Hi!

The Team is passing along the news that the Shades and Shadow Conjuration Spells (Illusions) will no longer summon Undead shadow creatures. They will now be Outsiders, which is what the lore always suggested anyway.

This will be mechanically changed soon, but feel free to proceed with that in your RP as you see fit.

Enjoy!

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Because the lore suggests outsiders, not undead, have ability drain?

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Yeah, they've always been ruled as undead. So why the change -now-?
The ability drain suggests undead, the mechanics are -obviously- undead, so unless you're planning to change the lore, it makes me wonder whether -any- shadows are undead... Because the D&D canon suggests that -all- shadows are undead. Why are they outsiders, on amia? The descriptions claim they hate light and life, and all that.

Especially with a Shadow of the Void being an -actual- D&D monster, simply saying 'not undead' is pretty cheap...

.... I am not a Lore monkey, but don't shades - And a lot of things from the Shadow-Plane - take a special role by being Undead Outsiders? So.. Not really undead but also not not-undead...?

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Shadows are undead. Shades, I'm pretty sure are an amian invention, being outsiders. Otherwise, the only shades I can find are the shades from Thultanthar, (high-ranking shadovar) that are outsiders, but not the kind we see on amia.

I'll add to this a bit later regarding the lore for Amia!

This is a decision we made so that Illusionists don't have to be forced to summon Undead, when realistically they'd be able to do a lot more with their illusions. In the absence of a choice for Illusionist casters, we don't want them to be forced any longer to use Undead with their only line of summons.

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I would say they are not undead in the same manner as "necromancy" undead.

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Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.

This comes from the description of the Shadow Conjuration spell from the 3.5 Wiki.

Whether or not Shadows are Undead or not is not the point here. The spell does not summon them, it creates them out of Shadowstuff. Outsider is closer to that than Undead. This is the thing here I think. Shadow COnjuration, is NOT a conjuration spell, so it doesn't summon anything, it is not a Necromancy spell, so is not implicitly undead related. It is an illusion, making a quasi real thing out of the substance of the Plane of Shadow.

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Player of:
- Whurak Thunderhammer
King of Barak Runedar and all round Vengeful Dwarf
- Alvian Tegleiwalla
Nerdy Painter Elf with a Silly hat

So are we abolishing WYSIWYG? Are we abolishing the canonicity of bios?

Or are the bios and stats of the summons changed in accordance to the lore?

It will be changed mechanically (and in the bios) to fit the decision, yes.

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Nope. Your character is entirely within their right to assume it's undead and react accordingly with RP.

This was mainly done for 2 reasons:
1. To avoid illusionists being pidgeonholed to have their only illusion "summon" be an undead, same way it was changed for shadowdancers. All real shadows are still very much undead and always has been.
2. It's not a real undead and never has been. The spell allows you to create a quasi-real creature which has all the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the real thing (in PnP it has several drawbacks as well, including dealing reduced damage if it's disbelieved). It's still vulnerable to stuff undeads generally are but it's not a real undead. It's a "shadow illusion" (see: here). Mind nothing about the lore of the spell or how it functions is being changed here, it's only the mechanical parts which are being altered to better fit both the lore of the spell, illusion magic in general and point 1.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

This is awesome.

My gnome illusionist summoned them anyway, because he knew they were illusions.

At least now he will not have to square off against hordes of Kelemvorites in a fight to the death everytime he fashions a scary looking puppet out of shadow fluff.

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Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object
True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder