[SNEAK PEEK] Core Campaign Prestigious Character Compendium - Pharasman Shadowcaster

[Exguardi]

Hello Pathfinder people! After developing my first character build for the Core Campaign, a brawling divinely-empowered Shadowdancer, I've decided to make a miniature "Character Compendium" designed to showcase creative builds for my personal favorite character option, the prestige class.

Thus far I have roughed out this Shadowdancer, whom I am seeking feedback on below, as well as a mounted Dragon Disciple and a necromancer Mystic Theurge. Next up is probably an Eldritch Knight and/or Arcane Archer to complete the core group of powerful prestigious characters. If anyone has any suggestions for a build they would like to see included, please let me know in the comments below.

Please note that the formatting for this character is rough, as I've just been tinkering with it in an Evernote document. Comments, suggestions, and critiques are welcome-- especially anything that seems like it might address build weaknesses, which I will note below the character stat block. This character is built to level 11, the nominal limit of Society play, but has been built with low-level play considerations in mind.

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The Pharasman Shadowcaster is haunted by the shade of a loved one, barred from Pharasma's Boneyard until they can accomplish some great task. The Shadowcaster typically enhances himself and his shadow companion with divine magic, then wades into the fray with fists flying. Despite his personal tragedy, the Shadowcaster is not without compassion, and will attempt to render foes unconscious when possible with nonlethal attacks or his divine abilities. He will not, however, shed a tear if those that interfere with his goals are sent to the Boneyard earlier than their appointed time.

Pharasman Shadowcaster:

N Human Monk 1 / Cleric 5 / Shadowdancer 3 / Cleric 2
Initial Stats: 18 / 14 / 13 / 13 / 13 / 7
Final Stats: 20 (+2) / 16 (+2) / 14 / 13 / 18 (+4) / 7

Traits: Magical Knack (+2 CL for Cleric), Bullied (+1 on AoOs with Unarmed Strikes)
Deity: Pharasma
BAB: +7
CL: 9
AC: 28 [10 + 1 (Dodge) + 3 (DEX) + 7 (Breastplate) + 4 (Shield) + 3 (Shield of Faith)]
HP: 87 [10 + (8 * 5) + (7 * 3) + (8 * 2)]
Saves: +13 / +12 / +14 [+3 Cloak]
Domains: Death, Repose (Gentle Rest, 3+WIS/day)
Abilities: Channel Energy (Negative), Darkvision, Evasion, Hide in Plain Sight, Shadow Illusion, Summon Shadow, Uncanny Dodge, Rogue Talent (Opportunist)

1) Dodge
1) Mobility [BONUS, HUMAN]
1) Combat Reflexes [BONUS, MONK]
1) Stunning Fist [BONUS, MONK]
1) Improved Unarmed Strike [BONUS, MONK]
2) Medium Armor Proficiency [BONUS, CLERIC]
3) Combat Expertise
5) Improved Trip
7) Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike)
9) Greater Trip [RETRAINED]
11) Lunge

Spells:
1) [5+1] deathwatch [Domain], divine favor, remove fear, shield of faith, magic weapon, obscuring mist
2) [4+1] death knell [Domain], bull’s strength, calm emotions, desecrate, silence
3) [3+1] speak with dead [Domain], invisibility purge, magic circle of protection against evil, prayer
4) [2+1] death ward [Domain], greater magic weapon, freedom of movement

Attacks:
Unarmed Strike: +20 / +15; 1d6 + 2d6 + 13; greater magic weapon, bull’s strength, divine favor, holy; bypasses DR/good
Longspear: +17 / +12; 1d8 + 13; bull’s strength, divine favor; reach, bypasses DR/adamantine

Gear [77200/82000, 8 PP]: Belt of STR +2, Ioun Stone of DEX +2, Headband of WIS +4, Cloak of Resistance +3, Pearl of Power I [x3], Pearl of Power II, Amulet of Mighty Fists (Holy), Amulet of Mighty Fists (Ghost Touch); +1 Adamantine Longspear; +1 Mithral Breastplate; Rod of Extend (Lesser); Wand of Cure Light Wounds, Shield; Scroll of Air Walk, Death Ward

Shadow Companion:

