Etherealness and Ghost Touch

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da_chicken
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Etherealness and Ghost Touch

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1075405598[/unixtime]]Speaking of Sneak Attacking - if you have a Ghost Touch weapon the Ring of Blinking is all kinds of crazy hillarity.


That doesn't work, Frank. Blink makes you Ethereal. Ghost Touch simply allows you to strike incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures aren't Ethereal, and if you're Ethereal, PMP incorporeals are off-plane.

Unless we're talking about a Ghost or a caster with ghostform, but then you'd likely not get to sneak attack because you'd always be perceptible (and, well, ghosts are undead).

Everything else you had is great, though. :)

MOD EDIT: Moved this discussion to its own thread - fbmf

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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Username17 »

da chicken, you are wrong, please do not "correcct me" when you are not yourself correct.

Ghost Touch, in addition to being usable against incorporeal creatures, also allows it to be used by incorporeal creatures. And while spells cast from the ethereal plane cannot cross over to the physical plane, this is not true of physical attacks (MotP). Ghost Touch items can be picked up and moved by creatures on the Ethereal.

So from your standpoint, the bow is always either going with you or not, whichever would be "most advantageous".

Ghost Touch + Weapon + Blink Spell definately works - although Blink + Magic Missile does not. Strange but true.

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Thoth_Amon
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Thoth_Amon »

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."

If you assign the 20% miss chance to the Incorporeal portion of that statement rather than the Ethereal portion Franks suggestion works, but it is a bit of a stretch as they are in different places in the spell desc.

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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Thoth_Amon »

FrankTrollman wrote:And while spells cast from the ethereal plane cannot cross over to the physical plane, this is not true of physical attacks (MotP). Ghost Touch items can be picked up and moved by creatures on the Ethereal.



SRD 3.5 on Blink: wrote:Physical attacks against you have a 50% miss chance, and the Blind-Fight feat doesn’t help opponents, since you’re ethereal and not merely invisible. If the attack is capable of striking ethereal creatures, the miss chance is only 20% (for concealment).
If the attacker can see invisible creatures, the miss chance is also only 20%. (For an attacker who can both see and strike ethereal creatures, there is no miss chance.) Likewise, your own attacks have a 20% miss chance, since you sometimes go ethereal just as you are about to strike.

Any individually targeted spell has a 50% chance to fail against you while you’re blinking unless your attacker can target invisible, ethereal creatures. Your own spells have a 20% chance to activate just as you go ethereal, in which case they typically do not affect the Material Plane.



So blink (Spell and Ring are the same) does not distinguish between Melee attacks and Spell attacks in terms of your miss chance.

Core > MotP

I will say the Ghost touch Weapon properties description doesn't say it can be wielded by ethereal creatures, but if this is cleared up in MotP and was true it would seem Frank is right. (About that part at any rate! :uptosomething: )

However if you were only playing with the core books the other interpretation would seem to hold sway from what I can find.

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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Username17 »

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.

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. 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.

So if your folks are big into the rules lawyering thing - yes, the combo completely works.

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da_chicken
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Etherealness and Ghost Touch 3

Post by da_chicken »

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".
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Username17 »

Ghost Touch Weapons can touch Ethereal creatures from the physical. This is because they can, specifically, strike and inflict damage upon, creatures who are blinking, or otherwise ethereal.

That also means that Ethereal creatures can touch the weapons, since the blades - and the handles - reach across the planar boundary.

So you don't even have to take the bow with you - it just stays floating there while you wink in and out - and it reaches across the planar boundary to touch you while you pull the string back and let fly. Problem solved.

And no, the primary sources rule does not help you - the primary source on the Ethereal Plane is the MotP - which does not list Blink as one of the spells in the PHB which does not function when there is no Ethereal Plane. Not that it could help you anyways - as this is a 3rd edition discussion in which the "primary sources rule" does not, in fact, actually exist.

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Etherealness 2

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1075488990[/unixtime]]Ghost Touch Weapons can touch Ethereal creatures from the physical. This is because they can, specifically, strike and inflict damage upon, creatures who are blinking, or otherwise ethereal.


No, they don't. Reread the description:
3.5: "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 ethereal, or the ethereal plane. The wording in the 3.0 DMG is identical. It says "counts as either corporeal or incorporeal" not "counts as either corporeal or incorporeal or ethereal".

That also means that Ethereal creatures can touch the weapons, since the blades - and the handles - reach across the planar boundary.


And you're getting this from where, specifically? The description for Ghost Touch, even in 3.0, doesn't even use the word "ethereal".

So you don't even have to take the bow with you - it just stays floating there while you wink in and out - and it reaches across the planar boundary to touch you while you pull the string back and let fly. Problem solved.

And no, the primary sources rule does not help you - the primary source on the Ethereal Plane is the MotP - which does not list Blink as one of the spells in the PHB which does not function when there is no Ethereal Plane.


