What are Shadows and Equiping armor on an unwilling person?

[heavyfuel]

Hey guys, two questions:

1 - For the shadow dancer, what counts as a shadow? Is nighttime a shadow? The complete darkness of a dungeon?

What about a darkness spell? (Per RAW, or RAI)

2 - Is there a way to don armor on an unwilling character? Say, a magical armor that is donned with a command word or something like that? (per RAW)

Thanks!

[Spore]

1) Any area of dim light for me personally. If we're talking bright outsides, then cast shadows (so any darker spots). A darkness spell is enough for a standard character to hide in, so it would be fit to hide there and teleport in there.

2) No idea, sorry.

[Crake]

For number 1, barring an open plain at midday, shadows are pretty much everywhere, it's unavoidable. It'd be easier to count the places where there aren't shadows.

For number 2, barring knocking someone unconscious and putting the armor on them, no. Simply because such a thing would be stupidly overpowered for dealing with classes that have armor restrictions (like druids), or spell failure (like any arcane caster ever).

[BWR]

1. I rule that shadows have to be disctinct and easily visible to be useful for the ability. Sure, technically there may be shadows cast by grass everywhere on a plain, but I can't see it working for the class. Some other shadow-based classes have ruled that nighttime isn't shadow, others have ruled that it is. If you are on a normal world where the night part of the world is on the opposite side of the sunside, then you are very definitely in a shadow. Looking at the flavor, I would rule against them using their abilities in pure darkness. Some of their abilities say "dim light" and most require shadows. If there is no light, there is no shadow.

2. Nothing official that I know of. I suppose you could grapple, pin and force it on if you have a couple of helpers. It would probably take at least twice as long to don than the listed time, probably 3-5 times longer. I don't really see how this would be overpowered in a game. If you have time to grapple a wizard for half an hour, that wizard is screwed, armor or not.
Or you could just make a spell of some sort that has save to negate the effect. Because casters always need more spells with ways to screw people over.