Banishment question

[eris]

If a character is banished from a plane through a spell like Blasphemy or similar magic, they "cannot return for 24 hours."

Does that mean "cannot return under their own power" or does that mean cannot return, period. Like, if they stepped through a Gate, would they simply step through to the other side but still remain on their "home" plane? Would the magic fail for them?

Or does the idea of "banishment" just mean they can't use a spell-like ability such as plane shift to return under their own power?

I hope this doesn't seem too much like a nit-picky question. A cohort of one of my PC's was banished from the Abyss and I'm sure my party would like to have her help in wrapping up the campaign. If she can't return, she can't return. But this is the last calendar day of the campaign so in this case it matters. Under normal circumstances, I'm sure they'd just wait one more day before pressing the attack. But they're on a time schedule, so...

[Parody]

I've always run it as "can't come back period". Otherwise all of those unfriendly outsiders who get banished in that fashion would just get their "friends" to send them back. Not much of a deterrent.

[eris]

Yeah. That's kind of my instinct too. I'm worried to use the Blasphemy spell-like ability that many of the tougher demons have in the next session or two (whatever's left). It seems like it would be a major let-down to have a PC stuck back on the Prime during the final battle. If I was a PC I'd rather have my character die in battle like a proud Klingon than just get banished.

On the other hand I don't want to make things too easy by having demons just not use one of their best spell-like's...

Oh well. I guess I just have to hope they roll good on those penalized Will saves....

[eris]

I don't want to be an "easy" DM, but I also don't want to ruin anyone's fun by making them sit out the final sessions.