So, now your argument is that even though blink starts out in 3.0 with the line "The blink effect rapidly cycles the character in and out of the ethereal plane." and a similar line in 3.5, the spell somehow doesn't use the rules for the Ethereal Plane? Additionally, while the optional sidebar says the spell still works, it also explicitly says you have to figure out exactly how it possibly can without an Ethereal Plane -- stop taking things out of context like that.

And again: where is this mysterious MotP cite you claim proves your point beyond the shadow of a doubt? Where does MotP say you can use a ghost touch weapon to attack a Material creature from the Ethereal Plane? Seeing as neither the description for Ethereal, nor the desceiption for Incorporeal, nor the descriptions of ghost touch make any such claim, I highly doubt such a cite truly exists anywhere but in your dreams.

Not that it could help you anyways - as this is a 3rd edition discussion in which the "primary sources rule" does not, in fact, actually exist.

-Username17


Fair enough. I was quoting 3.5 stuff in my previous post. Nevertheless, even with 3.0 material I still see no reference at all to attacking from Ethereal to Material with Ghost Touch being possible.

How are you reaching this conclusion?
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Username17 »

How are you reaching this conclusion?


If the attacker is capable of striking ethereal or incorporeal creatures, the miss chance is only 20%...


The blink spell is quite clear that people using it can be touched by things capable of touching incorporeal things, of which both Force Effects and Ghost Touch Weapons qualify.

Now 3.5 Blink doesn't say that - it talks about Invisibility and the Ethereal Plane. Further, the 3.5 DMG goes off about planar functions, and as such sort of supercedes the MotP in 3.5 games. That's all irrelevent to this discussion, however. For the purposes of this discussion, a creature Blinking can be touched by Ghost Touch Objects - and by extension can touch them himself.

In any edition of the rules, an Ethereal Creature can always pick up a sword made of force and hack you to death with it while you are on the physical. The restriction is, and always has been, that an effect created on the Ethereal cannot normally extend into the physical, while an effect created on the Physical can project into the Ethereal. Once an item, such as our Force Sword, extends from the physical into the Ethereal, it can be picked up by creatures on the Ethereal and moved around - even violently through living creatures on the physical.

So the only question is - do Ghost Touch weapons extend from the physical to creatures who are blinking? And the answer in the 3rd edition PHB is definately yes. In 3.5 the answer is no, and you have to spring for a real Force Weapon that was made on the physical - but the thread is about 3rd edition rules.

The intention was seemingly to make it impossible for creatures on the Ethereal to stab you - but for you to be able to stab them if you had the right equipment. That, however, does not work. Ghost Touch Arrows stop when they hit you, so at that moment your body is altering the position and velocity of a sharp object - which means that you can stab people right back.

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da_chicken
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by da_chicken »

The problem is that the line is entirely inconsistent with the way that Ethereal, Ghost Touch, and Incorporeal function... even under 3.0. Why does blink even mention incorporeal when the spell doesn't make you so? The mechanics of that one line of the spell -- indeed, that lone word of the spell -- are logically inconsistent with the existing game mechanics.

In any case, there is still no evidence to suggest that a blinking character with a ghost touch weapon would suffer even a reduced miss chance. The line you quote is for creatures with ghost touch weapons attacking blinkers. There's existing precedent for it working differently. If, say, I'm blinking and I cast magic missle, there's still a 20% chance the spell doesn't affect material creatures. If I cast magic missle at a blinking creature, he always gets hit.

Now you have to show that blink not only intends to use a reduced miss chance for the illogical incorporeal-affecting attacks, but that this one line that refers to being attacked can be extended to attacking. And you can't use the descriptions for ghost touch, incorporeal, or ethereal since they refute your claim, and you can't use blink because there's no evidence there at all.

Your argument is sheer conjecture.
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Psifon »

da_chicken at [unixtime wrote:1075521071[/unixtime]]The problem is that the line is entirely inconsistent with the way that Ethereal, Ghost Touch, and Incorporeal function... even under 3.0. Why does blink even mention incorporeal when the spell doesn't make you so? The mechanics of that one line of the spell -- indeed, that lone word of the spell -- are logically inconsistent with the existing game mechanics.



Which is no doubt why they changed it in 3.5
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Re: Magic Item List for Rogues

Post by Username17 »

There's existing precedent for it working differently. If, say, I'm blinking and I cast magic missle, there's still a 20% chance the spell doesn't affect material creatures. If I cast magic missle at a blinking creature, he always gets hit.


Because there is a chance that your magic missile was not created on the material plane. Your weapon, however, was definately created on the material plane.

The deliniation of effect transference is based on the origin of that effect. The effect, in this case, is the object, not the attack roll. As such it is entirely independent of where you happen to be at any time.

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