KillingAScarab
2013-04-05, 11:59 AM
Understanding the logic behind 3.x isn't always easy. It's widely stated that WotC didn't quite understand some of the implications of their own rules. Still, there are some very baffling bits to find in splat books. I'm hoping we can surprise each other with how disappointing or how mind-boggling they can get. Learn from the mistakes of others, they say. I'll start, but I don't expect anyone else to go into so much detail; this one was able to inspire me to ask others about bad classes as I warned about one.
Submitted for your disapproval: the shadowsworn. It's found in The Book of Roguish Luck, which actually has both Monte Cook and Mike Mearls credited for development, but that might just be for the things included from other Malhavoc Press books. The by line is Wolfgang Baur. But, let's not point fingers while the question which must be on your mind is...
What is a Shadowsworn?
You know how 4th edition took the Plane of Shadow and turned it into something darker and edgier? A shadowsworn would be what you would get if you took a 3.5 rogue/sorcerer into the future and dipped them in the Shadowfell. The flavor text promises, "powerful shadow magic," and powers which, "grow beyond mortal limits," but caution you will, "go invariably mad." I would expect there to be mention of Witchaloks (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20090401), but I don't know anything about any Witchaloks.
SHADOWSWORN
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special
1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|Scribe Scroll
2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+0|Darkvision +30 feet
3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+1|Sneak attack +1d6
4th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|Shadow familiar
5th|
+3|
+2|
+4|
+2|Evasion
6th|
+4|
+2|
+5|
+2|Sneak attack +2d6
7th|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+2|Darkvision +60 feet
8th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+6|
+3|Summon shadow
9th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+6|
+3|Sneak attack +3d6
10th|
+7/+2|
+3|
+7|
+3|Blind
11th|
+8/+3|
+4|
+7|
+4|--
12th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+4|Sneak attack +4d6, summon shadow (greater)
13th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+4|Darkvision +90 feet
14th|
+10/+5|
+5|
+9|
+5|Shadow self
15th|
+11/+6/+1|
+5|
+9|
+5|Sneak attack +5d6
16th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+10|
+5|Shadow strike
17th|
+12/+7/+2|
+6|
+10|
+6|--
18th|
+13/+8/+3|
+6|
+11|
+6|Sneak attack +5d6
19th|
+14/+9/+4|
+6|
+11|
+6|Darkvision +120 feet, shadow walk
20th|
+15/+10/+5|
+7|
+12|
+7|Shadowform, sneak attack +6d6[/table]
I don't expect anyone else to make a class table, but this book's class tables are designated as OGC and seeing this one really helps understand what's going wrong. This is with the errata (http://web.archive.org/web/20071110140606/http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_BORL_errata), by the way. While they picked up on one change which needed to be made to the saving throws, unorthodox saving throw progression is present, anyway. The poor saves are offset by +1 until you end up with +7. When I was new to 3.x, it took me awhile to understand how saving throws worked, and I wasn't the only one. New homebrewers take note: a good save is one-half of class level then add 2 (from the first-level bump), while a poor save is one-third of class level.
The errata also gave the shadowsworn evasion at 5th level, because that was missing from the book entirely for this class. They never did catch the incorrect sneak attack dice, with +5d6 printed twice and +6d6 on a level it shouldn't gain a die according to an, "once every three levels," pattern.
Printing errors and omissions aside, the table looks fairly busy, with only two dead levels. Why, you can get... scribe scroll as a bonus feat with a one level dip. At two levels you get darkvision if you didn't have it before, and if you did, it's extended. It will be extended three more times, actually. Wait until third level when you finally get sneak attack dice, and evasion at fifth.
What about all that dark power? Darkvision doesn't drive people mad, unless they try to convince the DM to make it work like AD&D's infravision. Don't worry, there's a spellcaster progression, too!
