We will be fighting a high level incorporeal creature sometime soon and I need a way to damage him to the fullest extent. I've looked into a number of methods but I was wondering if there was something I missed.
Note-On our team our casters consist of a Magus and an Anti-paladin so any spell from outside of those books needs to possess the ability to be taken with us for use at a later point (a wand for example, though those do get costly and GP is a factor).
Here is what I have found:
- Ghost Touch-The standard in all of this. I don't have an issue with this but if there is something that could work the same but cost less it would help.
- Amulet of Grasping Souls-Also works but cost is still a problem and given that it takes up an item slot which will be taken by something else for an effect that I'm sure I'll need again, I'd rather get Ghost Touch
- Ghostbane Dirge-A low enough level spell where I could have it bottled but I have no idea how to have it effect the enemy (I doubt they'll drink it even if I ask nicely) and the spell is a low level spell so resistance is basically guaranteed anyway.
- Holy Weapon Balm-This seems to be what I'm looking for because it's cheap, I can craft it myself (I have ranks in craft alchemy to make poison), it takes a standard action to apply and it seems to do what I'm looking for. The drawback is that it only applies to the first successful attack. We will have to go through a whole area filled with enemies to get to this guy so it would have to be applied right before the fight but at that point we would only have a round if that to prepare. Plus he will likely have adds to help him so this is workable but iffy.
- Weapon blanch (ghost salt)-A worse version of the Holy Weapon Balm as it takes a full round to apply, doesn't add the extra damage of the balm and I can't craft it myself but it still has the same single use drawback as the balm. I just included it for completeness I suppose.
So is there anything I missed? Preferably something better or can at least improve on the above?
Hire a caster in town to come with you and cast anti-undead spells (such as Ghostbane Dirge, yes). A Cleric of Pharasma would do nicely. That's usually not too expensive, and almost certainly less so than many permanent anti-undead tools.
GM Rednal wrote: Hire a caster in town to come with you and cast anti-undead spells (such as Ghostbane Dirge, yes). A Cleric of Pharasma would do nicely. That's usually not too expensive, and almost certainly less so than many permanent anti-undead tools. Sadly, we run kind of a weird campaign. It's hard to explain but in short, a Cleric wouldn't be available for hire (plus we have an anti-paladin on the team so that could get awkward).
We do have a couple of characters who might come to help us but I have no idea of anything save for them being able to cast from some class (though apparently they are pretty good spell wise). Even still, they don't come with us most of the time (really at all) because they are our area's shopkeepers so I'm not relying on them.
Simple magic weapons won't do it for you? Half damage may not sound like much, but most incorporeal creatures don't have that much AC (people tend to build them so Incorporeal is their be-all end-all defense) so Power Attack and stacking static damage (potions of Bull's Strength, Divine Favor, etc.) might be viable.
Failing that...Ghostbane Dirge is a tolerable option, but Ghost Touch is better. Note if this enemy of yours is undead Holy Water deals full damage; again, hardly ideal but if your other option is sitting around twiddling one's thumbs...What is the exact makeup of your team? Build, class, level, etc.
TheNightmareOne wrote: Simple magic weapons won't do it for you? Half damage may not sound like much, but most incorporeal creatures don't have that much AC (people tend to build them so Incorporeal is their be-all end-all defense) so Power Attack and stacking static damage (potions of Bull's Strength, Divine Favor, etc.) might be viable.
Failing that...Ghostbane Dirge is a tolerable option, but Ghost Touch is better. Note if this enemy of yours is undead Holy Water deals full damage; again, hardly ideal but if your other option is sitting around twiddling one's thumbs...What is the exact makeup of your team? Build, class, level, etc.
I guess I should have mentioned that said incorporeal creature we will be facing will be none other than the grand daddy of death, The Grim Reaper
As for team makeup, we are all level 15 with the idea of fighting him at level 16 though it might happen later depending on a few factors.
