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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ccooke" data-source="post: 6419604" data-attributes="member: 6695890">(Warning: Went overboard with maths. Apologies in advance)The Shadow is definitely a strong CR½ creature. Obviously it's not unthinkable that it's too strong, but I'm going to assume for now that there's a sensible reason.I think it's clear that we can compare the Shadow directly with both the Imp and the Quasit. They have a similar broad flavour - resistances, stealth, dangerous attacks. So is there any way to see that the Shadow is obviously less dangerous to a party than the CR1 creatures.They all have similar resistances, and the Shadow has extra condition immunitiesThey have similar AC, and the Shadow has more hit points.Thus far, it looks like the Shadow is stronger.The shadow's base attack (pure damage) is a little stronger than the Imp or the Quasit.Again, looks stronger.Let's look at the special abilities. The Imp has a decent chance of doing 3d6 poison damage. On a hit, it has a 6.6% (15% chance that a creature with proficiency and Con 20 will fail the save. 43.95% chance that the hit and poison damage will be enough to drop the PC to 0hp) chance of taking down the toughest (in terms of hit points) 1st level character it's possible to create¹. Against an average, non-front-line fighter - anyone with d8 hit dice, CON 12 and no proficiency with CON saves - the Imp will take them down in one hit 44.2% of the time. The Quasit does less damage, but has a chance to impose disadvantage which is a huge penalty. It can't take down the toughest 1st level character in one hit, but it has a 27.5% chance of taking down an average non-front-line fighter. If that average character doesn't go down, they still have a 40% chance of disadvantage.The shadow has a 41.67% chance of dropping an average 1st level character with its upfront damage alone. The Strength damage can be effectively discounted - yes, three lucky hits will kill a character with average strength instantly (3d4 will roll 10 or higher 15.62% of the time (or 5 times in 32)). However, at level 1 a single lucky hit from any of these will down any character short of a Barbarian or Fighter with a good Constitution; two hits are likely to down anyone. The Strength damage is only truly worrying if the Shadow rolls unusually poorly for damage, or when the party are at a high enough level to be able to survive three average hits without dropping. By that time, the shadow will be dropping in one or two hits from the party, which makes it most likely used as an ambush, or to make an already bad situation worse.Ultimately, I'd say that the Shadow is about on par with the Imp and Quasit, there. Which puts the Shadow ahead on survivability and roughly tied for offence.So let's look at the tactical abilities.The shadow is a decent Ambush attacker and, with its ability to hide in darkness or dim light, it has some ability to prolong a fight be continuing to attack from hiding. Using this, it could possibly gain advantage every round (using a Bonus action to hide). However, the party are extremely likely to be able to negate this ability. The chances that even a level 1 party has no sources of light at all - especially the light spell - are extremely low, and as soon as there is light the Shadow is unable to make use of its ability to hide well. Yes, it can skulk at the edges of the light's area, but it has no ranged attacks and would need to close to melee range to attack. Thus, while it may get one good ambush round in, it is unlikely to be able to gain advantage on any subsequent round unless there is a highly unusual conflux of circumstancesBoth the Imp and the Quasit can become invisible at will. This allows them to draw out combats to a much greater extent. In addition to their surprise round, they will be able to attack with advantage every other round. It is entirely possible that a 1st level party will have no clear way to counter invisibility at all. I think that's the clear cutoff. The Shadow can be a terrifying ambush, but even a 1st-level party will almost always be able to counter its tactical advantages, whereas countering invisibility cannot be guaranteed in even a higher level party, so the threat of the Imp and Quasit is multiplied. I'm discounting the Shadow's vulnerability to daylight here - yes, it's a factor against the Shadow, but the DM will simply not use them in daylight. If the party has and casts daylight, that's fine, but it's a situational ability that does not detract from the Shadow's power. Ditto the vulnerability to radiant. ¹ The toughest (in terms of hit points) possible 1st level character² is a Barbarian with rolled 18 Constitution and either the Hill Dwarf (+2 CON, +1hp/level) or Human(Variant) with the Tough feat (+2hp/level). That character would have 17 hit points at level 1.² Yes, this is a challenge. I'm curious to see if I missed anything <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /></blockquote>

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