Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)

Sabriel · Apr 15, 2007

this post eaten by the Cleaners!

Everett · Apr 15, 2007

Sabriel said:
Maybe I'm fixating... this sort of thing probably keeps mages up at night

Yeah, but that's fine. This sort of speculation is the best thing about D&D for my money; it's like pondering a zen koan.

<<<Which does it go for and why?

It goes for the summoned spellcaster. That it's unaffected by magic does not mean it's unable to identify a magically created being.

It can't walk through the Wall of Stone. Why? The magic isn't residual. If you cast disintegrate beneath the creature, ultimately it's however the DM wants to play it, but I would say no, it doesn't fall. It's a question of awareness. If you think the ground you stand on is solid, you're not worried about falling. If the ground suddenly turns to glass, but you just don't notice, you feel the same way.

Does the +1 sword pass through it? Yes, it does, if the weapon is judged to be inherently magical. But it can't walk through a magically enhanced wall that's fundamentally just rock underneath.

As the samurais say... you must consider this.

These are my opinions, but a case could be made just as strongly the other way.

In a god-created world... well, they might be intermittently there, flicking in and out of existence like a bad internet connection. (Remember the backstory about Foogzl the Cleaner, the battle where OCS died?) They might be polymorphed. They might be giants (no pun intended) with psychic abilities.

They could be beings like the Inevitables - the non-living, planer-appointed bounty hunters described in the Monster Manual. They could be a lot of things.

Sabriel · Apr 16, 2007

this post eaten by the Cleaners!

KidCthulhu · Apr 17, 2007

Sabriel said:
Heh, yes. This is one of those monster abilities where if you don't have all your ducks in a row, the players will want to pluck you.

Oh, no they won't. For one thing, Sagiro has never let us see the Null Shadow stats. And for another, to paraphrase the Matrix, "When you see a Null Shadow, you do what we do. You run."

We're always too busy screaming in terror to nit-pick the stats.

Kid Charlemagne · Apr 17, 2007

Sabriel said:
While fun as an intellectual exercise and to spring on overconfident PCs as both a GM and a player it discomfits me to have creatures with "absolute immunity to magic".... <snip>

I just wanted to note that Sagiro originally posted these stats in a seperate thread, to keep them away from inadvertent PC notice... I recommend any discussion of the Null Shadows be taken to a seperate thread - there is a homebrew monster forum in the Creature Catalog area, I believe, that would be appropriate.

Everett · Apr 17, 2007

Sabriel said:
* "Does the +1 sword pass through it? Yes, it does, if the weapon is judged to be inherently magical. But it can't walk through a magically enhanced wall that's fundamentally just rock underneath."

What is "inherently magical"? A 'standard sword+1' is a masterwork sword with a magical enhancement bonus (it gains +1 attack, +1 damage, +5 hardness, +10 hp, etc). If I make a wall+1, being a masterwork wall with a magical enhancement bonus (etc), then is it considered a magical barrier that a Null Shadow can pass through? Fundamentally a sword+1 is just metal underneath...?

If the +1 sword is a masterwork upgrade, then it hits the Shadow; if it's an artifact or wonderous item of some kind, that would be "inherently" magical & would pass through. But like the upgrade, a stone wall that was _created_ via magic is still just a stone wall. Hmm. Make sense? A sword that's been upgraded to +1 magic can be dispelled back to ordinary, suggesting that the ordinary sword is still *there*. If you can think of magic like a new paint job - the previous layer is still underneath, you know.

And it was my mistake about the summoned creature vs. commoner question; the summoned creature isn't magically "created" when it's summoned from somewhere else, but I still say the Shadow would go for it instead of the commoner; summoned creatures are in the fight for a certain amount of time, suggesting that the magic that brought them there could be seen via Arcane Sight; likewise, I'd bet that the Null Shadow would sense that too.

<<<So unaffected applies to interaction, not observation? Does this mean it can be potentially fooled by glamers and figments?

Hmm. I'd say yes, that's possible. If it can see magic... and it can... then it can be fooled by magic.

<<Um, disintegrate would turn the floor to dust, leaving a 10ft deep non-magical pit, not to glass?

Right, that was silly of me, wasn't it.

Could it be hit by an ordinary sword wielded by telekinesis? I would say so, yes. The magic isn't directly doing the attacking. Passwall - I don't know; I don't play D&D currently and I don't have a Player's Handbook I can consult to look at the spell, unfortunately. Care to post a brief spell description?

...On the appropriateness of this discussion here; I don't think it's inappropriate...? We're not discussing the Null Shadow's stats, and I'm sure the guys who play the wizards in Sagiro's campaigns have considered this stuff before.

KidCthulhu · Apr 18, 2007

Charlemagne is right. Move this discussion please. Speaking for the players, I don't want to know the stats for the Null Shadows. They're glorious and spooky and perfect, and I don't want to twink them.

Joshua Randall · Apr 18, 2007

I used null shadows against my PCs a few weeks ago, and they were totally nonshalant -- except for the guy who has read this story hour. I mean, here I am describing how their weapons are passing right through the shadows, and their spells as well, and the casters are getting swarmed and losing spells prepared, and they just didn't seem to care.

Oh well. Maybe I should have made them Advanced Elite Paragon Null Shadows. Yeah.

Ryan Koppenhaver · Apr 19, 2007

Joshua Randall said:
Oh well. Maybe I should have made them Advanced Elite Paragon Null Shadows. Yeah.

Speaking as the player who was worried-- I just assumed they were advanced, elite, etc, null shadows.

I think a lot of the problem was that when you have two unique opponents-- one a long running thorn in our side, and the other a vampire former PC-- plus a bunch of identical guys, it's easy to mentally sort them into "real challenge" and "cannon fodder", and cannon fodder isn't scary.

If the null shadows had been an encounter by themselves, they'd probably have gotten more of a reaction. (Of course, it'd have also frustrated the spellcasters to have nothing to do in that encounter.)