How to trap a Spectre

[Starbuck_II]

Ghost touch nets are pretty good. They don't have the strength (being incorporeals to get it off).

 

[Empirate]

a skill challenge then?

Skill challenges are the most unfun, dreary and uncreative way to solve a DMing problem in the history of D&D mechanics. Unless one is a really, really good DM, it's hard to make them work, like, at all. Basically what you communicate to the players is: "no matter what cool ideas you might have, it just boils down to you making such-and-such number of whatever successful skill checks before rolling such-and-such many failures. Have fun, guys!" I hate skill challenges. My own humble opinion, of course, YMMV.

Ghost touch nets are pretty good. They don't have the strength (being incorporeals to get it off).

I'd imagine that Ghost Touch nets would just force incorporeal creatures into the ground, slap them away or something like that. After all, spectres not only have no strength score, they have no mass at all to resist the net's impact. So how would the net be able to actually wrap around the spectre's form?

 

[N'raac]

Skill challenges... "no matter what cool ideas you might have, it just boils down to you making such-and-such number of whatever successful skill checks before rolling such-and-such many failures. Have fun, guys!"

Unlike combat, where it boils down to making such and such number of successful attacks before the enemy rolls such and such many successful attacks, of course.

 

[N'raac]

I'd imagine that Ghost Touch nets would just force incorporeal creatures into the ground, slap them away or something like that. After all, spectres not only have no strength score, they have no mass at all to resist the net's impact. So how would the net be able to actually wrap around the spectre's form?

The Spectre has a 3 dimensional form. A Ghost Touch weapon makes contact with that form. Seems simple enough.

 

[Alzrius]

sorry Systole, Alzirus already mentioned it, but was ignored because he crossed the streams!

I was fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing.

 

[Empirate]

Unlike combat, where it boils down to making such and such number of successful attacks before the enemy rolls such and such many successful attacks, of course.

In combat, you make tactical decisions. Even a pure fighter type does. Movement, terrain, special abilities, feats, spell effects and other stuff comes into play.
In a skill challenge, you basically just roll your best applicable skill against a fixed DC until the DM says "stop".
Hardly even remotely similar, much less the same.

The Spectre has a 3 dimensional form. A Ghost Touch weapon makes contact with that form. Seems simple enough.

Contact, sure. But how?
The net probably falls on the Spectre from above. The 3D form of the Spectre has no mass, unlike the net, and no Str to push against the net, so it is irreistibly forced into the ground, which offers no resistance to incorporeal type. It can then slip through the ground to exit it outside the area covered by the net on its next turn, and has total cover until then.
Or you throw the net horizontally, so it hits the Spectre in the face. The massless, frictionless, inertia-less Spectre proceeds to be knocked back the instant contact is made, before the net can even deform to enclose it. Similar result.

 

[Mistah J]

That's why physics is a house rule...

 

[Scott DeWar]

Contact, sure. But how?
The net probably falls on the Spectre from above. The 3D form of the Spectre has no mass, unlike the net, and no Str to push against the net, so it is irreistibly forced into the ground, which offers no resistance to incorporeal type. It can then slip through the ground to exit it outside the area covered by the net on its next turn, and has total cover until then.
Or you throw the net horizontally, so it hits the Spectre in the face. The massless, frictionless, inertia-less Spectre proceeds to be knocked back the instant contact is made, before the net can even deform to enclose it. Similar result.

that is why you put a ghost touch net below as well. specture sammich!

 

[Empirate]

Strikes me as awfully complicated in comparison to heaping up a lot of dirt. Or just casting Resilient Sphere.

 

[N'raac]

In combat, you make tactical decisions. Even a pure fighter type does. Movement, terrain, special abilities, feats, spell effects and other stuff comes into play.
In a skill challenge, you basically just roll your best applicable skill against a fixed DC until the DM says "stop".
Hardly even remotely similar, much less the same.

I haven't worked with skill challenges extensively, but I think the GM and players can work with them to add description and modifiers (whatever the core rules provide) to make them dynamic and tactical, just as we can run combat as a toe to toe slugfest and remove all the tactics and dynamics.

Contact, sure. But how?
The net probably falls on the Spectre from above. The 3D form of the Spectre has no mass, unlike the net, and no Str to push against the net, so it is irreistibly forced into the ground, which offers no resistance to incorporeal type. It can then slip through the ground to exit it outside the area covered by the net on its next turn, and has total cover until then.
Or you throw the net horizontally, so it hits the Spectre in the face. The massless, frictionless, inertia-less Spectre proceeds to be knocked back the instant contact is made, before the net can even deform to enclose it. Similar result.

You're trying to apply scientific principles to a scientific impossibility. Even air has mass. If spectres do not, they should shoot up through the atmosphere faster than a helium balloon.

"Ghost Touch: A ghost touch weapon deals damage normally against incorporeal creatures, regardless of its bonus. An incorporeal creature's 50% reduction in damage from corporeal sources does not apply to attacks made against it with ghost touch weapons. The weapon can be picked up and moved by an incorporeal creature at any time. A manifesting ghost can wield the weapon against corporeal foes. Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as both corporeal or incorporeal."

As the net counts as incorporeal, it should act against the spectre in precisely the same manner a corporeal net acts against a corporeal creature. That's the magic of Ghost Touch, and it effectively counters the magic of the target's incorporeal nature.