Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Ethereal Plane (AD&D/Planescape)

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A Guide to the Ethereal Plane is a great reference work, yet another home run from TSR's great Planescape product line. If you were disappointed in the brief amount of space given to the Ethereal in the Manual of the Planes and later supplements, your prayers are answered here in spades. Clarifications, protomatter, demiplanes, and more are all covered.

A Guide to the Ethereal Plane is a manual for DMs who run Planescape campaigns and for those wanting planar detours or extra dimensions for their Prime Material campaign. Weird worlds, hazardous conditions, and dangerous inhabitants abound within this enjoyable volume.

First up is an explanation of the misty Ethereal Plane and its parts: its conditions, its geography, what the Border and the Deep Ethereal are, and how the Prime Material and Elemental Planes interact with the Ethereal. Included are the special dangers of the Deep, such as ether cyclones and vortex fronts, and how to manipulate the material substance of the ether.

A magic section includes special spell effects and new spells and magic items; the perils of illusions and of having them warp or even come to life make for some interesting reading. Demiplanes and their design are covered at length (including currently known demiplanes, such as the Demiplane of Dread, a.k.a. Ravenloft). Dream adventuring has a special chapter of its own (dreams having a certain dangerous solidity on the Ethereal).

In the monster section, the author presents quite a mix of creatures: Prime Material critters with ethereal sight and combat; new Ethereal inhabitants, including two species suitable for PC characters; and old Ethereal inhabitants from a broad selection of TSR past products (many no longer available). Finally, several locations on the plane are described, some at sufficient length for the DM to create mini-adventures concerning them.

An excellent book for DMs whose campaigns ever venture away from solid ground.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

Very good way to adventure on this Plane but the content is a little bit on the less exciting part but a good book over all

On the contrary to the reader below, I manage to find the Ethereal to be a rather interesting place, not at all onerous, tedious, or any combination of the above. The book makes this ( seemingly) boredom-laden plane of existense as enchanting and dangerous as any other part of the AD&D cosmology. For those who are tired of putting their characters through Hell ( literally), the Ethereal is a nice change from the routine. It has a lot more possibilities in it than you think. If for nothing else, use it as a place for that impossible thing/location/encounter you always wanted to create.

The Ethereal is a plane not often even thought of in the overall scheme of Planescape. But this book fully illuminated the place and showed the many possibilities that it provides. This book might convince you to run campaigns based entirely on this enigmatic plane. After all, here, more than anywhere else, absolutely ANYTHING is possible. A definite must have for Planescape DM's and players alike.

The problem with the Ethereal Plane is the same for DM's and PC's alike: It's a vast (virtually) featureless nothing. The waveless sea that is the Deep Ethereal is just a chore. The demiplanes are scary, and the border is handy for PC's on the Prime, but the deep is nothing more, as far as this DM is concerned, than the worst way to get to the Inner Planes. The staff did a marvelous job at sqeezing every bit of potential interest out of this onerous chore, but on the Ethereal, the DM has a challenge to make it more than what it is. Buy this book, but think of it as a reference text, because at some point, there will be that trivial tidbit you needed.

This book is Wonderful ! heck you could run a whole Planescape campiagn on the Ethereal Plane alone... Of course this book works better paired with the Inner Planes Campiagn expansion. The only thing wrong with this book is the brief descriptions of the known demiplanes. Otherwise its really good it even includes two new PC races for the DM to play around with...