The party consists of myself, a Cavalier-Emissary who is in the Order of the Cockatrice, a Fighter-Airborne Ambusher, a Magus-Bladed Scarf-dancer, and an Anti-Paladin (I don't believe he archetyped) with a homebrewed Smite Good that allows him to expend more smites in order to use the ability on neutral and evil characters.
The general plan is for my character, after hopefully a round at most of setup, to charge in. With the Cyclops Helm and my Moment of Triumph I automatically crit on the charge. With all of the stuff I'll have including Aura of Vengeance the average damage will bring him down to 71 assuming his hp is maximized (total of 476). Then from there the group tries to kill him before he can recover from this and GG.
But without Ghost Touch or something Ghost Touch esque, he's immune to the critical and takes half of the damage beyond that. So that sort of ruins that plan.
At that high a level ghost touch arrows or weapons should be affordable. Otherwise "Elixir of Sprit Sight" or UMD and "Spirit-Bound Blade" as a scroll or wand or come to think of it as an oil ...
Splashes of holy water, with the whole party involved....
add the spell empower holy water to get more bang for the buck...
Palinurus wrote: At that high a level ghost touch arrows or weapons should be affordable. Otherwise "Elixir of Sprit Sight" or UMD and "Spirit-Bound Blade" as a scroll or wand or come to think of it as an oil ... Ghost touch is certainly affordable to a degree but because of how we handle diplomacy in our game it creates a larger money problem then I already have (and I do have a money problem stemming from a lot of different factors). Plus, it is worth the cash? Well that's what this thread is for. I'm not sure how many incorporeal creatures we will be fighting after this but since it's never been a large amount I'm not sure of the overall projected value of the ability. So if I can find something cheaper that does the same thing, even temporarily, it would help.
That said, the Elixir of Spirit Sight might be the best option thus far since we also need a way to deal with the Reaper's invisibility.
KenderKin wrote: Splashes of holy water, with the whole party involved....
add the spell empower holy water to get more bang for the buck...
We don't have anyone who can cast that in the party and I doubt a good temple would sell holy water to our party seeing as I'm CN and the rest are CE. Plus the best case scenario would be all direct hits dealing a max of 72 damage (I believe it would be 1 throw per round per party member). Respectable certainly but not nearly enough unfortunately.
Hmm. You could have the Magus swarm him with Empowered Maximized Magic Missiles (dual wielding metamagic wands if necessary, that's 37 damage a shot that can't miss and hits incorporeal easily).
Your plan for an alpha strike really does only require a dose of holy weapon balm, dealing that much damage in one go is worth 30 gp easy and it makes your whole first-turn strategy not only viable but potentially disabling. Use it on a secondary weapon of some kind (or several)- if you're gonna hit and crit anyway, why worry about whether it's on your +5 (or whatever) lance? Losing 5 points of damage for that first turn is not gonna ruin you. Probably.
After that, a group armed with magical weapons should tear him apart. 71 hp is not that much to ask of a 15th level party, and AC 31 is kind of pathetic for a CR 20 enemy. That makes his DR the only significant challenge, and if your party's got weapons they can (somehow) crank up to at least a +5 enhancement bonus, they ignore his DR (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/special-abilities#TOC-Overcoming-DR)
TheNightmareOne wrote: Hmm. You could have the Magus swarm him with Empowered Maximized Magic Missiles (dual wielding metamagic wands if necessary, that's 37 damage a shot that can't miss and hits incorporeal easily). The Magus plays a funny style which went from cold everything (snowball like spell or something, wall of ice ect.) then to just walling everything (wall of ice, force wall ect.) now he's looking to add in random 1 shot moves (Baleful Polymorph). I guess disabler might be the best way to describe the play style. I have no idea what he plans to do but I guess we'll see if he decides to change it up for this fight.
