Natural weapons that strike as magic

[PrediDERP]

Hello everyone, first time poster here. I found this website and am impressed by what I see so I though I'd shoot a question out!

Simply put, I have a 3.5 character who is incorporeal, so non-magical attacks have a 100% miss rate whereas magical attacks and spells have a 50% miss rate (not including ghost touched weapons of course).

My question is, how do I or the DM determine whether a natural weapon (claw, bite, tentacle etc.) is considered magic or not? My DM has a terrible habit of just saying every creature is "magic" and therefore hits 50% as opposed to miss 100%. Is there a specific way of finding out whether a natural weapon is considered magic or not? I.e. a creature with the "magical beast" type hits with magic?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Draconium]

I believe it will usually say if a creature's natural attacks are considered magic in the creature's description. Failing that, usually any creature that has DR/Magic has magical natural weapons, from what I can remember.

[Psyren]

Failing that, usually any creature that has DR/Magic has magical natural weapons, from what I can remember.

This is correct. Rules Compendium 41:


When magic can overcome a creature’s damage reduction, a
weapon that has a +1 or higher magical enhancement bonus
is required. If a creature has this kind of damage reduction,
such as DR 5/magic, it also has the magic strike ability.


Magic Strike

Natural weapon attacks made by a creature that has this
supernatural special attack are treated as magic for the
purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

[PrediDERP]

Wow awesome quick responses! I'm very impressed!

Could you reference where the "magic strike" is in the books. Also, if the creature does not have DR/magic or "magic strike" explicitly stated in its description, does that mean it always hits non-magical?

[Psyren]

Wow awesome quick responses! I'm very impressed!

Could you reference where the "magic strike" is in the books.

Rules Compendium pg 101


Also, if the creature does not have DR/magic or "magic strike" explicitly stated in its description, does that mean it always hits non-magical?

Without those two or something else that makes its natural weapons magical, then they aren't. What monster(s) are you looking at specifically?

[AmberVael]

Rules Compendium pg 101

On the off chance you don't have the Rules Compendium or don't want to cite it, you can also find this information in the Monster Manual, page 307 (under the Damage Reduction heading).

[Hiro Quester]

Simply put, I have a 3.5 character who is incorporeal, so non-magical attacks have a 100% miss rate whereas magical attacks and spells have a 50% miss rate (not including ghost touched weapons of course).


My guess is that this is the DM trying to keep things challenging and interesting for you. Total invulnerability to a monster makes an encounter relatively risk-free (i.e. not very exciting). So he's giving monsters the ability to have a chance of hitting you.

If I was DM I'd give non-magical monsters an amulet of mighty fists, necklace of natural attacks, or have someone cast magic fang on them, for example, just to make it challenging for you.

A 50% miss chance is still pretty awesome. Roll with it.

[ericgrau]

That's for overcoming DR though. I don't think they also hit incorporeal creatures. For that you may need magic fang.

[Psyren]

Correct - the text of the rule is in the MM - but this quality was not named "magic strike" until RC.

[PrediDERP]

What monster(s) are you looking at specifically?

Just as example, a creature we fought last session which was dubbed "magical" therefore had "magic tentacles" is the Tunnel Terror, Fiend Folio pg 179.

To be clear, I'm not looking to one up the DM, or to challenge everything that he says. As far as I'm concerned the DM is D&D God and everything they say is final. I'm just curious!

[Psyren]

As written that creature can't do anything to incorporeals - having said that however, the GM could easily add DR/magic to it with a template, e.g. Fiendish Creature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/fiendishCreature.htm), or just add that ability by itself.

[Crake]

As written that creature can't do anything to incorporeals - having said that however, the GM could easily add DR/magic to it with a template, e.g. Fiendish Creature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/fiendishCreature.htm), or just add that ability by itself.

as mentioned by ericgrau earlier, even with DR/magic, the creature's natural weapons are only treated as magical for overcoming damage reduction, it does nothing to allow the creature to strike incorporeal opponents, which is the issue here.

