Improvement for the Shadowdancer Class

I am going to make a new thread for this, since I'll be going off topic. Original thread is here.

In PnP the Shadowdancer gets both the ability to create illusions and jumping small distances using shadows, but NWN never gave the class those abilities for some reason or other (which arent important here).
Anyway, was thinking that it wouldn't be too farfetched for them to get those two abilities. The Shadow Jump ability would be something akin to the Transference spell and the Shadow Illusion ability, well, I think it wouldn't be too hard to make...(not entirely sure, but isn't there a illusion spell already for wizards which creates images?)
A small boost for the summon they get would be nice, its basically useless as is in combat.

Agreed.

Link to this related thread.

Perhaps a merge is in order?

On shadow daze, I am not sure it needs a duration boost, but certainly a scaling number of uses per day would be great. Maybe max it out at 5 uses or so, but something more than 1/day.

I'll be requesting a rod with Transference to simulate the Shadow Jump, that seems like it would work well enough.

But I am concerned that the Summons has a reputation for being weak. Since I've never played a L10 ShadowDancer before, is it really useless?

Along with the discussion on the too-short duration of Shadow Evade, it makes me wonder if it's worth taking ShadowDancer above level 3.

What do you Shadow Dancers out there find really useful in the class as it stands (besides level 1 HIPS, of course)?

I use the transference on my one SD's boots to simulate that as well. Named her boots Shadowjump or somesuch as well.

On the summons... the epic shadowlord isn't *horrible* but it's not great either, especially compared to other relatively same level summons (gate's balors, PM's epic level summons, some of the bard deadman's summons, ect).

The non-epic version sucks bigtime though. It's *somewhat* useful in certain situations if you go SD early as possible, but quickly loses even it's small utility until the epic shadowlord.

A tweak to both would be nice, the lower version more so than the epic version.

Well, looks like if one takes the Shadow Child race with its 20% Concealment, then ShadowDancer class levels are nearly useless, certainly from Level 2 to 10, unless you can take 30 levels. Even the DR is no better than casting Ethereal Visage.

Yes, tweaks for Level 10 ShadowDancer would be nice, to balance it here. Even making the ShadowDancer Concealment stackable by making it a version of the Self-Concealment feat might be useful.

And btw, as mentioned here, it would be similarly useful for the Shadow Child Concealment to be a version of the Self-Concealment feat, to make it stackable with ShadowDancer and the discrete Self-Concealment feats. (Up to the five times that the Self-Concealment feats are allowed. That would make the potential of the feat actualized, since five times isn't even possible in the original game.)

Yes, shadowchildren would definitely benefit from having their concealment from the feats. Their hide/movesilently bonus too (it's negated at level 30 onward).

But I am concerned that the Summons has a reputation for being weak. Since I've never played a L10 ShadowDancer before, is it really useless?

This was a problem over on another server i had..nearly all the nwn summons were weak cause they were geared only to work up to level 20 as that was the original max level for the game. Later after HotU was released and they pushed it all the way to 40 they never bothered to boost the beasties to match that and thats why nearly every summons in the game blows after bout level 18.

The Elementals are a prime example...the biggest example is the summon IX, you get a HUGE elemental of a random type and its only i think level 14...or is it 18...either way if your level 40 mage fighting level 40 stuff....the pet lasts a whole 12 seconds tops and cant hit jack squat.

I think what is needed and i saw this on one server i played on but cant remember where....they made the spell check caster level....then pull an elemental from a new table that went all the way to 40 as its max. The table just added extra HD and extra attack bonus along with AC and it made the pet at least able to survive in combat...even if it didnt get extra abilities.

Ramana Jala wrote:But I am concerned that the Summons has a reputation for being weak. Since I've never played a L10 ShadowDancer before, is it really useless?

i'm actually very fond of playing shadowdancers. i usually take them into the epic levels. imho the summons aren't weak, per se ; it's just that they're not really useful in the way a normal summons would be. it's true that as a basic melee companion, the summoned shadows aren't comparable to a typical summons of like level :
[*] you've already got a minimum of 7 levels to gain before you get to sd, so even at like level, the summoned shadow won't stack up against a creature summoned by a caster of like character level;
[*] the summoned shadows are lower level than the sd, exacerbating the problem.
[*] the summoned shadows are bugged [they don't get the usual shadow special attacks], as are the summoned shadow fiends [a.i. bugs often prevent it from attacking, so it just stands around]

otoh, they're very useful if used strategically, rather than as melee fodder. for example, against opponents who are difficult to hit, they allow you to flank the opponent, which gives you an additional +2 to hit. additionally, a multi-classed sd/rogue [not uncommon] then benefits because his attacks are sneak attacks.

so to sum up, they're not weak if used strategically, but in a non-strategic context, yes, they suck.

That's a good point on the Flanking, and with Sneak Attack if you have Rogue. I'll have to remember that. But any summons could do that for you, presumably? So an Animal Companion or a spell/rod of Summoning Animal or Undead could do that for anybody.

But, back to the issue with Concealment. , do you think that there's any possibility of the Shadow Child 20% Concealment being made from two Self-Concealment feats, in order that they become stackable with taking discrete Self-Concealment feats? Like was mentioned before, this would make the potential of 50% Concealment an actually realizable possibility.

RustyDios wrote:It has been discussed previously that the [Shadow Child] subrace concealment be added as SCI & SCII to the PC's skin (for future epic upgrade to SCIII+).. I can't remember if the idea got lost in the ether, was shot down, or not achievable though... ... and I can't find the previous posts for those arguments to check them either...

Anyone know any more about these supposed previous discussions on this topic?

I'm still all for the shadowchild concealment coming from the SCI and II feats.

For a shadowchild who's build is going for SCV (which is already an extraordinarily expensive investment)... they have to *reinvest* into the SCI and SCII feats... and continue to pay the same XP subrace penalty after said investment.

I still advocate the same "feat" application of skill bonuses as well... Any subrace with a skill bonus has that skill bonus effectively erased upon reaching the last few levels, but still has to pay the subrace XP costs for no gain at all.

Glad to hear you're also in favor of Shadowchild concealment coming from SCI and II feats to make it stackable with the rest of the five allowed Self-Concealment feats, Manny.

And I totally agree that the skills advantages for subraces (as I did mention myself somewhere else recently), which are currently only additions into one's skills investment up front and totally subject to the character's skill investment limits, including being subject to the cross-class skill limits, could more appropriately be true bonuses which stack, regardless of the character's skill investment limits.

I was a bit disappointed to find that the Hide and other skill additions for my Shadowchild wizard came out of my wizard's own skill investment allowances, and all those being cross-class skills for a wizard, was in the end little gain for me either. Having that much of those skills available from the start, before I could have taken them, wasn't as significant a benefit as if I could have taken my own maximum of (cross-class) skills, and then have the subrace bonuses stack over top of that. An Intelligent wizard has plenty of points to put into skills, and it would make so much more sense for the subrace skill 'bonuses' to be true stackable bonuses (subject only to the +50 cap on skills, of course), giving more than a wizard may usually invest, due to the sub-race. But I'm sure that this isn't just an problem for a wizard, as I think that it would be better for all classes, to receive these sub-race skill advantages as stackable bonuses.

I could be wrong, but I think bonus points from feats are exempt from the +50 cap.

That would be sweet, to get those bonuses from Epic Skill Focus type of feat, if it's true that skills from feats aren't subject to the cap.

I researched briefly to see if I could verify this, but couldn't, so I'm thinking that this is probably something that only looking at the code would tell.

Maybe might know?