My CORE character has just reached level 3 after tonight's scenario (Infernal Vault) and so I asked advice on which feat (Combat Reflexes vs. Combat Expertise) I should take. One guy asked me what my plan was and I told him I was going Shadowdancer.
"So you're going to have an Undead following you around?"
"Yeah...?" Sounds cool to me.
"So you're going to have an Undead following you around?"
Oh... Crap! This is a very good point he brought up for one character breaking reason:
Serenity is a Reaper of Pharasma (Fighter 1, Cleric 2). She is completely built around the idea of being a Reaper of Souls, both living and (un)dead. I can't think of any reason she would allow this (awesome) abomination to keep (un)living.
I have until Shadowdancer 4 (Character level 9), which is only 6 levels away now, to figure this conundrum out. Please help me, Advice Forum, you're my only hope!
Well, it's at Shadowdancer 3 that you get the companion, so.
Also, it always matches your alignment, which means it isn't evil, I assume.
I'd say it's him using (non-evilly created) undead against undead.
I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Question as to why you chose Pharasma fro the beginning?
Like bigrig said, the shadow matches your alignment. It IS still undead, so this is a real conundrum... And I doubt any lore developer will weigh in. I imagine James Jacobs would probably say something along the lines of "Some prestige classes just aren't suited to certain classes/dynamics."
It's tough. I'm not sure that this would work with being a cleric of Pharasma, sorry to say. The one excuse I could possibly think of would be to play it off as the redeemed soul of one of your slain targets looking to aid you in your quest? Almost a lesser psychopomp, maybe?
If abiding by your deity's central values means anything to your character then it's s no-go. Stupid role playing...
Like Nargemn said, ask your GM if you can reflavor it. Good or evil, Pharasma won't dig it otherwise.
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Arguably, the fact that it shares your alignment, you face negative levels if it dies, and you can make another one a month later all seems to indicate that the shadow is made from a part of you, rather than being some random restless spirit that you co opted. It is your literal shadow made manifest.
Whether Pharasma is happy about you tearing up pieces of your soul to turn into weapons is another question entirely, and one you should discuss with your GM.
Contrary to popular simplification, Pharasma is not anti-undead so much as anti destructive, mindless or evil undead, specially ones that are created from and suppress the souls of the dead and prevent them from properly passing on.
For example, her lore includes a tidbit about sometimes letting people resurrect as ghosts temporarily to take revenge on their murderer, or send messages to friends and family in dire circumstances.
So an undead that is, essentially, a piece of your own soul, and causes no harm to anyone but yourself and does not interrupt your normal life cycle should be fine.
My CORE character has just reached level 3 after tonight's scenario (Infernal Vault) and so I asked advice on which feat (Combat Reflexes vs. Combat Expertise) I should take. One guy asked me what my plan was and I told him I was going Shadowdancer.
"So you're going to have an Undead following you around?"
"Yeah...?" Sounds cool to me.
"So you're going to have an Undead following you around?"Oh... Crap! This is a very good point he brought up for one character breaking reason:
Serenity is a Reaper of Pharasma (Fighter 1, Cleric 2). She is completely built around the idea of being a Reaper of Souls, both living and (un)dead. I can't think of any reason she would allow this (awesome) abomination to keep (un)living.
I have until Shadowdancer 4 (Character level 9), which is only 6 levels away now, to figure this conundrum out. Please help me, Advice Forum, you're my only hope!
Unlike a normal shadow, this shadow's alignment matches that of the shadowdancer, and the creature cannot create spawn. The summoned shadow receives a +4 bonus on Will saves made to halve the damage from positive channeled energy and the shadow cannot be turned or commanded. This shadow serves as a companion to the shadowdancer and can communicate intelligibly with the shadowdancer.
I wouldn't mind a Shadow if it didn't basically cause an epidemic and upset the flow of life and death (which is what Pharasma would be most hateful about). She won't take you as seriously as you want her to if you take this route I'd imagine, primarily because you're using the very thing she despises to carry out her will. Possibly fitting, but since this Shadow would not upset the flows of life and death, I don't see anything that Pharasma would say "It's either me or that stupid ugly mutt of a pet you have."
