How to build an ideal Shadowdancer?

Noloir

Shadow Dancer is it interesting thief kit with the ability to Shadowstep and postion itself to backstab like crazy. Question is how can it's abilities "hide in plane sight" and shadowstep be used to the fullest? Would it be best to run a pure SD orshould it be dual-classed to broaden a character's variety?

elminster

If you are just looking for the hide in plain sight ability then it would be best I think to dual class into a fighter at some point.

DreadKhan

If you dual to Mage, you have one seriously hard to target mage. Could get cheesier than a wine bar though.

Gallowglass

I reckon Shadowdancer is a viable starting-class for any of the possible dual-class combinations (i.e. Fighter or Cleric or Mage), but especially Mage.

However, note that the dual-classing requirements for a Shadowdancer are significantly steeper than for an ordinary Thief (or other Thief kit) - you need 15 in STR and DEX and CHA, not just in DEX like other Thieves.

Noloir

Not much of a problem. Rolled a 93 and placed 17 points in Char, Str, Int, and Dex repectively. Wondering which direction to take. Backstab would be a vicious ability for a fighter while dissappearing and reappering like a Vampiric Mist. Mage wouldbe iinteresting because it'd have built in invisibility but as Elmister put it it'd be "cheesy" and get old after a while. Almost like cheating in a way unless the game's on intense/Gore difficulty

lunar

Mage can get unlimited invisibility with the Staff of the Magi anyway.

Thus I think a fighter dual is more interesting. A shadowdancer dualled into a mage will use high lvl spells to deal with serious threats anyway, making hips less useful. A shadowdancer/fighter can put hips to awesome use, chunking one enemy per round while the enemies wander around in terror, trying to find their assailant, but trying in vain.
Ehh. Cleric/thieves are auto-fails IMHO. Don't like them and don't see any synergy the two classes might have.

DreadKhan

Cleric thieves are one of the easiest solos, especially BG1. The cleric bonus' make it competetive for one-shotting, but IMHO, trading high level shadowdancer abilities for vanilla cleric high level stuff,sounds like a nerf I agree.

If someone was willing to keeper and dual out of cleric late to Shadowdancer, you'd be vastly better than the opposite.

Francois

I played a halfling Shadowdancer, which I found very powerful. A lot more than I imagined. You can make it a Half-Orc to get better attack/damage early on. I only rarely use shadow step, but it's useful to gain time between attacks or when you fail while trying to sneak (you can hide in shadow again while in shadow step). It's useful to sneak behind pesky mages before they auto-cast true sight.

I would not dual-class a shadowdancer but that's just me. Essentially every attack is a backstab. This means an attack bonus as well as damage so getting a fighter THAC0 is not as important with this kit. Belm is a good choice of weapon early on: one extra chance of scoring before becoming visible. Make sure to have single-weapon style: doubles chances of critical hits which adds up nicely with backstab multipler.

Dual classing means losing the Use Any Item, which is one of my favorite abilities. You also gain specific high level abilities, such as shadow companion which is essentially a simulacrum. You can gain that shadow companion multiples times, so you can eventually do it many times/day.

You can use your simulacrum to cast scrolls without losing them (time-stop, horrid wilting, meteors, crushing hands anything you like). Carry a case with your favorite spells and you are as powerful as any mage. You have to put the items you want to use in your quick-item slots before summoning your shadow companion, so it requires to plan ahead.

I did not play that char until the end of ToB, so I'm not sure how well they perform in the later stages.

Arunsun

ShadowDancer mage has simply no interest (you won't need HIPS with staff of the magi, and shadowstep would just allow you to walk away (as it lasts 7 seconds which is just a little more than a round, and you cannot cast more than one spell per round). Backstabbing will not be useful considering your terrible thac0
ShadowDancer Cleric is nice because you can backstab for very, very high damage and take no risks (instant HIPS after backstabbing). Not to mention you get spells you will want such as dispel magic etc... (since you are based on two or three APR for high damage, and for example stoneskins will be insanely long to get down without dispel magic). I would recommend that for solo playthrough
Fighter/Shadowdancer is a beast if you play with a team able to buff him. With IH Two backstabs *4 + 6APR are just the same as 12 APR (considering strength bonus is not multiplied) damage-wise which is a lot. I would go for that on a playthrough with a team
A straigth shadowdancer can be very good as well. Early game (until you get enough Hide in Shadow and Move Silently to always hide succesfully) you will suffer, but once you have that it will become a lot easier, and in the end, when you get HLA, your Simulacrum will basically allow you to spam spells without consuming your scrolls, and you will as well be able to deal a lot of damage ( with 3 backstabs per round per person that s a 6 backstabs per round which is about 20 APR). You also get traps and these are brutal as we all know. Basically a straight shadowdancer is certainly one of the most fun classes to play, and a very strong one as well

