Shadow Walk & blink are usable in planes other than material plane?

[Jonjonjon4]

Hello everyone. My first post here.

My adventurers got into the abyss to break some demoniac pacts.
The thing is, the mage have died, and they are trying to figure out ways to leave the place without his magic.
Before the end of the session, my player asked everyone to stay calm because he will use shadow Walk next session.

My question is: is it usable outside of material plane?(or any other with direct connection)

Same goes for blink spell, that make you swap between material plane and ethereal plane.

He is arguing that astral plane is a bridge between shadow plane and any other plane. But in that case, shouldn't he be able to travel to astral plane before?

Thx in advance

[Saint-Just]

RAW 3.5 is no. Shadow and ethereal are coterminous with and freely accessible from Material and Astral only. I have no doubt that some sideways shenanigans have been used at some point by either inventive players or module writers who regularly invented ways for opponents to do the impossible, but it should take more than a shadow walk.

Now, maybe you want them to escape there and then. It is not a sin to alter underlying assumptions, but it will likely change the world in more ways than simply allowing that particular avenue of escape from the Lower Planes.

[Crake]

Even if you could use shadow walk on the abyss, you'd still end up on the abyss, it's not a planar travel spell.

[Saint-Just]

Even if you could use shadow walk on the abyss, you'd still end up on the abyss, it's not a planar travel spell.

MotP disagrees. Just like astral projection can only bring you to Astral, but then you can travel to other planes because Astral is connected to them (and the complication of manifesting a second body is a feature of the spell, not of the Astral itself), so can shadow walk be used to travel between planes if you choose to connect Shadow to Outer and\or Inner planes. It's as official as it can possibly be for an alternative cosmology.

Now, I have seen somewhere an idea of multiple Shadows and Ethereals, so all those spells are useful on Outer Planes but travel is as hard as it supposed to be, but that is not the same as merely "Shadow connects to more planes"

[PairO'Dice Lost]

He is arguing that astral plane is a bridge between shadow plane and any other plane. But in that case, shouldn't he be able to travel to astral plane before?


Even if you could use shadow walk on the abyss, you'd still end up on the abyss, it's not a planar travel spell.

Shadow walk actually is a planar travel spell...sort of. That's probably where this player's confusion comes in.

The spell description contains the following line:


Shadow walk can also be used to travel to other planes that border on the Plane of Shadow, but this usage requires the transit of the Plane of Shadow to arrive at a border with another plane of reality. The transit of the Plane of Shadow requires 1d4 hours.

However, in the default D&D cosmology, the only "other planes that border on the Plane of Shadow" are alternate Material Planes. The reason it's phrased the way it is instead of just saying "alternate Material Planes" directly is that Manual of the Planes has some sidebars offering some other options for using the Plane of Shadow in a DM's homebrew cosmology, which does include versions where the Outer Planes are accessible via Deep Shadow.

Same goes for the Ethereal Plane: while MotP offers various alternatives for homebrew cosmologies, by default it's only accessible from the Material Plane (or, if using the Planescape version, both the Prime and the Inner Planes), so spells interacting with it don't function on the Outer Planes.

So no, they could not escape the Abyss via creative use of shadow walk or blink, or for that matter ethereal jaunt or any other Ethereal- or Shadow-accessing spells.

EDIT: Partially swordsage'd by Saint-Just. But note that all the MotP stuff is, as I mentioned, optional rules for DMs; "official" alternate cosmology or not, none of it applies to the Great Wheel.

[Crake]

Shadow walk actually is a planar travel spell...sort of. That's probably where this player's confusion comes in.

The spell description contains the following line:



However, in the default D&D cosmology, the only "other planes that border on the Plane of Shadow" are alternate Material Planes. The reason it's phrased the way it is instead of just saying "alternate Material Planes" directly is that Manual of the Planes has some sidebars offering some other options for using the Plane of Shadow in a DM's homebrew cosmology, which does include versions where the Outer Planes are accessible via Deep Shadow.

