Incorporeal and non-energy / non-kinetic spell damage

[Blake's Tiger]

Incorporeal in Starfinder appears different than Pathinder.

SFCRB wrote:

An incorporeal creature doesn’t have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it. An incorporeal creature takes full damage from other incorporeal creatures and effects, as well as from all force effects. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage have only a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits.

So incorporeal grants:

Immunity to non-magical kinetic attacks
50% reduction in energy (acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic) damage with the explicit exception of force damage doing normal damage.
50% reduction in magical kinetic attacks.
Corporeal spells and effects that do not do damage have only a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature.

How does this interact with non-energy, non-kinetic damage spells?

Mind Thrust, which is direct psychic damage to a being with an intelligence score.
Harm Undead, which is direct untyped damage to undead.
Share Pain, which is psychic damage.
...and anything else I missed.

EDIT: Compare to Pathfinder's Incorporeal which grants a blanket 50% reduction in damage from spells.

[SuperBidi]

From the way it is ruled, I would apply the 50% reduction. Looks like the most logical way to handle it.

[Dracomicron]

I'm pretty sure Mind Thrust works just fine against non-Undead Incorporeal creatures, because untyped mental damage isn't a kinetic attack, an energy attack, or an effect that does not damage, so none of the clauses apply. There's a very tough fight against an Incorporeal creature in a SFS adventure and you can get a higher-level Mind Thrust spell gem before the fight, which leads me to believe that Mind Thrust would be helpful.

The psychic weapons in the Armory do untyped mental damage; I'd let those work, too. They have enough restrictions on them that the corner case where you're fighting an Incorporeal creature that isn't immune to mind-affecting deserves a break.

Oh yeah, these don't work on Incorporeal Undead because it's mind affecting and Undead are immune to that.

It would be silly if Harm Undead did half damage to an Incorporeal Undead. It's an ability literally designed to hurt the unliving. Drift Dead are bad enough without giving them specific resistance to anti-undead powers.

[BigNorseWolf]

I think that affecting a spirits mind directly should hit for the full amount. It basically IS just a mind.

[Claxon]

I would let Harm Undead do full damage, because Undead. Though by the rules that's probably not the correct answer.

Everything else probably does 50% damage. because basically anything that isn't explicitly called out as affecting Incorporeal creatures does 50% damage.

[Dracomicron]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I think that affecting a spirits mind directly should hit for the full amount. It basically IS just a mind.

If by "spirit" you mean ghostly undead, it is unfortunately not the case in Starfinder.

Undead Immunities: Bleed, death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, and stunning

I personally disagree with this, but it's there. Maybe Mind Thrust being so strong is because it's useless against robots and undead, maybe half of all the enemies faced in the game.

Non-undead Incorporeal creatures have no specific immunity to mind-affecting, and I wouldn't give them resistance to that damage, because the effect is already ridiculously strong as it is. Why would being only partially there on the physical plane allow them to resist purely mental damage? Why should we ascribe extra, unlisted bonuses to something already extremely powerful?

[Qstor]

Claxon wrote:

Everything else probably does 50% damage. because basically anything that isn't explicitly called out as affecting Incorporeal creatures does 50% damage.

What about magic energy damage?

From SRD:

"An incorporeal creature doesn’t have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it."

The way I read it, is that magic energy isn't half'd but then it does say ALL but it goes out to point out that magical kinetic energy attacks deal half damage.

[Metaphysician]

Seems fairly clear to me. Incorporeal grants immunity to a few things, and 50% resistance to a few things. If a damaging attack doesn't fit into any of those categories, then it does full damage. Mind Thrust isn't a non-magical kinetic attack, its not a magical kinetic attack, its not an energy attack. So, its not effected by either of those effects, and operates normally. The fact that the rules call out "force effects" and "attacks by incorporeal beings" as doing full damage, doesn't mean that *only* those things do full damage. It only means that those things, even though they might otherwise seem to be subject to the resistances/immunities, actually are not.

The "non-damaging effects have a 50% chance to not work" thing might seem to muddy the waters, but not if you are sticking to strict reading of the rules. It applies to non-damaging effects, so a spell that does damage is never going to be subject to it. If you want to go "But the implicit theming and logic", that's fine, but at that point you should be interpreting the whole thing more broadly on "How does the incorporeality actually work, versus how are the sentences written" grounds. Which is to say, Mind Thrust should still do full damage, because "being intangible" has no logical reason to stop a telepathic attack.

( My own takeaway is that the "50% failure chance" is supposed to represent the difficulty in effecting an intangible being with non-damaging *physical* effects, like webs or poisons. So, a non-damaging spell that has no physical component should ignore the matter just like a damaging spell with no physical component... and there are a lot of non-damaging spells that work through pure magical influence. )

[Dracomicron]

Qstor wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Everything else probably does 50% damage. because basically anything that isn't explicitly called out as affecting Incorporeal creatures does 50% damage.

What about magic energy damage?

From SRD:

"An incorporeal creature doesn’t have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it."

The way I read it, is that magic energy isn't half'd but then it does say ALL but it goes out to point out that magical kinetic energy attacks deal half damage.

"Magic energy" is a subset of "energy," so it still does half damage. The only reason "magical kinetic" is a relevant term is because they're completely immune to nonmagical kinetic attacks.