Ethereal Plane

[Captain_K]

Ghosts, Shadows, Specters, are all Incorporeal.. living or existing on the ethereal plane (I think).

Weapons need to be +1 or better to hit... cool... (EDIT: MAGICAL +1 OR BETTER)

But what about magic? magic missile hit them? fireball?

[Lurker]

Good question

My gut reaction was "no I don't think so", and I don't think it has been allowed in previous games I played … but then when I though about it, I've never played a magic caster so I would be making long leaps of memory that may not be correct in remembering events where I was busy swinging a sword and not paying attention to the MU and the effects of his attacks

When I think it through, if a magic weapon of +1 hits, what is the difference in magical attacks ???

With that, at least some of them should hit. Especially 'magical' energy spells something like MM. Now for a blast of fire from fire ball, or burning hands etc … I can see an argument against it, it is magically created fire not a magical energy in and of itself.

[mgtremaine]

Yes spell damage hits them. Don;t over think it, magic is magic. When you go down the fireball creates fire, you get into modern physics and chemistry and that is the road to madness in a fantasy game. Keep it simple, is it a spell? then it's magic.

-Mike

[Tadhg]

"Weapons need to be +1 or better to hit... cool... "

Not quite, Capt. Weapons need to be magical. So, a +1 expert sword would not hit, whereas a magical sword (with or without a to hit bonus) would hit.

[Captain_K]

Oops, you are right, magical weapons to hit, sometimes +1 or better, sometimes +2 or better (elementals I think) and sometimes silver, or cold iron, all sorts of odd little details.... but yes magic.

OK, Here's the twist to this question... so if we in the material world want to affect the ghost who is incorporeal (aka ethereal) then magic is needed.. magic weapons or so far any magic spell can reach them too (unless others chime in to nix that premise)... so, a Ghost who is also a wizard... do all their spells affect the physical world?

[Rigon]

Yes spell damage hits them. Don;t over think it, magic is magic. When you go down the fireball creates fire, you get into modern physics and chemistry and that is the road to madness in a fantasy game. Keep it simple, is it a spell? then it's magic.

-Mike

This.

R-

[Lurker]

I knew I had experience with this before, but it took me a while to dig it up

Putting on my devil's advocate hat …

My character Lupa had a ring of blinking, which hops the wearer back and forth between the ethereal and the material.

I was fighting a dragon with a fire attack breath weapon, and that ring kept my bacon from getting cooked (ha, good pun that I wasn't even planning on making … sorry, just had 2 calls back to back with crazy old widows so my mind is a bit twitchy right now) . It reduced all area effect damage by half.

So, with that, there is at least precedence on there being some form of protection for the ethereal creatures against those types of attacks.

Now, I'm not sure with it being ghosts and the like, because you can argue they are at least partial on the material, so they aren't fully protected. However, there could be some validity to there being some protection against some attacks.

Don't over think … how can you have a good debat if you don't over think things

[serleran]

You can complicate this further.

Some creatures, like ghosts, can coexist in Ethereal and Prime. While so manifested, they can be struck by either magical weapons or spell effects.

If, however, they are in the Ethereal only, sources on the Prime cannot affect them (with some exceptions.) This would include (almost all) magical weapons and most spells.

If the being has been brought fully into the Prime, they may lose some of their resistance/immunity and become subject to mundane elemental damage (a torch, for example.)

How you treat multiplanar creatures/objects is a matter of taste.

[Edit]

Also, nuclear energy, or raw true elemental damage, should be able to hurt them regardless -- what this means may vary in your game, but think proton packs and Ghostbusters. Lightning, for example, may be one such attack form that hurts always (without actual immunity.)

[Captain_K]

So my Ethereal Ghost Mage needs to learn to become more material to affect the material and thus its use of spells FROM the ethereal realm into the real may not all affect those in the real... and yes, once people see this ghost mage they too will try to affect the ghost caster.. it must be a two way street.. spells from ether affect the real and vice versa.
This can quickly get complicated... but oh so fun.

I do love simple, the KISS principal being a stand by... but life rarely lets that stand long. Think how boring it would be if we could not complicate it.

[anvil242]

One might argue that an etheric ghost must translate to the material plane to interact in any way with regular old folks, but can shift back and forth at will. One could also argue that this is why magic weapons are required to hit in the first place and that this situation is already accounted for in the rules, only leaving the justification up to the GM.

[Captain_K]

Before a group gains too many magic weapons or are temporarily without them.. a ghost with a magic weapon would be a might foe.