D&D 5E Defeating intangible creatures w/non-magical weapons

[RobJN]

Wouldn't ghosts "bleed" ectoplasm, which, in turn, diminishes their overall essence? If too much of their ethereal "matter" is gooped into the Prime Plane, the ghost can't hold itself together.

 

[Horwath]

You don't.

You run.

Yeah, maybe you could MacGyver some weapons with holy water/oil for a hit or two.
Or druid using his holy symbol like a torch.
maybe slings with rocksalt could slow or stun a ghost for a round.

 

[ko6ux]

In D&Dese, making an object float through the air is a spell-like ability. In this case: mage hand.

Physical objects don't hurt ghosts, magic does. Ghosts are no longer scary when you can just whack them with the candelabra that you were nervously skulking through your dark house with.

Fire elementals could have some sort of body beneath the flame. See Skyrim: fire atronachs. Kill one of these, and they leave a sort of rusted iron-looking husk behind. If you're fighting something that's pure flame, poking it with a stick doesn't make much sense.

Except ghosts don't case mage hand.

Ghosts in DND partially manifest themselves onto the material plane where they can then physically interact with objects. This also allows them to be physically attacked. Not fully, mind you. That's why they have damage resistance to non-magical weapons rather than damage immunity. And it's why they can only move through physical objects as difficult terrain.

If they go fully onto the border ethereal, then they can't be hurt (and presumably can't physically interact with anything in the material plane, either).

There's nothing narratively dissonant about this.

 

[Quartz]

I'm talking about creatures like ghosts and fire elementals.

For ghosts, take a gander at the Van Richten's guides. The players have to think and research.

For fire elementals, the PCs can just throw water at it.