Shade's Darkvision ability (Forgotten Realms)

[Murrdox]

Hey there!

I'm currently playing a Shade in our latest campaign, and I have a question. The Shade gets all of its special abilities only within darkness.

on page 314 of the Forgotten Realms guide:

Shadesight (Sp): A Shade has 60-Foot darkvision. It can see normally through any darkness effects, but not through fog, invisibility, obscurement, and so forth.

So here's my question: Can a shade see through a Darkness or Deeper Darkness spell? It says "any darkness effects" but then again, the description of the Darkness spell specifically says that Darkvision doesn't function, and the Shadesight ability is written to be pretty much identicle to Darkvision.

Reasoning behind this is that I'd like to have an object with Darkness made Permanent upon it, which I can unveil to wrap myself in Darkness and activate my special abilities when the need arises.

My DM and I both seem to think that "any darkness effect" includes any Darkness spell as well, but I just thought I'd get some other opinions.

 

[kreynolds]

Murrdox's sig
"A forest? How the hell are we supposed to find any trees, with this stupid/b] forest in the way!?

Ren, Ren & Stimpy[

Murrdox...your sig is broken.

 

[Murrdox]

Yes, yes I know... don't rub it in.

 

[Murrdox]

Shameless bump. C'mon! There's gotta be some other Forgotten Realms players out there... and even if you're not, I'm interested in opinions on this!

 

[mystraschosen]

I am a fr player,but I have not played a shade,soooo.....I would say no from a technical point of view.It seems somehow wrong ruleswise. As a guy who likes to intellectualize about flights of fancy I would say yes,keep in mind that the shades have been living in the plane of shadow for so long that it would be a neat spin to say they could see through magical darkness.I mean isn't the plane of shadow magical in a way.After living for so long on this other plane,they are bound to devolp some abilities pertaining to gloom and darkness....that's just adapting for you.

And after all they have so many special abilities I wouldn't think a ruling as such would throw things off horribly or anything.Another thing is that in the errata the ruling for ecl has been left from 2-5 instead of 5.What ecl are you? If it is 2 I would say no,if you play at ecl 3 which to me is the logical ecl for a shade then I would say yes,because you would have payed for this ability in your level reduction.
Hope that helps.

 

[Spove]

The Shades darkvision is the same as darkvision itself. Which does not work in a darkness spell.

 

[AuraSeer]

"All darkness effects" seems clear enough; the shade can see in magical darkness. If they wanted this ability to be the same as Darkvision, it would be an extraordinary ability called Darkvision, and it would not have its own independent description.

Note that unless the OP made a typo, Shadesight is a spell-like ability. That means you must use a standard action to activate it, it doesn't work in antimagic, and it can be affected by Dispel Magic.

 

[Kaji]

A couple of quick points:

1. I do play a shade in our FR campaign. Per the last page of the errata for FRCS, the phrase Shadesight is used. This, in my mind, makes it different than darkvision.

2. "Any darkness effect" clearly indicates magical darkness to me. The Shade is kinda made of the stuff.

3. I checked the FAQ for FRCS, and there is no reference to this to help. I'd say see through all darkness is all good.

 

[Aloïsius]

Shades do see in darkness (I mean magical darkness), there is no doubt about this, just read the shadesight ability. That's one of their bigger advantage (especialy if you play a sorcerer with the darkness spell...). Devil too, are able to see in (magical)darkness.

Shadesight is far more potent than simple darkvision.