Welcome to Iconic Design, Private Sanctuary’s source for innovative and evocative character builds for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a build for the shadowdancer prestige class.

One of the biggest reasons that prestige classes aren’t great in the current Pathfinder environment is that they simply lack the support that most base classes get. Every now and then, those rogue freelancers at Paizo manage to sneak some support in, however, and the result is BEAUTIFUL. Today we’re going to be using some of the new Blood of Shadows shadowdancer content to make a kickass Prestige Class build for this long-neglected class. Lets get started!

Build Concept

So, here’s the basis for today’s build. Let’s get to it!

• Shadowdancer: This is what I set out to build, right?
• Unchained Rogue (Scout): Shadowdancer is a neat prestige class in that it is SUPER versatile in who can take it; it just lists some skills and feats for its prerequisites. I’m taking the scout archetype for some fun interactions with the shadow jump class feature later on. You’ll see!

Easy enough! Let’s get started.

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: unchained rogue (scout) 5 / shadowdancer 2
• Feats: Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Dodge (3rd), Mobility (5th), Accomplished Sneak Attacker (7th)
• Abilities: danger sense +1, darkvision, debilitating injury, evasion, finesse training, hide in plain sight, rogue’s edge, scout’s charge, sneak attack +3d6, trapfinding, uncanny dodge
• Rogue Talents: minor magic (2nd), gloom magic (4th), fast stealth (6th)

As you’ll see, we’ve got a lot of cool, new Blood of Shadows options in this build to make the shadowdancer work. That’ll be a recurring theme. The build is pretty straightforward at the early levels; you’re picking up the prerequisites mostly, and since we can’t start picking up the “cool” abilities until Level 9, when your shadowdancer level will be high enough for shadow jump, I thought that this would be a good time to pick up Accomplished Sneak Attacker. Right now, you’ve got the Sneak Attack damage dice of a 7th level rogue while still being a shadow dancer, which is helpful. (It doesn’t stay that way forever, mind you, but it works for now.)

Now, the “weird” options that I’m going for are the gloom magic talents, which basically give you two uses of darkness as a spell-like ability at this level. There are LOTS of neat feats that require darkness as a spell-like ability as a prerequisite, and I’m going to try to be grabbing them as the build levels up. I also feel that poison use is a powerful ability for this build, and is a bit more flavorful than the typical “combat trick” setup that most rogues are going to take at this point. Of course, you’re also going to want to take Stealth as your rogue’s edge, if that’s the case.

But that’s enough for now, let’s move on to the mid levels.

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: unchained rogue (scout) 5 / shadowdancer 9
• Feats: Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Dodge (3rd), Mobility (5th), Accomplished Sneak Attacker (7th), Flexible Shadow Jump (9th), Dimensional Agility (11th), Dimensional Assault (13th), Weapon Focus: any (Bonus)
• Abilities: danger sense +1, darkvision, debilitating injury, defensive roll, evasion, finesse training, hide in plain sight, improved uncanny dodge, rogue’s edge, shadow call, shadow illusion, shadow jump 160 ft., shadow power, slippery mind, sneak attack +3d6, summon shadow, trapfinding, uncanny dodge
• Rogue Talents: minor magic (2nd), gloom magic (4th), fast stealth (6th), major magic (8th), greater gloom magic (11th), weapon training (14th)

Now that we’re into super high level shadowdancer territory, there are a lot of cool things going on, the first of which is the Flexible Shadow Jump feat. Written by your truly in Blood of Shadows, this feat does several things. First, it breaks shadow jump up from 10-foot jumps to 5-foot jumps, effectively giving you 8 5-foot leaps instead of 4 10-foot leaps. The flexibility is SUPER useful, even initially. The other neat thing that it lets you do is treat shadow jump as the ability to cast dimension door for the purpose of feats like Dimensional Agility and the like. This means no more pleading with your GM; just do it! Flexible Shadow Jump is useful enough without this extra perk, but the fact that by the end of the mid levels that you’ll be able to charge with shadow jump AND deal sneak attack damage thanks to the scout archetype is really, really cool.

