Thoth_Amon at [unixtime wrote:1075417261[/unixtime]]
The blink spell in the 3.5 SRD does say this at one point: "An ethereal creature is invisible, incorporeal, and capable of moving in any direction, even up or down. As an incorporeal creature, you can move through solid objects, including living creatures."
That's strange, seeing as the descriptions of the abilities Incorporeal and Ethereal don't mention each other at all -- except to say that they're unrelated.
Still, the spell description is entirely irrelevant. An ethereal creature is not incorporeal. Primary Sources rule actually helps me here.
DMG p293 wrote:
ETHEREALNESS
Phase spiders and certain other creatures can exist on the Ethereal Plane. While on the Ethereal Plane, a creature is called ethereal. Unlike incorporeal creatures, ethereal creatures are not present on the Material Plane.
So, an ethereal creature is necessarily off-plane, and an incorporeal creature is not.
Ethereal creatures are invisible, inaudible, insubstantial, and scentless to creatures on the Material Plane. Even most magical attacks have no effect on them. See invisibility and true seeing reveal ethereal creatures.
Most of this is stuff that's standard to being on any plane. It would apply to being astral, for example. The two spells mentioned explicitly interact with the Ethereal plane.
An ethereal creature can see and hear into the Material Plane in a 60-foot radius, though material objects still block sight and sound. (An ethereal creature can’t see through a material wall, for instance.) An ethereal creature inside an object on the Material Plane cannot see. Things on the Material Plane, however, look gray, indistinct, and ghostly. An ethereal creature can’t affect the Material Plane, not even magically. An ethereal creature, however, interacts with other ethereal creatures and objects the way material creatures interact with material creatures and objects.
Even if a creature on the Material Plane can see an ethereal creature the ethereal creature is on another plane. Only force effects can affect the ethereal creatures. If, on the other hand, both creatures are ethereal, they can affect each other normally.
Hm. That's pretty bad for your side.
A force effect originating on the Material Plane extends onto the Ethereal Plane, so that a wall of force blocks an ethereal creature, and a magic missile can strike one (provided the spellcaster can see the ethereal target). Gaze effects and abjurations also extend from the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane. None of these effects extend from the Ethereal Plane to the Material Plane.
Ethereal creatures move in any direction (including up or down) at will. They do not need to walk on the ground, and material objects don’t block them (though they can’t see while their eyes are within solid material).
This just describes characteristics of the Ethereal Plane. Core rules don't go into extraplanar stuff very much, but the Ethereal Plane is one of the most easily accessible planes and they need to describe it somehow and somewhere. Force effects extend to the Ethereal Plane, but that's a special ability of force effects to cross the planar barrier.
Note especially that an Ethereal creature still has a physical (i.e., corporeal) body.
Ghosts have a power called manifestation that allows them to appear on the Material Plane as incorporeal creatures. Still, they are on the Ethereal Plane, and another ethereal creature can interact normally with a manifesting ghost. Ethereal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as air. Ethereal creatures do not fall or take falling damage.
Note that this means that ghosts are corporeal on the Ethereal Plane. Their manifestation is incorporeal, but their Ethereal double isn't.
Ghost wrote:Manifestation (Su): Every ghost has this ability. A ghost dwells on the Ethereal Plane and, as an ethereal creature, it cannot affect or be affected by anything in the material world. When a ghost manifests, it partly enters the Material Plane and becomes visible but incorporeal on the Material Plane. A manifested ghost can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons, or spells, with a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source. A manifested ghost can pass through solid objects at will, and its own attacks pass through armor. A manifested ghost always moves silently. A manifested ghost can strike with its touch attack or with a ghost touch weapon (see Ghostly Equipment, below). A manifested ghost remains partially on the Ethereal Plane, where is it not incorporeal. A manifested ghost can be attacked by opponents on either the Material Plane or the Ethereal Plane. The ghost’s incorporeality helps protect it from foes on the Material Plane, but not from foes on the Ethereal Plane.
When a spellcasting ghost is not manifested and is on the Ethereal Plane, its spells cannot affect targets on the Material Plane, but they work normally against ethereal targets. When a spellcasting ghost manifests, its spells continue to affect ethereal targets and can affect targets on the Material Plane normally unless the spells rely on touch. A manifested ghost’s touch spells don’t work on nonethereal targets.
A ghost has two home planes, the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. It is not considered extraplanar when on either of these planes.
Note also that ghosts retain a strength score, but incorporeal creatures have no strength score at all.
DMG, pp294-5 wrote:INCORPOREALITY
Spectres, wraiths, and a few other creatures lack physical bodies. Such creatures are insubstantial and can’t be touched by nonmagical matter or energy. Likewise, they cannot manipulate objects or exert physical force on objects. However, incorporeal beings have a tangible presence that sometimes seems like a physical attack against a corporeal creature.
