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Incorporeal
An incorporeal creature or object has no physical form. It can pass through solid objects, including walls. When inside an object, an incorporeal creature can’t perceive, attack, or interact with anything outside the object, and if it starts its turn in an object, it is slowed 1. Corporeal creatures can pass through an incorporeal creature, but they can’t end their movement in its space.An incorporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against physical creatures or objects—only against incorporeal ones—unless those objects have the ghost touch property rune. Likewise, a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects.
Incorporeal creatures usually have immunity to effects or conditions that require a physical body, like disease, poison, and precision damage. They usually have resistance against all damage (except force damage and damage from Strikes with the ghost touch property rune), with double the resistance against non-magical damage.
...so, they're immune to melee attacks from corporeal creatures that don't have the finesse trait? It states that said creatures can't even *attempt* Strength-based checks against them (and for those of you who want to point out Strike is what a creature is attempting, it states that Strike uses the appropriate attack roll as per the Attack Roll rules, which call out ranged vs melee rolls, and that they are checks (much like AC is a special type of DC, but it *is* a DC), and specifically that they are Strength-based checks).
It doesn't help that every incorporeal monster has finesse trait for their melee attack(s) or sometimes they don't have melee attacks at all. The only exception to this seems to be the Adventure Path monsters, which are the only ones that don't have the finesse entry to their melee attacks.
So, now not only can incorporeals maybe hover/not hover/are affected by gravity/aren't affected by gravity, but now you can't even attack them and they can't attack you unless it is a ranged attack, magic, or finesse.
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Seems like an error to me. I think it's likely the intention is that strength-based strikes can be attempted, but no other strength checks can.
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Seems like an error to me. I think it's likely the intention is that strength-based strikes can be attempted, but no other strength checks can.
While I understand most likely this is just very poor wording on the count of Paizo, it doesn't change the fact that the way it's worded in the trait/keyword and the rules for checks don't in any way clarify that it shouldn't be all checks - even melee Strength-based ones.
This is the same argument and issue that comes up with their flying.
Just some simple clarification is all we need; am I asking the world, here? Omission of specifics doesn't mean that very basic rules interactions are somehow now "allowed" due to "common sense" and the intention of the rules. If I could figure out the intention of the rules I wouldn't be asking the question.
Rather, to be direct, if it was a case of general-trumps-specific then awesome, but none of the way any of this is written does this; in fact, I found this by accident! It's actually "terrifying" because creatures can't even *attempt* said checks against incorporeals. Not that they roll and fail, just that they can't attempt at all - from milisecond one they are well and truly incapable of melee Strikes as the trait is currently written.