D&D 5E Ethereal Plane in 5e?

[Sword of Spirit]

One of the things that has always bothered me about the way D&D has handled the Deep Ethereal is that it is difficult to actually use it as it appears intended to be used.

The Deep Ethereal links the Prime with the Inner Planes. You can get into the Border Ethereal of the Prime, and then go to the Deep Ethereal and take a weeks long journey to get to an Inner Plane.

That is really, really cool to me with my play style. It doesn't get a whole lot cooler than that. It's a perfect way to begin your planar adventuring. Similar to Material Plane adventuring, just in a really exotic locale.

Except...you can't actually do that. Here's why:

1) The spells that can get you into Border Ethereal Plane no easier to cast than the spells that get you into the Deep Ethereal, and
2) The spells that can get you into the Deep Ethereal can also take you directly to your destination plane
3) You gain no particular advantage by traveling the long way, since the only spells that allow you to get out of the Border Ethereal and onto the destination plane are the same spells that let you bypass the Ethereal and jump straight to your destination anwyay!

And I'm not even mentioning the other little bits and pieces of dumb rules scattered throughout the edition (like how 2e and probably 1e don't even let you stay Deep Ethereal a lot of time after a spell ends that was keeping you ethereal; or how the 5e DMG (mind-bogglingly) doesn't let you travel from the Border to the Deep). I just ignore that nonsense.

So the basic issue is really just that there aren't any spells at an appropriate level (ie, before spells that let you bypass it) that let you use the Ethereal Plane as the exotic wilderness travel locale it is painted as.

Enter the next problem: It is difficult to make such spells without making the higher level etherealness completely outclassed by them. For example, the most obvious solution would be a spell of about 5th level (feels right) that simple opens a door you can walk right into/out of the Border Ethereal from. Once there you can go into the Deep, travel to your destination, go into the Border, and cast the spell to get out. Awesome! But it makes etherealness virtually worthless by comparison, because the only advantage it then has is that it automatically brings you back from the Border Ethereal at the end of it's duration (and that's only an advantage when you want it to be).

Now there is a reason for the design decisions of etherealness. The spell is designed for tactical use. It's supposed to be used to interact with the Material Plane. Spying, bypassing barriers, etc. It isn't really a travel spell. So it makes sense at it's level given what it does, but it is problematic to balance a travel spell against it. Basically, a travel spell has to not step on its toes.

I'm still unhappy that no edition of D&D has ever actually made a spell to do enable the Ethereal Plane as the travel route is screams to be used as, but I went ahead and made a spell for my own use.

ETHER CONDUIT
5th-level conjuration

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S, M (a quartz worth at least 50 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: 10 minute

Drawing from the limitless possibilities of the Ethereal Plane, you conjure a conduit of ether linking the Deep Ethereal to a location on a plane that borders the Ethereal Plane.
If you are on a bordering plane when you cast this spell a 10-foot diameter circular conduit grounds itself to a point you can see within range. The other end of the conduit appears in the Deep Ethereal Plane.
If you are on the Border Ethereal when you cast this spell, the conduit grounds itself on the bordering plane. There is a 70% chance that the conduit grounds itself in the immediate vicinity on the bordering plane. Otherwise it grounds itself 1d10 x 1d20 miles away in a random direction. Regardless, the other end of the conduit appears in the Deep Ethereal and you find yourself within 10 feet of it.
The conduit has a front and a back on each plane where it appears. The front is a corridor of slowly swirling multi-colored fog. Any creature that enters it is immediately ejected from the conduit on the other plane, appearing in the nearest unoccupied space. The back is an impassable opaque wall of multi-colored fog.
This spell has no effect if you cast it while you are in the Deep Ethereal or on a plane that doesn't border the Ethereal Plane.

The 70% off target chance is there because I house rule a 60% off target chance for plane shift, because I think completely invalidates teleport otherwise. If you're using standard plane shift, just leave out the off target chance and have it always work. I should also note that it assumes significant travel time to get to where you are going on the destination plane. I use the times from the 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane. The 5e DMG travel times are a bit low for my tastes.

This spell should hit all my target goals, and I'm pretty happy with the flavor of it.

Also, a random note on the Astral Plane = dreams thing. Yes, the 5e DMG uses that language, but I just ran across the same sort of language in the 2e Guide to the Astral Plane, which obviously was part of the same cosmology as the 2e Ethereal Plane. I don't think one should attach any special significance to it--it definitely wasn't intended to interfere with the dream connection of the Ethereal Plane.

