The Gaming Den

First draft of a Shadow Warrior base class. I haven't attempted to write the last 5 levels yet.

Shadow Warrior
“Flavor text goes here.”

Alignment: Any

Races: Any

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills:
Skills/Level: 6 +Int modifier, x4 at first level
BAB: Good
Saves: Fort: Good, Reflex: Good, Will: Good

Level, Benefits
1: Claws of Darkness, Shadow Shroud, See the Shadows
2: Shadowstep, Hide in Plain Sight
3: Dark Weave
4: Draining Strike
5: Darkstalker
6: Shadowy Appendages
7: Shadow Razors
8: Reach of Darkness
9: Shadow Movement
10: Strike the Soul
11: Shadow Mire
12: Shadow Magic
13: Shadow Shift
14: Numbing Strike
15: Shadow Leap
16: Shadow Spawn
17: Death Strike
18: Servant of the Night
19: Shadow Discorporation
20: Shadow Well

Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Shadow Warriors are proficient in all simple weapons. They are not proficient in any armor.

Claws of Darkness (Su): As a free action, a Shadow Warrior can weave shadows to form a pair of horrific claws for themselves. These claws are treated as any other natural weapons, deal damage as appropriate for a creature of the Shadow Warrior’s size (1d6 for Medium creatures), and have a critical threat range of 19-20. These claws strike as magical weapons, allowing them to bypass some damage reduction and to hurt incorporeal creatures (though they still suffer the 50% miss chance). The claws can be dismissed as a free action, and last until dismissed.

Shadow Shroud (Su): A Shadow Warrior is surrounded by a cloak of darkness that offers them protection. The Shadow Shroud gives them an Armor bonus to AC equal to 4 plus ½ their level. As an armor bonus, this does not stack with any armor that they might wear. The Shadow Shroud absorbs the light around it, causing the area within 60 feet of the Shadow Warrior to be dim. This does not interfere with vision, but it does allow creatures with light blindness to function normally. Shadow Shroud also suppresses any Light effects within 60 feet of the Shadow Warrior, but stronger spells such as Daylight are not affected. This ability can be turned off and on as a free action.

See the Shadows (Su): A Shadow Warrior can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even that created by the Darkness or Deeper Darkness spells.

Shadowstep (Su): A 2nd level Shadow Warrior can move partially within the Plane of Shadow, which grants him a +10 bonus to his movement speed. He gains a further +10 bonus to movement at levels 6, 11, and 16.

Hide in Plain Sight (Ex): A 2nd level Shadow Warrior can hide even while being observed.

Dark Weave (Sp): A 3rd level Shadow Warrior can cast Darkness at will as a spell-like ability, with a caster level equal to his character level. Unlike the normal Darkness, this ability does not actually shed light; it merely dims it to the level of shadowy illumination. If the area is already that dark, nothing happens.

Draining Strike (Su): The natural weapons of a 4th level Shadow Warrior deal an extra 1d6 points of negative energy damage. At level 9, this extra damage increases to 2d6. Furthermore, any creature hit at least twice in a round by the Shadow Warrior must make a Fortitude save (DC 10+1/2 level+Charisma modifier) or be Fatigued. As normal, further instances of Fatigue cause Exhaustion.

Darkstalker (Ex): A 5th level Shadow Warrior is undetectable by sensory abilities such as Scent or Blindsight. A successful Listen or Spot check still detects him as normal. If you have Lords of Madness, then you can just give him Darkstalker as a bonus feat instead, since it does the same thing.

Shadowy Appendages (Su): A 6th level Shadow Warrior can grow a pair of shadowy tentacles as a free action. In all ways, these tentacles are like the Shadow Warrior’s Claws of Darkness, except that they only threaten a critical hit on a roll of 20, and deal 1d8 points of damage as a Medium creature (plus ½ the Shadow Warrior’s Strength bonus). The Shadow Warrior can grow a further pair of tentacles at level 11 and 16, for a total of 6 tentacles, with the same statistics as the first. These tentacles (the ones gained at levels 6, 11, and 16) are secondary natural attacks, and as such attacks with them are made at a -5 penalty.

