Shadow Magic: Nightsinger

NIGHTSINGER: A rare class of bards that choose to study the power of the Shadow Weave gain access to its dark powers, bestowing upon them a dirge capable of cursing their enemies.

Advantages:

– The Nightsinger’s Bard Song, “Dirge of Despair”, curses enemies, reducing their morale and saving throws.

1st level: -1 penalty to THAC0, damage and saving throws, lowers morale

11th level: -2 penalty to THAC0, damage and saving throws, lowers morale

21st level: -3 penalty to THAC0, damage and saving throws, lowers morale

– May use Shadow Magic.

SHADOW MAGIC: Spells of the Shadow Weave are usually more powerful than regular magic, but drains the caster’s life force. When a spell is cast, the shadow adept must make a Save vs. Death at a modifier equal to the spell level (e.g. -1 for 1st level, -9 for 9th level) or temporarily lose Constitution equal to the level of the spell cast for 3 rounds. If the shadow adept’s Constitution reaches zero, is killed instantly.

The Shadow Weave is a mysterious and dark entity, far more alien and harder to control than that of Mystra’s equivalent. As such, a great amount of mental acuity is required in order to master shadow magic. High intelligence, wisdom and charisma benefits those who choose to stray into Shar’s domain.

– Gains the Darkvision innate ability.

DARKVISION: The Nightsinger is gifted with the ability to see in the dark even better than in light. permanently gains infravision and immunity to blindness.

– +2 bonus to saving throws against spells of the Enchantment, Illusion and Necromancy schools.

– 6th level: May use the Shield of Shadows ability once per day. SHIELD OF SHADOWS: The Nightsinger surrounds self with a barrier of purpleblack force. This shield of shadows functions like a shield spell, setting armor class to 4 (2 against ranged weapons) and absorbing magic missiles cast at him for 1 hour per 2 levels to a maximum of 9 hours.

From 8th level onwards, the shield of shadows also grants +4 to saving throws vs. death and +1 to all other saving throws.

– 7th level: May use Shadowstep once per day. Gains one use every 5 levels thereafter.

SHADOWSTEP: Step into the Shadow Plane and move for 7 seconds while others are frozen in time. The Nightsinger cannot attack or use spells while in the Shadow Plane.

– 18th level: May use the Shadow Double ability once per day.

SHADOW DOUBLE: The Nightsinger creates a copy of self out of shadowstuff. The copy is at 60% of the caster’s level and has all the spells and abilities that the caster would have at that level.

Disadvantages:

– -2 penalty to saving throws against spells of the Invocation and Alteration schools.

– May not learn or use spells from the Weave. (Spells chosen at character creation will be erased)

– Alignment restricted to Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil.