Once again the Shattered Skies campaign supplements never stop ceasing to amaze me. Clocking in at 14 pages of fantastic fluff and crunch we focus on the Gnomes. The gnome race began underground living a nomadic existence before discovering the staples of magic that we know today. Using their magical might the gnome race came together building an impressive magical library. Though through their wanderlust gnomes came to the surface, learned the language of the wood and eventually spread across the surface. Though their society came to ruin when the shattering happened. The gnomes today are varied by those who live in the sky and those who live underground. The Svirfneblin also know as the deep gnomes, have an odd stat array +2 to Dexterity, +2 to Wisdom -2 strength and a -4 to charisma. Though Svirfneblin do have innate spell resistance to balance this out as well as several traits giving out static bonuses. The other subrace of gnomes known as the Pechs who are surface/sky gnomes. Pech receive a +2 to dex and Charisma and a – 2 to strength. Pechs also receive a few static bonuses but most importantly a free +1 to the DC of an illusion spell. Not game breaking, but the gnome racial class the Shadowskiver is very illusion focused.
Speaking of the Shadowskiver, it is a full level 1-20 base class that is a rouge bard hybrid. Now in the past a few Shattered skies classes get several options from both their parent classes in addition to their own mechanics. The ShadowSkiver is essentially the arcane trickster base class. The Shadowskiver gets 6+int skill point per level, which is to be expected and 3/4ths BAB. Proficient with light armor and the longsword, shortsword, raiper, sap short bow and long bow the Shadowskiver is limited in its options. That can be made up for by full bard progression spell casting and full sneak attack progression. Now I can see the potential why’s of full sneak attack progression, and I think it is a good fit both crunch and fluff wise. Though I think it’s a valid concern to be wary of this combination. At first level the Shadowskiver must assign a skill point to Acrobatics, Bluff, climb, and stealth. Though at 2nd level this isn’t necessary and may level as usual. A little odd that a class feature is telling you what to assign ranks to but nothing bad. Ontop of cantrips and sneak attack that is our 1st level class features. 2nd level we get a free Quickdraw as well as evasion. At third level we get spell focus illusion as a free feat. If you are a perch gnome that is a free +2 dc to you illusion spells by level 3. At fourth level the Shadowskiver receives uncanny dodge. After fourth level I feel like the Shadowskiver should be able to choose a sort of discipline to focus on. Though as it is the Shadowskiver gets several free feats. At 6th level the Shadowskiver gets point blank shot, and it he had it the bonus increases from a +1 to a +2. At 8th level we receive improved uncanny dodge and Two weapon fighting, or another combat feat of your choice if you have two weapon fighting. With the Scaling two weapon fighting feat from Kobold press this is essentially two weapon fighting and improved two weapon fighting. Which means more sneak attacks. At 9th level the Shadowskiver receives rapid shot, or may ignore the -2 from rapid shot if you already had it. From 10th level on the Shadowskiver no longer provokes AoO from using throwing weapons adjacent to an enemy as well as the snatch arrows feat. At 11th level the Shadowskiver can create a cloak of shadows which gives them a miss chance of 5%+5% per level after 11 up to a max of 50%. This has alarms ringing in my head, and while things that can see in magical darkness and enemies with True vision can ignore the miss chance. That is still a powerful class feature. Though very unique. While this cloak is active you can also make stealth checks as if you had concealment. At 12th level if anything medium or larger is adjacent to the Shadowskirver they get a +2 dodge bonus to AC. Okay. At 13th level the ShadowSkirver can cast any of his illusion spells as if they were affected by the Silent Spell metamagic feat. At 14th level fast movement and poison use become available. I actually would have swapped these two class features out for something a bit lower level. Poison by level 14 should be ineffective since poisons don’t scale well. And fast movement is only a free 10 feet movement bringing gnomes up to 30 feet. Though at 15th level the Shadowskiver can alter his illusion spells and make them shadow spells to duplicate any wizard or Sorcerer conjurations (summoning),(creation) or Evocation spell. Dealing a percentage of the effect based on spell level the formulae is Spell level x 10%. And that percentage is only against creatures which beat the save dc. Otherwise the spell functions as normal. At 16th level the ShadowSkiver may make an attack in an attempt to stun their foe for 1d4 rounds. Fortitude save negates. Which can be used once a day at 16th level and 3 times per day at 20th. At 17th level the Shadowskiver can now freely add the extend metamagic feat doubling the duration of their silent spells. It should be noted that this does actually stack with the extend metamagic feat. So you can quadruple a few of your illusion spells if you wish. At 18th level, you may now use snatch arrows a number of times per day equal to your dex mod and any thrown weapons that have the returning property automatically come back to you if you move. I personally just buy a blinkback belt. Also we get an odd class feature that states the shadowskiver may flank a foe within 10 feet but does not threaten or provoke attack of opportunity. Considering that you can make ranged sneak attacks within 30 feet, I’m not too sure what the class feature is supposed to do. At 19th level your shadow spells get a bonus 20% damage and 20% more likely to affect non-believers. And finally at 20th level the Shadowskiver receives the death attack of the rogue.
All in all the Shadowskiver is very strong and a little wonky. Spells plus full sneak attack progression, plus the feats to make this class the ultimate switch hitter makes it strong. Stronger than the rogue by far and even more powerful than the slayer. Not to mention the fact that you can eventually cast illusion spells without verbal components and they last twice as long.
All in all I really enjoy the supplement the fluff is great and actually makes me care about Gnomes for once. The shadowskiver is very strong and the best switch hitter class I’ve seen. Maybe rearranging a few feats and making the shadowskiver choose their path of assassination might have been a better route. Though I like a lot of the illusion class features not many people use the illusion spells and they are quite flavorful. Though this is essentially arcane trickster the class.
Along with a few interesting feats and another well crafted city waiting to be dropped into anyone campaign I’ve giving the Cultures of Celmea Gnomes a 4 out of 5 stars. Its a great product with a unique class idea that just get a few to many things for free. Though I do liek the bonuses one gets if they already have the feat in question.
|