As a Shadow, with the following modifications:

N Shadow
BAB: +7
HP: 43
Saves: Base saves of Shadowdancer; +4 vs. Positive Energy, cannot suffer Turn/Command Undead
Abilities: Can communicate intelligibly with its master

Gear: Amulet of Mighty Fists (Ghost Touch)

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Basic Tactics:

The Shadowcaster enhances himself with divine favor, shield of faith, and greater magic weapon, typically extending these spells when possible. He can enhance his companion's capabilities with desecrate and prayer, and raise his allies' defenses with magic circle against evil. If the Shadowcaster does not expect to cast a spell at the beginning of combat, he will typically use and hold the charge on his Gentle Rest domain power. He can render opponents staggered and stunned using Gentle Rest and Stunning Fist delivered through unarmed strikes.

The Shadowcaster makes use of his Greater Trip ability to provide Attacks of Opportunity to his shadow. Additionally, the Shadowcaster's Opportunist rogue talent means that once a round, when his shadow or another ally hits an opponent he threatens he can immediately take an Attack of Opportunity, substituting a trip, etc. as needed. The Shadowcaster receives a bonus to these attacks due to his Bullied trait, and is particularly strong against evil foes due to his Holy Amulet of Mighty Fists.

His shadow companion uses an Amulet of Ghost Touch to enable her to interact with the physical world. She serves a role similar to the Spiritualist's Phantom companion with the ability to float through obstacles and unlock doors, purloin small objects, and other helpful acts. Typically in combat the shadow will lurk beneath the floor, arising to do battle when the Shadowcaster has completed casting his buffs and moved into position to flank with her. She is not particularly bright but has been given certain basic instructions, namely to ready actions to attack when given a flank when possible, as well as to attempt to avoid killing humanoid creatures with her strength-draining touch.

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Weaknesses:

The Pharasman Shadowcaster suffers from a reduced BAB, making it difficult to achieve a high enough CMB to trip to compete with monster CMDs. Additionally, the Shadowcaster has no great options for increasing his size, and cannot benefit from Lunge for additional reach until very late in his career. The Shadowcaster also delays access to his shadow companion until level 9, close to the limit of Pathfinder Society play. Additionally, some table variation might be had regarding a worshipper of Pharasma's capability of partnering with an undead companion (although there are many paladin shadowdancers I have seen, with similar backstory justifications). A GM might also rule that the shadow is unable to interact with any object possessing a notable weight even with the Ghost Touch amulet, as the shadow's listed STR score is - as an incorporeal creature.

Additionally, the Shadowcaster's DCs for his few spells that allow for saving throws and his Stunning Fist ability are not overly high and will usually be resisted by level-appropriate foes. It would be nice to work a way into the build to introduce an additional status condition on the enemy, such as Shaken. Additionally, from what I understand a failed trip attempt will actually result in the Shadowcaster himself potentially going prone, which he has no good way to recover from.

There is some overlap in his domain choices, as the Death domain shares many of the same spells as Repose. Another domain choice could potentially be more useful. His decision to wear armor precludes the Shadowcaster from taking advantage of his monk AC bonus and Flurry of Blows; he could potentially eschew armor in favor of a friendly cast of Mage Armor using his Lesser Extend Rod, and add armor properties as needed to Bracers of Armor. This would open up the possibility of increasing potential damage by Flurrying with an effective 8 BAB and using Power Attack, but it would be difficult to land a blow with the increased penalties.

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Let me know what you guys think! The CRB is surprisingly deep with its offered options, and I think this character offers a fun twist on the generic Shadowdancer concept. PLEASE NOTE to me if I accidentally took any option that is not legal in the Core Campaign; similarly, feel free to suggest (in spoiler tags) boons that might be useful to increase the effectiveness of this character if said boons are easily obtainable.

[Nefreet]

Exguardi wrote:

This character is built to level 11, the nominal limit of Society play, but has been built with low-level play considerations in mind.

Not interested in planning to level 20?

I'd at least aim for level 12, so you can get through Eyes of the Ten.

[Exguardi]

Oh, sure, I just usually build out to level 11 and assume I can figure things out from there if I'm continuing in Society play. Not every character I play is intended to play past retirement (in fact I'd say I only have one character I'd consider playing past retirement despite him not having been intended for it.)

