3.P - Spelljammer and the Planes

[unseenmage]

We're starting up a 3.P Spelljamming game IRL and are discussing some of the overall mechanics of that multiverse.
For those curious its 3.P, gestalt, 4th level.
I'm playing a SacredGuardian (BoK84) Effigy (CAr152) Flying Monkey (D334p39) Unchained Rogue//Cleric of Gond (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=476422). Should be fun times. :)


What happens when a Magnificent Mansion spell is active, and the mansion is occupied, and then the spelljamming ship crosses the crystal sphere from wildspace (aka space) out to the phlogiston? Same question but for Rope Trick?
The spell ends? If the spell ends are the contents dumped at the inner edge of the crystal sphere or back wherever the spell was first cast?


Can one plane shift from inside an extradimensional space while in the phlogiston?


What planes are explicitly connected to multiple crystal spheres? Do the Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal planes connect or does each crystal sphere have their own version of these?
I'm reading through some of the 2E Spelljammer books and seeing references that strongly imply that each crystal sphere has their own version of each elemental plane, when they have one at all.

The Plane of Shadow is one of the few planes that I swear I remember reading could theoretically connect to everywhere; No clue where I read it though.

In Planescape + Spelljammer games Sigil could connect everywhere too I guess.

Another question is that of the afterlife. Different crystal spheres usually have different gods, but if a deity has a strong enough presence in more than one crystal sphere does their afterlife collect souls from both spheres or do both spheres have a separate copy of that afterlife?

[Tzardok]

In 2e Spelljammer, the Phlogiston and the Crystal Spheres collectively form the singular Material Plane of the Great Wheel. The same Astral connects to all Spheres (unless the Sphere is cut off someway, as is the case with Athas) , and all Spheres have a border Ethereal which are connected by the Deep Ethereal. And of course all spheres share the same inner and outer planes.
The Shadow, on the other hand, was only made into a fullfledged plane in 3.x. In 3e, the settings were more strongly seperated, with each setting getting its own cosmology instead of being in a crystal sphere. The Shadow was given the trait of connecting cosmologies, so that crossover games weren't completely impossible.
If you were to add the Shadow to a Spelljammer game, it would be like the Ethereal: each sphere has their own border Shadow, but the Deep Shadow connects them all.

[Time Troll]

So, the rules have changed a lot from 2E.....



What happens when a Magnificent Mansion spell is active, and the mansion is occupied, and then the spelljamming ship crosses the crystal sphere from wildspace (aka space) out to the phlogiston? Same question but for Rope Trick?
The spell ends? If the spell ends are the contents dumped at the inner edge of the crystal sphere or back wherever the spell was first cast?

In 2E the space between Spheres is severed from all other planes: inner, outer, ethereal or astral.

So Rope Trick makes a "non dimensional space" not connected to the planes at all, so it works just fine in 2E. In the Phlogiston the extra dimensions cannot be accessed. A spell that holds objects in external dimensions will still hold them, but the items cannot be accessed while within the Phlogiston. More importantly, even after exiting the Flow, a specific extradimensional space (such as the contents of a particular Bag of Holding) still cannot be accessed from a Crystal Sphere it was not created within!

Though 3E, 3.5E, 4E and 5E mix up all the spells, schools, effects, and more.....so really there is no answer.




Can one plane shift from inside an extradimensional space while in the phlogiston?

In 2E Planar Travel is not possible to or from the Phlogiston



What planes are explicitly connected to multiple crystal spheres? Do the Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal planes connect or does each crystal sphere have their own version of these?
I'm reading through some of the 2E Spelljammer books and seeing references that strongly imply that each crystal sphere has their own version of each elemental plane, when they have one at all.

All of them; that is all the planes that connect to the Prime Plane. In 2E, there is one "one" of each plane.



The Plane of Shadow is one of the few planes that I swear I remember reading could theoretically connect to everywhere; No clue where I read it though.

In 2E the plane of shadow was just a demiplane. But the 3.0 Manual of the Planes makes it a full plane and has the "it connects everywhere" line.



In Planescape + Spelljammer games Sigil could connect everywhere too I guess.

Except the Phlogiston



Another question is that of the afterlife. Different crystal spheres usually have different gods, but if a deity has a strong enough presence in more than one crystal sphere does their afterlife collect souls from both spheres or do both spheres have a separate copy of that afterlife?

