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Shadowdancer Advice 3.5

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Hey, I am fairly new to the d&d world. I started pathfinder last month with a couple friends, and currently have a level 5 Ranger. However I find that a ranger is fun for killing, but not really someone I wanted to roleplay with.

So I wanted to make a Shadowdancer. My idea was to have her focused around using Sais for damage. But I didn't want the perform ability to be completely useless.

I essentially isolated 3 classes I could use before hand, as the shadow dancer requires level 6 at the earliest to take her first point.

I considered Monk at first, as he has proficiency in sais. as well as flurry of blows which could be good.

The second class I thought of was Ninja. This would be more of a stealth shadowdancer as it uses similarities to the rogue, but proficiency in sais.

The third option I had was a Lotus Geisha which is an archtype for Bard. This would be the one I would use for a performance base, as she also has experience with Sai's.

For Race I isolated Drow or Human. Drow would give +Cha and Dex which seem like the two biggest assets to the Shadow dancer, where as Human would gain the extra feat early on.

The 3 feat I would need:
Mobility
Combat Reflexes
Dodge

Other feats I looked into and expressed interests in are:
Weapon Finesse
Agile Maneuver
two-weapon fighting
improve two-weapon fighting
greater-two weapon fighting
Improve Initiate
Deadly Aim (for throwing Sais/shurikens)

Some other ones I thought of getting if she became more CMB based are:
combat expertise
Improve Disarm
Improve Trip
Greater Disarm

Anyways this is my first attempt at making a unique character, and any advice you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated. Also let me know anything I am doing wrong.
Greater Trip

For the class, I would recommend the Ninja. It's great for Shadowdancers.

Is this for Pathfinder or D&D 3.5E? Thread title is confusing.

Pathfinder, i was under the impression they were similar.

In the way that Prime Rib and Rump Roast are both forms of steak, yeah, they're similar... :P

But it does make a huge difference for rule, pre-eqs, class features, etc...

My apologies then, Like I said, I only really started last month.

For a build, consider doing Fetchling for race and Archaeologist Bard for class, leading into Shadow Dancer.

How attached are you to using sai as weapons? If you must, then dip Sohei Master of Many Styles Monk for 1 or 2 levels. I can show you the best point to do it at if you want to. You basically want Crane Style and Crane Wing feats if youre investing levels into monk. Another way to get sai as a proficient weapon is to dip the Unarmed Fighter archetype of Fighter.

I am pretty attached to using Sais as weapons, I originally wanted to make an amazonian like character to who specialized in them but I was not able to figure how that would work. It was suggested to me to use Ninja, but Shadow dancer seemed like a cool class.

Also wouldn't dipping into improved unarmed training render using sai's useless? Also how well does it go over having 3 different classes to get a desired result. Archaeologist/Shadowdancer/Monk seems like its a lot of investment.

Side note, Fetchling looks like the perfect race for the shadowdancer :P. Thanks for that!

This class has come up before in discussions. If you do a forum search you will find several threads about it.

Make sure you and your gm are on board with how things should work.

You'll find much more discussion in the threads, but one thing I carried away from it, is that it really isn't a super good class for rogues. It really works better for full bab classes.

In your shoes I'd go human ranger (or barbarian or lore warden fighter). I'm not sure I understand what the charisma you mention is for with a shadow dancer build. You get perform as a class skill, but you aren't going to use it in combat for anything. I guess you could feint, but that won't be mechanically too useful to you even with rogue levels.

Some people have made Paladin/Shadowdancer builds. That could use charisma effectively. They had some good backstories and tactics to go along with it too.

Sorry if this isn't too much help, but like I said it's been gone through before and it really seems better for the full bab classes to get a little utility, than something that really benefits a rogue. Well hide in plain sight does, but that is really more of a dip for them.

I have read some of the threads on Shadow dancers. But non of them really utilize the sai's like I wanted. In fact in the couple of days I have been researching, there isn't much talk on how sai's are used at all. It was a focus point for me when creating a character just because they seem interesting.

I wanted to see if there was a way I could make use of Sais effectively as a shadowdancer and the methods I would go through to do that.

The sai is mechanically a very weak weapon, AND you have to spend a feat or be a monk or unarmed fighter to be proficient in them, hence, they tend to not be talked about. :)
Never underestimate the power of fluff. Describe a more mechanically beneficial weapon that's similar to the sai as being a sai and you can save yourself a lot of trouble.

And no, having 3 classes isn't particularly crazy when to be a shadowdancer at all requires at least 2, due to it being a prestige class and all.

Glad you like the Fetchling.

