Shrouded DanceSpoiler: show
I think you have the right idea shifting HiPS deeper in SD levels but I feel 5 is a little to far. Consider having it be at 3rd level.
Axing mobility is a good idea. That feat is useless.I disagree with dodge however. Stacking AC is always useful. SF: Perform is a good idea.
I like the idea of a shadowlord feat although I think it should function in reverse. Rather than your Shadow mimicking you, I feel as though with level progression in Shadow Dancer you should become more shadow like. At 10th level, much like how RDD's change with their levels, I think the Shadow Dancer should appear as a shadow. With this comes a global OCR increase as well as several benefits. Damage reduction versus physical and negative types as well as vulnerability versus positive energy. This is a theme of both the class and the server atmosphere of corruption.
Consider giving the Shadow Dancer once per rest spell like abilities various spells with a shadow theme. Darkness, damning Darkness, Shadow binding, cone of dimness, Shadow Shield, the shades line of spells etc. I'm not sure which should be included or how often they able to be cast but I do think it's worthy of discussion.
5 bonus to natural armor, 10 / +3 damage reduction, Immunity to instant death effects, Immunity to Necromancy spells, Immunity to negative energy damage, as per the Shadow Shield spell
their unarmed strikes receive a 2 strength drain on-hit property, with a DC of 10 + Shadowdancer Level / 2 + Dexterity modifierI'm not opposed to this, I just want to separate it from the above feat. I'd rather it offered at say level 7-8 with an improved chance to hit but limited uses per day. DC is 10 + full SD levels + dex with uses per day equal to SD levels.
The ability may be activated once per rest, to gain +5/+5 hide/move silently, and 50% concealment.I disagree with this one. That's far too much of a steroid on what was proposed already.
- Remove Dodge and Mobility as requirements, add Blind Fight and Skill Focus: Perform.
- Give Shadowdancers sneak attack progression at levels 1, 5, and 9.
- At level 10, the Shadowdancer will gain access to the Shadowlord feat:
Copies the Shadowdancer's appearance, description, name and weapons (if any) to the Summoned Shadow. The Shadow gains its attached person's ability scores, saves, HP, etc, however it deals no damage. In addition, the Shadow will have its DR increased to 15/+3, and added a regeneration of +3 / round. The Shadow retains its pre-existing immunities and vulnerabilities.- Shift Hide in Plain Sight to level 5 Shadowdancer.
Shadow Lord
I wasn't thinking of as a spell like ability at first, but I like the idea. I had thought of a permanent status upon taking 10 SD kind of like how RDD's change form the more levels they take. Lets look at ideas and numbers for both cases.
As an activateable ability:Quote5 bonus to natural armor, 10 / +3 damage reduction, Immunity to instant death effects, Immunity to Necromancy spells, Immunity to negative energy damage, as per the Shadow Shield spell
I really like this portion of the idea. I'd give it a description of "Once per day a Shadow Dancer is able to draw power from the plane of shadows to protect themselves. They gain benefits as if they had cast Shadow Shield". Shadow Shield as a spell like ability makes sense for shadow dancers. It's the easiest to implement too. I recommend it be cast at (10) which gives you 1 hour of use but won't edge out mages who can cast the spell themselves.
Shadow Themed Spells and "Rogue Feats"
I'd really like to hit home the notion of this class as being not just "The Stealth PRC Class". Giving them access to some of the shadow/darkness themed spells seems like a reasonable to do this. I don't think the rogue feats offered to SDs are all that great tbh and I don't see how shadow themed spells would interfere. Our topic is improving the lack luster mechanical nature of SDs. I don't think access to some of these spells will make them over powered, even with their rogue feats.
If Shadowdancer benefitted bards a bit such as spell progression as an optional way to go I think it could be neat.
Bardic Shadowdancers can use their magic to shroud in darkness and invisibility, make use of both HiPS and Shrouded Dance, use their bard song to empower their skills by +2, cast displacement and do all sorts of other shadowdancer-themed things.
Shadow Shield as a lvl 10 Shadowdancer ability once a day seems fair as well given the other levels they could've taken instead.
Also Dodge and Mobility are good feats for anyone. That Mobility +4 AC doesn't count toward the 20 Dodge AC limit and can be used to avoid being hit while casting spells (outside of Defensive Casting) or drinking potions. Niche, but still useful for anyone that needs to do those things mid-combat
Remove Shrouded Dance.
I have changed my mind. Shrouded Dance encourages rogues to drop their stealth advantage to roleplay without having to feel like they've made themselves very vulnerable to do it. The value in allowing more antagonistic rogues to engage in scenes that'd otherwise be too risky outweighs the hit to SD mystique.
They still get to zip in and out of the shadows actively in battle and, frankly, stealthier classes needed a buff.
I'd love to see some more class features for Shadowdancer that play into the 'trickster' archetype the PrC is built around.
In pen-and-paper Shadowdancers have two class features not replicated in nwn: Shadow Illusion, which functions as the silent image spell, and Shadow Jump, which functions as a short-range teleport a-la Dimension Door. In Pathfinder, they also get access to bonus Rogue feats and Shadow Conjuration/Greater Shadow Conjuration
I think some of these features could be implemented here. Shadow Conjuration as a spell-like ability with scaling uses/day with levels should be accomplishable, and would add a little flair and utility to the class.
Shadow Illusion, whilst potentially very neat and useful in pnp, can't really be replicated in nwn outside of DMed events.
