New shadow AI as of today's changes

[k_moustakas]

While you're working on shadows, shadowfiends supposedly have wings in 2nd edition (not so sure about 3rd). Give them their wings!!

Mind you, I love how they've been given their supernatural abilities as well (darkness, but I can only assume you gave them the rest too?)

[Bluebomber4evr]

While you're working on shadows, shadowfiends supposedly have wings in 2nd edition (not so sure about 3rd). Give them their wings!!

Mind you, I love how they've been given their supernatural abilities as well (darkness, but I can only assume you gave them the rest too?)

You're thinking of shadow demons, which are a separate monster on our server

[k_moustakas]

I thought these were the same shadow fiends from the denizens of dread hehe. My bad!

[Knas]

My 8th lvl cleric had neg prot,bulls str and ptr from evil up and got wasted real quick.
 
Used my high lvl toon and ran a elder earth elemental with a 33 str thru there and it was dead in 6-7 hits...
Come on this is a low lvl area...

Earth elemental has massive hp but no AC. An elder earth elemental has 15/+3 damage reduction as well as the standard elemental immunities to critical hits, disease, mind-affecting spells, paralysis, poison, and sneak attacks. But nothing against negative energy so I'm not surprised.

[Norture]

It was good while it lasted. I got over a bag of shadow wood  .

[Kenkaku]

Okay, so I finally had the chance to go see what the fuss with the new Shadow thing was today! My assessment of them is: Shadows are way too bloody dangerous now in comparison to Shadow Fiends. Let me elaborate.

I took my level 12 moron out to see these things as he has a hefty 29 AC when unbuffed and a Fortitude save vs. Negative Energy high enough that he physically could not fail the saves so he could plow through the place with laughable ease. My first run through the place was on a moderate spawn (entirely Shadow Fiends) and I cut through them without taking more than 20 damage from the entirety of the forest. I reaped my rewards, rested, full healed off it and left; No problem.

My second run was significantly more painful. The very first encounter of Shadows (two of them) actually crippled the character and I couldn't move on. In the time it took me to cut these two down (which was extremely quick since I hit with every attack and had Power Attack mode on), I had taken 4 Strength damage, got Heavily Encumbered (cursed heavy pack) and Completely Exhausted. I checked the battle log and it seemed like the Shadows were over-coming virtually every point of AC I had as they hit me on total rolls of 13 and 14, less than half of my normal AC and my character is a Dex-Rogue. I believe his rough Touch AC (by 3.5 rules) is around a 19-20.

Obviously, this was without a NE Protection potion/spell, but still, that's a little... Excessive. Especially for a CR3. Now, I don't have much of a problem with them as is, but if they're going to be this difficult, I'd suggest putting their CR up to a 4 or a 5 to reflect the actual party needed to handle it.

Also, the fact that a CR3 Shadow is more difficult than a CR7 one is just wrong in my book.


My two cents.

[Saruven]

I checked the battle log and it seemed like the Shadows were over-coming virtually every point of AC I had as they hit me on total rolls of 13 and 14, less than half of my normal AC and my character is a Dex-Rogue. I believe his rough Touch AC (by 3.5 rules) is around a 19-20.

Touch AC is actually pretty hard to get up, especially for a non-caster with low magic items.  Per Neverwinter's rules (which are loosely based on 3.0 rules, but don't use 3.0 rules as documentation on Neverwinter) you lose your base armor and shield AC, your armor and shield bonus AC, and your natural armor bonus to AC.  A natural 20 roll will always land regardless so you're playing with fire being in melee range without negative energy protection even if your touch AC is 100.

[Springer]

Shadows are way too bloody dangerous now in comparison to Shadow Fiends.

When I was in the forest after the change shadow fiends were doing the same touch attack drain strength trick and they were lot more deadly because they had +3 on the roll and had lot more hps.
Perhaps fortitude save to avoid draining should be restored?

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Yeah, I'm starting to think a fortitude save should be allowed - without it, it'll just make the gap between those with NE protection and those without too significant. DC 14 might do. Further than that, perhaps reduce the STR damage to 1d4 and raise the CR to 5, or keep it at 3 and only do 1 STR damage. Their slowly weakening attacks are a nice element of challenge and a horrifying experience, but currently not balanced at all.

In turn, I would perhaps add some minor negative energy damage to their attack.

[Shadowthrone]

As far as I know Negative Energy Protection doesn't work anyway given the changes to the spell on PotM. Allowing saves vs. negative energy would allow the spell to have an effect though.

[HellsPanda]

Negative Protection was changed yesterday to protect from these shadows.

[Shadowthrone]

Well then I stand corrected.

[Thoraion]

Yeah, I'm starting to think a fortitude save should be allowed - without it, it'll just make the gap between those with NE protection and those without too significant. DC 14 might do. Further than that, perhaps reduce the STR damage to 1d4 and raise the CR to 5, or keep it at 3 and only do 1 STR damage. Their slowly weakening attacks are a nice element of challenge and a horrifying experience, but currently not balanced at all.

In turn, I would perhaps add some minor negative energy damage to their attack.

Do you plan to make the str drain a negative energy attack as it was before? I second the idea to allow a fort save - at the moment, the shadows really are ridiculously hard for CR 3. Now i understand that NE Protection protects from the str drain - what i am after is whether the Fort save will again be modified by worg skin armour.

I also encountered the new shadow fiends today for the first time ... and my jaw dropped.
I may have to check that again, alas, i crashed a few seconds after the fight.
But what i think i noticed is the following:
 - shadows are unaffected by the fiends darkness (well, perfectly justifiable)
 - the concealment and the darkness-effect seem to ... stack? Why the heck is THAT? Now that does not make sense at all, i hope i am wrong there.

[Saruven]

Do you plan to make the str drain a negative energy attack as it was before? I second the idea to allow a fort save - at the moment, the shadows really are ridiculously hard for CR 3.

It responds to negative energy protection and also allows fort saves again.

[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Mon Feb 21 00:50:52] Shadow attempts Melee Touch Attack on Toraven Maltenor : *hit* : (19 + 1 = 20)
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Mon Feb 21 00:50:52] Toraven Maltenor : Fortitude Save vs. Negative Energy : *success* : (5 + 27 = 32 vs. DC: 14)
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Mon Feb 21 00:50:52] Toraven Maltenor : Damage Immunity absorbs 1 point(s) of Negative Energy
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Mon Feb 21 00:50:52] Shadow damages Toraven Maltenor: 0 (0 Negative Energy)

But what i think i noticed is the following:
 - shadows are unaffected by the fiends darkness (well, perfectly justifiable)
 - the concealment and the darkness-effect seem to ... stack? Why the heck is THAT? Now that does not make sense at all, i hope i am wrong there.

The shadows aren't affected as they have something that can see through magical darkness.  The concealment doesn't stack as far as I can tell.  Not like it matters much, you'll still be yelling at the screen for a fight of a single pack taking so long due to concealment that you hit fatigue on the first pack.  But then that's why there's the Blind Fight feat I guess.