At level 12 this build gets two powerful abilities (the cleric 8th-level domain powers), and at level 13 it gets 5th-level spells, which means we're set for cool stuff going into Eyes of the Ten. I can add a 12+ build section if people would be interested in that?

[Kyrie Ebonblade,]

One question.. Isn't retraing outside the CORE options?

Other than that I'm curious to see how it plays out

[Imbicatus]

Thomas Graham wrote:

One question.. Isn't retraing outside the CORE options?

This was answered in the blog.

Quote:

Retraining may be utilized as the rules currently allow, but only when a PC retrains to take an option from one of the allowed Core Campaign resources.

[Exguardi]

Here's a rough outline of where to take the character from level 12 and onward if interested in post-retirement PFS play.

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Build Progression:

At level 12, the Shadowcaster will have reached his 8th level of Cleric, opening up powerful domain abilities. The Repose domain's Ward Against Death power lets the Shadowcaster guard his entire party from all deaths effects as a standard action. Note that while this is clearly based on death ward, it is a Supernatural ability and does not have Death Ward's limitations, but actually offers complete immunity to death effects as far as I can tell. The Death domain will now let us heal from our channeled negative energy as well as our companion. Even if the Shadowcaster got this ability sooner he would still likely ignore channeling as he has done.

At level 13, the Shadowcaster gains access to 5th-level Cleric spells, including slay living from his domains which he can hit with easily but is fairly easily resisted by foes. The big winner here is Righteous Might which gives us increased damage and reach, both things the Shadowcaster is looking for at level 13.

Post-13, the Shadowcaster advances in cleric as normal. The fact that he is 4 levels behind a traditional cleric as well as his shadow companion being less effective more of the time will quickly obviate him in a traditional high-level party; however he will still fill the martial role fairly well and there continue to be encounters even in very high-level play that are simply won by the shadow companion.

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Additionally, something I was kicking around in the build progression (since we're talking about retraining) is obtaining Greater Trip at 8th level, which involves shifting when we take cleric levels. We will now go Monk 1 (0 BAB) + Cleric 4 (3 BAB) + Shadowdancer 3 (2) and retrain Weapon Focus (IUS) into Greater Trip at level 8. This is possible because we reach 6 BAB when Flurrying and therefore can qualify to use the feat-- check out the Brawler threads for more details on that.

Obviously this comes with the weakness of being unable to activate Greater Trip EXCEPT for when Flurrying, and would necessitate ignoring armor and using Mage Armor instead in order to retain the Shadowcaster's Flurry of Blows ability. Thoughts?

EDIT: Actually I'm not sure about it. I've found conflicting information when doing a second research pass, viz-a-viz whether or not you can used your improved Flurry BAB to "activate" feats or if you can only use it for variable effects in feats; as opposed to something like a Barbarian raging and gaining Improved Unarmed Strike and using that to qualify for other feats, which I recall was deemed to work fine, just like the Brawler's TWF that only activates when using Brawler's Flurry qualifies them for improved TWF feats as normal.

Also! I've thought up a cool twist or two to the mounted Dragon Disciple and the necromancer Mystic Theurge builds I've been tinkering with-- which would people prefer I work up and preview first, if there is interest? Thanks!

[WalterGM]

Exguardi wrote:

The Pharasman Shadowcaster is haunted by the shade of a loved one, barred from Pharasma's Boneyard until they can accomplish some great task. The Shadowcaster typically enhances himself and his shadow companion with divine magic, then wades into the fray with fists flying. Despite his personal tragedy, the Shadowcaster is not without compassion, and will attempt to render foes unconscious when possible with nonlethal attacks or his divine abilities. He will not, however, shed a tear if those that interfere with his goals are sent to the Boneyard earlier than their appointed time.

Regardless of what you make, as long as you keep this sort of RP at the core if your builds I'd be happy to have you at my table. Can't wait to see how this turns out :)

[Exguardi]

Thanks! If I'm ever in the Pullman area I know where to go. :)

I think I will work on the Necrotheurge Trickster next (name subject to change), as I'm still looking for fun things to take the Dragon Disciple to the next level of cool.