Banshee (CR 17)
Medium Undead (Incorporeal)
Alignment: Usually neutral evil
Initiative: +7 (Dex); Senses: darkvision (60-foot range), Listen +33, and Spot +33
Languages: A banshee speaks the languages that it knew in life.
AC: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 deflection), touch 16, flat-footed 13
Hit Dice: 26d12 (169 hp)
Fort +8, Ref +11, Will +19
Speed: Fly 80 ft. (good)
Space: 5 ft./5 ft.
Base Attack +13; Grapple -
Attack: Incorporeal touch +16 melee
Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +16 melee
Damage: incorporeal touch 1d8/19-20 plus 1d4 Charisma drain
Special Attacks/Actions: Charisma drain, horrific appearance, wail
Abilities: Str -, Dex 17, Con -, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 17
Special Qualities: Detect living, incorporeal subtype, SR 28, stunt plants, undead traits
Feats: Alertness; Blind-fight; Combat Expertise,Combat Reflexes; Dodge; Improved Critical (incorporeal touch); Improved Initiative; Iron Will; Mobility; Spring Attack
Skills: Balance +5, Hide +32, Jump +2, Knowledge (nature) +32, Knowledge (religion) +32, Listen +33, Search +32, Spot +33, and Tumble +32
Advancement: 27-52 HD (Medium-size)
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary, pair, or brood (3-4)
Treasure/Possessions: Double standard
Source:
Monster Manual II
Charisma Drain (Su): An individual struck by a banshee must make a Fortitude save (DC 26) or permanently lose 1d4 points of Charisma (or 2d4 points on a critical hit). The banshee heals 5 points of damage (10 on a critical hit) whenever it drains Charisma, gaining any excess as temporary hit points.
Horrific Appearance (Su): Any living creature within 60 feet that views a banshee must make a successful Fortitude save (DC 26) or permanently lose 1d4 points of Strength, 1d4 points of Dexterity, and 1d4 points of Constitution. A creature that successfully saves against this effect cannot be affected by the same banshee's horrific appearance for 24 hours.
Wail (Su): During the night, a banshee can loose a deadly wail. This attack can slay up to eighteen living creatures within a 30-foot spread centered on the banshee, or within a 60-foot cone extending from the banshee, at the creature's option. A successful Fortitude save (DC 26) negates the effect. Once a banshee wails, it must wait 1d4 rounds before it can do so again, and it can wail no more than three times per day.
Detect Living (Sp): This ability functions like the commune with nature spell, except that it detects only living creatures and the range is one-half mile. The banshee can use detect living up to three times per day.
Stunt Plants (Su): Once per day, a banshee can stunt all normal plants within a one-half mile radius. This ability otherwise functions like the stunt version of a diminish plants spell (caster level 18th).
Banshees hate all living things with an unholy fury, and they readily attack anyone foolish enough to trespasses within their territories. A banshee typically uses its horrific appearance to drive off less powerful foes, then employs its howling wail one or more times to damage any who remain. Finally, it finishes off the intruders with its Charisma drain in melee. If overmatched, the creature flees into the earth, usually to grave-like lair that it maintains beneath the surface.
A banshee is the spirit of a strong-willed, selfish individual of a humanoid race. Because of its rage at the loss of its own life, it delights in bringing death to any living creature it encounters.
This creature appears as a translucent image of the form it held in life. With the passage of time, the banshee's image tends to become blurred and indistinct, though the creature remains recognizable as a humanoid.
The very presence of a banshee creates a pall over the landscape. Its ability to stunt the growth of plants combined with its deadly wail eventually reduces the surrounding territory to blasted heath and wasteland. Largely for this reason, many cultures consider a sudden blight upon the land to be an omen of death.
Incorporeal Subtype
Some creatures are incorporeal by nature, while others (such as those that become ghosts) can acquire the incorporeal subtype. 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 has immunity to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells, including touch 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). Non-damaging spell attacks affect incorporeal creatures normally unless they require corporeal targets to function (such as the spell implosion) or they create a corporeal effect that incorporeal creatures would normally ignore (such as a web or wall of stone spell). Although it is not a magical attack, a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal undead creature.
An incorporeal creature's natural weapons affect both in incorporeal and corporeal targets, and pass through (ignore) corporeal natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Attacks made by an incorporeal creature with a nonmagical melee weapon have no effect on corporeal targets, and any melee attack an incorporeal creature makes with a magic weapon against a corporeal target has a 50% miss chance except for attacks it makes with a ghost touch weapon, which are made normally (no miss chance).
Any equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as it remains in the creature's possession. An object that the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality (and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object). If an incorporeal creature uses a thrown weapon or a ranged weapon, the projectile becomes corporeal as soon as it is fired and can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance). Magic items possessed by an incorporeal creature work normally with respect to their effects on the creature or another target. Similarly, spells cast by an incorporeal creature affect corporeal creatures normally.
An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature's Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).
An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid object 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 creatures or objects a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see clearly and attack normally, a 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 at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.
Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creature cannot make trip or grapple attacks against corporeal creatures, nor can they be tripped or grappled by such creatures. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate a corporeal being 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 with Listen checks if it doesn't wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks. Non-visual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.