Arelith

The path, as it stands currently, is largely a downgrade from standard mages: DC increases are good, but lack of evo hurts badly, especially as you get higher in level and monsters/other players start to get more saves. Given that Mith's said he's okay with other contributors buffing the path, I figured we could list out a few ideas of how to buff Shadow Weave mages.

Quality of life stuff:

1) Allow shadow weavers to use scrolls/wands/etc of evocation spells; There's a couple of puzzles on the isle that block areas Shadow Weave users would and could certainly coalesce in, but they require evocation spells. I can PM more details to devs if need be - This is presumably something to be kept a little vague. It also doesn't make much sense for Shar to block them from using normal weave items, given that she doesn't in PnP.

2) Have SD levels give bonus spellslots ala PM. This doesn't really open up anything too silly build wise, but allows the Shadow Weave user to take SD pre epic without crippling themselves, or to take more than ten SD levels without crippling themselves.


Actual buffs:

1) Add a -shadowwalk command once per day at level 15 combined wizard/SD level for shadow weave users. Using it on the surface teleports you to the Shadovar Trade Post, using it on Cordor teleports you to the Gathering of Ghosts/Sharran Temple in Shadow Cordor/Tower of Shar.

Perhaps have it leave a temporary shadow door behind after you do so, lasting a couple of rounds, to allow people to follow you or allow you to move your entire party?

2) Add a -shield command for a fascimile of the Shield of Shadows ability from PnP. Activating it applies a scaling spell resistance (Ala the cleric spell resistance spell), some AC or DR, a sizable amount of concealement (60% 70%? Scaling based on combined wizard/SD levels?).

3) Grant Shadow Weave users a bonus to being dispelled, ala Arcane Defense Abjuration? The PnP equivilant applies a -2 penalty to all attempts to dispel shadow weave users by normal mages.

4) Some sort of buff while casting at Night/In the Underdark/In a darkness spell/on the shadow plane? Increased caster level, damage increase for spells, something to that effect.

5) Allow their SD and ESF illusion clones to cast spells? Perhaps have them just play the VFX of whatever spell the shadow weave mage casts, but not actually produce any effects?

6) Require a caster level check, or dispel check (Or a save?) to see a Shadow Weave user who is steathed/invisible with true seeing/see invis?


More will come later as I think of them (Or as others add suggestions).

Do you think we could get into the concept of Shadow Weavists having greater resistance vs. being dispelled by normal Weavists, and flipside, lesser dispelling power vs. normal Weavists?

I also think they should get:
- infinite Darkness at X level
- infinite Lesser Shades at X level
- infinite Shades at X level

Seven Sons of Sin wrote:Do you think we could get into the concept of Shadow Weavists having greater resistance vs. being dispelled by normal Weavists, and flipside, lesser dispelling power vs. normal Weavists?

I also think they should get:
- infinite Darkness at X level
- infinite Lesser Shades at X level
- infinite Shades at X level

The dispelling thing is something I considered, but dislike. It makes them less effective at fighting regular mages (Sure, they can't be dispelled as easily, but neither can they dispel them as easily), and the class already has a sizable drawback to it. Nor do I think infinite spells really helps either. Infinite darkness is kind of meh, and infinite Shadow Conjuration/Greater Shadow Conjuration/Shades doesn't really translate to anything hugely useful either. You can't exactly use the summoned Shadows like a normal summon.

(nm)

I mean, they're not clerics. The only reason they have to worship Shar is because Shar's a lot less liberal in who can use her stuff, compared to Mystra. Components still makes sense.

I like the bluff idea tho.

maybe give them a resistance to illusion, necromancy, and enchantment too?

More innate infinite spells would be interesting. Or perhaps giving them some love in the form of the command epic illusionists get. Making it free or giving them more uses a day would be interesting.

I can picture what will happen on the forums if, after players begging for a decade for the devs to make stealthers harder to detect by true seeing, the devs decide to give a mage subclass the ability to avoid detection by true seeing.

If true seeing were properly changed somehow to make it less than an instant detection of mundane stealthers within line of sight, I think it would be fine to let shadow mage/SD characters have a bit of a small advantage on that check somehow, but otherwise it looks to me like outright immunity to true seeing scrolls. That's an enormous buff, and balance-wise I don't see why it should go to a mage without doing a larger overhaul to how true seeing works.

If we did something like turn True Seeing the spell into Ultravision+See Invisibility with a big bonus to spot, like the greater of 25 or the caster's spellcraft, or heck, even just +50 to spot, then it would be totally fine if it's mechanically possible to give shadow mage/SD characters a +5 or +10 or something to that check specifically. It would also mean that barbarian/rogue or fighter/rogue/WM characters who pop True Seeing scrolls for PvP without any investment in spot would not be able to detect the best stealthers in the game (measured by Hide ranks, not by whether or not they are a shadow mage), which is really super wonderful.

