D&D 5E Border Ethereal - What am I missing?

[SkidAce]

So I can't find any way to step out of the Border Ethereal for travelers in 5e. Seems the intent is, cast plane shift, go to deep ethereal, find curtain of color for destination, step through curtain into border ethereal...but then what? You are on say the Plane of Fire's border ethereal. Good for scouting etc so it says.

I mean do you have to Plane Shift again to go where you are looking at on the adjoining plane?

DnD Beyond:

To reach the Deep Ethereal, one needs a plane shift spell or arrive by means of a gate spell or magical portal. Visitors to the Deep Ethereal are engulfed by roiling mist. Scattered throughout the plane are curtains of vaporous color, and passing through a curtain leads a traveler to a region of the Border Ethereal connected to a specific Inner Plane, the Material Plane, the Feywild, or the Shadowfell. The color of the curtain indicates the plane whose Border Ethereal the curtain conceals; see the Ethereal Curtains table.

 

[SkidAce]

I know, I've had a similar discussion before, but its still bugging me.

D&D 5E - Etherealness, Deep Ethereal, and Plane Shift.

Looking for an interesting discussion, fluff and/or rules references are fine...but no right/wrong derails please. (see those other two threads... :D ) Set up: A big part of my campaigns were "lower" level characters using the ethereal to get to the deep ethereal, and thus travel to other...

www.enworld.org

 

[Asisreo]

So I can't find any way to step out of the Border Ethereal for travelers in 5e. Seems the intent is, cast plane shift, go to deep ethereal, find curtain of color for destination, step through curtain into border ethereal...but then what? You are on say the Plane of Fire's border ethereal. Good for scouting etc so it says.

I mean do you have to Plane Shift again to go where you are looking at on the adjoining plane?

Basically, yeah. The Border Ethereal is really there for observation purposes to avoid being detected/hurt while looking at something. Think of the Border Ethereal, and therefore the Deep Ethereal, as a gateway to a bunch of interplanar windows (which matches the flavor of "curtains.")

Its basically safer than the Astral Plane which have dangerous creatures like the Astral Dreadnaught and the Githzerai. Astral lets you physically interact if your cord isn't cut. Ethereal lets you look. Direct transport lets you do anything as you're physically there (including die, no safety tether).

 

[SkidAce]

Hmmm, didnt notice this part last year when i was researching.

Theory: D&D considers all the "worlds" of the material as one plane.
Etherealness says;

When the spell ends, you immediately return to the plane you originated from in the spot you currently occupy. If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved.

So a different planet/world on the material would/could be "the spot you currently occupy" if you had moved there via Deep and then Color Curtain.

 

[Shiroiken]

Theory: D&D considers all the "worlds" of the material as one plane.

Sort of, but not necessarily. Assuming they're keeping the 2E Great Wheel cosmology, then all published settings are on the prime material plane, each reachable by Spelljamming. However, there are also alternate material planes, which might contain similar worlds (so two groups' Forgotten Realms exist on alternate materials planes to each other), including our Earth. The Ethereal Plane connects and separates all of these different planes, meaning they can be used to travel between them.

Oh, and the Ethereal Plane isn't necessarily safe either. Every creature that has the ethereal trait exists in the border ethereal (or at least they did in earlier editions).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Hmmm, didnt notice this part last year when i was researching.

Theory: D&D considers all the "worlds" of the material as one plane.
Etherealness says;



So a different planet/world on the material would/could be "the spot you currently occupy" if you had moved there via Deep and then Color Curtain.

However, here's the kicker, 5e doesn't actually allow you to move from the Border to the Deep at all (other than by using plane shift or gate). If it did, that would be a reasonable interpretation.

I house rule back in stepping back and forth between the Border and Deep. I can't see why it was left out. It makes sense that the PHB spell description doesn't get into it, but it is unclear whether it not being an option in the DMG was an oversight or intentional.

 

[RangerWickett]

The way I envision it is:

If you were to write down details of each plane, the Ethereal Plane is like the page the words are written on, and the Astral Plane is the book itself. Both dimensions have little in the way of interesting landmarks or natives, and even most planar travelers pay them no mind. But certain magic relies on them.

Thought reigns in the Astral Plane—disembodied souls navigate by will and distance means nothing, the world fading to silvery gray in every direction. Most of the dimension is empty, though errant ideas can sometimes manifest crude matter. The personal mindscapes of dreamers may form links to the Astral Plane, and those trapped in perpetual sleep may create permanent dream bodies that eventually degenerate into monsters. Ur-ideas can take the form of leviathans that swim the astral like a psychic sea, and it is rumored an entire empire of psychic beings has learned to control these creatures. Magic like dream and astral projection can untether the soul from the body, using the astral to reach other minds and other worlds. Travelers can move to other planes through convergences, which mortal minds often perceive as swirling pools of color or other sensations that evoke the feeling of the destination.

The Ethereal Plane is what allows incorporeal creatures to move through solid objects, and nearly every plane has its own ethereal. Beings in the ethereal usually are invisible to those in the plane they originated from, but can perceive a small swath of the dimension they left. Matter and energy from that world cannot affect them, nor even gravity, but other ethereal beings can interact with or harm them, and spells like wall of force extend into the Ethereal Plane. Usually the only thing for a traveler to do in the ethereal is to watch their plane of origination, explore, and emerge at some other spot in that same world, though sometimes two dimensions abut the same Ethereal Plane, and a creature can slip between them like poking a hole in a sheet of paper. It is also possible for ethereal travelers to metaphysically wander away from their origination plane—they find themselves swept up in mists, and might become lost forever or emerge in a random dimension.