Etherealness, ethereal jaunt, others...

[der_kluge]

From the SRD:

Ethereal Jaunt
Transmutation
Level: Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level (D)
You become ethereal, along with your equipment. For the duration of the spell, you are in a place called the Ethereal Plane, which overlaps the normal, physical, Material Plane. When the spell expires, you return to material existence.
An ethereal creature is invisible, insubstantial, and capable of moving in any direction, even up or down, albeit at half normal speed. As an insubstantial creature, you can move through solid objects, including living creatures. An ethereal creature can see and hear on the Material Plane, but everything looks gray and ephemeral. Sight and hearing onto the Material Plane are limited to 60 feet.
Force effects and abjurations affect an ethereal creature normally. Their effects extend onto the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, but not vice versa. An ethereal creature can’t attack material creatures, and spells you cast while ethereal affect only other ethereal things. Certain material creatures or objects have attacks or effects that work on the Ethereal Plane.
Treat other ethereal creatures and ethereal objects as if they were material.
If you end the spell and become material while inside a material object (such as a solid wall), you are shunted off to the nearest open space and take 1d6 points of damage per 5 feet that you so travel.

Etherealness
Transmutation
Level: Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9
Range: Touch; see text
Targets: You and one other touched creature per three levels
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell functions like ethereal jaunt, except that you and other willing creatures joined by linked hands (along with their equipment) become ethereal. Besides yourself, you can bring one creature per three caster levels to the Ethereal Plane. Once ethereal, the subjects need not stay together.
When the spell expires, all affected creatures on the Ethereal Plane return to material existence.

I'm not sure I get these spells. Is there something uber-powerful about these spells that I'm not seeing?

Let's consider being ethereal for a moment. Ethereal creatures can be seen with a simple "see invisibility" spell (sor/wiz 2), and they can be attacked with [Force] based spells. About the only thing it's good for is moving through walls. It's not like a powerful invisibility, or even as a combat spell, since you can't affect anything in the material (without a ghost touch weapon), but what arcane spellcaster at that level is attacking with a weapon anyway?

Etherealness is just like ethereal jaunt, except it allows more people (essentially the entire party) and lasts longer.

In T&B, there is a spell called ghostform, which is essentially a weaker version of ethereal jaunt. It also allows someone to walk through walls, but they can be seen without See Invisibility, but have some slight DR to compensate for their quasi-ethereal state.

But, there doesn't seem to be any reason to take Ethereal Jaunt if you already have Ghostform.

I was thinking of making See Invisibility not be able to detect ethereal creatures, but then that might make ghosts and such really hard to detect (would need true seeing for that).

Right now, it's just not good as a spying spell since it has such a short duration, and it isn't a combat spell since you can't affect anything, so I'm just not quite sure I see the point.

My player suggested being able to "wink" back and forth as a free action between the ethereal and the corporeal worlds so that it would be a decent combat spell then, at the very least.

Also, when you talk about 9th level spells, why would anyone take etherealness, if Gate could provide the same result? Although I was thinking of only allowing Gate to provide access to the Outer Planes, not the inner planes, so there would still be some reason to have Etherealness then.

Comments?

 

[Usurpator]

From the SRD:
I'm not sure I get these spells. Is there something uber-powerful about these spells that I'm not seeing?

Etherealness spells were a royal pain in the ***, because they could circumvent most known physical barriers and allow for commando-style like strikes against enemies. Most monsters have no defense against it. That's why ethereal jaunt is now 7th level as opposed to 5th in 3.0

I am very glad for it, I know don't longer have to worry about the PC cleric bypassing all kind of physical barriers at 9th lvl.

I think you should raise the TB spell by 2 levels as well.

 

[der_kluge]

Can you give me an example? So, the enemy wizard throughs up a prismatic wall, and the PC goes right through it ethereally?

I could see how that alone would be worth the price of admission for that spell....