Incorporeal creatures are present on the same plane as the characters, and characters have some chance to affect them.
So an incorporeal creature can't be ethereal. If it were ethereal, they'd be on a different plane.
Incorporeal == no physical body.
Ethereal == on Ethereal Plane.
Incorporeal != ethereal lite.
Incorporeal creatures can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, by magic weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They are not burned by normal fires, affected by natural cold, or harmed by mundane acids.
Note that there's no reference at all to the Ethereal Plane or ethereal creatures.
Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source-except for a force effect or damage dealt by a ghost touch weapon.
Notice the explicit reference to ghost touch weapons. Something etherealness never mentions.
Force effects work on incorporeal targets normally, but that's because force effects explicitly say they do, just like they explicitly mention extending to the Ethereal Plane.
Incorporeal creatures are immune to critical hits, extra damage from being favored enemies, and from sneak attacks. They move in any direction (including up or down) at will. They do not need to walk on the ground. They can pass through solid objects at will, although they cannot see when their eyes are within solid matter.
Immunity to crits and sneak attacks? Hm. I don't become immune to crits and sneak attack when I cast
etherealness.
Incorporeal creatures hiding inside solid objects get a +2 circumstance bonus on Listen checks, because solid objects carry sound well. Pinpointing an opponent from inside a solid object uses the same rules as pinpointing invisible opponents (see Invisibility, below).
Listen checks? I can't hear anything on the Material Plane if I'm ethereal.
Incorporeal creatures are inaudible unless they decide to make noise.
The physical attacks of incorporeal creatures ignore material armor, even magic armor, unless it is made of force (such as mage armor or bracers of armor) or has the ghost touch ability.
Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air.
Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage.
Corporeal creatures cannot trip or grapple incorporeal creatures.
Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.
Incorporeal creatures do not leave footprints, have no scent, and make no noise unless they manifest, and even then they only make noise intentionally.
The rest of those discuss how an incorporeal creature only has limited interaction with the Material Plane. Ethereal creatures simply can't. At all.
FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1075415791[/unixtime]]da chicken, you are wrong, please do not "correcct me" when you are not yourself correct.
Sure, whatever.
Ghost Touch, in addition to being usable against incorporeal creatures, also allows it to be used by incorporeal creatures.
Right.
And while spells cast from the ethereal plane cannot cross over to the physical plane, this is not true of physical attacks (MotP).
Nope. Your reference doesn't point to anything that I can find to back your point. Indeed, it refutes it.
Ghost Touch items can be picked up and moved by creatures on the Ethereal.
Right. If the ghost touch item is also ethereal. If the item isn't, then you can see it but not affect it.
FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1075419082[/unixtime]]What it says is that magic attacks that can strike incorporeal and corporeal creatures only function from the physical plane.
It at no time says that regular physical attacks which can hit ethereal and physical creatures only function from the physical plane.
Because there are no physical attacks that can hit ethereal and physical:
"Even if a creature on the Material Plane can see an ethereal creature the ethereal creature is on another plane. Only force effects can affect the ethereal creatures." -- DMG p293
This is not, nor has ever been, a particularly coherent portion of the rules - however Ghost Touch weapons are not actually prohibited from functioning while on the Ethereal Plane.
They
do function on the Ethereal Plane. If you're both ethereal and incorporeal, you could affect an ethereal corporeal creature. But ghost touch says nothing at all about being able to cross the planar barrier between the Ethereal Plane and the Material Plane. It only mentions incorporeality:
DMG p224-5 wrote:Ghost Touch: A ghost touch weapon deals damage normally against incorporeal creatures, regardless of its bonus. (An incorporeal creature’s 50% chance to avoid damage does not apply to attacks with ghost touch weapons.) The weapon can be picked up and moved by an incorporeal creature at any time. A manifesting ghost can wield the weapon against corporeal foes. Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as either corporeal or incorporeal at any given time, whichever is more beneficial to the wielder.
No mention of interacton with the Ethereal Plane. It mentions ghosts, but requires the Ghost to be manifesting. That is, they need an incorporeal form on the Material Plane.
So the burden of proof is on people who are saying that they can't - and since the authors of the rules find it difficult or impossible to make up their minds about what (if anything) is supposed to be the difference between incorporeal and ethereal - that isn't likely to happen.
They're separate abilities Frank. It's like you're asking the designers to delineate more between fast healing and regeneration. They're unrelated abilites. They do exactly what they say and nothing more. It's not like spell resistance and spell immunity, since neither one says "I'm just like this other guy but with these differences".