I mean, to be fair, even in the default cosmology, the ethereal and astral also border the shadow, so you could use it to get to those planes, but good call, i totally forgot about that line.

[Quentinas]

Well in the Manual of the planes is said that

It overlaps the Material Plane much asthe Ethereal Plane does, so a planar traveler can use thePlane of Shadow to cover great distances quickly. ThePlane of Shadow is also coterminous to other planes.With the right spell, you can use the Plane of Shadow tovisit other realities.

But it even say about shadow walk

Most Material Plane creatures on the Plane of Shadowuse the shadow walkspell. With this spell, the castermoves into the Plane of Shadow, moves in a particulardirection for a certain amount of time, and then stepsback into the Material Plane

And in the same page

Shadow travelers may attempt to seek out a portal toan alternate Material Plane or an Outer Plane. If seeking an alternate Material Plane, the traveler forces herself out of the areas that correspond to the original Material Plane. The terrain grows extreme: Trees aremore massive than anything on the Material Plane,mountains become clifflike barriers, and rivers are raging torrents. It takes 1d4 hours of constant travel to reach the spot on the alternate Material Plane that corresponds to the departure point on the original Material Plane. At this point, the traveler can open a newportal and enter the alternate Material Plane. If yourcosmology doesn’t include alternate Material Planes (or they haven’t been discovered yet), travelers are unable to open such a portal.In this rough terrain, shadow travelers also find portals that move through the Astral Plane and on to other Inneror Outer Planes. Again, it takes 1d4 hours of constant travel to find a random portal of this type.
So by the last phrase it seems that can connect to other planes (not to the ethereal and probably not to the mirror plane)
But there are even some variants , like one that let the good aligned planes connect only to the Astral plane, the evil aligned planes to the Shadow plane , while the neither good neither evil planes to Shadow plane and Astral plane
There is another variant that let it connect to each Plane but it tends to gains the traits of the other planes.

Passing to a 3.5 manual rather than a 3.0 we have the tome of magic that say at the same time

The plane of Shadows neighbor the Material Plane and many of the others as well(other pieces of test that i don't want to write) The plane of Shadow is the literal Shadow of the Material Plane

To be honest in a recent campaign where I had a shadowcaster finishing on the Outer Planes I ruled that the Shadow plane connected to them so the mysteries didn't have any problem (still subjected to the traits of the plane) and that he could use Pass into Shadow , because if the Shadow Plane wasn't connected to the Outer Planes that would have been a problem (and with a mystery that works as Plane Shift it seems logical to think that the Shadow Plane is connected to other planes other than the Material)

[PairO'Dice Lost]

So by the last phrase it seems that can connect to other planes (not to the ethereal and probably not to the mirror plane)

Note the specific wording:


Shadow travelers may attempt to seek out a portal to an alternate Material Plane or an Outer Plane.
[...]
In this rough terrain, shadow travelers also find portals that move through the Astral Plane and onto other Inner or Outer Planes. Again, it takes 1d4 hours of constant travel to find a random portal of this type.

That's not saying that the Plane of Shadow connects to the Outer Planes directly (and thus that someone currently on an Outer Plane could access it with shadow walk), just that there are a bunch of portals on the Plane of Shadow that connect to other planes, in the same way that there are a bunch of portals on any other plane.


Passing to a 3.5 manual rather than a 3.0 we have the tome of magic that say at the same time

Again, that sentence doesn't mean that the Outer Planes are accessible from Shadow. As per Manual of the Planes (which is indeed a 3.5 source, as it has been updated to 3.5 and there's no later source to override it):


Within the D&D cosmology, the Plane of Shadow connects only with the Astral Plane and the Material Plane. The above limitations apply when a traveler is on an Inner Plane or an Outer Plane.

Now, in addition to the Astral Plane, the Plane of Shadow connects to alternate Material Planes through Deep Shadow (which would certainly qualify as "many planes" just on their own!) as well as the Negative Energy Plane and the Positive Energy Plane in darklands and brightlands regions, respectively. So "The Plane of Shadow neighbors...many of the other[ planes] as well" is true <ObiWan>from a certain point of view</ObiWan>, but those "many others" don't include the Outer Planes.