The thing w/ Shadowdancer is that it gets no real offensive abilities until level 10, when suddenly it's uber. Until then, the most offensive ability it gets is shadow ability draining foes, which your DM may retaliate by focus firing on the shadow and costing you a ton of gp to bring it back.

The other problem is that the classes most inclined to enter shadowdancer already tend to come w/ uncanny dodge and/or evasion, so a bunch of the class features end up going to waste.

Okay, just wanted to make sure you understand the issues with this prestige class, there are a bunch of them that if you play raw can really hobble you.

Also the charisma is kind of a trap for you, if you intend to use your shadow evocation and conjuration abilities on others. They are good utility but they have the double saves and the amount of points you can pump into charisma (like +2 with a drow) isn't enough to really help you much.

ninjas have proficiencies with Sai's dont they? They did when i read them, which is why it as one of my options. Additionally I was planning on using Agile Maneuvering and Two Weapon Fighting so that eventually they would have better damage output.

So if I did a monk instead ninja/lotus geisha/archaeolgist. What would be the feats I would require to be a monk/shadowdancer to do well with Sai?

If I go strictly a more offensive route ninja/monk + sai, with my shadowdancer. After 15 levels it would be either of those +5 and Shadow dancer +10.

How would I optimize my character. Essentially the two things I want most out of the build are the shadowdancer class and the weapons.

Another option that was brought up to me to my DM was making a character who would specialize in tripping/Disarm/sunder etc with using CMB. So is there a way I could make a character like that then similar to what I want, with the use of agile maneuvering?

I know I am asking a lot, but I want to find something that I am going to enjoy playing.
Grand Lodge

I played a shadowdancer in 3.5 and for a scout there are none better...hiding in plain site is pretty good. I have recently started a character in PFS that is a Halfling bard (dawnflower dervish) that will eventually switch to Shadowdancer because even the brightest of lights casts a shadow. Seems like great roleplaying potential and with the feat tree you can get spring attack by 7th level with that feat tree so he will make a pretty decent scout/skirmisher/and stand in healer. As far as having a high BAB I am not sure thats completly necessary... just depends on what you want ur character to do.

I'm sorry if I didn't appreciate how much you wanted to use the sai.

I just looked at the d20pfsrd, the unarmed fighter archetype gives you monk weapon proficiencies.

You could go Monk, but it really doesn't seem to be a class where you want to dip much. The flurry, ac bonus, fast movement, all key off level.

Plus two classes that aren't full bab, you will probably find it hard to hit stuff. 5 rogue or Monk gives you +3 bab, coupled with +7 for Shadowdancer gives +10 bab at 15th level. Not that far behind a straight monk or rogue, but with far less sneak attack and monk features.

You could go Monk, maybe the Tetori (though I don't know what you would do with the mounted aspects), at least you can wear light armor and get weapon training. Zen Archer might have some goodies for you too. You could also use Qinggong Monk, but you would only have 5 class levels for that to work off of.

Dunno. In your shoes maybe 1 Unarmed Fighter/4 Ranger.

That Paladin/Shadowdancer build had a lot of good things. But you probably want as many Paladin levels as you can get to go along with Shadowdancer.

It's a hard class to make work out. Plus the features are wonky. I mean you can't use most of the features in total darkness. You'll have to carry a torch or something to use those features in caves. Someone said you could use some of the spell like abilities to create illusions like darkness even to let them work, but it seemed awfully counterintuitive.

So is that a no on the idea of a ninja/shadow dancer focusing on two-weapon combat with sais? or is it just that the damage will be so poor that it isn't worth it?

Also if it means anything the DM told me I could switch out Rogue Talents in the Shadow Dancer tree for Ninja Tricks. Would that at all make my build more viable?
Grand Lodge

There is a Rogue Talent that allows you to select a Ninja Trick.

What do you want from the Shadowdancer PrC?

The problem with rogues is hitting as compared to a fighter, even if the rogue has lots of sneak attack dice.

If you look at the dpr olympics rogues tend to lack. Most of the builds there use that sap master thing, which might well be disallowed by your dm.

Being a shadowdancer and ninja will let you get off your sneak attack a lot more, but unless you are flanking you aren't going to get off many full attacks with sneak attack.

I don't know the ninja that well, but I think they get an ability like improved invisibility (well greater invisibility now). But I don't think you are going to get enough ninja levels to use that.

You might try a feint build, but then why did you go Shadowdancer in the first place?

I'd say it is a definite no on dual attacking with sai's. You are going to lose some bab no matter what classes you use in the build, because Shadowdancer is not a full bab class. Combine that with the -2 penalty for dual wielding, and the fact you won't have many sneak attack dice if you go rogue... I just think it is a bad idea. Worse than for an actual rogue because situationally dual wielding pays off for them.