JohannesN

Though spamming spells from scrolls without these scrolls disapperaing, ie using scrolls/rods on a simulacrum is kind of cheesy. And depending on mod setup, it might not be possible, since there are mods which removes this option.

Yannir

An SD/F is one of my favorite classes in this game. HiPSing away with fighter-Thaco pretty much guarantees successful backstabs, and with the Cloak of Non-Detection, you can even stay that way. Fighter as a secondary class also means that you get to use Vhailor's Helm. Although, with a pure SD, you can get the Shadow Twin AND Vhailor's Helm. Double trouble? Or is that triple threat alrdy?

My issue with the pure SD is UAI, so I don't use it. I don't like UAI even on normal thieves because it feels like breaking character. I only use it to equip helmets. That's just me, not judging anyone who likes it.

@Arunsun Shadowdancers don't have traps btw. Not even HLA-traps, since they are replaced by the SD-HLA's.

Arunsun

@Yannir yeah I realised I wrote something stupid this afternoon, not too sure why I did so though.
@JohannesN I guess that if one is able to restrain himself, one can use scrolls. Of course using 2 protection from magic and 4 time stop per fight is cheesy, but using a dispel magic or that kind of thing is not, at least IMHO.
What I used a lot when I made a shadowdancer playthrough was arrow of dispelling and arrow of detonation with my clone.


EDIT: I could find arrow of detonation only in two places in the game. 3 arrows in the underdark (Beholder lair or House Jaellat I believe) and up to 10 (10 - how many he fires at you before dying) on one of the guys you get to face in Deepstone Clanhold during Rasaad ToB quest. Is there anywhere else we can get them?

Francois

JohannesN said:

Though spamming spells from scrolls without these scrolls disapperaing, ie using scrolls/rods on a simulacrum is kind of cheesy.

It's not something I use in every fight, mostly because it is tedious to organize my inventory, but also because it would get boring to over-use it. It's just that since we are talking how to make a SD as powerful as possible, UAI is pretty useful. Most of the time I use whatever potions or items my real character keeps equiped.

An extra shadow twin that can hide at will and backstab with celestial fury for 2 turns is certainly more useful in my opinion than a whirlwind attack that lasts only one round.

Francois

Well, I just started my very first no-reload challenge and I went with a shadowdancer.

I picked an elf, because they have Dex 19 and +1 with swords and bows. This will be the most useful in the long run I think.

elminster

Yea elf is also the direction I took.

Francois

I also put all my skills in stealth so I alsmot never fail. I picked up Jan to tinker with traps and locks. For a no-reload, I feel I absolutely need a companion that can lay traps and that's the big disadvantage of shadowdancers. I limit myself to a small party to level-up faster; just Minsc, Aerie and Jan. So far it's great; I just hope my shadowdancer doesn't go insane with all the bellowing, sqeaking, whining and turnips.

zol

I'd wait him to get at least lvl 13 (to reach 4x backstab), then dual to fighter or whatever. Walk through the city, try not to fight anybody, just remove traps, unlock doors until you get 660000 XP. Avoid temptation to get quest rewards, your second class will need this XP's to activate first class sooner. You should even travel to de'Arnise hold for example and remove traps/unlock chests there (don't even kill trolls, lure them somewhere and run away - you'll deal with them later in your second role and get XP's for killing them).

SmilingSword

Take a humble peasant girl from fishing village, have her see too much, then let her be possessed the Rope. Join the army rename her to Sorry, later change her name to Apsalar.
Best damn Shadow Dancer of all time.

Yannir

@SmilingSword Gotta love a Malazan-reference..