Tiefling Ranger (Archer) and PRC

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For the past 6 months I've been playing a NG Tiefling Ranger. She's built mostly for archery (Str 13, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 10) and has picked feats and combat styles accordingly.

However, roleplaying wise, she has been growing more and more towards her shadow side. In short I'm playing out a battle between her evil blood and good mind, and her mind is slowly losing. Now I thought, it'd be nice to take a PRC with her that would fit in with this 'transformation'.

I looked at the Shadowdancer PRC, and it fits characterwise. However, combatwise, I'm not too sure how good the PRC would be for an Archer.

So I'm looking for pointers on how to make good use of the special abilities/skills/feats of the Shadowdancer PRC with this tiefling archer. She's currently at lvl 5 (ECL6) and has dodge and mobility already picked as prereqs for the PRC.

Some of the options I've thought of is taking levels of rogue for sneakattacking in combination with the hide in plain sight, but that'd mean taking the character to an entirely different build.

Suggestions?

[ August 12, 2004, 15:42: Message edited by: Faragon ]

 

I don't think there's anything in the Shadowdancer entry to suggest that it's connected with losing one's mind, but that's not what you're looking for, so it doesn't deserve comment.

This path is fine if you are looking for a character who has Dex-based skills and does best in combat through ranged attacks (instead of flanking or invisibility to get sneak attacks). In fact, it's very good, since the "hide in plain sight" and "(improved)evasion" abilities are ones for the Ranger, so you miss out on less of the cool stuff that a full-level Ranger gets. Your high Dexterity and Intelligence makes your character an ideal person to make great use of the Hide, Move Silently, Listen, Spot, and like skills.

Problems:
-Your animal companion ability and Ranger spells get useless when you reach high levels. Expect to mourn that faithful wolf friend at least once.
-You still can't replace a rogue, no matter how high-level you get. Disable Device and Open Lock, as well as some other skills, will always be cross-class with you as a Ranger/Shadowdancer.
-Your tracking abilities will become stunted.
-You put more points in Perform (not a Ranger class skill)
-You say that you have taken "archer" feats. I hope you've made sure that you have enough room for Dodge, Mobility, and Combat Reflexes (all three of which are of little use to a ranged combatant).

Overall, I think it's an original build, but only as powerful as anyone other prestige class concept, if not less.

 

Oh I know the shadowdancer has nothing to do with tieflings and losing your mind, but from the perspective of the other characters (who at this point are beginning to figure something is up with whom they'd thought to be a regular elf) it fits nicely. Suddenly she's able to vanish from sight, work shadow magics and can even summon a shade. If I work my cards right, it'll be a nice trip down to the darkside in their eyes

I figure that taking three levels of rogue (can't get to the PRC earlier anyway) should complement the ranger5/shadowdancerX combo nicely. This way she'll get 2d6 sneak attack (ranged attacks within 30 ft, hidden from sight ) to complement her combat skills.

She'll also be able to boost her skills a lot better, not having to spend 10 points on perfrom In fact, I'm thinking of having her keep up with Hide/MoveSilently/Spot/Listen and boost Bluff and Sense Motive in the meantime.

Animal companion won't be very usefull anymore, no. I'm curious as to how useful a 3 HD Shadow will be too. My character will be at ECL 13 by the time the PRC gives her the Shadow Tracking I'll hardly miss, since she doesn't get to do that often anyway.

[ August 12, 2004, 15:10: Message edited by: Faragon ]

 

Is there a good reason because of which you would not build your own class that would help your tiefling in developement ? From what I see, the idea of evil blood-good mind is more of a theoretical and personality problem than utter statistics, since all they are based upon are ability modifiers.

This problem interests me very much but either I misunderstood something or you two are rolling on a different path while thinking on being on the right one... o.O

Its very odd to see a Tiefling of a good mind..not only that they are evil, evil, evil, they also share the hatred that is pointed toward them and not likely they think good of the world, espeically since their reputation is ... negative...I am guessing that your alignment is either True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, I don't see a logic in being any other, if your evil-blood, good-mind...perhaps Neutral Evil at some point...

Thats why I say this is preety much a theoretical problem...Tiefling has its stats and there is nothing you can do to lean here or there, except modifiying classes or making new that would have more than just "this skill of his one and that skill of the other one"..if you get my point...

 

Well, building my own class would be great, but it'd have to balanced and all that, and frankly I have no expertise in that area. I know it's a theoretical problem, but in order to back up her 'ascension' to demonhood, I need to have some things in order gamerule wise. There has to be actual things she can do that make her seem more of a shadow character than other members of the party. Shadowdancer seems to fit.

Oh, and Tieflings aren't evil per se. Page 20 of the FRCS. She's of a NG alignment, though lately more CG heading towards CN.

 

Eh ? I have the latest monster manual and there it states : Tiefling : Any evil alignment. What is more, tieflings are not creations of d&d staff but epic legendary creatures...

"There has to be actual things she can do that make her seem more of a shadow character than other members of the party."

Thats what you should have said, I look at sentences exactly as they say, so I don't dig in them. ^.^ Yes..shadowdancer fits then...hmm..you just gave me an idea of making some kind of a class for this case, yes, I love doing that very much, perhaps you could like something, no ? ^.^

Can you give me your statistics ?

[ August 18, 2004, 10:03: Message edited by: Shadow Cougar ]

 

My MM 3E says "Usually evil (any)" and the FRCS states what I posted earlier. So they don't have to be evil. 'usually' doesn't exclude other alignments, better yet, it allows for exceptions to the 'rule'.

Her stats are:
Str 13
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 12
Cha 11

 

Yeah I know I was just checking you out. ^.^ I like doing that kind of things. ^.^

Hmm..I suspected you have such statistics, two biggest Dex and Int, most weak cha...Although I did a expected to see a..hm..Wis atleast 14. ^.^ But, oh well.

 

Yeah, I kinda forgot about Wis when building her Doesn't really matter now, since she's not progressing further ranger spellswise. Too bad I spent my 4th level attribute on raising it to 12 though.

Ah well, I didn't build her perfectly, but she's hella fun to play anyway, so

 

Gwaa..you spent that just to gain +1 ?! Hell nou! 1 ain't a big thing, and since you should not spend all point to raise wis, you should have picked dex or con or int. ^.^

 

Hehe, yeah. I wanted to be able to get at least lvl 2 ranger spells, but it seems I won't be getting those anyway Dex would've been better (since she's an archer) but alas.

Ah well, not a complete loss, at least now my willsave isn't totally bad

 

Lol yeah. ^.^

 

Hmmm, question out of curiosity.

A level 5 tiefling rangert that gets the halffiend template. To what would the effective level increase?