Shadowdancer, Tome (3.5e Prestige Class)

Shadowdancer
"Once I was afraid of the dark; now I am the reason to be afraid."

Shadowdancers are creepy guys and gals who hang out in the shadows. Occasionally, they jump out of them and stab people in the face. Why? You'd have to ask the specific Shadowdancer.

Becoming a Shadowdancer
The Shadowdancer is a prestige class meant for Rogues. It should allow them to do fun Roguish things with the shadows, such as jumping out of other people's shadows. Which is a pretty good trick to do at a party.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the shadowdancer.

 (Ex): At 1st level, a shadowdancer can see in darkness of any sort, even magical darkness.

' (Sp):' At 1st level, a shadowdancer can use dimension slide'' as a spell-like ability at will. This works just like the psionic power, except that you must start and end in a shadow. You can start in your own shadow and end in someone else's.

At 3rd level, you can do this as a move action.

' (Sp):''' As an attack action, a 1st-level shadowdancer can hit somebody with a bolt of darkness. A shadow strike has short range, strikes as a ranged touch attack, and deals cold damage equal to 1⁄2 your character level times 1d6. Feats and abilities such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Rapid Shot that grant extra attacks do not grant extra uses of this ability.

At 7th level, a shadowdancer's shadow strike can, at her option, deal force damage instead of cold damage as the target creature's own shadow turns to attack them. The damage increases a die size (from 1d6 to 1d8) as well.

' (Sp):' At 2nd level, the shadowdancer can use darkness'' as a spell-like ability at will. At 5th level, this upgrades to deeper darkness and she gains the ability to use darkness as a swift action.

 (Ex): At 2nd level, a shadowdancer can use the Hide skill even when being observed.

The extra damage dealt increases by +1d6 every other level (2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th). If a shadowdancer gets a sneak attack bonus from another source, the bonuses on damage stack.

' (Sp):' At 3rd level, the shadowdancer gains the ability to use dimension door'' as a spell-like ability at will. As with Shadow Slide, she must start and end in a shadow.

' (Sp):' At 3rd level, the shadowdancer gains the ability to use shadow walk'' as a spell-like ability at will.

 (Ex): At 4th level, the shadowdancer gains Uncanny Dodge. If she already has Uncanny Dodge, she gains Improved Uncanny Dodge.

 (Ex): At 5th level, the shadowdancer can make a full attack action after using any of her Shadow movement abilities. If she uses this ability, it immediately ends her turn.

' (Sp):' At 7th level, a shadowdancer can cast greater teleport'' as a spell-like ability at will. They can only take themselves and up to 50 pounds of objects, however. When disappearing, a shadowdancer seems to shrink and vanish into her own shadow and when reappearing she seems to explode in a burst of shadows.

 (Su): At 8th level, a shadowdancer can create a shadow friend. This works like the unseen servant spell, except the shadowdancer can see through the eyes and hear through the ears of her shadow friend. She may only have one such "friend" at a time.

 (Su): What is a shadow without a light to cast it? At 9th level, the shadowdancer gains further power through meditation on this enlightening topic. She gains the ability to create a special weapon, the Mirrorshard Blade. As a free action usable once per round, she can create a Mirrorshard Blade (two if she has Two-Weapon Fighting). To do this, she must have a mirror or piece of a mirror on hand. She automatically has proficiency with this weapon. A Mirrorshard Blade has a reach of 5' and deals 1d8 slashing damage, as well as one point of Constitution damage, and has an enhancement bonus equal to 1⁄3 the shadowdancer's character level. A Mirrorshard Blade threatens a critical on an 18-20 and has a critical multiplier of &times;2; the Constitution damage is also multiplied on a critical. Mirrorshard Blades have a range increment of 10', and instantly return to the hand of the user when thrown. Mirrorshard Blades also have the following special properties:


 * Blinding Light: As a move action, the wielder of a Mirrorshard Blade can reflect any nearby light, causing all within 30' to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1⁄2 character level + Dex modifier) or be blinded for 3 rounds. Creatures with light sensitivity take a -4 penalty to their save and are permanently blinded if they fail the save. If they pass, light-sensitive creatures are dazzled for three rounds.
 * Mirror: As an immediate action, you may make an attack against any ray fired at you. If your attack roll beats the attack roll used to hit you, you reflect the ray back at the caster.
 * Reflections: The wielder of a Mirrorshard Blade always has a single mirror image. The images created by this ability, if destroyed, can all be reformed once per round as a free action.
 * Reflective Offense: Enemies count as flat-footed against any attacks you make with your Mirrorshard Blades.

If the shadowdancer is in an antimagic field or similar effect, she can still use this ability as long as she makes a Concentration check, DC 10 + the caster level of the effect. While using a Mirrorshard blade, you cannot use your Darkness ability, and any use of this ability is automatically dispelled if you enter its radius. Mirrorshard blades will only function for their creator; if given to someone else, they lose all their abilities and become normal pieces of mirror. You will probably leave your friends scratching your head wondering how you can do these crazy things.

' (Sp):' At 10th level, a shadowdancer can use major image'' as a spell-like ability at will. The images are made from real shadow pulled from the Plane of Shadow, and as such are not mind-affecting figments and are not foiled by true seeing.

Playing a Shadowdancer
Combat: Shadowdancers do almost the exact same thing as a Rogue. What they don't get is more Trap Sense or Rogue special abilities.

Advancement: Presumably, Shadowdancers will continue advancing in Rogue or another Roguish prestige class when they finish with this one.

Resources: Varies. Shadowdancers are generally lone wolf types, but it's not inconceivable that there's an organization or guild full of them out there somewhere.

Shadowdancers in the World
Shadowdancers are rarely drawn from the ranks of the common street Rogue. The prestige class grants several spell-like and other magical abilities; it is very likely that any given Shadowdancer will have had a great deal of contact with some sort of magic in his or her past.

NPC Reactions: For their ability to jump out of someone's shadow without warning and stab them in the face, Shadowdancers are fairly well feared by the peasant masses. That's not to say that people or creatures higher up on the food chain don't fear them, but they are more likely to put aside the fear to employ the services of one.

Shadowdancer Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) can research Shadowdancers to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

Shadowdancers in the Game
It should be extremely easy to make a Rogue PC into a Shadowdancer. PCs are exposed to magic almost constantly. With NPCs, you'll generally want to only make upper- or middle-class NPCs into Shadowdancers. They are the ones more likely to be exposed to magic, and the ones with the time to study and meditate on the shadows. Lower class NPC Rogues are probably spending all their time pickpocketing people.

Adaptation: Shadowdancers are pretty generic. You can make some weird organization made up of all Shadowdancers if you want, but there's really no problems with occasionally having your upper-class Rogue be a Shadowdancer.

Sample Shadowdancer:

Armir is the son of a nobleman who fell from grace. He spends his time stealing well-guarded objects from the castles and manors of other noble families.