TheNightmareOne wrote: Your plan for an alpha strike really does only require a dose of holy weapon balm, dealing that much damage in one go is worth 30 gp easy and it makes your whole first-turn strategy not only viable but potentially disabling. Use it on a secondary weapon of some kind (or several)- if you're gonna hit and crit anyway, why worry about whether it's on your +5 (or whatever) lance? Losing 5 points of damage for that first turn is not gonna ruin you. Probably. I do have a backup lance (a +1 Thundering lance to be exact, it's kept low because I plan to replace it at some point) but it would be 20 flat and an extra d6 (My current main is a +3 War Lance with Thundering however I'm projecting having it at +5 and adding valient by the time this fight happens) (The crit-charge has a 5x multiplier effectively). The loss might not be too bad but when the time crunch is basically 1 round to hit him (my charge), steal his weapon (our fighter will hopefully be able to fly in and get it) and possibly kill him before he can escape, unleash spells that do 200 damage a piece or just energy drain us for fun, that 23 could be problematic.
I could however use the backup lance to get to him and blast in with the main lance utilizing the ability to switch weapons during a charge. Either way, it would require timing because we would have 1 minute to use the Balm before it expires
TheNightmareOne wrote: After that, a group armed with magical weapons should tear him apart. 71 hp is not that much to ask of a 15th level party, and AC 31 is kind of pathetic for a CR 20 enemy. That makes his DR the only significant challenge, and if your party's got weapons they can (somehow) crank up to at least a +5 enhancement bonus, they ignore his DR (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/special-abilities#TOC-Overcoming-DR) Yeah, from that point we can most likely beat him
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Ghost salt becomes more useful on ammo, since it affects something like 10 pieces of ammo. You apply it well in advance. Any decent archer with ghost salted arrows shreds incorporeals.
Michael Grate wrote: KenderKin wrote: Splashes of holy water, with the whole party involved....
add the spell empower holy water to get more bang for the buck...
We don't have anyone who can cast that in the party and I doubt a good temple would sell holy water to our party seeing as I'm CN and the rest are CE. Plus the best case scenario would be all direct hits dealing a max of 72 damage (I believe it would be 1 throw per round per party member). Respectable certainly but not nearly enough unfortunately. Nothing in RAW about any alignment restrictions on buying holy or unholy water....
A Ghost touch net and lots of holy water goes a long way.
remember the netted creature is entangled and is not going anywhere.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Sounds you like are in good shape. There are a few things that rely on your party's style of play and the GM.
Is there going to be a surprise round? If so, who gets it? That can radically change matters.
Also before your fight see if you have any all-day or hour/level buffs you can slap on (Heroism and so forth...)
Can anyone in your group cast death ward? Negative levels are unpleasant.
I noticed you were planning on dropping some damage spells...assuming you have a way to bypass his SR (SR no spells) or have enough boosts to your Caster Level that it's easy?
Let us know how it turns out.
Good luck!
Charlie Bell wrote: Ghost salt becomes more useful on ammo, since it affects something like 10 pieces of ammo. You apply it well in advance. Any decent archer with ghost salted arrows shreds incorporeals. We had an archer on the team. Bastard killed my horse and became a vampire.
KenderKin wrote: Nothing in RAW about any alignment restrictions on buying holy or unholy water....
A Ghost touch net and lots of holy water goes a long way.
remember the netted creature is entangled and is not going anywhere.
I didn't think there would be any standard restrictions on buying the holy water but given the team makeup and general player attitude (which works something like, "I'm evil in this situation but otherwise it doesn't matter) I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the holy water won't be happening.
The net is an option as we have someone proficient with nets (he might still have his net from level 1) but I doubt he would spend 8,000gp+ to put ghost touch on it. He's saving up for a helm of teleportation and a +5 main weapon and he never uses the thing anyway. It's not in my budget ATM and the only one who doesn't spend money in our party wouldn't buy it. It's useful but given the party attitude I don't see it happening.
Rerednaw wrote: Sounds you like are in good shape. There are a few things that rely on your party's style of play and the GM.
Is there going to be a surprise round? If so, who gets it? That can radically change matters.
I can't say for sure if there will be or not. He can't be caught in a surprise round because of his foresight ability so it wouldn't be him. However, our team is probably smart enough to be able to avoid a sneak attack from him. We can potentially use his fear aura against him (so whoever gets really scared is within 40ft of him) and I now have a Pegasus who has a constant detect evil of 60ft which can help even further. My best guess it that he will taunt us but have something blocking our first attack but who knows?