[PrediDERP]

as mentioned by ericgrau earlier, even with DR/magic, the creature's natural weapons are only treated as magical for overcoming damage reduction, it does nothing to allow the creature to strike incorporeal opponents, which is the issue here.

In that case, is there anything anywhere that talks about natural attacks EVER being able to penetrate incorporealness? A friend of mine (PC currently but former DM in the current campaign) says that true dragons are able to hit incorporeal creatures but doesn't have much to back it up with.

[Draconium]

In that case, is there anything anywhere that talks about natural attacks EVER being able to penetrate incorporealness? A friend of mine (PC currently but former DM in the current campaign) says that true dragons are able to hit incorporeal creatures but doesn't have much to back it up with.

Following the logic of the players above, they wouldn't be able to naturally. However, true dragons are also spellcasters, so they could probably cast magic fang on themselves, so technically they would be able to like that.

[Firest Kathon]

Most creatures, and especially intelligent ones like dragons, can also wear Amulets of Mighty Fists (D20 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists)/PF (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/amulet-of-mighty-fists)) to get magical attacks.

[PrediDERP]

Following the logic of the players above, they wouldn't be able to naturally. However, true dragons are also spellcasters, so they could probably cast magic fang on themselves, so technically they would be able to like that.

I guess what the question is really is is it possible to naturally (without spells or items) have natural weapons that hit incorporeal creatures


Most creatures, and especially intelligent ones like dragons, can also wear Amulets of Mighty Fists (D20 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists)/PF (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/amulet-of-mighty-fists)) to get magical attacks.

Same as above, although, it would be nice to loot that off the dragon afterwards haha!

[Draconium]

I guess what the question is really is is it possible to naturally (without spells or items) have natural weapons that hit incorporeal creatures

Well, going up against other incopreal creatures with narutal weapons would probably do it...

Otherwise, unless it's specifically mentioned in the description, I don't think so.

[Psyren]

as mentioned by ericgrau earlier, even with DR/magic, the creature's natural weapons are only treated as magical for overcoming damage reduction, it does nothing to allow the creature to strike incorporeal opponents, which is the issue here.

My bad, I was actually thinking of Pathfinder here, where Magic Strike lets you harm incorporeal creatures. (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fo#v5748eaic9sih)

(Amusingly this means the PF Tarrasque can actually defend itself against Allips - not that it needs to since the PF Tarrasque is immune to ability drain as well.)

[Segev]

If I may ask, what makes your character incorporeal? How much of an inconvenience is it in times other than combat? How much control do you have over it?

Perhaps the DM could be persuaded to come on here and we could help him come up with alternate ways to challenge you, creating scenarios which make the difficulty for you less about whether or not you can survive a fight and more about how/whether you can use your incorporeality to solve a problem, or where you need the other PCs who are not incorporeal.

Speaking as a player with admitted power-gamer tendencies, I often am not really interested in personal challenge to my character's life and limb. I get where players are coming from when they want to be the invulnerable badass. Challenge is not impossible, or even necessarily hard, under these conditions. It just means shifting the expected failure conditions from "losing all my hp" to something else.

I've mentioned a few times on this forum that I'm playing a full-on adult dragon in a Rifts game. He really is nearly indestructible, even in that setting. The absolute worst he's come out in a fight so far is being almost 2/3 down on hit points (for those who know Paladium, that's MD), and that was fighting 2-3 giant robots with "flame"-cannons that explicitly are not fire and do double damage against dragons. He ultimately had to retreat from that one, though our objective was just to slow them down and harry their allied armored trucks, so it was a successful if (to his ego) unsatisfying encounter.

