Cap of 'Invisiblity'?

[M_Ayling]

Hi,
I have used this forum serveal times in the past for answer/inspiration for my D&D adventures, and have only just desided to post some thing of my own.
I am writing this post for advice on a recent idea I had for a magical item, which I intend on making availible for my players.

The Magical Item renders it's wearer Invisible. Except that the wearer hasn't come under the effects of an Invisibility spell, but a has infact become a ghost.

The deatils of this item is that it makes the wearer Incorporeal. Therefore, she appears 'invisible' to those on the Material Plane and are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects

Now this is where I would like it to become interesting;
While in the Ethereal Plane, the wearer attracts other incorporeal beings to her. These beings are hostile and do not hesitate to attack. They see the wearer as an intruder into their domain and attemt to irradicate her - Sort of like how white blood cells attak a virus in the body.

Is this a balanced downside to such a potentialy powerful magical item?
Has a similar item already been used in other adventures/literature, and how mell did it work?
Any other thoughts on the item would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

M_Ayling.

[Fyermind]

Mechanically this does not jive with what has been written. Ethereal-ness is really is to figure out (everything gets blurry, you move at half speed and can move through walls) and is unrelated to being incorporeal (except in the specific circumstance of ghosts who have their own set of complex rules regarding it) and being incorporeal and invisibility have nothing to do with each other. The item you have created is still very powerful (I think, I don't really understand if it is intended to allow the user to put in on for a few seconds to run through an entire dungeon) and significant drawbacks aren't going to change that, though they make it more interesting. I certainly love the idea that powerful items are all cursed in some way, even if only in that they are valuable and people covet them.

[Erik Vale]

Hi,
I have used this forum serveal times in the past for answer/inspiration for my D&D adventures, and have only just desided to post some thing of my own.
I am writing this post for advice on a recent idea I had for a magical item, which I intend on making availible for my players.

The Magical Item renders it's wearer Invisible. Except that the wearer hasn't come under the effects of an Invisibility spell, but a has infact become a ghost.

The deatils of this item is that it makes the wearer Incorporeal. Therefore, she appears 'invisible' to those on the Material Plane and are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects

Now this is where I would like it to become interesting;
While in the Ethereal Plane, the wearer attracts other incorporeal beings to her. These beings are hostile and do not hesitate to attack. They see the wearer as an intruder into their domain and attemt to irradicate her - Sort of like how white blood cells attak a virus in the body.

Is this a balanced downside to such a potentialy powerful magical item?
Has a similar item already been used in other adventures/literature, and how mell did it work?
Any other thoughts on the item would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

M_Ayling.

For some reason, I'm getting a image of the One Ring. Put on, get attacked by Sauron's forces in exchange for invisibility. [Not a huge fand of LoTR's, but I remember it]

Depending on how fast you got found, becoming Incorporial and Invisible would be well worth it. Slap on boots of skating and it might still be worth it by simply outrunning the problem.

[elonin]

There is more to Sauron's ring than just invisibility. That ring takes you to the shadow (ethereal) realm. The ring does more than that but that isn't relevant here.

[avr]

Probably not. In combat it's very nice, and unless there's ethereal enemies within 300' or so they won't arrive in time to matter. Out of combat it does stop it being used to do more than walk thru the odd wall or door.

[TuggyNE]

The Magical Item renders it's wearer Invisible. Except that the wearer hasn't come under the effects of an Invisibility spell, but a has infact become a ghost.

The deatils of this item is that it makes the wearer Incorporeal. Therefore, she appears 'invisible' to those on the Material Plane and are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects

Now this is where I would like it to become interesting;
While in the Ethereal Plane, the wearer attracts other incorporeal beings to her. These beings are hostile and do not hesitate to attack. They see the wearer as an intruder into their domain and attemt to irradicate her - Sort of like how white blood cells attak a virus in the body.

As Fyermind said, this is pretty non-standard mechanically; incorporeal creatures are neither on the Ethereal Plane in general, nor generally invisible. If the cap shifts the wearer to the Ethereal, they will move more slowly, be unable to see more than 60' around in the Material, be utterly unable to affect anything on the Material, be immune to all but force effects/abjurations/gaze attacks from the Material, and so on and so forth. That, in itself, is almost enough of a drawback, so pricing it as ethereal jaunt would be fine.

Adding some sort of random-encounter-attraction would be rather hard to properly balance, especially since the user's allies would be nearly unable to help. It's also rather unique, since most of the time, excursions into the Ethereal have no such hazards.

[M_Ayling]

Thank you all for you replies. Reading them have been a great help to me.

I seemed to have gotten a little confused with the Ethereal Plane and being Incorporeal, and I thank Fyremind and TuggyNe for clearing that up for me. :)

I have decided on having the item bestow a Ethernal Jaunt effect, as the spell(Again thank you TuggyNe) for a limited time per day. Perhaps 10 minutes, but I am undecided on this time frame.

Erik, you are 100% right. I did not see the connection to LotR's before, but now you have said it I can't get it out my head! :P So I have decided to drop that idea completely. To claify I was actually inspired to that idea by the Jim Butcher novel Ghost Story (If anyone has read it, you would know why.)

I like the idea of my items being more than the mudane (as certain spell... snore!) and like to mix them up a little. I will mull over this idea for a bit and see what I come up with. If anyone has any suggestions I would be greatful to hear them.