 

[Yaarel]

[MENTION=6677017]Sword of Spirit[/MENTION]

I want to see Ethereal spells starting at Level 1. In 4e, the Shadar Kai had an ability that could pass thru solid objects ethereally. It seems about a 2nd-level spell, being available at Level 1 as a race feature (similar to Eladrin with 2nd-level Feystep).

Ethereality is a cool archetype in pop culture, with the ability to ‘phase’ thru solid objects. I think of Kitty Pride of the X-Men, Vision of the Avengers, Flash, and others. It is one of the reallife legends about the Ninja in Japan. I want it in D&D too.

The spell level of Etherealness seems overestimated, probably suitable as a 6th-level spell slot, and only because of its tactical applications.

It is balanced to have other spells relating to the Ethereal plane at lower spell levels.

The Ether is a great place to explore, and it should be easier to glimpse it, explore it, and travel thru its highways.

The Ethereal plane is a spirit realm (Fey and Shadow and Elemental) that deserves more stories.

 

[Alexemplar]

[MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] I feel pretty much the same about the Ethereal being the spirit world. That's why it's pretty much the *only* true plane in my homebrew setting. It's coterminous with the material plane and everything else exists as a kind of demiplane that's more a state of being/mind tied to a physical place.

For example, in order to reach the Shadowfell, you need to go to a place full of death and decay like the site of a bloody battle, graveyard, or swamp, then go into the Ethereal and look around in the mists until you come to the part of the Shadowfell that corresponds with the material site. A deity's domain can usually be reaches by going to the site of their largest holy place and entering the Ethereal plane there. The accesibility/size/grandeur and the amount of power they have is totally dependent on how widespread their worship is so gods of big universal concepts have big domains that cover thousands of square miles and can be accessed from much of the world (with the right state of mind) while minor local spirits have a little demiplane retreat that can only be accessed from their sacred grove that must be accessed via very specific means.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel pretty much the same about the Ethereal being the spirit world. That's why it's pretty much the *only* true plane in my homebrew setting. It's coterminous with the material plane and everything else exists as a kind of demiplane that's more a state of being/mind tied to a physical place.

I was thinking of deleting the Astral-Outer planes. Let the Ether handle everything.



Alignments

• Air = Presence of Good (Good things, but can be used for Good or Evil)
• Earth = Absence of Good (not necessarily Evil, can be opportunities to do Good)

• Water = Chaotic (Compassion)
• Fire = Lawful (Justice)



Human actions can have affinity with anywhere in the spectrum among these four cardinal alignment points.

 

[SkidAce]

One of the things that has always bothered me about the way D&D has handled the Deep Ethereal is that it is difficult to actually use it as it appears intended to be used.

The Deep Ethereal links the Prime with the Inner Planes. You can get into the Border Ethereal of the Prime, and then go to the Deep Ethereal and take a weeks long journey to get to an Inner Plane.

That is really, really cool to me with my play style. It doesn't get a whole lot cooler than that. It's a perfect way to begin your planar adventuring. Similar to Material Plane adventuring, just in a really exotic locale.

Except...you can't actually do that. Here's why:

I'm not near my notes, but I noticed the same thing, and I think I solved it by adding a couple of lines to the existing etherealness spell...

you can spend and action to move into the Deep Ethereal, losing all contact with your previous location on the Border...if you are in the Deep Ethereal when this spell ends, you remain there, and must travel using the Ethereal Travel rules.

Since then, I changed the ethereal to be the first layer of the astral, and use a lot of ethereal like traits (travel, misty) combined with the astral traits (stars, ocean like travel, astral cyclones etc.).

Simpler.

 

[Mercule]

Is it the Plane of the Un-manifested, where the building blocks of life wisp away from the Inner Planes into mists, to coalesce and form tangible matter on the Material Plane?

This is the closest.

Merriam Webster defines Ethereal as: lacking material substance.

There are other definitions, but that's the important one, for our purposes. If the astral plane is where the mind/soul goes when it leaves the body, the ethereal is where the body goes when it... um.... leaves the body.

The ethereal is simultaneously without any physical form while also being the sea on which all the physical elements float on. It ties together the raw blocks of creation (elemental planes) with the actual manifestation and realization of that creation (the prime). The uninformed might say that the ethereal is the foundation on which the prime is built, but that's false. The ethereal is what the prime material would be without any of the elements -- transient and indistinct; empty, hollow, and with nothing of any substance (pun not entirely intended).

