Shadowdancer Tweaks

Not really interested in a power level debate because wizards and epic magic exists, but SD here (and Shifter, but that's a whole nother thread) have been fairly left behind in terms of boosts and reasons to take the class and not a level thereof.

Suggestions by level:
Level 2: Shadow Daze: Either more uses per day (base +1 per 5 SD levels) or do what's done elsewhere and have cooldown math for it.
Level 2: Summon Shadow: Using Flame Twin as inspiration, summons a shadow-VFX'd copy of the SD, leveled down slightly.

Level 4: Shadow Evade: 5 rounds + 1 per two SD levels. This is more than fair considering there's outright "high dr forever" epic spells. Boost concealment 1% per SD level.

Level 6: Shadow Jump: Basically transference with a shadow effect, 3/day + 1 per six SD.

Epic Shadowlord: The summoned shadow is now an outright copy of the PC with a vfx applied. The PC gains a negative energy damage bonus while its shadow is summoned.

Shadow Children should be treated as five levels higher for duration and uses.

I like the idea of the shadow/epic shadow being a shadowy copy of the PC.

Not sure either way about the epic shadow being a direct copy of the PC.

Yes yes yes on the other SD powers.

I'm totally in favor of anything that makes the ShadowDancer class actually useful.

It might be a good idea to increase uses of shadow evade as well. 3/day isn't reliable, so there would still be little to no reason to  really invest in the class as that's the only thing it keeps developing in epics.

I love your ideas, by the way.

DerusTal wrote:Level 2: Summon Shadow: Using Flame Twin as inspiration, summons a shadow-VFX'd copy of the SD, leveled down slightly.

Incidentally:

White Wolf wikia wrote:Shadow Twin: Animate your shadow into a weaker duplicate of yourself

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Obtenebration_(VTM)

I can't disagree that Shadowdancer class abilities don't scale well enough to make heavy investment in the class worthwhile.

I like the ideas proposed, as 20 rounds on Shadow Evade is perfectly acceptable for 30 levels of investment. The only one I would be slightly less in favor of is the uses on Shadow Jump - 8 uses per day for 30th level isnt horrible, but maybe cap it at 5/day at 30th, and start it out at 2/day. Boosting concealment +1 per SD level might be a bit much, as well... but maybe capping or scaling it so that 20% boost is the max would probably be fine.

Shadow Child with Self-conceal 5 and max SD bonus having 90% concealment to all attacks (if the shadow child bonus could be made to stack) would be kind of overpowered, I think. Personal opinion, of course... but if the duration gets extended, I think the concealment bonus (if its even possible to make it stack) should be limited to 75% or below.

I've mentioned in another thread my constant request to have the Shadow Child 20% concealment be made from Self-Concealment 1 and 2 so that they will stack with adding Self-Concealment 3, 4, and 5.  That will at least get one up to 50% Concealment without wearing the cloak.  Otherwise concealment doesn't stack.  Even more concealment for a dedicated Shadow Child Shadowdancer would also be lovely.

I've been using Transference as a Shadow Jump, but I think it would be appropriate to make such use of Transference by a SD to be a native quality, so that a SD doesn't have to have wizard, read from a scroll, or have a custom item in order to cast Shadow Jump Transference.

I like the other suggestions also.  And I love the feats on that Obtenebration page, I'd take all of those I could.


Other previous threads on ShadowDancer suggestions:

Improvement for the Shadowdancer class

Re: Shadow Evade

On the summoned shadow....

If the PC copy idea is nixed... the shadow STILL should be tweaked.

Specifically, it gains several feats which are flat out pointless (rapid shot, point blank shot), and a couple which sound good on paper, but I've *never* seen my summoned shadow use (expertise, and whirlwind attack).

For a non-PC copy idea shadowlord/epic shadowlord, I wuld suggest swapping the above feats for KD/ImpKD for the shadowlord's expertise/ww, and swapping in epic weapon focus (creature)/Epic weapon specialization(creature) for the rapidshot/point blank shot feats for the epic shadowlord.