Throwing Dust of Appearance on an Ether Spider

[ellindsey]

Ether Spiders can shift into the Ethereal Plane as an action. When ethereal, they are invisible and insubstantial to creatures on the material plane who don't have the ability to see into the ethereal plane.

What happens if someone throws Dust of Appearance on an Ether Spider before it goes ethereal? Does it remain visible to people not on the Ethereal plane because of the dust, or does it turn invisible anyway because it being invisible is due to it being on the ethereal plane rather than being simply invisible?

I only ask this because it may come up in the next few sessons of the game I'm running, and I want to know what the rules say just in case it does.

[Cordell Kintner]

Dust of Appearance does not affect anything on the Ethereal Plane. Things on the Ethereal Plane are invisible because it's a completely separate plane of existence.

There's no real rules for the Ethereal Plane, but Ethereal Jaunt is as close as we can get.

Basically, you can't see into the Ethereal Plane unless you have an effect or spell that lets you do so. If on the Ethereal Plane, you can see stuff nearby but it's concealed from you. Force effects can affect both planes equally, so you could cast Magic Missile at someone from the Ethereal Plane perfectly fine.

[breithauptclan]

Ultimately I think that is simply a ruling that you need to make.

Looking at the Dust of Appearance, it just prevents some conditions regarding loss of visibility. I would probably have the dust cling to the spider when it plane shifts. So it would not be able to be invisible from other creatures on the ethereal plane, and it wouldn't be able to be invisible when it returns to the material plane - but it wouldn't prevent the plane shifting itself or the inherent lack of visibility caused by not being on the same plane of existence as the observer.

[Ravingdork]

I've driven players nuts with ether spiders. Is it invisible? Is it teleporting? From where will it hit us next? Or has it fled? Is it safe to make camp and rest?