Did Pathfinder drop the antimagic field and incorporeal undead interaction?

[Jack_Simth]

Hello all,

Just a quick sanity check:
Did Pathfinder drop the 3.5 interaction in which an Incorporeal undead winks out in an Antimagic Field? I'm not seeing it under the Antimagic Field (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/antimagic-field/) spell, the Incorporeal subtype (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types/#Incorporeal_Subtype), the incorporeal special ability (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules/#TOC-Incorporeal-Ex-), or the undead type (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/Creature-types/#TOC-Undead) entry. Am I blind, or did they drop it?

In 3.5, it was in the Antimagic Field Spell description (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm).

[Firest Kathon]

Pathfinder changed how incorporeal creatures work.

In 3.5, an incorporeal creature existed on the ethereal plane and extended its presence into the material plane. This was usually a supernatural or spell-like effect, which was canceled in the antimagic field.
In Pathfinder, incorporeal creatures exist only on one plane, therefor the antimagic field has no effect on their incorporealness unless is comes from a spell effect (such as Dust Form (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dust-form), in which case the creature would become material again)

[Mr Adventurer]

Pathfinder changed how incorporeal creatures work.

In 3.5, an incorporeal creature existed on the ethereal plane and extended its presence into the material plane. This was usually a supernatural or spell-like effect, which was canceled in the antimagic field.
In Pathfinder, incorporeal creatures exist only on one plane, therefor the antimagic field has no effect on their incorporealness unless is comes from a spell effect (such as Dust Form (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dust-form), in which case the creature would become material again)


False - you are confused with Ghosts in particular, who reside on the Ethereal plane and can manifest on the Prime as an incorporeal creature. Incorporeal creatures in 3.5 generally exist on one plane.

[Psyren]

Hello all,

Just a quick sanity check:
Did Pathfinder drop the 3.5 interaction in which an Incorporeal undead winks out in an Antimagic Field? I'm not seeing it under the Antimagic Field (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/antimagic-field/) spell, the Incorporeal subtype (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types/#Incorporeal_Subtype), the incorporeal special ability (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules/#TOC-Incorporeal-Ex-), or the undead type (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/Creature-types/#TOC-Undead) entry. Am I blind, or did they drop it?

In 3.5, it was in the Antimagic Field Spell description (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm).

The PF AMF spell still has the line in my CRB, and on the PRD. Not sure why the PFSRD doesn't have it, but it is not an official source. Can't link as I'm at work, but the official PRD is now at aonprd if you want to look it up yourself.

[Firest Kathon]

The PF AMF spell still has the line in my CRB, and on the PRD. Not sure why the PFSRD doesn't have it, but it is not an official source. Can't link as I'm at work, but the official PRD is now at aonprd if you want to look it up yourself.

That made me curious, so I went and check the errata. The sentence "and incorporeal undead" was removed in the first errata (https://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/CoreRulebookErrata_1.4.zip) ("First Printing to Sixth Printing"). All subsequent errata mention it as well except the latest (which only covers 5th->6th printing). No idea why Archives of Nethys did not pick that up, but I reported it to them.

[Firest Kathon]

Pathfinder changed how incorporeal creatures work.

In 3.5, an incorporeal creature existed on the ethereal plane and extended its presence into the material plane. This was usually a supernatural or spell-like effect, which was canceled in the antimagic field.
In Pathfinder, incorporeal creatures exist only on one plane, therefor the antimagic field has no effect on their incorporealness unless is comes from a spell effect (such as Dust Form (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dust-form), in which case the creature would become material again)



False - you are confused with Ghosts in particular, who reside on the Ethereal plane and can manifest on the Prime as an incorporeal creature. Incorporeal creatures in 3.5 generally exist on one plane.

Ah, right, thank you for the correction.

[Segev]

That made me curious, so I went and check the errata. The sentence "and incorporeal undead" was removed in the first errata (https://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/CoreRulebookErrata_1.4.zip) ("First Printing to Sixth Printing"). All subsequent errata mention it as well except the latest (which only covers 5th->6th printing). No idea why Archives of Nethys did not pick that up, but I reported it to them.

Now I'm confused. What is the current state of this interaction according to official, as-of-June-2019 Pathfinder?

[Firest Kathon]

Now I'm confused. What is the current state of this interaction according to official, as-of-June-2019 Pathfinder?

The current rules are that incorpreal undead are unaffected (in regards to their incorporealness) by an Antimagic Field. Only summoned creatures wink out when entering it.

[Segev]

The current rules are that incorpreal undead are unaffected (in regards to their incorporealness) by an Antimagic Field. Only summoned creatures wink out when entering it.

Alright. Makes a certain amount of sense; being incorporeal isn't an innately magical ability, but an (ex) one, under these rules.

[Psyren]

That made me curious, so I went and check the errata. The sentence "and incorporeal undead" was removed in the first errata (https://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/CoreRulebookErrata_1.4.zip) ("First Printing to Sixth Printing"). All subsequent errata mention it as well except the latest (which only covers 5th->6th printing). No idea why Archives of Nethys did not pick that up, but I reported it to them.

5th -> 6th would actually be the latest one. If the change was reverted there, that would explain why AoNPRD has it that way.

1st ->6th is a compilation of all the errata to make things easier from somoene who has an original CRB, so that they don't have to go through each volume individually to capture all the changes. But that one compilation might actually be the typo. Interested to hear what they say.

[Jack_Simth]

5th -> 6th would actually be the latest one. If the change was reverted there, that would explain why AoNPRD has it that way.
I found A page linking the errata by printing for the core rulebook (https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748btpy88yj/faq)

The 5th -> 6th is the latest, and does not list Antimagic Field.... however: 5th -> 6th is only 2 pages, while the linked one (1st to 6th) is nine pages. It looks like all the errata files are current ("date release 5/30/2013"), but each errata file is relative to a specific printing (so if you have a 3rd printing book, you don't get confused when you look at 2nd printing errata and say "but it's already that way..."). As such, the lack of a mention of Antimagic Field in the 5th -> 6th can't be taken as a reversion of prior things any more than the other things it doesn't mention (of which there are a lot). After all: If the 5th printing didn't list Incorporeal critters as winking out in AMF's, there's no need for an errata for the 5th printing to update it to match the 6th. I suppose the way to check would be to get a current copy. My best guess is that they changed it in the 5th printing, and so added it to all pre-5th-printing errata files.

Edit: So I suppose that answers my question: Yes, they did.