Shadowdancer - is it worth it?

[Icestorm245]

Upon reading the shadowdancer again, I noticed that the shadow jump ability only works by feet per day, instead of at will. To make any use of this ability, you'd need at least the shadow jump cap, at 160ft per day. This puts you behind a lot of levels for things that could otherwise complement the class nicely; such as rogue or other such classes. So, is it worth it? I don't think so. I'm assuming from the lack of builds even using shadowdancer on these forums, it's not, but if anyone has any awesome ideas for it, let me know.

[gbprime]

Allow me to direct your attention to the Iron Chef XXVI thread. There are 18 builds there waiting to be judged, all using Shadowdancer, and every one is different.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220956

[Ravens_cry]

If other forms of Hide in Plain Sight are not available, a dip is very useful for most rogues and other sneak attackers. The trouble is the feat entry tax is pretty huge.

[Psyren]

I personally prefer the Umbral Disciple (MoI) ahead of the Shadowdancer. You have to progress further into the class to get HiPS, but because you can enter it two levels earlier than SD it ends up being a wash.

[Chronos]

Umbral Disciple also has much easier prereqs.

If you're a non-evil core-only rogue, a one-level dip in Shadowdancer is worthwhile for the HiPS. If you have access to almost anything at all beyond core, then you can probably find better uses for your feats, and you might get other HiPS options.

[nedz]

Allow me to direct your attention to the Iron Chef XXVI thread. There are 18 builds there waiting to be judged, all using Shadowdancer, and every one is different.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220956
And there you will find 18+ people who think NO SHADOWDANCER IS NOT WORTH IT, see we tried ... :smallsmile:
Actually a 1 level dip is good - if you were going that way anyway.

[Daftendirekt]

It has always been my opinion that if Shadowdancer had sneak attack progression, it'd be a pretty effin' awesome PrC.

[Icestorm245]

It has always been my opinion that if Shadowdancer had sneak attack progression, it'd be a pretty effin' awesome PrC.

Which is the crux of my problem with it. All this jumping around, which is limited by the way, and nothing to show for it other than the target losing their dexterity bonus? Might as well take travel devotion, scout and spirit totem lion barbarian. Then again, the core chassis is weak in comparison to supplemental rules.

[nedz]

It has always been my opinion that if Shadowdancer had sneak attack progression, it'd be a pretty effin' awesome PrC.
Yep - or if it had full BAB it might make for an interesting fighter type.

Which is the crux of my problem with it. All this jumping around, which is limited by the way, and nothing to show for it other than the target losing their dexterity bonus? Might as well take travel devotion, scout and spirit totem lion barbarian. Then again, the core chassis is weak in comparison to supplemental rules.
There are so many dead levels and the shadow jump isn't worth much other than getting out of grapples etc.

[DiBastet]

Pathfinder gave a little more juice for Shadow Jump, some more rogue tricks, and gave some shadow illusion, shadow conjuration (and greater) and shadow evocation to the class. I recently remade an old character of my gf using the pf shadowdancer and her usefulness increased a real lot on level-by-level assumptions...

Since most other levels of shadowdancer besides 1st lack a lot, it's an okay fix.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/core-rulebook/shadowdancer

[nedz]

Pathfinder gave a little more juice for Shadow Jump, some more rogue tricks, and gave some shadow illusion, shadow conjuration (and greater) and shadow evocation to the class. I recently remade an old character of my gf using the pf shadowdancer and her usefulness increased a real lot on level-by-level assumptions...

Since most other levels of shadowdancer besides 1st lack a lot, it's an okay fix.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/core-rulebook/shadowdancer

Yeah thats much better - still no actual dancing though.

[dgnslyr]

Hmm, if we're looking for a quick-and-easy fix, I guess tacking on normal sneak attack progression, taking some restrictions off Shadow Jump, and Assassin-esque spellcasting, then it would be pretty darn good. And, of course, removing some of the ridiculous entry feat requirements. In that case, it'd be a pretty good choice for rogues.

[Fax Celestis]

I personally prefer the Umbral Disciple (MoI) ahead of the Shadowdancer. You have to progress further into the class to get HiPS, but because you can enter it two levels earlier than SD it ends up being a wash.

It also comes with built-in sneak attack immunity, due to that class feature you can invest essentia in for concealment.

[gbprime]

Well with the addition of the Craven feat, and spending one extra feat to upgrade all those prerequisite feats into Spring Attack, th shadow dancer hits fairly hard.

Have there been better PrCs introduced since the DMG was first released in 3.0? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean the class is worthless.

[ericgrau]

While I was musing on the value of a monster in the hands of the PCs vs the value of a monster fighting PCs, I was thinking of how valuable it is to be incorporeal. PCs take it out with a few magic weapons and magic missiles, whereas most monsters are royally boned. While many monsters can bypass DR/magic, it's rare to be able to hit incorporeal things. Oddly enough this at some point led me to the shadowdancer.

I would like to argue that his ability to summon a CR 3 foe at ECL 10 is in fact the shadowdancer's main ability for anyone who does not dip the class. Every round you get 1d6 of strength damage while still leaving yourself open to perform other actions. Or, more generally, the shadowdancer's main ability is the ability to weaken a foe while remaining unseen and untouched. Rather than going for all out damage, hit and run tactics or further debuffs could work. Take out the foe after he's drained to immobility. Or UMD a CL 6 wand of empowered ray of enfeeblement, for example, as your main weapon. An average of 13 strength in round 1 and another 3 per round (on top of enfeebling a new target each round) will easily cripple most foes. In fact bard might be a better entry for this build given the charisma, UMD, and spells like darkness (shadowy illumination anywhere) and haste. A hasted shadow against corporeal foes who can't touch him is :smalleek:.

I only read 2 iron chef builds but both used 10 levels of shadowdancer.

Dang, now I need to add shadowdancer to my list of potential future character concepts.

[nedz]

Well with the addition of the Craven feat, and spending one extra feat to upgrade all those prerequisite feats into Spring Attack, th shadow dancer hits fairly hard.

Have there been better PrCs introduced since the DMG was first released in 3.0? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean the class is worthless.

But this power bump comes from those feats, not the PrC

[Chronos]

I would like to argue that his ability to summon a CR 3 foe at ECL 10 is in fact the shadowdancer's main ability for anyone who does not dip the class. I was just looking into this some more, and you could use your pet effectively in combination with your Shadow Step ability. Shadow Step works like Dimension Door, which means that the caster can't take any more actions until the next round. But Dimension Door also lets you bring others with you, and they're not subject to the same action restriction. So you could jump and bring your shadow along, into a good attacking position.