Shadow Jump would be an excellent addition to the class, and give Shadowdancers something really unique and commanding, but also befitting their mystical nature.
I'd love to see some more class features for Shadowdancer that play into the 'trickster' archetype the PrC is built around.
In pen-and-paper Shadowdancers have two class features not replicated in nwn: Shadow Illusion, which functions as the silent image spell, and Shadow Jump, which functions as a short-range teleport a-la Dimension Door. In Pathfinder, they also get access to bonus Rogue feats and Shadow Conjuration/Greater Shadow Conjuration
I think some of these features could be implemented here. Shadow Conjuration as a spell-like ability with scaling uses/day with levels should be accomplishable, and would add a little flair and utility to the class.
Shadow Illusion, whilst potentially very neat and useful in pnp, can't really be replicated in nwn outside of DMed events.
Shadow Jump would be an excellent addition to the class, and give Shadowdancers something really unique and commanding, but also befitting their mystical nature.
that would be neat and fitting for a shadow dancer. I wonder how the Shadow Jump would be implemented though.
I agree with PlatointheCave's point that Shrouded Dance helped add to server atmosphere by empowering antagonists to play more prominent roles, thus letting others react more prominently as well.
carry a bottled black instead of having a one-button win like the rest of us boomers used to do
There was a thread before on this where I was an advocate of shadowdancers getting 1/day Shadow Shield as a lvl 10 ability.
I hate stealth in general so I speak from bias and non-logical opinion when I say stealth needs a hard counter, there's not enough Spot short of an elven/halfling zen archery druid who brews insight/clairaudience/clairvoyance/true seeing, using Cat's Vision + Hawkvision & acquiring all Spot items they can use (can't use the eyes of eagle helmet because bronze) and prebuffing everywhere and at any time before seeing someone and so could be accused of meta-gaming when they do drink potions against someone they can't otherwise 'see'.
Even then that's not enough for some stealth builds & gear combinations. Simply because 50point skill cap + modifiers + feats + weather penalties + additional modifiers from distance, directional & objects in between (though at least the last 3 are on the actual positioning skill of the stealthed to acquire those.)
This all detracts from Shadowdancer feedback. Playing as a Shadowdancer on another server, the only feedback I can give is HiPS overshadows many other feats anyone could put acquire elsewhere. It's pretty damn awesome... But it's also why it needs a hard counter like true seeing actually working like true seeing, even if it was only possible through a Shapechange lvl 9 spell into a dragon that cant fit through narrow corridors and all Barovians would run screaming from.
Not much of a shrouded dance power creep after the latest change to the pre-requisite feats for it, imo. We don't get access to the numbers, but I imagine it had a dramatic drop in popularity, as it's no longer "free." So rather than make HiPS stronger, the devs took the route of making Shrouded Dance a choice/investment.
I don't personally think any change to HiPS is warranted. It does the job it is supposed to do, but I understand your point, and think your reasoning for the flavor with the shadow realm is on point.
I agree with you about shadow daze. It's an extremely "meh" ability (spell?). A lot of the mechanical growth for the class is built into Shadow Evade getting stronger the deeper you go into the class, and also the summons getting stronger. I've not yet gotten to the point in the class to notice how good, or underwhelming they are. The information on them itself took a lot of digging by itself. Might suggest including the progression of them on the potm wiki, or in the tool tip?
Apologies for the necro (I figure someone necro'd this last time and no one seemed to mind) but I want to give my two cents:
- Overall despite the class being heavily front-loaded, the server's multiclassing rules for PrCs mean that front-loading isn't much of an issue in terms of overall power.
- However, in terms of flavor and fun, taking shadowdancer levels is pretty boring and doesn't provide much to look forward to (for a few reasons detailed below). This isn't necessarily a problem so long as the player takes it into their own hands to RP out and imagine the character's path.
- HiPs is extremely good, everyone knows this, it's why the class is desired. As noted elsewhere in this thread however, it's pretty lackluster in terms of actually being able to hide from other players. RP is sort of the point of this server, right? I understand that a flat bonus to stealth for Shadowdancers is probably not desired (though I personally feel it is warranted given the RP and build investment, as well as extreme specialization), so what about using HiPs providing a temporary bonus to stealth? HiPs should, in my opinion, be at least for a few seconds guaranteed stealth. That's literally the idea of it. You're not sneaking real good, you're dancing with the actual shadow realm to escape or tease, and having it not even work because you're around high levels is a real RP flop. This would also solve the complaints in this thread of Shrouded Dance power creep. I don't have an issue with Shrouded Dance, but any stealther is going to want it as a generally acceptable alternative to again, literally using shadow magic. HiPs should have something added to it to make it more unique.
- Shadow Daze is a bit of a waste. With an extremely low DC (12?) it seems at best a bullying tool versus low levels or maybe small animals. Replacing Shadow Daze with either the skill bonuses listed above (skill bonuses to perform would be pretty nice too...just saying!) or perhaps a free Urban Stealth would be more interesting. Alternatively, a free Darkness one-per-day isn't too much to ask?
Just figured I'd add my two cents!
Are we really going to necro a thread and then argue points raised before the change?
I'd like to add to this, something that is perhaps not widely known by those who see Shrouded Dance as being 'too powerful'
I'd like to add to this, something that is perhaps not widely known by those who see Shrouded Dance as being 'too powerful'
^
I mean this. Shrouded Dance was too powerful, it got nerfed; comparisons between Shadow Dancer and Shrouded Dance should be done with the new prerequirements in mind.