Let’s talk rogue talents. Greater gloom magic is deeper darkness as a 1/day spell-like ability and that’s useful, but major magic has a new secret friend. Dancing darkness, a new 1st-level spell from Blood of Shadows. This spell allows you to essentially create four “anti dancing lights” motes for 1 minute per level. This is SUPER powerful for the shadowdancer. Let me sum up why in two words.

Mario Pipes.

Basically, you have four motes that you can even move around, up to 100 feet PER ROUND that last minutes per level, and they’re reducing the illumination for you as they move about. This means you can cast the spell, then jump into a nearby shadow and pop out in the area created by the dancing darkness motes. Or better yet, you can drop the motes at your feet and reappear in a different shadow nearby. Honestly, this spell is so good for the shadowdancer. That’s it likely worth investing in UMD and wands just to be able to use it more. And weapon training? Meh, I figured the shadowdancer’s attack bonus might be low. There’s not much else we need since the rogue doesn’t have advanced talents yet.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about some of the amazing shadowdancer abilities that pop up at this level. Of them, summon shadow is by far the most powerful. A touch attack buddy that basically does at-will Strength damage? Yes, please. Shadow conjuration and shadow evocation, two of the most versatile spells in the game, as spell-like abilities usable multiple times per day? Yes. Please. Regaining improved uncanny dodge and uncanny dodge? Done. Two super powerful advanced rogue talents as class features? YES. Dear god, this is so tantalizing, I can barely contain myself! Let’s move on to the end game.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: unchained rogue (scout) 10 / shadowdancer 10
• Feats: Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Dodge (3rd), Mobility (5th), Accomplished Sneak Attacker (7th), Flexible Shadow Jump (9th), Dimensional Agility (11th), Dimensional Assault (13th), Weapon Focus: any (Bonus), Dimensional Savant (15th), COMBAT FREEBIE (Bonus), Extra Shadow Jump (17th), Extra Shadow Jump (19th)
• Abilities: danger sense +3, darkvision, debilitating injury, defensive roll, evasion, finesse training, hide in plain sight, improved evasion, improved uncanny dodge, rogue’s edge, shadow call, shadow illusion, shadow jump 320 ft., shadow master, shadow power, skirmisher, slippery mind, sneak attack +5d6, summon shadow, trapfinding, uncanny dodge
• Rogue Talents: minor magic (2nd), gloom magic (4th), fast stealth (6th), major magic (8th), greater gloom magic (11th), weapon training (14th), combat trick: FREEBIE (16th), FREEBIE (18th) see in darkness (20th)

So the shadowdancer capstone is pretty sick, giving you DR in dim illumination and darkness, plus the improved evasion rogue talent, plus doubling your shadow jump again. But that’s not enough shadow jump for me. I want ALL the shadow jump. So I took Flexible Shadow Jump twice. This feat starts by giving you 10 extra feat of shadow jump, but each time your shadow jump distance doubles, the benefit of the feat doubles with it. Until at 10th level, when each feat is worth +80 feet of shadow jump.

SOLD.

So with two selections of the feat (after all, I NEEDED to take Dimensional Savant at 15th level first so I could flank with myself THROUGH THE SHADOWS), we’re looking at a total shadow jump distance of 480 feet. Which is spent in 5-foot squares, for a hard cap of 85 shadow jumps. Pretty darn good!

Since most of this build is built around shadow jumping and shadow shadowing, the end-game doesn’t have many stipulations for what sort of talents you pick at this point. Take what you want, although I recommend see in darkness as your first, and only, advanced talent because its awesome.

So what did you think? Is this a shadowdancer you would play? Or do you need MORE shadowdancer builds? (Because I can do more. Believe it.) Leave your comments and questions below, and I’ll see you next week for another installment of Iconic Design, only at the Know Direction Network! Ciao!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.