Shadow Razors (Ex): At 7th level, the threat range of a Shadow Warrior’s claws is doubled to 17-20, and the critical damage of his tentacles becomes x3. If the Shadow Warrior takes the Improved Critical feat for his claws, the threat range becomes 15-20.

Reach of Darkness (Su): At 8th level, a Shadow Warrior adds 5 feet to the reach of all his natural weapons (including Claws of Darkness and Shadowy Appendages). He can still attack adjacent targets with them.

Shadow Movement (Su): At 9th level, a Shadow Warrior can move through the Plane of Shadow with ease. He is no longer bounded by the gravity of whatever plane he is on, which allows him to do things like walk on air or up walls.

Strike the Soul (Su): At 10th level, a Shadow Warrior’s natural weapons automatically bypass hardness and damage reduction, and can strike incorporeal creatures as if they had the Ghost Touch property. Furthermore, the Shadow Warrior’s natural weapons inflict one negative level per hit, and creatures killed by these negative levels become Shadows instead of Wights. These Shadows are under the control of the Shadow Warrior, as are any spawn they create.

Shadow Mire (Su): At 11th level, a Shadow Warrior turns the air for 60 feet around him into seeping, watery shadow. Moving within this area costs ten feet of movement for every 5 feet that a creature wishes to move. The Shadow Warrior is immune to this effect, as are any creatures he wishes to exclude from it. This ability can be activated and disactivated as a free action.

Shadow Magic (Ex): At 12th level, a Shadow Warrior has tied himself so fully to the Plane of Shadow that he can access its power directly, rather than working through normal magic. None of his Supernatural or Spell-Like abilities can be dispelled or are suppressed in an anti-magic field, and he cannot be detected by magical means, such as Scrying.

Furthermore, he can cast Darklight as a spell like ability at will with a caster level equal to his character level. If you don't have access to the Spell Compendium, treat this as Darkness, but giving 50% concealment.

Shadow Shift (Sp): A 13th level Shadow Warrior can cast Greater Blink and Shadow Walk at will as spell-like abilities, with a caster level equal to his hit dice. However, Greater Blink shifts him to the Plane of Shadow instead of the Ethereal Plane, if that ever matters.

Numbing Strike (Su): At 14th level, a Shadow Warrior’s natural weapons deal an extra 1d6 points of cold damage, and any creature hit by him at least twice in one round must make a Will save or be Slowed, as the spell. The save DC is 10+1/2 level+ Charisma modifier and the caster level equals the Shadow Warrior’s hit dice. A creature already Slowed by this ability must make a further Fortitude save or be paralyzed for one round.

Shadow Leap (Su): At 15th level, a Shadow Warrior gains the ability to teleport through the shadows. As a swift action, he can instantly move up to his movement speed in any direction.

Shadow Spawn (Su): At 16th level, any creature slain by the negative levels inflicted by a Shadow Warrior becomes a Greater Shadow instead of a Shadow. These Greater Shadows are under the control of the Shadow Warrior, as are any spawn they create.

Death Strike (Su): Any creature hit at least twice in a round by a 17th level Shadow Warrior's natural weapons must make a Fortitude save or die instantly. Even creatures normally immune to instant death, such as undead, can be killed in this way. The save DC is 10 + 1/2 the Shadow Warrior's Hit Dice + his Charisma modifier.

Servant of the Night: An 18th level Shadow Warrior is accompanied by a loyal Nightwalker, which does as he commands. If killed, the Nightwalker reforms the next night. The Nightwalker advances as the Shadow Warrior does.

Shadow Discorporation (Su): As an immediate action, a 19th level Shadow Warrior can cause his body to collapse into a mass of shifting shadows. While in this form, he is unable to make any attacks, but cannot be harmed in any way. This ability lasts until the end of his turn.

