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Something I've always loved the flavor of since seeing it back in D&D 3.5 and pathfinder 1.0 was the specific sort of shadow magic that was introduced through things like shadow evocation and shadow conjuration. The spells themselves weren't generally great on their own, but the idea behind them really inspired my imagination for them. All the more with some of the Prestige Classes in 3.5, and the handful of feats and class features tied to the ideas in Pathfinder 1.0.
Illusions made to affect the world through shadows woven into them. Taking the uncertainty of what might or might not exist in the darkness, and using that to trick reality itself into believing your illusions are real. Versatile abilities that combine trickery with actual utility and combat options. Or even just one last surprise out of an illusion that enemies have already "figured out" and think is safe to ignore, even for the members who don't have the will save to properly disbelieve it.
Pathfinder 2nd edition... honestly didn't bring in all that much of that old shadow magic. It brought in a mix of spells and focus abilities that were meant to give a nod to that alongside ones actually focused on darkness... but more than a few felt unfinished, like the "shadow illusion" focus spell. Or just heavily underpowered like with the Shadow Blast spell. And a lot of options just felt like they were missing all together.
The remaster hasn't even touched nearly anything on this except the Shadow Blast spell, which was given an extra d8 base damage and otherwise left alone, so I figured I'd see about making something for it myself.
Of course, there's more than a few ways to handle giving out the abilities through an archetype: It could work primarily through Focus spells alongside some feats to give boosts for low light levels, or it could work mostly through taking spellshape feats to modify existing illusions to do new things. Or it could work through unique actions that could use existing illusions and spells with the shadow trait.
And alongside picking out how to primarily work them in, there's balancing something where I am aware I'll have a bias towards it, and thus be at risk of either over-tuning the options or overcompensating for my bias and under-powering them, or even a mix.
So, I figured I'd see what people on the forums here thought and see if I could get some help fine-tuning and making decisions on things.
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Option 1 - Focus spells.
Working through focus spells is honestly probably one of the simplest ways to handle this. Each specific feat and focus spell can have another option that isn't covered, it's easy to add onto with more later, it uses an already existing system that has a good few related feats...
Of course, this also ends up having the weaknesses of the focus point system, and it separates the abilities from a lot of other spell casting abilities or features.
I'd probably be thinking between 3-5 focus spells, alongside any other feats. Something for a shadow version of illusory creature / summon spells, something similar to the Ephemeral Hazards focus spell from the premaster, something for partially real structures and walls that could be selectively moved through... and possibly something for tools or equipment pulled out of shadows to suit a situation. Maybe a weaker but more general focus cantrip that could do a weaker, smaller, more limited version of any of the above as well.
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Option 2 - Spellshape feat(s).
Actively taking existing illusion spells and letting them do new things, changing how they work, and using them to mimic slightly weaker versions of spells that just might not be on the caster's spell list. It's more in line with some of the original inspirations, like the 3.5 Shadowcraft mage, and could have some interesting options.
Most of the spells that would be used with this are gotten from low levels, like illusory disguise, illusory object, and illusory creature. Including extra upcasting bonuses in the spellshape's damage / HP and hardness all being based on the rank of the spell it's used with would stretch those already fairly good spells to having reasons to upcast them at just about nearly any level, in the right circumstances. And it could still work with other illusion spells that met some simple requirement of creating the illusion of a visual effect that isn't fully mental, and could reasonably mimic objects, creatures, or damaging effects.
Of course, that is both an advantage and disadvantage, because that means there's a lot more room for arguing on if a given illusion not explicitly called out works with the given spellshape feat or not, and the risk of unintended interactions with new illusions that haven't been released yet. It shouldn't be too hard to do some future proofing, but it is one extra variable to consider if going this route.
Like... what if phantom crowd is remastered, or a player takes it in a game that's allowing premaster spells still, and argues that it should be able to make an entire swarm of creatures that each have HP and take up space with the same spellshape feat that would normally let you give an illusory creature some HP and remove its 'all nonlethal mental damage' restriction? Should it work? Should the crowd of creatures be unable to attack since the base spell doesn't let them attack? Obviously they shouldn't just all be able to act separately as they want, since otherwise it just becomes a much, much better version of illusory creature when both are affected by the spellshape. But it's something that has to be thought about and included in designing a spellshape option.
And would it make sense to make a single spellshape for weaving shadows into illusions, and then have the rest of the archetype be a mix of supporting abilities like dark vision / greater dark vision, abilities to strengthen the shadow spells when cast in areas of darkness and such? Or include just as many spellshape feats as it would have had focus spell feats if going with option 1?
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Option 3 - special actions.
Something of an in between option to the previous two, giving the archetype feats to grant actions that can be taken to do things with existing illusions that are already cast.
Shadow strike, to cause someone adjacent to an illusion to have a melee spell attack made on them from say... a brick falling off the illusionary brick wall. Or an extra attack made by the illusion of a creature, even if it's not normally a spell that could make an attack.
