| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey all,
I'm currently running a game where a character's personal adversary is a family member that was trapped in the Shadow Plane and essentially is on the hunt for the PC.
Flavorwise, my initial idea was to try to build him in the same vein as other "shadow users" in media where the main character's movements are repeated or copied by a much larger, superimposed ghostly/shadow creature which does the actual damage. For JoJo's Bizzare Adventure viewers, somewhat like a Stand.
Closest thing I could think of to this idea would be a Summoner of some sorts. Any ideas for particular archetypes that would fit this theme? Or any other classes besides summoner that would make a good shadow mage themed adversary?
Thanks!
Appropriate Templates
Simple Corruption Template: Shadowbound Creature (CR +1)
Shadow Creature (CR +1)
Shadow-Traced Creature (CR +2)
In particular look at the third option. It creates duplicates in combat that absorb attacks, and if it's killed and has a duplicate it can sacrifice the duplicate to stay alive. It heals when it's protected by spell resistance too. Slap that template on an appropriate CR stock NPC and call it a day.
That sounds a lot like a synthesist summoner.
Another way is to look at spells like shadow dragon aspect or blood crow strike. Anyone using touch attack spells might have a similar cosmetic effect, or a sufficiently magical monk/monk-oid perhaps.
What sort of level are you looking at?
Shadow Mystery Oracle is pretty cool stuff; shadow template summons, grabs some arcane spells, lots of other shadowy goodness.
I'd like to try and stay away from the synthesist summoner only because of its reputation as being a really powerful archetype/banned in PFS. I feel a little disingenuous throwing an NPC like that at my players. But it does fit the flavor to a tee regrettably.
As far as level goes, the adversary will eventually be a late game threat, level 15+, but I plan to scale him down for a fight earlier in the planned story line. Of note, the character is a ratfolk and as such I was planning on having a more magic-y character build than a fighter or rogue type.
What class would go well with Shadow-Traced?
Any class that uses offensive spells will be a poor match with Shadow-Traced. The characters get a 50% chance to ignore the spells if they succeed a Will save. Forget Kineticists or blaster Wizards.
Good matches are classes that focus on buffing themselves and work well as teams. Bards, Clerics and Druids would be a great choice with each duplicate casting spells to heal, buff or protect their allies, which are fully effective. Rogues are another obvious choice for synergy with flanking attacks.
Note that the copies also duplicate equipment, meaning wands, scrolls, single use wondrous items and so forth are fair game to implement as well. Essentially, figure out which character will be the best one-man party using copies of himself and likely strategies he would employ if he never had to worry about using up his spells or items each day.
It's not a good match with shadow-traced but an ectoplasmatist could work with a ratfolk. It's basically a weird magus but it doesn't have the same limitations - slashing grace should work with its version of spell combat. The lashes do sound like your original idea. I'm not sure it'd be amazingly effective at that late a level though.
A formless adept psychic could also fit the image and might do well at high levels. I'm not sure that it would be great at low levels though.
With the shadow-traced template, does the 50% effective spell thing stack with other shadow spells, like shadow conjuration/evocation where they already have a decreased effectiveness should a Will save be made? I was considering combining that template with a Shadow mystery oracle but wasn't sure how the two interacted.