Incorporeal

Conditions

An incorporeal creature has no physical body — it exists as a ghostly presence that can pass through solid matter and is immune to most physical harm. Incorporeal is a creature type trait rather than a temporary condition for most monsters, but it appears in the conditions list because certain spells and effects can render a creature temporarily incorporeal.

Effects

  • Immune to all nonmagical attack forms — weapons, natural attacks, and other physical contact pass through the creature.
  • 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal magical source (including spells with a physical component, magic weapons, touch attacks from corporeal creatures).
  • No Strength score — the creature uses its Charisma modifier in place of Strength for attacks.
  • Incorporeal creatures take full damage from other incorporeal creatures, force effects, and spells/abilities that specifically affect incorporeal creatures.
  • Can move through solid objects (walls, floors, creatures) but cannot pass through force effects (e.g., a wall of force blocks them).
  • Can be hit by ghost touch weapons (these ignore the 50% miss chance entirely).
  • No AC bonus from armor, shields, or natural armor (Deflection bonuses still apply).
Incorporeal touch attacks. Incorporeal creatures' touch attacks ignore all physical armor, shields, and natural armor bonuses. Only deflection bonuses, force effects, and force-based armor (like mage armor) protect against them. This makes incorporeal undead disproportionately dangerous against high-AC characters if they lack deflection bonuses.

Ending the Condition

  • For native incorporeal creatures (ghosts, shadows, wraiths), incorporeal is a permanent state — it cannot be ended without killing the creature.
  • For creatures made temporarily incorporeal by a spell (e.g., gaseous form in some interpretations), the condition ends when the spell ends or is dispelled.
  • Dispel magic can end magically-induced incorporeality.

Related Conditions

  • Invisible — many incorporeal creatures are also invisible; both conditions together make them very difficult to target.

Common Sources

Incorporeal is a permanent creature trait for ghosts, shadows, wraiths, shades, and certain other undead. Temporary incorporeality can be caused by gaseous form (though that spell has its own specific rule set that differs in some respects); certain haunt effects; the ghost's malevolence ability (possessing a corporeal creature does not make the ghost corporeal). Positive energy and channeled energy affect incorporeal undead normally — the 50% miss chance does not apply to channel energy.