Author Topic: Expert vs Monk Challenge!  (Read 151478 times)

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SorO_Lost

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Re: Expert vs Monk Challenge!
« Reply #780 on: July 26, 2011, 07:44:29 PM »
Actually, ethereal creatures are still substantial; they're just on another plane of existence entirely.
Yeah but that other plane coexists within and though out the material plane.

Quote from: 'http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#etherealness"

And despite not being wisps of energy/gas, and not really on the Material Plane, they can see light and hear vibrations from things on the Material plane as if they were there yet rain nor wind nor lightning nor solid wall can affect them.

In my experience, D&D does an incredibly shitty job of differentiating between ethereal, incorporeal, and insubstantial. All of these things tend to get a monster the Incorporeal subtype, even though that doesn't always make sense, and for players the game just goes batshit. What the hell, Gaseous Form?
They did a shitty job because most of the authors probably didn't get it enough to be able to explain it. Hell, I'm not sure I do either. I look at it as the 4th dimension. By taking a long step sideways from our known space you can walk "past" walls and ignore gravity, but the 4th way movement is difficult and it isn't up hill so to speak as it's more your body phasing into an energy-like state. You can get trapped on the other side unable to touch the things over here. Creatures and objects who have matched the same movement as you are handled as normal and attempting to take a smaller step from the Material plane, that is to only move some degree on this 4th axis but not so much to breach some kind of out of reach threshold renders you Incorporeal. Incorporeal is an insubstantial creature to Material Creatures and is even able to squeeze them selves around/though solid objects on the Material Side, but they haven't moved to far as to be untouchable. As for Gaseous Form, you turned into a gas. Simple as that, you haven't moved 4th dimensionally and thus a wall that only exists on the pure Material side can still block you, wind can blow you around, etc. you simply became a gas like heated water does rather than some energy being thing.

As for Ghosts, they take their smaller step from the Ethereal Plane. So like a Material partially moving to the Ethereal they become Incorporeal, however since they are closer to Ethereal than Material, they haven't crossed a point where non-Ethereal stuff can reach them.

Did I explain things in a none confusing way to you? Feel free to snatch the flavor there if you like.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]