Clone spellcasting would be a cool perk for them, and I like the unlimited darkness idea and maybe unlimited shadow conjuration/shades casting too. Can shadow mages use shadow conjuration and shades to replicate the evocation subspells from those spells? Might need to restrict it to the Summon Shadow subspell for the unlimited casting aspect if so.

If there was a desire for increased SD/Shadow Weaver synergy, what about making SW levels count towards the HD of an SD's Shadow, at say a 3:1 ratio? So an SW 24/SD 6 would summon a shadow equivalent to an SD 14. Bonus points if epic SW characters can choose Epic Shadowlord as a bonus feat.

Another small-cool buff would be:

If you take the Shadow weaver path, then the mirror image from esf illusion and the shadow from the SD class now use the henchman slot.

This way they can be used with other regular summons.

Not really a buff per say given how niche it is for a buff, but still good to take and fitting for multiclassed magi.

Hunter548 wrote: Infinite darkness is kind of meh

Not at all, infinite darkness is a great help in dungeon crawling against many many foes, ask anyone who has partnered with a char who has it.

In PvP? Not so much, but can't have everything

Gimme that infinite darkness love!

Why would You need infinite darkness if You almost don't have any offensive spells (bar Horrid)? Infinite Darkness wouldn't help at all truly saying I think.


How about something like this maybe:
- Uncapped damage on Shades offensive spells
- Additional +1/level uses of Summon Shadow (like Shades spell, given like GSF spells)

That would leave only missing a non-save offensive spell but I guess it should be enough with +2 DC on Horrid and +2 DC on uncapped Shades?

Actually.. any Shadow Weave Mage players around who could give some feedback regarding early levels ?

Spamming the blind from enchantment is great early levels, especially in party play alongside a front liner. DC is beuno.

miesny_jez wrote:Actually.. any Shadow Weave Mage players around who could give some feedback regarding early levels ?

Find friends and get greater focus in enchantment early so you can spam blind like susitsu says. DC 30ish around level 8 ruins the day of just about every mob you'll encounter, doesn't draw aggro and isn't mind-affecting so it can be used on spiders and even undead.

Blind leaves the mob flatfooted for a round, gives them a 50% miss chance and also boosts your tank's AB against the target by 2. It's seriously great.

miesny_jez wrote:Why would You need infinite darkness if You almost don't have any offensive spells (bar Horrid)? Infinite Darkness wouldn't help at all truly saying I think.

Darkness is an amazing spell for almost any character. Free sneak attacks for rogues, turns every mob flat-footed for the warrior types to wail on, makes everyone in it hard to hit if the enemy lacks truesight/ultravision, and even without offensive spells, being able to fire disables from within darkness can mess with enemy AI enough to trivialize a lot of encounters.

Lorkas wrote:I can picture what will happen on the forums if, after players begging for a decade for the devs to make stealthers harder to detect by true seeing, the devs decide to give a mage subclass the ability to avoid detection by true seeing.

If true seeing were properly changed somehow to make it less than an instant detection of mundane stealthers within line of sight, I think it would be fine to let shadow mage/SD characters have a bit of a small advantage on that check somehow, but otherwise it looks to me like outright immunity to true seeing scrolls. That's an enormous buff, and balance-wise I don't see why it should go to a mage without doing a larger overhaul to how true seeing works.

If we did something like turn True Seeing the spell into Ultravision+See Invisibility with a big bonus to spot, like the greater of 25 or the caster's spellcraft, or heck, even just +50 to spot, then it would be totally fine if it's mechanically possible to give shadow mage/SD characters a +5 or +10 or something to that check specifically. It would also mean that barbarian/rogue or fighter/rogue/WM characters who pop True Seeing scrolls for PvP without any investment in spot would not be able to detect the best stealthers in the game (measured by Hide ranks, not by whether or not they are a shadow mage), which is really super wonderful.

Clone spellcasting would be a cool perk for them, and I like the unlimited darkness idea and maybe unlimited shadow conjuration/shades casting too. Can shadow mages use shadow conjuration and shades to replicate the evocation subspells from those spells? Might need to restrict it to the Summon Shadow subspell for the unlimited casting aspect if so.

