incorporeality clarifications

[tepes]

ok so I know I'm kind of asking for a lot here, but hear me out. I'm looking for some clarifications on incorporeality. (mostly edge case situations)

Q1. is a ghost touch item being wielded by an incorporeal creature itself incorporeal or not? (what about the ghostly grasp feat?)

Q2. if items being used by an incorporeal creature are still corporeal, could an incorporeal creature wearing ghost touch gloves (or with the ghostly grasp feat) punch someone in the face? or slash someone with a sword? if so then what do you do about them not having a strength score?

Q3. can a incorporeal soulknife make melee attacks with its mind blade? or does the whole feature just become useless because it relies on the capacity to make melee attack's?

Q4. can a incorporeal warlock make melee attacks with eldritch claws/glaive? or does the whole feature just become useless because it relies on the capacity to make melee attack's?

Q.5 assuming items wielded via ghost touch or ghostly grasp are still corporeal (some gloves for your smakin nubs) could you have a ghost monk that could still get mileage out of its improved unarmed damage and flurry of blows? what about an unbodied psion with the tashalatora feat?

Q.6 would a incorporeal cleric casting something like vile lance or bone blade be able to wield it normally or would they need ghost touch/ghostly grasp? if they could wield it how would making attacks with it work?

and I would much appreciate if anyone could point out other edge case scenarios I'm not even thinking about that might have odd mechanics involved.

honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the answers to most of these are obvious (probably no/doesn't work) and I'm just not using my brain. anyways thanks in advance :smalltongue:

[Darg]

A1 & 2) It's incorporeal while held, and becomes corporeal while not held. Ghost touch gloves = can punch in the face. Ghost touch gloves to grab a nonmagical sword = sword is incorporeal and thus cannot interact with the corporeal. As they don't have a strength score, they don't get a modifier either.


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 fired and can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance).

A3) Once the mind blade gains an enhancement bonus at level 4 it becomes a psionic/magical weapon which gives a 50% chance to interact.

A4) They are both magical damage. They both have a 50% chance to interact.

A5) See answer 1/2. Ghost touch gloves or gauntlets would allow a ghost monk to "punch" corporeal targets.

A6) Presumably spells create weapons that are immediately wielded by the recipient. Items held by the incorporeal creature are incorporeal as well. As the weapons are magic, they have a 50% chance to interact with corporeal targets.

[Biggus]

Q1. is a ghost touch item being wielded by an incorporeal creature itself incorporeal or not? (what about the ghostly grasp feat?)

No, it doesn't say anything about it changing back and forth between corporeal and incorporeal, just that it's treated as either, whichever is most beneficial.

The FAQ (yes I know, FAQ is not RAW, blah blah) has this to say:


The descriptions of ghost touch weapons on pages 224 and 225 of the DMG says that a ghost touch weapon functions as either a corporeal or an incorporeal object, whichever is more beneficial to the wielder at the time. Does that mean that ghost touch weapons also ignore armor and natural armor bonuses to their target’s AC in the hands of corporeal creatures?
No, it does not. Ghost touch weapons allow corporeal wielders to strike incorporeal targets (and manifested ghosts) with no miss chance. They also allow manifested ghosts to make normal attacks (not incorporeal touch attacks) against targets on the Material Plane. An incorporeal creature or manifested ghost can also pick up and move a ghost touch weapon and can carry it along when the creature moves through a solid object. It is the latter property that’s being described in the text you’re quoting.

Edit: it appears we have a disagreement between sources here (what a surprise!).

[Crake]

A1 & 2) It's incorporeal while held, and becomes corporeal while not held. Ghost touch gloves = can punch in the face. Ghost touch gloves to grab a nonmagical sword = sword is incorporeal and thus cannot interact with the corporeal. As they don't have a strength score, they don't get a modifier either.

A5) See answer 1/2. Ghost touch gloves or gauntlets would allow a ghost monk to "punch" corporeal targets.

This is incorrect. Ghost touch items have this caveat as per savage species: “However, this process does not grant these magic items the ability to affect corporeal or incorporeal targets, other than whatever effect the item normally provides.” So a pair of ghost touch gloves do not grant an incorporeal wearer the ability to manipulate corporeal things, they can only manipulate the gloves, and upon doing so, make the gloves incorporeal in the process.

If you wanted to be able to make unarmed attacks, you would need to enchant a pair of gauntlets, an item specifically made to perform attacks, with the ghost touch quality, which is considerably more expensive.

[Darg]

This is incorrect. Ghost touch items have this caveat as per savage species: “However, this process does not grant these magic items the ability to affect corporeal or incorporeal targets, other than whatever effect the item normally provides.” So a pair of ghost touch gloves do not grant an incorporeal wearer the ability to manipulate corporeal things, they can only manipulate the gloves, and upon doing so, make the gloves incorporeal in the process.

If you wanted to be able to make unarmed attacks, you would need to enchant a pair of gauntlets, an item specifically made to perform attacks, with the ghost touch quality, which is considerably more expensive.

Gauntlets are actually cheaper than the gloves because if it's not a weapon it costs 10% more. Thanks for pointing it out though. I assumed the gloves would have been enhanced as a weapon because it was going to be used to punch something.

[Crake]

Gauntlets are actually cheaper than the gloves because if it's not a weapon it costs 10% more. Thanks for pointing it out though. I assumed the gloves would have been enhanced as a weapon because it was going to be used to punch something.

Gauntlets ARE a weapon though, so they’d incur the +3 weapon enhancement cost, not the 10% of magic item cost.

Note that only MAGIC ITEMS can be enhanced with ghost touch, so you cant make a mundane set of traveler’s clothes ghost touch by increasing their cost from 1g to 1.1g

[Beni-Kujaku]

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.