Solidify Shadows, to cause an illusion to Briefly gain hardness and HP for either 1 round or 1 minute or something, allowing that illusion of a bridge to work for your party, but not for a pursuing enemy group, for instance. Or turning your concealing illusion wall that you can walk through into hard total cover behind you after you ran through it. Or making it so that an illusory creature won't be instantly dispelled with a single hit.
Shadow Grasp/Grasping shadows, to cause a creature that's in the area of effect of an illusion or adjacent to one to suddenly get grabbed by the illusory creature, or snagged by a nail in the illusory object of a log cabin. Maybe even being able to grab and move someone, but when they break free and attempt to attack or destroy whatever grabbed them, it's all just smoke in the wind.
Shadow Burst, take an action to have an illusion that looks like it should be damaging, like spikes or a sea of fire... to actually deal damage to all creatures in its area of effect.
Probably each of the actions would be 1/round or have the flourish trait for some balance. The advantage for this setup is that, like with the focus spells, it's easy to add new actions, and since what you can do is a lot more spelled out and has an action cost to it, it's less likely for new spells to break the balance on them. Likewise though, you still interact with the spells, so having a bunch of permanent illusory objects around your base to create lava pits, fake spike traps in the walls, false walls you can retreat through and such... suddenly gives you a bunch of extra actions in your fortified lair / base camp. You can prepare a battlefield and such.
But, you don't have to worry about someone leaving behind those same things as actual real constantly harmful effects or something. Making the illusion act like something other than an illusion requires the caster to be actively spending actions and be present.
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For the spellshape options, there'd probably need to be some balancing addition of bright light making counteract attempts on them, where a torch wouldn't do much but say... the actual sun shining right on them might counteract the shadow magic, and same for a high level light spell. Possibly the same with the focus spell options, or could just have the focus spells need to target an initial area that is dimly lit or dark.
General balancing I'm thinking so far for numbers is mostly thrown together after a bit of looking at existing spells, and aiming for a bit weaker than any specialized fully real options - use the caster's spell attack / save DCs for attack bonuses, skill check bonuses for things like grab/trip/shove, and AC. Then have objects get hardness = spell rank x2 and HP = spell rank x8 per 10 foot long x 10 foot high x 5 foot wide section of structures, or halved for something that only takes up a 5 foot square like a door made with figment. Creatures getting 5+10/rank HP (or 5/rank for cantrip version with figment that has to stay within 30 feet of the caster at all times). And damage numbers based on illusory creature for creatures (1d4+1d4/rank, or just 1d4/rank + spell casting modifier), while area damage effects would be 1d6/rank for a 1/round effect such as a trap or using the special action for a shadow damage burst, or 1d6 per two ranks for hazardous terrain that deals damage for moving through it or starting a turn in it, potentially multiple times in a round. Probably with everything targeting will saves / will defense instead of the "higher of two defenses" that shadow blast has, since already having lower general stats for spell rank than an actual damage spell or summon / wall spell is already a balance, plus I have thoughts for "disbelieving" options and the option of light spells allowing counteracting on focus spells or spellshaped shadow illusions.
So, thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas for something I haven't considered?
TL;DR: Old shadow illusion spells and features were neat. Where they at? Should an archetype use Focus spells, special actions, or metamagic/spellshape feats to do them? What other abilities should a shadow mage archetype that's focused on making semi-real illusions have?
I don't know if you know of the Shadowcaster archetype already, OP, but linking it just in case. I do agree shadow magic could stand be fleshed out more, and I think it would help to add many more shadow-themed slot spells and spellshapes, just so that if a caster wanted to dedicate themselves to a shadow theme, they could.
I do agree that shadow magic could stand to be developed significantly more in 2e. There are elements that exist in some form, but that I think could be developed on:
In general, I think shadow magic should distinguish itself not by being the best at blasting or the like, but by being very tricksy and manipulative in a variety of ways, with the caster being encouraged to partake in Stealth and catch foes from unexpected angles. If you're interested, OP, another user also made an amazing Shadow Kineticist homebrew, which I'd definitely recommend looking through for inspiration.
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I am very much aware of the existing legacy Shadowcaster archetype, but unfortunately it really, really leaves a lot to be desired for the particular things I was looking for. The legacy archetype's main uses are adding spells to a primal or divine caster's list, helping a party rogue hide in combat to get off sneak attacks, and generally give some basic support to skills for hiding and distracting enemies.
I won't say the idea of it is bad, and even if I feel like the implementation is underwhelming at times, if we had more and better shadow spells to grant it would instantly feel a lot better. Though I'd still want to tinker some with the shadowspell metamagic and a few of the focus spells it got, maybe give some more flavorful feats to support the shadow magic... but I'm getting off track.
I feel like there's easily room for at least two or three extra archetypes for shadow magic beyond what we had, and the legacy shadowcaster really doesn't actively try to do anything but "make darkness and be sneaky" with its feat selections. Which Shadowdancer honestly was already doing.
One for focusing on the more malleable shadow illusions that blur the lines of illusion and reality, which is the thing I felt the lack of the most clearly when going through everything. One for a martial character to cloak themselves in shadowy armor, weapons, and tools that let them always have the right option for a fight. And then one to focus more on the darkness itself as a weapon, stealing shadows, and using the netherworld's power unfiltered.