A lot of the time, encounters he's in have objectives involving protecting other targets, tracking people down, or keeping information out of enemy hands. He's good at participating in a lot of this, but the threat is very real and the pressure high, despite my PC never being in any serious personal danger. I get to feel cool because I can play "invulnerable superman" (even if I'm taking a lot of damage, I have the MD to soak it, and I regenerate fast enough that I only need a couple hours' healing at the most). My more limited resources are my magical and psionic power-point-equivalents, as those regenerate more slowly and take special time out to recoup.

But the challenges are keeping numbers of enemies away from emplaced or vulnerable targets, in making sure I'm not detected as a dragon (hard to do with a world full of things that can "smell" magical creatures, even when you're a shapeshifter) lest my objectives be ruined by the fact that nobody wants to talk to a dragon and everybody thinks a dragon asking questions is a lot more suspicious than a random human, and in keeping in contact with our oft-widely-split-up party. I have a lot of tricks and powers. I'm very strong, very tough, and have a lot of utility.

But just because I can waltz through physical threats doesn't mean my objectives are trivially accomplished, nor that my foes' objectives are trivially thwarted.


In a nutshell, the fact that you're largely invulnerable just means the DM needs to pay more attention to the objectives of the party. It's not enough to ambush you with wild beasts and have the challenge be "survive." It's also worth noting that the rest of the party dying would be a failure for you, too, I think, but more importantly, have encounters be about something. The thief stole an item that you need to recover; the party is trying to keep the enemy from noticing that you're scouting out vital information; the bandits are actually assassins after that princess you're escorting and win if they kill her, regardless of whether the party survives; the party mage is needed over here but only you have the incorporeality to GET there.

If your DM would like to talk about his campaign with us, I'm sure we could help him figure out ways to "up his game" in encounter design such that your incorporeality is a fun and useful tool, but not a constant "I win" card. (Incorporeality absolutely is a "get out of jail free" card in-setting, but it won't help you get out of jail if your PC is playing Monopoly!)

[Janthkin]

In a nutshell, the fact that you're largely invulnerable just means the DM needs to pay more attention to the objectives of the party. It's not enough to ambush you with wild beasts and have the challenge be "survive." It's also worth noting that the rest of the party dying would be a failure for you, too, I think, but more importantly, have encounters be about something. In a nutshell, this is the Superman problem. How do you write an adventure for Superman AND, say, Green Arrow at the same time, given that one is nigh-invulnerable and the other is a squishy human with a stick? It certainly can be done (and has been done very well indeed at times), but it can also be done very, very poorly. And it's certainly more challenging for the DM (who has to deal with self-willed characters, rather than getting to write the whole thing himself).

[Segev]

In a nutshell, this is the Superman problem. How do you write an adventure for Superman AND, say, Green Arrow at the same time, given that one is nigh-invulnerable and the other is a squishy human with a stick? It certainly can be done (and has been done very well indeed at times), but it can also be done very, very poorly. And it's certainly more challenging for the DM (who has to deal with self-willed characters, rather than getting to write the whole thing himself).

The problem is not as hard to solve as you make it out to be. Despite Superman's invulnerability, Superman and Green Arrow are not Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit. Superman can only "do anything" when a writer gets lazy and starts making up new powers; at that rate, Green Arrow could solve anything with his "solve this problem arrow."

Being invulnerable and unstoppable doesn't give you knowledge; you have to investigate things yourself. It doesn't make anything you're protecting less vulnerable save where you can physically interpose yourself. It doesn't help you infiltrate or persuade (unless you're just personally invading and intimidating). It doesn't help you discern truth from falsehood. It doesn't let you be in multiple places at once. It doesn't make up for action deficit (by far the nastiest killer in any RPG).

Being incorporeal will give you a different set of tools, and a potentially different set of problems. Incorporeal creatures can't carry things; they need the party with them to do that. They are great spies, especially if they can turn invisible, but they're not so great at a lot of other infiltration missions. They have a much harder time directing a conversation without revealing their presence, since "fellow guard" is a disguise that is hard to pull off if one is see-through.

