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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6151953" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Funny story:  A new player is running a Hexblade5/Scout5/Shadowdancer3.  His character has a Wisdom of something like 6.He sent his Shadow into a Solid Fog effect that was on top of an Entangle on top of a bunch of suspected highwaymen.  Normally the Shadow would be powerless in daylight, but the Solid Fog took care of that.  The Shadowdancer's only instructions to the Shadow were, "Go hunt mortals, but leave my allies alone."Party heard screams from inside the cloud, screams that went on and on as they tried to figure out how to get rid of the spell.  At that caster's level it's there for 130 minutes, isn't dismissible, and can only be dissipated by a severe wind.Finally the Druid threw Control Winds to blow it away.  Now the Shadowdancer's player insisted that his Shadow knew better than to kill, he'd just leave them helpless.  I pointed out that:A) He had given no such instruction or limitation.B) The Shadow doesn't necessarily know how much Strength a person has left, and his touch drains a random amount (1D6)By the time the party got the Solid Fog lifted, several more Shadows were standing in there, and about ten men lay on the ground, too weak to move.The Shadow Dancer ordered his Shadow to bring one of the new Shadows, but "release" the others to hunt down the remainder of the bandits.The party hadn't known that they guy was a Shadowdancer, and one of the PCs has a Tongues spell up, with Permanence.  He understood everything they guy said to his Shadow.Now there's been more than a little debate about the Shadowdancer's pet in the past, particularly regarding whether they could Create Spawn (a specific ability of the Shadow, according to the MM, Page 121).  The hard fact is that, though it's a bit broken, there's nothing in the class description nor in its description of his pet that says it doesn't have that power.So he controls his own Shadow, and it controls all that it creates (unless, of course, it "releases" them.)  In any case, he has no direct control over any but his own,and as soon as you get two generations deep he has no indirect control either, unless the intervening generations are present.I'm considering having a band of Shadow highwaymen haunt a stretch of road, continuing in undeath what they did in life.That would include the semi-fortified way stations placed every two days travel along major Roman roads.  Like the one the PCs are going to be camping at tonight.Now Shadows are a CR3 monster, and shouldn't even qualify as speed bumps for a 15th/16th level party.  But a swarm of 20 or more, hitting that guarded place (think of a truck stop, with stone walls), could quickly turn into even more.  I fully expect the PCs to win, but I plan to drive home the foolishness of the 6 Wisdom Shadow Dancer in releasing any of those things.  I observe, in fact, that Shadow Dancers aren't immune to the power of Shadows. <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=":)" />As a side note:  At least two of the PCs are very unhappy with their new found companion.  I expect the conversation to go something like this...Player 1:   "When were you planning to tell us you had a pact with the Undead?"Shadowdancer:  "Were you ever planning to tell me you had a pact with the Devil?"I anticipate that it will go downhill from there.  <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=":)" />* The game is more Law v Chaos than Good v Evil, and the party has gotten aid from Hell once in a while.  A Devil recently showed up to inquire whether the Shadowdancer was a member of their group, and thus entitled to "aid and professional courtesy", or was he merely a temporary hireling.  The party was, in fact, undecided on that point.  The Devil actually spent an evening in their company, at an Inn, buying drinks for the house, in order to inspire excessive drunkenness and such among the townsfolk.So, the overly long setup aside, what do you think of allowing a Shadowdancer's Shadow to create spawn?</blockquote>

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