Shadows in 3.5

Simplest solution I can think of would be to have Light going all the time, which is a cantrip and lasts 10 minutes per level.

>This spell causes an object to glow like a torch, shedding bright light in a 20-foot radius (and dim light for an additional 20 feet) from the point you touch. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object.

So you pretty much get to argue with the DM for a bit about exact placement of those Light effects (or whether light comes out of every part evenly) so that you never cast a shadow. Of course this might be moot depending on what exactly he's counting as a shadow -- inside of your clothes? Spaces between hair?

There is also a line in the Magic Weapons section that is almost never paid attention to that says 30% of all magic weapons glow (as if by the Light spell), so you could go looking for a bunch of glowing +1 [arbitrary tiny weapons] to strap all over your body

There are also a bunch of spells that break Divination, which may or may not work depending on how the DM thinks this Shadow Throne thing works. None of the good ones are on the Paladin list, unfortunately, but you might be able to convince a wizard to cast it for you, or go on a sidequest for a magic item version, though.

>>51047075
interesting, now, I am allowed (due to essentially some of the rule of cool for this settings paladins) to have masses of candles melted onto my pauldrons that I can light and extinguish with a thought, but the thing is, technically even having a ton of light on both my shoulders still causes me to cast a shadow and would cause shadows to be cast by people or objects around me. So, unless I'm casting absolutely BLINDING light in all directions, technically there's still a route for some shadow to hit me and grab me, and it seems that as of now we cannot do physical damage to the shadows. i wonder, is there a chance of engraving anti mage hand type stuff on my skin? also, seeing as there is a spell we've discovered that is essentially time locking something by writing a series of words on the object in question, would there logically be any room for me to say "I burn the words for 'let off glow' or 'diviniation fuck off' into my skin" or having a wizard do it to help against this (of course I would also suggest that I do a series of con saves to see if I don't die from this process/ take damage)?

the effect you really, really want is Mind Blank, which lasts 24 hours, makes all divinations against you autofail and any scrying/remote viewing shit that hits you tangentially cannot see you (meaning you are invisible to a Scry spell targeting the guy next to you). It's also an 8th level spell, which it doesn't sound like your party is anywhere near access to. But that does mean a "Divination Go Fuck Yourself" effect is absolutely a thing in 3.5. Which sounds a lot like sidequest material to go find a magic item or a series of words that replicates it or a lesser version.

Just about all the lesser anti-scrying spells/effects I can find are either location based (like Private Sanctum), offer the diviner a roll to pierce it (like nondetection) or depends very heavily on how, precisely the Shadow Throne works (would repeated area Dispels throw it off temporarily? Does he have to actively pick one shadow to look through, or does he see all of them at once? What exactly counts as a shadow?)

>>51048002
right, see no one mentioned any of this to me until after big shadow man pops up, chokes me out for suggesting that we use this ore for weapons and alchemy instead of drugs and tell them the cave collapsed (we had collapsed the cave and dug ourselves a seperate entry tunnel). and apparently this is powerful enough that when our monk (or possibly some homebrew class, it's a secret or some shit) used ki orbs to try to blast this dude, the guy was able to hold them and move them, removing control of them from the "monk" and then detonating them right next to the guy, severing his arm. the shadow dude then reattached the monks arm.

Now, keep in mind that this happened specifically at sunset when our shadows were long, so potentially the size of the natural shadow represents the power level, so who knows.

Also, what are some neat tricks for paladins in 3.5?

As I mentioned I'm not familiar with this system and I'm honestly not super familiar with paladins either. Eventually I want to have a grapple gun type thing built to fit into my gauntlets due to an issue I've been having with getting into range whilst in heavy plate. and seeing as the DM is a fan of clockwork/ steampunk type stuff it should be an easy sell as a weapon. that'd count as an exotic, I'd assume right?

>>51048152
So really this sounds like the Shadow Throne is meant to be the big, campaign defining plot device artifact, which means that blocking the thing entirely is either impossible or you need to go questing for a solution to the sword of damocles style threat it represents. Most likely the solution is a magic item that helps you out, or you storm the dude's house, kill him and claim/smash the thing. This is assuming it's not just a railroading tool meant to beat you into submission; I'm going to give the GM the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

The grappling hook idea is a good one, and is exactly the sort of thing that should exist for Fighter types in 3.x and doesn't. The problem of sword-based character getting into range goes all the way up to 20 if they don't find some way to close distance. It would almost certainly be a magic item (and still require exotic proficiency in the whip or spiked chain or something like that). If i were DMing, the most obvious way to homebrew that would be that if you hit with the hook, you get a free Bull Rush attempt toward you, with either a fixed Strength score or it just uses yours. If your DM is cool with homebrew (which it sounds like he might be, going by the monk), and it fits the setting, then yeah that's probably kosher.

Paladin I never played all that much, but the books to look into are Complete Divine and Complete Champion. The class's main weakness is that it relies on too many stats to be good at using all of its class features (Wis for spellcasting, Cha for class features, Str to hit things, Con to not die). Anything that helps you reduce that is good.

>>51049035
hmmmm, thanks for the advice. Now, a final question:
what is a reliable way to form riots/ religious fervors/ gather shitty mooks around me that'll mostly do as I say?
Cha is one of the primary stats for paladin, and I figure that angry warrior priest is an intended facet of the paladin fluff. so, can you think of any spells or abilities that would do something like that or is it just the old fashioned "hop on a soap box and start gibbering"?

Also, I'm thinking that multi classing as a fighter might be a good idea for doubling down on the smashy smashy side that my paladin has demonstrated so far (a few lucky rolls allowed me to rip off a dragons wing and snap it's spine with said wing). How would I go about doing this and is that a good idea?

>>51049312
The Leadership feat straight up does that. It's also a coinflip at best whether any particular DM allows it, because it's incredibly powerful for a single feat. There might be ways to add the Charm line of spells, or Glibness or the like to your spell list, but Paladin's spell progression makes that probably not worth it.

If you're looking into multiclassing, Fighter only makes sense if there are 2 [Fighter] feats that your character benefits heavily from, and needs them immediately (fighter 3 does literally fucking nothing.) What might be up your alley is the Spirit Lion Totem alternate Barbarian, which replaces the 1st level Fast Movement with Pounce (Full attack at the end of a charge). Literally every mid-high optimized melee character was based around taking that as a 1 level dip, as a way to close distance. Though it may be less important, if your DM lets you have that homebrew grappling hook gauntlet. I personally like the fluff of your Paladin getting so angry that he gets a level of barbarian to represent it, and that seems like the direction he's already headed.

>>51049705
the Barb variant is in Complete Champion, forgot to say.

>>51046466
Step 1: Find clergy of Shar
Step 2: Mention this
Step 3: Laugh ass off as you and Sharans smite that fucking pleb for using shadoweaveTm Tech.

>>51049722
>>51049705
Do note that by RAW paladin and barb don't mesh because of alignment restrictions (although I as well like righteous rages and holy fervors).

Paladin also has an alternate feature that boosts charges, in exchange for dropping the mount.