"Hey, check it out! A shadow!"

[Duke of Urrel]

The quotation is from this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0242.html) comic strip by the Giant.

Here's what I want to talk about. When is a shadow enough of a shadow for a shadowdancer to use? Are there shadows on overcast days? Is a dark, overcast night just one big shadow? Is everything underground one big shadow? Should we be nice and assume that there's always "some kind of shadow" wherever you happen to be? Or is there some fun, flavorful, and fair way to judge that sometimes, there just isn't enough shadow nearby for a shadowdancer to jump in or to use to hide in plain sight?

What do you think?

A related question is what kind of area qualifies as "any sort of natural terrain" in which a 13th-level ranger can use extraordinary camouflage or a 17th-level ranger can hide in plain sight?

[Duke of Urrel]

Here's a modest proposal for a set of house rules.

There are two sorts of shadow that I allow you to use as a shadowdancer to hide in plain sight. You can use either sort of shadow only if it is at least as large as a shadow that a creature of your own size category would cast, and only if it is not your own shadow.

• The first sort of shadow is any area of darkness or dim light that is at least as dim as shadowy illumination.

• The second short of shadow is any shady or shadowy area that is well defined, even though it not as dim as shadowy illumination. The second sort of shadow is cast by creatures and objects that stand in sunlight on a clear day. On an overcast day, the second sort of shadow cannot be found outdoors. On a day that is partly cloudy, I choose a number from one to five to indicate the level of cloudiness and roll 1d6 every hour. You can find a well defined shadow on a partly cloudy day only if the number that I roll is higher than the number that represents the day’s cloudiness level. On a partly cloudy day that is also windy, I roll 1d6 every seven to 13 rounds (every 2d6 +4 rounds) rather than every hour.

Good night, all. If you have any comments, I'll look at them tomorrow morning. I take no offense if you find this thread too uninteresting to comment upon.

[Jowgen]

I've been monitoring this thread, and I think the reason no one's been contributing is the same reason why I haven't posted till now. It's not that it's a boring question, it's just that there is very little to go on in terms of rules on this question.

In my games, I treat any form of illumination as an emanation effect, and shadow is defined as a) any area with less than bright illumination, and b) any area where something provides cover against all light sources within bright-illumination range.

The real head-scratcher in my opinion is how Shadow-dependent effects work on planes without a coterminous plane of shadow. MotP lists some effects that straight up shouldn't work, but not all Shadow-flavoured effects specify that they require access to the plane of shadow.

[Chronos]

I think that the shadowdancer's teleportation ability explicitly involves the Plane of Shadow (or if it's not explicit, it should be), but the hiding in plain sight just relies on the property of being darker than their surroundings that's shared by all shadows anywhere.

To the original question, I think it's reasonable to require that the shadow be at least as large as the shadowcaster, because otherwise you run into such absurdity that the requirement loses all meaning. On a flat expanse of grassland that extends from horizon to horizon? The blades of grass are casting shadows.

Ultimately, perhaps the best solution, if you have a player who wants to play a shadowdancer, is to ask them under what conditions their abilities won't work. Precisely what the conditions are doesn't matter as much, as that they be both reasonably possible and well-defined. If the player interprets that total darkness doesn't work, for instance, then you know that you can shut them down if necessary by putting them in total darkness.

[Flickerdart]

A shadowdancer in a party with a wizard is always overshadowed, and so can hide and teleport anywhere. :smallbiggrin:

[Eladrinblade]

It does say "some sort of shadow", but the shadow your friends pants make on their butt qualifying is just kinda silly. So, I'd personally rule that it has to be a shadow cast by an object of at least your size.

Outside during the day? Are you within 10ft of another creature of at least your size? Are you near an object of said size or larger (like a tree)? You qualify.

Overcast day? Are you near a big tree that currently has leaves? You qualify. Otherwise, probably not. Basically, something has to provide enough cover from the sky (so, a surface parallel to the ground) for a real shadow to appear. I'd say if it fills an entire square with less illumination than regular squares, it qualifies. So, a wagon bottom, a tree with leaves, beneath a huge-sized creature, etc.

