Flicker + Shadow pounce = A LOT of Attacks?

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Side note: wow, haven't been in this corner of the forums in quite some time

The Whole question is basically in the title but I'll explain further
Flicker is a mystery in the tome of magic, its lvl 3 and its basically for 1/round per caster level you can as a immediate action teleport a distance of 5ft/lvl or 5ft/2 lvl (fab at the moment) the distance is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is shadow based (its in the shadow magic section of the book) and it is a teleport effect. This is where Shadow pounce comes into play. It's a class feature of two forgotten realms books (Tef. shadow-lord and the half crow arc in Shining south) Basically what it does is whenever you teleport with a shadow based ability (the examples it gives is shadow step) you get a full attack action. so this is basically an imediate action full attack. So what, thats good but not A LOT. Well mysteries are a lot like spell right? So what if make a Dagger of use activated flicker? I have two answers to this and I would like to have the community discuss it in a friendly debate. If you have your own thought process I urge you to state it, if you mark your post with the Lightbulb icon I'll try to quote it down below.


[*=1]It would work to give you infinite attacks: so in this point of view when you attack (don't even have to hit) you teleport, which grants you one full attack. on the first attack with that full attack action you teleport again... repeat until there is nothing to hit. (or for instantaneous FTL speed travel just hit the ground, teleport, and hit again until you reach your destination)
[*=1]It will give you a teleport..but nothing every strong: this point of view has the thought process that when the magi weapon is activate you must spend a immediate action to teleport (as the mystery does) so you can only do it once a round with this trick alone.





And as always, I haven't seen this trick anywhere else so I think it is original but if it is not then tell me.

[Zaq]

Flicker does combine nicely with Shadowpounce, though actually getting them both on a non-gestalt character is, shall we say, nontrivial, especially if you want it more than 1/day.

Anything that starts with the premise of "hey, let's make a custom use-activated item" is likely to be cheesy, obnoxious, or both, so I hate to say it, but I'm not impressed with your "Flicker dagger." The magic item guidelines break the hell down when you start futzing with the action cost (either for continuous items or use-activated items, to say nothing of spell traps), so making something broken with broken guidelines-that-aren't-technically-rules isn't very noteworthy.

[Darrin]

I've seen a similar trick used in one of the Iron Chef rounds... I think AM-1468 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14240897&postcount=93) in Renegade Mastermaker? Although that was Sun School rather than Shadow Pounce.

Fax Celestis suggested combining flicker with Telflammar Shadowlord in this 2013 thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?300592-Shadowcaster-Telflammar-Shadowlord-Lulzery). It might have appeared on one of the CharOp boards before then, as Shadow Pounce was a fairly well-known trick to most of the CharOp heavy hitters, but I don't quite feel like digging through the Wayback Machine to find it.

While I suppose you could create a magic item with an at-will flicker effect, it's not something that you could use for an infinite number of attacks. You only get one swift action on your turn, and only one immediate action outside your turn. There are some action economy hacks that could stack a bunch of flickers into a short period of time, using readied actions and things like Linked Power synchronicity, but it wouldn't be infinite, unless you were doing something with an infinite recursion of schisms or whatnot... and if you can pull that off, then an infinite number of full attacks is really one of the least impressive things you could do with that sort of action economy.

If you manage to find a free-action teleport... that might be a little more interesting, but the DM can still limit the amount of free actions you can do on your turn if he/she is so inclined.

[Zombulian]

Side note: wow, haven't been in this corner of the forums in quite some time

The Whole question is basically in the title but I'll explain further
Flicker is a mystery in the tome of magic, its lvl 3 and its basically for 1/round per caster level you can as a immediate action teleport a distance of 5ft/lvl or 5ft/2 lvl (fab at the moment) the distance is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is shadow based (its in the shadow magic section of the book) and it is a teleport effect. This is where Shadow pounce comes into play. It's a class feature of two forgotten realms books (Tef. shadow-lord and the half crow arc in Shining south) Basically what it does is whenever you teleport with a shadow based ability (the examples it gives is shadow step) you get a full attack action. so this is basically an imediate action full attack. So what, thats good but not A LOT. Well mysteries are a lot like spell right? So what if make a Dagger of use activated flicker? I have two answers to this and I would like to have the community discuss it in a friendly debate. If you have your own thought process I urge you to state it, if you mark your post with the Lightbulb icon I'll try to quote it down below.