I've found that, if you define your encounters around the objectives of the party and those who oppose the party, there's a LOT you can do that makes even game-breaker powers not so automatically victorious. The need for things the incorporeal character cannot do to solve various problems is a biggie: he might be able to bypass things, but the other party members cannot. And if he alerts the whole base, the combat goes from "bite sized chunks" for the party to "overwhelming numbers against the party." Again, the incorporeal guy might be totally personally safe, but his mission's ruined by the fact that now the rest of the party can't get in to do their part.

[Psyren]

Being invulnerable and unstoppable doesn't give you knowledge; you have to investigate things yourself. It doesn't make anything you're protecting less vulnerable save where you can physically interpose yourself. It doesn't help you infiltrate or persuade (unless you're just personally invading and intimidating). It doesn't help you discern truth from falsehood. It doesn't let you be in multiple places at once. It doesn't make up for action deficit (by far the nastiest killer in any RPG).

Super-hearing, x-ray vision and super-speed do however make investigation a hell of a lot easier. And that's the problem for the GM - like Supes, wizards are badass at everything, not just fighting.

The key is to make it so that wizards can only be superman for a limited part of each day, and be especially limited if they try to emulate all of Superman's roles/abilities each day instead of a subset. With those limitations in place, players will self-regulate. When you get to that locked door, if Supes only has a limited number of punches per day, he's likely going to stand back and let Green Arrow melt the lock instead simply because he isn't sure what's up next. He will do this even if he has enough punches to get through every locked door they come across and every combat you have planned for them, simply because he doesn't know what's around the corner. And all the players will be satisfied because it is good strategy, plus Green Arrow gets to feel useful too.

This is the one change about 5e that I rather liked - abolishing bonus spells for the mid- and upper ranges, while making at-will cantrips more powerful to eliminate the "crossbow problem." It makes it more likely that Angel Summoner wants to hitch a ride on the BMX from time to time.

[Segev]

This is the one change about 5e that I rather liked - abolishing bonus spells for the mid- and upper ranges, while making at-will cantrips more powerful to eliminate the "crossbow problem." It makes it more likely that Angel Summoner wants to hitch a ride on the BMX from time to time.

I do agree with this.

The rest... eh. Superman is not as hard to write for as people make him out to be, despite those powers.

My dragon PC can teleport nearly at-will (once every 30 seconds) up to 5 miles at a hop, has a speed in the 200 mph range, acts more often than any other single character we've so far encountered, is a powerful (for the setting) spellcaster and psion, and has superman-level strength and Thing-level toughness. He can shapeshift, too.

Yet there are a lot of ways he's been challenged, many having to do with limits to the scope of his personal ability to act (magic in Rifts has far less AoE and range than it does in D&D, and far less range than, say, most high-tech weapons, and for non-combat, a lot of his powers run smack into a need to not reveal "dragon is here" lest the objective be lost by everybody who'd oppose it knowing to scuttle).

Not saying it can't be challenging, but being objective-oriented rather than opposition-oriented in encounter design goes a long way.

[Psyren]

I do agree with this.

The rest... eh. Superman is not as hard to write for as people make him out to be, despite those powers.

My dragon PC can teleport nearly at-will (once every 30 seconds) up to 5 miles at a hop, has a speed in the 200 mph range, acts more often than any other single character we've so far encountered, is a powerful (for the setting) spellcaster and psion, and has superman-level strength and Thing-level toughness. He can shapeshift, too.

Yet there are a lot of ways he's been challenged, many having to do with limits to the scope of his personal ability to act (magic in Rifts has far less AoE and range than it does in D&D, and far less range than, say, most high-tech weapons, and for non-combat, a lot of his powers run smack into a need to not reveal "dragon is here" lest the objective be lost by everybody who'd oppose it knowing to scuttle).

Not saying it can't be challenging, but being objective-oriented rather than opposition-oriented in encounter design goes a long way.