It's pay off a lot less for someone with few rogue levels. The guy that posted above had some good ideas, a bard shadowdancer could make a great scout and skill monkey. A useful character (even though a straight bard could probably do all of that just as well).

But if you think of yourself as a graceful fighter/warrior or something you are a lightly armored fighter with a lot of tricks up your sleeve.

To be honest dual wielding is going to be awful for you no matter what.

If you did what I suggest, a two handed weapon would mechanically work the best. Too many spiked chains in the world, I'd pick something like the Flailpole (which seems like it could be some odd weapon you see in a martial arts flick), that has reach and trip. In combat I'd be the guy that causes chaos and trouble from where no one expects any. You could always use Improved Unarmed Strike (if you took a monk level or that fighter archetype) if someone is too close.

But whatever combat style you use, it won't affect your scouting or out of combat stuff.

Just don't think two weapon fighting is going to work too well for you. Maybe you can find a different angle on this class, but a full bab class is the best fit for it I think.
Grand Lodge

I suggest a list of things you want your character to be able to do.

so what kind of character then would you suggest for dual weilding sais?

Also thank you for your explanations!
Grand Lodge

What books and races are available?

A straight Ranger or Fighter.

If you went Ranger or Fighter a one to four level dip in Monk can give you some good saves and other things for the relatively minor loss of one bab. You won't use some of the class features because you will be wearing armor, but there is some real benefit.

As a fighter, you would want to have an archetype that gets weapon training, which eliminates going unarmed fighter all the way, I believe. Gloves of Dueling are that good.

As a Ranger you might dip into unarmed fighter for one level rather than going monk.

You could just take exotic weapon proficiency sai, but personally I'd dip monk or something to get that.

My take on it is something like 11 fighter/4 monk might be your best bet, as far as pure combat goes.

Lot better skills and options with Ranger. Plus you can be an urban ranger or something like that if you don't want the nature theme.

I already have an archery ranger though, that I am currently playing :P. It appears i may just have to think up something else to use if my sai user isnt going to work.

Now if I were to still want Shadowdancer, and just forgo sai's, would there be a way for me to turn it into a CMB specialist? Would the shadowdancer be whip focused or what would be the kind of weapon it should use?

In regards to your earlier question, he has basically all books so the advanced races guide is in there.
Grand Lodge

You want stealth, while wielding Sais?

Heretic Inquisitor Tengu of Irori with the Exotic Weapon Training alternate racial trait. Take the Wisdom of the Flesh trait.
Later, take the Skill Focus(Stealth), and Hellcat Stealth feats.

You will have x2 wisdom to stealth, have access to the Darkness, Invisibility, and Silence spells, be able to stealth while observed, and unlike the Shadowdancer, your ability to stealth is not dependent on darkness.

I dont need Stealth, shadow dancer just seemed like it would be a good fit for what I wanted, and sais were my weapon of choice. My original concept was making an Amazonian woman with sai, who was fast on her feet and deadly with weapons. But I couldn't figure out how to make that happen. Then I saw shadow dancer and I thought it was cool, so tried to find a way to combine them.

That build should work pretty well.

I just checked and the Inquisitor gets True Strike on his spell list (along with Magus).

Alchemist too, but some things shouldn't be chugged with potions.

Here is the trip text:

"Trip
FAQ/Errata

If you want to make a trip combat maneuver, do you have to use a weapon with the trip special feature?

No. When making a trip combat maneuver, you don't have to use a weapon with the trip special feature--you can use any weapon. For example, you can trip with a longsword or an unarmed strike, even though those weapons don't have the trip special feature. Note that there is an advantage to using a weapon with the trip special feature (a.k.a. a "trip weapon") when making a trip combat maneuver: if your trip attack fails by 10 or more, you can drop the trip weapon instead of being knocked prone.

On a related note, you don't have to use a weapon with the disarm special feature (a.k.a. a "disarm weapon") when making a disarm combat maneuver--you can use any weapon.

[Source]

You can attempt to trip your opponent in place of a melee attack. You can only trip an opponent who is no more than one size category larger than you. If you do not have the Improved Trip feat, or a similar ability, initiating a trip provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver.

If your attack exceeds the target's CMD, the target is knocked prone. If your attack fails by 10 or more, you are knocked prone instead. If the target has more than two legs, add +2 to the DC of the combat maneuver attack roll for each additional leg it has. Some creatures—such as oozes, creatures without legs, and flying creatures—cannot be tripped."

