100% real shadow illusion?

[Samael Morgenst]

**Shadow Conjuration**
Illusion (Shadow)

Level: Brd 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: See text
Effect: See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with); varies; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes; see text
You use material from the Plane of Shadow to shape quasi-real illusions of one or more creatures, objects, or forces. Shadow conjuration can mimic any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning) or conjuration (creation) spell of 3rd level or lower.

Shadow conjurations are actually one-fifth (20%) as strong as the real things, though creatures who believe the shadow conjurations to be real are affected by them at full strength.

Any creature that interacts with the conjured object, force, or creature can make a Will save to recognize its true nature.

Spells that deal damage have normal effects unless the affected creature succeeds on a Will save. Each disbelieving creature takes only one-fifth (20%) damage from the attack. If the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, that effect is only 20% likely to occur. Regardless of the result of the save to disbelieve, an affected creature is also allowed any save that the spell being simulated allows, but the save DC is set according to shadow conjuration’s level (5th) rather than the spell’s normal level. In addition, any effect created by shadow conjuration allows spell resistance, even if the spell it is simulating does not. Shadow objects or substances have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them.

Against disbelievers, they are 20% likely to work.

A shadow creature has one-fifth the hit points of a normal creature of its kind (regardless of whether it’s recognized as shadowy). It deals normal damage and has all normal abilities and weaknesses. Against a creature that recognizes it as a shadow creature, however, the shadow creature’s damage is one-fifth (20%) normal, and all special abilities that do not deal lethal damage are only 20% likely to work. (Roll for each use and each affected character separately.) Furthermore, the shadow creature’s AC bonuses are one-fifth as large.

A creature that succeeds on its save sees the shadow conjurations as transparent images superimposed on vague, shadowy forms.

Objects automatically succeed on their Will saves against this spell.

**Shades**
Illusion (Shadow)
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
This spell functions like shadow conjuration, except that it mimics sorcerer and wizard conjuration spells of 8th level or lower. The illusory conjurations created deal four-fifths (80%) damage to nonbelievers, and nondamaging effects are 80% likely to work against nonbelievers.

**Enhanced Shadow Reality**
Type: General
Source: Dragon #325
Your shadow-based spells are more real.
Prerequisite: Spell Focus (illusion), illusionist level 1st.
Benefit: Your illusion (shadow) spells deal one-fifth (20%) more real damage if disbelieved. For example, a creature summoned with a shadow conjuration spell deals two-fifths (40%) of the damage a real creature of the same kind would deal if the target of the spell disbelieves it, instead of only one-fifth (20%).

**School Mastery**
Some specialist wizards take their mastery to whole new levels. Occasionally, even sorcerers and other arcane spellcasters focus their attentions on one school over the others. Your expertise in a chosen school of magic is unparalleled.
Replaces: If you select this class feature you do not gain a familiar.
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. If you are already a specialist wizard, you may only choose the school in which you are specialized. You cast all spells from the chosen school at +1 caster level. In addition, you gain the following benefit, based on the school you select.

Illusion: Whenever you cast an illusion (shadow) spell that creates a partially real effect (such as shadow conjuration or shadow evocation), the effect is 10% more real than normal. Thus, a creature created by shadow conjuration is 30% as strong as a real creature of the same kind, instead of the normal 20%.

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According to the provided data, what would be the effects of a Shades spell, cast by an illusionist with School Mastery in illusionism and the feat Enhanced Shadow Reality?

[Beni-Kujaku]

By RAW, it would deal 100% of the damage if not disbelieved, and 110% of the damage if it was disbelieved. Thus, it is an illusion with so much shadow in it that it is more real than the real spell. Nondamaging spells would just affect the target 100% of the time, and of course DMs can say that more than 100% real spells is nonsensical and cap the damage to 100%.

It is actually a pretty well-discussed trick, with the Shadowcraft Mage prestige class being able (with some optimization tricks (https://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=16433.0)) to reach up to 140% quasireality.

[Darg]

That's up to your DM. In setting-wise you can't be more than 100% real. In a theoretical mathematical sense it could be 130% "real"; thus making it about the numbers abstraction rather than the reality. Again, ask your DM. I personally would never allow it to be more than 100% because I want the reality in which the characters live to be real rather than an abstract representation.