I agree with everything said here. I've seen the truesight turned into ultravision + see invis + 20 sport and I found it interesting and fun, personally. Note that without haks the bonus to spot will count towards the +50 cap so it will diminish the value of spot gear to some agree but it will raise the value in putting skill points into spot greatly and make a distinguished line between the average stealthers and the really good ones who invest in 80+ hide. I think that for as long as true seeing spell works the way it works now, has no counter ~and~ is scrollable, it suffers from the 'time-stop scroll syndrome' (something op that you cant really change without changing the entire game pretty much, so you leave it as is and just go with the flow).

On second thought I do agree with everything said about true seeing by Lorkas; though suggesting it be changed is probably for another thread.

Infinite darkness isn't terribly useful for regular casters: Warlocks and TFs make good use of it because they have infinite damage and can use the darkness to keep stuff from attacking them while they wear down the enemy. Shadow Weavers play exactly the opposite.

Nor do I think giving them infinite summon shadows is all that useful: The shadows you get via the Shadow Conjuration line don't really work as summons so much as they're a single target STR drain over time with the rate based on target AC: They do barely any damage, and only last a round/level. Not to mention that shadow weave boosts necromancy as well, and these'd conflict with the vampires/mummies. The SD shadow summon has similar problems (It's pretty lackluster as a mage summon), with the additional problem of taking SD levels being pretty bad because it doesn't give you more spellslots.


With regards to the 'how does it fare at low levels' thing: The extra DC is good, but I've already run into situations where I fervently go "Wow, I really wish I had magic missile" and I'm not even level 10 yet. The drawback's pretty crippling for what get for it. Rather like old kensais.

Thematically the bonus/malus to dispel makes sense, but practically it severely disadvantages the shadow mage. Every caster class would need only worry about shadow mages, while shadow mages would need worry about every other arcane caster class: sorcerers, wizards, bards, wild mages, and mundanes using wands and scrolls, which also draw from the weave.

To remark on Hunter's point, the lack of offensive spells is painful, and you'll likely not have the feats to invest in conjuration, so your summons aren't going to be super reliable either. To play this path to its fullest, you really need friends. You wouldn't think +2 to Confusion/Hold Monster/Fear would make that much of a difference, but in a party, it really does.

As for Darkness, the spell gets a lot of hate, particularly for its penchant to bug out (rather frequently) with Ultravision. But you'll find your party members appreciate it when you slap Ultravision on them all, then cast Darkness on a mage boss, thus preventing the AI from getting its openers off. Honestly, Darkness is my favorite spell for what it does: baffle enemy AI.

I also don't think that shadow mages should be given buffs to any particular school's epic capstone feat, like the Illusionist's mirror image. This practically mandates that the shadow mage take illusion, possibly to the exclusion of enchantment or necromancy.

I'm not convinced that it's a disadvantage for the shadow mage. Certainly it's a trade-off, but being extra resistant to dispels at the cost of being slightly worse at dispelling others is a good trade, as least in PvE.

For PvP, there's always breaches.

Lorkas wrote:I'm not convinced that it's a disadvantage for the shadow mage. Certainly it's a trade-off, but being extra resistant to dispels at the cost of being slightly worse at dispelling others is a good trade, as least in PvE.

For PvP, there's always breaches.

That's a fair point, yeah.

Here's my suggestion: Shield of Shadows (as per PnP): for shadow mages only, shadow shield grants spell resistance equal to 12+ caster level in addition to its normal effects.

I am little bit confused here...

From what I understand the problem is the offensive potential of the path.. yet the suggestions posted propose mostly buffs to Shadow Weave defensive capabilities. Things like the Shadow shield idea, resistance to dispels or other spell schools, even infinite Darkness (which I do not like at all) - these are all defensive suggestion.

Some of these are obviously thematically fitting (shadow shield) but they do not resolve the initial issue why was this thread created in the first place?

The shadow weave path does not loose any defensive capabilities when compared to mage.. so why do You suggest defensive abilities? The path already adds quite a lot of defense to the base mage allowing free access to a class which has HIPS, EVASION, UNCANNY DODGE 1 and TUMBLE for literally no cost whatsoever.

Wytchee wrote: I also don't think that shadow mages should be given buffs to any particular school's epic capstone feat, like the Illusionist's mirror image. This practically mandates that the shadow mage take illusion, possibly to the exclusion of enchantment or necromancy.

This is a very good point and I will absolutely agree with Wytchee.

Wytchee wrote: I only really have one suggestion, and that is to allow Shadow Mages to cast evocation cantrips (like light) if the cantrip comes from a warlock pact.

This is a very good point. Warlock pact is something separate from Shadow Weave and this should be put down as an exclusion. Though mind that the Warlock spells would be not modified by the Shadow Weave + DC modifiers.

