Shadowcraft Weapons


Pathfinder Player Companion


So having just got my copy of Blood of Shadows fresh yesterday I have to admit that while there were some fantastic bits and pieces in it that I honestly didn't expect and I'm certainly going to use.
Shadowcraft weapons were an out and out disappointment in my eyes, you're paying about 5000 times the price of a normal weapon for a weapon that has a fairly low will save that if passed drops your damage to 1 for that turn.
Its useless, worse than useless because the only 'benefit' of them is basically the equivalent of being transforming.
Except Transforming costs 10K while the least of Shadowcraft weapons costs 12.5K, so you're paying 1/5th extra for the benefit of having a serious chance of doing no damage.

Does anyone have any ideas on other sources for shadowy weapons, I was thinking maybe a special material to imitate weapons of pure darkness that pass through armor and flesh with equal ease but if there's any 3rd party (Or other options) out there I'd love to hear about them.

Or am I missing some real bonus factor to them and just being oblivious?


Like you, I was very disappointed by the cost and the once per enemy per round Will saves. The constant Will checks don't just make it less effective, I would imagine they will really slow down gameplay. Without this issue, the Lashing Shadowcraft Weapons would be fantastic.

The projectile versions are more valuable than the melee versions since you basically get the benefits of the Transformative special ability (which can't actually be applied to ranged weapons) and the Endless Ammunition special ability (a +2 equivalent).


Conversations in the Blood of Shadows thread have made me upgrade the value of the ranged Shadowcraft weapons. Composite bows can come in a range of strength ratings, and since the Shadowcraft weapons can become any masterwork weapon in its category it can become a composite bow with any strength rating. So functionally it has the Adaptive special ability.

So we have a weapon with the unique ability to transform into a host of ranged weapons. When in the form of a projectile weapon it can be used with real ammunition or it can generate its own, quasi-real, ammunition. When making shadow ammunition it eliminates your reloading time. When in bow form it can be chosen so as to take advantage of your current strength. That's not bad.

I've been trying to figure out which ranged weapons would count as one-handed and which would be two-handed (aside from firearms, which are already labelled). I've come up with the following lists. I'm not certain that all of these weapons have been correctly placed, and would appreciate any feedback regarding this.

One-handed Ranged Weapons
amentum, atlatl, blowgun, bolas, boomerang, chakram, crystal chakram, dart, flask thrower, halfling sling staff, hand crossbow, hunga munga, hurlbat, javelin, jolting dart, kestros, phaleros, pilum, poisoned sand tube, repeating hand crossbow, shrillshaft javelin, shuriken, sling, sling glove, stingchuck, throwing arrow cord, throwing shield, and tube arrow shooter.

Two-handed Ranged Weapons
composite longbow, composite shortbow, crank crossbow (heavy), crank crossbow (light), dire bolas, double crossbow, gastraphetes, grappling hook, heavy crossbow, lasso, launching crossbow, light crossbow, longbow, net, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, rope dart, shortbow, slaver's crossbow (heavy), slaver's crossbow (light), snag net, spear-sling, stonebow, thorn bow, underwater heavy crossbow, underwater light crossbow

They are pretty extensive lists. Some of these, like the stingchuck, don't make much sense. A few on the one-handed list can even be used as melee weapons in a pinch.

I left the Halfling Double Sling off the lists. The description says it can be used either one-handed or as a two-handed double weapon. So I am at a loss as to where to put it.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Reading this, I found myself wondering about the will save and create your own ammo.

a) Is the save only for shadow ammo? Or will my normal arrow fired from my Shadow bow do minimal damage?

b) When it says 'makes ammo'... Can I make raining arrows? Dye arrows? (evil grin) tangleshot arrows?


Gisher wrote:
When in the form of a projectile weapon it can be used with real ammunition or it can generate its own, quasi-real, ammunition. When making shadow ammunition it eliminates your reloading time.

Not that I disagree with you here, but where did you find this bolded part?

I very much want this to be true, and I know it's in the shadowshooting special ability that it eliminates reload time, but I didn't explicitly see it in shadowcraft weapon's. Although it does seem to be the intent that it function as shadowshooting...

I would much prefer shadowcraft to shadowshooting if this is the case. Because the 12.5k may be more up front than the +1 of shadowshooting, but it'd save a lot more gold in the long run, and leave more room for other enchantments and such. Plus, shadowcraft has a much better save (shadowcraft = 15 + twice the enchantment bonus vs shadowshooting = 15 + the enchantment bonus). With bonuses and penalties to shadowcraft based on ambient lighting and previous saves.

brief thoughts/rant:

Shadowshooting double crossbow gets upgraded to shadowcraft double crossbow. Throw interfering on that... That'd be an awful lot of damage. May want the point blank master feat or something similar though just in case. 30 feet isn't a lot of breathing room.
But that brief rant aside, my real goal is a shadowcraft wrist launcher/heavy wrist launcher. Never reload, always have it "drawn", and always be able to finish a full attack if the melee target dies. Of course the first bolt in it would be a splitting bolt or something, but the rest would be shadow.

Edit:

Matthew Morris wrote:

Reading this, I found myself wondering about the will save and create your own ammo.

a) Is the save only for shadow ammo? Or will my normal arrow fired from my Shadow bow do minimal damage?

b) When it says 'makes ammo'... Can I make raining arrows? Dye arrows? (evil grin) tangleshot arrows?

For A, I'm 99% sure the intent is real ammo functions the same as always. So no saves.

For B, I also second the question regarding what types of ammo it can make...

Edit2: while I'm here and it's on my mind, is the price to make a masterwork weapon included?

shadowcraft weapon wrote:
A shadowcraft weapon can be enhanced like any other masterwork weapon...

This seems to imply it is masterwork, but it's never stated plainly that it is.


C4M3R0N wrote:
Gisher wrote:
When in the form of a projectile weapon it can be used with real ammunition or it can generate its own, quasi-real, ammunition. When making shadow ammunition it eliminates your reloading time.
Not that I disagree with you here, but where did you find this bolded part? ...

It isn't a quote; it just seemed obvious to me. It makes it's own ammunition so no loading necessary. If there is no loading required then I assume there is zero loading time.


Gisher wrote:
C4M3R0N wrote:
Gisher wrote:
When in the form of a projectile weapon it can be used with real ammunition or it can generate its own, quasi-real, ammunition. When making shadow ammunition it eliminates your reloading time.
Not that I disagree with you here, but where did you find this bolded part? ...
It isn't a quote; it just seemed obvious to me. It makes it's own ammunition so no loading necessary. If there is no loading required then I assume there is zero loading time.

Well I do hope you're correct then. That's the way I thought it worked but I don't want a stickler/rules lawyer GM to try and say otherwise and ruin a character concept/investment


Gisher wrote:

One-handed Ranged Weapons
amentum, atlatl, blowgun, bolas, boomerang, chakram, crystal chakram, dart, flask thrower, halfling sling staff, hand crossbow, hunga munga, hurlbat, javelin, jolting dart, kestros, phaleros, pilum, poisoned sand tube, repeating hand crossbow, shrillshaft javelin, shuriken, sling, sling glove, stingchuck, throwing arrow cord, throwing shield, and tube arrow shooter.

I really hate to necro this thread, but do you have any idea how shadowcraft would interact with crystal chakrams? Their description says that they are treated as ammunition for the purpose of item creation and that they are destroyed if they hit.

Does a shadowcraft crystal chakram create other quasi-real chakrams as ammunition, which can be thrown, or do you have only one chakram which still breaks on hit? Or maybe something else entirely.

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