Greater Shadow

[oslecamo]

Greater Shadow



Prerequisites:
Race-Must have all levels of Shadow
Special- Must have used weakness grasp on at least 3 humanoids and let them go alive to tell the tale.

HD:d12

Level	Bab	Fort	Ref	Will	Feature
1	+0	+0	+0	+2	Encroaching Darkness, Gloom Barrier, +1 Dex
2	+1	+0	+0	+3	Weak Fate, Springing Shadow, +1 Dex
3	+1	+1	+1	+3	Extending Darkness, Unclear Shadow, +1 Dex
4	+2	+1	+1	+4	Night Terror, Creepy Sounds, +1 Dex
5	+2	+1	+1	+4	Killer Darkness, Shadowy Terrain, +1 Dex

Skills:2+Int modifier per level. The Greater Shadow has no class skills.

Encroaching Darkness: As a standard action you can suddenly extend one of your limb up to 20 feet per HD. All creatures in a 5-feet radius burst at its tip are then affected by your Weakness Grasp. Once you've used this ability, you must wait 1d4 rounds before using it again.

Gloom Barrier: As a fullround action you create a barrier of ominous shadow with an area up to 10 square feet per level that obscures vision and blocks line of sight, including darkvision. The wall is insubstantial, so creatures can move through it without penalty. It ends as soon as you create a new one or the Greater Shadow is destroyed. Gloom Barrier is a [Darkness] effect and can be used to counter and dispel [Light] spells with a level equal or smaller than ½ your HD.

Ability Score Increase: The Greater Shadow gains +1 Dex at each level for +5 Dex at 5th level total.

Weak Fate: At 2nd level sentient creatures killed by the Greater Shadow can now rise as Shadows up to your level -2, or CR of the victim, whichever's lower. They must first take all Shadow levels and then only Fighter, Ranger or Rogue levels. All other limitations of End Existence still apply. New spawns created by your minions count towards your own control pool.

Springing Shadow: At 2nd level you can move, attack and then keep moving, as long as your total movement doesn't exceed double your movement speed and you start and end inside a shadow. The target of your attack isn't allowed an Aoo for your movement, and you gain +4 AC against attacks from any other opponents during your movement this way.

Extending Darkness: At 3rd level, as an immediate action you can double the area of Encroaching darkness and make enemies  become dazed if they fail their Fort save.

Unclear Shadow: at 3rd level while you stand in a shadow you benefit from cover and concealment, even against creatures with darkvision and special senses such as blind/tremorsense and similar.

Night Terror: at 4th level as a standard action you can take your time weakening others. As a standard action you perform a Weakness Grasp in which you can re-roll the Str damage dealt and use the best result. Enemies whitin 5 feet per HD of the victim must make a Will save with the same DC or become Shaken for 1 round. If the Greater Shadow has 10 or more HD then even enemies immune to the Shaken can be affected, but they gain a +5 bonus on their save.


Creepy Sounds: Dark whispers, barely perceptible, constantly issue forth from the far side of your barrier, causing a cold chill to run up your prey's spine.At 4th level, creatures that pass trough your Gloom Barrier or that end their turns whitin 30 feet from it must make a Will save with DC 10+1/2 HD+Dex mod or become Shaken for 1 round. If you have 10 HD or more even creatures normally immune can be affected, but they gain a +5 bonus on their saves.

Killer Darkness: to the weak willed, a big shadow always looks like their biggest fear. At 5th level as an immediate action 1/hour per 4 HD when you hit an opponent with Weakness Grasp, you may force them to make a Will save with DC 10+1/2 HD+Dex mod. If they fail they become shaken and must make another Fort save with the same DC or die of fear. Even if they suceed on the Fort save they take 1d6 damage for each 2 HD you have. Enemies that had already taken Str damage from your Weakness grasp take a -4 penalty on both saves. Even normally immune enemies can be affected if they fail the saves by 5 or more.

