Is Shadow Magic (ToM): Shadow Weave Magic or something like Shadow Weave Magic, but not exactly, since it uses the Plane of Shadow for power and not specifically the Shadow Weave?
And are there any examples of people who use it in FR (ToM Shadow Magic) or places/races that might? A character in my game is making a new character and wants to be a Shadow Magic user. Neither one of us are shore about the specifics. If it doesn't really exist in the FR or in the area where we are, he probably won't take that class.
For sme reason, I get the feeling that Toril is missing something - some sort of 'filtering layer', that other worlds naturally have. Maybe its some sort of magical 'Ozone Layer' that got destroyed by the Creator races (or the Phaerimm... there's a thought :thinks
. Without this 'potective field', Toril is completely exposed to the Raw energies of other planes, and that is why these artificial interfaces (the Weave and the Shadow weave) must be accessed when in Realmspace, but not anywhere else.
Anyhow, the Shadow Weave itself is powered by the Plane of Shadow (4e's Shadowfel), so IG, it really makes no difference - its just a point of Lore, not rules.
No, per se...
What it had was the fact that on certain outer planes, certain schools of magic worked better - or worse - then on others. Shadow magic (spells with the shadow descriptor in it) would naturally work MUCH better on the plane of Shadows. IIRC, Illusions cast on Faerie would also be far more powerful.
Thats the closest 2e ever got to 'Planer Magic', and it was a good start - I just wished they had done more with it.
Now, I'm FAR from an expert on Planescape, so if anyone else with more knowledge has something further to add, or wants to correct me, please do so.
-It's an interesting avenue to bark up, though. It sounds like it has promise...Maybe I'll develop something like that in my own setting.
The closest it ever came was divine and Arcane magic, or the way magic worked on Athas - Defiler vs Preserver.
In that setting, Defilers worked as a sort-of Arcane substitute, and Preservers worked as a sort-of Divine Magic substitute, and both drew upon the planet's 'power' itself, because magic and Gods did not exist on Athas.
That setting touched lightly upon 'power sources', as did Ravenloft (I believe all magic came form "the Dark Powers" in that setting, IIRC). I suppose, in retrospect, Ravenloft would have used the same power-source as the shadoweave (the Plane of Shadows providing the real power).
I'm trying to think of any others - there were some alternate power-sources in Iron Kingdoms, but that was 3rd party, and all those sources were terrestial, not Planer, based.
As to your 'idea', It may have had stemmed from conversations with me, since I have always felt each school of magic should have a seperate, corresponding source, and that concept occassionally makes it into some of my posts. Its not really my idea either, since I was just building on what little I know from the Planescape setting (some planes blocked certain types of magic altogther). I figure the whole thing could be tied into the rules of Specialist Wizards - opposing schools really came from opposing planes.
-I'd disagree. If the person is drawing from the Shadow Weave (knowingly or unknowingly), he/she should automatically get the feat, and the penalties/bonuses that come with drawing your magical power from it.
The problem with that is that the penalties and bonuses don't make sense based on the differences between Vancian magic and shadowcasting. Shadow Weave Magic gives you bonuses with Enchantment, Illusion, and Necromancy and penalties to Evocation and Transmutation because shadow is stereotypically better at the former and worse with the latter, so a caster who tries to cast regular spells with shadow would do better or worse respectively.
However, a shadowcaster's effects are all shadow based anyway, and its evocations/transmutations make sense in that context; you're not trying to take shadows and turn them into a fireball, you're taking a shadow and attacking with it. Likewise, shadow enhances the "sneaky" schools if they're the usual Vancian spells, but enhancing shadow spells with shadow wouldn't provide a boost.
The other Shadow Weave feats provide a bonus to resist dispelling and being detected...but shadowcasters start turning most of their powers into (Sp) and (Su) abilities, the latter of which can't be dispelled and the former of which won't detect as regular spells anyway to arcane sight and such. So giving Shadow Weave so a shadowcaster can take those feats would encourage him to take feats that are less useful as time goes on.
Shadowcasting is a completely different system, for which the SWM feat is irrelevant. Think of the Shadowcaster as already having Shadow Weave access enabled, just as part-and-parcel of their class features.
Anyway, you shouldn't need to force any PC to take anything, nor have to give them anything for free. Using the Shadow Weave is all just flavour; mechanics may or may not support it as the PC likes. A Wizard with a focus of shadow-themed spells would be just as much a Shadow Weave user as anyone else.
that and how they wrote up midnight/mystra....
so Im not all ot, you mean to tell me that all shadowcasters in the FR use the SW or did I misunderstand something here?