Basically it would be every other round, but very little other than really large things would be able to stop you from performing a combat maneuver of any sort on them. Honestly it would be good enough you wouldn't even need the feat for that maneuver. Sunder, disarm, trip all should work pretty well.

I have not looked at the Inquisitor (or Magus) too closely. Like most classes now, it's probably a bad idea to take too much of anything else.

Might be a really interesting combo a 5 Inquisitor/10 Shadowdancer.

You could still take Hellcat Stealth. Then only total darkness would stop you from hiding. Though I think Shadowdancer should be able to do that in total darkness.

Most people use Shadowdancer as a one level dip to get hide in plain sight. It would be cool to find a way to make it good for all 10 levels.

Oh yeah, it wouldn't be two weapon fighting exactly (I don't really understand how they want it to work anymore), but in 3.5 we thought and played it as if you could take as many attacks as you wanted with one hand, and if you had one left you could use the last with the other hand.

Or any combination thereof.

What I'm driving at is if you had whip or some other proficiency, you could have a disarming weapon in one hand, and a tripping one in the other.

Whip has reach too.

But my head hurts and I'm not checking out those rules tonight.

ive never heard of an inquisitor before, ill have to look into that one too.
Grand Lodge

Amazon with a Sai? Huh, that's new.

Weapon Adept Monk does that. If you are not comfortable with being Lawful, then the Enlightened Warrior trait will allow you to be neutral or neutral good.
If you take that trait, you can multiclass into Savage Barbarian, which will pump AC and damage.

Sorry to be so long winded, but to explain exactly what I meant let me use an example.

Say you have a 20th level fighter with 4 attacks. He doesn't have any two weapon fighting feats.

If he had a sai in one hand, and a whip in the other, as we played it he could use his sai for three attacks, and his off hand for the last.

At no penalty to any attack (other than the iterative drop). We actually looked into this and did some reading. As nearly as we could tell there was no "handedness" or penalty to doing this. Exactly how it works with Pathfinder or whether our rules fu was right, is another matter.

So a Weapon Adept Monk with Sais would work for what I realistically want? I guess I could just write a story, in which its not so much a monk.

What other feats would you suggest to optimize Sais with weapon adept monk?

Azelyan: What is it that you want the character to do with the sai? I mean aside from swinging them for damage. You mentioned in your original post about the perform skill?

I have some ideas but I don't know if they would apply for what your looking for. Outside of the character dual wielding Sai what do you want them to be able to do?

Sorry if this has already been suggested (at a certain point I just started skimming the other posts), but you could go for a straight ninja with the eldritch heritage (shadow) feats. Ninjas get proficiency with the sai and pretty good stealth abilities. Their ki abilities are nice, and the extra attack that a ki pool can give you is useful if you are going to be dual wielding sais. The eldritch heritage feats would take a while, but you would get a version of hide in plain sight and the ability to swap places with an ally (so not exactly the same as the shadow jumping). The only thing you are really missing out on is the shadow summoning and spell-like abilities.

The only real downside is the lack of feats making it kinda tough to pull together, especially cause the eldritch heritage feats would require 3 feat slots overall to get the hide in plain sight.
Grand Lodge

Okay, I am confused, so help me out.

You want to play an Amazon, who specializes in an Asian weapon.

You say Shadowdancer fits the flavor, but stealth is completly unimportant.

So far, I am right?

I want to help meet the flavor you are looking for, but I have no idea what that is.

Could you explain the concept?

i wanted the character to be stealth/performance/acro based with dual weilding sais.

My original idea was to have an Amazon sai user. But shadow dancer seemed cool so I switched my idea to that as I couldn't figure out how to make the amazon.

The issue arose that she wouldn't be doing a lot of damage, so i wanted to get the two-weapon fighting feats. But I guess it doesn't work with a shadow dancer?

I want to be able to play the shadow dancer with sais. But ive been told it would be ineffective as SD dont have great damage output. So this whole chat was trying to figure out a character that will meet my needs that wont be complete garbage endgame. :P
Grand Lodge

Well, what do you want from Shadowdancer?

i want her to be awesome being able to do sizeable damage but also help in other ways if possible.
Grand Lodge

I mean, as far as abilities the class provides that got you interested.

Awesome and deal damage is very vague.

well I like the fact that she can basically move between shadows with the dimension door. The concept of the Shadowdancer just sounded interesting. I dont know however how to make it able to do damage.

I would suggest looking at this thread.

