Hey.
I have a question on which spells work in the planes and which do not (speaking of the 3.5 ed in my case).
Cure light wounds is stated in the PHB as "channeling positive energy", while enervation uses negative energy. Is this at all possible on the outer planes without a conduit to the inner and thus the positive and negative planes?
Thanks for your thoughts
Stoertebeker
Or, just as "Elemental" spells work on the Outer Planes by harnessing the direct environment rather than channeling the Inner Planes, said spells may work through channelling locally affluent positive & negative energy long sense displaced from the Inner Planes by the Powers along with the other elements when they formed the geography of the Outer Planes (insert Athar counter-argument that the Planes bore the Powers not the other way around).
Thanks for your insight. I would find it quite a harsh environment when healing would not have been possible, but the explicit mention of positive energy in the spell description threw me off.
now I'm reading through the adventure Expedition to the Demonweb Pits and I find some Lolth-Touched Phase Spiders which seem to be able to shift from the ethereal to the abyss and back again.
Am I correct that this should not normally be possible? (since this encounter is in lolths domain I assume that their ability is due to a special blessing of Lolth)
Yeah, I think so, too. As I understand it, these phase spiders'd have to move Demonweb Pits (outer plane) > Astral Plane > Material Plane > Ethereal Plane, if you handle things 2nd edition-style.
Mayhap we shouldn't regard them as phase spiders with an upgrade, but rather as some demonic creature thet shares some resemplance to the good old phase spider. 
It is possible according to the rules. As far as the mechanics of how it works in the cosmology- that's one I would generally consider under one of two planar theories:
A) Birth and death occur often enough amongst the mortal populations of the planes for there to *have* to be some sort of link to the Inner Planes to exist (this is one of the primary reasonings behind the existance of the Ordinal plane)
B) Many of these spells are granted by powers, and the powers can certainly open up temporary channels for the energy to pass through to the caster. For non-clerical casting - it may sap it's way through existing portals, or part of the casting itself is a opening pinprick sized gate to the required plane.
Usually the 'connection' rule is applied to transitive plane requirements, but I'm sure there's some other planar theorums that others here have on hand to explain this (or know what the canon answer is)