incorporeal casters and spell materials

[Ettina]

How would an incorporeal caster (an emancipated wraith, in this case) use spell materials? Would they need to get some sort of ghost-touch item to manipulate the stuff with, or get ghostly grasp or eschew materials? Could a non-caster corporeal ally manipulate the materials while the wraith tells them what to do?

Also, the character died with a spell component bag carrying all the components needed for her current spell list. Would she have incorporeal versions of each of those items that she could use? Would they be re-useable, or get used up by casting? Would she lose her spell components if someone looted the bag off of her corpse?

[ahenobarbi]

How would an incorporeal caster (an emancipated wraith, in this case) use spell materials? Would they need to get some sort of ghost-touch item to manipulate the stuff with, or get ghostly grasp or eschew materials? Could a non-caster corporeal ally manipulate the materials while the wraith tells them what to do?

Also, the character died with a spell component bag carrying all the components needed for her current spell list. Would she have incorporeal versions of each of those items that she could use? Would they be re-useable, or get used up by casting? Would she lose her spell components if someone looted the bag off of her corpse?

Yes to almost all methods. Ally holding components doesn't work though (caster needs to hołd component) (and having pouch at time of death (and loosing ot when someone loots corpse) may depend on kind of undead).

Pouches never run out of components by RAW so that's not an issue unless you houserule it.

[Forrestfire]

The Ghostly Grasp feat works.

[Fouredged Sword]

Also, there is nothing RAW stopping your from getting a Riverinne material component pouch. It is a force effect and can be manipulated by incorporeal creatures.

Also, you can find some way to get your hands on an incorporeal material component pouch. Possibly through planeshifting it to the ethereal plane, thus rendering it also incorporeal.

[ben-zayb]

Also, there is nothing RAW stopping your from getting a Riverinne material component pouch. It is a force effect and can be manipulated by incorporeal creatures.

Also, you can find some way to get your hands on an incorporeal material component pouch. Possibly through planeshifting it to the ethereal plane, thus rendering it also incorporeal.

But Ethereal =/= Incorporeal.

I second the Ghostly Grasp feat suggestion. I also suggest wearing Riverine gloves and Riverine spell component pouches, both of which will be incorporeal too once you wear them by RAW.

[Fouredged Sword]

Incorporeal things are not always Ethereal. Ethereal things ARE always incorporeal.

D20srd

"A traveler on the Ethereal Plane is invisible, incorporeal, and utterly silent to someone on the Material Plane." (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm)

If you are Incorporeal on the material plane you can touch other things that are incorporeal on the material plane.

Things that are on the ethereal plane count as incorporeal on the material plane.

RAW things that are incorporeal on the material plane can touch things on the ethereal plane. Things on the ethereal plane are still silent and invisible though, but none of those conditions prevent you from using an item like a component pouch.

[ben-zayb]

That's contrary to what the actual definition is

Etherealness

Phase spiders and certain other creatures can exist on the Ethereal Plane. While on the Ethereal Plane, a creature is called ethereal. Unlike incorporeal creatures, ethereal creatures are not present on the Material Plane.

Ethereal creatures are invisible, inaudible, insubstantial, and scentless to creatures on the Material Plane. Even most magical attacks have no effect on them. See invisibility and true seeing reveal ethereal creatures.

An ethereal creature can see and hear into the Material Plane in a 60-foot radius, though material objects still block sight and sound. (An ethereal creature can’t see through a material wall, for instance.) An ethereal creature inside an object on the Material Plane cannot see. Things on the Material Plane, however, look gray, indistinct, and ghostly. An ethereal creature can’t affect the Material Plane, not even magically. An ethereal creature, however, interacts with other ethereal creatures and objects the way material creatures interact with material creatures and objects.

Even if a creature on the Material Plane can see an ethereal creature the ethereal creature is on another plane. Only force effects can affect the ethereal creatures. If, on the other hand, both creatures are ethereal, they can affect each other normally.
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.

Ethereal creatures move in any direction (including up or down) at will. They do not need to walk on the ground, and material objects don’t block them (though they can’t see while their eyes are within solid material).

Ghosts have a power called manifestation that allows them to appear on the Material Plane as incorporeal creatures. Still, they are on the Ethereal Plane, and another ethereal creature can interact normally with a manifesting ghost. Ethereal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as air. Ethereal creatures do not fall or take falling damage.
Emphasis mine. Surely an Ethereal creature can't affect a nonethereal incorporeal creature or object in the material plane. However they can affect an ethereal incorporeal creature or object in the material plane.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Does an incorporeal or Riverine or whatever pouch somehow make its contents incorporeal?

[Rijan_Sai]

Does an incorporeal or Riverine or whatever pouch somehow make its contents incorporeal?


Any equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also
incorporeal as long as it remains in the creature’s possession. An object
that the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality (and the creature
loses the ability to manipulate the object)...... (This information does
not appear in the Monster Manual, but is part of
the updated description of the incorporeal
subtype in Monster Manual III.)

Emphasis added. Any equipment, including the contents of a "worn or carried" spell component pouch, would be incorporeal in this instance.