How much is a Ghost worth?

[Hicks]

In a 3.5 D&D game, when would it be level appropriate for a PC to play an Incorporeal character, like a Ghost?

[Username17]

In a 3.5 D&D game, when would it be level appropriate for a PC to play an Incorporeal character, like a Ghost?

In general,incorporeal characters,like any puzzle monster, make very bad PCs. The fact that they have literally no fear of bears, even in closets, makes them unfortunate to have around. Not that they are amazingly unbalanced when facing 14th level opposition, just that the finality of their defenses cuts off enough otherwise cool risks that they make the game worse at all levels.

Not necessarily unbalanced, just worse.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

A Ghost is worth 2 gp.

For a Ghost blowjob. WOOWOO

http://krazykimchi.com/imageboard/src/G ... lowjob.jpg

[Manxome]

Out of curiosity, what if you removed the "I arbitrarily ignore a huge class of attacks" part and just kept the walking through walls part?

[Bigode]

The thing is: IIRC, at level 14 there isn't many such threats. And if the legendary elephant's nominally CR 14, who actually cares? The best argument actually seems to be "passing through all non-force walls" - and then, go deprive the wizard of it.

[rapa-nui]

The main argument against allowing incorporeal undead in your game is that because an afterlife is a given then you have to work out the entire cosmology and logic behind that cosmology. Unless no one cares, then whatever.

[erik]

The thing is: IIRC, at level 14 there isn't many such threats. And if the legendary elephant's nominally CR 14, who actually cares? The best argument actually seems to be "passing through all non-force walls" - and then, go deprive the wizard of it.

Urm... most critters are substantially less effective, if not entirely neutered by facing an incorporeal opponent. This is true all the way up to CR 20's.

Dragons and most creatures have the crappy "ki strike" version of natural weapons where their attacks are considered magic only for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Even giants with magic weapons have a 50% miss chance.

If you're a full fledged ghost, then the draining touch ability is essentially a ray of stupidity for killing anything.

And of course ghosts rejuvenate in 2d4 days even if they do encounter something lucky enough to be able to destroy em.

A straight up PC ghost is a campaign wrecker.

Now Ghostwalk did some stuff to provide nerfed ghosts for acceptable PC play, but I'd have to scrounge up my book to remember what they did (and whether it appeared successful) since it has been so long so I looked at that stuff.

It's kinda hard to justify the incorporeal bit for walls only. But if you were treated as incorporeal for the purposes of going through inanimate objects only, then I'd be tempted to simply make it a 1 level prestige class called "ghost" which essentially did just that.

My fire from the hip take on that:

d12 HD, +2 will save, +1 caster level and +1 BAB just in case it matters.

Requirement: you died and don't feel like staying dead.
If raised, then you lose the ghost level. If true resurrected then swap it out for something else.

There's more nuances to it like how to handle equipment and undead type, but I'm less interested in that since I feel dirty when I touch anything to do with 3e creature type. 4e at least did something right when they relegated creature types to a glossary with a vastly reduced impact of creature type on creature construction. Creature types in 3e were one of their worst executed concepts.

[Koumei]

I took a quick look through Ghostwank and it's pretty crappy. Alas, the guy who usually finds something shit and faps on about it on end for a year or so did exactly that, so I'm particularly biased against it.

[Bigode]

The main argument against allowing incorporeal undead in your game is that because an afterlife is a given then you have to work out the entire cosmology and logic behind that cosmology. Unless no one cares, then whatever.

Um, doesn't "I died pissed off" work?

clikml: not talking about specific kinds here. But yeah, I forgot a lotta stuff was pretty much ki strike. Though you didn't actually write a single rule on how the semi-incorporeality would work, I'd thought similarly: being made of ectoplasm and taking damage (possibly Con/Cha burn) to get through stuff.

[erik]

clikml: Though you didn't actually write a single rule on how the semi-incorporeality would work

Yeah, I kept it pretty brief. I should probably amend it to say "able to pass through inanimate non-magical objects only"... so stuff like dragons and giants could still pound your ectoplasmic ass with their claws and fists, but weapons would have to be magical to harm ya, and of course, you can still happily walk through walls and floors.

Whether you want to have a fly speed or have the ghost stuck in the mindset of having to walk on stuff would be another decision to make (perfect flight at movement speed might be level 2 of the "ghost" class).

Likewise for breathing/eating you will probably need to make a call. The ghost may think that it has to do those things and suffer perceived damage which becomes actual, if it is deprived of those living past times. (I'd be tempted to buy breathing and eating off with a feat rather than a whole level).

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Ghostly

Ghosts are crazy-broken at all levels of play, mostly because of their ability to flat-out ignore most physical challenges (such as lava-river), and bypass most combats (T-Rex can't bite ectoplasm). However, ghost characters are full of flavor, so this makes us sad. A person who chooses a ghost race loses all abilities of the first races, although maintains all of the appearance. A ghost gains all of the following abilities:

Ghosts gain the Incorporeal subtype
Ghosts are healed by negative energy, and harmed by positive energy.
A ghost may become Incorporeal as a standard action with a duration until the beginning of their next turn as per the Ethereal Jaunt spell.
A ghost does not have to eat, sleep, breathe, etc., although they may do so if they wish.
Ghosts are immune to magical death effects.
A ghost who "dies" due to hit point damage, ability drain, or any other way you manage to kill it, returns to 'life' in the spot it was killed a period of 2d4 days later unless the area is Consecrated at any point during that time (in which case they are permanently dead and may only be brought back as per True Resurrection, at which point they are no longer a Ghost).

----------


This is a "Ghost" that functions like a normal character, who cannot be killed (normally), and can move through things. They get most of the "ignore physical challenges" ability, at the cost of any other racial bonuses they may have gained. They cannot attack or cast spells very well when Incorporeal, so they don't move off the RNG in that way.