To be quite honest, I'd think about finding ways of turning it into a Shadow Demon instead. Perhaps demonstrating to Pharasma a means to transmute that which she finds perversive into a subject less repulsive (and also less defiant of the flow of souls).
Some thoughts:
I don't see anywhere in the description that this summoned shadow is somehow part of your essence. The rules for losing the shadow are somewhat similar to the old rules for losing your familiar as a wizard, which I felt represented more of a bond then something part of your essence.
Talk to the GM about his/her interpretation of how Pharasma would view this.
It is an interesting debate, but it doesn't really matter what others in these boards feel about whether Pharasma would accept this or not - only your GM's opinion matters.
Route 1: GM will allow replacement to shadow.
- Build a shadow eidolon (from the Shadow Caller Fetchling archetype) with roughly the same power as a shadow, but not counting as an eidolon (so you can't further customize or enhance it from its original build) [this is what I would do as a GM if the player were concerned about the build and interaction with Pharasma]
- Swap shadow with a shadow drake
- Swap shadow with some other similarly powered creature that has the shadow template
Route 2: Go with it anyway ... or not
- Depending on how severe Pharasma would treat this in your GM's mind, just go with it anyway. Your character doesn't necessarily have to strictly adhere to every aspect of Pharasma's will. Especially since it is not necessarily a mindless, destructive undead that exists to feed and create more undead.
My view would be that Pharasma wouldn't stop a person from letting this happen but wouldn't be pleased with it either. There would be some fallout upon their meeting in Pharasma's courts. If the shadowdancer was being callous with the shadow and using it to incite fear in other or cause destruction, then likely Pharasma would stop granting your spells until you atoned.
If your GM indicates that Pharasma would definitely not be pleased, then simply don't exercise this aspect of your class powers.
I would say that the world is all in your group's head, so have a chat with your DM and see if you can change up the world to some extent so that you can justify your undead companion.
Just communicate with your DM exactly what you want your character to be and I'm sure you and him can sit down and figure something out. Whatever you decide upon, however, make sure that your character has a real reason - not a weak excuse - for having an undead follow him/her around everywhere.
To me, the big issue isn't that the shadow is evil, but that it creates more undead. I don't think you have the ability to shut that off (except for not letting the shadow fight anything you think it can kill), but, I could see a custom magical item (not for sale, definitely a quest) to shut that power off.
The Shadowdancer ability already states that the summoned shadow has your alignment (so non-evil is possible) and does not have the create spawn ability, and so the devs already handled your concerns. :)
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Honestly, I think you have an opportunity, here, rather than a problem. However, you’ll need to get GM buy-in, obviously to proceed as planned.
While I’m not against re-fluffing something in a game on occasion, as a GM I think it’s usually cheese-fuel to do so just so a player can get a certain build or mechanical benefit. Personally, I’m much more inclined to allow the exception if it’s done in a way that integrates into the story and campaign world.
As an example, BioWare does a really good job with world-building. If you look at their Dragon Age games, Dragon Age: Origins establishes the setting & some of its “rules”. However, as you progress through the series, you begin to see exceptions to those rules but there is usually a strong storytelling reason to explain away the apparent contradiction.
My recommendation would be something like the following:
The path of Pharasma cleric to Shadowdancer is almost unheard of – in fact it is viewed as a heretical practice by Pharasma’s faith (but not necessarily by the goddess herself). By going down this path, you are acknowledging that your character is coloring outside the accepted lines of most Pharasma followers and inviting story-conflict. This is also known as providing story ideas for your GM, which most GMs (and in my experience all good GMs) appreciate.
As for the undead follower, this is the (perhaps secret?) tradeoff for pursuing this path: when your character dies, they too, become an undead who will be paired up with a future follower of this rarely-traveled path of Pharasma’s faith. Obviously, negotiating how absolute this is with your GM would be important – can you still leverage things like raise dead and resurrection?
Other possibilities:
Is this a forgotten practice, and your cleric is the first in generations to follow these teachings? Or is there a hidden sect, seeking to do Pharasma’s will while avoiding persecution by the traditional faith?
