Incorporal... Question

So,

This should be a very easy question. Does piercing effect the soak provided by Incorporal?

RAW yes. I tend to allow it because ultimately stabbing a ghost isnt that useful in the long run. A GM who wants to play RAW and not have ghosts fall over like that might consider adding fast recovery to them. A GM less concerned with RAW can just say no.

Yeah, thats what I thought. Besides, the Winchester brothers use Iron Rebar to fight ghosts all the time… lol.

Thanks

RAW is Read As Written or… :smiley:
iu

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Tonight will be the first enemy with Incorporeal quality. Refreshing my memory of the Incorporeal quality indeed means that Piercing and other soak-reducing mechanics affects the value provided by the quality. It could have been explained in better way, but the second sentence makes it clear for me :slight_smile:

​An incorporeal creature gains X points of Armor Soak, where X is the rating of this ability. This is ignored entirely by supernatural attacks, and by weapons that have been blessed, ensorcelled, or otherwise enhanced with supernatural powers.​

It was actually that quote you provided that made me create a house rule so that pierce would not affect it. Why try to find a rare blessed blade to beat the ghost when I can just use a mundane spear. Just did not feel right that Pierce would have an impact on incorporeal.

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i agree Mith- my way of reading/flavouring this is the same. Blessed blades ignore a certain amount of incorporeal soak- normal weapons …NO. Also makes creatures that can go incorporeal scarier…good. In a game bent for PC heroism- whats wrong with having a few creatures be just that little bit tougher- especially things with the incorporeal nature!

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Yeah, that is what got me to ask as well. I get it, its 4 Soak, no qualities, like heavy or Noisy. But it seems silly that it is not immune to piercing.

I am not fussy of that rule at all. But thats just little ole me. I am glad others think the same way I did on this!

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Definitely makes no sense the armor from Incorporeal to be pierced by the mundane methods… Last night what was supposed to be tougher encounter resulted in 1-2 hit finish from the PCs.

I would go further and make the incorporeal creatures immune to mundane weapons, but this will be reserved only for some special enemies, where the story leads to an item or artifact that is capable of hurting them (or another spellcaster). :wink:

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It’s worth noting that incorporeal isn’t strictly just ghosts and the like - it covers swarms of creatures, creatures with fluid anatomies (or ones literally made of liquid), and so forth as well. In those cases, the extra precision represented by soak reduction (hitting the weak points on armour) is just as applicable. The more insubstantial a creature, the more armour it should get from the Incorporeal rule.

On a related note, Star Trek Adventures has rules for dealing with invulnerable foes:

Invulnerable
The creature is impervious to harm, and cannot be injured in any way; physical attacks can be attempted and damage is rolled as normal, and the creature has a Vigor track, but it will not suffer Wounds as a result. This can take a few different forms, described below. These variations can be combined.

  • Specific Weakness: The creature has a specific weakness - a weak spot, magic, a certain material - which can overcome its invulnerability. If this weakness is discovered and employed, then the creature can suffer Wounds which exploit that weakness (this also bypasses any other Invulnerable effects). The GM’s discretion applies as to how the weakness may be discovered.
  • Staggered: The creature cannot be injured, but it can be hurt. If the creature would suffer a Wound, it instead loses the ability to take any actions on its next Turn. This is not cumulative.
  • Wrathful: The creature grows angry when challenged; if the creature would suffer a Wound, it instead adds 2 to Doom.

As a variant to Staggered to make it less reliable (and harder to stun-lock a creature), roll a combat die whenever the creature would take a Wound; it becomes stunned if an Effect is rolled (again, not cumulative).

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Please add this into one of the incoming Conan books. :slight_smile:

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Yeah,

I concur!

:smiley:

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Wrathful sounds fantastic! Wound you say? Nope, you just made it angry.