Well, there are mechanical benefits - chief among them the fact that without a smoke bomb/darkness spell to help them out, a rogue can't hide from someone who's watching them. If they vanish around a corner, and the pursuer loses a line-of-sight with them, then they can hide and be successful, but otherwise, they're perfectly visible.
Well, there are mechanical benefits - chief among them the fact that without a smoke bomb/darkness
even ducking behind a wall doesn't always work as I have learn the hard way against a normal giant that had no ts and ran after me through about 5 turns until i could use my belt safely and out run him to hide behind a wall go stealth and see him come from a large distance, turn the corner, come to me and bash me. I lost a dt trying to escape him after that. I had not fire with my bow on it. It had only seen me as i went by and it started to pursue me. That was in the alexandrite level of the second cave in the dregar desert. I have a base bonus of 35 so I donut know what happened there.
Well, there are mechanical benefits - chief among them the fact that without a smoke bomb/darkness spell to help them out, a rogue can't hide from someone who's watching them. If they vanish around a corner, and the pursuer loses a line-of-sight with them, then they can hide and be successful, but otherwise, they're perfectly visible.To illustrate, imagine playing hide and seek, but when you're supposed to be hiding your eyes and counting to a hundred, you're facing the hiders. One of them cleverly hides in the branches of a tree... climbing it as you watch. Clearly, ineffective.In contrast, imagine you're playing with a shadowdancer. They move off, into the shadow of that same tree. You're watching them, waiting to see where they're going. And then, they suddenly get harder to see. Your eyes water, as you strain to see them, but somehow they're obscured, you can't see them... and they're gone. After looking around intently, you finally spot them moving from tree to tree.. but the key is, even though you were looking directly at them, they vanished.That's the "Plain Sight" part. For everyday stealth, the person can only "vanish" if they put something - a pillar, a tree, a wall - between them and the person in question. For the shadowdancer, that critical moment when the seeker loses line-of-sight is provided automatically. They still have to creep around thereafter, and the person looking for them might still spot them - it's not invisibility - but they can manage to elude light itself for that one crucial instant.It's a remarkable ability, and not something unconscious on the part of the shadowdancer, any more than a rogue would unconsciously flatten himself against a wall and creep around a temple. Often, in PnP campaigns involving a shadowdancer, this is the hardest part to cover in flavour text, because there really isn't anything like it in life. Invisibility is one thing - that's just an object vanishing, a cloaking device. But the Shadowdancer's ability is to elude eyesight (and light) for the moment or two that he/she needs to duck behind real cover.
A Shadow dancer can use the hide skill even while being observed. As long as she is within 10 feet of some sort of shadow, a shadowdancer can hide herself from view in the open without anything to actually hide behind. She cannot however, hide in her own shadow
I was always under the impression that a shadow dancer slipped between the planes, the prime and the shadow plane, and that they could do this only when in 10 feet of a shadow, and it can not be there own. Is this connected to the mechanics of the ability, or different from which you speak? I never played a shadow dancer in PnP merely read up on them. I know they slip between the prime and shadow plane when they use shadow jump, and they call forth a shadow from the shadow plane.
That is definitely not the case in PnP or Layonara.The plane of shadow is a really really really nasty place. Both planewalking to it AND surviving there for more than a second or two are epic abilities.To clarify, by "epic abilities" I do not mean they are feats you can choose or whatnot. I mean that they're incredible things that it would take an epic character to think about trying.
*SNIP*but being that layo does not have the shadow plane, I would have no clue as to how it would work. but the rules on HIPS are posted in that quote. that all the DMG gives, so if Layo keeps to the DMG rules that would be them. and the main thing to keep in mind when RPing it is 10 from a shadow, and it can't be your own. but that is a no brainer.
The progression of precedence goes D&D 3rd Edition rules and mechanics -> NWN rules and mechanics -> Layonara rules and mechanics, with each successive one overriding those before.
Well... I don't mean to sound snippish, but this isn't PnP. This isn't 3.0 or 3.5, this is Layo. We base off of the D&D/NWN rules, but when it comes down to the how and why of things in a roleplay sense, there are more things that are different in Layo than there are the same.Shadowdancing... They don't slip between planes, but simply learn to wrap themselves in shadow, or make themselves look so like the shadow that you can't tell the difference any more.
I could walk up to you and wave my hand right infront of your face, and chances are you would not see me. punch you in your face then hide, while your looking directly at me.