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Corrupting Touch (Su)
By passing part of its incorporeal body through a foe's body as a standard action, the ghost inflicts 7d6 damage. This damage is not negative energy—it manifests in the form of physical wounds and aches from supernatural aging. Creatures immune to magical aging are immune to this damage, but otherwise the damage bypasses all forms of damage reduction. A Fortitude save halves the damage inflicted.
This came up in a game a while ago. This is a ghost's only way of dealing damage, and it's clearly spelled out as a standard action. Pretty much all Supernatural abilities are as a standard action, as they require effort to manifest (unless you get a feat, like Quick Channel, or directly spelled out, like the Arcane Pool of a Magus). Then again, it seems odd that a ghost's only way of interacting with the world is on his own terms, and that you can simply walk through them and cast next to them without worry of provoking.
Different argument: In a different game, I wanted to use my Destructive Smite ability from my domain as an attack of opportunity:
Destructive Smite (Su): You gain the destructive smite power: the supernatural ability to make a single melee attack with a morale bonus on damage rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum 1). You must declare the destructive smite before making the attack. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
My GM told me I could only do it as a standard action, and linked me to a forum post where it's explained, but I can't find it anymore. Reason being was that you needed to concentrate to manifest it. But, weirdly enough, there was a different domain that did something similar, but you could do it outside your turn, so I'm not sure how helpful this is.
Point is, can ghosts even make attacks of opportunity? This might be relevant for a game coming up soon. >_>
Well, you do still provoke the ghost, it just can't do anything about it except hate you more.
RAW wise, no. It is a standard action to use. It would be no different than casting a spell as an AOO.
S!!~, is it? I have a player to apologise to because he got crit by a ghosts corrupting touch AoO. As a kobold. You can guess what happened.
depends what level and what classes the Kobold... but 14d6 dmg would indeed floor a lot of characters.
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S~%+, is it? I have a player to apologise to because he got crit by a ghosts corrupting touch AoO. As a kobold. You can guess what happened.
>:(
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I've been running Corrupting Touch as being essentially a natural weapon, i.e. it can make AoOs. However, it does have the "as a standard action" text, which means it could not do so.
Compare the ghost to the shadow and the wraith:
Corrupting Touch (Su): All ghosts gain this incorporeal touch attack. By passing part of its incorporeal body through a foe's body as a standard action, the ghost inflicts a number of d6s equal to its CR in damage. This damage is not negative energy—it manifests in the form of physical wounds and aches from supernatural aging. Creatures immune to magical aging are immune to this damage, but otherwise the damage bypasses all forms of damage reduction. A Fortitude save halves the damage inflicted.
Strength Damage (Su) A shadow's touch deals 1d6 points of Strength damage to a living creature. This is a negative energy effect. A creature dies if this Strength damage equals or exceeds its actual Strength score.
Constitution Drain (Su) Creatures hit by a wraith's touch attack must succeed on a DC 17 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Constitution drain. On each successful attack, the wraith gains 5 temporary hit points. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Now you could argue that all of these monsters need to use a standard action to deliver their attacks, because they're supernatural abilities and therefore by default standard actions.
But I think it's also reasonable to say ghosts really are different; this is an unusual attack (not ye generic negative energy touch, but magical aging), and also ghosts often have a lot more abilities, compared to wraiths and shadows.