Rerednaw wrote: Also before your fight see if you have any all-day or hour/level buffs you can slap on (Heroism and so forth...) I'll have to ask about that. The only thing I've been told about is the Anti-Paladin being able to cast Eagle Splendor on me to buff my Moment of Triumph ability.
Rerednaw wrote: Can anyone in your group cast death ward? Negative levels are unpleasant. Not a one but I'm looking into alternatives.
Rerednaw wrote: I noticed you were planning on dropping some damage spells...assuming you have a way to bypass his SR (SR no spells) or have enough boosts to your Caster Level that it's easy? I have no idea. We only have one damaging caster (the anti-paladin is more of a debuff, self-buff attacker) but I'm assuming our Magus has this covered. Otherwise I'm guessing they will bring in something that would be useful (maybe something to get the rest of the party there easier)...or not, who knows with him.
Rerednaw wrote: Let us know how it turns out.
Good luck!
Thanks, it won't be for a while unfortunately since everyone is back at college and we won't be doing this until level 16 (we just him 15). I'll necro this thread (I'm assuming it'll be done by that time at least) and tell everyone the (hopefully) good news.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
I think you can ghost salt a net, but I may be mistaken. I would imagine the salt lasts until the incorporeal guy breaks out of or is released from the net, otherwise it'd be kinda pointless to get one round of netted bad guy from the attack.
Ghost salt bear traps, maybe? Deal some damage and hold the booger in place.
The Alchemy Manual has spirit firecrackers for 30gp a pop, and those do damage to incporporeal creatures, and blind those with vulnerabilities to sunlight. They do nothing to corporeal creatures, so are safe to use around your allies.
Stockvillain wrote: I think you can ghost salt a net, but I may be mistaken. I would imagine the salt lasts until the incorporeal guy breaks out of or is released from the net, otherwise it'd be kinda pointless to get one round of netted bad guy from the attack.
Ghost salt bear traps, maybe? Deal some damage and hold the booger in place.
The Alchemy Manual has spirit firecrackers for 30gp a pop, and those do damage to incporporeal creatures, and blind those with vulnerabilities to sunlight. They do nothing to corporeal creatures, so are safe to use around your allies.
Hmm. I would assume the salt could be used on the net but the time limit is iffy. I'm sure it would be ruled as working (or ignored, whatever) though so it's possible.
One concern I do have is him being able to simply attack the net, instantly destroy it and be on his merry way.
Or cast spells. Why break out when you can shoot death beams from right there?
It might be helpful though in stealing his scythe though if we can work it right.
Stockvillain wrote: Ghost salt bear traps, maybe? Deal some damage and hold the booger in place. Looking at the Reaper's stats, I cannot believe it but a CR 1 trap might be very effective against him. Of course he could probably break it I guess but still.
I'll second the idea of ghost salt arrows. Does your anti-paladin have a half-decent dex-score? If not, how is his charisma score? If it's high enough, disregard dex, and go buy him a composite longbow of fitting str rating, 20-40 pre-ghost salted arrows (401-802gp), and have him smite & full attack the ghost, adding str+level in damage.
Should be smooth sailing, but presumes the incorporeal foes are Good of alignment.
He can also pick up the Instant Armor 2nd level spell. It doesn't say so directly, but it's a force effect, so it should work against incorporeal touches, and give better AC than mage armor. Also, Wrathful Mantle is a fun little pre-buff.
As for your magus, gogo Instant Weapon! (2nd level spell, creates a weapon that can hit incorporeal stuff)
What's your level like?`
Other magus spells (incorporeal affecting force effects) include:
1 - Mage Armor(get this for both of you), Magic Missile, Shield(sadly magus only)
2 - Force Anchor(lean, mean ghost-annoying machine), Instant Weapon
3 - Battering Blast, Force Punch(For spellstrike), Force hook charge(sort of circumstantial, really), Resilient Reservoir (Kinda sorta, but it relies on you going on negatives, so not a good idea, really)
4 - Forceful Strike (Swift action, combines well with spellstrike force punch - send that ghost flying into a wall - he'll impact because of the force anchor lodged in him.)
