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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6156413" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 325: November 2004 part 8/8Sage advice: It's too bright in here. All that white hurtses andy's eyses, collins collins. Andy hass piled up sskip's books to make niiiccce shadows. Much nicccer. What's the difference between ethereal and incorporeal (One iss here but inssubstantial, the other is on another plane. Nassty spying thing can sse you when you can't ssee it. If Andy finds out andy will go there and wring it's nassty neck, collins collins.) Whats the difference between a manifesting ghost and an ethereal one. (What nassty stuff they can do to you, yess.)Can a ghost use it's abilities on other ethereal things. Can it see ethereal things while manifested (Only ssome of them. No. Other ghosts can ssneak up on it, yess. )Can a ghost travel to other planes. (Yess, but it can't go ethereal on them. Sscary for them, teeheeheeheehee. )Can you target an ethereal creature from the prime material plane (If you can ssee it and have force sspells. Nice force sspells. blast those nassty ghosties)Can you hurt things on the prime material from the ethereal with force effects. (No. One way only. Have to research other special spells to do that, preciouss.)Can ghost touch weapons hurt ethereal creatures (no)What happens when a wall is built on the ethereal plane (Very tricky, yess. No ssolid matter there, so you have to import it all. If you do, its all ssolid, normal cover and concealment rules apply, yess.)Does an ethereal object block force effects on the material plane.  (Yess. If they can't ssee ethereal things, this could result in a nassty surprise for the holder, teeheeheeheehee.)Can an ethereal creature grapple someone wearing bracers of armor or vice versa (No, collins collins. Not a solid hold.) How do I keep ethereal characters from wrecking my adventure. ( Nassty sneaky adventurers. Other high level sspellcasters will make defenses, yess. And roll for random encounters that'll eat their brainsess, yess. And at low level they won't be able to do it much anyway. How does the plane of shadow keep mimicing the prime material when people change it. (It flowss sslowly and ssneakily when you aren't looking. Nassty shadows don't look exactly like the real thing, like evil shadow puppets. They givesses Andy the creeps, collins collins.) Coup de grace: James Wyatt finishes up this issue with a little piece praising the idea of settings in general, while also talking about what made Eberron the best option for a new D&D setting at this moment in time. It uses all the old stuff, but in interesting new ways, and also adds new things on top of those. Plus it used good ideas from other settings submitted in the search, allowing them to make it more expansive, and less built around the ideas and quirks of one person. If they can only have a couple of settings alive at any one time, they might as well make them really good ones. Once again, this column puts the tensions between the creative and commercial into sharp relief, and shows that when large amounts of money are at stake, things naturally tend to turn into work by committee, as that lets everyone involved claim credit if something is a success, while denying responsibility if it isn't. Yet again this makes it very clear why the 3rd party D20 writers had plenty of clear space to do interesting things WotC couldn't at this time, and it's not certain which actually produces the better game. Oh well, I can liberally use both sources in my own campaign. The more diverse the options, the better. Once again, this issue is a much easier read than the ones before they changed the format, giving me huge amounts of usable material, much of it good. The novelty may be wearing off, but they're still packing the content into every issue. As usual, let's see if they've been holding anything special back for christmas, or if the new formula will start to bore me by then.</blockquote>

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