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Larian mentioned in the notes for Patch 1 that Shadowheart is the only companion that dies more than the player character. It's probably because she's a Medium Armor-wearing Cleric with very poor Dexterity. Her stats currently are:

STR: 14
DEX: 9 (+1 Half-Elf racial bonus)
CON: 13
INT: 10
WIS: 16 (+1 Half-Elf racial bonus)
CHA: 14 (+2 Half-Elf racial bonus)

Not every character needs to be min-maxed, but a small tweak would go a long way for Shadowheart, who I admit I find the most interesting but the least playable of the companions. The fix is simple: Take her Charisma down from 14 to 10 (minimum for Half-Elves). She's not exactly a force of personality anyway and is proficient in exactly 0 of the CHA-based skills, so I don't see this as a major change to her character. It would allow you to bring her Dexterity up to 12 and her Constitution to 14 - both changes would do wonders for her survival. It would also make her a more effective Cleric at Level 4, as players should not feel conflicted bringing her Wisdom up to 18 rather than giving her additional health and a small-but-important Armor Class boost.

So her stats would still be as follows:

STR: 14 (+1 Half-Elf racial bonus)
DEX: 12
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 16 (+1 Half-Elf racial bonus)
CHA: 10 (+2 Half-Elf racial bonus)

Doesn't that look more effective? I can't for the life of me understand why she wasn't built this way in the first place. This of course still isn't an optimal Trickery Cleric build, but I would definitely use her in my party if she looked more like this.

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or, if they go with rolled stats, or a higher points-buy they can fix it that way. But yeah your suggested stats are mechanically superior, although Dex 10, Cha 12 would be fine too tbh.

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If they keep her stats I'll give her the heavily armored feat. Heavy armor is supposed to ignore both negative and postive dex mods so that should bump her AC a lot.
e: by +4 to be specific.

Last edited by Haps; 13/10/20 11:25 PM.
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I would absolutely be fine with Dex 10, Cha 12 if the Charisma is part of their vision for the character. It's really just the negative Dex modifier that makes me not care to bring her along anywhere. They could also bring her INT down to 8 to take CHA back up to 12, or put DEX at 10 and INT at 8 if they really, really badly want her CHA to be 14 for whatever reason.

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Shes been invincible in my playthroughs. No idea what people are doing with her.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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If I remember correctly I don't have the Holy Book of 5e beside me and pishposh to lazy to google it but isn't concentration con based, have to roll half the damage amount or something??

My problem if I remember above question correctly is not her dying, but the fact she's like a two year hyped up on Monster Energy drinks, 'her focus/concentration, needs more focus/concentration' currently I've noticed the fact she is sneezed upon by someone four miles away and loses focus/concentration. Meanwhile near naked Gale has in my playthrou... meanderings has no problem for the most part keeping his focus. Also the fact that her sacred flame as it stands is currently nearly useless more often then not failing, taking away one of the few cantrips at her disposal (not really paid attention to her cantrips.) for dealing damage. Even with heavy armor feat aoe damage causes her to lose focus, and these bypass ac.

In short she needs a rework, or for some reason just blows in my play testing. Since I'm being lazy I'll let you all take over until my brain starts up again.

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A Trickery Cleric with 9 Dexterity should be a crime against Gygax.

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random thought would Shar even grant the trickery domian to her clerics? Death, maybe grave, war???

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Originally Posted by clavis
If I remember correctly I don't have the Holy Book of 5e beside me and pishposh to lazy to google it but isn't concentration con based, have to roll half the damage amount or something??

My problem if I remember above question correctly is not her dying, but the fact she's like a two year hyped up on Monster Energy drinks, 'her focus/concentration, needs more focus/concentration' currently I've noticed the fact she is sneezed upon by someone four miles away and loses focus/concentration. Meanwhile near naked Gale has in my playthrou... meanderings has no problem for the most part keeping his focus. Also the fact that her sacred flame as it stands is currently nearly useless more often then not failing, taking away one of the few cantrips at her disposal (not really paid attention to her cantrips.) for dealing damage. Even with heavy armor feat aoe damage causes her to lose focus, and these bypass ac.

In short she needs a rework, or for some reason just blows in my play testing. Since I'm being lazy I'll let you all take over until my brain starts up again.


AC for her armor proficiency isnt based on dexterity, its just a flat number. I had her at 18ac, kept her relatively far back, gave her a hat that helped her on dex saves, bumped her con up 1 on 4 to help con checks, and made sure to engage or kill ranged enemies early and often with the rest of the group. Casting water on her or using ink cloud would give her protection from most targeting of fire and stuff. There are also some rings and necklaces that help with it all too. She was an absolute beast of destruction and CC/Buffing


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Originally Posted by Orbax
Originally Posted by clavis
If I remember correctly I don't have the Holy Book of 5e beside me and pishposh to lazy to google it but isn't concentration con based, have to roll half the damage amount or something??

My problem if I remember above question correctly is not her dying, but the fact she's like a two year hyped up on Monster Energy drinks, 'her focus/concentration, needs more focus/concentration' currently I've noticed the fact she is sneezed upon by someone four miles away and loses focus/concentration. Meanwhile near naked Gale has in my playthrou... meanderings has no problem for the most part keeping his focus. Also the fact that her sacred flame as it stands is currently nearly useless more often then not failing, taking away one of the few cantrips at her disposal (not really paid attention to her cantrips.) for dealing damage. Even with heavy armor feat aoe damage causes her to lose focus, and these bypass ac.

In short she needs a rework, or for some reason just blows in my play testing. Since I'm being lazy I'll let you all take over until my brain starts up again.