[Gusmo]

I've always felt more than 100% shadow stuff is fine, in terms of head canon. This is a world where the plane of shadow is a real thing. It's no more preposterous that your perception of shadow makes it more dangerous than less dangerous. The problem to me is that making the save should give you the more desirable result.

[Pezzo]

In reality, things are either real (100% real) or not real (0% real), which makes anything else being supernatural, or impossible.
In d&d supernatural is the norm, being impossibly real (20% real) is a real state, so in my opinion being more real than reality (140% real), which is another state of impossible reality, is only logical.

[Darg]

In reality, things are either real (100% real) or not real (0% real), which makes anything else being supernatural, or impossible.
In d&d supernatural is the norm, being impossibly real (20% real) is a real state, so in my opinion being more real than reality (140% real), which is another state of impossible reality, is only logical.

One can logically come to pretty much any conclusion, doesn't mean it's right. D&D assumes things are as they would be in real life unless otherwise stated. Logically that would mean unless something says something can be more than 100% real, then it isn't. See how it goes both ways? Just ask the DM.

[Beni-Kujaku]

One can logically come to pretty much any conclusion, doesn't mean it's right. D&D assumes things are as they would be in real life unless otherwise stated. Logically that would mean unless something says something can be more than 100% real, then it isn't. See how it goes both ways? Just ask the DM.

It does say it can be more than 100% real. It says it is 20% more real than something that would be 90% real. If we should ignore aa result of 110% because it would make no sense in our world and the spell does not explicitly say that it can be 110% real, then we should ignore a result of 90% as well because it would make no sense in our world and the spell does not explicitly say that it can be 90% real.

[Jay R]

When I ran a Shadowcraft Mage, I told the DM that of course, no matter what the rules say, shadow illusions couldn't be more than 100% real.

He asked, "Why not?"

So I thought about it some more and decided that:
a. Whatever shadow-stuff is, it isn't shadows as we know them,
b. the effects of magic are often counter-intuitive,
c. "110% real" is not less meaningful than "90% real", and
d. "110% real" makes no sense, but, "does 110% as much damage as a primary world one would do" makes perfect sense.

So with the DM's support, I stopped worrying about the fact that shadow illusions can have effects that wouldn't be reasonable in our world.

Like all other spells.

[icefractal]

I see no issue with going over 100%, but I think "real" is a simplification / poor wording. It's an emulation using shadowstuff, and just like an emulator can be more powerful than the original hardware it emulates, a shadow-powered "Fireball" can be more powerful than a normal Fireball.

The fact that making the save is worse than failing in that case is strange, but not incomprehensible. Like a basilisk, it hurts worse if you perceive it fully.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't see a problem w/ something being "hyper-reality"

And there's numerous other spells and effects where saving is actually worse than failing. The most notorious being the dust of sneezing and choking.

Just keep in mind that shadow evocations have a special restriction for non-damaging effects. They never work on someone that disbelieves, no matter how "real" they are.
It's why people who ban evocation "because I'm gonna be a shadowcraft mage!" are at least somewhat ignorant of some nice spell effects they're losing access to (probably not enough to make banning evocation more painful than other schools and some evocations are helpful like Contingency so you can just choose to fail, but it's hardly nothing... resilient sphere and wall of force are quite handy for example).
Shadow Conjuration does not have this restriction.

[Rebel7284]

In reality, things are either real (100% real) or not real (0% real), which makes anything else being supernatural, or impossible.

So I don't think we really understand reality to a point where we can make a statement like that with certaintly. When stuff is in quantum superposition, what is "real"? And how does that end up collapsing to what we, macroscopic entities experience? We know our best models are still incomplete.

As far as game mechanics, I think either capping it at 100% or letting it go over because "extra power from shadows" are both perfectly reasonable and fair rulings.

[Pezzo]

But we do, we always take what we can perceive as facts, like saying that gravity pulls, but maybe gravity doesn't even exist as a force and what we percieve as gravity is coincidence. We need proofs we can believe, that's why flat earthers will never believe the earth is round, they can't believe it unless they can see it, and nobody will ever take a flat earther in space.
So until we can believe things can exist between 0% and 100% reality, they either exist or not.
I've played games wrong, but before I knew I was playing wrong I was playing 100% right.

[Chronos]

OK, here's another wrinkle: The Mettle ability (found on some non-core classes) says that if you make a Fort or Will save versus something that would ordinarily have a partial effect on a save, you instead take no effect. Shadow spells generally deal a percentage of the ordinary damage if you disbelieve, and disbelief is determined by a Will save, so Mettle should work against shadow spells.