That's in a system/setting with "high-tech weapons" though. Functionally, everyone is a caster, at least as D&D views the term. So you've solved the mundane problem by making it so there aren't any, which is why your encounters can move from opposition to objective without leaving any one class behind.

Compare to D&D - opposition is the only objective a fighter can succeed against reliably - i.e. combat. They just aren't well-equipped for much else.

[PrediDERP]

If I may ask, what makes your character incorporeal? How much of an inconvenience is it in times other than combat? How much control do you have over it?

I'm typing on my phone right now so I can't really go into huge detail. My character is kinda an oddity and has a long story behind it.

Basically our campaign is in fact a series of campaigns by different DMs in the same world (as I'm sure is or has been the case for many of you). Currently it is being dual DM'd. One of them is an adept power gamer who has not much in terms of role play. At the end of last campaign, things happened, and my character ended killing his overly powered character... right before he became the DM.

I know it was stupid, but everyone in the group had a part in it and I was the only one ballsy enough to pull the trigger. It was also a way for him to "retire" his OP character and move on to DMing. I also took this opportunity to retire my character because a) I wanted to try something new and b) I knew the DM wouldn't be comfortable having him as a character.

So this is where my new character comes in. I wanted to create a character who was invulnerable but also didn't break the game for the other characters. I was doing this in anticipation of feeling the DM wrath (he's certainly one to hold a grudge, in real life even). However, instead of taking it out on my new character, he used his cheese DM powers to send his own character "back in time to kill him [my previous character] as a child" effectively reversing his existence and anything he accomplished during the last campaign.

That being said, my character (after being approved by BOTH DMs prior to the start of the campaign) is a Pixie lvl 5(savage species) eidolomancer lvl 1(ghost walk) healer lvl 11(miniatures handbook). I know this is super 3.0 rather than 3.5 but everything was looked at and approved, and we are certainly playing 3.5 rules. I designed this character to be unhittable, but still help the party out instead of dealing mass amounts of damage while flying around invisible being a ****.

My character is pure utility. Believe it or not, I am not the most power gamed character in our party, for example, we have a character who can easily do 300-400 damage in a full round. My job is to keep him and the other members alive.

The reason I asked the original question is because we were all qurious to the matter. 50% miss rate is pretty great still, but its not the 100% I'm looking for, and designed my character for. Also, 50% miss from greater invisibly (which is another question I have: incorporeal + invisible= roll back to back 50% misses? You'd think I should know this by now but...)? Works for everyone else but myself.

I hope everyone is getting the picture I'm trying to paint. I wasn't trying to make the most over powered creature on the planet, I was trying to make an invulnerable creature that has utility to the group and also has a good backstory.

Sorry for the long post

[Sagetim]

Hello everyone, first time poster here. I found this website and am impressed by what I see so I though I'd shoot a question out!

Simply put, I have a 3.5 character who is incorporeal, so non-magical attacks have a 100% miss rate whereas magical attacks and spells have a 50% miss rate (not including ghost touched weapons of course).

My question is, how do I or the DM determine whether a natural weapon (claw, bite, tentacle etc.) is considered magic or not? My DM has a terrible habit of just saying every creature is "magic" and therefore hits 50% as opposed to miss 100%. Is there a specific way of finding out whether a natural weapon is considered magic or not? I.e. a creature with the "magical beast" type hits with magic?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

If a monster has dr/magic (not dr/cold iron, not dr/adamant, not dr/silver, not dr/panties. DR/Magic. If it has DR/Bludgeoning and magic that counts, but, for example, DR/cold iron and good does not.) If the monster has DR/Magic, it's natural attacks strike as a magic weapon. If it has any other kind of dr, it's natural attacks strike as that kind of weapon. So a werewolf with dr/silver strikes as silver with his claws and bite.

This means that most monsters will not strike as magic and will not get a 50% chance to hit you. However, check the DMG just in case. If striking as an alignment also bypasses dr/magic, then it would also get the 50% chance to hit you.

