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Amoren
2011-07-12, 02:16 AM
Basically an idea to rebuild the Telflammar Shadowlord (a personal favorite of mine) to a martial/Tome of Battle Character. Since, ya know, there's not really a rogue flavored Tome of Battle prestige character that I've seen, and Shadowlord is a personal favorite of mine. Looking for comments addressing balance issues and what not, or to spice up something. Special thanks to the person that helped me out with it so far! Dunno if she wants her name known or not on this board. o.o

This was built/made/'designed' for a Pathfinder RP I'm joining, but it can be easily converted to 3.5 by bumping the hit die down to d6, and changing the skill requirements.

Entry Requirements
Skills: Stealth 7 Ranks
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Shadow Blade, and Blade Meditation (Shadow Hand)
Special: 2d6 Sneak Attack
Special: Must possess either the Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, or Shadow Blink Maneuver
Maneuvers: Must know two additional maneuvers and one stance from the Shadow Hand school

D8 Hit Die, 6 + Int Mod skill ranks per level from the rogue and swordsage list.
{table=head]Class Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Class Features|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied

1st|
+0|
0|
2|
0|Shadow Sight, Shadow Jump|1|0

2nd|
+1|
0|
3|
0|Shadow Blur, Sneak Attack +1d6|0|0

3rd|
+2|
1|
3|
1|Jaunt Mastery, Keen Mind|1|1

4th|
+3|
1|
4|
1|Shadow Pounce, Sneak Attack +1d6|0|0

5th|
+3|
1|
4|
1|Shadow Discorporation|1|0

6th|
+4|
2|
5|
2|Shadow Step, Sneak Attack +1d6|0|1
[/table]

Maneuvers Known: At level 1, 3, and 5, the Shadowlord leans a new maneuver from the Shadow Hand school.

Shadow Sight (Ex): Gifted with a mystical connection to shadows and darkness, the shadow lord gains a superior form of dark vision with a 60-foot range. He can see through any form of normal or magical darkness without hindrance.

Shadow Jump (Su):: A Telflammar shadowlord can travel between shadows as if by means of a dimension door spell. The limitation is that the magical transport must begin and end in an area with at least some shadow or darkness. The shadowlord can jump up to a total of 20 feet per class level per day in this way. This amount can be split up among many jumps, but each jump, no matter how small, counts as a 10-foot increment. If the Telflammar shadowlord already has shadow jump from another class, this ability confers no additional benefit.

Shadow Blur (Su): At 2nd level, a Shadowlord gains an unusual defense - anytime he is not in daylight or the illuminated radius of a light source the shadows cloak his every movement, conferring the benefits of the blur spell. The shadowlord can choose to activate or end this effect as a free action.

Sneak Attack (Ex): As the rogue special ability of the same name.

Jaunt Mastery (Ex): A Telflammar gains one additional readied maneuver which must be either Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, or Shadow Blink. These do not count against the normal restriction that a martial character may only enable a specific martial maneuver once when readying maneuvers.

Keen Mind: The Telflammar Shadowlord learns to bend the shadows to his will by use of cold intellect rather than force of mind. For the purpose of the Swordsage's AC bonus, school discipline for the Shadow Hand school, and any Shadow Hand maneuvers or stances, the Shadowlord can use his Intelligence modifier in place of his Wisdom modifier if it is higher.

Shadow Pounce (Ex): At 4th level, a Telflammar shadowlord learns how to attack swiftly from the shadows. Any time he uses an ability, spell, or effect with the teleportation descriptor (for example, his shadow jump ability), he may execute a full attack upon completion of the teleportation. The shadowlord must have line of sight on his intended target from his original location, and the spot to which he teleports must be a place from which he can launch a melee attack at the intended target with whatever weapon he has in hand at the beginning of his action. He may only perform this act once per round, regardless of how many times he teleports.

Shadow Discorporation (Su): At 5th level, a Shadowlord learns how to use his mastery of shadows to cheat death. If the shadowlord is in shadows or darkness (anything but direct daylight or the illuminated radius of a light source), any damage that would reduce him to 0 hit points or below instead has a chance to discorporate him. The shadow lord attempts a Reflex save (DC 5 + damage dealt); if successful, he simply breaks apart into dozens of flitting shadows and vanishes, along with anything he is holding or carrying. At the next sunset, the shadow lord reappears at the spot of his choosing within one mile of the place where he was forced to discorporate. While discorporate, the shadow lord simply does not exist - he can do nothing, nor can ay of his enemies do anything to him.

Shadow Step (Su): Once per encounter, you may use this ability by expending a prepared strike as a full round action. You slip through the shadows, making a single attack at your highest attack bonus against every enemy in a thirty foot range. In addition, if they fail a spot check opposed by your stealth check, they are considered flat-footed for this attack. You can not utilize Shadow Pounce in conjunction with this ability. This is a supernatural ability.


(So sorry for putting this in the 3.5 gaming forum instead of this one, by the way. xD)

Amoren
2011-07-12, 01:30 PM
Alright, some ideas I wanted to see if they could make this prestige class better/more balanced.

