| Eru_Iluvatar |
Hi, guys. I'm here to ask you some questions about interactions between spells (or spell-like abiilities) and Incorporeal creatures. Provided the official rules read as follows: "An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy).", is it possible, and why:
1) that a weapon with the Disruption or Keen special abilities hits the Incorporeal creature and inflicts half damage?
2) that a weapon with the Disrupting Weapon or Keen Edge spells cast upon it hits the Incorporeal creature and inflicts half damage?
3) that a corporeal creature touches the Incorporeal target with his finger to discharge Heal or Harm spells with 50% odds to get the effect (or inflicting half damage), even if the finger is not a magic weapon and is not able to touch the target in other circumstances?
4) to extend the answers given to questions #1, #2 and #3 to Ethereal creatures (for their nature or because they are under Blink, Ethereal Jaunt or similar spells) and, if yes, which are the effects?
5) to hit Ethereal creatures (for their nature or because they are under Blink, Ethereal Jaunt or similar spells) with Ghost Touch weapons and, if yes, which are the effects?
Thank you in advance for your precious help.
| Pizza Lord |
It's possible I am misreading something or not quite understanding, but I will try and add some things.
1) that a weapon with the Disruption or Keen special abilities hits the Incorporeal creature and inflicts half damage?
Disruption has no effect on incorporeality. It only affects undead. Granted, most incorporeal creatures are also undead, like shadows or ghosts, but it's two different things. If a magical attack or effect would hit an incorporeal undead creature, it takes 50% of the damage from the attack and then makes the required save or is destroyed.
If you are asking if the disruption effect would also have a 50% chance to not affect the incorporeal undead, that's a tougher question. That's more of a GM call. I can see the argument either way, but for me (meaning this is my call), I would probably allow the roll to avoid it, since incorporeality was rewritten to allow magic weapons to hit 100% of the time, just 50% damage. Since they also kept the 50% chance to avoid nondamaging effects, it's clear to me that still want that protection, so that should still apply, but there's specific cases you could bring up, like a ghost touch weapon's effects wouldn't need a check in the same circumstance.
Keen edge increases the chance for a critical hit. This adds damage to the attack, which will be halved like any other damage, even a critical hit from a (magic) weapon that didn't have keen edge.
2) that a weapon with the Disrupting Weapon or Keen Edge spells cast upon it hits the Incorporeal creature and inflicts half damage?
A disrupting weapon will presumably be magic and deal half damage, just like any other magic weapon. A weapon with keen edge will not deal any damage unless it is also a magic weapon or counts as one. If it does, and it confirms a critical, the extra damage is added to the base weapon damage and then halved per incorporeality.
3) that a corporeal creature touches the Incorporeal target with his finger to discharge Heal or Harm spells with 50% odds to get the effect (or inflicting half damage), even if the finger is not a magic weapon and is not able to touch the target in other circumstances?
Since harm and heal are spells, they can affect an incorporeal creature. Since they both are damage dealing (heal in the case of undead), they do not use the 50% chance for no effect, they use the 50% damage reduction effect of incorporeality. Roll damage for the spell as normal, then 50%. Note that while heal specifically says that the caster is channeling positive energy, it is not the same as the term 'channel energy' in the incorporeal rules.
4) to extend the answers given to questions #1, #2 and #3 to Ethereal creatures (for their nature or because they are under Blink, Ethereal Jaunt or similar spells) and, if yes, which are the effects?
Disruption has no effect on ethereal creatures unless they are undead. If the target is undead, and the attack hits and can affect ethereal creatures, then they make the save or be destroyed. Same with keen edge, if the attack is successful (miss chance for invisible) and can affect ethereal creatures (ie ghost touch, force effect, or being ethereal), and the attacker confirms the crit, the target takes the damage like any other creature. Heal and harm are not force or abjuration effects. They cannot normally strike a creature on another plane unless there's a specific circumstance (the target is manifested or is blinking and is sometimes on the Material Plane, or it's delivered with a ghost touch weapon like a magus). It works normally otherwise if it hits.
5) to hit Ethereal creatures (for their nature or because they are under Blink, Ethereal Jaunt or similar spells) with Ghost Touch weapons and, if yes, which are the effects?
If you know what space the ethereal creature is in, you can attack them. Being ethereal means they are invisible, so you need to be able to see them except in the case of blink where they are 50% on the Ethereal. A ghost touch weapon can hit them. There is still a 50% miss chance if you can't see invisible. Assuming it's a hit, the weapon deals damage normally and has normal effects (flaming burst, disruption if the target is undead, a ghost touch net should be able to entangle a ghost, etc.)
| Java Man |
I was going to come here and point out that incorporeal crestures are immune to criticals from physical sources (barring ghost touch or force effects), but while looking for the quote to justify this I came up empty handed. Have I been imagining this rule, or am I just not finding it?
| happykj |
I was going to come here and point out that incorporeal crestures are immune to criticals from physical sources (barring ghost touch or force effects), but while looking for the quote to justify this I came up empty handed. Have I been imagining this rule, or am I just not finding it?
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality. In addition, creatures with the incorporeal subtype gain the incorporeal special quality.
Incorporeal subtype does have the immunity, but Incorporeal SQ does not