Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer Shadow has always been the cousin of fear. Within the darkness, monsters dwell, plans are hatched, and enemies strike with fang and dagger and dark magic. But some embrace the shadow, gain power from it, and dance within its shifting dark.

A true shadowdancer is a creature who flits on the edge of light and darkness. Moving amid the inky blackness, shadowdancers are spies, assassins, infiltrators, and emissaries. Some shadowdancers use their relationship with the dark for good, while others embrace the primordial night, its terror, and its betrayal.

Regardless of the reason why someone embraces the shadows, the shadows embrace that person in turn, gradually transforming them into something inky, nebulous, and mysterious.

Additional Feats: 10th Uncanny Dodge; 14th Spring from the Shadows; 16th Sense the Unseen; 18th Cognitive Loophole

Shadowdancer Dedication Feat 8

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype Dedication

Prerequisite(s) master in Stealth, expert in Performance

You dedicate yourself to the shadows. Your coloring becomes gray and gloomy, your senses adjust to the darkness, and you can sneak through darkness with ease. You gain greater darkvision. You also gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Stealth checks when you are within dim light or darkness.

Special You can’t select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the shadowdancer archetype.

Shadow Sneak Attack Feat 10

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadowdancer Dedication

You gain the sneak attack class feature, except you deal 1d6 precision damage regardless of your level.

Sneak attack from multiple sources isn’t cumulative. If you have sneak attack from more than one source, use only the highest number of dice when you sneak attack rather than adding the amounts together.

Shadow Magic Feat 10

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadowdancer Dedication

You gain the ability to fuse and play with shadows by using focus spells specific to shadowdancers. You learn a shadowdancer focus spell of your choice: dance of darkness or shadow jump. If you don’t already have one, you gain a focus pool of 1 Focus Point, which you can Refocus by meditating within an area of dim light or darkness.

Shadowdancer focus spells are occult spells. You become trained in occult spell attack rolls and spell DCs, and your spellcasting ability for these spells is Charisma.

Additional Shadow Magic Feat 12

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadow Magic Choose an additional shadowdancer focus spell you haven’t already selected from Shadow Magic. Increase the number of Focus Points in your pool by 1.

Shadow Illusion Feat 12

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadow Magic

With an artful eye, you shape shadows into illusory forms.

You gain the shadow illusion focus spell. Increase the number of Focus Points in your pool by 1. You become an expert in occult spell attack rolls and DCs.

Shadow Power Feat 14

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadow Magic

You can focus the shadows into a powerful blast. You can cast shadow blast as an innate occult spell once per day. Its level is always 1 level lower than the level of your shadowdancer focus spells. You become an expert in occult spell attack rolls and DCs.

Shadow Master Feat 18

Source PRG2:APG

Archetype

Prerequisite(s) Shadowdancer Dedication

The shadows protect you better than any armor can, and they give you power to plunge others into darkness. Whenever you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you gain resistance 5 to all damage except force and damage from Strikes with the ghost touch property rune. When you attempt a Reflex saving throw in an area of dim light or darkness, you can roll twice and take the higher result; this is a fortune effect.

Shadowdancer Focus Spells

Dance of Darkness Focus 5

Source PRG2:APG

Darkness Evocation

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal

Duration varies

You dance, Striding up to half your Speed. At either the start or end of your Stride, you create an area of magical darkness in a 10-foot burst centered on your location. This area is filled with magical darkness that works the same way as that created by a darkness spell of the same level. When you create the darkness, attempt a Performance check to dance, with a standard DC for your level, to determine the duration of the darkness.

Critical Success 1 minute Success 2 rounds Failure 1 round

Shadow Illusion Focus 6

Source PRG2:APG

Auditory Illusion Shadow Visual

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal

Range 500 feet

Duration sustained

You create a shadowy illusion of a creature or a stationary object, but the illusion can exist only in an area of dim light or darkness. The spell ends if the illusion is ever out of an area of dim light or darkness. If the illusion is an object, it must fit within a 20-foot burst, and the creature can be of any size up to Gargantuan, filling a 20-foot-by-20-foot space.

The object or creature appears to animate naturally; it even generates the appropriate sounds and smells, and feels believable to the touch, though its coloring is always muted.

If the illusion is a creature, shadow illusion has the effects of an illusory creature spell of the same level, except it deals 2d8 damage plus your spellcasting ability modifier, instead of the amount listed in illusory creature.

Heightened (+2) The area that an illusory object can fit in increases by 10 feet. The damage of the illusory creature’s Strike increases by 1d8.

Shadow Jump Focus 5

Source PRG2:APG

Conjuration Shadow Teleportation

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal; Requirements You are in dim light or darkness.

Range 120 feet

You instantly transport yourself from one shadow to another.

Teleport yourself and any items you’re wearing and holding from your current space to a clear space you can see that’s in dim light or darkness and within range. You can transport your familiar with this spell, but if shadow jump would bring any other creature with you—even if you’re carrying the creature in an extradimensional container—the spell is disrupted.

Heightened (8th) When you arrive at your destination, you can become invisible until the end of your next turn or until you are no longer in an area of dim light or darkness, whichever comes first. The invisibility is an illusion effect.

Call of Shadows

The shadows call out to a potential shadowdancer in a myriad of ways. Often it starts with fear—fear of the dark, fear of enemies, or an underlying uncontrolled anxiety and the desire to gain power over the darkness. Many potential shadowdancers hear the shadows whisper in their heads. First dismissed as some perverse trick of the mind, the whispers can seem to ebb and wane, but a true calling becomes more lucid and more compelling.

In some shadow-infused lands, organizations search for and recruit those called by the shadows, eager to transform them into spies and assassins. But the call can come to any creature anywhere. It’s just a question of whether the creature heeds the call and forms a pact with the shadows.

Though it is hard to convince many folks otherwise, given the fearsome reputations of shadowdancers working for dark powers and cabals, there is nothing intrinsically evil about embracing the shadows. Darkness is amoral but not without its champions for good and even law, though it is true that such shadowdancers are few and far between.