Do incorporeal creatures need to spend an action to hover?
My GM seems to think the answer is no, since "they aren't effected by gravity," but we're hoping for a more concrete answer.
If they are effected by gravity, can incorporeal creatures take falling damage? If so, do they fall prone from the fall as well?
For the time being, my GM has made a few rulings:
- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.
He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their lack of a land speed and inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).
I don't believe the rules strongly support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.
I'm still interested in hearing the thoughts of the hive mind.
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The RAW do not say that incorporeal creatures are immune to gravity. They also do not say that incorporeal creatures do not interact with the ground.
Incorporeal creatures behave exactly like other creatures, except as stated by the incorporeal trait.
Which nicely explains why they do not need an action to hover when resting on a solid surface.
The simple answer is usually the right one.
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For the time being, my GM has made a few rulings:
- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their lack of a land speed and inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).
I don't believe the rules strongly support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.
I'm still interested in hearing the thoughts of the hive mind.
I agree with your GM's rulings on this. It is simpler and makes enough sense. The limitation on freefall is clever.
I think I would add one more: when they hover, they hover relative to the local frame of reference. So a ghost inside Golarion's atmosphere doesn't get left behind when Golarion orbits around the sun. But if it ascends above the atmosphere, it's left behind (orbital speed is considerably more than 75ft/6s).
And a ghost below decks or hovering close to the deck of a ship doesn't get left behind as the ship sails. But if the ghost ascends a bit more, then it's "detached" and has to spend its own move actions to keep up.
For me it's depends from what nature these incorporeal creatures are.
If is a kind of air elemental creature, why it cannot fly freely?
If is an apparition, probably an inverted astral rules make more sense to it because they a really native of astral plane and not need to follow the same physical laws of the material plane (you can hover and fly like you astral planes).
If has a caster that magically turned in incorporeal maybe be affected due it's unnatural origin and lack of experience controlling your new form maybe anchor it in the ground.
There's a lot options to consider and to interpret for each case.
For the time being, my GM has made a few rulings:
- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their lack of a land speed and inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).
I don't believe the rules strongly support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.
I'm still interested in hearing the thoughts of the hive mind.
Though GM always has the final say and can even go against RAW I find that these changes may easily make enemies (or players with a fly spell?) much stronger.
* Not needing to spend an action to hover provides additional actions.
* Acending at full speed lets creatures and players get out of reach much easier.
And by the way a banshee can do a basic wail (2 action), it is only the 3 action wail which would force her to "land" or "fall".
Our group has decided to follow the fly action even for incorporal opponents. Everything airborne needs to "burn" a fly action each round or land/fall.
I didnt realize wail had variable actions. Somebody told me 3.
Creatures with the incorporeal trait are specifically immune to things that require a physical body. That's part of the definition of the incorporeal trait.
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Creatures with the incorporeal trait are specifically immune to things that require a physical body. That's part of the definition of the incorporeal trait.
Then I am glad that this totally settles it. Light for example also has no physical body but as we all know is still subject to gravity. /s
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Fair, but while photons are massless, they still exist in a physical space (it's also more accurate to say that light is effected by the way gravity distorts space-time than that they're directly effected by gravity).
Incorporeal creatures on the other hand don't have any physical form at all. Which I guess makes it unclear how they interact with the distortion of space-time, but relativity also might be beyond the scope of what Pathfinder wants to deal with, too.
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Incorporeal creatures on the other hand don't have any physical form at all. Which I guess makes it unclear how they interact with the distortion of space-time, but relativity also might be beyond the scope of what Pathfinder wants to deal with, too.
Well apart from the sarkasm in my former post the thing is, game rules are rules and as such mostly made to provide ingame effects rather than mirror reality or in this case mirror the expectation of a fantasy environment reality.
I mean "immune to things that require a physical body" but will still take damage if I hit it hard enough with a stick?
You're right. It's a little weird that ghosts can't interact with physical objects but you can still punch them.
But I think ghosts always being at risk of just falling into the center of the planet is also pretty weird and I think the rules give enough leeway to justify not having them fall.
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You're right. It's a little weird that ghosts can't interact with physical objects but you can still punch them.
But I think ghosts always being at risk of just falling into the center of the planet is also pretty weird and I think the rules give enough leeway to justify not having them fall.
And that is where the two opinions differ.
First of all the statement made in the incorporal description is that they "can pass through solid objects" not that they have to pass through solid objects. As such I deem it very probable that they just stop at ground level if they do not want to sink into the "ground" any further (whatever ground level is, may be the upper deck of a ship or the roof of a tower). However they of course can also sink into "the ground" if they just want to. In addition to this I really assume that they need to spend an action to stay afloat, just like anybody else. If you want them to stay out of reach, fine, but spend that action. If not and they spend all their actions elsewhere they will sink to at least ground level, or even further if they want to. And no this is not about going prone or receiving damage from the fall (they can easily stay upright and/or indeed be immune to falling damage) but about the limitations of 3D combat. You don't spend that action, you don't stay up, be it bird, dragon, pixie, invisible stalker or ghost.