Epinephrine
2009-08-25, 09:52 AM
I'm a little torn about his. The party I DM have darkvision (all of them), so they are actually hard to surprise (somewhat worse than that, they also have a character with see invisible up at all times, so invisible foes can't get the drop on them either). So often you would like to have enemies skulking in shadows, ready to leap out - and since this normally works, why would enemies try something more devious. The few times I manage to surprise them are in more natural surroundings where there is actual cover/concealment (tree trunks, bushes and foliage, caves with stalagmites/stalactites, etc.)
In the next bit, I plan to have a shadow creature attack them. One neat thing about the shadow creature template is that when in less than bright illumination they can gain total concealment. Of course, this is described as "blending into the shadows", and to darkvision, there are no shadows. So my issue is how this should interact. Is there any point to blending with shadows if the shadows (as far as darkvision is concerned) don't exist? Or does it effectively make them impossible to see with darkvision - they become as shadows are, and thus are simply not visible in the same way that shadows are not visible.
My temptation is to rule that a shadow creature is invisible to darkvision, as they blend with shadows - and darkvision ignores the light level. This will finally allow me an enemy that can be essentially invisible, as neither see invisible nor darkvision will reveal it blended into the shadows.
In the next bit, I plan to have a shadow creature attack them. One neat thing about the shadow creature template is that when in less than bright illumination they can gain total concealment. Of course, this is described as "blending into the shadows", and to darkvision, there are no shadows. So my issue is how this should interact. Is there any point to blending with shadows if the shadows (as far as darkvision is concerned) don't exist? Or does it effectively make them impossible to see with darkvision - they become as shadows are, and thus are simply not visible in the same way that shadows are not visible.
My temptation is to rule that a shadow creature is invisible to darkvision, as they blend with shadows - and darkvision ignores the light level. This will finally allow me an enemy that can be essentially invisible, as neither see invisible nor darkvision will reveal it blended into the shadows.