 

[Joshua Randall]

Your typical dungeon or fortress is nothing but a minor inconvenience to an ethereal PC. He can move through the walls, ceilings, floors, etc. as easily as a normal person can move across the ground. He can go anywhere and scout the place thoroughly. Against unsuspecting foes (i.e, anyone without see invisibility running 24/7) the ethereal PC cannot even be discovered as he moves about: he cannot be seen and he makes no sound.

Do not underestimate the power of mobility enhancements! There is a reason that boots of striding and springing are so ubiquitous and that fly and teleport are must-have spells for a sorcerer or wizard. Ethereal jaunt and Ghostform are fantastically useful mobility spells, too, especially in the hands of clever players.

Note that the ethereal PC can also pursue and engage (via spells) ethereal opponents such as phase spiders or ghosts, foes against which he would otherwise be at a tremendous disadvantage.

 

[der_kluge]

No other comments on these spells?

a.k.a., bump!

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Your typical dungeon or fortress is nothing but a minor inconvenience to an ethereal PC. He can move through the walls, ceilings, floors, etc. as easily as a normal person can move across the ground. He can go anywhere and scout the place thoroughly.

You can accomplish much the same thing with the 3rd-level spell Blink.

Against unsuspecting foes (i.e, anyone without see invisibility running 24/7) the ethereal PC cannot even be discovered as he moves about: he cannot be seen and he makes no sound.

So does the addition of an invisibility and silence effect add up to four extra spell levels? I'm not so sure it does.

Do not underestimate the power of mobility enhancements! There is a reason that boots of striding and springing are so ubiquitous and that fly and teleport are must-have spells for a sorcerer or wizard. Ethereal jaunt and Ghostform are fantastically useful mobility spells, too, especially in the hands of clever players.

It's not a question of whether Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness are good spells, or useful. They certainly are. The question is, should they be at 7th- and 9th-level, respectively. I'm not so sure they should be. Moving these spells upwards seems to be part of the general "nerf magic" trend of 3.5e. Rather than add notes in the DMG and adventure modules about how DMs can deal with these powers, they've simply pushed them further out of reach of most PCs. *shrug* Or at least, it seems that might be the case with these two particular spells.

I mean, Etherealness vs. Shapechange? Come now.

Note that the ethereal PC can also pursue and engage (via spells) ethereal opponents such as phase spiders or ghosts, foes against which he would otherwise be at a tremendous disadvantage.

Sure. But again, is this worth a 7th- or 9th-level spell? All a fighter needs to engage a ghost or phase spider is a ghost-touch weapon--a rather cheap enchantment. Should a wizard pay an action and a high-level spell slot for the same result?

And let's not talk about pursuing. A wizard who pursues anything without his companions is foolhardly and most likely dead.

 

[der_kluge]

I think I may houserule both of these spells down a level. 6th and 8th respectively. I agree with Lord Pendragon. They are very useful, but etherealness is no where near as powerful as Gate, or Wish, or Shapechange. I'm going to further qualify that Gate only opens portals to the Outer Planes, and that Etherealness and Ethereal Jaunt can be used to bypass Prismatic walls and spheres.


Those seem to be suitable fixes.

 

[Jhyrryl]

Rather than add notes in the DMG and adventure modules about how DMs can deal with these powers...

Red flag.

If the DMG and adventure modules need to provide special assistance to a DM in order to adjudicate and defend her NPCs against this single ability, then it must be a difficult thing to do. If it's a difficult thing to do, it must be a high-level ability.

I won't allow people to use blink as you describe - it fails to account for relative speeds, reduced speeds for moving through "solid" material on the ethereal plane, etc. Also, it violates my suspension of disbelief that the character can be blinking back and forth quickly enough to have the specified combat effects (requiring a seperate check for every attack, which can number in the high single digits), but at the same time slowly enough that it's possible to move through 15 or (rarely) even 20 feet of solid wall.

In any case, going ethereal will let a character/party bypass pretty much any obstacle you care to place between them and their goal, short of enclosing that wall entirely inside the area of effect of multiple walls of force. Any trap, any encounter, any physical barrier - and probably multiples of the above, all without even necessarily knowing about them.

