I'm fine with the extra shadowbalance. I mean, psionicists have it. Heck, everyone can already experience it (beast balance).

No seperate balance, primarily due to what will happen with Ebonguard. That's nuts. Unless we're going to unhinge all the other knight tertiaries from standard balances. :P But seriously:

Beast
Knight attack
Shadow manipulation

On top of a tert that is already enviable to knights for its DMP, weapon aura, and group utility.

Also, be careful with using shadows as a balancing factor, especially if they rebuild on the fly. They're very, very easy to get compared to things like Holy Light.

I really like this idea, though the shadow mechanics may be a bit wonky.
How would skill gathering interact with Nightwraith, with allows doubled shadow collecting?

I don't like the idea of a seperate balance, mostly due to Ebonguard.

Yeah I slept on it some more, and I think I'll definitely be locking out some of the stronger affs from EG by requiring an athame to be wielded. Whatever mechanic currently exists for that.

I would prefer that it lock them out of all abilites that are on "shadow balance". Or perhaps make the abilities consume balance/eq if you don't have an athame wielded.

Oh, I'm also reworking the shadow balance idea since people seem to have the most issue with that.

What the shadow balance is mostly for is to allow a realistic sleeplocking mechanism for healing/astros compared to hexes, plus it gives them afflicting power.

What about if we changed the balance part to something like Solanis' idea:

Remove the special shadow balance. Have the skills you listed (Nightkiss, Shadowgaze, Scourge, Lash) instead grant charges/shreds of shadow which you then expend to give the affs (examples being what you posted). Requires eq/bal but doesn't consume it, and the charges stack to a max of 3. This way it becomes less of a 'free aff of your choice every x seconds' like a super strong ent. This would also limit its helpfulness to Ebonguard.Then again some of the suggested affs wouldn't work out if multiple shadow affs could be given at the same time (e.g. throat/leg lock), unless you made some cost more charges instead (and then power probably wouldn't need to be an extra cost to some).

Then we can implement the athame req for the more powerful affs to lock them from EG -and- this would mean that we won't need to change shadow gathering if the manipulation idea would work off this new resource.

Thoughts would be cool.

What is the idea behind the reduced cauldron limit from 101 to 25? It'd be annoying.

It's basically a way to limit resources a bit more, because if it weren't, people would just then accuse the x shadows requirement to be a nonrequirement, especially if you can hold up to 100.

Or we can scale all costs of the proposed abilities accordingly. That would work too.

I'm still working on that part taking Solanis' thoughts into mind.

To use shadows as a legitimate balancing factor for SD skills, a la holylight.

The suggestion (which I believe is... quite powerful, I like the charges idea better) involves using a completely free balance to do things that only require shadows. If the cauldron limit remained the same, all costs would just be multiplied by some factor. Also, the idea is to add in ways to generate shadows in combat, so a smaller cauldron is acceptable.

How is a non-trans SD going to generate shadows in combat if only having Nightkiss up gives them?

edit: added the obvious bit because foolofsound didn't get it

Vadi:

How is a non-trans SD going to generate shadows if only having Nightkiss up gives them?

1) Lusty is balanced around Trans.
2) The normal way; gathering them from rooms at night.

That's fair.

Maybe garb can give the aura that generates shadow charges then.

Or just make those abilities just add a charge each time.

Or make a new skill that gives the charge aura.

Or just edit the standard cauldron gather mechanic.

Lots of options, pick the best one!

Just making the abilities add a charge will do. Though I wonder if an SDs buildup to get enough shadows from scratch will be shorter than a Warriors buildup to get enough wounds... hopefully the numbers will be balanced out.

The charge idea confuses me. Am I understanding it right in that if you scourge/nk/ng/steal you build a shadow charge (up to 3). When you have a charge, you then get to use the shadow balance, which the new ability is based off of, yes?

No, just means you have fuel to do a shadow aff, which requires bal/eq but takes neither. Shadow balance will be removed, more or less.

Ah, I see. Still leaves the sleeplock attainable then. Grand.

Hrm. How will it be limited more or less? Would you be able to throw down all the available affs consecutively once you have the required charges, without consuming any balance? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, this one aspect is a little confusing to me as well.

I did kind of like fool's suggestion of making things cost an appropriate eq for the aff in question if an athame isn't wielded, and then run on its own timed balance if you do have one.

No, basically the shadow aff will use up the charge(s) (variable cost depending on the aff of course). So for example, blackout can cost 3 shadows, the max amount, which means that Joe the Night user will need to build up again.

So in short, you can only really throw down aff after aff of 1 shadow costing powers and even then, only 3* times in a row.

Oh, that sounds fair too.