Wait, WHAT.
If the creatures lets go of the item, it becomes corporeal "and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object"?!? Then how did it get the object in the first place? It couldn't grab it, since it was corporeal at that time. That makes no sense.
Are those supposed to be the items that the incorporeal creature was "born" with?
Do Crypt Chanters have to hang on to their flute, otherwise it becomes corporeal and they lose it forever?
Are incorporeal creatures just an engine to turn incorporeal items into corporeal ones, by grabbing them, then letting go?
Ghosts get an incorporeal copy of the gear they had when alive, can they let it go and create a copy of these items? I want a ghost who died grabbing a major artifact, who duplicated it by simply giving it away!
Can you make a ghost factory by having people with high Cha take the first level in the Ghost savage progression, take their duplicated gears, give them to someone else, have them become a ghost, etc...?
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!

[Darg]

Remember, the incorporeal creature needs to be manifested for the items they drop to become corporeal.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Remember, the incorporeal creature needs to be manifested for the items they drop to become corporeal.

Well, yeah, a ghost isn't incorporeal unless manifested, it's just ethereal. I don't see anything that would prevent duplicating items this way, even level 1 Savage Progression ghosts can manifest, and they take their duplicated gear with them when they manifest.

When somebody seizes the original, the ethereal vanishes, but any copy of the copy remains. So, you can have artifact A1 being copied by a ghost G1 (giving A2), then A2 is put on the ground, picked up by a new candidate-ghost G2, which gains a level, creates A3, and puts A3 on the ground. Then somebody picks A1, which makes A2 disappear, and now A3 is fully real and there's no A2 left that could make it disappear. You now have A1 and A3, and you can start the process anew.

[Doctor Despair]

Wait, WHAT.
If the creatures lets go of the item, it becomes corporeal "and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object"?!? Then how did it get the object in the first place?

1. Ghostly Grasp feat lets them pick up corporeal objects

2. Items that are ghost touch obviously can be picked up

3. Ghostoil probably lets you pick up a weapon to make it incorporeal

4. As pointed out, items can have ghost touch for just a 10% increase to their base price

5. There's a ghost touch ring in ghostwalk that lets an incorporeal creature manifest into a corporeal form. Put it on, put on the equipment, take it off, and your equipment goes incorporeal.

6. Cast the ghost trap spell to do the same as 5

7. In the case of ghosts, dying and becoming a ghost does, iirc, let you rise with a ghostly copy of your equipment

8. In the case of ghosts, bring equipment to the ethereal (or find equipment there), give it to the ghost, then let the ghost manifest with the new equipment, rendering it incorporeal

I'm sure there's other ways



Do Crypt Chanters have to hang on to their flute, otherwise it becomes corporeal and they lose it forever?

Yeah, probably? Unless they use one of the many mechanisms above to pick it back up.



Are incorporeal creatures just an engine to turn incorporeal items into corporeal ones, by grabbing them, then letting go?
Ghosts get an incorporeal copy of the gear they had when alive, can they let it go and create a copy of these items? I want a ghost who died grabbing a major artifact, who duplicated it by simply giving it away!
Can you make a ghost factory by having people with high Cha take the first level in the Ghost savage progression, take their duplicated gears, give them to someone else, have them become a ghost, etc...?
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!


Ghostly Equipment
When a ghost forms, all its equipment and carried items usually become ethereal along with it. In addition, the ghost retains 2d4 items that it particularly valued in life (provided they are not in another creature's possession). The equipment works normally on the Ethereal Plane but passes harmlessly through material objects or creatures. A weapon of +1 or better enchantment, however, can harm material creatures when the ghost manifests, and enchanted weapons can harm the ghost.

The original material items remain behind, just as the ghost's physical remains do. If another creature seizes the original, the ethereal copy fades away. This invariably angers the ghost, who stops at nothing to return the item to its original resting place.

So yes, you'd duplicate the item -- until someone tried to take the original back to cash in on the benefit of duplicating it, in which case the copy would fade away. So... it's more of a functional replacement than a duplication.

[Beni-Kujaku]

So yes, you'd duplicate the item -- until someone tried to take the original back to cash in on the benefit of duplicating it, in which case the copy would fade away. So... it's more of a functional replacement than a duplication.

That's why I said you don't take the original. You take the copy, and copy it. Then you take the original, the copy disappears, but the copy of the copy remains and can no longer be poofed.

Are there other "duplication glitches" in 3.5 (except Astral Projection, of course, which doesn't even say the duplicated gear disappears at any moment, and is stupid, and I hate it)?

[Paragon]

The Fusion power coupled with Astral Seed on top of my mind :

you fusion two beings, create a "save" of it, people separate and you still have the seed of said individual, which you can then fusion with :p

[Crake]

The Fusion power coupled with Astral Seed on top of my mind :

you fusion two beings, create a "save" of it, people separate and you still have the seed of said individual, which you can then fusion with :p

You need to die while fused, otherwise the astral seed never triggers, because the individual who cast the astral seed ceases to exist when the fusion ends. The fused individual is neither of the individuals who fused after all, so you cannot create fusion, astral seed, and then fuse with your seeded fusion, because you and the fusion can never be alive at the same time.

[Paragon]

I guess if you kill yourself when fused then the fused being comes back.
But are you still in control (assuming you were when cast) ? And if not, who is ?
Does the fused being still cease to exist when the spell expire ?

[Crake]

Does the fused being still cease to exist when the spell expire ?

I would imagine so, since the spell handles the fusion of both body AND mind/soul, so when the spell ends, your soul would split, snd no longer be a proper candidate to inhabit the astral seed