La -1

[ericgrau]

Shadowling

A shadowling is a creature crafted out of pure shadow by a powerful magic user. He comes into the world fully grown with knowledge and experience of abilities crafted into him before he knows much else of the world. He appears more or less like a human, or sometimes like an elf or drow or other similarly shaped race but these differences do not affect anything other than his appearance. He still eats, drinks, sleeps, breathes and so forth like a humanoid.

Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet.
Automatic Language: Common. Bonus Languages: Aquan, auran, draconic, ignan, sylvan, terran, undercommon.
Aging: A shadowling ages as a human does, even if his creator makes him appear as a different humanoid.

Abilities
A shadowling's main ability is his additional class level or humanoid hit die as represented by his -1 LA. He comes into being with this level with knowledge and abilities before he even has practical real world experience. A new character starting at first level has a second class level as well, which he learned in life.

A shadowling has a +1 caster level and +1 to the save DC for spells or spell like abilities with the (shadow) descriptor. This extra caster level does not aid his spell progression.

A shadowling also has the following drawbacks:

• -2 to all 6 ability scores.
• -1 to all d20 rolls.
• -1 effective class level to all level dependent class abilities, which may affect spell progression and so forth, but not usually the level when an ability is first gained. Unless it is gained at 1st level or otherwise does not function at below the normal class level. Then the character does not gain that ability until he gains another level in that class. Thus a 1st level shadowling wizard cannot cast spells nor does his familiar have any special abilities because his effective class level is 0. However a 1st level shadowling character with 2 levels in wizard may cast spells as a 1st level wizard.
• Shadow Being: Shadow spells affect a shadowling as if they were 100% real regardless of his saving throw. Additionally he faces a -4 penalty to saving throws against illusion spells which stacks with his -1 penalty to all rolls. However illusion spells such as figments which are not quasi-real do not affect a shadowling as if they were real. His hand still passes through an illusory wall and so forth. When observed with a true seeing spell a shadowling appears semi-transparent, but otherwise he looks like any other humanoid creature.

I think that'll do it for now until I run into holes that need filling. Exploit away.

Spoiler: removed stuff

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caster level for spells and spell like abilities. This also affects his spell progression. Thus a shadowling born as a wizard cannot cast spells until he gains his second level. He still gains hit dice, skills, saves and so forth. Though a character starting off as a 2nd level wizard may cast spells as a 1st level wizard. This penalty still applies to spells with the (shadow) descriptor, effectively giving him +0 caster level and -1 level of spell progression for these spells. If a shadowling has multiple spell progressions, this penalty applies to all of them.

A shadowling with a caster level of 0 may still use wands and staffs with spells from his class list. With the appropriate check he may use scrolls too. He may still have a familiar or other class features granted by his class.

[galan]

druid can bypass the -2 to STR and DEX, and his INT and CHA aren't really that important. On the other hand, wild shape at level 4 and natural spell at 5 is awesome and potentially rule breaking.

Dragoblooded of behemoth shouldn't of course work here

artificer could get item creation feats extra fast and make the entire party stronger. Bard could buff the entire party better and longer. Anyone could get into prestige classes even faster.

[ericgrau]

The artificer does seem like trouble even with the worse HP, saves and AC/touch AC. With the druid does the lower wis, HP and skill points balance out the better wildshape? I'm not familiar with dragoblooded of behemoth. How bad are the exploits if someone optimizes this race? This is partly a thought exercise, to see if it is possible for there to be limitations and drawbacks that are bad enough to make this work without making it unplayably bad to the casual player.

[Jormengand]

The thing is, it doesn't reduce ML/PP/Power progression or IL/Maneuver progression or SLA progression (only CL for SLAs). So go psion.

[ericgrau]

Well psionics have transparency by default. Maneuvers do benefit.

[Jormengand]

Well psionics have transparency by default.

Yes, but that doesn't stop ML/CL, UMD/UPD and K(Arc)/K(Psi) being different and counted separately.

[ericgrau]

I've edited the original post and extended the -1 effective level to all level dependent class features mainly to avoid confusion. So a 1st level shadowling wizard can't cast spells and psionics and ToB maneuvers are likewise affected. A 5th level shadowling druid can still wildshape but he is capped at 4 HD.