[*=1]It would work to give you infinite attacks: so in this point of view when you attack (don't even have to hit) you teleport, which grants you one full attack. on the first attack with that full attack action you teleport again... repeat until there is nothing to hit. (or for instantaneous FTL speed travel just hit the ground, teleport, and hit again until you reach your destination)
[*=1]It will give you a teleport..but nothing every strong: this point of view has the thought process that when the magi weapon is activate you must spend a immediate action to teleport (as the mystery does) so you can only do it once a round with this trick alone.





And as always, I haven't seen this trick anywhere else so I think it is original but if it is not then tell me.

What is this half crow arc you speak of?

[Rebel7284]

What is this half crow arc you speak of?

Crinti Shadow Marauder is the other class with shadow pounce. Possibly auto-correct is acting up?

[Falontani]

It would use your swift or immediate action unfortunately, but a great ability to add onto a Telflammar ShadowPouncer

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Flicker does combine nicely with Shadowpounce, though actually getting them both on a non-gestalt character is, shall we say, nontrivial, especially if you want it more than 1/day.

Anything that starts with the premise of "hey, let's make a custom use-activated item" is likely to be cheesy, obnoxious, or both, so I hate to say it, but I'm not impressed with your "Flicker dagger." The magic item guidelines break the hell down when you start futzing with the action cost (either for continuous items or use-activated items, to say nothing of spell traps), so making something broken with broken guidelines-that-aren't-technically-rules isn't very noteworthy.
I understand that it is cheese (mean't to put a cheese warning in the beginning, sorry)
Shadowcaster 10, Swordsage 4, Telf Shadowlord 6? doesn't seem too outrageous. Probably a flat T3 build or borderline just made it T4 build. (looks at 2013) so this isn't new, my bad lol

I've seen a similar trick used in one of the Iron Chef rounds... I think AM-1468 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14240897&postcount=93) in Renegade Mastermaker? Although that was Sun School rather than Shadow Pounce.

Fax Celestis suggested combining flicker with Telflammar Shadowlord in this 2013 thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?300592-Shadowcaster-Telflammar-Shadowlord-Lulzery). It might have appeared on one of the CharOp boards before then, as Shadow Pounce was a fairly well-known trick to most of the CharOp heavy hitters, but I don't quite feel like digging through the Wayback Machine to find it.

While I suppose you could create a magic item with an at-will flicker effect, it's not something that you could use for an infinite number of attacks. You only get one swift action on your turn, and only one immediate action outside your turn. There are some action economy hacks that could stack a bunch of flickers into a short period of time, using readied actions and things like Linked Power synchronicity, but it wouldn't be infinite, unless you were doing something with an infinite recursion of schisms or whatnot... and if you can pull that off, then an infinite number of full attacks is really one of the least impressive things you could do with that sort of action economy.

If you manage to find a free-action teleport... that might be a little more interesting, but the DM can still limit the amount of free actions you can do on your turn if he/she is so inclined.Thanks, google-fu failed me when i looked it up.


What is this half crow arc you speak of?
Lol, yea Half Drow prc (autocorrect is my excuse on this on)

Crinti Shadow Marauder is the other class with shadow pounce. Possibly auto-correct is acting up?

It would use your swift or immediate action unfortunately, but a great ability to add onto a Telflammar ShadowPouncer
Indeed it is.


Alright so it was already debated over, my bad guys.

[heavyfuel]

Shadowcaster 10, Swordsage 4, Telf Shadowlord 6


I think the biggest problem there is having a terrible build up until lv 18.

It's a nice exercise in optimization, but hardly practical in most games.

[gorfnab]

Shadowcaster 10, Swordsage 4, Telf Shadowlord 6? doesn't seem too outrageous. Probably a flat T3 build or borderline just made it T4 build. (looks at 2013) so this isn't new, my bad lol

You could also consider Shadowcaster 5/ Assassin 3/ Noctumancer 6/ Telflammar Shadowlord 6 or Shadowcaster 8/ Swordsage 2/ Telflammar Shadowlord 6/ Arcane Trickster 4 (requires Whisper Gnome or Spell Hand for Mage Hand prereq). Still not really optimal though unfortunately.