AC for her armor proficiency isnt based on dexterity, its just a flat number. I had her at 18ac, kept her relatively far back, gave her a hat that helped her on dex saves, bumped her con up 1 on 4 to help con checks, and made sure to engage or kill ranged enemies early and often with the rest of the group. Casting water on her or using ink cloud would give her protection from most targeting of fire and stuff. There are also some rings and necklaces that help with it all too. She was an absolute beast of destruction and CC/Buffing


Sorry was asking about concentration which is my big thing with her. I can see the for/against arguement about AC.

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Generally it feels like most similar games like to make the stats feel more 'realistic', but I agree that realistic and completely sub-optimal aren't the same thing. At the same time, I think that most designers don't want to use extreme or perfect stats without a good reason. My guess is that choosing a physical or mental stat under 10 would need to have a good reason, especially an INT below 10. Those are the places you get to play with things like stupidity, clumsiness, and frailty.

Personally, I would suggest something that would leave more options open to the player if they want to multi-class her. Something like 13 11 14 16 10 13. This leaves most of the sensical dual classing options open and the opportunity for her to grow into whatever stat focus you want. Yeah it makes the first few levels less than optimal, but it leaves her with the most room to grow into what you would like, while keeping the flavor that I think they were going for. At a minimum, just pulling the CON down a point to push up the DEX would be a solid improvement.


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Originally Posted by clavis
Originally Posted by Orbax
Originally Posted by clavis
If I remember correctly I don't have the Holy Book of 5e beside me and pishposh to lazy to google it but isn't concentration con based, have to roll half the damage amount or something??

My problem if I remember above question correctly is not her dying, but the fact she's like a two year hyped up on Monster Energy drinks, 'her focus/concentration, needs more focus/concentration' currently I've noticed the fact she is sneezed upon by someone four miles away and loses focus/concentration. Meanwhile near naked Gale has in my playthrou... meanderings has no problem for the most part keeping his focus. Also the fact that her sacred flame as it stands is currently nearly useless more often then not failing, taking away one of the few cantrips at her disposal (not really paid attention to her cantrips.) for dealing damage. Even with heavy armor feat aoe damage causes her to lose focus, and these bypass ac.

In short she needs a rework, or for some reason just blows in my play testing. Since I'm being lazy I'll let you all take over until my brain starts up again.


AC for her armor proficiency isnt based on dexterity, its just a flat number. I had her at 18ac, kept her relatively far back, gave her a hat that helped her on dex saves, bumped her con up 1 on 4 to help con checks, and made sure to engage or kill ranged enemies early and often with the rest of the group. Casting water on her or using ink cloud would give her protection from most targeting of fire and stuff. There are also some rings and necklaces that help with it all too. She was an absolute beast of destruction and CC/Buffing


Sorry was asking about concentration which is my big thing with her. I can see the for/against arguement about AC.


Even though her con isnt GREAT, it isn't bad. Shes at 60%ish for break or not. Not amazing, but the main thing was denial, make her hard to get to, hard to target, have advantages on saves, stuff like that. Another thought is with her AC so high, running her into combat to hold concentration is safer than staying out of range. They wont attack you with AOEs when youre in melee with a friendly and their arrows have a very low chance of hitting her AC.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Well, because she has lower AC, I keep her far back as support... Almost all her spells are Concentration (even cantrips), so I do not want her getting hit at all.

Last edited by Baraz; 14/10/20 07:44 PM.
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They want you to bruteforce their bad stats through equipment. And even then her dex is hilariously bad for a trickster cleric.

Last edited by JDCrenton; 13/10/20 11:58 PM.
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Originally Posted by Orbax
Shes been invincible in my playthroughs. No idea what people are doing with her.


That’s been my exact experience. She’s an absolute beast in comparison to everyone else. But, I’m a noob to this so maybe I’m playing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by JDCrenton
They want you to bruteforce their bad stats through equipment. And even then her dex is hilariously bad for a trickster cleric.



Why does she need dex?


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Maybe its just because she's the most played companion ? (half-elf pretty woman, "bad girl" but deeply good, healer)
I dont know how work their stats, but it should be an explanation.

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Originally Posted by clavis
random thought would Shar even grant the trickery domian to her clerics? Death, maybe grave, war???


Shar's domains in 5e are Death and Trickery. But the domains available in the game are very limited. I'd like to see more, and more available deities in the game. (At least give us Tymora!)

Originally Posted by Orbax
Originally Posted by JDCrenton
They want you to bruteforce their bad stats through equipment. And even then her dex is hilariously bad for a trickster cleric.



Why does she need dex?


She doesn't. Not sure why people are drawing the connection between dex and trickery. Her 14 Cha makes more sense for trickery.

Z.

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Originally Posted by Zandilar
Originally Posted by clavis
random thought would Shar even grant the trickery domian to her clerics? Death, maybe grave, war???


Shar's domains in 5e are Death and Trickery. But the domains available in the game are very limited. I'd like to see more, and more available deities in the game. (At least give us Tymora!)

Originally Posted by Orbax
Originally Posted by JDCrenton
They want you to bruteforce their bad stats through equipment. And even then her dex is hilariously bad for a trickster cleric.



Why does she need dex?


She doesn't. Not sure why people are drawing the connection between dex and trickery. Her 14 Cha makes more sense for trickery.

Z.



Right? I play a trickery domain cleric in a Storm Kings Thunder campaign, dex is not a focus and I am a front -liner with a fighter multiclass and I use concentration all the time.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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True she is the healer so it could be false statistics based on more people picking her. Though with Ast being a rogue... perhaps if we know the numbers of people playing her vs. the others we could make a more informed decision. If she is being used 85% more then the others, do to more people playing rogue then cleric, or fighter then cleric, Gale and Wyll can be interchanged difference is personal bais on which you prefer in your group. Wyll can survive a bit longer the Gale, but Gale is the more flexible.

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