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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Caliburn101" data-source="post: 7589060" data-attributes="member: 6802178">Thanks for being snarky - that always helps things along on these forums.You are putting the blame on the wrong side of the issue here.There is no particular mistake being made by users of the rules in interpreting the rules on Incorporeal Movement as the creature being Incorporeal. The rules are just very badly written, because if WoTC meant just 'incorporeal while moving' then that throws up many situational complications which go unexplained in the rules (see further down this post).I have been quite clear that I think the rules neither support the carrying of objects by incorporeal creatures nor make it clear that they can and having reviewed the entire passages on Strength, Lifting and Encumbrance your point still doesn't stand on the firm ground you think it does.You, once again seek to conflate 'can' with 'always can'.If one was to utilise your inflexible interpretation about how the general rules here mix with the specific, then because the rules say STR allows you to carry anything within a certain maximum amount of weight, and a backpack can contain 30lbs of anything, then 30lbs of liquid water could successfully be carried in the backpack.Utter nonsense of course - any DM with half a brain would laugh at any such attempt unless the character stitched the backpack up like a waterskin - but it demonstrates my point.If you throw common sense out of the window and act like a computer reading a rules algorithm you end up with all sorts of failures of common sense like this. Interpreting the RAW without regard for logic, life experience or the literal meaning of the words used in those very rules means your game will not always make any sense when you encounter such grey areas.Besides, this thread would not exist if this was an issue upon which there was cut and dry clarity!So tell me... does the rule on incorporeal movement mean when creatures with it travel through solid things everything they are carrying becomes incorporeal? Or are they incorporeal only when they take the move action regardless of passing through solid objects? Or are they incorporeal all the time and somehow the items levitate on their bodies... or do those solid objects only become incorporeal only while they are wearing them? Does that mean if they wear armour it doesn't add an AC? If the items remain physical while carried, does the monster have to drop them all before using incorporeal movement to pass through solid objects?I could go on of course - but all of these things have to be decided at the table and be consistent next to one another - and they cannot all be true.So much for the clarity of the rules you claim exists, so being sarcastic about it and talking about other people's 'mistakes' is illustrative of the fact you just haven't grasped the scope of the problem in the RAW.Part of any interpretation of which version is true at any particular table will naturally include a consideration of what the word 'incorporeal' means... literally.Here is the dictionary entry.incorporeal/ˌɪnkɔːˈpɔːrɪəl/adjectiveadjective: incorporealnot composed of matter; having no material existence."a supreme but incorporeal being called God"synonyms:intangible, impalpable, non-material, non-physical; Morebodiless, unembodied, disembodied; ethereal, unsubstantial, insubstantial, airy, aerial; spiritual, ghostly, spectral, phantom, wraithlike, transcendental, unearthly, supernatural; unreal, imaginary, illusory, chimerical, hallucinatory; rare immaterial, discarnate, disincarnate, unbodied, phantasmal, phantasmic "millions believe in a supreme but incorporeal being"antonyms:tangibleLawhaving no physical existence.But the rules don't say anything about any of that despite using a very specific word with a very specific meaning - unfortunately. Your so-very-assured interpretation of the rules doesn't help the DM in any situational need for clarity such as those I have mentioned above.In fact the Wisp IS the only creature where the Trait makes sense as it is effectively clarified by the Ephemeral Trait which logically should just have been added to the Incorporeal Movement Trait and the whole thing just called 'Incorporeal' to make it mean the same as the word itself.But WoTC didn't do that - so the rules don't in fact make much sense as written and therefore the rules do not definitively mean what you say - they just can, if you decide to narrate one of the variations I have already mentioned at your table.But that is a decision you are forced to make because of an incomplete rule, and your take on it isn't not the only one that is valid, or that works at the table.The rest of us can and will decide for ourselves how we play with equal validity thank you...</blockquote>

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