Help me understand the Shadowdancer

toolarg

After many years Im willing to play a pure thief class again. Last time I did it was a Bounty Hunter, and while I didn't complete the whole saga, it was fun. He was pretty straightfoward: my party would bump on a bunch of enemies, retreat a bit and I would lay some traps. He also had enough points to do every other thief thing.
Now, I want to give the shadowdancer a run. I've been reading a lot of threads but I still haven't been able to understand the class.
What exactly is he good at? running away? hiding while the rest do the fighting?. In P&P such a role would be ok, but the BG saga is very combat centric. He can't lay traps, his backstab multiplier is low, he needs a lot of points to HiPS reliably -so that kind of leaves the other thief skills outside the equation for a while- his other innate skill is all about running the hell away. He seems like a resilient bhaalspawn but not a dangerous one. His HLAs seem to pale in comparison to what a normal thief gets. And yet I want to give it a try, try something different. Am I to understand that his whole purpose is to escape and stay alive?.
Can anyone provide some insight on the class?.

Balrog99

toolarg said:

After many years Im willing to play a pure thief class again. Last time I did it was a Bounty Hunter, and while I didn't complete the whole saga, it was fun. He was pretty straightfoward: my party would bump on a bunch of enemies, retreat a bit and I would lay some traps. He also had enough points to do every other thief thing.
Now, I want to give the shadowdancer a run. I've been reading a lot of threads but I still haven't been able to understand the class.
What exactly is he good at? running away? hiding while the rest do the fighting?. In P&P such a role would be ok, but the BG saga is very combat centric. He can't lay traps, his backstab multiplier is low, he needs a lot of points to HiPS reliably -so that kind of leaves the other thief skills outside the equation for a while- his other innate skill is all about running the hell away. He seems like a resilient bhaalspawn but not a dangerous one. His HLAs seem to pale in comparison to what a normal thief gets. And yet I want to give it a try, try something different. Am I to understand that his whole purpose is to escape and stay alive?.
Can anyone provide some insight on the class?.

It's great to dual-class to a mage. That's about the only use I can think of. They're a bit lackluster other than that imho.

ThacoBell

Infinite backstabs. In the middle of combat? Hide and backstab. Aggro'd too many enemies? Hide and backstab. Can't pay your parking ticket? HIde and backstab. They aren't a powergamey class, but they are a LOT of fun.

semiticgoddess

In a word: the Shadowdancer's backstabs aren't as strong, but the Shadowdancer can land them more easily and more often, since it doesn't have to retreat or slip behind a corner, which can take a long time. A Shadowdancer might land a triple damage backstab every 1 round; a normal thief might land a quadruple damage backstab every 2 rounds.

Balrog99

ThacoBell said:

Infinite backstabs. In the middle of combat? Hide and backstab. Aggro'd too many enemies? Hide and backstab. Can't pay your parking ticket? HIde and backstab. They aren't a powergamey class, but they are a LOT of fun.

Well, my experience was more 'infinite hide and miss', but I probably didn't give it enough of a chance. Restartitis usually kills off my characters before I can even get them to 10th level...

Kurona

Losing traps is the biggest weakness of the kit but without a significant drawback Shadowdancers would be superior to every other thief. Hide in Plain Sight is an outrageous ability for the majority of the saga. At the end of the day it means you lose a lot of burst damage, especially when HLA come in, in order to trade it for better survivability. Whether you actually need the survivability or not depends on your party composition and play style.

Though in ToB everything is immune to backstab and/or see through stealth automatically so the kit becomes suboptimal by then. This is why I tend to dual class them to mage - have fun with repeated polymorph backstabs for a while and when this doesn't work just cast spells like normal.

ThacoBell

@Kurona very true, so many enemies in ToB hurt the Shadow Dancer's ability to damage reliably. I'd say this is their biggest drawback. They DO have some really cool HLAs though. *cough*simulacrum*cough*

WarChiefZeke

Shadowdancers are deadly solo combatants who use their hide-at-will ability to cripple opponents with repeated backstabs, or hide from a spell right before it goes off. Get elemental resistance and set off the fireballs/icestorms while your Shadowdancer manages the aggro. Lots of ways to use their abilities for both attack and defense.

Shadowdancers are one of my favorite classes. I doubt any other pure class thief could so easily solo large numbers of opponents.

Lot of people are reccomending a mage dual. Fighter works well too.

toolarg

WarChiefZeke said:

Lot of people are reccomending a mage dual. Fighter works well too.

