Incorporeal spellcaster

[Yogibear41]

Do spells cast by an incorporeal spellcaster have the same 50% miss chance when trying to affect a corporeal target, as a coporeal caster's spells trying to affect an incorporeal target?

The rules compendium specifically says an incorporeal attacker has the 50% miss chance when attacking a corporeal creature with a magic weapon, but does not mention spells.

[Jeraa]

The only information I can find on this is from the 3.5 FAQ:


What happens if a mirror image user is incorporeal? Are the user’s images also incorporeal? Do attacks aimed at the images have the incorporeal miss chance? If the incorporeal user moves through a wall, can the images move through the wall, too? What happens if the user goes to another plane? Do the images go along? What if the mirror image user employs a blink spell?

Incorporeal spell casters create corporeal effects. So the figments from an incorporeal user’s mirror image spell are themselves corporeal. Attacks aimed at the images have no incorporeal miss chance. The images, however, appear like the caster and move as the caster moves. If an incorporeal user moves through a wall,
its mirror images also appear to move through the wall. If a mirror image user moves to another plane, the images go along. If the user employs a blink spell, the images blink right along with the user, and any attack aimed at an image has the same miss chance (50%) it has if aimed at the caster.

According to that, spell effects from an incorporeal caster are corporeal, so no miss chance.

[Selion]

The only information I can find on this is from the 3.5 FAQ:



According to that, spell effects from an incorporeal caster are corporeal, so no miss chance.

The real question is what happens when a spell from an incorporeal spellcaster affects an incorporeal target. By rules it seems it should have a 50% miss chance

[Jeraa]

The real question is what happens when a spell from an incorporeal spellcaster affects an incorporeal target. By rules it seems it should have a 50% miss chance

If that FAQ is correct, then that would be correct. An incorporeal casters spell effects are corporeal, and would have that miss chance against an incorporeal target.

Edit: Checking Monster Manual 5 (the most recent version of the Incorporeal subtype, I believe), there is this:


Equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as that equipment remains in the
creature’s possession. An object the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality, and the creature loses the
ability to manipulate the object. If an incorporeal creature uses a thrown weapon or a ranged weapon, that projectile becomes corporeal as soon as it is fi red and can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance). Magic items possessed by an incorporeal creature work normally with respect to their effects on the creature or on another target. Similarly, spells cast by an incorporeal creature affect corporeal creatures normally.

So sometime after it was made the FAQ was indeed applied to the rest of the rules. No miss chance when targeting corporeal foes.

Edit 2: And indeed the same thing is actually stated in the Rules Compendium as well. Missed that. Likely because it is listed under the Equipment paragraph for some reason.

[Yogibear41]

Wow I read through all the stuff in the rules compendium and completely skipped over that paragraph cuz well, why would they put it there? /facepalm. Thanks.