Thanks for the suggestions!
Yeah, I had to look that up too. It's nice to have a matching piercing/slashing/bludgeoning set.
Yeah, it's probably meant to be the same thing. But the punching dagger is a cheap simple weapon, so I'd imagine that the listed punching dagger is a bit crude or makeshift. The assassin's version would be more of a precisely crafted weapon with a longer blade and peculiar traits that require more training to use, justifying its exotic classification. Something like this.
You're right. I wanted to make them a bit stronger than other weapons to distinguish them, but this is probably too far. And most of the time, higher crit chance is probably better than more damaging crits. What about this instead:
Claw: 1d6, 19-20/x3
Katar: 1d8, 20/x4
Cestus: 1d4, 18-20/x2
I actually made it before I saw Hustle as the psychic warrior power, which does the same thing except only for move actions. Melee characters really need mobility to be effective, so I gave her a way to get extra move actions. The evolution to standard and full-round was because the Time Stands Still maneuver in ToB grants an extra full-round attack.
At early levels, it's great for maneuvering before battle, and an extra standard action probably isn't that bad on her, letting her make an extra attack or manifest an extra power. It'd also have nice synergy with the trap system I'm planning. The extra full-round action is comparable to Time Stands Still, but the assassin can do it two or three times per encounter while a ToB class can do it as much as it wants, at the cost of having to recover its maneuvers. The assassin also needs to spend a swift action while the ToB'er don't, but she gets a greater flexibility in being able to use it for more than just attacks. It's a toss-up.
Yeah, that was kind of the point. Regular TWF is way too feat intensive and stupid. Really, the only reason to get it is to maximize your bonus die, like with Sneak Attack or Power Attack. Since an assassin doesn't get such high damage boosts, I don't think it's that bad.
Creating a copy of you just leaves so much room for abuse. I tried to limit that as much as possible, such as not allowing racial Ex/Sp/Su abilities and not copying equipment. I'm also worried that it's too easily killable, but not sure about that. I should compare it to the druid's animal companion or something.
Blocking just doesn't work the same way in D&D, so I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the ability. The Contingency immunity though, and divination protection in general, would be great to have as additional effects on Fade. Maybe something like Nondetection evolving into Mind Blank in the improved version.
Yeah, but it always felt slow enough. :P
You should also have to sacrifice something for strong defensive power, and speed seems fitting for a tanking ability.
Hmm, I like that idea, the Bull-Rush and the auto-target. It would give it a different use than Mind Blast. I'll change it.
I think it was meant to actually make things dark, since your screen does go dark when you use it. I kind of like the darkness effect though, since just making things directly go blind usually requires a save whereas making things dark does not.
Oh right, I totally forgot the conversion effect! That'd work as an augmentable effect. I'm not sure if dominate might be too good though, since there's no good way to prevent you from commanding your dominated enemies. Possibly a confusion effect instead?
Yeah, I wanted a good capstone, but my biggest worry is that the Shadow Master makes your skill points irrelevant, especially things like Search, Disable Device, and Knowledge skills. It doesn't make sense that your shadow minion can know more than you do though, so I'll remove Knowledge skills from it at least.