Ethearlness and Private Property

[Valkesh]

ok, so here is where a pickle showed up:
a rogue with a template that allows etherealness stole a painting from a house, the owner of the house, a gnome wizard, decided he wants the picture back. After finding where the rogue is, he showed up, invisible and poly´ed into a pixie.
He got to where the rogue was, and touched the tube containing the painting an Teleported. (there were initiative rolls, blah blah blah. wizard went first)
Soooo the Rogue did a will save to Tp with the painting succeeded and then proceeded to go into ethealness.
At this moment, both the wizard and the rogue are holding the tube. Does the tube go ethereal or not? Ethearlness states "you and your possesions" but who is legally in posession of the tube?

 

[Sejs]

Belongs to the rogue - it was in his possession when the wizard laid hand on it, and has not left his possession yet, as described. Basically as long as the rogue retains some grasp on the tube, it's his. If he slips up and suddenly the gnome is the only one holding the tube, then the tube is the gnome's possession. Back and forth. If that makes sense.


Tube is on my person, you come to take it - tube is mine.

You get your hands on the tube, but so do I. We wrestle back and forth for control of the tube - tube is still mine, you're trying to take it.

You succeed at getting the tube out of my hands, leaving you the only one touching the tube - tube is now yours.

I get my hands on the tube and try to take it back - tube is still yours, I'm trying to take it.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Opposed Charisma checks.

They are both attempting to exert magical control on the item - the rogue trying to take it with him to the Ethereal plane, the wizard trying to hold on to it to keep it from slipping away.

 

[Pyrex]

Odd, from the title I was expecting a thread about legal ownership of planar locations coterminous with land owned on the prime...

Anyhow, while Sej's answer is probably most correct, I like Patryn's solution better.

 

[LokiDR]

I would have put a stop to the exchange before it got to that point. The tube must be disarmed or grappled away from the holder, picked up, and then the holder counts it as an item in their possession. After a grapple, only one person has the item. No silly "two people holding the same item". The rules do not cover it because it isn't supposed to happen.

 

[Nail]

This one is easy, actually. In order to take something, you have to use the Disarm: grabbing items action.

That is to say, you can't simply take something (and be considered to have possession of it) by walking up, touching an item, and teleporting away. That's what that Will save is for!

Oh, and BTW: the rogue does not "holding the tube". He may be touching it, but he doesn't have it in his hand.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The wizard was not holding the tube when the Rogue went ethereal.

By your description, the wizard would need to make a touch attack to apply the tip of his finger on the tube as part of his casting the Teleport. However there is no presumption that touching the tube is the same as grabbing hold. IIRC, actually grabbing an item on a hostile creature is a type of attack (that provokes an AoO BTW).

This is actually a good job for a familiar. The familiar can use its Standard Action to make a grab attack on the tube in its puny little claws and deliver the touch part of the Teleport spell at the same time.