 

[Philip]

I think I may houserule both of these spells down a level. 6th and 8th respectively.

I think it kinda depends on the sort of campaign you are playing. When used in your typical dungeon, it doesn't matter that much. But I find that when used in a more storyline oriented campaign the spells can get out of hand. Well, not out of hand balance-wise, really, but they make it less fun.

My players generally have a lot of fun when their characters

a. Talk their way past someone
b. Sneaking past someone
c. Use a clever ploy to distract guards so they can get access to some item or location
d. manage to solve the riddle, find the key or intepret the prophecy that opens door X.

If they had the option of using ethereal jaunt, they would have used it on many occasions. The stakes are often high, and a character that is role-played well would often choose the less time-consuming and/or less risky method of becoming ethereal to bypass a myriad of obstacles. They would also have a lot less fun doing so.

So, its a combination of utility and loss of fun that makes the spells higher level. The same argument goes for things like fly. When played efficiently and truly, many parties who have access to fly should never engage land-bound monsters that don't have superior ranged attacks from the ground. They should retreat, prepare fly spells and kill their land-bound enemies with little effort.

Flight is why I have a problem with the CR 28 MM2 Fiend Wurm. It doesn't fly, it doesn't have proper ranged attacks. It doesn't have impenetrable defenses. A 14th lvl sorcerer could kill it. Alone. CR 28. Just because it lacks flight.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Red flag.

If the DMG and adventure modules need to provide special assistance to a DM in order to adjudicate and defend her NPCs against this single ability, then it must be a difficult thing to do. If it's a difficult thing to do, it must be a high-level ability.[/b]

Not at all. Commune is only a 5th-level spell, and its use can wreck a session more quickly and thoroughly than Etherealness ever could. Same with Speak With Dead, Teleport and other mid-level spells. Not all high-level spells are difficult to handle, and not all difficult-to-handle spells are high level. My point was that Etherealness can have a strong impact on certain types of adventure, and thus in those kinds of adventures, special notes should be made to guide DMs regarding them. The same way that some mystery adventures can be wrecked by divinations, and thus require notes on how the DM should handle Speak With Dead, Commune, Raise Dead, etc.

I won't allow people to use blink as you describe

From the 3.5 SRD

While blinking, you can step through (but not see through) solid objects. For each 5 feet of solid material you walk through, there is a 50% chance that you become material. If this occurs, you are shunted off to the nearest open space and take 1d6 points of damage per 5 feet so traveled.

Your ruling seems to clearly be a house rule. It's also an example of what I was mentioning before, the tendancy to nerf certain abilities, rather than design around them. In this case, rather than incorporate Blink into your adventures, you've chosen to simply remove the ability wholesale. *shrug* Such is, of course, your prerogative, but I find it heavy-handed and unnecessary.

In any case, going ethereal will let a character/party bypass pretty much any obstacle you care to place between them and their goal, short of enclosing that wall entirely inside the area of effect of multiple walls of force. Any trap, any encounter, any physical barrier - and probably multiples of the above, all without even necessarily knowing about them.

This is all true, but I don't see this as a problem that requires nerfing to fix. At its old 7th-level spot, it required a 13th-level wizard to cast. For a 13th-level party, brick and mortar should no longer be obstacles. Teleport, Polymorph Self, Summon Monster: Xorn, etc. PCs at that level have a multitude of options when it comes to getting places they need to be.

And I think that's perfectly acceptable, and moreover the most fun. By 13th-level, the PCs shouldn't be worrying about moving through the stone labyrinth. They should be worrying about getting to the Elemental Plane of Fire and surviving long enough to recover the Jewel of Immolation. They should be worrying about finding a way into the lich's demiplane, and destroying the creator of the Transcendent Plague. They should be worrying about delving into Deep Dream and discovering the source of the King's terrible nightmares.

Worrying about stone walls is for lower levels, not 13th. Pushing Etherealness up to 9th-level, and thus requiring a 17+ wizard to cast, strikes me as silly.