Playing a Shadow

[BCOVertigo]

I want to play a shadow. Not the monster, simply an animated shadow, possibly pulled from another PC.

As such I wanted to know how much LA incorporeality is worth in the estimation of the masses. Using the ghost template as a basis, it can't be worth more than +1-2 due to the horde of other abilities and bonuses they have but I wanted to check what you guys think.

Also, are there any other abilities that would allow me to act like a shadow? (Hide in plain sight + 2 dimensional or something? Then again a 2d creature might act very similar to an incorporeal one.)

Maybe someone could post something in Homebrew along these lines if they get inspired. I'd like something fairly minimal because I wanted to play a caster and the LA burns. Think Peter Pan's shadow but completely independent and less simple-in-the-head.

[daggaz]

Fun fun...but how will you speak? Ok, magic you say. Thinking of magic, how will you handle material components?

Otherwise a fun idea. Hope your DM lets you get around some of the more obvious limitations..

[BCOVertigo]

Fun fun...but how will you speak? Ok, magic you say. Thinking of magic, how will you handle material components?

Otherwise a fun idea. Hope your DM lets you get around some of the more obvious limitations..

Well Shadowcaster was the class I had in mind, like a few others I liked Fax's alteration enough to give it a second look.

As for the speech I don't plan on him being the chatty type, and I don't believe mysteries require verbal or material components, only somatic. (Aside from Voice of Shadow and maybe a few others but I imagined a Bene Gesserit like voice only they could hear coming from the shadow, maybe everyone else just hears a long exhalation. Apply other fluff where necessary.)

[bosssmiley]

John Tynes "Puppetland" had rules for playing a shadow IIRC. Might be a bit too metaphysical a character concept for the crunch-heavy D&D ruleset though.

[Bag_of_Holding]

Make a PC with Ghost template, and ask your DM to tweak the abilities a bit to make it rather more suited for a 'shadow' character. That's what I'd do.

[Innis Cabal]

ghost touch armor and the like would help but thats all i can really think of

[Fax Celestis]

Yeah, the Ghost template is probably your best bet. Change the flavor and some of the abilities (like making you Outsider instead of Undead), and you should be set.

[Raum]

I'd actually recommend the Dark Creature template from ToM (LA +0/1 depending on abilities) with the Incorporeal subtype added. I wouldn't add to the LA for the incorporeal subtype itself, but if you also gain Ghost Touch I would add another +1 LA. Basically, I figure you missing 50% of the time cancels out getting missed 50% of the time...but if you aren't missing, it is worth an LA.

This ends up with a less powerful template than Ghost, but it also lets you be a living shadow rather than undead. It would also be a lower LA which is important in most games. Especially if you're going to play a caster.

[Lemur]

From what I can recall, I haven't seen any incoporeal creatures with LAs less than +4. For incoporeal templates, it's been +5 minimum. The Umbral Creature template from Savage Species (I know, I know, it's 3.0) might be another thing to look at for ideas.

Realistically, I think you're gonna be stuck with a +5 level adjustment. You might be able to justify +4 by keeping it fairly bare of powerful abilities (no attacks that deal ability damage, although doing ability damage might be worth the extra +1 LA), but +2 is too low, by my estimation. Incoporeality is a very strong ability on it's own, even more so for spellcasters, since it protects them from what they're usually most vulnerable to.

For out of combat speech, you can probably form your shadowy body into words and pictures on the ground or on walls.

[Raum]

Well, the unbodied have a +4 LA but part of has needs to cover ability bonuses (to everything except Str), a fly speed, higher than normal unarmed damage, and psionic powers. So an incorporeal creature with less than +4 LA isn't unreasonable...as long as other abilities are taken into account.

I do agree incorporeality is powerful, but it's much less so when the incorporeal creature has a 50% miss chance when attacking meat bags. Looking over the abilities, I'd say +1 LA for incorporeal and +1-2 for Ghost Touch.