Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness...umm...

[Urpriest]

I've been looking through travel spells (for spaceships for the Psionic Tippyverse game if anyone's curious) and I couldn't help but notice that two castings of Plane Shift can do essentially everything that Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness can, several levels earlier. Is there some hidden utility of these spells that I'm missing?

[sonofzeal]

I've always ruled the Ethereal Plane less a distinct plane and more an extension of the Material Plane, and not immediately accessible via normal planar travel. That's not exactly RAW though, so YMMV.

[ffone]

The Ethereal Plane is coexistent with the Material Plane, or 'overlaps' as Ethereal Jaunt says. This means that while ethereal you can effectively travel around the nearby material plane - to pass through walls, be immune to most enemies while you hammer them with Force effects, (apparently that's Material to Ethereal only - but I'm sure someone knows a way to attack material things while ethereal) etc.

Plane Shift plops you 5-500 miles in a random direction, so it's not very effective for passing through walls to explore your current area. Two castings of Gr. Plane Shift could be used to emulate a single Gr. Teleport - but that's not very cost-effecitve, since they're both L7 (and Teleport and DDoor) are lower.

Perhaps you could use Gr. Plane Shift to go to your 'current' place on the ethereal plane, in effect giving you an unlimited-duration Ethereal Jaunt. But it's not strictly better (since you'd need to cast it again to come back) and I'm not sure it works (if you're considered familiar enough with your ethereal coterminal point to 'teleport' aka plane shift there accurately). That said, using Gr Plane Shift for the transitive planes is a neat idea I never thought of! Good if you can cast it twice but lack Ethereal Jaunt, Shadow Walk, etc. or need a 'long duration'.