Author Topic: How bad-a$$ are Shadows?  (Read 1306 times)

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Luckanan

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How bad-a$$ are Shadows?
« on: July 11, 2011, 07:33:12 PM »
One of my players in my almost-7th-level party might get the ability to summon a Shadow.  Even if I remove the creature's Create Spawn ability, how potentially game-breaking is this?  I know it puts a timer on combats against non-SU-using monsters.  Any problems I'm not forseeing?

Thanks
« Last Edit: July 11, 2011, 08:00:05 PM by Luckanan »

Rebel7284

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Re: How bad-a$$ are Shadows?
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2011, 07:56:40 PM »
Scouting is nice =)

Wasn't there a handbook for Master of Shrouds somewhere around here?
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Re: How bad-a$$ are Shadows?
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2011, 07:59:26 PM »
Crazy good at low levels, and they stay solid in the mid levels if you have the ability to spam them.  Still OK beyond level 10 or so, assuming you can summon them in groups, but sort of mediocre then compared to what else you can do.

I played an early-entry Archivist/Cloistered Cleric -> Master of Shrouds a few years back that pretty much ruled the school between Shadow summons spamming and Animate Dead shenanigans, right up through when the campaign ended (level 13).  By those latter levels, the Animate Dead was turning into a much bigger headache for my DM than the Shadow summoning, but my group still managed to blow through a lot of encounters by having the wizard lock the biggest opponent down with Solid Fog or Evard's Black Tentacles, and having me surround them with Shadows and drain them to uselessness.

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: How bad-a$$ are Shadows?
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2011, 08:10:48 PM »
Pretty good, but close to being strictly inferior to ghosts.

The biggest issue is that any encounter that doesn't have attacks that can hit incorporeal stuff is no longer any threat.
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Lycanthromancer

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Re: How bad-a$$ are Shadows?
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2011, 08:23:08 PM »
It's partly on tactics. If you use shadows tactically, they're damned near impossible to kill. If you don't, they're not AS bad, but they're still pretty powerful, even later on.

And a huge number of foes can't even hope to destroy them.
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