Etheral jaunt (3.5)

[Adamaro]

I have a question regarding etheral jaunt. As it says in description:

"An ethereal creature is invisible, insubstantial, and capable of moving in any direction, even up or down, albeit at half normal speed. As an insubstantial creature, you can move through solid objects, including living creatures. An ethereal creature can see and hear on the Material Plane, but everything looks gray and ephemeral. Sight and hearing onto the Material Plane are limited to 60 feet. "

Say a phase spider attacks an enemy. Enemy has an ability to fly and moves 10 feet into the air. Spiders' turn. Spider goes etheral and moves 20 feet up (half speed) and above the character. (I am not really sure if it could go etheral AND move in th same time. Some clarification on this would be nice) But here's my main question:
Spider in its etheral form positions itself just ABOVE the flying character and switches onto material plane. What happens? Can a materialised spider attack the target just under it, since it has no fly ability? Does it just drop to the ground? Can it drop on a character and deal dmg? Can it grapple a character and they both drop to the ground/stay in the air due to characters' fly ability?

tnx

[Harperfan7]

It would drop immediately since it can't fly. Whether it could attack or not depends on several factors, like did it materialize at the beginning of its turn (is that a move or full round action?) or at the end of its turn? If it has at least a standard action, it can attack on its way down. If it weighs enough or falls from high enough, it may deal falling damage, but probably take falling damage itself. It could grapple instead of attacking. If it grapples a flying character, the flying character would have to be strong enough to support that added weight and still fly, if not they would both fall (I would say it needs to be able to hang on to said character, but a spider could do this no problem).

The DM needs to come up with other things, like altered difficulty to strikes made while falling, how hard is it to keep your feet after landing on a person/being landed on, that kind of thing.