Grappling Incorporeal Creatures.

[Laniius]

There is a spell called Spiritjaws in the Spell Compendium that summons a pair of disembodied jaws that can attack and grapple enemies. These jaws are a force effect, which means they can affect incorporeal creatures just as easily as corporeal ones. These jaws are most useful when grappling however, so my question to you is this: When a monster has it's listed grapple as "-", such as the allip, does that mean that if something has the capability to grab it (despite it being incorporeal) it automatically loses? Or does it mean that it can never be grappled, even if it is affected by force effects?

[erikun]

I am fairly sure that something with a stat of - automatically loses any opposed check it is forced to make. Note that a grapple check is not required for starting a grapple, and the creature can make an Escape Artist check instead to try to get out. You can also attack with any natural weapons as part of a grapple, so the Allip would be able to full-attack you if you were grappling it directly. Anyone with ghost touch gauntlets would be able to grapple a ghost, as well.

I suppose you could technically pin a ghost, although logically that couldn't work unless you were next to an active force effect. (You need to pin someone against something, after all.)

[HeadlessMermaid]

Incorporeal Subtype (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#incorporealSubtype) tells us that incorporeal creatures cannot be grappled (no exceptions), while Incorporeality (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#incorporeality)tells us that corporeal creatures can't grapple them. Since they can explicitly be affected by force effects, I'd say that Spiritjaws is a legitimate way to grapple an allip.

For the check, I'd use its dexterity score instead of strength, based on the sentence "It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks." I'm not sure if it's exactly RAW, but it's the closest thing to anything that would make a lick of sense.


I am fairly sure that something with a stat of - automatically loses any opposed check it is forced to make.
No. It has a "-" due to poor design. The stat blocks of incorporeal creatures (indeed, the RULES of incorporeal creatures) only make sense against a corporeal enemy. And in that case, "-" means that grapple does not apply at all. Not that the creature fails automatically, but on the contrary, that it can't be grappled.

Of course, another incorporeal creature or a force effect can grapple it, so, as I was saying: poor design.

[Laniius]

Ok, then I have another question: In a campaign where incorporeal creatures are a certainty, is it worthwhile to have a wand of spiritjaws to grapple them (for the visuals alone) or are there better 3rd level spells to put into a wand?

[Claudius Maximus]

Just a note: nonabilities have a +0 modifier. I think it can grapple incorporeal/force things just fine.