
The bearer of this shrunken monkey head
can use it to cast dispel evil. While
the spell is in effect, the bearer can
make a melee touch attack with the
head to banish an evil creature from
another plane back to its home
plane, or dispel one evil spell or
one enchantment spell cast by an
evil creature. This use discharges
and ends the spell. When the spell
ends, the fetish becomes a normal,
nonmagical monkey head.
----------------------------------------------
Yeah...not supposed to be an issue.
Well, between the spell resistance, saving throw and incoporeality (non-damaging magical effects have a 50 % chance of working), it is a slim chance indeed.
You know what worked? The witches Slumber. They then ran.
I don't think it gets a saving throw if they're using it to end the possession (launching it back to the receptacle it used for its soul when it Magic Jar'd, and they can just skedaddle then). Since it has Sunlight Powerlessness, without the body it's possessing it's no real threat since the encounter happens during the daytime.
Even if it did require a save, how is that any different than the Slumber?
No, they managed to kill the Dire Ape easily enough, but then it just attacks on its own.
Slumber doesn't allow for Spell Resistance, so it's a little easier. I'm not saying it's impossible, I have read posts that calculated the odds of the DIspel Evil working to 18 %, so it's doable. It's just not that easy.
Yeah, I wondered about that. The encounter or the description of the demon never mentions anything about the receptacle, so I just ruled that it didn't need one. Being incorporeal, he cannot manipulate corporeal matter anyway.
The encounter or the description of the demon never mentions anything about the receptacle, so I just ruled that it didn't need one. Being incorporeal, he cannot manipulate corporeal matter anyway.
They did clarify in Demons Revisited that shadow demons don't need a receptacle for their magic jar. I'd think it's a safe assumption for any incorporeal creature with magic jar possession though, unless the entry says otherwise.
OH, I thought of one more thing. People with DR/magic treat their hands as magic attacks. People with DR/Cold Iron treat their hands as cold iron attacks.
It didn't get any easier that my players forgot that they had the Talisman with Dispel Evil. The bard also misunderstood the whole Damage Reduction system, so he didn't realize he could use his Versatility spell to help them...
OH, I thought of one more thing. People with DR/magic treat their hands as magic attacks.
This, yes.
People with DR/Cold Iron treat their hands as cold iron attacks.
This, not so much. There's no baseline rule in place like this for the various metal DR's. It's just the DR/Magic and outsiders with an alignment subtype that count as something special towards DR in general.
o
:(
- the demons damage reduction is in addition to this, so if a character attacks him with a steel longsword +1, he does 50 % of the damage and then 10 hp are reduced after that.
It is more appropriate (based on previous operation of incorporeality) to reduce the damage by 10, then do 50% damage. There are enormous threads arguing it, but quite simply it has not been clarified (to my knowledge), and could be run either way. Still quite a nasty encounter.
However there is no reason to think that monks and arrows shot from magic bows miss incorporeal. They count as magic, they can hit them.
They count as magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.
Yep - and because they are magic, they can affect incorporeal. That is all that is needed. The test is simple "Is it magic? Then it works." There is not any special "counts as magic to affect incorporeal" trait required.
They count as magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.Yep - and because they are magic, they can affect incorporeal. That is all that is needed. The test is simple "Is it magic? Then it works." There is not any special "counts as magic to affect incorporeal" trait required.
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There are obviously people that disagree with that point of view.
And they're in the right, technically, because "for the purposes of" is a limiting statement.
If I had a weapon that "counts as cold iron when fighting demons", is that weapon going to help me fight fey?
No.
And so, similarly, things that "count as magic for one purpose" don't necessarily count as magic for other purposes.
TINY NINJA HIDES IN CLOVER!!
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There are obviously people that disagree with that point of view.
And they're in the right, technically, because "for the purposes of" is a limiting statement.
If I had a weapon that "counts as cold iron when fighting demons", is that weapon going to help me fight fey?
No.
And so, similarly, things that "count as magic for one purpose" don't necessarily count as magic for other purposes.
TINY NINJA HIDES IN CLOVER!!
+1 to this.
If it has a limiting statement on the description it should only work under the conditions laid out there. Here it says it's only against DR, which is a defined game term, Incorporeal is a different game defined term.
The two are separate conditions so no, it should not allow you to hit something incorporeal.