Ghosts

Ghosts 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.

They cannot heal damage on their own if they are unintelligent, although they can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. They may have supernatural healing regardless of the creature’s intelligence.

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.

When a soul is not allowed to rest due to some great injustice, either real or perceived, it sometimes comes back as a ghost. Such beings are in eternal anguish, lacking in substance and unable to set things right. Although ghosts can have morals and ethics, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic and evil – even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.

Ghosts can be significantly powerful.

By passing part of its incorporeal body through a foe’s body as a standard action, the ghost inflicts damage. This damage is not negative energy – it manifests in the form of physical wounds and aches from supernatural aging. Creatures immune to magical aging are immune to this damage, but otherwise the damage bypasses all forms of damage reduction.

When a ghost is created, it retains incorporeal “copies” of any items that it particularly valued in life (provided the originals are not in another creature’s possession). The equipment works normally for the ghost but passes harmlessly through material objects or creatures. A magic weapon, however, can harm material creatures, but any such attack deals only half as much damage unless it is a ghost touch weapon. A ghost can use shields or armor only if they have the ghost touch quality.

The original items remain behind, just as the ghost’s physical remains do. If another creature seizes the original, the incorporeal copy fades away. This loss invariably angers the ghost, who stops at nothing to return the item to its original resting place (and thus regain the item’s use).

Ghosts are less easily affected by clerics or paladins. They resist the effects of channel energy, including effects that rely on the use of channel energy (such as the Command Undead feat).

In most cases, it’s difficult to destroy a ghost through simple combat: the “destroyed” spirit restores itself in a matter of days. Even the most powerful spells are usually only temporary solutions. The only way to permanently destroy a ghost is to discover the reason for its existence and set right whatever prevents it from resting in peace. The exact means varies with each spirit and may require a good deal of research, and is specific for each ghost.