5 - Interposing Hand
6 - Forceful Hand
That's about it, that I know of. It was the result of a quick search on 'Force' on the d20pfsrd.
Occult Adventures has multiple spells that affect non-corporeal creatures (ghostbusting appears to be a specialty of two of the new classes).
On the Magus spell list.
Magus 2: Ghost Whip: Creates a ghost touch whip. It passes through objects and creatures other than your target.
Magus 3: Ectoplasmic Snare: Creates a tendril of ectoplasm that grapples a target and binds it to you. This works on non-corporeal creatures.
Magus 4: Ethereal Fists: Your claws, unarmed strikes, and touch spells affect ethereal creatures.
Other spells:
Ectoplasmic Eruption (Psychic 7, Spiritualist 6). 6D6 bludgeoning damage and entangle effect in a 30-ft-radius burst. More importantly, incorporeal creatures must make a Will save or be pushed partially into the material plane for 1 round/caster level. Those affected can't pass through solid objects, take half damage from non-magical attacks, and take full damage from magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, and supernatural affects. Corporeal spells and effects that don't do damage affect the target normally instead of having a 50% miss chance. If you manage to land this one early you won't need to worry about ghost touch because all your weapons and spells will be able to hit, and the ghost can't escape by phasing though a wall or floor.
Calm Spirit (Cleric 2, Medium 1, Shaman 2, Spiritualist 2). Doesn't harm a ghost, but it can't attack or initiate any type of hostile action for a few rounds, giving you time to set up your plans.
Incorporeal Chains (Psychic 6, Spiritualist 5). Does 1D8 + ability mod damage and the creature gains the grappled condition. As the name implies, it works on incorporeal targets.
Purge Spirit (Medium 2, Occultist 2, Psychic 3, Sorc/Wiz 4, Spiritualist 2, Witch 4). Does 1D6/level and target is staggered 1 round (Will save for half and not staggered). It works on ghosts.
There are more, but these might be what you are looking for. Most every spell that has the word "ethereal" or "ectoplasm" or "spirit" in its title will work on non-corporeal undead.
Use Bless weapon - only works on evil incorporal creatures.
Use a wand (750gp) or an oil (100gp)
Works wonders with a net, since incorporal creatures cant make strength test.
Any positive channelers to harm undead or negative channelers that are built to control undead? Either of those give incorporeal undead a really bad time.
RealAlchemy wrote: Any positive channelers to harm undead or negative channelers that are built to control undead? Either of those give incorporeal undead a really bad time. Neither one. The anti-paladin on the team used to be build like this but after the build turned out to be bad (at least how he built it) he respecked to his current build.
*Khan* wrote: Use Bless weapon - only works on evil incorporal creatures.
Use a wand (750gp) or an oil (100gp)
Works wonders with a net, since incorporal creatures cant make strength test.
Bless weapon might help on the net in case the Ghost Salt of Balm don't last after the net has hit.
AntiDjinn wrote: Occult Adventures has multiple spells that affect non-corporeal creatures (ghostbusting appears to be a specialty of two of the new classes).
On the Magus spell list.
Magus 2: Ghost Whip: Creates a ghost touch whip. It passes through objects and creatures other than your target.
Magus 3: Ectoplasmic Snare: Creates a tendril of ectoplasm that grapples a target and binds it to you. This works on non-corporeal creatures.
Magus 4: Ethereal Fists: Your claws, unarmed strikes, and touch spells affect ethereal creatures.
Other spells:
Ectoplasmic Eruption (Psychic 7, Spiritualist 6). 6D6 bludgeoning damage and entangle effect in a 30-ft-radius burst. More importantly, incorporeal creatures must make a Will save or be pushed partially into the material plane for 1 round/caster level. Those affected can't pass through solid objects, take half damage from non-magical attacks, and take full damage from magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, and supernatural affects. Corporeal spells and effects that don't do damage affect the target normally instead of having a 50% miss chance. If you manage to land this one early you won't need to worry about ghost touch because all your weapons and spells will be able to hit, and the ghost can't escape by phasing though a wall or floor.
