Greater Sanctuary - Description

[Miuo]

"You pass into the near ethereal. The material world around you has turned into a ghostly haze. What once obstructed you in the material world, you can now easily slide through, but should you want to effect the material world again, you will have to return to it."

I just happened to read the little description after being gone a while, and was a little confused by it.

1) If we can not "slide through" things that obstructed us before. Can we not pass through doors and such? Specifically locked ones?

2) If we can not effect the material world. How come it can effect use? (Such as being attacked)

While i know the first would be a bit hard to do, the second doesn't seem all that out there. Could GS not apply a no damage effect for as long as the spell was active to better fit its description?

[Misted_Horror]

Near ethereal. No planar escape allowed from PoTM by the use of spells.

[Dread]

NWN2 handled Greater Sanctuary's sister spells in 3.5e, those spells being Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness, a lot better than Greater Sanctuary was handled in NWN1. Here, it's basically a rich man's invisibility. Basically, you're supposed to be a ghost more or less when on the Ethereal Plane (Near Ethereal here, as Misted_Horror pointed out).

Did you know that force spells like Isaac's and Magic Missile are supposed to affect those who are ethereal? Betcha didn't! So if you want to implement some sort of change where ethereal folks can't get hit, I think it would be nice to have them able to receive normal damage or even a damage vulnerability from magical damage.

[Dread]

Additionally, if you want to use that spell to sneak around somewhere you shouldn't, that's probably something a DM can help you with, and I imagine they can okay it on a case-by-case basis.