Shadow Well (Su): A 20th level Shadow Warrior's command over the shadows has grown to such a level as to allow him to assault his enemies with horrific tentacles of blackness. Any creature affected by his Shadow Mire ability is grappled by the tentacles, which are treated as a Huge creature with a grapple check of 32 plus the Shadow Warrior's Charisma bonus. The tentacles deal 1d4 negative levels each round to every creature they successfully grapple.

Looks good after skimming it.

For all of it's hiding ability it doesn't use anything like sneak attack to get too abusive, but it's got nice tricks for sneaking around.

The negative levels per hit could be pretty powerful though, but it will probably be his main way to 'contributing' at higher levels to combat, right?

Things like the Shadow Shroud, negative energy damage, and whatever else should be able to be turned off. I guess it's kind of assumed that he can, but it's still important to state.

Also.

It should be any alignment. Just because he plays with darkness doesn't mean he can't worship Pelor or share the principles of a Paladin.

And the old question of 'is total darkness really shadow' is rekindled...
Just to be on the safe side, you might want to call this a 'warrior of darkness' or something.

D&D planar cosmology is pretty fucked, in the sense that there's a 'negative energy plane' which (as far as I know) doesn't border Shadow. So if you're dealing "negative energy," you're theoretically channeling the negative energy plane rather than shadow.
Similarly, Water and Ice don't border Shadow either, and that's supposedly where you channel magical "cold energy" from.
Cold is defined, if you'll recall, as a sort of 'negative energy' already...

I kinda like the idea of a warrior who channels the 'negative/air quasi-elemental planes.' Mainly Dust and Void, but also possibly smoke. Insubstantial stuff.

In D&D the plane of shadow seems to have a totally different flavor. It's like a lot of weird old cartoons. It's like a blacked-out city with spotlights going during an air-raid. It isn't 'draining' (in a negative sense) or even really 'cold.'
In many places it's dark, in some places it's blinding bright, and in most it's just very shadowy. It's just a confusing and highly morphic dream-world composed of insubstantial edges and contrasts.
It's also associated with illusion because when you channel 'shadow,' you're using (shadow) illusion rather than conjuration or evocation.

Oh ya, the real stuff:
1) "Draining strike" or "Negative strike"? That confused me at first.
2) "Claws of darkness" are cool, but I'd rather see something more morphic. This is supposed to be like Zato-1/Eddie from Guilty Gear, right? A sword of shadows, lance of shadows, shield of shadows, giant fucking drill of shadows etc., are all just as valid. I'd drop the claws for something more soulknife-y.
2) "Shadow Shift" -- I'd split this into two abilities, "Shadow Walk" at level 11 and "Flickering Shadows" at level 13. "Shadow Shift" sounds like a cool name for an ability which temporarily shifts the area around the warrior to the plane of shadow, making it difficult terrain and whatever else.

Judging__Eagle at [unixtime wrote:1176226831[/unixtime]]Looks good after skimming it.

For all of it's hiding ability it doesn't use anything like sneak attack to get too abusive, but it's got nice tricks for sneaking around.

The negative levels per hit could be pretty powerful though, but it will probably be his main way to 'contributing' at higher levels to combat, right?

Yeah, the negative levels are the main thing. He gets natural attacks out the wazoo, but in the end the Shadow Warrior only matches the Fighter who took Two-Weapon Fighting. He contributes primarily by running up and draining your life away via negative levels, negative energy, and cold. Eventually he gets 3d6 extra energy damage and 5 points of life drain (negative levels), but that won't ever make his damage competitive. Basically, he's a debuffer who works through molesting people with tentacles.

Brobdingnagian
Sure, I'll add a line about turning abilities off and on. I also just threw the non-good thing in there, and have no problems with removing it, so I'll do so.

Catharz
Fixed the Negative/Draining Strike thing. As for the cosmology crap, I just kind of ignore that. I don't even know how they wanted the cosmology to work so much as how they threw a bunch of crap into a blender and printed whatever came out, so I'm just going with the image of some guy who shapes darkness to kill people with. Technically, it does fit more with the negative energy plane and such than the plane of shadow, but when people think of shadows and fantasy they don't think of illusions, but of crawling, draining, amorphous darkness. I pretty much associated the class much more with the Shadow monster than the plane of shadow, despite all the references to it. The flavor's not really a big deal, since its really easy to change.