{table=head]Spells per day
{table=head]Level | Cantrips | First | Second | Third | Fourth
1st |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
2nd |
2 |
0 |
- |
- |
- |
3rd |
3 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
4th |
3 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
5th |
4 |
3 |
0 |
- |
- |
6th |
4 |
3 |
1 |
- |
- |
7th |
5 |
4 |
1 |
- |
- |
8th |
5 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
9th |
6 |
5 |
2 |
- |
- |
10th |
6 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
- |
11th |
6 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
- |
12th |
6 |
6 |
4 |
1 |
- |
13th |
6 |
6 |
4 |
2 |
- |
14th |
6 |
6 |
5 |
2 |
- |
15th |
6 |
6 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
16th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
17th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
2 |
18th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
3 |
19th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
20th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
5 |
[/table][/table]{table=head]Spells known
{table=head]Level | Cantrips | First | Second | Third | Fourth
1st |
4 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
2nd |
5 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
3rd |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
4th |
6 |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
5th |
6 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
6th |
7 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
7th |
7 |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
8th |
8 |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
9th |
8 |
5 |
4 |
- |
- |
10th |
9 |
5 |
4 |
2 |
- |
11th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
- |
12th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
- |
13th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
- |
14th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
- |
15th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
2 |
16th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
17th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
18th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
19th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
20th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
[/table][/table]
Ta-da! Just what you always wanted: spontaneous casting with fewer spell levels than a bard, but more cantrips. If you squint really hard, it might look like you have the spells per day of a sorcerer. You also get light armor proficiency but no exemption from arcane spell failure, even though the proficiency blurb goes out of its way to state that shields get in the way of somatic components.
So now you know that by 20th level you can share 5 4th-level spell slots amongst enervation, phantasmal killer, and shadow conjuration, along with a plane shift that only takes you to the Plane of Shadow. Wait, what? Why would you spend a spell known on that limited plane shift when you already get shadow walk as a spell-like ability usable three times per day at 19th level? No, clearly, you need to delve into the Open Game Content spells. Black spellbreaker sounds powerful.
This spell functions as grey spellbreaker except that the maximum caster level bonus is +10.
O.K., well, it's better than grey spellbreaker, right? So what's that do? In short, you poke people with a stick to use dispel magic on them. Except, grey spellbreaker is essentially a lesser dispel magic, since the caster level check is limited to +5. Black spellbreaker lets you use a 4th level spell slot to poke people with a stick to cast the real dispel magic. Oh, and the stick only works for 1 round/level. But there's no verbal component! It's sneaky!
...
What happened to the power beyond mortal limits? Well... there is one thing.
Spells
A shadowsworn is a magic user able to cast a small number of arcane spells. To cast a spell, a shadowsworn must have a Charisma of 10 + the spell's level, so a shadowsworn with a Charisma of 9 or lower cannot even cast cantrips. These spells are cast as if the shadowsworn were a specialist in the school of shadow magic (see page 19).
A shadowsworn does not require a spellbook.
A specialist in the school of shadow magic? What does that mean? The illusion subschool? Are you a base class with a master specialist prestige class rolled into it?
The School of Shadow Magic
The school of shadow magic is closely related to the school of illusion and somewhat more tangentially related to creation and necromancy, but it stands apart from all of them. It uses the power of the planes of Negative Energy and Positive Energy to generate spell effects, in the same manner that elementalists use the various elemental planes to generate their magic.
What?
All spells cast by shadowsworn are of this school, rather than the traditional schools they are associated with. All shadowsworn spells have the shadow descriptor.
What?!
That's right. This silly class is capable of overthrowing the entire magic system by turning its spells into something no other published source of material has ever dealt with, before or after the class's introduction. If you've got immunity to the school of necromancy, a shadowsworn can cast fear and it will still work on you... provided it overcomes your spell resistance and you fail the saving throw against a 4th level spell. Got protection from enchantments? A shadowsworn can still try to cast confusion or touch of idiocy on you -- it's shadow magic! Perhaps you are in an area where transmutation spells don't function. The shadowsworn doesn't worry -- it's shadow magic! Despite never existing in the rest of D&D, despite the author comparing it to the "creation" school, despite the author saying there are some kind of "elementalists" and despite the class and spells it uses having nothing to do with the plane of positive energy... it's shadow magic!
But what about the plane of negative energy? Why didn't I say it has nothing to do with that one? The flavor text says you're tied to the Plane of Shadow.
