Shadow Mantle for Totemists clarification requests

[SangoProduction]

"As a swift action, you can surround yourself with a globe of magical darkness to a radius of 5 feet per point of invested essentia You also gain blindsight with the same radius. Thus, you are completely aware of all creatures within the radius of darkness, but you are invisible to them unless they have some way of piercing magical darkness."

So, does this mean that the darkness is above an beyond what is normal for darkness spells, or are you specifically invisible to them, and they can see each other as though it were darkness? The wording implies that the "invisibility" is an inherent part of the darkness ("Thus"), and it really is above and beyond the norm.

[AmberVael]

I think they're just doing a bad/misleading explanation.

Basically, they're just describing the normal benefits of total concealment (as granted by darkness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#darkness) the condition, not the bad line of spells), along with the benefits of blindsight. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#blindsightAndBlindsense) So in short, it makes normal darkness that works normally as total concealment, but you can see within it because you have Blindsight in the same area.

[SangoProduction]

Cool, that's what I thought.

[Umbranar]

It does not say you can't hide in it though.

[Psyren]

As AmberVael stated, it grants true magical darkness (i.e. no light at all - total concealment), not the crappy "shadowy illumination" from the darkness spell that only grants concealment.


It does not say you can't hide in it though.

You don't need to:


Total cover or total concealment usually (but not always; see Special, below) obviates the need for a Hide check, since nothing can see you anyway.

Unless they can see through magical darkness - e.g. being a Devil - you don't even need to roll.