[rapa-nui]

The main argument against allowing incorporeal undead in your game is that because an afterlife is a given then you have to work out the entire cosmology and logic behind that cosmology. Unless no one cares, then whatever.

Um, doesn't "I died pissed off" work?

Yes, in beer and pretzels type games.

Otherwise:

No, because then every orc barbarian you've slayed in the campaign who died while raging could be a ghost. It can become a loophole: every player who dies simply claims "I want to haunt the world because of XYZ" Also, a lot of things are implied when you throw a ghost into the mix: dualism, afterlife, etc. Is a ghost made of matter? If not, why does fire burn it? What does "permanently dead" mean if TR can undo it?

[Bigode]

Bah, please don't take it so literally. I just didn't want to write a 3-paragraph stomach-churning explanation of why someone would die really fvcking pissed, that I see no problem with being enough regardless of cosmology. Do you actually want to read that (not that I'd write)?

[CatharzGodfoot]

A ghost might work best as 'insubstantial' (gaseous) rather than incorporeal. Hell, just make it like permanent gaseous form without quite as many drawbacks.

[Elennsar]

Speaking for myself...

I do want to know the reason why YOU were sufficiently wrathful to return but that berserk orc over there wasn't.

Because "I was totally pissed off" is too broad unless we get LOTS of ghosts.

If nothing else, perhaps only those of strong will AND powerful "ties to this world" could stay, but that still means something on the cosmos as distinct from "death is game over" and "no ghosts, whatever happens after death".

[ubernoob]

Speaking for myself...

I do want to know the reason why YOU were sufficiently wrathful to return but that berserk orc over there wasn't.

Emotion^(Strength of Will) = Passion based magic strength.

[Manxome]

Emotion^(Strength of Will) = Passion based magic strength.

That can't possibly be right.

Strength of will obviously needs a unit of measurement, and you can't have units in exponents, so you'd at least need a conversion constant or two in there somewhere.

I mean, come on, let's be reasonable here.

[TarkisFlux]

It could be a unit in the same way that radians are units (and are used as an exponent in Euler's Equation and others) and it would work out fine.

Also

Edit: nah, on second thought that probably sets up some weird thing where strength of will is circular, which probably isn't what's wanted here.

[Cynic]

Emotion^(Strength of Will) = Passion based magic strength.

That can't possibly be right.

Strength of will obviously needs a unit of measurement, and you can't have units in exponents, so you'd at least need a conversion constant or two in there somewhere.

I mean, come on, let's be reasonable here.

Oh My Strength of Will is HUUGE. So HUUGE the Paizo boards banned me for talking about it. :-D

EDIT: N.B. SoW (which is still HUUUGE on my side) needs a measurement but Emotion doesn't? Or are we going to use some of the real world equivalents such as pop psychology tests such as EQ and Emotional Deviations and all that other creations of the crazy 90s bored psychopomp psychiatrists?

[Quantumboost]

EDIT: N.B. SoW (which is still HUUUGE on my side) needs a measurement but Emotion doesn't? Or are we going to use some of the real world equivalents such as pop psychology tests such as EQ and Emotional Deviations and all that other creations of the crazy 90s bored psychopomp psychiatrists?

It's an n-by-n matrix of brain chemical concentrations, but that doesn't matter since you can exponentiate stuff with units just fine. It's not even hard.

But trying to figure out what the heck 92^(50 seconds) even means just makes for brainhurt and angry physicists.

Srsly u guyz. Conversion constants. Really.

[Manxome]

Exponentiating units works fine in principle (you can have, for example, ft^2), but still probably doesn't work in that equation, because that would mean you end up with inconsistent dimensionality for the magic strength. And I considered mentioning that in the first post, but I thought that going into too much detail would detract from the effect.

As for radians in exponents, I think that if you want to be really pedantic the exponent is unitless and if the same variable appears as the argument to a trigonometric function there's an implied unit added.

One of my high school textbooks actually spent some time explaining that radians weren't units at all (because they're defined as a ratio), but of course that's incorrect (radians are dimensionless, but that doesn't mean they're not units). But most people will drop units from their equations whenever they can possibly get away with it.

[Bigode]

Oh My Strength of Will is HUUGE. So HUUGE the Paizo boards banned me for talking about it.

I wanna hear about it. Or rather, about how you were banned for doing what I want you to do now.

[Cynic]

Oh My Strength of Will is HUUGE. So HUUGE the Paizo boards banned me for talking about it. :-D

I wanna hear about it. Or rather, about how you were banned for doing what I want you to do now. :D

--
I shall do something similar.
~~

Oh, What Can I say but quote paraphrase this rather obnoxious e-mail I got from one of the Paizo moderators who some here have a fondness for.

Your behavior today on our messageboards has gone over the line. Your bizarre paranoia that you're being stalked (you're not,despite the HUUGE-ness), your sexually explicit posts ("You are now arguing that the Pathfinder bard should be devoting his time to singing songs about your Strength of Will and how HUUGE it is), and your general lack of respect for our repeated warnings to correct your behavior ("Even if I 'play nice' as the Super Happy Fun Time mods obsessively advocate I still get a hate squad getting jealous over how HUUGE I am") have pushed you to the point of no return.

You are no longer welcome on our messageboards, you are no longer able to post on our messageboards, and I'd *strongly* encourage you not to create sock puppets again to attempt to circumvent the ban since we'll find them and ban them too. Continued attempts to post on our boards will force us to contact your ISP as it's almost certain your behavior violates their terms of service.

--

That took too long and it probably was not worth the effort to find the original post by Roy to edit.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Paizoans have macrophillia.

[Koumei]

MY NAME IS HUGE