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Shades Spell

As you can see below the Shades spell offers a variety of summons, in particular a Shadow of the Void.

Palemaster

Currently Palemasters have a decent arsenal of summons through the Create Greater Undead feat from the class. There aren't quite a lot of advanced Undead types players on Amia have access through without special request. (Reskin). However, there is one very unique type of Undead primary Wizards have the ability to get. Such is the Shadow of Void from the Shades spell. The Shades spell is a versitile spell with Evocation, Conjuration and other schools through one spell. It allows their caster to adapt to a new situation with just one spell.

I believe it would be appropriate for Palemasters CL to count towards the Shades Spell, at least for the Undead summon of such. Considering the spell allows the wielder to summon a Shadow of Void and multiple other types depending on level. Shadows, by definition, are incorporeal Undeads. Upon the death of a mortal from a Shadow of Void, the corpse turns into a Winterwight. (Which is the most powerful summon a Palemaster has the ability to summon via Create Greater Undead).

EDIT: This is in no one an attempt to make Palemasters more powerful with new summons. It is about roleplay, considering such summon has the ability to do such (rply) I believe Palemasters should definitely have them in their arson.

EDIT 2 (Thanks to Tormak!): Shades spell is a Illsuion spell. However, multiple spells are cast able from the spell Shade. So depending on the spell depends on the school. But the summon is definitely an undead.

It's not a necromancy spell, but I'm definitely alright with Palemaster counting full CL towards the Shadow Conjuration line, at least the undead summoning part.

*Necromancer clerics quietly continue weeping in the dark corner...*

I'm looking forward to Palemaster Prestige Class being updated to 3.5 edition level.

That being said, "Shades" spell line, as available in NWN is rather disappointing - in addition to limitation on the spells that can be chosen for shadow-immitation, game uses respective spell foci of the effects, rather than that of Illusion.

I find that "Undead Summoning" from the Illusion (Shadow Subschool) spell is at least somewhat odd. As for the Shadow of the Void, specimen summoned by means of the "Shades" spell is in no way an actual one. Instead it's an ersatz, a shadow illusion of the powerful undead, thus unable to create spawn. It even differs visually from a proper Epic Undead.

Hm. Interesting. I never actually got to see it / play / use it in Amia before.

I always thought it was slightly weird for the Illusion school to have a spell that would summon a Undead. At first I assumed it was just classified as Undead to get the abilities. Sense it wouldn't be realistic if you could critically damage a shadow, and offer vulnerabilities to Divine damage.

The spell itself (Shades) has multiple spell effects in one. Making it ultimately versatile in combat. It is also a bit weird the spell doesn't work off the Illusion school (for casters who primarily focus in it) other than each spells original school. Perhaps that could be altered too.

This was discussed recently as well here. As one who plays an illusionist, I would be rather more in favour of fixing shades to summon a shadow outsider instead of an undead. Personally I feel it is more fitting with the spell, and it doesn't socially disadvantage non-evil illusionists.

Here's how I look at it. It shares the same character model as the "dancers" Summon and damn near does the same thing. It simply has lower stats. I rarely break that spell out and find myself hard pressed to be convinced any would truly know the difference between the two...other than ya know..the infernal flames leaping from it.

I'd sooner see the illusionary summons actually made into actual illusionary monsters instead of screwing them by lumping them with the necromancer social stigma.

Richard_Edmund wrote:

*Necromancer clerics quietly continue weeping in the dark corner...*

you have harm and horrid wilting as well as create greater undead what more do you need?

Ironically Velsharoon clerics do not have access to Hatred or Suffering, the two domains that give the massive bulk of necromancy spells like Wail Wilt and Fear.

Akhlys wrote:

Richard_Edmund wrote:

*Necromancer clerics quietly continue weeping in the dark corner...*

you have harm and horrid wilting as well as create greater undead what more do you need?

Don't have HW, sadly. And the only real benefit of Create Greater Undead is it's ability to animate higher-level creatures in roleplay, otherwise it's trumped by Gate, EMD and fairly equal to Death Domain.

Best necro spell cleric has is Energy Drain which is basically empowered enervation.

Dunecat wrote:

I'm looking forward to Palemaster Prestige Class being updated to 3.5 edition level.

That being said, "Shades" spell line, as available in NWN is rather disappointing - in addition to limitation on the spells that can be chosen for shadow-immitation, game uses respective spell foci of the effects, rather than that of Illusion.

I find that "Undead Summoning" from the Illusion (Shadow Subschool) spell is at least somewhat odd. As for the Shadow of the Void, specimen summoned by means of the "Shades" spell is in no way an actual one. Instead it's an ersatz, a shadow illusion of the powerful undead, thus unable to create spawn. It even differs visually from a proper Epic Undead.

I suppose, due to being inappropriately designed, this wouldn't happen. Or at least Shouldn't happen. Considering it is.. Just an illusion of the Shadow of Void. At least it isn't an actual one.

Shades and the other shadow spells would genuinely be great additions to the pm list if only for allowing a variety of new spells that become useful to them and being pretty cool little thematic things, even though they're illusions.

I concur.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Shades and the other shadow spells would genuinely be great additions to the pm list if only for allowing a variety of new spells that become useful to them and being pretty cool little thematic things, even though they're illusions.

With the new spell overhaul, we're looknig at giving a lot of love to these spells.

The main thing I am looking for in any update to the Shadow Variants is 1) finally switching them to use Illusion foci instead of the feats for the spells they are supposedly mimicking and 2) if possible finding a way to metamagic them. Or if that upsets the flavor of them being partial recreations rather than the full real deal, something like they are treated as extended/maximized when cast on an enemy in Darkness(or in turn, if the caster is under Darkness). That would make for an interesting and repeatable combo for illusion and shadow based folk.

There were plans many moons ago that the variants would be getting their own illusion based summons, rather than fiddling with the shade ones. Something like there being a Similacrum template we could apply to regular creatures/summons, foci reducing the penalties they take to STR and CON for being made out of shadow stuff. You would copy a summon from the normal summon I-IX line, and in turn for them being weaker and less hardy, they would get shadow immunities. In my own little perfect world, there would be a mechanic similar to dominate monster, however, and you could straight up attempt to copy any creature you came across in the module, provided you had the cl and foci to meet its HD...

End of the day, if Palemasters want to play with shades and shadow of the void, just give them the summon as an option in their summon rest menu. There is a slot more cooler stuff we could be doing with the variants for illusionists and I would rather see them made into something that they would get more use out of than allowing them to "become" or remain additions to the PM list.

I think people get too caught up on character sheets for summons. Yeah. It's undead, but would also match the casters allignment.

thunderbrush wrote:

I think people get too caught up on character sheets for summons. Yeah. It's undead, but would also match the casters allignment.

No, that would only be for Shadow Dancer's shadow. Summoned Shadows are the naturally occurring undead creature that are Chaotic Evil.

Also, SD shadows are Outsider.

Our Shadow lore is weird, an old(probably unneeded) leftover to spare folk stigma.

To be clear: We have talked about changing the Shadow summon to be some sort of Phantasm style creature to better fit Illusion.

We could just agree that it is an illusion, as it always has been. That some people IC will think it is a real and true undead, whereas others will understand it is no more an undead, then that child walking about with a sheet over its head (Aka Cory).

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