I'm thinking of designing a recurring villain who is a Shade swordmage, or have some shade heroes/villains etc.
If anyone has stats for these guys, would be much appreciated.
Ah okie dokie, I'll have to peek at the FRPHB again and see. Would it be possible to make a player character a shade though?
The Campaign Setting, not the Player's Guide. There are no statistics for Shades in the FRPG.
And to make a PC shade, you'd need to build the race from the ground up; you can't just slap a template on something anymore.
Edit: Hmm, would making it a sort of....template multiclass like the spellscar work? I mean, shades are powerful just racially with shadow teleporting, fast regen, good darksight and all that.
If you wanted to make the perfect example of a Shadovar swordmage and took "Shade" as a paragon path then you could not become an Umbiri. If you were a Shadovar Warlock who took the Dark pact you could not then be both a "Shade" and a Darkwalker.
Effectively Shade is a race...just not one that you start out your life as. Much in the way that normal races have racial feats that expand their powers, perhaps we could have a set of special "racial" feats for characters who underwent some roleplaying ritual to become a shade. We could break down the template's powers and distribute them through various feats, explaining the slower gain of abilities as if the character is gradually learning to master their newfound powers with practice and experience.
The idea of having a template for NPCs and feats for PCs makes sense since PCs have feats whereas NPCs effectively do not have any, therefore an NPC with the Shade template is simply assumed to have taken those feats.
Much in the way that normal races have racial feats that expand their powers, perhaps we could have a set of special "racial" feats for characters who underwent some roleplaying ritual to become a shade. We could break down the template's powers and distribute them through various feats, explaining the slower gain of abilities as if the character is gradually learning to master their newfound powers with practice and experience.
This is likely the best approach.
HumbleApostle, it's probably worth mentioning that the "new/4E" Shades are a little different than the 3E Shades with which many are familiar. Their powers have been reigned in somewhat, and their weaknesses virtually removed. You may have already known this, but I figured I'd mention it.
Lets see, they still have the ability to teleport through shadows (I assume this is short range now) ability to perhaps spend healing surges/regen in darkness? And darkvision. Thats about all I can think of at the moment.
I supposed that, but I don't have a copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide so I haven't been able to see any stats for them.
Lets see, they still have the ability to teleport through shadows (I assume this is short range now) ability to perhaps spend healing surges/regen in darkness? And darkvision. Thats about all I can think of at the moment.
Yeah, their powers are still pretty similar to the 3E version. I wish I could say more, but I don't want to violate CoC/Copyright.
The Simbul's recommendation of homebrewing it stands as the best solution, short of getting your hands on a FRCG. Even then, the FRCG "template" is for NPCs, and homebrewing remains a must. It could be helpful, though, to actually see said template, as it was created with the 4E approach to powers/abilities/etc...
18DELTA (Chosen of Cyric)