In 2E, it was common for Gods to be multi sphere...but there is only one divine realm for each god. So all worshipers from everywhere go there.

[unseenmage]

...

In 2E the space between Spheres is severed from all other planes: inner, outer, ethereal or astral.

So Rope Trick makes a "non dimensional space" not connected to the planes at all, so it works just fine in 2E. In the Phlogiston the extra dimensions cannot be accessed. A spell that holds objects in external dimensions will still hold them, but the items cannot be accessed while within the Phlogiston. More importantly, even after exiting the Flow, a specific extradimensional space (such as the contents of a particular Bag of Holding) still cannot be accessed from a Crystal Sphere it was not created within!

Though 3E, 3.5E, 4E and 5E mix up all the spells, schools, effects, and more.....so really there is no answer.

...
As of 3.x extradimensional and nondimensional are used interchangeably.
Also as of 3.x, extradimensional spaces are demiplanes as per Manual of the Planes. This was copy pasted into Planar Handbook and even PF iirc.

[afroakuma]

You know we have a thread for planes/Spelljammer questions, right? (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?616081-afroakuma-s-Planar-And-Other-Oddities-Questions-Thread-VIII) :smalltongue:


What happens when a Magnificent Mansion spell is active, and the mansion is occupied, and then the spelljamming ship crosses the crystal sphere from wildspace (aka space) out to the phlogiston? Same question but for Rope Trick?

Neither spell creates a mobile access point; the door of the mansion and the hole of the rope trick are both stationary. For this reason, the answer in both cases would be "occupants are ejected to where the spell was first cast."

If you somehow had a mobile version, the question becomes more difficult as no specific rule was created to address this kind of homebrew. Here I would have two suggestions:

1) the harshest, but also logical solution, is to have the spell collapse and the ejection matrix find no valid output, resulting in the occupants getting dumped into a transitive plane.
2) there was one mobile extradimensional space listed in the Concordance of Arcane Space, deeppockets. The rules on that said that the spell duration could not elapse while in the phlogiston, and would effectively freeze in time. I would suggest, if your group wants to go with this rule, imposing some sort of consequence for trying to hide out indefinitely inside such an effect, as it opens the door to some rather severe exploits (and from a purely thematic standpoint, there's no way spending extended amounts of time inside a parastable extradimensional space could be healthy for anybody).


Can one plane shift from inside an extradimensional space while in the phlogiston?

You cannot be both within the phlogiston and within an extradimensional space. Whether or not plane shift functions from an extradimensional space at all would be up to the DM.


What planes are explicitly connected to multiple crystal spheres? Do the Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal planes connect or does each crystal sphere have their own version of these?
I'm reading through some of the 2E Spelljammer books and seeing references that strongly imply that each crystal sphere has their own version of each elemental plane, when they have one at all.

"Connected" is a multilevel word here. The Ethereal and Shadow are coexistent with the Material Plane and "connect" to multiple crystal spheres in that sense. Each world has a Border Ethereal, for example, which is the local Ethereal region that resembles and mirrors that world, but you can travel "away" from the Border and end up in the Deep Ethereal, the space between. Shadow functions likewise. The Astral connects all planes, so in a sense it's what links the Material Plane to the Inner and Outer Planes. Spelljammer books might be confusing you because they describe individual outcroppings of elemental planes that form things like suns, though at the heart of a sun there would be effectively a portal to the one and only Plane of Fire.


The Plane of Shadow is one of the few planes that I swear I remember reading could theoretically connect to everywhere; No clue where I read it though.

Shadow connects everywhere in the sense of being able to reach alternate Material Planes as well, which is to say worlds that do not exist in the same multiverse.


In Planescape + Spelljammer games Sigil could connect everywhere too I guess.

Except the phlogiston.


Another question is that of the afterlife. Different crystal spheres usually have different gods, but if a deity has a strong enough presence in more than one crystal sphere does their afterlife collect souls from both spheres or do both spheres have a separate copy of that afterlife?

Different authors had different takes on this, but by and large in the Planescape setting most gods maintain a sole divine realm and all of their worshippers, regardless of world of origin, end up there. A few gods maintain multiple divine realms but this is uncommon and not known to be specifically related to "sorting" worshippers.


