Shadows

[FredSRichardson]

Shadows... the Vale is full of 'em. I was looking at an exact match in 3E, but it doesn't look good. The Shadows do Str damage in 3E. I think my party's not getting enough XP along the way, because they've done every thing up to the Vale and they're at level 2 (my IWD1 party was at level 3). Maybe this isn't important.

 

The existing IWD2 Shadow is too tough though. More HP than 3E default one, it's immune to normal weapons and does 5 points of Str damage unless there's a save.

 

Should normal weapons be able to hit Shadows in 3E? I didn't see anything in the 3E Monster Manual against that, but maybe it's implicit for this type of undead.

 

I thought I could change the Strength damage from 5 down to 2 or 3 and give it a duration instead of making it permanent (that is unless restoration is possible, I think the party might be too weak for that).

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Should normal weapons be able to hit Shadows in 3E? I didn't see anything in the 3E Monster Manual against that, but maybe it's implicit for this type of undead.

 

Not sure about 3E, but in D&D 3.5 Shadows have incorporal traits which makes them invulnerable to non-magical weapons.

[Guest grogerson]

Just an observation, the Vale of Shadows shadows aren't standard v1, v2 or v3. They don't drain strength, but instead "drain" luck. That's been my experience, and I've done plenty of playing lately testing the new tweak pack.

 

Maybe this will help.

[FredSRichardson]

I might be interpreting things wrong, but I looked at the Vale's "Lesser Shadows" and the ITM they use for attack (SHADLESS.ITM) drains THAC0 and morale for a fixed period of time.

 

I've hacked the high-level shades from IWD2 so that they aren't immune to normal weapons. But they still drain strength. The drain is 5 points which seems high, and it's permanent (the odd thing is that the strength drain is implemented using a Disease effect, so it can be cured using Remove Disease instead of Restoration).

 

I might hack this again so that it's still a strength drain but it's temporary and a bit smaller.