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1176231537[/unixtime]]D&D planar cosmology is pretty fvcked, in the sense that there's a 'negative energy plane' which (as far as I know) doesn't border Shadow. So if you're dealing "negative energy," you're theoretically channeling the negative energy plane rather than shadow.
Similarly, Water and Ice don't border Shadow either, and that's supposedly where you channel magical "cold energy" from.
Cold is defined, if you'll recall, as a sort of 'negative energy' already...

In D&D the plane of shadow seems to have a totally different flavor. It's like a lot of weird old cartoons. It's like a blacked-out city with spotlights going during an air-raid. It isn't 'draining' (in a negative sense) or even really 'cold.'
In many places it's dark, in some places it's blinding bright, and in most it's just very shadowy. It's just a confusing and highly morphic dream-world composed of insubstantial edges and contrasts.
It's also associated with illusion because when you channel 'shadow,' you're using (shadow) illusion rather than conjuration or evocation.

There are at least four mutually exclusive uses of the concept "shadow" in D&D that I'm familiar with.

1) Plane of Shadow and shadow illusions. As Catharz notes, the Plane of Shadow is weird. I don't really know what shadow illusions have to do with the Plane, but if I remember my D&D cosmology correctly, they involve stuff from the Plane of Shadow or something.

2) Shadows and nightstalkers. Basically, really dark undead that drain life out of things.

3) Spheres of annihilation and similar effects. The idea of "void" as "black nothingness."

4) The Shadow Weave, in Faerun. I think it gets its name because its creator, the goddess Shar, also has darkness as part of her portfolio.

So, like most things in D&D, there are a bunch of contradictory versions of the concept floating around.

Actually, Spheres of Annihilation are made of Voidrock (or Voidstone, or whatever), which come from the Negative Energy Plane. I think. Give me a moment to check my DMG...

Yep, Negative Energy Plane. Coincidentally, the listed encounter shows Nightwalkers guarding the Voidstone, and Nightwalkers, like all Nightshades, are from the Plane of Shadow.

Whoever said D&D was internally consistent?

Cielingcat, since this isn't the WotC board, do you still care about this at all?

As I said elsewhere, I'm trying to fit the easier-to-use Tome (and Tome-style) classes in my games, and still figuring how much to beat them with the nerfhammer (the funny part is my personal response so far with regards to the shadow warrior is "leave as-is", but my group's telling me it's too much). This one's easy to use, and as such, I plan to use it. The question, for now, would be why shouldn't I just make the tentacles be exactly equal to claws (that is, just be claws, with the only exception of being still secondary attacks) - it'd lessen bookkeeping, mainly. Ah, also: I see the slow and paralysis effects as not being usable in a single full attack (because you have to finish it to count the number of hits for most effects that use it) - is that right and/or intended? Lastly, that doesn't matter much for me as I'll make one of my own, but you didn't put the skill list ...

Also, since there's still place for more abilities here, I had 2 ideas: the first would just be that every time only one attack can be made, it can use both claws (as, IIRC, Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't work for natural weaponry). The other:

Take Shadow (Su): A Xth level shadow warrior that hits an opponent more than once in a round forces it to make a Will save. Should it fail, the shadow warrior makes a shadow copy of it, that exists as long as the enemy lives/exists and the shadow warrior has line of effect to the copy. The copy acts as the shadow warrior wants during his round, and the shadow warrior shares all its senses. The shadow warrior can't have more than one shadow copy created in this manner at once.

Yeah, the tentacles could just be claws, but I like the imagery of the tentacles. They could be anything, really; the base damage and crit doesn't even matter, but I think I posted this on WotC and so anything better than a longsword would be "broken."

And yes, the wording of Numbing Strike makes it only activate once per round.

Strike the Soul is a lot for one level. It could potentially be broken down.

Since you have a few levels left to fill out, maybe some improved senses or divinations? perhaps also a ranged atack?

