afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VIII

[Tzardok]

I've been working on and off on something inspired by this post in the seventh thread:

I've been re-reading the 3e version of the sha'ir and was thinking about making stats for paraelemental gens when I thought: Are gens related to the Khayal plausible? Could a sha'ir summon a shadow gen? Do the sha'ir's powers even interact with the Khayal?

Sha'ir powers do not interact with the khayal, who dislike the sha'ir as they do other genies. Renegade poet-vagabonds opposed to order, the sa'alik, are the agents and arbiters who work with the khayal. A su'luk cannot be lawful. Sa'alik are said to "walk alone" because their shadows are separate from them, becoming the facilitators for a su'luk's magic in place of the sha'ir's gen. Sa'alik gain access to shadowcasting but have a more difficult time acquiring spells that do not belong to Shadow.

So now I finished the su'luk as an alternate class feature for the sha'ir. Thoughts?

Spoiler: Su'luk

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Su'luk
Class: Sha'ir
Special Requirement: Must not be lawful.
Level: 1st
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you don't cast spells, don't gain a Gen Familiar and do not gain the following class abilities: Elemental Protection (5th), Call Janni (7th), Elemental Travel (9th) and Call Genie (11th).
Benefit: Instead of a gen, you grant your own shadow life and use it as a familiar. The stats for this Umbral Familiar are found after this description.
As a su'luk, you can cast mysteries and fundamentals and a few arcane spells. You have access to all paths of shadow magic and to arcane illusion and necromancy spells from the spell list for sorcerers and wizards. Unlike shadowcasters you don't need to follow paths when choosing known mysteries. Instead you use the table of known sha'ir spells to determine how many mysteries, fundamentals and arcane spells you know.
You need to send your familiar to the Shadow Plane to fetch mysteries and spells before you can cast anything. This works by the same rules as a gen familiar fetching spells for his sha’ir master; simply replace all mentions of "arcane spell" with "mystery" and all mentions of "divine spell" with "arcane spell".
You cast your fundamentals as spell-like abilities and your other mysteries as arcane spells. If all mysteries of a single path are among your known mysteries, you cast those as spell-like abilities too. Spells are always cast as spells. All mysteries (both fundamentals and others) that are cast as spell-like abilities can be cast twice after being fetched before fading from your memory. The total number of mysteries/spells per day you are able to cast remains unchanged.
At 5th level you gain darkvision 60 ft. (or + 60 ft. on existing darkvision) and damage reduction 4/- against attacks made by creatures native to the Shadow Plane. Furthermore attacks against you have a 20 % miss chance as long as you are not in bright illumination.
At 7th level you may call a khayal to your aid once per day. This functions as the planar ally spell except that you can call only a single khayal. You must pay the spell's XP cost and bargain with the Khayal as normal. Caster level is equal to class level. At 11th level you may use this ability twice per day.
At 9th level you can use the shadow walk spell as a spell-like ability once per day. At 15th level you can use it twice per day and at 18th level at will.
At 11th level you can once per day per point of cha-mod. order your familiar to fetch a mystery that you usually cast as a spell as a spell-like ability or a mystery that you usually cast as a spell-like ability as supernatural ability. This doubles the time the familiar needs to fetch the mystery. Mysteries cast as a supernatural ability can be cast thrice after being fetched before fading from your memory.

Spoiler: Umbral Familiar

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Umbral Familiar
Medium Elemental (Incorporal)
Hit Dice: 1d8 (4 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: Fly 40 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 11 (+1 deflection), touch 11, flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-
Attack: Incorporal touch +0 melee (1d2)
Full Attack: Incorporal touch +0 melee (1d2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks -
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., elemental traits, fetch mysteries, incorporal traits, shadowy travel
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +1
Abilities: Str -, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12
Skills: Listen +5, Spot +5, Spellcraft +5
Feats: Combat Casting^B, Improved Initiative
Environment: None
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: None
Alignment: Like the master
Advancement: By the familiar rules
Level Adjustment: -

Fetch Mysteries (Ex): Like the gen's ability to Fetch Spells.

Shadowy Travel (Sp): The umbral familiar can plane shift at will to the Shadow Plane or from there back to the Material Plane. This ability only transports the familiar. It is otherwise identical to the plane shift spell (caster level 13th).

Note: I chose medium size because I think a living shadow should have the same size as its owner. Most sha'irs/sa'alik are humans, so...