Hunter548 wrote: Quality of life stuff:

1) Allow shadow weavers to use scrolls/wands/etc of evocation spells; (snipp)
2) Have SD levels give bonus spellslots ala PM. (snipp)

Both of these suggestions are reasonable ones and we will discuss them.

From what I understand the perceived problems of this path begin at later levels, as in early levels You would have access to boosted DC spells like: Confusion, Negative Bursts, Killers, Enervetions, Fears... etc. Is that correct?

The Shades(Flame Wall) is already a non-save spell in its current Arelith implementation, though its obviously a little bit problematic as its not a fire-and -forget spell.

Shades (Cone) and generally Cone spells are a little bit harder to use then IGMS or Chain lightnings but it certainly is a solid offensive spell and with boosted DC even if You don't spec into illusion making it DC-wise a lvl 8 spell with no focuses. Mind also that having free access to HIPS allows You to effectively cone anything with literally no risk.. as You can always HIPS out.

I suppose the true issue lies in the fact the path does not have access to a reliable and easy to use non-save spell (MMissile, IGMS, Ice Storm).

Yet it does allow still for a plethora of solid damaging spell options - Horrid (boosted Fort Save), Shades (boosted Reflex saves), Flame Arrows (uncapped, Reflex saves), Negative Burst (boosted Fort saves), these are all viable offensive options covering both Fort and Reflex saves.

For Will-based spells.. well both Enchantments and Illusions are boosted - the primary schools which operate on these saves so thats also not a point.

Lack of Bigbies could be raised as no access to Rflx-save disables.. but Greater Shadow Conjuration:Web .. is a greatly underestimated spell giving You effectively a lvl 7 equivalent of reflex-disable spell.. and on top of that an AoE which ignores spell save boost from spellcraft, flatfooter and spell interrupter in one button. Which I dare to say is actually more powerful then a bigby grasper.


The only thing which is actually standing out to me currently in terms of "fixing" offensive capabilities of Shadow Weave mages at later levels is uncapping the Shades(Cone), giving cap of 15 to Shades(Fireball) and uncapping Shades(Flame Wall).

I would probably consider also changing the Shades (Flame Wall) damage to Negative or Cold to fit in better thematically.

Do You have any other suggestions?

The suggested changes to shades would make it even easier to spot a shadowmage than it already is. Keeping the buffs to the path under the radar would be better imo.

The trade-off to increased defense and DC for no-evocation is the path has to rely on DC's - which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To improve that end maybe give shadowmages mage-feats at certain SD levels - as a replacement for the free sd-rogue feats.

Spell focusses, metamagic etc.

Also staunchly in support of SD levels giving spell slots because currently taking SD is not really optimal.

As a direct overhaul though, which would be remarkably easier to work with, is if shadowmages lose the SD level bonuses and you just give them hips and SD feats at particular levels of sorc/wiz As. well as the +DC's etc. It seems really odd to do a path the way it's currently implemented. Just adds a needless level of complexity to the whole thing, for nothing but a headache.

It also follows more closely what a shadowmage actually is (which isn't a caster/sd), and I would assume have been a whole lot less back end work with cl's, prerequistes etc.

Giving extra spell slots doesn't help sorcerers as much as it helps wizards (since it allows wizards to unlock higher level spells as long as they learn the spells via scroll), and it doesn't actually help either of them above level 20 in their mage class.

Here are some more ideas I've conjured up to be mulled over and digested at your leisure. I'm not saying all of these should be implemented; I'm merely brainstorming. Note that most of these are my own twists on various spells and abilities Shadow Adepts receive in PnP (3.5 edition).

Offensive:
Pernicious Magic - the shadow mage adds +4 to rolls against any Weave user's spell resistance. This stacks with bonuses gained from Spell Penetration feats.
Tenacious Magic - shadow mages gain additional spells per day as if they had chosen a specialization school. This makes sense to me, as evocation is essentially their prohibited school. Note that this may require restricting the path to generalists.
Shadow Dragon! - shadow mages summon a shadow dragon for Epic Dragon Knight that is empowered by illusion foci as opposed to conjuration foci. (Threw this one in 'cause why not?)

Defensive:
Shadow Defense - shadow mages receive +1 to saving throws versus spells cast from the schools of illusion, enchantment and necromancy for every 10 caster levels.
Shield of Shadows - for shadow mages only, shadow shield provides spell resistance equal to 12+ caster level in addition to its normal effects. Note SS is #4 on the breach list.

Roleplay:
Insidious Magic - shadow mages with high enough spellcraft can use a console command to determine if shadow magic has been recently cast in an area.