Question about Legion of Sentinels...

[Rijan_Sai]

So, I recently discovered this little gem of a spell! Initial reading made me fall in love with it, Googling for information made it even better! (That moment when you realize that it covers a sphere!)

Still, with all I've found, one tiny question still remains:

A ghostly, incorporeal swordfighter appears...

So, I'm inclined to think "No," because it's not stated in the spell description or errata, but would the Sentinels suffer from the standard incorporeal miss chance? They are spell effects, so that would "only" be the 50%, but that would greatly reduce the usefulness of this spell...

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[The Viscount]

An interesting question. The swordsman aren't really creatures, and their incorporeality seems to mostly be for the purposes of making them share spaces and let creatures pass through. As for whether they suffer the 50% miss chance, I'm going to say no. They aren't mentioned as rolling against touch AC, so their attacks are clearly treated as being somewhat substantial for the purpose of attacking corporeal creatures. That being said, since they're incorporeal I feel like they should be able to interact with other incorporeal creatures, but that would mean that they would block passage for them. Since their attacks affect corporeal and aren't force, when attacking incorporeal creatures i suppose the 50% miss chance would apply.

This spell is a bit messy and they had to add in half the text in the errata, so I wouldn't be surprised if something got lost in the mix. It might be simpler to just ignore the incorporeal bit as fluff, even though it is in a sentence that tells us rules information.

[Rijan_Sai]

An interesting question. The swordsman aren't really creatures, and their incorporeality seems to mostly be for the purposes of making them share spaces and let creatures pass through. As for whether they suffer the 50% miss chance, I'm going to say no. They aren't mentioned as rolling against touch AC, so their attacks are clearly treated as being somewhat substantial for the purpose of attacking corporeal creatures. That being said, since they're incorporeal I feel like they should be able to interact with other incorporeal creatures, but that would mean that they would block passage for them. Since their attacks affect corporeal and aren't force, when attacking incorporeal creatures i suppose the 50% miss chance would apply.

This spell is a bit messy and they had to add in half the text in the errata, so I wouldn't be surprised if something got lost in the mix. It might be simpler to just ignore the incorporeal bit as fluff, even though it is in a sentence that tells us rules information.

Thanks! That's about what I was thinking, but it's nice to have a second opinion!
It's definitely weird to have them "incorporeal, except when they're not!" but it does allow for the whole sharing space thing. I agree then that, as a Material spell effect, it would affect Material creatures normally, and incorporeal creatures at 50%... (although, as the Sentinels can only take AoO's, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem allowing them to attack without the miss chance. A choice I will have to make if I ever DM someone with this spell, I should think!)

Spoiler: Errata stuff

Show

I never really had a problem with the spell in the book, though I can definitely see how someone would! The damage figure, while it should be part of the spell description, is given in the short description at the beginning of the chapter. As far as attack bonus, well, an attack is *essentially* a STR or DEX check +modifiers; with no listed STR or DEX, it would effectively be 0+CL, just as the errata shows!

[Mr Adventurer]

Do you mean suffer a miss chance when attacking an incorporeal creature?

The spell seems to say they're incorporeal, so they can attack other incorporeal creatures normally.

[The Viscount]

If they don't have the miss chance affecting other incorporeal creatures by virtue of being themselves incorporeal creatures, this means they would have the miss chance when affecting corporeal creatures. This really doesn't seem like the intended purpose of the spell.

[Mr Adventurer]

the miss chance when affecting corporeal creatures.

The what...?

[Rijan_Sai]

The what...?

First, link to Incorporeal Subtype

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

Bolded for emphasis.

Though it's not stated online, (it is detailed in the Rules Compendium, and even more so in Libris Mortis) an incorporeal creature also has the same miss chance for melee attacks. (Not for spells or projectile weapons, but this spell in question doesn't use those...)

The original question (while it could have been worded a bit better) was whether or not, as "incorporeal soldiers," they would suffer the 50% miss chance against corporeal targets. Or, conversely, if they do affect corporeal targets, would they then have the miss chance against incorporeal foes. From the DM side, for myself, I would say they hit all things equally. From the player's side, I was/am trying to see what other might think.

[Mr Adventurer]

Are you telling me that a Shadow has a 50% miss chance when it attacks a common adventurer?