But is 100% reality or 110% reality a "partial effect"?

[AvatarVecna]

I like the "over 100% real" stuff cuz it ties in with themes from other genres. Mage snaps his fingers and two dogs appear out of thin air, but you can tell they're illusory. You focus your mind and pierce the veil that surrounds them to see to the truth of things. And what you see there...is more dangerous than the illusion they were projecting. You gazed into the abyss and it made things worse. You saw something man was not meant to know. You got Cthulhu'd, done in by your own insatiable curiosity.

[Vaern]

In Terry Pratchett's Mort, Death is described as being able to pass through walls not because he is incorporeal or anything like that, but rather because he is simply more real than the world around him and thus solid objects yield to him as he wills it. Nothing is more real than Death, after all.

Anyway, if you want to throw a twist on things being more than 100% real, make the super-real illusions act as though real creatures and objects were quasi-real illusions. A 120% real summoned creatures deals full normal damage as a normal creature would, but if attacked by a regular character it only takes 80% damage because that character is less real than the illusion.

[AvatarVecna]

In Terry Pratchett's Mort, Death is described as being able to pass through walls not because he is incorporeal or anything like that, but rather because he is simply more real than the world around him and thus solid objects yield to him as he wills it. Nothing is more real than Death, after all.

Anyway, if you want to throw a twist on things being more than 100% real, make the super-real illusions act as though real creatures and objects were quasi-real illusions. A 120% real summoned creatures deals full normal damage as a normal creature would, but if attacked by a regular character it only takes 80% damage because that character is less real than the illusion.

This already has representation within the text.


Shadow conjurations are actually one-fifth (20%) as strong as the real things, though creatures who believe the shadow conjurations to be real are affected by them at full strength.

[...]

A shadow creature has one-fifth the hit points of a normal creature of its kind (regardless of whether it’s recognized as shadowy). It deals normal damage and has all normal abilities and weaknesses. Against a creature that recognizes it as a shadow creature, however, the shadow creature’s damage is one-fifth (20%) normal, and all special abilities that do not deal lethal damage are only 20% likely to work. (Roll for each use and each affected character separately.) Furthermore, the shadow creature’s AC bonuses are one-fifth as large.

Basically, if the shadow summon is affecting someone else, that person is affected by whichever percentage they believe in (either 100%, or the base 20% if they successfully disbelieve). If someone else is trying to affect the shadow summon (at least with damage), the shadow summon has 20% normal hit points.

If you cranked up pseudoreality to, say, 200% somehow, and summoned an illusory Hell Hound (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hellHound.htm), it's bite attack would deal 1d8+1 dmg (average 5.5 to most people, or 11 to people who disbelieve), but it would have 44 HP regardless of whether people believed in it or not. Being 200% real gives it 200% normal HP, which is roughly equivalent to the kind of thing you're suggesting.

[Crake]

Just keep in mind that shadow evocations have a special restriction for non-damaging effects. They never work on someone that disbelieves, no matter how "real" they are.

?? Think you want to check that again:


If the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, that effect is one-fifth as strong (if applicable) or only 20% likely to occur.

[Chronos]

That clause is only for damaging effects (i.e., if an effect normally does damage and also does something else). The next paragraph:

Nondamaging effects have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them. Against disbelievers, they have no effect.

[StreamOfTheSky]

That clause is only for damaging effects (i.e., if an effect normally does damage and also does something else). The next paragraph:

Yup!
Seems to be a commonly missed rule in my experience. So yes, there is a cost to banning Evocation as a ScM. Like I said, still not much of one, and trading the expensive component for adding a save negates to Forcecage is probably worth it, but it definitely will have some impacts on your options.

[redking]

According to the provided data, what would be the effects of a Shades spell, cast by an illusionist with School Mastery in illusionism and the feat Enhanced Shadow Reality?

Up to the DM. On this forum you will have people tell you that you can go over 100% and produce greater effects, but at most gaming tables shadow reality will top out at 100%.

[Jay R]

I had a DM who decided that "real" was the wrong word, and that something made of shadow-stuff might be more effective than normal. I had gotten up to 120% effective (when they make their saving throw).

In the last game we played, I once called out to my companions, "I'll slow them down with this illusion," just to help our enemies make their saving throws.