Disrupt Undead vs Incorporeal; Full or half damage?

[Yanisa]

Heya, quick question that might be too vague for the Q&A thread.

My party has a sorcerer and we fight a lot of undead, so he picked disrupt undead as one of his spells. Now we ended up fighting a ghost (at level 2 :smallconfused:) and the rule argument started:

Player 1 says: Incorporeal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Incorporeal-Ex-) undead always take half damage from a spell that is cast from a corporeal source.

Player A says: Disrupt undead (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/disrupt-undead) especially deals 1d6 damage to any undead, which sounds like a case of specific triumph general.
Player B agrees with A and adds: Channel energy, a positive energy effect, doesn't get affected by incorporeal, so disrupt should also not be affected.

Is any of the players right or is this a vague area where the DM should rule? And if the DM needs to rule, what makes the most sense?

[With a box]

Incorporeal was 50% miss chance in 3.5, but piazo changed it to half damage.
but Disrupt Undead is copyed word by word from D20 SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disruptUndead.htm)
when It was 50% miss chance, it was clear - if you hit, it dose 1d6.


I'd rule it half damage.

[Firest Kathon]

I think the rules are pretty clear here: Spells do 50% damage, Disrupt Undead is a spell. I do not see any wording in Disrupt Undead that would change this. It reads "it deals 1d6 points of damage", just like a longsword does 1d8 damage.

[Yanisa]

Incorporeal was 50% miss chance in 3.5, but piazo changed it to half damage.
but Disrupt Undead is copyed word by word from D20 SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disruptUndead.htm)
when It was 50% miss chance, it was clear - if you hit, it dose 1d6.


I'd rule it half damage.

Except in 3.5 it does full damage.

3.5 Incorporeal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#incorporealSubtype):

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 has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

3.5 Disrupt Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disruptUndead.htm)

You direct a ray of positive energy. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit, and if the ray hits an undead creature, it deals 1d6 points of damage to it.

Emphasis mine.

You still bring up a great point. Paizo removed the weakness for positive energy, which leads to the conclusion it must be half damage in pathfinder.

Also as a side effect, negative energy spells only have a 50% chance of healing a ghost.


I think the rules are pretty clear here: Spells do 50% damage, Disrupt Undead is a spell. I do not see any wording in Disrupt Undead that would change this. It reads "it deals 1d6 points of damage", just like a longsword does 1d8 damage.

Yeah, I blame the 3.5 way of thinking. Undead should be weak for positive energy and all that. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

The issue here is that the text was changed from 3.5. In 3.5, the Incorporeal subtype had the following:

"It has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons)."

Disrupt Undead is positive energy, thus in 3.5, it would fall under this provision and deal full damage to incorporeal undead.

Pathfinder however altered this text for a couple of reasons. First is the aforementioned change from "50% chance to ignore" to flat "50% damage." And second, they removed the exemption for positive and negative energy for some reason, possibly to indicate that not all incorporeal creatures are undead? Or it could simply have been an oversight. Regardless, by RAW the effect of this change is that Disrupt Undead is nerfed. But given that the 3.5 version of this clause makes more sense to me, I would houserule back in the inability of incorporeal creatures to resist positive and negative energy of all kinds.

Ninja'd by Yanisa

[Yanisa]

Ninja'd by Yanisa
Yay for answering my own questions? Sorry... :smallredface:

I do was pondering why paizo removed it. It could also be something like limited book space or streamlining the ability (noting the exceptions by the sources rather then in the general ability).
But if they really intended incorporeal for other things then undead, why did they keep channel energy in the description? In fact what makes channel energy so damn special it gets to be the only exception while they actively removed the others? And why is it only the damage part and not the healing part that is the exception (before the errata it was the opposite, the damage got halved but full chance on healing)?
I can get the general ideas they might have had, but it really lacked in execution. It seems like another case of clunky writing on Paizo's part. :smallsigh:

And judging from the rule lawyer in my group, we might end with the strict RAW version. Poor sorcerer of us. He is the only one that can protect us from the way too early for our level ghosts and now he gets nerfed. :smallfrown: [/rant]

[Psyren]

My thought is that they removed it from incorporeal so that they could add it later to the undead description, but never got around to it.

But really, if you're fighting ghosts at low levels the PCs should have every advantage they can get. Incorporeal is tough enough to overcome as it is, and the intent of the spell is that it be used on undead. Going with the 3.5 RAW is my advice.

[Segev]

Given that it's for your specific table, I would make a house rules call. Whether or not you consider it "RAW" is irrelevant if you can agree to do it at your table in a particular way.

For both flavor and balance reasons, I'd let Disrupt Undead just work on incorporeal creatures. If they're not undead, then it obviously does nothing. If they are, it should do full damage (and I'd even let it just plain hit). It's a spell choice specifically to combat one subtype. That's not a trivial investment.

[Yanisa]

But really, if you're fighting ghosts at low levels the PCs should have every advantage they can get. Incorporeal is tough enough to overcome as it is, and the intent of the spell is that it be used on undead. Going with the 3.5 RAW is my advice.
Which makes it really annoying when a party member is advocating against it because it is not RAW... We fought incorporeal twice and both times half of the party ended on the floor. To be fair the first fight we had a NPC cleric which cast magic weapons, and the second time was a puzzle encounter (but still with a ghost dealing 18 damage of successful save, on a level 2 sorcerer!)... It's hard and I'm afraid the DM would rather avoid conflict and stick with RAW then help us fighting incorporeal (and the DM has a real obsession for hauntings and ghosts at the moment).

But yeah this is spilling off in a off topic rant on my minor grievance with an otherwise fun party. I know enough about the mechanics and opinions to throw this in the group. Thanks everyone.

[Segev]

Talk to the DM, and ask him to just make it a house rule. Rule 0 lets him do that according to the RAW. Give him solid game-balance and fluff reasons to stand on, and a rule as simple and clear as this should be no problem to accept as a house-rule.

The rules-lawyer, unless he's just in it to make trouble, should be willing to accept a DM call of, "In this game, Disrupt Undead specifically affects incorporeal undead for full damage."