To be honest in a recent campaign where I had a shadowcaster finishing on the Outer Planes I ruled that the Shadow plane connected to them so the mysteries didn't have any problem

That's definitely a reasonable decision, and I've done the same before--once for a campaign where the Transitive Planes played a very significant role, once because I had a party including both a Shadowcaster and a Shadowcraft Mage that involved lots of planes-hopping--but it's important to recognize that that is in fact a houserule whereas the OP's player is mistakenly claiming that that's how things work by default in the Great Wheel, two very different things.

[Zanos]

RAW, the only requirement to cast shadow walk is to be in an area of shadowy illumination. When you cast it, it transports you to the edge of the shadow and material planes. Then you step off onto the material.

You can't use it to go other planes, but you can use it to leave them.

[Jowgen]

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits p. 69 hasa bunch of Phase Spiders in an encounter explicitly stated to use their Ethereal Jaunt ability while in the Abyss (a non Ethreal coexistent/coterminous plane).

Interpret that information as you will.

[Saint-Just]

RAW, the only requirement to cast shadow walk is to be in an area of shadowy illumination. When you cast it, it transports you to the edge of the shadow and material planes. Then you step off onto the material.

You can't use it to go other planes, but you can use it to leave them.

If you limit yourself to the Core that can be seen as RAW, but if it is so then Blink also works, since it says "you are blinking back and forth between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane". If you either allow for specific RAW from the MotP to override general RAW ("If the Plane of Shadow doesn’t exist....The following illusions with the shadow descriptor don’t work:greater shadow conjuration,....shadow walk....Within the D&D cosmology, the Plane of Shadow connects only with the Astral Plane and the Material Plane. The above limitations apply when a traveler is on an Inner Plane or an
Outer Plane.") it clearly shouldn't work. This is not a quote mining, anyone with a copy can check, it's all in one sidebar (underbar?). Or if you care for rules having even the remotest connection to fluff you don't even need MotP, just knowing the topology of the planes is enough.


Expedition to the Demonweb Pits p. 69 hasa bunch of Phase Spiders in an encounter explicitly stated to use their Ethereal Jaunt ability while in the Abyss (a non Ethreal coexistent/coterminous plane).

Interpret that information as you will.

As writers not parsing all the interactions between official rules.

I have nothing against house rules, and disjointed Ether (or Shadow) or multiple Ethers (or Shadows) are a relatively easy patch which allows abilities useful on Prime to be used (almost) everywhere while still making travel between planes difficult (even though I find limitations and changing circumstances more interesting, so as long as campaign doesn't end up being spent mostly on the Planes even Sorc/Bard who got the Shadow Walk have no cause to complain, much less the Wizard). Also as noted old Planescape had Ether connect with Inner Planes (but not Outer). But in the end it is house rules, and should be treated as such.

[Zanos]

I'll double check MotP when I have access to my books but planes not being coterminus does not prevent magical planar travel. You can plane shift directly to a non-coterminus plane, and the first thing shadow walk does is transport you to the intersection of the material and the shadow.

EDIT: You don't need to mine any quotes besides this one:

If the Plane of Shadow and a particular Outer Plane connect, then the caster should able to cast the shadow walk spell from that Outer Plane. But if the two planes aren’t coexistent or coterminous, the spell won’t work.
Spell doesn't work on the abyss under the default cosmology, then.

[Saint-Just]

You don't need to mine any quotes besides this one:

If the Plane of Shadow and a particular Outer Plane connect, then the caster should able to cast the shadow walk spell from that Outer Plane. But if the two planes aren’t coexistent or coterminous, the spell won’t work.
Spell doesn't work on the abyss under the default cosmology, then.

TBH it is a long time since I read MotP, so I used the place I remembered (which also roundaboutly states that shadow walk doesn't work) instead of using more direct explanation which I forgot about.