Enter the "unique" class features. It seems the author confuses in several places the planes of positive and negative energy with being responsible for light and darkness effects. Probably because the enemy in the monster manual this class most closely associates with has a negative energy effect. You have a spell-like ability at 8th level which lets you summon shadows and greater shadows (as if you were using the "summon" spell, yes, it doesn't say "monster" or which one) which you can arbitrarily communicate with mentally at a range of 10 feet. Then at 16th level you get another spell-like ability (equivalent to a 3rd level spell??) which lets you hurt/heal creatures in a 20' radius (no range is given) with negative energy... but only while they are in shadowy illumination (actual darkness explicitly foils it). You're using "the power of darkness" but it's negative energy. Supposedly, you are also "attacking from the shadows" but there's no stipulation on what sort of illumination you must be in.
It goes on, though, to venerate shadows by letting your actual shadow become your familiar, with the very important distinction that it is treated like a familiar in all ways except it gets "speak with master" a level earlier. How many other familiars have two nonabilities, are incorporeal and have the undead creature type replaced with magical beast (though if you had this at level 1, it would be treated as having 2d12 hit dice)?
The last of these class features worth mentioning is shadeform, the capstone of the class which lets you... turn into a shadow at will as if using the spell shapechange.
...
Shapechange doesn't let you turn into undead creatures. Even if it did, why would you want to turn into that one? Not even a greater shadow? It also is worth mentioning that all but the spell-like abilities of the class would become unusuable since shapechange means you replace your extraordinary and supernatural abilities and qualities (like the extended darkvision range).
tl;dr version: At best, this class is a magical rogue with less sneak attack dice and some third-party spells which let you slip under doorways or move at full speed while hiding (all but two of which can be cast by at least one other class). There's nothing which lives up to the promise of PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER which breaks your mind. Why do I keep harping on that point? Because the Game Rule Information section states, “Wisdom allows a shadowsworn to resist the corruption of working with shadow magic longer.” The class lies to you on its own mechanics and might trick you into allocating your attributes incorrectly; there's nothing which requires you to make Will saves.
Let me amend that. There's nothing which requires your character to make Will saves. You, on the other hand, would be subjected to one every time your character gained a new class feature and you realized how underwhelming it is, or how it strangles itself into uselessness, or how no sane DM would ever allow it to function the way the author intended. Better yet, make the choice to never deal with “shadow magic” and be happier for it.
I hope this has been as informative and entertaining for others as it has been for me. I hope someone can top that.
Submitted for your disapproval: the shadowsworn. It's found in The Book of Roguish Luck, which actually has both Monte Cook and Mike Mearls credited for development, but that might just be for the things included from other Malhavoc Press books. The by line is Wolfgang Baur. But, let's not point fingers while the question which must be on your mind is...
What is a Shadowsworn?
You know how 4th edition took the Plane of Shadow and turned it into something darker and edgier? A shadowsworn would be what you would get if you took a 3.5 rogue/sorcerer into the future and dipped them in the Shadowfell. The flavor text promises, "powerful shadow magic," and powers which, "grow beyond mortal limits," but caution you will, "go invariably mad." I would expect there to be mention of Witchaloks (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20090401), but I don't know anything about any Witchaloks.
SHADOWSWORN
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special
1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|Scribe Scroll
2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+0|Darkvision +30 feet
3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+1|Sneak attack +1d6
4th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|Shadow familiar
5th|
+3|
+2|
+4|
+2|Evasion
6th|
+4|
+2|
+5|
+2|Sneak attack +2d6
7th|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+2|Darkvision +60 feet
8th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+6|
+3|Summon shadow
9th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+6|
+3|Sneak attack +3d6
10th|
+7/+2|
+3|
+7|
+3|Blind
11th|
+8/+3|
+4|
+7|
+4|--
12th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+4|Sneak attack +4d6, summon shadow (greater)
13th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+4|Darkvision +90 feet
14th|
+10/+5|
+5|
+9|
+5|Shadow self
15th|
+11/+6/+1|
+5|
+9|
+5|Sneak attack +5d6
16th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+10|
+5|Shadow strike
17th|
+12/+7/+2|
+6|
+10|
+6|--
18th|
+13/+8/+3|
+6|
+11|
+6|Sneak attack +5d6
19th|
+14/+9/+4|
+6|
+11|
+6|Darkvision +120 feet, shadow walk
20th|
+15/+10/+5|
+7|
+12|
+7|Shadowform, sneak attack +6d6[/table]
I don't expect anyone else to make a class table, but this book's class tables are designated as OGC and seeing this one really helps understand what's going wrong. This is with the errata (http://web.archive.org/web/20071110140606/http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_BORL_errata), by the way. While they picked up on one change which needed to be made to the saving throws, unorthodox saving throw progression is present, anyway. The poor saves are offset by +1 until you end up with +7. When I was new to 3.x, it took me awhile to understand how saving throws worked, and I wasn't the only one. New homebrewers take note: a good save is one-half of class level then add 2 (from the first-level bump), while a poor save is one-third of class level.
