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Archbear
2009-10-24, 12:04 PM
I'm DM:ing a short-ish campaign of D&D 4E with a subtheme of planar overlay (the characters are lost in a world and are currently trying to find out where they are and how to get back), and was going to use a heapful of re-flavored Ghosts (and other insubstantial creatures if I find any) wandering the world in some selected places to represent people stuck between worlds so to speak. However, insubstantial creatures being sort of annoying to fight against, I'd like to include some magic weapons made to combat them, but I can't seem to find anything of that kind except the lackluster Ghoststrike Oil in Adventurer's Vault. Are there any weapons especially effective against insubstantial creatures? Adamantine weapons ignore resistances, but not very much, and I'd like a better fit.

Unless I'm missing a weapon somewhere, I'd have to make it myself. I'm thinking a weapon with a Daily power similar to Ghoststrike Oil, something like this:

Power (Daily): Free Action. Use this power when you hit a creature with resist insubstantial with this weapon. The attack ignores the creature's resist insubstantial.

Critical damage either as normal, +1d6 per plus, or slightly higher to improve general desirability of the weapon. How should this be priced? Is it too weak, would it work as an encounter power or even as a straight up property?

Are there any other good ways of dealing with insubstantial creatures I'm missing?

Artanis
2009-10-24, 12:06 PM
Insubstantial creatures tend to have really low HP, so making it easier to hurt them would pretty much take away the whole challenge. I'd say just pummel them, or else simply double their HP and take away the resistance.

Aron Times
2009-10-24, 01:03 PM
If you have a Force Weapon, you can take the paragon feat, Inescapable Force. It lets you ignore resist insubstantial when making force attacks like Magic Missile or those made with a Force Weapon, and adds 1d10 damage on top of that.