Countering etherealness?

[Dragannia]

So a quick question:

What's the best way to bring one, or better yet, a group of people out of etherealness? This is for DnD 3.5.

[Grail]

Ethereal Jaunt yourself and kick their ass.

[Roderick_BR]

I'm not sure. Can you target someone with ethereal haunts/teleports, to bring them to you?
Dimensional Anchor and Lock can stop people from *going* ethereal, but I don't know if it stops from *being* ethereal (I think it just stops an etheral being from attacking you).
Force effects (magic missile, mage armor/shield, wall of force) all ignores etherealness, if I'm not mistaken.
Ghost thouch weapons/armors/shields doesn't count, because they affece incorporeal, not ethereal creatures (they are effectivelly the same thing, but there's some diferences).
There's a paladin feat called Awesome Smite (can't remember the book), that, among other things, allow you to smite a creature and ignore any miss chance (like from being incorporeal).

Those are what I remember from the top of my head.

[Fixer]

If the group is ethereal due to magic, you can try transdimensional metamagic to make a dispel magic affect the ethereal plane while you are in the prime. This would still require perceiving the ethereal characters, though.

Most being powerful enough to worry about ethereal intrusions generally create ethereal walls and wards to protect themselves. I recall, in 2nd edition, a spell called 'Vanish' (I think) that would permanently transform prime matter into ethereal matter, which was then more solid than normal ethereal matter and couldn't be traveled through.

[Jack_Simth]

It depends partially on how they're there, and how the DM parses

The only exceptions are spells and spell-like abilities that have the force descriptor and abjuration spells that affect ethereal beings.(Emphasis added)

If Abjuration spells from the Material plane hit the ethereal plane by default, then a simple Greater Dispel Magic and/or Disjunction will do the job.

If not, you'll want to apply Transdimensional Spell (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Transdimensional_Spell,all) either to Greater Dispel Magic (or Disjunction), or just to direct-offense spells.

Depending on your reading, there's also a way to actually separate an area from the Ethereal plane - the Genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm) spell creates a "demiplane coterminous with the Ethereal Plane" - but nothing is specified about it being attached to the Material - which means if you're on the Ethereal, and pass it's borders, you're off the Ethereal and can't see the material plane anymore.

[Aquillion]

Originally Posted by SRD, Planes, The Ethereal Plane
The only exceptions are spells and spell-like abilities that have the force descriptor and abjuration spells that affect ethereal beings.Wait, what? The section on Special Abilities about etherealness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#etherealness) states much more simply:

A force effect originating on the Material Plane extends onto the Ethereal Plane, so that a wall of force blocks an ethereal creature, and a magic missile can strike one (provided the spellcaster can see the ethereal target). Gaze effects and abjurations also extend from the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane. None of these effects extend from the Ethereal Plane to the Material Plane.
Which one is correct? The Special Abilities of the SRD clearly seems to state that all abjurations extend from the material plane to the ethereal plane.

EDIT: Actually, now that I read it again, I think I understand -- there's no contradiction here. All abjurations, without exception, affect ethereal creatures as if they were not ethereal; this is what the section on the Etherealness status clearly says. What the section on planes says, then, is that only the abjurations that affect creatures will extend there -- in other words, when there are no valid targets on the ethereal plane, or when they don't target creatures, then they don't extend to the ethereal plane in other ways (like, say, for dispelling a spell that isn't on a creature? Or Arcane Lock on an ethereal lock?) It's confusingly worded, at least, but if you interpret it this way there's no contradiction.

Anyway. Depending on the answer to the above... If their etherealness is the result of a Su ability or property, or the result of a non-instantaneous spell, then an anti-magic field will do the trick. Of course, this may be non-optimal if you want to fling (non-instantaneous-conjuration) spells at them yourself.

[Dragannia]

Huh. Well if all abjuration spells extend to the ethereal that should make things a lot easier. A simple Dispel should do.

[Toliudar]

If you're expecting ethereal critters, Make Manifest and its mass version (Spell Compendium) do exactly what you're describing.