Hey, everyone. I've recently rolled a Gnome Sorcerer with the Draconic (Silver) Bloodline, and I'm planning to make use of the Shadow Evocation and Conjuration spells. I'm not entirely sure how it all works, though. The actual questions are in bold.
Due to my bloodline arcana, whenever I cast a spell with the cold descriptor, that spell deals +1 point of damage per die rolled.
Shadow Evocation states that "Spells that deal damage have normal effects unless an affected creature succeeds on a Will save."
Do the normal effects of the spell include my bloodline arcana?
Similarly, Shadow Evocation says that "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."
The evocation spell normally allows a save affected by Spell Focus (Evocation), and the only change listed is treating the spell level as if it were 5th.
So, for the second save, would Spell Focus (Evocation) increase the DC?
If not, does Spell Focus (Illusion) still apply?
(I don't normally like to bump things, but I'm not sure if just nobody has any ideas, or if this got lost in non-peak hours.)
I scrapped a build I was making exactly because I couldn't get how this all interacted. I'm interested to see what comes up here...
I am certain only Spell Focus (Illusion) would apply. The spell remains an Illusion, even if it emulates another school. Similarly - feats such as Spell Perfection (Cone of Cold) or similar would not help when casting Shadow Evocation emulating Cone of Cold. Spell Perfection (Shadow Evocation) would apply to all uses of said spell, no matter if it emulates Wall of Fire or Scorching Ray.
However, the first question is a bit trickier. Typically, spells that deal elemental damage gains the descriptor of the damage they use (see Detonate or Dragon's Breath) - but that is not an actual rule as far as I am aware. Raw, I don't think your bloodline arcana would help with Shadow Evocation sadly : ( But it is probably not overpowered to let it work anyway, ask your GM nicely : )
That all makes sense... But it still feels wrong.
Assuming Shadow Conjuration would have the same mechanics as Shadow Evocation in this respect (mainly because it's the first example I could come up with)...
A high level druid is immune to poison, and thus would not normally be affected by Stinking Cloud -- it has the poison descriptor.
However, if you are correct that the Shadow spells do not gain the descriptors of the duplicated spell, a Shadow Conjured Stinking Cloud would affect that druid, despite the poison immunity.
I'm not seeing any sort of general rule about applying descriptors, though, so by RAW, it looks like you're right...
Thought about this some more. I can't come up with any obviously wrong examples like the one above that uses Shadow Evocation rather than Shadow Conjuration (though I'm only looking at core spells, since that's what I get to play with), so that line of thinking depends entirely on the thought that Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation should work the same with regards to descriptors.