What if going to the ethereal/astral plane killed you?

I'm not as up on my grasp of the transitive planes in D&D cosmology, but I have something in mind where the ethereal plane becomes very hostile. I know that would mess with blink spells and teleportation, but what else would be affected? I don't want to overlook obvious changes that could lead to entire plots going awry -- f'rinstance, are ghosts ethereal, or just incorporeal? If the ethereal plane dealt damage, would that lead to the extinction of blink dogs? What other D&D tropes would be affected?

Also, in this situation, how would you, as a player, adapt? You can't use teleport, but can you planeshift twice to achieve the same thing, or does that still kill you? Could you use some sort of shadow teleportation? Would people use blink as an offensive spell, trying to make their foes blink themselves to death?
 
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Oh, fooey. If it's astral, then I've got to change a bunch of stuff. The point is that I wanted to make teleportation dangerous in the short term. I want something that will provide an interesting challenge without seeming like I'm trying just to keep the party from using their spells.
 

unless i am mistaken pretty much all of the transportation spells touch the astral. you could 'disconnect' the astral for some reason thereby preventing instantaneous teleporting, planeshifting etc.
 

A suggestion:

Wrap all three transitive planes (etherial, astral, shadow) into one single transitive plane - the dreamlands, the spirit realm, the underworld, umbra or somesuch - then make THAT hostile.
 

If you have Manual of the Planes, RangerWickett, there are lists of spells that don't function if you take away certain planes. It will only cover core spells, but it should be a start on what you want.
 

I'd suggest decide on how you want to change the spells, and then decide on the reason and game effects.

P.S. I never liked the two plane shifts = one teleport. I always make it if you shift back, you are where you started, or maybe only as far as you moved on the other plane.
 

Make it a plot by Orcus, since he's got the goods on Negative Energy.

Have him seed the Astral with Negative energy, not enough to hurt the local inhabitants, but enough to hurt anyone punching a hole into and out of it. That means teleportation is severely limited to anyone affected by Negative energy.

What he's trying to do is immobilize Graz'zt's troops and prevent direct re-inforcement. This seems to be working so he's decided to turn up the amount of pain the Negative Energy inflicts on teleporters. It's important, however, to make sure that the Energy still does not affect anyone just walking around the plane, otherwise he'll earn the emnity of a great many Astral dwellers.

The effect his tactics have on the PCs are purely collateral; he's not attempting to hurt them or anything. This is purely an Orcus v Graz'zt grudge thing.
 

Two Plane Shifts do not equal one Teleport, unless you like teleporting to a completely random destination just for kicks.

Don't forget, Plane Shift always puts you off your intended destination by 5d100 miles, and in a random direction, no less. In my own game we always roll dice to see where the PCs end up, even though they always do the trifecta of Shift-Shift-Teleport to arrive precisely. The second Shift has a chance, however small sometimes, of depositing the party into a region of Dead Magic or Wild Magic, and thus preventing them from just plain 'popping' out.

Last session, we got a particularly amusing result- they ended up over open ocean, and thus got dumped in the salty drink before they Teleported to the real destination- they arrived soaking wet. :lol: I had a good chuckle over that one! But, that's what you (sometimes) get for trying to Plane Shift to a coastal destination...
 

RangerWickett said:
Also, in this situation, how would you, as a player, adapt? You can't use teleport, but can you planeshift twice to achieve the same thing, or does that still kill you? Could you use some sort of shadow teleportation? Would people use blink as an offensive spell, trying to make their foes blink themselves to death?
A downside to plane shift is its innacuracy within the target plane. On average you'll show up 250 miles away from your destination. That means about a week of overland travel on horseback, or two weeks if you're on foot (or more if you've got halflings in armor). Often this won't be any faster than just walking back from the dungeon in the first place.

In a world where there is no real teleportation, flying carpets and items of overland flight will actually be useful. At slightly higher levels, wind walk will be your fastest way of travelling long distances.
 

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