So Rope Trick makes a "non dimensional space" not connected to the planes at all, so it works just fine in 2E.

Concordance of Arcane Space actually specifically says rope trick does not work in the phlogiston.

[unseenmage]

Thanks all for the responses. Has given us more to ponder.

Travel through the planes that obviate travel through the phlogiston is one issue we're concerned with as we'd like the actual spelljamming to continue into higher levels.

And yeah this being a 3.P game that's also a potential melting pot of every setting makes this a tall-er order.

We were also under the impression that Crystal spheres, especially of different established campaign settings, were synonymous with 'alternate material planes'. Or rather that effects that allowed travel to alternate material planes would allow travel to other Crystal spheres.
Sigil, the infinite staircase, the Plane of Shadow, and the plane of mirrors to name a few.

Cutting through some deity's back yard so to speak comes with its own perils unique to each heaven or hell a multi Crystal Sphere deity commands and as such leaves spelljamming as the more attractive option.

Getting one's hands on connected mirrors and fighting one's mirror duplicates is similarly a major pain that's also conveniently under GM preview so it's less likely to obviate spelljammjng.

But the elemental planes connecting each sphere bugs me for some reason.
Perhaps just because we're houseruling that only the deep Ethereal, deep Shadow, and the theoretical deep Astral connect Crystal spheres because again, planes shift making spelljamming obsolete would suck.


We found ourselves discussing deities with believers in different Crystal spheres. What if that deity is desperately needed in two Crystal spheres at once?

After some discussion we agreed that it's simplest to just let deities be in two places at once.
It's the equivalent ability of a 1HD Dvati after all.


Learning the quirks and weirdnesses of Spelljammer has been interesting. Especially as our games tend to be very non standard.
Resolving how a tiny skillmonkey character can have enough equipment without extradimemsional storage is a challenge.
Being a gestalt cleric isn't so bad, at least I'm still a rogue when I can't cleric. But the expanded info tells us that Gond can't even grant me spells if I'm outside of Faerun, and that is ROUGH.

[afroakuma]

Travel through the planes that obviate travel through the phlogiston is one issue we're concerned with as we'd like the actual spelljamming to continue into higher levels.

Spelljamming has several benefits; the tradeoff is that it takes longer, but you don't need to hunt down silly tuning forks for plane shift or risk having your astral cords severed and dying instantaneously by meandering through the Astral. As for the Deep Ethereal and Shadow... each has its own perils and steering through them is a chore compared to the known flow routes.


We were also under the impression that Crystal spheres, especially of different established campaign settings, were synonymous with 'alternate material planes'. Or rather that effects that allowed travel to alternate material planes would allow travel to other Crystal spheres.

Ehh... 3.X kind of adopted that notion because neither Planescape nor Spelljammer were native to the edition and they wanted to sever the lore baggage a bit, though it all started climbing back in. This is why you see things like FR's World Tree showing up. Strictly speaking, though, an alternate Material Plane is one that belongs to an unrelated cosmology and has unique properties. It's more like me saying "parallel Earth" than "Middle-Earth."


Sigil, the infinite staircase, the Plane of Shadow, and the plane of mirrors to name a few.

The Infinite Staircase usually doesn't let out onto Material Plane destinations, though it can. The Plane of Mirrors is a bad way to travel between spheres since it's dangerous and deeply uncertain. Shadow likewise, it's a long journey through the shadows of things that aren't there, which is... kind of a terrifying thought. Sigil is by far the most common and reliable method, but as a city of beings who all have far more experience doing their thing than you do and one in which you can become effectively trapped if you can't secure both the location of a reliable portal and the knowledge of how to use it... spelljamming lets you get from point A to point B by just sailing. Wildspace hazards are much more tolerable to some types of adventurer.


But the elemental planes connecting each sphere bugs me for some reason.

I mean, they do, but... navigating that way is not easy to put it mildly. Also, the easiest way to deal with it under the rules is just to lawyer up a tad:


From the Material Plane, you can reach any other plane

Limit what you can do with that spell once you're elsewhere. Easy enough.

Remember, too, that spelljamming offers other advantages over plane shift - namely, that while the spell covers up to eight travelers, a spelljammer is a big ol' boat. It has living quarters you don't have to maintain via magic, cargo holds not at risk of being blown out by portable hole. Weapons emplacements, if you need them for some reason. It's a mobile headquarters.


