[Tome] More Interesting Shadowdancer

[Surgo]

Again, since PhpBB sucks at parsing URLs, you'll have to copy and paste. Since its formatting is also a bitch to figure out, and I already have a well-formatted copy elsewhere, I will provide a link to that copy. The real selling point to this version of the prestige class is how what it does is just more interesting than what the other Shadowdancer takes that I've seen actually do.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shadowdanc ... ige_Class)

I kind of snarfed the Mirrorshard Blade from Koumei's magic items and made it into a class feature, something that I'm not completely satisfied with but it seems to work. The class was IMO a bit too strong when it first appeared, and since has been nerfed to my satisfaction that it's balanced and playable.

What sort of Tome this would go in is up in the air. It probably belongs in the Dungeonomicon, but that's a ship that has already sailed.

[TarkisFlux]

So, how come you're doubling the rogue's damage output with this class? Their attack abilities and weapons all deal half-level in SA, and they continue to get SA progression so they'll be dealing another half-level worth of SA dice. Am I missing something?

[Grek]

Rogue 5/Shadowdancer 5 gets +5d6 SA damage. Rogue 10 gets +5d6 SA damage. I fail to see the issue. The Shadowdancer is always either equal or one level behind on SA dice, but gets other abilities that make up for it.

[TarkisFlux]

I wasn't making a comment as to his SA progression, but his Shadow Strike and Mirrorshard Blade abilities that mirrored that progression and stacked with it. I don't care that either one gets +5d6 sneak attack, but I'd like to know why a Rogue 5/Shadowdancer 5 gets a 5d6 ranged touch attack action that they can add their +5d6 SA to for a total of a 10d6 ranged touch attack action that they can then do flask rogue style bombarding with.

[Surgo]

I consider Shadow Strike to be a non-issue because it can't be TWFed, nor does Rapid Shot apply. I think I forgot to make this clear, because at first it could and then I realized that was ridiculous and removed it while forgetting to note that it couldn't. I'm unsure whether or not Haste should allow it to be used an additional time.

Mirrorshard Blade is already a magic item that I figured people would have -- I ripped it straight from Koumei. That one, admittedly, might be a little more problematic. But this is not actually a discussion on the balance of the Shadowdancer, but one about the balance of those magic items. But since it's a class ability, let's talk about it here. What do we even think of those magic items?

[TarkisFlux]

Yay edits. I was actually fixing on the Shadow Strike being written "as an attack action" to mean the standard RoW attack action, i.e. you can use it in place of any other attack like thing, whether that's during a standard single attack or a perfect TWF storm. With the update it's all well and good; the stacking damage on a full-attack setup just makes up for the lack of feat based / off-hand bonus attacks.

I don't think I looked too closely at Koumei's items at the time they on top of the queue... If the ability didn't stack with SA I wouldn't care, as it just brings other melees up to par and/or saves the rogue from tracking down a ring of blinking. If it were reduced to a flat d8 or whatever where every attack against a foe with it was a flat-footed attack (because they can't see exactly where it's coming) from I'd be down. Or it could be dropped to scaling to quarter level or so instead of half level, at which point it's just a 50% addition to SA (less weapon) and I'm much less bothered by it and the dancer having to invest in blinking or whatever.

As for the other abilities, I don't see an issue with them really. Con damage and threat range are fine, ray reflection is fine and eats other actions, blinding is fine and eats other actions, and the hit negation is basically fine. With the rest of the things it does, I'd almost prefer if the mirror image could be destroyed temporarily, requiring you to reform it as a non or swift action on your turn, but I'm not sure it's worth changing.

[Surgo]

I like the idea of making the weapon damage 1d8 and it makes the opponent flat-footed, because that's original and way more interesting than "throw more dots on it" but I don't like how it doesn't get an enhancement bonus -- if the damage gets knocked down, it definitely needs one. 1/3 level is standard, iirc. Given how the whole point of this Shadowdancer is to actually be interesting, I like the idea and have edited it in.

I wish I had the magic item thread, because I think the question is if it's balanced as a high-level magic item that anyone can pick up that you wouldn't get by a class feature. Is it, and in which form?

edit: I didn't realize that Darkness was touch-ranged only. I'm going to expand that to a ray.

edit 2: Someone pointed out to me that it would be cool if they could look into shadows like scrying. I don't think a 1/day scry at 5th level really pushes it over the top, does anyone else?

[TarkisFlux]

Sorry, yeah, give it an enhancement bonus if you drop the damage (like you did already). It should probably have had one of those anyway just to keep them on track with actually hitting stuff since you're attack flatfooted and not ranged-touch with it.

I should track down those items in general though and give them another look. Sorta glad they didn't make it into Aktariel's last version now.

Edit 1 is a fair call, depending on final range. I'd be bothered by long, happy with short or close, and wouldn't bitch much about medium, mostly because of how it works with their shadow travel powers.

Edit 2 is interesting. It's certainly not a big deal at that level, and would let them use some of their travel powers more easily, but it doesn't really fit for me. You're quote suggests a different interpretation of the class, a less whimsical one, so take the rest of this with the understanding that I'm likely coming from a different place.

I'd almost rather give them the ability to end their Shadow Walk spot on (all the accuracy gained with scry, none of the information gathering and raid planning from behind planar walls) and without the weird shift at the end. It still lets them flutter from shadow to shadow accurately, works better as a primary travel power, but keeps them from the scry and gank that has never really been a part of the class for me.

[fbmf]

[Thread Necromancy]
The link in the first post leads to a blank wiki page.
[/thread necromancy]

Game On,
FBMF

[TarkisFlux]

That's a link from before the wiki forked fbmf. Here's a current one: http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Shadowdanc ... e_Class%29

[Chamomile]

Tangentially related question, why did the wiki fork?

[fbmf]

That's a link from before the wiki forked fbmf. Here's a current one: http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Shadowdanc ... e_Class%29

Cool. Thanks.

Game On,
fbmf

[TarkisFlux]

Tangentially related question, why did the wiki fork?

Very short spoilered version

There was a disagreement between the owner of the old wiki and a bunch of the regulars about whether they should (and how to) reduce wiki cruft and indicate authorship of homebrew material. It resulted in a lot of temp bans and a not small fight that was never really resolved. So a bunch of people jumped ship to Wikia, mostly led by Surgo, and I rolled in sometime after.

The Wikia fork occurred as a result of their skin change, which was largely incompatible with our own formatting and distasteful for other reasons. It was a much more amicable fork though, as they let us do whatever we wanted with our stuff when we left.

The current wiki is hosted and maintained by Surgo directly (more or less) and largely administered on the user end by me.

There was a longer version of that written out, but I can't find it to link.