I think the character concepts are similar. If they are not or if you have different priorities for your character then please share because right now we do not have a lot to work on. I think this is what we have so far:

1. Must use TWF with sai
2. Amazonish (although honestly this is more of an RP flavor thing and less of a requirement for building a character mechanically)
3. You want performance to be part of the character beyond simply a skill prerequisite
4. Be able to jump in and out of shadows like the Shadowdancer can.

Is that pretty accurate?
Grand Lodge

Weapon Adept for 6 levels, then Horizon Walker for 3 levels.

Deal decent damage, and be able to Dimension Door all around, be unarmored.

If allowed, get your Sai the Guided enchantment. If not allowed, get your Sai the Agile enchantment.

is guided better then agile for this kind of character?

It doesnt have to be Amazonish. I just wanted to find a way to make the shadowdancer work with sai. I kinda of envisioned my version of the shadow dancer to be very theif-like. Shadowdancer has all of the class skills that I am kind of looking for with Bluff, Sleight of Hand, Escape Artist, and of course Stealth and Perform and acrobatics.

I mean if I have acrobatics, I guess i dont really need Perform dance past the two skill points, as it acts as a lesser acrobatics anyways correct? for RP reasons, perform dance is nice though.

And yes, the shadow jump is really one of the coolest parts about the build. I understand its not an amazingly strong class, but i find it pretty interesting.

So what if it was something like Weapon Adept 6/Shadow Dancer 10. That would give me some form of being able to use the sai's with decent damage, but still use the shadow dancer abilities I find interesting?

Keep in mind that by going Monk you will be getting Flurry of Blows which works just like Two Weapon Fighting...except that you do not actually need to have 2 weapons. You can have your character keep a sai in her other hand just for aesthetic reasons if you'd like but she doesn't have to actually attack with it. With your flurry attacks you can alternate your attacks between the sai though, not that it matters from a mechanical standpoint unless the weapons have different properties.

BBT's suggestions are good ones. But only because he is totally stealing them from me. You gotta watch out for those Trollblin thieves though. They are sneaky like that. The link that I gave in my last post is a thread where I am talking about making a character very much like what you are referring to. I would very much suggest reading it. Using Horizon Walker to get Dimension Door is one of the things that I talk about in that thread. If you like this sort of shtick then I would also strongly suggest taking a look at the Dimensional Agility line of feats that I mention in that thread. These will not become terribly important until later in your character's career but once you have them they are AWESOME.
Grand Lodge

You know, I once tried to do some Medieval Fantasy LARPing.
I said "I will play the part of a local thief", and every one was cool with that.

Then, I stole everything I could get my hands on. Ornamental daggers, gold coins, spellbooks, boots, and even the King's crown.

I was told never to return.

Actually I just recommend Horizon Walker 10, straight through. You can get Dim. Door through the class, but more importantly, it lets you use favored terrain as a favored enemy bonus against creatures from that terrain, and you can stack favored terrain bonuses VERY quickly. HW itself gives you something like 7 of them over 10 levels, then there's rogue which has a talent you can pick up every 2nd level and also burn feats on Extra Talent to get more of it. And APG has cheap boots for another +2 to one terrain.

All told, by level 16, you can easly have a bonus in the mid-30's.

"But, only against foes from one terrain type!"

Well, yes. So you get a wand of Instant Enemy.

"For the duration of the spell, you treat the target as if it were that type of favored enemy for all purposes."

Environment the creature is from would be included in the very broad "all purposes." So you pick a favored enemy with your scant ranger levels that hails from your uber terrain, then use the wand on anything that looks like a tough foe.

It's kind of overpowered, but that's the point. Dual wielding sais is really underpowered, so such a build helps make anything seem strong. :)

I'd suggest a build of Ranger 3 / Rogue 3 / HW 10, then back to Rogue. Could do ninja instead of rogue, but rogue has better archetype options, the main reason ninja is better is the ninja tricks (and you'll be spending ALL your tricks/talents to get more favored terrains, so that's pretty moot), and...since you'll want dex/con/wis and maybe str, you really need to have cha as a dump stat. So I'd suggest rogue over ninja for this.

If that were the case then, wouldn't it just be easy for me to essentially make a fighter specializing in sai's, and then branching into Horizon Walker 10? That way I would still get the abilities but also the TWF that I want for the sais?

I guess for role play, that would be more amazon-like, which was what I originally wanted. But wouldn't be any sort of thief.

You don't need fighter, and if you're doing HW, you want in as soon as possible. You can get TWF from your Ranger 2 bonus feat.

Horizon Walker is all about using the terrain to your advantage, and you get massive bonuses to stealth, initiative, etc... in that terrain. It is quite "amazon-like."
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