Stealthy Feat Prerequisite: Not sure if the benefits would stack with Blade Meditation's bonus, but it's a feat that fits wiith the build, and one that most rogues/swordsages don't pick up so it increases the class' feat cost.

Replace/Remove Shadow Jump: It's probably to much teleporting with Swordsages teleporting maneuvers. Ideas for replacements include the Darkstalker feat (or at least its benefits), moving Jaunt Mastery to level one (and perhaps have Darkstalker or something else moved to level 3 in its place). Another idea is giving an ability that causes all Swordsage abilities and maneuvers that use the wisdom modifier to instead key off of Intelligence if its higher, to help smooth out the attribute requirements of the two classes.

Changes to Shadow Pounce:Already made one change to limit it to once per round, but that still might not be enough because you can still full attack, then swift action shadow stride to full attack again. Making it usable only with Shadow Jaunt would prevent this, and probably make it weak enough for the added damage and better feat requirements. Jaunt Mastery would then just grant an extra free maneuver slot for Shadow Jaunt.

Capstone? Ideas for a new capstone if the current one is meh or too powerful, want something that'll convince people to take all six levels. Ideas include Hide In Plain Sight (Su), or something to that effect, something that'll reduce the penalty to hiding after attacking, or something to that effect.

Thoughts/ideas or suggestions of your own to make this prestige class work better and more likely to be accepted?

Hazzardevil
2011-07-15, 04:47 AM
I think you should give the capstone the option to make multiple attacks on a single target rather than several targets for Boss Fights.
Also, why don't you have a stance progression for it? Part of the reason Bloodclaw master was bad was the lack of stances.

YouLostMe
2011-07-15, 09:40 AM
I think you should give the capstone the option to make multiple attacks on a single target rather than several targets for Boss Fights.
I like the idea that the capstone is used for clearing out mooks only. That seems to be this class's niche. I vote "nay" on this assertion.


Also, why don't you have a stance progression for it? Part of the reason Bloodclaw master was bad was the lack of stances. +1

Eurus
2011-07-15, 03:39 PM
Personally, I think the capstone a little meh. An action to make one attack against a bunch of mooks isn't even that sure of killing them, and spending a full-round action to do so (when you could normally use that action to make a full attack or two) is kind of steep.

One option might be to allow you to take a full attack action against each enemy within range... possibly also limiting it to one use per encounter... but that might be a little too much for your tastes. Alternately, leave it as-is but allow the Shadowlord to automatically become invisible for a few rounds after it's finished?

jiriku
2011-07-15, 06:10 PM
Alright, some ideas I wanted to see if they could make this prestige class better/more balanced.

Stealthy Feat Prerequisite: Not sure if the benefits would stack with Blade Meditation's bonus, but it's a feat that fits with the build, and one that most rogues/swordsages don't pick up so it increases the class' feat cost.

Replace/Remove Shadow Jump: It's probably to much teleporting with Swordsages teleporting maneuvers. Ideas for replacements include the Darkstalker feat (or at least its benefits), moving Jaunt Mastery to level one (and perhaps have Darkstalker or something else moved to level 3 in its place). Another idea is giving an ability that causes all Swordsage abilities and maneuvers that use the wisdom modifier to instead key off of Intelligence if its higher, to help smooth out the attribute requirements of the two classes.

If you want to add a feat prerequisite, and you feel that Darkstalker meshes that well with the class, that would suggest to me that you should add Darkstalker, rather than Stealthy, as the additional prerequisite.


Changes to Shadow Pounce:Already made one change to limit it to once per round, but that still might not be enough because you can still full attack, then swift action shadow stride to full attack again. Making it usable only with Shadow Jaunt would prevent this, and probably make it weak enough for the added damage and better feat requirements. Jaunt Mastery would then just grant an extra free maneuver slot for Shadow Jaunt.

Making multiple full attacks with shadow pounce is the bright, shiny lure that draws people to this class. It doesn't want nerfing, IMHO.


Capstone? Ideas for a new capstone if the current one is meh or too powerful, want something that'll convince people to take all six levels. Ideas include Hide In Plain Sight (Su), or something to that effect, something that'll reduce the penalty to hiding after attacking, or something to that effect.

The current capstone is flashy and cinematic, but ultimately not very effective. Ideas I'd throw out:
Adding HiPS is a good default suggestion if nothing better comes to mind.
Perhaps everyone struck by the mass attack must save or be blinded for one round.
Perhaps at the conclusion of the mass attack, the shadowlord can place himself anywhere within 30 feet of his starting location. Moreover, if his destination is shadowed, he might be able to make a free Hide check.


Thoughts/ideas or suggestions of your own to make this prestige class work better and more likely to be accepted?

Possible changes:
Replace Shadow Jump with Shadow Stride and Shadow Blink granted as bonus maneuvers at appropriate levels.
Replace Jaunt Mastery with the ability to refresh a teleportation maneuver whenever you perform a specific, slightly suboptimal combat action, such as spending a standard action to feint, or sacrificing X dice of sneak attack damage, or refraining from using any form of teleportation for one round.