Back in the old (3.0) damage reduction system, you had a list of dr's and anything higher on the list skipped past anything lower on the list, but they changed that in 3.5.

As far as I remember off hand, spells doing elemental damage also have a miss chance against incorporeal targets (or they just don't affect incorporeal). Which is where spells that deal force damage and the metamagic feat transdimensional spell come in handy.

If something does force damage, you'll be hit by it even while incorporeal. Magic missiles will hurt (assuming the person can see you well enough to target you with them).


Edit: If you're incorporeal, they also need a means of detecting you. If you are both incorporeal and invisible, I would assume that they need to roll for miss chance twice, at the normal miss chance percentage. This would mean that with a +1 weapon or what have you, they roll 50% twice, and miss if either miss vs your improved invisibled incorporeal self. If they have a ghost touch weapon, they would still roll for improved invis 50% miss chance. You would not be stacking two 50% for a 100%, rather they would roll for each miss chance at it's percentage. If the enemy is using trueseeing though, for example, to detect your ethreal self, then they only roll for the incorporeal miss chance, because they see through improved invis, displacement, etc.

[PrediDERP]

If a monster has dr/magic (not dr/cold iron, not dr/adamant, not dr/silver, not dr/panties. DR/Magic. If it has DR/Bludgeoning and magic that counts, but, for example, DR/cold iron and good does not.) If the monster has DR/Magic, it's natural attacks strike as a magic weapon. If it has any other kind of dr, it's natural attacks strike as that kind of weapon. So a werewolf with dr/silver strikes as silver with his claws and bite.


I find this hard to believe. In that case a demon with DR/good strikes with GOOD aligned natural attacks?

[Segev]

I find this hard to believe. In that case a demon with DR/good strikes with GOOD aligned natural attacks?

Yup. It allows him to overcome other demons' and devils' DR/good.

[ShurikVch]

My bad, I was actually thinking of Pathfinder here, where Magic Strike lets you harm incorporeal creatures. (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fo#v5748eaic9sih)No, not exactly: it will be included in the Errata, which will appear who know when in the future


(Amusingly this means the PF Tarrasque can actually defend itself against Allips - not that it needs to since the PF Tarrasque is immune to ability drain as well.)Not according to the Bestiary...

[Psyren]

No, not exactly: it will be included in the Errata, which will appear who know when in the future

Dev statements are authoritative in PF; errata is only updated on new print runs.


Not according to the Bestiary...

The Tarrasque was updated in Inner Sea Gods.

[Renen]

It's not that demons strike with good aligned attacks, but more like their attacks know how to bypass the defence because they themselves got it, and know a way around it.

[PrediDERP]

Yup. It allows him to overcome other demons' and devils' DR/good.

Do you mind referencing this?


as mentioned by ericgrau earlier, even with DR/magic, the creature's natural weapons are only treated as magical for overcoming damage reduction, it does nothing to allow the creature to strike incorporeal opponents, which is the issue here.

As stated earlier, DR/magic only over comes DR, not incorporeal miss rate. Unless there's something else somewhere we can deference?

[Malcador]

From http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#incorporealSubtype (emphasis mine):


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.

The same wording appears in the Rules Compendium section on incorporeality (Rules Compendium page 64, under "Harming").

In my opinion, the intent behind "strike as magic weapons" was to reference the ability of creatures with DR/magic to bypass the DR/magic of others (which the Rules Compendium calls "Magic Strike"). While I understand that some people might disagree (on the grounds that that ability only includes striking as magic weapons for purposes of bypassing DR), I can't find any other ability which allows a creature's natural weapons to strike as magic weapons, so I conclude that the phrase in the incorporeality rules must be referring to the "Magic Strike" ability.

[ShurikVch]

I can't find any other ability which allows a creature's natural weapons to strike as magic weaponsMagic Fang (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicFang.htm) SLA