The errata also gave the shadowsworn evasion at 5th level, because that was missing from the book entirely for this class. They never did catch the incorrect sneak attack dice, with +5d6 printed twice and +6d6 on a level it shouldn't gain a die according to an, "once every three levels," pattern.
Printing errors and omissions aside, the table looks fairly busy, with only two dead levels. Why, you can get... scribe scroll as a bonus feat with a one level dip. At two levels you get darkvision if you didn't have it before, and if you did, it's extended. It will be extended three more times, actually. Wait until third level when you finally get sneak attack dice, and evasion at fifth.
What about all that dark power? Darkvision doesn't drive people mad, unless they try to convince the DM to make it work like AD&D's infravision. Don't worry, there's a spellcaster progression, too!
{table=head]Spells per day
{table=head]Level | Cantrips | First | Second | Third | Fourth
1st |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
2nd |
2 |
0 |
- |
- |
- |
3rd |
3 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
4th |
3 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
5th |
4 |
3 |
0 |
- |
- |
6th |
4 |
3 |
1 |
- |
- |
7th |
5 |
4 |
1 |
- |
- |
8th |
5 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
9th |
6 |
5 |
2 |
- |
- |
10th |
6 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
- |
11th |
6 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
- |
12th |
6 |
6 |
4 |
1 |
- |
13th |
6 |
6 |
4 |
2 |
- |
14th |
6 |
6 |
5 |
2 |
- |
15th |
6 |
6 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
16th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
17th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
2 |
18th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
3 |
19th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
20th |
6 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
5 |
[/table][/table]{table=head]Spells known
{table=head]Level | Cantrips | First | Second | Third | Fourth
1st |
4 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
2nd |
5 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
3rd |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
4th |
6 |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
5th |
6 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
6th |
7 |
4 |
2 |
- |
- |
7th |
7 |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
8th |
8 |
5 |
3 |
- |
- |
9th |
8 |
5 |
4 |
- |
- |
10th |
9 |
5 |
4 |
2 |
- |
11th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
- |
12th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
- |
13th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
- |
14th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
- |
15th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
2 |
16th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
17th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
18th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
19th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
20th |
9 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
[/table][/table]
Ta-da! Just what you always wanted: spontaneous casting with fewer spell levels than a bard, but more cantrips. If you squint really hard, it might look like you have the spells per day of a sorcerer. You also get light armor proficiency but no exemption from arcane spell failure, even though the proficiency blurb goes out of its way to state that shields get in the way of somatic components.
So now you know that by 20th level you can share 5 4th-level spell slots amongst enervation, phantasmal killer, and shadow conjuration, along with a plane shift that only takes you to the Plane of Shadow. Wait, what? Why would you spend a spell known on that limited plane shift when you already get shadow walk as a spell-like ability usable three times per day at 19th level? No, clearly, you need to delve into the Open Game Content spells. Black spellbreaker sounds powerful.
This spell functions as grey spellbreaker except that the maximum caster level bonus is +10.
O.K., well, it's better than grey spellbreaker, right? So what's that do? In short, you poke people with a stick to use dispel magic on them. Except, grey spellbreaker is essentially a lesser dispel magic, since the caster level check is limited to +5. Black spellbreaker lets you use a 4th level spell slot to poke people with a stick to cast the real dispel magic. Oh, and the stick only works for 1 round/level. But there's no verbal component! It's sneaky!
...
What happened to the power beyond mortal limits? Well... there is one thing.
