Talk:Shadow Servant (3.5e Maneuver)

Moderate? High? Very High?

I eyeballed the balance point of this maneuver, but it's stronger than most of the maneuvers presented so far for the Night Wind ancestral school. The reason is because at-will, swift action Mirror Image with an added effect definitely isn't something a Fighter, or a class balanced towards the Fighter class, can pull off. That said, Mirror Image is a spell that's a staple of Wizards, and while it can be easily negated (True Seeing, blindsight), it's still annoying. On average, you create from 2 to 3 duplicates, which is enough to withstand a full attack from just about any monster.

The fact that it's a stance, and only requires a swift action to activate (with the caveat that you don't have control over the duplicates you create), makes it a bit more powerful than your typical Mirror Image spell, though a Wizard can do far better protections by this level (only two levels away from Astral Projection, and Ethereal Jaunt is a thing). It's placed fairly at 8th level, but it's certainly not balanced for Moderate.

That said - is it fair to consider it Very High? Again, while it can't be achieved easily (it requires three Night Wind maneuvers, so that's at least 5 feats to spend on Martial Study, Night Wind Disciple and Martial Stance to pull it off, and even then, you can only access it by level 34 without actual initiator levels), if you can, it's a given that you'll get it.

--T.G. Oskar (talk) 16:55, 13 September 2017 (MDT)

High seems right. It's a very strong effect but by the time you get it True Seeing and the like starts becoming a real threat to illusionists in general, and creatures have enough attacks to brute force their way through. Very much wanted, but it won't end encounters on its own. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 17:21, 13 September 2017 (MDT)