And here, as a little extra, the paraelemental gens that caused me to ask that question in the first place. Partially inspired by the paraelemental genies Afro created here:

Spoiler: Paraelemental gens

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Ice Gen
Tiny Outsider (Air, Cold, Water)
Hit Dice: 1d8 (4 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +2 dex, +1 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-9
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d2-2 plus 1 cold)
Full Attack: Two slams +5 melee (1d2-2 plus 1 cold)
Space/Reach: 2-1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks Chill
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., elemental endurance, elemental travel, fetch spells, immunity to cold, vulnerability to fire
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +4
Abilities: Str 7, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Concentration +4, Escape Artist +6, Hide +12, Knowledge (Arcane) +5, Knowledge (The Planes) +5, Listen +4, Move Silenty +4, Search +5, Spellcraft +5, Spot +4, Survival +6
Feats: Combat Casting^B, Weapon Finesse
Environment: Any elemental plane
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Often lawful neutral
Advancement: 2-3 hd (tiny), 4-6 hd (small)
Level Adjustment: -

Chill (Ex): A ice gen's freezingly cold body deals 1 point of extra cold damage whenever it hits in melee, or in each round that it maintains a hold while grappling.

Magma Gen
Tiny Outsider (Earth, Fire)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 (5 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 60 ft. (perfect), burrow 10 ft.
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +1 dex, +2 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-8
Attack: Slam +4 melee (1d2-1)
Full Attack: Two slams +4 melee (1d2-1)
Space/Reach: 2-1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks -
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 1/adamantite, darkvision 60 ft., elemental endurance, elemental travel, fetch spells, immunity to fire, vulnerability to ice
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +4
Abilities: Str 9, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Concentration +5, Escape Artist +5, Hide +11, Knowledge (Arcane) +5, Knowledge (The Planes) +5, Listen +4, Move Silenty +3, Search +5, Spellcraft +5, Spot +4, Survival +6
Feats: Combat Casting^B, Weapon Finesse
Environment: Any elemental plane
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Often lawful good
Advancement: 2-3 hd (tiny), 4-6 hd (small)
Level Adjustment: -

Ooze Gen
Tiny Outsider (Earth, Water)
Hit Dice: 1d8+2 (6 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 60 ft. (perfect), swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 14 (+2 size, +1 dex, +1 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-9
Attack: Slam +4 melee (1d2-2 plus 1 sound)
Full Attack: Two slams +4 melee (1d2-2 plus 1 sound)
Space/Reach: 2-1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks Vibrations
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., elemental endurance, elemental travel, fetch spells, immunity to sound, vulnerability to elektricity
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +4
Abilities: Str 7, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Concentration +6, Escape Artist +5, Hide +11, Knowledge (Arcane) +5, Knowledge (The Planes) +5, Listen +4, Move Silenty +3, Search +5, Spellcraft +5, Spot +4, Survival +6, Swim +6
Feats: Combat Casting^B, Weapon Finesse
Environment: Any elemental plane
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Often neutral
Advancement: 2-3 hd (tiny), 4-6 hd (small)
Level Adjustment: -

Vibrations (Su): The ooze gens inherited from the sureshi an affinity for sound. A ooze gen deals 1 point of extra sound damage whenever it hits in melee, or in each round that it maintains a hold while grappling.

Smoke Gen
Tiny Outsider (Air, Fire)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 (5 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 70 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +2 dex, +1 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-9
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d2-2)
Full Attack: Two slams +5 melee (1d2-2)
Space/Reach: 2-1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks -
Special Qualities: Billow, darkvision 60 ft., elemental endurance, elemental travel, fetch spells, immunity to fire, vulnerability to ice
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +4
Abilities: Str 7, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Concentration +5, Escape Artist +6, Hide +12, Knowledge (Arcane) +5, Knowledge (The Planes) +5, Listen +4, Move Silenty +4, Search +5, Spellcraft +5, Spot +4, Survival +6
Feats: Combat Casting^B, Weapon Finesse
Environment: Any elemental plane
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Often chaotic evil
Advancement: 2-3 hd (tiny), 4-6 hd (small)
Level Adjustment: -

Billow (Su): Once per round as an immediate action, a smoke gen may allow its physical form to briefly billow out as a cloud of smoke, becoming insubstantial, in response to an attack directed against it. That attack fails to affect the smoke gen. Certain effects which manipulate air or gases (gust of wind, etc.) cannot be effectively avoided in this fashion and take full effect as normal. The smoke gen must be aware of the attack to be able to billow. Any time a smoke gen would be denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, it cannot billow.

Notes: The existence of paraelemental gens makes the Elemental Protection class feature of the sha'ir a bit complicated. For one, if the ooze gen is immun to sound, Elemental Protection should also grant resistence to sound and a bonus to saves against attacks based on sound.
More importantly, Elemental Protection grants a damage reduction against attacks by creatures of the four elemental subtypes, with a higher damage reduction against the gen familiar's elemental subtype. As paraelemental gens have two elemental subtypes, this would make them more useful than normal gens.
For balancing I'm thinking of either choosing one of the two subtypes or loosing the lesser damage reduction against the two other subtypes. Thoughts?
Finally, I'm not sure wether Billow is too strong an ability for the smoke gen. The problem is, I'm not sure how to weaken it, I don't want to copy the ability of another gen and I would like to reflect the dukhan genie in some way and the only other ability unique to that one is smokesight, which appears too weak compared to the abilities of the other gens.