D&D 5E Ways to tackle etherealness

[Oofta]

Well the joke's on me. They used Leomund's Tiny Hut instead - my god that thing is overpowered!

I did have a flock of Roc's hassle them on the carpet as the storm approached (they were trying to get the Hut ritual done before the Roc's attacked, unfortunately for them one of the Roc's managed to snatch one of the party before the ritual was completed, throwing that plan into disarray). Thrills and spills ensued but they managed to deter the Rocs and get back on the carpet before the storm struck so they rode it out in the Hut. The storm however uncovered an ancient buried Ziggurat that just had to be explored (their choice of course - but this group loves exploration). They went in the next morning and began exploring, and then the cleric decided to break out Etherealness, but this time I was prepared and a creepy voice entered their minds as they transitioned to the Ethereal plane. We ended the session at that point with the players quite excited about what's going to happen next.

Fun times.

No plan ever survives first contact with the players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ways to tackle etherealness:

Ethereal Filcher
Ethereal Marauder
Ethereal Defiler
..
and, you could always add an Ethereal Tackler
"grabbed & knocked prone again!?!"

 

[Stoutstien]

No plan ever survives first contact with the players.

Hehe. so true.

 

[robus]

So my last attempt to tackle etherealness worked well, they were set upon by a horde of ethereal crypt defenders and so popped back out to the material plane to escape their attentions. But that's not something I can use again without seeming intentional.

They're about to enter a long journey through some caverns following an ancient (and long unused) pilgrimage path. This pathway will be very dark and poorly marked. My idea is that if they attempt to navigate it while ethereal they will most likely lose their way and waste days trying to find their way back to the path and encounter nasties on the way (there is a clock on their mission).

I've already ruled that etherealness and darkness reduces visibility to 30 ft so if the sporadic way point markers are 100ft apart it would really make it hard to navigate while ethereal...

 

[Celebrim]

Wondering if any of you experts had some better ideas?

I straight up do not allow etherealness to work as simply glide through any object. They could and can use it to bypass anything of a transient nature, so you could use it to escape the effects of the weather, but seeing as soon as you hop over to the ethereal plan I'm rolling on an ethereal random encounter table and generally the ethereal plane is much more dangerous than the material I don't know why you'd bother.

The way the ethereal plane works for me is it is essentially a plane where everything is composed of the shadows and impressions of the material plane. So a wall that has been around for 400 years is pretty much going to be as solid on the ethereal plane as it is on the real one. One of the main exceptions to that is if you have an active ghost, then the ethereal plane will tend to be solid where the ghost remembers it being solid. But a door that is opened or closed every few hours or days is as flimsy on the ethereal plane as a curtain of beads.

There are some other problems with the ethereal. It tends to be dark wherever it is always dark, and twilight where it is sometimes light and sometimes dark. It's easy for the uninitiated to get lost in, because unlike the material where you can move in 6 directions (conceptually up, down, left, right, forward, and back), in the ethereal you can move in 8 directions (the same plus what is typically referred to as 'deeper' and 'shallower'), and that means if you take a wrong turn accidentally it's very very hard to find your way around or back. Most spells have a safety built into them, but there are things out there that can keep you trapped in the ethereal and many many more that trap you if you cross the border into the Astral.

Anyway, that's mostly advice on getting the PC's to not treat the Ethereal casually. As far as you actual problem goes, by the time the PC's are able to cast Etherealness, they are past the point where mundane travel threats represent much of a problem, so I think you are erroneously investing ego into an encounter that as a GM you should be resigned to not caring about. One of the worst mistakes a GM can make is fantasizing about how exciting an encounter is going to be. If it happens, it happens, but you are not the director of a movie. All you are doing is giving space for the players to be the protagonists, and if fleeing the storm by travelling through the ethereal is what the big heroes do, then it's what they do. Mostly what you need to do then is plan for what they find there.

 

[jgsugden]

Allowing PCs to do what they do well - especially when they are high level - is what allows them to feel heroic.

If they face villains that can prepare for them, let them prepare. That is part of the story. An intelligent and well prepared enemy is a fun enemy.

But don't just have enemy after enemy be prepared for them by random chance. That just tells the player that no matter what they do, they're playing YOUR game and YOU'LL DICTATE to them what type of fun they can have. It is a team story. You're providing a world for them to adventure within - not trying to beat them.

 

[robus]

One of the worst mistakes a GM can make is fantasizing about how exciting an encounter is going to be. If it happens, it happens, but you are not the director of a movie.

Sure I'm not the director of the movie, but I am the one that's supposed to make things interesting by throwing obstacles to their goals in their path. With Etherealness they can just glide through most obstacles for 8 hrs a day and arrive at their destination entirely bored. I'm trying to provide some fun and Etherealness majorly messes with the fun the other players might have with tackling encounters.

 

[robus]

But don't just have enemy after enemy be prepared for them by random chance. That just tells the player that no matter what they do, they're playing YOUR game and YOU'LL DICTATE to them what type of fun they can have. It is a team story. You're providing a world for them to adventure within - not trying to beat them.

Absolutely I don't want to just punish them nonsensically for using their abilities, but I do want to find ways to challenge them appropriately, getting lost while in the ethereal plane seems like a good option.

I think respondents are forgetting that this campaign, after 4 years of play, is in it's final few sessions and I'd really like it to end with a bang rather than an ethereal whimper. It is my job to ensure all the players are having fun.

 

[Umbran]

I’m also worried the other players are going to start getting annoyed that challenges are too easily circumvented. I.e, only the cleric is getting a chance to shine.

"And so we don't get noses full of sand and dust," isn't really dramatically shining.

Also note the spell description: "You can see and hear the plan you originated from, but everything there looks gray, and you can't see anything more than 60 feet away." Imagine trying to navigate for 8 hours without being able to see more than 60' in front of you. No use of long-distance landmarks at all. Now, they'll get to see 60' away... into a storm. Talk about a recipe for getting lost!

And, as others have noted, if there's something big waiting for them when they come out... that used spell slot could be a big deal.

 

[robus]

I probably should have started a new thread as people are coming up with ideas for an encounter now behind them