Sentinel vs Incorporeal Creatures

[Digimike]

RAW it would absolutely work. But say a party were fighting wraiths. Considering the creatures move through solid objects and can't be grappled, restrained, etc I'd lean towards it not working.

I'm wondering what all of your thoughts are.

[Crgaston]

Do you mean the reaction attack part, or the reducing move to 0?

Since Sentinel doesn’t explicitly apply the Grappled or Restrained condition, I envision the move reduction as more of a distraction than any kind of physical restraint, so from that perspective it would still work, but given the wraith’s characteristics, it’d certainly be reasonable to assume that it doesn’t.

[nickl_2000]

There is nothing in the wraith that makes it appear that they don't get AoOs against them. So, I would say sentinel would work against them. How it works, I'm not really sure but that would be up to the imagination of the player.

[mer.c]

Are you talking about the extra attack on Sentinel, the Disengage, the slow, or the whole feat? Personally I’d definitely allow the attack and almost certainly ignore the movement speed reduction. Kind of 50/50 on the Disengage part.

[Keravath]

Sentinel: "When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the creature's speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn."

My take is that if you hit and do damage to the creature then the effect of Sentinel should still occur. Sentinel doesn't restrain, grapple or otherwise hold the target in place. You aren't keeping your weapon extended or some other unusual physical way of preventing movement.

This is D&D :) ... Sentinel magically allows you to sufficiently distract the creature or otherwise inhibit its motion with a well placed hit so that it either can't move further or decides not to do so.

As long as you can hit the creature, I don't see any reason why sentinel would not continue to work as expected.

In your case, by suggesting that it might not work on wraiths because they can move through solid objects, you are implicitly assuming that somehow the character is using some sort of physical mechanism to prevent the creature from moving and the description doesn't give any indication that the mechanism is physical at all.

"You have mastered techniques to take advantage of every drop in any enemy's guard"

This description sounds far more like mental distraction or any number of other mechanisms (including magic) to reduce their movement to zero rather than some sort of physically restraining attack. Your example might only come into play IF the sentinel feat was based on trying to physically restrain the target that you hit.

[Digimike]

I'm specifically referring to the dropping of an Incorporeal creature's movement to 0. The AAO would of course go off, but considering all the conditions they're immune to I don't see how physically imposing yourself in the way would limit their movement.

[TristanLeo]

In the rules there's nothing to say it doesn't work on Incorporeal creatures, so that would have to be a GM ruling if you had it as such.

From a realistic standpoint, I guess you could see it as the creature tries to pass by but the sentinel strikes them a blow that makes them think twice and reconsider their options. Getting hit is something almost every creature wants to avoid if and when it can and if it looks like your opponent will strike you again for trying, you're not just going to keep moving in and getting hit.

[Keravath]

I'm specifically referring to the dropping of an Incorporeal creature's movement to 0. The AAO would of course go off, but considering all the conditions they're immune to I don't see how physically imposing yourself in the way would limit their movement.

.. because you AREN'T physically imposing yourself in the way?

Sentinel doesn't specify how it works ... your concern is based on a specific assumption about how it works which is not necessarily accurate.

Maybe the creature affected by sentinel is just so dazed and amazed by the gracefulness of your technique and the ability to land such an unexpected hit that it just stands there for the next 3 seconds in wonder?

Keep in mind that Sentinel works fine with reach weapons ... so in that case you are certainly not physically interposing yourself to prevent movement at a distance of 10' ... you are simply hitting the creature and some OTHER aspect of the attack (magic?) prevents their continued movement.

So, as far as I would play it, Sentinel should work fine on incorporal creatures.

A DM can DECIDE that Sentinel MUST work a certain way in their game based on some mechanism they make up in which case there might be circumstances where it might and might not work ... however, that would be entirely homebrewed.

[lunaticfringe]

I'm specifically referring to the dropping of an Incorporeal creature's movement to 0. The AAO would of course go off, but considering all the conditions they're immune to I don't see how physically imposing yourself in the way would limit their movement.

But it doesn't say anything about physically blocking your target, you are saying that. Trying to apply 'intuitive logic' to the game, especially when it subtracts from a player's feature, should be avoided like the plague imho. It's just a big ole can a worms and 95% of the time it effects martials. Spellcasters get a free pass because derp, derp, derp Magic.

[Digimike]

I very much appreciate the feedback. I allowed it to happen when it came up at my table since I tend to lean towards RAW. But it was very much bugging me in the back of my mind with the whole "this doesn't really make sense" aspect. When I decided to google around to see if this came up for other players/GM's I only saw a reddit thread that was sort of 50/50 on the subject.

[lunaticfringe]

I very much appreciate the feedback. I allowed it to happen when it came up at my table since I tend to lean towards RAW. But it was very much bugging me in the back of my mind with the whole "this doesn't really make sense" aspect. When I decided to google around to see if this came up for other players/GM's I only saw a reddit thread that was sort of 50/50 on the subject.

Think of it like this if it helps:

You and me are fighting. I take my eyes off you for the briefest of moments looking for an escape route and you cut me with your knife. You are going to demand my complete attention for at least a couple seconds.