Well, I wanted to go single class since I dont play humans and I dont want to use EEkeeper to bend the multiclassing game rules.

ThacoBell said:

Infinite backstabs. In the middle of combat? Hide and backstab. Aggro'd too many enemies? Hide and backstab. Can't pay your parking ticket? HIde and backstab. They aren't a powergamey class, but they are a LOT of fun.

But thats the thing, to do that you need to invest all your points in Hide and MS, giving up all your other thief skills till higher levels and then you realise that your backstabs dont do as much damage. Its like the kit contradicts itself.
I really want to find a way to make it work, to give it a role within a party but Im finding its a hard task.

WarChiefZeke

You should have at least enough points to master another skill by the time backstabs become almost irrelevant. You should also have access to Shadow Twin who can free-cast all the mage scrolls and items in the game with UAI.

By that time, im typically using my Shadowdancer to cast Time Stop and Shapechange: Mind Flayer to kill most opponents with INT drain.

ThacoBell

@toolarg Its a lower multiplier, but as @semiticgod said above, you will be backstabbing MUCH more often. A shadowdancer can backstab once a round.

toolarg

Well, I guess I'll have to try and see how well it goes. Thanks for all the help.
I really, really wish they had at least another magical innate skill. Maybe I'll try assigning Quayle's invisibility to the class every X levels, if I can figure out how to do it in NearInfinity.

WarChiefZeke

Well they do get a couple magical innate spells, Shadowstep has it's uses as a last resort escape tactic and a way to get instantly behind enemy lines and back out again before anyone can react. Later, they get a pretty good Maze spell that hits all enemies around the caster. Not much, but it's something.

TheArtisan

The Shadow Twin HLA is so insanely busted since it multiplies your innates and can be taken multiple times. Shadowstep is also a free turn for Detect Illusions, which is perfect for countering SI:Divination which SCS loves.

In my opinion, this is the only thief kit which never falls off. The only drawback is how broken trap stacking is and the SD doesn’t get that, but when playing fair I think this is the best thief kit by a mile.

Raduziel

Do you want to understand Shadowdancers?

Have a dinner with them. Listen. Show you actually care. Put their problems above yours.

Balrog99

Raduziel said:

Do you want to understand Shadowdancers?

Have a dinner with them. Listen. Show you actually care. Put their problems above yours.

Your post made me think Shadowdancers must be mostly females. Somehow my mind then went to 'Exotic Shadowdancers', which made me wonder what a shadow lap-dance would be like.

Thanks a lot @Raduziel for the disturbing realization of how my mind works...

Chronicler

From what I've been able to gather in Pen and Paper they're usually circus performers. Real Public Family Entertainment. The kind of stuff you'd bring your kids to see.

That's not to say anything about what a Shadowdancer and their Romantic Partner get up to behind closed doors.

bleusteel

And in this world of people there's only you and I
There ain't nothing come between us in the end
Ah, can I hold you when you ain't even mine
Only you can see me through
I leave it up to you
Do it light, taking me through the night
Shadow dancing, baby you do it right
Give me more, drag me across the floor
Shadow dancing, all this and nothing more
-Andy Gibb

Chronicler

Artemius_I said:

The Shadow Twin HLA is so insanely busted since it multiplies your innates and can be taken multiple times. Shadowstep is also a free turn for Detect Illusions, which is perfect for countering SI:Divination which SCS loves.

In my opinion, this is the only thief kit which never falls off. The only drawback is how broken trap stacking is and the SD doesn’t get that, but when playing fair I think this is the best thief kit by a mile.

But for those first few levels they're just a thief that can't backstab and can't lay traps. Kind of wish Beamdog had given them some gimmick to spice up those early levels a bit.

TheArtisan

Chronicler said:

But for those first few levels they're just a thief that can't backstab and can't lay traps. Kind of wish Beamdog had given them some gimmick to spice up those early levels a bit.

Chances are that your stealth, THAC0 and set trap skills are too low in 'those early levels' to make a big difference anyway.

Rik_Kirtaniya

Shadowdancers are even more powerful in IWD, the reason being that almost no enemy bothers to use True Sight. In fact, IWD is actually a backstabber's paradise!

You don't get the HLAs there, but you'll have more fun playing as a Shadowdancer in IWD than in BG. Give it a try, and you'll see.

Grum

Had a lot of fun with a shadow dancer dual classed to fighter.

Get enough skills to hide and see through illusions...from there is is all fun and games.