Shadow Illusionist, Shadow Smith, and Shadowcaster. And then keep Shadowdancer for the sneaky teleporting through shadows archetype that brings the darkness with them to hide in.
...Shoot, now I'm thinking of just doing an entire supplement for shadow magic in general with several archetypes, extra spells and focus spells, and rituals and equipment.
Alright, here's an issue I'm running into while making some of these features and options - how much versatility is too much?
Should shadow summon creatures made from illusions be able to replicate the abilities of actual creatures that are of a low enough level? (Level <= spell rank, for example)? Actual summon spells scale past that, so it should be fine... but this wouldn't be as limited in the types of summons. So far, I've put a nix on any actual spell casting for creatures created with shadow illusions, but should other abilities be allowed or not?
Should I go completely with a "build your own summon" that doesn't have many options for exotic abilities? Or leave being able to pick stuff that already exists given it would be restricted to abilities off of creatures half the party's level and below?
Likewise, for any semi-real objects, should they be able to mimic actual items of low enough levels? Or focus just on more general structures, objects and terrain? Maybe keep mimicking lower level items to an archetype more dedicated to creating equipment things like that? Or just have the more specialized archetype be stronger at it, but still give a weaker version as an option for the versatile shadow illusion mage?
I've definitely noticed that I need to include a lot of clarifications for situations that could come up simply due to experience with unclear rules - though I might should put some of those in a separate sidebar next to the actual feats in question - but the more options a single ability technically has, the more things it feels like need to be mentioned to try to cover all the bases with rules.
Alright, here's an issue I'm running into while making some of these features and options - how much versatility is too much?
It would help to set boundaries to your own design, and ask yourself what your build would be good at -- and, consequently, what it would be weak at. If your build is going to be the best at summoning, then that's going to limit its ability to do other things, but if your goal is "can add abilities to illusions from summons", or alternatively "can summon creatures, and give them illusion effects", then there's more room to work with. One way to go about it could be to have a feat that imbues shadow into your summons so that you get the ready-made summon templates, but then make them more illusory in some way -- perhaps they interact more with shadows or can be partially disbelieved in exchange for some other benefit. Perhaps you could have a focus spell that works a bit like untamed form, but for summons, where you can collect summon spells and use shadow puppetry to not only summon any creature from that collection, but potentially change your shadow summon from one creature to another with a few limitations.
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Right then. Main strength for the Shadow Magic illusionist in particular is meant to be flexibility and trickery at the cost of some power. And yes, some vulnerabilities to disbelieving (though a little less than normal illusions) and/or counteracting with light effects. I don't want any of the shadow illusion options to actually be explicitly stronger at what they do than a spell that's focused on doing that specific thing, especially since the shadow mage would still have the base illusions and other spells on their list.
I think for the summon aspect, part of my concern was the risk of creatures with abilities that are way more powerful than you'd expect for the level, and literally having the entire list of monsters as options is going to slow gameplay... but so would something with building a monster each time unless the traits are kept very simple.
So... either "can copy the traits and abilities of a creature that could be summoned from another existing summoning spell of lower rank than the illusion" to reduce the list size but still give a lot of flexibility, or a more simplified list of bonuses that can be applied that scale on spell rank with a "pick only 3" attached maybe.
Either way, I think having a base chassis that's based on the spell rank and the caster's spell casting does work to make it feel like it's an illusion shaped into whatever it's looking like, rather than actually just casting summoning spells.
But just based on how they were handling shadow blast and such... Maybe going with a simple but flexible set of abilities to pick from to modify it, and then have a later feat to let you change the abilities and appearance of a shadow illusion creature without needing to cast a new spell. Then take a similar course for the other options. Avoiding actually "copying other spells" feels like the best way to avoid stepping on other casters' toes and making it easier to balance.
...I also think I'll have the light weakness for the other shadow users who aren't wrapping the shadow magic in illusions, but with the shadow illusionist having the disbelief option be fairly strong when it does come up.
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Alright, and I've worked on this a bit, put it together in a readable format, and added some fluff and stuff before exporting a copy to PDF and sticking it on a google drive. Consider this version 1.2 of the Shadow Illusionist (name still subject to change when I figure out a better one).
I decided after looking back through the summoning spells that the "summon" trait is already pretty good at balancing those, especially if the focus spell for semi-real creatures is actually copying from existing summon spells, but the changes to the creatures through the spell and ability to have them look like something unrelated to the statblock you pull their abilities from (at risk of making people much more likely to try to disbelieve it if you go too far) was enough to make it unique and separate from normal summon spells.
I've separated out just the Shadow Illusionist stuff for this, aside from one extra cantrip more intended for the Shadowcaster rework I'm also working on to put in the full supplement. So please feel free to give feedback and suggestions, or let me know if something isn't clear to a reader who didn't write this mess themselves.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Edj8MknqmY450Bvxn7jQT071_qwSl5on/view
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Good to have some free Shadow Illusionist stuff out there for PF2e+, RobinHart. ;)