Calm Spirit (Cleric 2, Medium 1, Shaman 2, Spiritualist 2). Doesn't harm a ghost, but it can't attack or initiate any type of hostile action for a few rounds, giving you time to set up your plans.
Incorporeal Chains (Psychic 6, Spiritualist 5). Does 1D8 + ability mod damage and the creature gains the grappled condition. As the name implies, it works on incorporeal targets.
Purge Spirit (Medium 2, Occultist 2, Psychic 3, Sorc/Wiz 4, Spiritualist 2, Witch 4). Does 1D6/level and target is staggered 1 round (Will save for half and not staggered). It works on ghosts.
There are more, but these might be what you are looking for. Most every spell that has the word "ethereal" or "ectoplasm" or "spirit" in its title will work...
Those could help but I'm not sure how the Magus will change his spell list for this encounter or if he will. We tend to let each other do our own separate load outs and such save for rare circumstances so I'll see.
The Dragon wrote: I'll second the idea of ghost salt arrows. Does your anti-paladin have a half-decent dex-score? If not, how is his charisma score? If it's high enough, disregard dex, and go buy him a composite longbow of fitting str rating, 20-40 pre-ghost salted arrows (401-802gp), and have him smite & full attack the ghost, adding str+level in damage.
Should be smooth sailing, but presumes the incorporeal foes are Good of alignment.
He can also pick up the Instant Armor 2nd level spell. It doesn't say so directly, but it's a force effect, so it should work against incorporeal touches, and give better AC than mage armor. Also, Wrathful Mantle is a fun little pre-buff.
As for your magus, gogo Instant Weapon! (2nd level spell, creates a weapon that can hit incorporeal stuff)
What's your level like?`
Other magus spells (incorporeal affecting force effects) include:
1 - Mage Armor(get this for both of you), Magic Missile, Shield(sadly magus only)
2 - Force Anchor(lean, mean ghost-annoying machine), Instant Weapon
3 - Battering Blast, Force Punch(For spellstrike), Force hook charge(sort of circumstantial, really), Resilient Reservoir (Kinda sorta, but it relies on you going on negatives, so not a good idea, really)
4 - Forceful Strike (Swift action, combines well with spellstrike force punch - send that ghost flying into a wall - he'll impact because of the force anchor lodged in him.)
5 - Interposing Hand
6 - Forceful Hand
That's about it, that I know of. It was the result of a quick search on 'Force' on the d20pfsrd.
Charisma and dex are both pretty good but he doesn't use ranged weapons at all so his build isn't set well for it. As for the smite, our GM allows him to spend extra smites to be able to use it against neutral and evil creatures so that's fine (alignment wasn't something we took into account when making the characters, but when we got into the game everything was neutral and evil so for him as antipaladin, this was a problem whereas everyone else was fine so our GM houseruled it).
As for the Magus Spells, He currently uses Force Punch but I'm not sure how he will be chenging his current spell list (or if he will). His AC however is just fine because of his class skill (Bladed Scarf Dancer-Canny Dodge) combine with Spell shielf and a high INT. and DEX.
Hmm, I'm not sure the net is a good idea... unlike most incorporeals this guy actually has a strength score and will have no problem busting out, as well as the concentration check to just ignore it and cast spells.
starfries wrote: Hmm, I'm not sure the net is a good idea... unlike most incorporeals this guy actually has a strength score and will have no problem busting out, as well as the concentration check to just ignore it and cast spells. Well, this is true but he has to take a full round action to escape the net and thus wouldn't be able to leave from the area on that turn giving us another opportunity to kill. If he uses a spell and then attacks the net then he still can't move because that would be his total action pool and I;m not sure but I don't think Ghost Touch will allow him to shift planes (don't ask me where I got this information from). This is assuming we can hit him with the net that is (or use it for that matter, I'm not sure we will). Besides, it would be partly to help us in stealing his scythe to reduce his overall power by a little.
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