Because that's what it sounds like, and I've never heard such a thing.

[Deophaun]

Are you telling me that a Shadow has a 50% miss chance when it attacks a common adventurer?

Only if it's attacking with a magic weapon. Its touch attacks have no miss chance normally. Attacks with non-magical weapons completely fail.

[Rijan_Sai]

Are you telling me that a Shadow has a 50% miss chance when it attacks a common adventurer?

Because that's what it sounds like, and I've never heard such a thing.

So, this part from Monster Manual III, (reprinted in Libris Mortis) says

Nonmagical attacks made by an incorporeal creature with a melee weapon have no effect on corporeal targets, and any melee attack an incorporeal creature makes with a magic weapon against a corporeal target has a 50% miss chance, except for attacks it makes with a ghost touch weapon, while[sic] are made normally (no miss chance).

A Shadow's Strength Damage attack is listed as (Su), or Supernatural, which is a form of magical attack. If that same Shadow (for some reason) used a longsword to attack, it would suffer the miss chance (if +1 or better; a nonmagical sword would not hit at all!)

[Mr Adventurer]

Ok, so the issue is that the Sentinels are armed with swords?

[The Viscount]

The issue stems from them being described as incorporeal, with some rules (they can share spaces) supporting that they do indeed function as incorporeal creatures. Because they attack with swords and no mention is made of them functioning differently, they would either have swords that are also incorporeal, thus affecting incorporeal creatures normally but with a 50% miss chance against corporeal ones, or they affect corporeal creatures normally but with a 50% miss chance against incorporeal ones.

From the rules and the ways spells are typically described, it seems to me that the intent is that they attack as if they were corporeal, so suffer a miss chance vs incorporeal since this isn't a force effect, but a shadow effect. Ruling that this spell is meant primarily to function against incorporeal creatures would be confusing.

Any incorporeal creature with some natural attack they have from the template or monster statblock uses it against corporeal creatures to full effect, though almost always as a touch attack. As a result the rule doesn't come up much. A rare example of it in action is the description of Ghosts, though a bit complicated by the fact that ghosts can also be ethereal.

[Mr Adventurer]

Ok, so I was unaware of that MMIII stuff (which I think is garbage, but whatever). However, if the spell doesn't specify that it creates creatures, doesn't it all instead count aza spell effect?

[The Viscount]

If you treat it as a spell effect that's fine, too. Spell effects have a 50% chance of failure against incorporeal creatures, except for positive energy, negative energy, and force effects. Legion of Sentinels has none of these descriptors.

This is one of the reasons Magic Missile stands in high regard at low levels. Most incorporeal creatures are undead, so have pretty poor hp for their CR. A solid force effect makes a lot of difference.

[Big Fau]

(That moment when you realize that it covers a sphere!)

Chiming in to say this: The spell is outright DIRTY when you metamagic it. It's almost as good as Forcecage, but you can put it in a wand. And therefore in a Rod of Many Wands.

And then metamagic those wands.

[Scribble Hammer]

For those that want to be really dirty, Invisible spell is great with this...

[Mr Adventurer]

Chiming in to say this: The spell is outright DIRTY when you metamagic it. It's almost as good as Forcecage,

Oh? How so?

[Rijan_Sai]

Oh? How so?

Well, Invisible Spell as mentioned would turn a field of death and destruction into an invisible field of death and destruction! (DM side: Though I would probably rule that it would remove the flanking bonus, it would still get all the juicy invisibility bonuses!) (And as a +0 spell slot modifier, it can be combined with any of the others!)

Widen Spell turns it from a 20' sphere of d&d into a 40' one!

Shape Spell, I have heard, could be used for various fun effects! (Will have to look into this one.)

...I'm not sure about the others. Quicken and Heighten have obvious uses; Empower/Maximize may work with the damage.
Just looked... using the various toys tools that make the beginnings of a Locate City Bomb to give the Sentinels a reflex save, Explosive Spell could create all kinds of fun!

I'm sure there are plenty of other combos I'm not as familiar with, though!

[Thurbane]

LoS is one of those spells that has some frustrating inconsistencies and/or lack of info in it's fluff and crunch description. Last time we had a Beguiler our party, the DM and the rest of the group groaned every time it was cast.

Mirror Image suffers a little from this as well...