Strike the Soul is basically a flavor ability save for the negative levels. The Shadow Warrior's actual damage is mediocre, so bypassing DR and hardness just lets him do things like cut through a door as if it were paper.


The idea of the Shadow Warrior is a mobile fighter that debuffs enemies. Strike the Soul, Shadow Mire, and Numbing Strike work for debuffing, but the only mobility is Shadow Walk and Shadowstep. So how about some sort of combat teleportation? Maybe a swift action teleport...

16 gives him another pair of tentacles, so it can be a minor ability. Like, say, spawning Greater Shadows from anyone he kills?

Holy Woopers it's like a stromboli, crammed fulla gooda shit...

Cielingcat: I've had the same idea of swift-action teleport yesterday - that'd be good. Also, I find sort of weird that there wasn't anything that created complete darkness, and only then noticed that that wasn't deeper darkness' function. But, I did find a Spell Compendium spell called darklight that does this - it could be a good addition; OTOH, I thought about whether swift darklight (you know, swift, lasts 1 round) couldn't be better (in the sense that you could relocate the area each round with little action cost for a single-classed shadow warrior).

Sigma: stop cursing people's penises with those woopers!

Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Shadow Magic is kind of weak, and it would fit thematically to give him more SLAs then. So at 12 he can cast Darklight at will.

17, however, forces you to compete with level 9 spells. Perhaps "Killing Strike" which has anyone who gets hit twice in a round by you make a save or die. Then at 18 you get a Nightwalker companion.

But what about 19 and 20?

Immediate action to discorporate into shadows, being utterly untouchable, and reform automatically at the beginning of your next turn.

Via the wording of immediate actions, you'd then be able to:

1. Discorporate on your opponent's turn
   
2. Be totally invulnerable and laugh in his face
   
3. Reform on your turn with your swift action eaten up
   
4. Have no swift action on your opponent's turn
   
5. Gain your swift action (and ability to discorporate) back on your second turn after using it

Yeah, that sounds fine. Now to think of some 20th level capstone...

Cielingcat wrote:Have no swift action on your opponent's turn

"On your turn", you mean? After all, you'd reform at your turn's start without a swift action, and be able to use immediates as soon as yours ends - or not? Also, what about the stealing the shadow of someone killed by shadow strike (maybe giving it some greater shadow abilities)?

No, I believe that if you use an immediate action you don't get it back until the start of your next turn. If not, then I have to play with the wording, since if it was usable every turn you'd auto-win everything.

Perhaps 20 can be a sort of greater version of Shadow Mire, but what could it do?

What about making it so anyone in the area can only take a single move or standard action? Would that be too good for something without a save?

Mass Slow effect with no save? It sounds reasonable for level 20, but it clashes with Numbing Strike.

Ooh, what about a permanent Black Tentacles, only with a much higher grapple modifier, affects everyone in range of Shadow Mire, and dishes out negative levels?

That sounds like it'd be fun. I have no clue what high level balance looks like though. I haven't played a game past like level 8, and even then I don't have much experience.

Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1189452727[/unixtime]]Ooh, what about a permanent Black Tentacles, only with a much higher grapple modifier, affects everyone in range of Shadow Mire, and dishes out negative levels?

That sounds good in principal, not sure what the specific numbers should be though.

20th level balance doesn't actually exist. I could pretty much give him whatever; the main issue at this point is that things don't look overpowered, lest idiot DMs ban it offhand.

Well with all of the tricks and such that are available at 20th I assume there's not much as far as balance goes but I also assume that there's some sort of limit so the ability doesn't exactly spell out win. Aren't most of the crazy things usually complex combos?

Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1189450518[/unixtime]]No, I believe that if you use an immediate action you don't get it back until the start of your next turn. If not, then I have to play with the wording, since if it was usable every turn you'd auto-win everything.

Perhaps 20 can be a sort of greater version of Shadow Mire, but what could it do?

[url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#immediateActions wrote:Immediate Actions[/url]]You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn).

Since taking an immediate is borrowing a swift from next round, you can be incorporeal for all the time outside your turns.