Shadowy Terrain: At 5th level as a fullround action 1/day the Greater Shadow can spread out darkness all around that works as an Hallucinatory Terrain with CL=HD, save DC 10+1/2 HD+Dex mod, except it can hide structures, equipment and creatures whitin the area (or change their apperance), but the whole illusion must be shadow-related (darker colors, lack of light, etc). If the Greater Shadow has 12 HD or more, even True Seeing cannot penetrate a Shadowy Terrain unless the source is whitin 10 feet.

In addition, new spawns of the Greater Shadow may now take 1 level of Greater Shadow instead of one of the other levels (if they're already Shadow 3). Already existing spawns may retrain one non-shadow level into Greater Shadow.

(click to show/hide)

Found that cool picture that inspired me to making the upgraded Shadow.

Basically this prc is focused around the whole "shadows are scary and unclear" theme, mixing fear effects and some terrain manipulation with ranged stuff. Also upgraded minions, some extra mobility and +5 Dex helps round it up.

So if you want to make a big, scary patch of darkness, the Greater Shadow's for you!

[Rakoa]

Was I going to make a Shadow before? No. Will I after seeing this picture? Hell yes.

Gloom Barrier: As a fullround action you create a barrier of ominous shadow with an area of 10 square feet per level that obscures vision and blocks line of sight, including darkvision. The wall is insubstantial, so creatures can move through it without penalty. It ends as soon as you create a new one. Gloom Barrier can be used to counter and dispel [Light] spells with a level equal or smaller than ½ your HD.

With Gloom Barrier, it only counts Greater Shadow levels for area affected, correct? Also, as it is written it lasts forever as long as the Shadow doesn't create another barrier. Is this intentional?

Another excellent job, Oslecamo. 

[oslecamo]

Just as planned.

The area was suposed to be based on your HD, changed. And yes it's intentional for it to last forever until another is created or the greater shadow is destroyed (forgot to add that last one, fixed now).

[Shadowknight12]

Wow, this is pretty cool! I like the direction you took with the Greater Shadow, making it all about area effects and fear effects.

The only thing I'd personally nitpick on would be descriptor tags. I am a bit of a stickler for proper descriptor tagging, so these are some suggestions that you can add at the end of each effect:

Gloom Barrier: "This is a [Darkness] effect."

Extending Darkness: Effects that inflict the Dazed condition are usually mind-affecting effects. Is this one of those cases? If so, it should say "This is a [Mind-Affecting] effect." Also, you could delete the bolded part in this sentence: "and make enemies failing their saves against it also become dazed if they fail their Fort save. "

Night Terror: "This is a [Mind-Affecting][Fear] effect."

Creepy Sounds: "This is a [Mind-Affecting][Fear][Sonic] effect." The [Sonic] descriptor is there because presumably being inside a Silence effect blocks the creepy sounds, right? A cool addition would be to add the [Language-Dependent] tag to imply that those whispers are saying actual words and that they are created by the GS. Now granted, this would technically make the effect weaker (because that means that creatures who are deaf or don't share a language with the GS are immune to the effect), but it definitely adds more flavour to it.

Killer Darkness: "This is a [Mind-Affecting][Fear][Death] effect."

Shadowy Terrain: It might benefit from the [Darkness] tag, so that you can play around with [Light] effects (Shadowy Terrain would counter and cancel out [Light] effects of level 4 or lower), but it sounds more illusory than real darkness, so it could go either way.

And finally, Spring Shadow should really list what kind of movement speeds it affects (since it says "double your movement speed" but it doesn't specify one in particular, or if you can pick the highest of the ones you have, or if it only applies to the movement speed you're using with the ability).

[oslecamo]

Fear effects are already mind-affecting by definition.

And no, one of the main reasons daze is so popular is precisely because you can get it from a lot of non-mind affecting sources.

Shaowy terrain affects all your movement speeds.

Creepy sounds are creepy because you can hear them even when you can't hear anything else.

Added [Darkness] tag to Gloom Barrier and deleted redudant part.