We found ourselves discussing deities with believers in different Crystal spheres. What if that deity is desperately needed in two Crystal spheres at once?

Deities have the power to split their attention - all but the weakest demigods can easily pay attention to multiple spheres simultaneously, and even those can at least pay attention to two. Deities can also dispatch aspects (weak but sometimes sufficient), proxies (as strong as the host, plus a bit extra), heralds (elite representatives) or even avatars (deity means business now). It's ultimately not difficult for those who need to to divide their attentions and efforts among two or more spheres without concern.


Resolving how a tiny skillmonkey character can have enough equipment without extradimemsional storage is a challenge.

Special equipment - Swiss Army Knife type stuff, for example, or a magical item that changes shape to suit the needs of the situation. :smallsmile:


Being a gestalt cleric isn't so bad, at least I'm still a rogue when I can't cleric. But the expanded info tells us that Gond can't even grant me spells if I'm outside of Faerun, and that is ROUGH.

I can't remember where it is, it's very late here and I am super tired... but the important premise is that clerics and other followers of gods may be granted spells in other spheres if there is an allied god with a similar portfolio working in that sphere. If a cleric of Gond is traveling to Krynnspace, for instance, Gond might send a messenger to Reorx asking that he accept the cleric under his surrogacy while the cleric is in that sphere. Assurances would need to be made that Gond isn't planning to try and use this cleric to establish a base of worshippers on Krynn, but it's a pretty conventional arrangement, one in which the gods trade favors for future consideration on behalf of their own worshippers. Even evil deities are willing to strike up such arrangements as long as they don't personally hate the other god, since the visiting cleric is likely to serve the local god's broader aims (for instance, a cleric of Malar visiting Greyspace is likely to find a fiduciary in Erythnul, since violence is probably on the docket and Erythnul will benefit). Note that a cleric under such a fiduciary arrangement still displays the holy symbol of their own deity and follows their own rites; a cleric who "goes native" is likely to lose spellcasting ability and will need to receive atonement before divine powers will again be conferred.

[bekeleven]

Neither spell creates a mobile access point; the door of the mansion and the hole of the rope trick are both stationary. For this reason, the answer in both cases would be "occupants are ejected to where the spell was first cast."I don't know if a rules cite that fully explains the mechanics, but the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook lets you anchor spells (including, among others, rope trick) in a fortress that can fly, teleport, or even plane shift.

[unseenmage]

I don't know if a rules cite that fully explains the mechanics, but the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook lets you anchor spells (including, among others, rope trick) in a fortress that can fly, teleport, or even plane shift.

That and in the wide wide world of 3.P spells I'm sure there's some precedent somewhere for anchoring a spell created extradimensional space to a ship.

It's less about those spellsnin particular, though I did miss that they are themselves immobile, and more about the potential for being dropped out of an extra dimensio. into wildspace at the crystal spheres edge.

Although, that would be quite the unique to spelljammer version of keelhauling stowaways.

[unseenmage]

Just waded through this thread (https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=15968) on another site and man does it have some cool details and ideas.

I'm a fan of crystal spheres bobbing about causing phlogiston Tides more than I am of a phlogiston ecosystem though.

[afroakuma]

Just waded through this thread (https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=15968) on another site and man does it have some cool details and ideas.

I'm a fan of crystal spheres bobbing about causing phlogiston Tides more than I am of a phlogiston ecosystem though.

I mean, there are always going to be flow critters of some sort, though by and large they are not common encounters. I highly highly highly endorse Nerik's map, though - it's the de facto expectation in my own thread.

[Time Troll]

We were also under the impression that Crystal spheres, especially of different established campaign settings, were synonymous with 'alternate material planes'. Or rather that effects that allowed travel to alternate material planes would allow travel to other Crystal spheres.

In 2E a Prime Material Universe was an infinite Flow filled with crystal spheres. And there were infinite flows...."one for each DMs game". This gets into things such as the Earth that people from FR have visited is not "our" Earth, but it's the Earth of the writer/creator.

Now in 2E each Crystal Sphere had unique Unique Rules of Reality. And Unique Rules of Magic. So plenty of spheres were very different from each other.





