Is there a feat to allow a weapon to hit an incorporeal creature?

Question

I'm still fairly new to 3.5 but I thought I saw a feat to allow a PC to hit incorporeal creatures as if they weren't. I know there is a feat to allow spells to act normally but couldn't find one for a martial PC with no spell casting.

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Answer 1

The feat that does what you want is called spectral strike. Unfortunately, it requires a Wisdom of 19, the ability to turn or rebuke undead, and you need to be at least level 21. You won't be able to take this feat, but it's worth noting that such a feat exists.

There are some other options. The easiest is having a spellcaster cast the spell ghost touch weapon (Spell Compendium 102), or to somehow acquire Ghostoil (Libris Mortis 73), either by purchasing it (it only costs 50 gp per dose, but finding it if you're in the middle of a dungeon is nontrivial) or crafting it (if you or a party member has ranks in Craft (Alchemist), though again this may be tricky in the middle of a dungeon).

One option that you can get on your own is the Crystal Helm soulmeld (Magic of Incarnum 63). If you bind it to your crown chakra, your melee attacks gain the [Force] descriptor, letting them work normally against incorporeal foes. You can pick this up via feats, by taking Shape Soulmeld (Crystal Helm) and then Open Least Chakra (Crown). You could also take two levels of Incarnate, which would lose you a point of Base Attack Bonus but gain you +2 Fortitude save and +3 (ish) Will save over continuing Dervish. The downside, of course, is delaying the cool Dervish abilities (though you'd get other soulmelds in addition to Crystal Helm).

There's the feat Incorporeal Target Fighting (Ghostwalk 36) which lets you reroll miss chances against incorporeal foes (you'd need a magic weapon of some sort, but I should hope you have one by level 7).

Lastly, if you're of a Good alignment, you can take the feat Ancestral Relic (Book of Exalted Deeds 39). This will let you sacrifice random loot to add enhancements to your weapon, including the ghost touch property. This feat is great in a campaign without ready access to shops. Using it to add ghost touch is a bit mediocre, though. You usually want more generally useful enhancements on your relic weapon.

Of these options, none are good. Your comment that "there might be a ghost" has me worried, because you shouldn't be devoting your character resources like feats or levels to fighting a single enemy. If there were a feat that just read "Your melee attacks instantly destroy ghosts," you still wouldn't take that for a single fight. If you're expecting to fight many ghosts, many times before you get the chance to buy or craft anything, then Ancestral Relic for ghost touch becomes interesting. Barring that, just let the spellcasters deal with it. Any cleric will give a ghost a very hard time, and most other spellcasters will still be able to deal with one by level 7. You're not a Barbarian, so you can write a note to the cleric to prepare ghost touch weapon.

Basically, ghosts are hard for fighters to deal with. They fly, they're incorporeal, they can target Will saves—ghosts are spooky. But the solution is to let your friends cover your weaknesses, not to cripple your own character for the sake of a single encounter. (If no one in the party is a spellcaster, then you're a dervish with fast movement and no encumbrance; you don't need to be faster than the ghost, just faster than the other party members.)

Answer 2

There is a psionic feat called Ghost Attack which allows one to make two miss chance rolls (during a melee or ranged attack) whenever attacking an incorporeal foe and if either miss chance roll is successful your attack hits and your weapon/ammo/natural weapon is treated as a ghost touch weapon for that attack.

It only requires a +3 BAB, and to "be psionically focused" which is a psionic specific use of the Concentration skill.

Your character must be a psionic character to make use of Concentration in that way.

To be considered a psionic character, your character must pick one of the following: take one of two specific feats, be a psionic race, or take a psionic class level.

Being psionic specific is likely to be considered a negative to your current character build, but the advantage is that this feat can be used against any and all incorporeal creatures.

Answer 3

TLDR: it's hard.

Any chance that you could elaborate on your situation? Party composition and levels, access to Magical Emporium Of Everything Books Tell You Exists, etc would be helpful.

Throwing some generic thoughts in the meantime.

Incorporeal subtype is a tricky little thing, but less so than ethereal:

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It 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 has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

There are multiple ways around this issue, but the practicality of most has a lot of room for improvement. I'll list some of them.

• Magical Training from Player's Guide to Faerun gives you 0-level spell slots. Having spell slots, you can use one of several possible ways to increase your spell levels (e.g. Sanctum Spell) and then backfill some spell slots via Extra Slot. From there, you have a 1-level spell slot and can cast magic weapon, which allows to hit incorporeal creatures. Or magic missile which is a force effect. This is hugely impractical.
• Crafting. Ghost touch weapon is just a feat away.. a feat, a +2-equivalent weapon and an ability to cast plane shift. There are ways around it, but this is still very impractical.
• Friends. Ghost Touch Weapon (Spell Compendium p102) is a third-level Cleric spell that gives a weapon ghost touch property for a few minutes; this spell seems to be the easiest thing to achieve what you want.
• Shopping. Wand of magic missile; wand of orb of force; scrolls/oils of ghost touch weapon; weapons with ghost touch ability; a lot of helpful stuff here. Obviously depends on access to vendors.
• Check whether Tome of Battle can help you out. Martial Study feat allows anyone to pick a maneuver - with level restrictions - and some of those are definitely capable of harming incorporeal creatures, e.g. Fan the Flames. Would be 1/encounter unless you have martial levels, so the practicality is a bit iffy.