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I rolled up a Ninja for PFS tonight and if I enjoy him, I might play him for a while and I was contemplating building him towards Shadowdancer. I played a pregen Ninja a handful of times in other PFS scenarios, so I have a general grasp on the class and its abilities.
I kind of like the Shadowdancer prestige class and it's abilities, but I am also concerned with the feat/skill tax required to get there, although I actually kind of like Mobility. (I have used it in other games to intentionally provoke AoO's so that other characters and casters would be free to do their thing)
Do you think it is worth it?
I've always liked the Shadowdancer as a concept, but found the mechanics behind it a bit underwhelming. It has a lot of neat tricks, but it's lacking in all the basics a good class needs. Medium BAB with no to-hit boosts, Reflex as the only good save, and no in-class damage boosts. It just seems to me like the Shadowdancer sacrifices good fundamentals to get a fairly useful but ultimately rather limited bag of tricks.
Shadowdancer is a great idea with terrible executio.
HiPS is cool, and the shadow pet is nice, but beyond that it blows. The casting is slower than ranger pally etc, the combat is middling bab, the teleport is an absolute joke (the distance limit pretty much makes it a one time escape if you're lucky and have a wall to put between you and the enemy...if not they'll likely charge and be on you next round), and the rest of the abilities aren't anything special....I mean really, rogue talents?
Nope. Sucky prc. Dip for the shadow and HIPS If you must, but prepare to be seriously overshadowed (pun intended) by your own pet.
The shadowdancer prestige class requires you to have a few weak feats and then offers you a lot of redundant and/or weak features while granting no good source of increased damage. The only thing that makes the prestige class worthwhile is the hide in plain sight feature, but that's hardly worth the loss in bab, level progression in another class, and three feat taxes. You're better off playing a caster or a ninja if you want to do things deceptively.
Sucky PRC with some awesome fluff and potential. Played one back in 3.5 days and the character was amazingly fun, but the class itself sort of falls flat. I'd love to see it remade into a solid archetype or base class that really gives it the attention and uniqueness it deserves.
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The shadow can be a nightmare to PFS dms, because a lot of powerful creatures like frost giants end up having masterwork weapons instead of magical weapons. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you. But with vanishing trick I would suggest that your ninja might not want to take that prestige class unless you really really want to teleport as a standard action through shadows, have a shadow creature, or get HIPS. I think your ninja will get things that will work just as well as HIPS. If you do want to make a shadowdancer, the new slayer class might work especially well with it.
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Sucky PRC with some awesome fluff and potential. Played one back in 3.5 days and the character was amazingly fun, but the class itself sort of falls flat. I'd love to see it remade into a solid archetype or base class that really gives it the attention and uniqueness it deserves.
+1 on the remake. I'd like to see either of those, because the shadowdancer is an awesome concept that doesn't hold up to today's classes. Maybe that Unchained stuff might cover it?
The shadow teleport is a supernatural ability so can be used while grappled... That is useful.
You really need to build it around its strengths and have a somewhat flexible dm. If ur dm doesnt like hips you may as well re roll ur class or it will be a battle against ur dm on rules. Myself I would allow a shadowdancer to use shadow teleport for the dimensional line of feats that would help right there.
There is a sd guide I recommend reading it if u wanna play one.
Even if you allow the teleport to count for dimensional feats it still sucks. The feet/day is laughable until high levels.
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The Shadowdancer looks like a worthwhile PrC, but not especially for a ninja. Ironically it actually works best with a paladin, if you can somehow parse that flavour.
It's because the Shadow companion is such an interesting class feature. But it inherits your saves and BAB, and those are underwhelming for the ninja.