Daylight, shadow jump, hide in plain sight

[hong]

Daylight:
The object touched sheds light as bright as full daylight in a 60' radius, and dim light for an additional 60' beyond that. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of this magical light. Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by bright light (such as vampires). If daylight is cast on a small object, that is then placed inside or under a light-proof covering, the spell's effects are blocked until the covering is removed.


Does the daylight spell negate either of these abilities?


Shadow jump:
A shadowdancer gains the ability to travel between shadows as if by means of a dimension door spell. The limitation is that the magical transport must begin and end in an area with at least some shadow.


Hide in plain sight: A shadowdancer can use the Hide skill even while being observed. As long as she is within 10' of some sort of shadow, a shadowdancer can hide herself from view in the open without anything to actually hide behind. She cannot, however, hide in her own shadow.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The object sheds light, and it's blocked by a lightproof covering.

The 60' radius does not glow; the object does.

So it should still cast shadows like any other point source.

-Hyp.

 

[The Little Raven]

Daylight:
The object touched sheds light as bright as full daylight in a 60' radius, and dim light for an additional 60' beyond that. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of this magical light. Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by bright light (such as vampires). If daylight is cast on a small object, that is then placed inside or under a light-proof covering, the spell's effects are blocked until the covering is removed.


Does the daylight spell negate either of these abilities?


Shadow jump:
A shadowdancer gains the ability to travel between shadows as if by means of a dimension door spell. The limitation is that the magical transport must begin and end in an area with at least some shadow.


Hide in plain sight: A shadowdancer can use the Hide skill even while being observed. As long as she is within 10' of some sort of shadow, a shadowdancer can hide herself from view in the open without anything to actually hide behind. She cannot, however, hide in her own shadow.

Yes. For Shadow Jump, you have to be in an area of shadowy illumination (in combat, your square must be in shadowy illumination). With Hide in Plain Sight, you have to be within 10 feet of a square of shadow illumination.

 

[Sejs]

Both abilities require the presence of some ammount of shadow - notedly being some shadow, not total darkness.

As long as there is something that blocks the light's path as it radiates outward from the recipient of the daylight spell, then there is some shadow.

It would significantly reduce the Shadowdancer's options on what's casting available shadows to use, but it wouldn't eliminate the abilities. You would have to have some form of sourceless illumination to get rid of all shadows in an area.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yes. For Shadow Jump, you have to be in an area of shadowy illumination (in combat, your square must be in shadowy illumination).

Has that been stated somewhere?

That's a whole lot more restrictive than the ability as written in the DMG.

The Shadow Walk spell specifies "an area of shadowy illumination", but Shadow Jump just says "an area with at least some shadow".

I'm in a brightly lit room, and there's "at least some shadow" all over the place. I wouldn't call any given 5' square in here "shadowy illumination", though.

-Hyp.

 

[spunky_mutters]

RAW don't give enough detail to restrict it to squares that qualify for shadowy illumination. They don't give enough detail to specify what shadows would qualify, either.

My house rules for dealing with the hair splitting that these bring up:

I've been ruling that in order for these abilities (and any that just specify 'shadows') to function there must either be a game-term defined shadowy illumination present in the square, or the character has to have an object of the character's size or larger between him/her and the light source, and the character has to be within the natural reach defined for an object of that size. i.e. 5' for a small object, 15' for a Huge tall object, etc.

It's a house rule, but it makes everything clear for my players to cut down on discussion about just where the shadows are.

 

[hong]

Thanks, people. My ninjae will be very relieved at this....

 

[Scion]

shouldnt every ninja carry around something that casts obscuring mists or something similar? even if it is just a smoke ball, it should provide some shadowy area from which to do his thing.

 

[Sejs]

Nah, no need - any round in which they used it could be better spent either flipping out and killing things or wailing on their guitar.

 

[Scion]

Nah, no need - any round in which they used it could be better spent either flipping out and killing things or wailing on their guitar.

For a high enough level ninja those should all be free actions, including the smoke ball. So he could do them all in one round and still have time to moon the party