Shadow dancer skill upgrade suggestion

[Autumn]

Well I had an idea/ thought that would it be possible when a shadow dancer takes a full ten levels in the PRC, and if over level twenty total, aka an epic character, their summon shadow skill is upgraded from summoning just a shadow beast to actually summoning up a juvenile shadow dragon.  Now I am not suggesting just auto, but perhaps something they could research quest apply for like mages do for epic spells, giving the class some incentive towards taking a full ten in as opposed to just what most folks do.

[Nokteronoth]

They have a feat for an upgraded Shadow already.

nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Epic_shadowlord

Though both the Shadow and the Epic Shadowlord are both horribly, terribly shitty summons even in vanilla NWN.

~BR

[Eredruie]

Related, it'd be nice to see them given something to make it worth taking more than the standard 3 levels for most (not yet epic) PCs. At the minute it feels like I lose out a lot by taking more SD levels over rogue now that my character has HIPS, Daze, Jump & Summon to RP with.

[Eredruie]

Actually, just thinking some more... if Shadowdancer continued/gave sneak attack progression it would be less painful to take.

Personally I'd also love darkness x/day and maybe some other shadow spells as abilities buuut that's me

[Nokteronoth]

If SD got the sneak attack progression, there'd be 100% no reason at all to take assassin, same with the Darkness/day. The ONLY reason you really take assassin ATM is because of the sneaks/HIPS. Death attack and the use poison/darkness aren't particularly useful for the class mechanically, because we are talking mechanics here and not RP. RPly, assassin's just as good.

Balancing stuff is hard. I do agree that SD summons need to be a bit beefier.

Mistakes and I were testing around. AFAIK, there's only 3 actual mobs in the module that need to be changed for SD's pre-10. The Shadow, Shadow Fiend, and Shadow Lord, because they don't change on every single level up like most companions. That's likely a lot more doable than the 1-per-level of Epic Shadowlord or a lot of the familiar/companion class summons.

nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Summon_shadow

However, it'd still take some time to likely balance and come up with changes to make them useful.

Improved Evasion and Slippery Mind are both good, as is Defensive Roll. You can get Epic Dodge off SD levels alone, on CD, which you can't do elsewhere. You can get someone with HIPS and Epic Dodge without rogue levels- say on a Bard/SD/AA or the like. There's reasons to want that 10 levels. It's just not incredibly compelling, because 3SD/10Ro Or 5/10 is a lot easier to swallow in terms of usefulness to a party.

I might suggest that SDs get another flavor thing or two like Shadow Walk/day, or a permanent Ultravision. (Not see invis like Hellbred/RDDs, just the ultra.)

~BR

[Autumn]

All valid and well reasoned points hopefully this info is helping and encouraging more discussion.