Shadow Evocation, Resiliant Sphere, and Antimagic Field

[CalebTGordan]

Last night a character of mine used Shadow Evocation to cast Resilient Sphere around himself so that he could keep a mob of undead from getting to him while he focused on a huge sized creature. The following round the creature, which was a custom made creature, activated an aura of antimagic that functioned just like the spell antimagic field. My little sphere was within the area of the aura.

We didn't really know all the rules by heart and were not looking them up at that time. I just assumed the sphere I was using for protection was gone and started removing buffs and magic items. My character ended up dying because of a loss of 5 Con he had from magic items and spell buffs. Losing that con lost me 30 hp, and I ended up at one point in the negatives over my Con score. My character was later raised by the party, and it was actually done with almost no gold or resources lost.

I discovered not long after that two things.

Resilient Sphere wrote:

...The sphere functions as a wall of force, except that it can be negated by dispel magic.

and

Antimagic Field wrote:

Certain spells, such as wall of force, prismatic sphere, and prismatic wall, remain unaffected by antimagic field.

However, the question arose if my sphere would have been unaffected. Because I used shadow evocation to create the spell effect it is only "quasi-real" and an illusion.

However:

Shadow Spell Descriptor wrote:

A shadow spell creates something that is partially real from extradimensional energy. Such illusions can have real effects.

and...

Shadow Evocation wrote:

You tap energy from the Plane of Shadow to cast a quasi-real, illusory version of a sorcerer or wizard evocation spell of 4th level or lower. Spells that deal damage have normal effects unless an affected creature succeeds on a Will save. Each disbelieving creature takes only one-fifth damage from the attack. If the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, that effect is one-fifth as strong (if applicable) or only 20% likely to occur. If recognized as a shadow evocation, a damaging spell deals only one-fifth (20%) damage. Regardless of the result of the save to disbelieve, an affected creature is also allowed any save (or spell resistance) that the spell being simulated allows, but the save DC is set according to shadow evocation's level (5th) rather than the spell's normal level.

Non-damaging effects have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them.

Bold by me.

Now, I think there is enough here to rule that the sphere should not have been affected, but I want the board's ruling as well.

Should a resilient sphere cast from shadow evocation be affected by an antimagic field?

[Claxon]

It does seems like since Resilient Sphere is treated as wall of Force, and Wall of Force is immune to antimagic that your resilient sphere would remain. However, all your magical items would still turn off, so if you would have dropped to negative hp from losing constitution bonus from items and spells that would've still happened. Worse, unless someone cast dispel magic on you, you would have been trapped unconcious in the spehre until its duration expired.

However, if when the spell was cast, anyone made the will save to disbelieve (or is mindless, probably) they would not be affected by shadow evocation's affect.

Edit: I would argue that the save to disbelieve makes it sounds like a mind-affecting effect. Undead are immune to mind affecting, so I would think they would be immune to (or at the reduced level of affect) any conjured by shadow evocation.

[CalebTGordan]

Shadow evocation does not have the mind-affecting spell descriptor, and therefore by RAW isn't counted as one. It only has the Shadow and [shadow] spell descriptors, and while it is an illusion spell the Shadow descriptor makes it clear that the effects are real. Therefore, unless the undead made their Will save against it they would not have been able to get through it. My character on the other hand made the save and would have been able to cast spells and make attacks out of it if he hadn't been killed.

Also, if the sphere would be unaffected, wouldn't anything inside of it be unaffected as well? The sphere would break line of affect from all sides, including above and below and therefore keep the contents of the sphere unaffected by the antimagic field.

[Claxon]

Actually it seems your right, looking at another thread the emanation would be blocked by the sphere.

I would still argue that since the spell says specifically that objects autosucceed the will save vs the spell, that any mindless undead (but not all undead) would automatically succeed vs the will save.

[CalebTGordan]

The ruling on if Shadow spells work on mindless undead is for another discussion.

I do appreciate your opinion though.

Anyone else? Am I missing something?

[Claxon]

I did think of one interesting caveat besides the mindless undead possible problem, and that is if the creature that was capable of casting the antimagic field succeeded in the will save to disbelieve I would probably say that you would then be affected by the antimagic since the resilient sphere created by shadow evocation doesn't function against those who save successfully against it.

[CalebTGordan]

I agree that that would have been the case if the creature had made a Will save. It would have needed to interact with the sphere directly to get one, but activating an aura doesn't qualify towards that.

[CalebTGordan]

Bump. Hoping for two or three people to speak up.

[alientude]

I would say that your spell would have been affected by antimagic field. While you created an effect like resilient sphere, the spell in place was actually shadow evocation, which has no inherent protection from antimagic field. Further, I would argue that if you used shadow evocation to create a wall of force, it would still be vulnerable to dispel magic.

[Skylancer4]

I'd have to agree on the spell being repressed in the AMF. First, it is a spell effect that isn't actually the spell in question as pointed out aboved. Second, there was a thread not too long ago about the sphere and AMF normally interacting. The sphere isn't listed as immune to AMF, wall of force is. Just because something 'is like' or functions 'similar to' does not mean they are the same mechanically, it is a way of explaining something and save word count. Also there usually is an order of operation, higher level spells trump lower level spells. Then there is the comment that the sphere can be dispelled, which a wall of force isn't subject to, AMF is a much more powerful effect (both level and actual effect) than a simplre Dispel Magic.

I'm of the opinion even had you cast the sphere normally it would go away RAW, it isn't listed as not being subject to the AMF. It is being listed as being similar to a spell that is immune to the AMF but different.

Basically either way you were in trouble unfortunately.

[CalebTGordan]

Wow a very good argument. Thanks, that was very clear and helpful.