This is why going "out of phase" -- whether as a phase spider or becoming invisible -- moves the creature, at least in part, to the ethereal. They are shedding at least part of their substance.

It's also why the Shadowfell and Feywild connect to the prime via the ethereal. Both are realms based on the prime, but somewhat "out of focus". The Shadowfell has a "lower" resonance and the Feywild a "high" resonance. Neither are quite as "real" as the Prime, though. The same could be said of demi-planes, like Ravenloft.

Outer planes are more like Platonic ideals of mental/spiritual concepts. Generally, we think of these in terms of morality because so much of our perception is tied to whether something effects us for good or ill. The very nature of the gods -- tied to concepts like weather, family, crafts, etc. -- shows that they're about more than just morality. But... that's a completely different thread.

 

[Yaarel]

The ether (the fifth element) is forces and forms, but lacks matter.

 

[Yaarel]

Outer planes are more like Platonic ideals of mental/spiritual concepts. Generally, we think of these in terms of morality because so much of our perception is tied to whether something effects us for good or ill. The very nature of the gods -- tied to concepts like weather, family, crafts, etc. -- shows that they're about more than just morality. But... that's a completely different thread.

If a campaign has outer planes existing, then they are the realms of *language*, social constructs, and archetypes: symbols.

Each ‘domain’ is what a particular group finds ‘meaningful’.

 

[RoyalEF]

The outer planes never worked for me--I started with AD&D. Back then it was ridiculous. I literally laughed when I read you would speak Common and your alignment language. As in all Lawful Neutral beings spoke a LN Language where they could speak and recognize eachother. The very fact that there was an Asgard, Olympus, Nine Hells pidgeon holed what they were.

The planescape concept that each world floated in a glass dome of ether is actually based upon real ideas that were popular in early "science". Basically the VOID of space was called the Aether or Ether and I think they thought it filled with a clear gas. That goes back to i think the Greeks.

Mechanically the Ethereal Plane is the spirit world that overlaps all the Inner planes. This is consistent through play mechanics. Walls of Force exist in the Prime and Ethereal planes. Anti-Magic fields exist simultaneously in Prime and Ethereal planes.

And that overlap is called the Border Ethereal. After that it gets kinda weird and goes in some non sensical directions. But the other planes stuff always did. You Astral Project your mind into the Astral Plane, and a body "forms" around you. Or you could open a door and just walk in with your primae material body and everything (astral projections, prime beings, and astral beings) all interact as if they were the same. Hunh? Sounds like you really thought astral projection was "kewl" but then realized you needed the Astral plane to act as doorways between the prime and outer and realized it didn't make sense for it to be a world of thought. Oops. It's fantasy, were just making this crap up as we go along.

Personally I think Ethereal --which many people assoicate with concepts of a soul or spirit--should be the conduit to everywhere. When you die, your Ether, Spirit croses over into the Ethereal plane. You are standing where you died, seeing the prime around you translucent and foggy. But you are now ethereal. You have to make your way to the next point in your journey... shadowfell, fey, sigil, the outer planes. Speak with dead is simply a phone call that crosses into the ether.

Once you travel beyond the inner planes, the ethereal turns from seeing a foggy view into the other plane and simply becomes real land. This is where the OUTLANDS that surround Sigil makes sense. I also think eliminating the Neutral planes because "neutrals" have no bearing cosmically is just a lack of imagination.

Astral should just be another plane of existence, but one where your mind is more powerful than any physcial force could be. Hence why you can project and exist solely with a mind. A plane of dreams has been suggested repeatedly and this could just be part of the Astral. You'd have to alter some concepts, like the idea that your prime body just walks into the Astral like it is no different than Prime. I'd also have to alter the Githyanki and other presences. But I think turning the Astral into a solely Mind Realm and not yet another transit plane, would be good.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My personal opinion on all of this, and it applies to most D&D things, is that you should first know what has been written for the game already, and then adapt it if you need to. For me, I try to stay as close to canon as I can, because I think it creates an awesome multiverse. I make small tweaks where they seem necessary to "patch" holes and consistency issues.

Of course it's also fine to completely rework it, but I recommend (as in most fields of life) being thoroughly acquainted* with the "rules" (fluff in this case) before deciding whether or not to break them. No need to reinvent the (Great) Wheel when it may already give you want you want.

You'd have to alter some concepts, like the idea that your prime body just walks into the Astral like it is no different than Prime.

The Guide to the Astral Plane takes care of that.


*I realize some of you here already are, I just thought I'd mention it for those who may be lurking or new.