Spells
A shadowsworn is a magic user able to cast a small number of arcane spells. To cast a spell, a shadowsworn must have a Charisma of 10 + the spell's level, so a shadowsworn with a Charisma of 9 or lower cannot even cast cantrips. These spells are cast as if the shadowsworn were a specialist in the school of shadow magic (see page 19).
A shadowsworn does not require a spellbook.
A specialist in the school of shadow magic? What does that mean? The illusion subschool? Are you a base class with a master specialist prestige class rolled into it?
The School of Shadow Magic
The school of shadow magic is closely related to the school of illusion and somewhat more tangentially related to creation and necromancy, but it stands apart from all of them. It uses the power of the planes of Negative Energy and Positive Energy to generate spell effects, in the same manner that elementalists use the various elemental planes to generate their magic.
What?
All spells cast by shadowsworn are of this school, rather than the traditional schools they are associated with. All shadowsworn spells have the shadow descriptor.
What?!
That's right. This silly class is capable of overthrowing the entire magic system by turning its spells into something no other published source of material has ever dealt with, before or after the class's introduction. If you've got immunity to the school of necromancy, a shadowsworn can cast fear and it will still work on you... provided it overcomes your spell resistance and you fail the saving throw against a 4th level spell. Got protection from enchantments? A shadowsworn can still try to cast confusion or touch of idiocy on you -- it's shadow magic! Perhaps you are in an area where transmutation spells don't function. The shadowsworn doesn't worry -- it's shadow magic! Despite never existing in the rest of D&D, despite the author comparing it to the "creation" school, despite the author saying there are some kind of "elementalists" and despite the class and spells it uses having nothing to do with the plane of positive energy... it's shadow magic!
But what about the plane of negative energy? Why didn't I say it has nothing to do with that one? The flavor text says you're tied to the Plane of Shadow.
Enter the "unique" class features. It seems the author confuses in several places the planes of positive and negative energy with being responsible for light and darkness effects. Probably because the enemy in the monster manual this class most closely associates with has a negative energy effect. You have a spell-like ability at 8th level which lets you summon shadows and greater shadows (as if you were using the "summon" spell, yes, it doesn't say "monster" or which one) which you can arbitrarily communicate with mentally at a range of 10 feet. Then at 16th level you get another spell-like ability (equivalent to a 3rd level spell??) which lets you hurt/heal creatures in a 20' radius (no range is given) with negative energy... but only while they are in shadowy illumination (actual darkness explicitly foils it). You're using "the power of darkness" but it's negative energy. Supposedly, you are also "attacking from the shadows" but there's no stipulation on what sort of illumination you must be in.
It goes on, though, to venerate shadows by letting your actual shadow become your familiar, with the very important distinction that it is treated like a familiar in all ways except it gets "speak with master" a level earlier. How many other familiars have two nonabilities, are incorporeal and have the undead creature type replaced with magical beast (though if you had this at level 1, it would be treated as having 2d12 hit dice)?
The last of these class features worth mentioning is shadeform, the capstone of the class which lets you... turn into a shadow at will as if using the spell shapechange.
...
Shapechange doesn't let you turn into undead creatures. Even if it did, why would you want to turn into that one? Not even a greater shadow? It also is worth mentioning that all but the spell-like abilities of the class would become unusuable since shapechange means you replace your extraordinary and supernatural abilities and qualities (like the extended darkvision range).
tl;dr version: At best, this class is a magical rogue with less sneak attack dice and some third-party spells which let you slip under doorways or move at full speed while hiding (all but two of which can be cast by at least one other class). There's nothing which lives up to the promise of PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER which breaks your mind. Why do I keep harping on that point? Because the Game Rule Information section states, “Wisdom allows a shadowsworn to resist the corruption of working with shadow magic longer.” The class lies to you on its own mechanics and might trick you into allocating your attributes incorrectly; there's nothing which requires you to make Will saves.
Let me amend that. There's nothing which requires your character to make Will saves. You, on the other hand, would be subjected to one every time your character gained a new class feature and you realized how underwhelming it is, or how it strangles itself into uselessness, or how no sane DM would ever allow it to function the way the author intended. Better yet, make the choice to never deal with “shadow magic” and be happier for it.
I hope this has been as informative and entertaining for others as it has been for me. I hope someone can top that.