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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Martel" data-source="post: 5983161" data-attributes="member: 6698204">So I'm playing a gnome illusionist in a 3.5 game going for a reasonably played killergnome build and 7th level is rolling around. I cleared Leadership with my DM making it very clear that I'd keep my cohort out of the limelight and keep all of the followers as off screen as possible. Really it's more of a flavor/world building decision and something of an intentional minor nerf on my part on such a feat-starved build. That said the purpose of this post is I'm looking for some suggestions as to how to get my cohort to be a good interpretation of <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LivingShadow" target="_blank">Living Shadow - Television Tropes & Idioms</a>.What I'm looking for is a living shadow that will probably in combat just watch my squishy wizard's back, pouncing on anything that jumps me, maybe aid another with some skills, disguise itself should the party be knocked-out and work to free us, that kind of thing. Obviously the first probability that comes to mind is simply making it a Shadow, see if I can bump it up to a Greater at some point, and I dunno throw in some class levels or some such. The problem I have with this solution is 1. It doesn't work terribly well thematically and would be more in-line with Undead Leadership, I'd much prefer something from the plane of shadow as shadowcraft mages have strong ties to it and it gels.2. The chaotic-evil alignment, while my character is TN I still doubt that this would be a good fit.3. A 6int is far from dumb animal level, but I'd like something a good bit higher than that. I mean the animated shadow of a master illusionist should have some of his formidable intellect no? Even if it might is used mainly to pull funny/mean pranks. 4. The abilities of a MM shadow also aren't optimal. Sure it gets the whole "is a shadow" thing down, but creating spawn and dealing str damage aren't exactly what I'm looking for either. Also the ability to look 2D and actually hide as my shadow are a must and the ability to interact with the corporeal/physical would be great. Now it's possible that Leadership is an odd way to go about this because some of the other abilities that in general go with the trope such as a direct connection to my character's state of being are much more in line with a familiar, and as such Improved Familiar would work better. Unfortunately I already gave up my familiar for the decent if not mind blowing Chains of Disbelief. I'd still like to tie in some of these abilities somehow, but also fear that the only way to do so would be with some homebrewing on my DM's part. Heck it's entirely possible that the majority of this will have to be homebrewed and in that case I'd really appreciate some good bases to start with in order to try and keep this as in-line with published stuff as possible. I'm fairly positive that he'd go for it if I do the majority of the legwork with some help from yall of course. Oh and I've already looked at the Dark and Shade templates and while some of the package is there such as hide in plain sight and ties to the plane of shadow, they also aren't 100% there. Any kind of input or suggestions as to how best to make this concept playable would be great.</blockquote>

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