From the newsgroup: Sunsword is ineffective against shades. It
gets a special bonus of double damage vs undead, but since it's not made
of silver it was only doing 1 point of damage against shades. Make the
bonus-vs-undead attribute override the silver-required criterion. (If
there's ever a whip or other flimsy weapon which gets a bonus against
some type(s) of thick-skinned monster, its attack will override the skin
thickness in similar fashion.)