We found ourselves discussing deities with believers in different Crystal spheres. What if that deity is desperately needed in two Crystal spheres at once?

After some discussion we agreed that it's simplest to just let deities be in two places at once.
It's the equivalent ability of a 1HD Dvati after all.

A deity is a "unknowable force" that lives on a Outer Plane. To interact with the multiverse they must create forms to do so, and from weakest to most powerful:

*A Manifestations can be anything, a floating eye, a swirl of light, a rabbit or such. They are created to do simple, straightforward things. They might be mundane, but often have a couple powers.

*An Aspect is about medium power and has plenty of abilities. They are quite narrow in function being just one Aspect of the deity.

*An Avatar is basically "most" of the deity and is very powerful. In 2E a greater dirty could have a dozen or so avatars all active across the multiverse. And each power level of deity lower could have less avatars.




Being a gestalt cleric isn't so bad, at least I'm still a rogue when I can't cleric. But the expanded info tells us that Gond can't even grant me spells if I'm outside of Faerun, and that is ROUGH.

In 2E Spelljammer divine magic was HARSH. When a divine spellcaster entered a sphere where their deity was not worshiped, they were limited to 1st and 2nd level spells.

Sometimes deities did have agreements where they would provide spells for each others followers in each of their spheres.

[unseenmage]

I mean, there are always going to be flow critters of some sort, though by and large they are not common encounters. I highly highly highly endorse Nerik's map, though - it's the de facto expectation in my own thread.
I havnt dug into existing flow bestiaries yet tbh. I'm still wrapping my brain around the how more than the who.

Any suggestions I can pass along to my irl GM as to creatures, not races, that should be auto includes in a nice flavorful 'jammer game?

[Tzardok]

Do the neogi count as a race or a creature? They are one of the most typical spelljamming aberrations around.

Otherwise, I think mooncalves make good wildspace creatures, even though they IIRC aren't originatong from Spelljammer.

[afroakuma]

I havnt dug into existing flow bestiaries yet tbh. I'm still wrapping my brain around the how more than the who.

Any suggestions I can pass along to my irl GM as to creatures, not races, that should be auto includes in a nice flavorful 'jammer game?

Your classics are beholders, with beholderkin and beholder abominations taking center stage; mind flayers; neogi; clockwork horrors, traditionally, though the DM will want to revamp them as the ones in the MMII are complete BS. Tsochar fit well as a horror antagonist and could show up.

Then there are the truly lunatic things that give Spelljammer its... unique tone. Giant space hamsters, for instance.

Beyond that, it depends on what arc your campaign intends to pursue. Thri-kreen and scro usually make for good encounters.

[unseenmage]

...; clockwork horrors, traditionally, though the DM will want to revamp them as the ones in the MMII are complete BS.
...

Could you elaborate?
I know I've always been disappointed in 3.x clockwork horrors for my own reasons but im.unfamiliar with their previous incarnations.

[afroakuma]

Could you elaborate?
I know I've always been disappointed in 3.x clockwork horrors for my own reasons but im.unfamiliar with their previous incarnations.

Well, firstly they come in six flavors, not four - copper, silver, electrum, gold, platinum, and adamantine. Secondly, the CRs and overall design of the horrors in the MMII are severely out of whack - most infamously the "CR 9" adamantine horror that can cast disintegrate, Mordenkainen's disjunction, and implosion at will.

Copper horrors are medial laborers and low-level grunts that can attack with whatever tool they currently had deployed for bludgeoning (hammer), piercing (drill, pick) or slashing (saw, etc.) damage. Silver horrors are warriors, with a spinning blade arm and a spring-loaded dart launcher. Electrum horrors are troop commanders who replace the spring launcher with a steam-powered one. Gold horrors are assigned one to a planet and oversee the electrum horrors; they can fire lightning bolts. Platinum horrors are assigned one to a sphere and are superior models on the same chassis as the gold. The adamantine horror is unique and has the capacity to fire a disintegrate each round.

The key with horrors is that they tend to operate in large numbers of low-level troops; the real danger posed by a gold or platinum horror is not their innate abilities - at best they're lightning sources with a sharp blade attached - but rather by the scope and scale of activity they can rapidly coordinate.

[unseenmage]

The originals sound pretty badges tbh. I can see now why the retread in 3.x is so irksome.



