Incorporeal Vs. Etherial

[Samwise88]

Ghosts, being incorporeal, have a 50% miss chance and can't be hit by normal weapons, but aren't invisible. People made magically ethereal are invisible, can't be hit by anything but force spells, and can't attack anything that isn't also ethereal. But I'm a bit hazy on the interactions. Can an incorporeal creature see or damage an ethereal one? vice versa? does a ghost touch weapon work against ethereal beings? can they use one against non-ethereal beings?
Thanks for the assistance.

[Eldan]

An incorporeal creature is still on the material plane, it just doesn't have a normal body. An ethereal creature is on a different plane, a different world, just one that is close to the material world, so some very limited interactions are possible. In fact, a creature can be both incorporeal and ethereal, which would place it in that other world, where it also wouldn't have a body.

So no, all the things you list wouldn't especially affect ethereal creatures. They aren't here. Force effects are the one exception, since they are manifested in both worlds at once.

[Werephilosopher]

Ghosts really mess up understandings on incorporeal/ethereal interactions, because they're the classic incorporeal monster, but also the only monster that can be on both planes - but incorporeal on one and solid on the other - at once.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The thing you have to realize is that when you say that a creature is ethereal what you're actually saying is that they're on the ethereal plane rather than the material.

They're not invisible, they can't be seen because they're not there.

They're not immaterial, they're not there.

They're in another world from which they can see the normal world. Force effects, abjurations, and a handful of other things spread their effect on both planes but the two do not otherwise interact at all.

On the flipside, a creature being called incorporeal is being described as having no material or at least no solidly corporeal body. Objects pass through it and it passes through objects (w/ certain restrictions) but that's it. It does not interact with the setting's planar cosmology at all for simply being incorporeal.

Ghosts blur the line between being incorporeal and being ethereal by doing both simultaneously. They exist on both planes at the same time when they manifest on the material. Their material aspect is incorporeal while their ethereal aspect is not. When they are not manifest, they exist corporeally on the ethereal and that's it.

Does that help at all?

[Samwise88]

Yes, I believe I understand now. Thanks for your help, all. :)