Is Pharasma truly ok with this breaking with doctrine given the eternity of service pledged or has another divine force with a similar portfolio fueled this rift with Pharasma to further its own ends? Perhaps one of the ancient Osirian deities, given the culture’s obsession with the afterlife…
Though she allows resurrection, the Lady of Graves opposes undeath as a desecration of the memory of the flesh and a corruption of a soul’s path on its journey to her judgment.
If you're going Shadowdancer, I would recommend against using the shadow unless you can justify it in-character for a specific scenario. As a GM, I would expect you to dismiss it once it has served its purpose and, as such, deal with the relevant Fortitude save.
Faiths of the Balance, pg 17 (under Pharasma): "...you may not create undead, nor CONTROL them unless you do specifically for the purpose of destroying them."
On the other hand, you could change to a different deity. I haven't found any rules for this. But a cleric who violates the code of conduct of their deity loses all benefits until she atones, so I would rule a similar procedure for changing deity. Also, clerics aren't required to have a deity, so that's also an option.
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Just don't summon the shadow. Shadowdancer still has a lot to offer in a CORE game without the pet. Or, pay for the atonement, and change to a different deity that would be more appropriate to having a shadow companion. Urgathoa, Norgorber, or Zon Kuthon would all work thematically, although honestly, any deity other than Pharasma is fine.
It's not PFS, but in my home games, the shadow summoned by a Shadowdancer isn't actually undead. This shadow is an outsider from the Shadow Plane with stats that are pretty close to those of an undead shadow. I'm not on my laptop and don't have the stats with me. I can post or PM later if anyone's interested.
As mentioned, this is indeed PFS CORE. I asked this on our province's Pathfinder Lodge Facebook page and once they realized she's a Cleric and not merely a follower of Pharasma, they said there was no grey area and summoning the Shadow would make me an ex-cleric.
That said, the idea of her becomming corrupted and retraining her Cleric of Pharasma levels into Cleric of Urgathoa levels sounds like fun. While I do have CN jerk with a heart of gold (Liberty's Edge) character (who might one day swap to CG), I don't have anything like this. A TN cleric of an evil goddess who turned her back on her former calling. However, potentially 3 levels of Cleric to retrain would cost a lot of Prestige...
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You wouldn't need to retain the cleric levels to change your Deity, just pay the Atonement costs.
In PFS, divine casters can switch deities (and their underlying alignments) via the atonement spell. You would lose access to anything Urgathoa could not provide that Pharasma did, and gain what a worshiper of Urgathoa receives at that point (i.e. the domain, preferred weapon proficiency, alignment restrictions, etc.).
The cost of the atonement is 8 PP or full material cost version of the spell.
A character may only worship one deity at a time; the character may change which deity she worships between sessions at no cost. If this change requires the character to change alignment, the character is required to pay for an atonement. Any element incompatible with the new deity no longer functions. These elements may be retrained at normal cost using the rules from Ultimate Campaign.
For example, a cleric of Desna with the Travel and Luck domains and the Butterfly Sting feat switches her worship to Shelyn. The cleric may still use the Luck domain because Shelyn grants that domain, but not the Travel domain or the Butterfly Sting feat, because worship of Shelyn does not grant access to those features.
posted May 2, 2014
From retraining
Cleric: Retrain one domain; the new domain must be one granted by your deity. Doing so replaces your list of domain spells and your domain granted powers. If you are a neutral cleric of a neutral deity, you can instead retrain whether you channel positive or negative energ
Would this include changing from positive to negative energy, one different domain, and gaining an evil aura? My Alignment wouldn't change, but my diety's would.
I think it depends on just how the DM flavors it. If it is something you animate from your shadow, that happens to have the stats of a certain undead (but is actually not one), it could fly - if it is essentially an undead being you command, it could be an issue.In that case, consider talking with your gm about trading it for another feature, perhaps sneak attack dice?
In another campaign, my death priestess ran across this conundrum. We reflavored the shadow itself to be a creation of magical energy, not an undead creature, that was all. Worked fine.