Shadowdancer=>Mage : the Phantom menace
Arunsun
Member Posts: 1,592
Many among us installed mods to remove the invisibility component from the Staff of the Magi, because of how much cheese it allows. Shadowdancer => Mage allows a limited and, I feel, more legitimate use of invisibility.
Limited because you can only do that once a round, and it can fail (though it rarely will), more legitimate because you did something special, a rather long process that cripples you, to get such power, not simply fighting a couple of critters.
A Shadowdancer=>Mage offers many interesting things a Mage does not have, and here are a some of them:
The most obvious: Hiding in shadows and, more importantly, in plain sight.
+1 to Saving throws: far from neglectible
Shadowstep: you will get one or two uses depending on your dualling level. At first it may seem not so useful, but it has been life-saving more than once in my playthrough.
Focusing a little more on Hide in Shadows/Plain Sight,
Compared to a unnerfed Staff of the Magi, you can do the same, except only once a round.
One huge advantage: you can do that with ANY weapon. What comes first to my mind is the unused Staff of Power, overwhelmed by that of the Magi. Staff of Power gives Saving Throws bonus as well, which Staff of the Magi doesn't, and that's interesting as well.
It will also work with two other rather important weapons, namely Staff of the Ram and Black Blade of Destruction. Both work and are very good for backstab, which offers a very interesting versatility. Let's say you dual at level 9. As a Shadowdancer that's a *3 multiplier. That's virtually three APR, which is rather decent as a secondary way of getting rid of some specific enemies.
Hide in Shadow invisibility can be detected by divination spells, of course, but not by remove/dispel magic, which occasionnally proved useful
Limited because you can only do that once a round, and it can fail (though it rarely will), more legitimate because you did something special, a rather long process that cripples you, to get such power, not simply fighting a couple of critters.
A Shadowdancer=>Mage offers many interesting things a Mage does not have, and here are a some of them:
The most obvious: Hiding in shadows and, more importantly, in plain sight.
+1 to Saving throws: far from neglectible
Shadowstep: you will get one or two uses depending on your dualling level. At first it may seem not so useful, but it has been life-saving more than once in my playthrough.
Focusing a little more on Hide in Shadows/Plain Sight,
Compared to a unnerfed Staff of the Magi, you can do the same, except only once a round.
One huge advantage: you can do that with ANY weapon. What comes first to my mind is the unused Staff of Power, overwhelmed by that of the Magi. Staff of Power gives Saving Throws bonus as well, which Staff of the Magi doesn't, and that's interesting as well.
It will also work with two other rather important weapons, namely Staff of the Ram and Black Blade of Destruction. Both work and are very good for backstab, which offers a very interesting versatility. Let's say you dual at level 9. As a Shadowdancer that's a *3 multiplier. That's virtually three APR, which is rather decent as a secondary way of getting rid of some specific enemies.
Hide in Shadow invisibility can be detected by divination spells, of course, but not by remove/dispel magic, which occasionnally proved useful
3
Comments
The only downside is the fact that you play the whole BG1 as a shadowdancer and can't use spells (if you wanted to). But if you can live with that (or start in BG2), it's neglectable.
The shadowdancer's hiding ability is very nice, but is somewhat reduced in power--comparitively to the other thief kits--by the fact that oil of speed and, I think, haste spells reduce the time require to regain Hide in Shadows to half it's normal downtime, which allows even unkitted thieves to run around a corner (of which there is no shortage in the game) and hide in half the time.
Though it is fun to use the Shadowdancer ability to mimic a thief with unlimited potions of invisiblity.
It's best to get a run up to backstab targets, so that by the time the backstab is successful the Hiding ability has been regained.
Boots of speed and Whispers of Silence are essential equipment, as the usefulness of these items remains all the way to the end of the game. Boots of speed stack with potions, as well, allowing the thief to break the sound barrier.
But Whispers of Silence is the mage/thief's ultimate companion, more than any weapon I'd say. You can do away with a lot of defensive spells with undispellible invisibility, Shadowdancer or not.
Also, @Grum has figured out a way to radically decrease visibility time for Shadowdancers, and I use it for basically all of my thieves these days. After you hide in shadows, click Detect Traps (most any button besides the stealth button will do, actually). This will re-set the timer for stealth, but it won't turn you visible for another two rounds. This means you can go invisible, detect traps, wait 6 seconds, backstab, and then immediately go invisible once more. This way, a Shadowdancer or a blind thief can backstab with near-constant invisibility. If you don't do this, there will be several seconds per round in which the thief will be visible and vulnerable.
Personally, I think of Shadowdancers as a more defensive kit. I'm currently using a dual-classed Shadowdancer->Cleric, and once she recovers her thief levels, I will be able to make her vanish at any time, which means she can never get overwhelmed or cornered unless the enemy can see through invisibility. It's a fantastic escape option.
@Artemius_I: I tested it out and the Shadow Twin trick works perfectly, though unfortunately there's a limit to how many times you can cast Shadow Twin. I thought you meant each clone could always cast Shadow Twin at least once, but the number depends on how many times the original character chose the HLA, since clones don't get HLAs you've already used. Even so, the clones should have 5 castings of Shadowstep or more, which is more than enough time to wait out PFMW and Absolute Immunity spells.
I know another special trick involving Wild Mages, BG1 and infinite spells + permanent Improved Alacrity but it's a secret!
You can always get around nerfs by modding. With a little tweaking, you could replace, say, Larloch's Minor Drain with Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, add an effect to NRD to make it restore a level 1 spell, and cast it infinitely via hotkey. I could post an edited spell file that would make that possible, I think.
If a Wild Mage casts Minor Spell Sequencer, he will be able to put NRD into the sequencer.
Put two NRD in the minor sequencer, and you're ready to break the game.
Activate the sequencer on yourself, and that's it. You have an illimited spellcasting with permanent improved alacrity, but if you exit the spell menu, by switching to another character for example, the exploit is lost and you need to recast Minor Spell Sequencer.
The only problem is that your 2 first spells will trigger a Wild Surge because you used 2 NRD in the sequencer but afterwards, it will only occur 5% of the times.
This trick doesn't work in BG2:EE simply because you cannot put NRD in sequencers anymore (including Contingency spells).
It works since 2013 at least, it was really fun to use in a MP Black Pits game when my friends were not expecting this