[3.5] Can an Undead Stalker sneak attack incorporeal undead?

[Wallraven]

The 3.5 DMG gives an example of creating a new class based on mixing and matching abilities from other classes.
This ranger-based Undead Stalker gains the following ability (among others):

Give him the rogue’s sneak attack ability, but change it so that it’s only usable against undead.

The rogue's sneak attack ability specifically says it will not work on undead, so obviously the undead stalker ability overrides this.
But, the rogue's ability also specifies that it doesn't work on incorporeal creatures.

So, would an undead stalker be able to sneak attack a ghost?

[Ashtagon]

Since the entire section is discussing how to make a homebrew, the only correct answer is, "ask your DM".

[Drelua]

Yeah, it's not really a concrete thing so it's hard to say. Although, even the skullclan hunter, a prestige class from miniatures handbook, isn't really clear on that point. Their divine strike ability says "effectively, this ability allows him to deal extra damage to undead as though making a sneak attack." It applies to any sneak attack damage you already have, but isn't exactly sneak attack due to the convoluted wording. No mention of incorporeal, although they can definitely sneak attack incorporeal when they hit level 9 since any weapon they use counts as ghost touch. It's a pretty cool prestige class, they get some nice abilities for fighting undead, including some pretty good immunities and ignoring any undead's DR. How good it is depends on the campaign of course, and how often you're fighting undead.

[Thurbane]

My reading would be that immunity to Sneak Attack from being Incorporeal is a separate quality to being immune by being Undead (there are living Incorporeal creatures), so the ability would fail.

[DrMotives]

You don't even need to homebrew this from a DMG suggestion. Complete Champion has 2 rogue ACFs (both of which can be taken by a single character) called Death's Ruin & Holy Stalker. Holy Stalker adds 1 point of positive energy damage per die of sneak attack, while Death's Ruin lets you use half your normal sneak dice as a supernatural ability to hurt undead. Neither ability mentions how they work with incorporeal targets though.

[Rijan_Sai]

Ghost Touch weapon property?

Hailey sums up the main problem with sneak attack against undead quite nicely in the current* comic: "Nah, Sneak Attack doesn't do much against people whose vitals...aren't."

Undead Stalker changes that so that you are able to find the weak points in undead that other sneak attackers can't, at the cost of not being able to find such weaknesses in the living.

The problem with incorporeal undead is that, while corporeal creatures at least have some sort of physiology that can be targeted, incorporeal creatures really don't... they just sort of...are.

That said, were I DM'ing I would indeed allow Ghost Touch weapons to hit. Player put some build resources into undead killing, let them have the undead kills! (By extension, I would not allow them to SA living incorporeal creatures. It works both ways!)
RAW? Don't know... but that's how I would see it.




*(#1110 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1110.html) if you're seeing this at a later time...)