Spectres

Spectres are incorporeal undead.

Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces.

They have darkvision.

Undead have immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).

They have immunity to bleed, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.

Undead are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain.

They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.

Unintelligent undead cannot heal damage on their own, although they can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. Unintelligent undead can still have the fast healing special quality.

They have immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).

Undead are not at risk of death from massive damage, but are immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.

They are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.

Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch weapon special quality. In addition, an incorporeal creature 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 takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally.

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of a creature or object adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard if it doesn’t wish to be. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective in regards to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

Spectres are evil undead that hate sunlight and living things. Most are the remnants of murdered or evil humans, their anger preventing them from entering the afterlife. Like ghosts, spectres haunt the places of their deaths, and seek to draw others into the lonely abyss of undeath.

Any humanoids slain by a spectre become spectres themselves. Spawn so created are less powerful than typical spectres. Spawn are under the command of the spectre that created them and remain enslaved until its death, at which point they become full-fledged and free-willed spectres. They do not possess any of the abilities they had in life.

Spectres are powerless in natural sunlight (not merely a daylight spell) and flee from it. A spectre caught in sunlight cannot attack and is staggered.

A spectre saps a living opponent’s vital energy automatically when it touches them. Each successful energy drain bestows negative levels. If a spectre scores a critical hit while touching, it bestows twice the number of negative levels. A spectre gains temporary robustness from each negative level it bestows on an opponent. Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the negative level may go away with no harm to the creature, or the negative level may become permanent.

A spectre looks much as it did in life and can be easily recognized by those who knew the individual or have seen the individual’s face in paintings or drawings. Spectres retain a strong sense of identity, and even ancient, insane spectres generally remain coherent. Evil historians and necromancers often try to ally with spectres for the knowledge they held in life and retain in undeath.

Animals, whether wild or domesticated, can sense the unnatural presence of a spectre. They do not willingly approach near and may panic when forced to do so. A panicked animal remains so as long as it can sense the spectre.

Spectres are less easily affected by clerics or paladins.

A raise dead or similar spell cast on a spectre destroys it. Using the spell in this way does not require a material component.