Shattered Kingdoms

I don't see any reason why bard songs should be ineffectual to ethereal bystanders since being ethereal does not render someone deaf.

This is an issue both for negative songs and positive songs.

They do affect them. Go ethereal. If you want to kill that necro hiding ethereal, take your bard ethereal and sing away.

I see this debate getting very very complex....

Non-ethereal bard songs have no effect on ethereal anything, which to me is a bug.

I can see were you're comming from, but at the same time, the mage is in a different plane of existence, a mere shade of his/her physical form. I'd imagine just as the mages form is distorted to those viewing it, sound doesn't permeate to the ethereal plane without distortion either.

Mages may be able to hear you but since in the end your songs damage is physical damage it still wouldn't hurt someone ethereal. As for the songs that don't cause damage well you can't buff someone who is ethereal so why should songs be able to?

Songs of healing is physical damage? Songs of magic/antimagic is physical damage? That's news to me.

You could point out he didn't just mean harmful songs. But I guess the sarcastic route works just fine.

Alright, I'll play this game.

Bards who are not ethereal cannot help or hinder anyone who is ethereal because the sound gets garbled as it transitions from the physical plane to the ethereal plane. I accept this explanation with a single minor little requirement. Any and all communication between the physical plane and the ethereal plane must needs also be garbled.

Normally, the response should be a flame, so instead I will just say this, "huh? What are you talking about?"