I'm seeing reference to bodies in the phlo not rotting and possibly folk not even dying when sent adrift.
Is this real?
If so how does it work? And if it'd as undetailed as I suspect, how should it work?
I'm asking both mechanically and metaphysically.

[Tzardok]

The originals sound pretty badges tbh. I can see now why the retread in 3.x is so irksome.



I'm seeing reference to bodies in the phlo not rotting and possibly folk not even dying when sent adrift.
Is this real?
If so how does it work? And if it'd as undetailed as I suspect, how should it work?
I'm asking both mechanically and metaphysically.

IIRC, the phlogiston puts things in it that aren't protected (like by the air envelope used by spelljammers) into a stasis. They then drift around until they enter sooner or much, much, much later a crystal sphere.

[afroakuma]

I'm seeing reference to bodies in the phlo not rotting and possibly folk not even dying when sent adrift.
Is this real?

Yup.


If so how does it work? And if it'd as undetailed as I suspect, how should it work?
I'm asking both mechanically and metaphysically.

Essentially, once a body's air envelope runs out in the phlogiston, the power of the vapors seeps in and causes any and all living matter to "calcify," turning grey and stony. This puts things into a state of suspended animation, pausing any normal organic decomposition and biological functions. The phlogiston permeates the body, with potentially unusual results when a castaway is recovered.

Not all living tissue is so affected; some forms of life are native to the phlogiston or adapted to it, and suffer no ill effects from being directly exposed to it. In general, a calcified castaway recovers easily when brought back into an air envelope, with no particular long-term impacts; however, there is a phenomenon known only as "survivors" in which the recovered castaway, always a humanoid of above-average intellect, returns... changed. These individuals become something akin to sensory parasites or vampires, with the ability to slowly take over the minds of others for the purpose of tapping into their senses.

[Thane of Fife]

What planes are explicitly connected to multiple crystal spheres? Do the Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal planes connect or does each crystal sphere have their own version of these?
I'm reading through some of the 2E Spelljammer books and seeing references that strongly imply that each crystal sphere has their own version of each elemental plane, when they have one at all.

In 1e, there was a single Prime Material Plane, a single Ethereal Plane, and one of each of the Elemental and Energy planes (plus all of the other stuff). In core 2e, this changed so that there were now many Prime Material Planes, each with their own Ethereal Plane. It is not specifically stated that they each have their own Elemental and Energy Planes, but the Astral Plane is said to be the means to travel between Primes, so I think that the implication is that the Elemental Planes, like the Ethereal, are unique to their Prime.

By the end of 2e, things had progressed to what other people in the thread are describing, going back to singular versions of each plane. But when the Spelljammer books were being written, that was probably still a work in progress.


The Astral connects all planes, so in a sense it's what links the Material Plane to the Inner and Outer Planes.

I think that (per 2e cosmology), the Ethereal connects the Prime to the Inner Planes, with the Astral connecting the Prime and the Outer Planes. But I believe you're right that it's different in 3e.

[MR_Anderson]

While this may be a crude explanation, I explain Spelljammer spheres and planes to others like a bubble bath.

If your hand is under the water, you can pop your fingers up into and back down out of the bubble without needing to go through the surface of the bubble. This is like how the multiple levels of the planes work and between sphere travel using them.

However, you can’t move your fingers through the bubbles (otherwise they usually pop), so the air above water and outside of the bubbles would be the phlogiston, also air burns.

At the edge of the air above the water (phlogiston) is the bathtub, the bathtub is the far realm which also is under all the other planes (the water in the analogy).

You can’t go from Water (The Planes) to the Air (Phlogiston) or vice versa without causing a splash unless you do it through the edge of the bathtub (Far Realms), therefore some kind of very powerful magic must be used to ever enter the air (Phlogiston), not a simple standing entryway.

This doesn’t really answer your question, but it is how I base the understanding of Spelljammer to make my decisions.

When you think of what magic is needed to create a breach through a Crystal Sphere from a Plane of Existence to allow travel in the Phlogiston, the same type and level of magic needs to be used when in the Phlogiston to connect to a Plane of Existence (or demiplane). This would be regardless of it is in a Crystal Sphere and the Prime Material Plane or straight to another plane.

Thus Rope Trick and the other spells you mention would not function in such an analogy.