Since it specifies "shadow" and not "darkness", I'm inclined to think there needs to be a light source first, so a cloudy night or underground wouldn't count. If the moon was bright enough to cast shadows, that would work. Even a candle being held by someone else would work. This only matters for creatures with darkvision (only 90% of enemies!), however, since darkness provides concealment from everybody else anyway (but not from folks with blindsight or whatever).

edit: woah, actually, it does help you even against creatures with darkvision...I never realized that. If you bring light into the equation, that creates shadows, which allow you to hide, regardless if the creature has darkvision or not, as long as you are within 10ft of a shadow. Whaddaya know, it's super useful after all.

2nd edit: The first line under Shadowdancer in the DMG is "Operating in the border between light and darkness,", so there's yet more evidence that it doesn't work in just regular darkness.

[Necroticplague]

Yes, being underground and out at night are in shadows. Nighttime is just being in the shadow of the other part of the planet, and being underground is just being in the shadow of the earth and stone above you.

For practical use in play, I tie shadows to illumination levels. If it's shadowy illumination or darker, it counts as a shadow.

[Eladrinblade]

So it would work in different places against enemies with low-light vision?

[Duke of Urrel]

Thank you for all of your comments. I think there's a lot of agreement here. For example, I think we all agree that a usable shadow has to be of a decent size.


If the player interprets that total darkness doesn't work, for instance, then you know that you can shut them down if necessary by putting them in total darkness.

This is possible and fits with the phrase quoted by Eladrinblade that shadowdancers operate "in the border between light and darkness." However, I would prefer not to have to limit what I consider to be shadows in two directions, both in the direction of too much light and in the direction of too much darkness. This would make things too complicated for me. In my proposed house rules above, I've already made an exception for "well-defined" shadows that are not nearly as dark as shadowy illumination. The Plane of Shadow is completely dark, and I would rather not rule that shadowdancers cannot hide in plain sight on the Plane of Shadow because it's too dark there.

I agree with Necroticplague's argument that night is nothing more than being in the shadow of the planet you are standing on. I feel the same way about areas that are underground or indoors, provided that the shadow created is at least as dark as shadowy illumination. If you're standing in a room on a cloudy day, but you still have enough gray light entering through the window to read by, I would prefer not to count this as being in shadow, because it's neither dark enough to qualify as shadowy illumination (a shadow of the second kind) nor well-defined enough to qualify as a lighter shadow (a shadow of the first kind). But maybe there are shadows in the room within 10 feet that are dark enough for you to use, for example under the sofa…


So it would work in different places against enemies with low-light vision?

For the purpose of judging when a shadowdancer can use a shadow to hide in plain sight, I define shadowy illumination as the level of illumination that imposes a 20% miss chance on the attacks of all creatures with normal human vision. For the purpose of hiding in plain sight as a shadowdancer, I believe this level of illumination should work as a shadow for you even if all your observers have Low-Light Vision and can see in an area of shadowy illumination just as well as if it were fully illuminated.

[Duke of Urrel]

The real head-scratcher in my opinion is how Shadow-dependent effects work on planes without a coterminous plane of shadow. MotP lists some effects that straight up shouldn't work, but not all Shadow-flavoured effects specify that they require access to the plane of shadow.


I think that the shadowdancer's teleportation ability explicitly involves the Plane of Shadow (or if it's not explicit, it should be), but the hiding in plain sight just relies on the property of being darker than their surroundings that's shared by all shadows anywhere.

I agree with Chronos that a connection to the Plane of Shadow is strongly implied by the description of the Shadow Jump ability, which seems to transport you from one interplanar vortex to another.

On the other hand, I think Jowgen is right that no rule specifies that shadow jumping means teleporting through the Plane of Shadow. Maybe it means teleporting by drawing upon the planar energy of the Plane of Shadow, and maybe you can do this wherever you happen to be. I shall have to scratch my head about this. I'm not desperate enough to summon Afroakuma … yet.