Best Race for Shadowdancer?


Advice


My PFS Lodge has come up with an interesting spin on the CORE Campaign for one of our venues and I'm looking forward to it when it starts in March. Here're the added rules for the Self-Limiting Core Campaign:

Lodge wrote:

No dump stats: No character may voluntarily lower their ability score below 10, except via racial modifiers.

Pathfinder Training: Characters are expected to be knowledgeable in their areas of expertise. Characters must put at least one rank into all their class knowledge skills (over the course of your first 5 levels)

Languages: Characters are expected to speak at least one language other than Common. Any Core-legal language will do.

Animal Companions: Characters may have animal companions, but they are to be just that. Companions. They are not to be disposable combat beasts (such as, but not limited to pounce kitties, large wolves, etc). They are your best friend. Treat them as such. Really. Just because the game doesn’t place penalties on their death doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. Self-imposed penalties in the unlikely event of their death can be imposed, for those that choose.

I took another glance through the Core Rulebook and have decided to play a Fighter/Shadowdancer because it looks like fun.

So, while I've settled on the class, I'm having difficulty deciding on a race. I'm torn between the 'gaceful'/'nimble' Elf, Half-Elf, and Halfling. I've played a couple humans in standard PFS, and am looking for something different.
My Characters:
Human male (Sorcerer 4/Fighter 1/Dragon Disciple 2)
Human female (Fighter 4/Brawler 1)
Half-Orc male (Ranger 2)
Gnome male (Bard 2)
Half-Elf male (Beastrider & Honor Guard 2)

So what race would synergize best as a Fighter/Shadowdancer?


Anyone? I need to get this done before Thursday and it takes me a while to work out the details...


I believe Kitsune no longer require a boon, so you could do one of them, Realistic Likeness is a fun feat to mess with as well


3 feat tax I'd just go human


Well, half elf have one advantage- they can patch up your will save, which is going to be your weak point.

I am unsure how CORE we are talking here, but at the very least, they have elven immunities, which gives them a +2 vs. enchantments (which tend to be the worst will saves).

If you can use the alternate racial traits from the Advanced Class guide, half elves can also get a +2 to will saves in general.

Anyway, with those two bits, I am going to go off on a tangent, since I started looking things up before actually reading the thread- Fetchlings make fantastic shadow dancers. Besides a decent stat spread, they also get shadow blending, which increases the miss chance due to concealment in dim light to 50% instead of the usual 20%.


It is core campaign, just with the above rules added. I haven't actually checked, but I think I'm limited to the Core Rulebook and the Guide to Organized Play. Maybe traits from Advanced Player's Guide?
The point being that my racial options are Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Human.
I'm somewhat considering a 1 level dip into Rogue (Fighter4/Rogue1/Shadowdancer7), in which case, the extra skill points will help me get the knowledges and languages I need. Half-Elf would even give me FCB for it. The Elf's racial trait 'elven magic' is a waste since I can't replace it. Halfling gets bonuses to stealth and acrobatics and even AC, so that's also noteworthy. Human does grant me an extra feat and skill point, but I play those often, so I'm trying to lean away from that...

Scarab Sages

If you're taking one level of rogue, you might as well take two. It won't cost you any more BAB, and will give evasion and a talent than you can use for an extra feat in your pre-req chain for shadowdancer.


True, but Evasion is redundant as I'll get that later. I'll admit getting it early would be an awesome thing, but is Ref+1, Evasion, and a Rogue Talent worth giving up Fort+1, and a bonus Combat Featwhen I'll get Evasion at 7th level anyway?

Scarab Sages

You aren't really losing the bonus combat feat if you take combat trick as your talent. You are giving up fort+1, one hp, and access to weapon specialization. Of those, only the fort save is really worth it.

But, yes evasion is redundant as you'll be getting it later. (Too bad it doesn't stack to improved anymore, sometimes I miss 3.0)


Are there any other core class 1dips that might be worth it?

Also, back to my original question, Half-Elf or Halfling?

Scarab Sages

I'd go with half-elf, since you are stuck with the 20' speed as a halfling in core. Unless you dip Barbarian or cleric with the travel domain, of course.


What about getting the Fleet feat? Also, with Shadow Jump, movement becomes slightly less of an issue (only 80ft./day, hence 'slightly')


How about this- focus on reach weapons.

With the amount of feats you can get as a fighter, you can qualify for shadow dancer and still have room for a basic reach build- power attack and combat reflexes.

Since you hide in the shadows, enemies will walk into your threatened area without meaning to. And you can strike from a further distance (which means you can cover a lot of ground with things like spring attack).

If you do go this route, I would advise you to grab lunge as well. It is great for reach weapons, since it lets you leave enemies directly outside of your range after you attack- that means enemies have to draw an AoO if they want to reach you.

The other, more intended advantage of lunge is that you can full attack anything in a 45' wide circle. Nice for when you break out of stealth. Enemies have to cover a lot of ground to catch up with you if you spring attack as well.


Cool idea! I was initially imaginging a finesse based character, but this might be something to consider.

Scarab Sages

Reach works better as there is no dex to damage in CORE. You can't even get an agile weapon.


What, there's DEX to damage?! Oh, wait, it's probably in one of those tiny magazine things I can't get, isn't it? I bet it doesn't work for Short Swords either.


K-kun the Insane wrote:
What, there's DEX to damage?! Oh, wait, it's probably in one of those tiny magazine things I can't get, isn't it? I bet it doesn't work for Short Swords either.

its in the advanced class guide, it is called slashing grace and i believe it can be used for shortswords

Edit: Can be used with longswords, so yeah, it probably will work with shortswords

Scarab Sages

K-kun the Insane wrote:
What, there's DEX to damage?! Oh, wait, it's probably in one of those tiny magazine things I can't get, isn't it? I bet it doesn't work for Short Swords either.

Not in Core.

The ways to get Dex to damage are:

An Agile Weapon. This is a +1 equivalent enchantment from the PFS Field Guide.
The Dervish Dance feat from the Inner Sea World Guide. Scimitar only.
The Slashing Grace feat from the ACG. Note this only works on one-handed slashing weapons, and without a swashbuckler dip only works on the whip and aldori dueling sword.
The Fencing Grace feat from ACG Origins. Rapier only.
Mythic Weapon Finesse.
A four level dip in the whirling dervish swashbuckler.

As you can see, none of these are core legal.


Slashing grace is a feat from ACG, which was a rather large publication (released a full suite of classes, and a ton of other content, like a DR bashing pounce for unarmed build) that lets one handed slashing weapons to do dex to damage. Not that it doesn't do dex to attack rolls- you need a dip in the swash buckler class to get that

There is also the fencing grace feat, which does dex to damage with a rapier. That is usable by everyone.

But no- no short swords. They seem to consciously avoid dex to damage for light weapons because they do not want to make it easy for TWF.


Reach build Shadowdancer, with Spring Attack and eventually Lunge, Step Up(and the two subsequent feats after it) are also vicious to adding threat range. Reach is just downright brutal for flitting around the battlefield and smacking people down. I have a Tiefling Shadowdancer, who thanks to the alternate traits gets to use a Large Horsechopper, I slip around the battlefield and just wreck anything within my threat range. HIGHLY recommend a reach-built Shadowdancer.

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