Shadow symbiote

You used to be a monk master of the shadow, but in your quest of gaining more shadow power you had a bad experience with a mage that turned you into a symbiote like shadow that needs an host to survive.

You live consuming the vital essence of your hosts. And your goal is to find a definitive body that can support your habitation.

Your secondary goal is to get revenge on that mage who turned you into a shadow for the rest of your life.

Shadow Symbiotic Nature

You are very vulnerable without a host, when you gain a host and stay with it for 5 days, you take its racial traits as your own. When you acquire a new host for 5 days you lose your old hosts racial traits.

Without a host you are vulnerable to Holy and light damage. If you are under bright light you suffer 1d8 damage each minute and your actions are limited you can only flee into the shadows.
With a host you take damage and healing equally.

The host must be an NPC.

Each hosts comes with a reserve of vital essence.

You draw your power from your host vital essence. Each time you use your symbiote skills it consumes the host vital essence , when your host runs out of vital essence or dies you can no longer use this body and have to find another host.

You must use Shadow condition to use your various shadow skills

Shadow Possession

To use Shadow possession on a target ,the target needs to be at the Gate of death ( 0 HP) the process takes 5 minutes.

The host must make a constitution save roll then add his constitution modifier  minus your dexterity and dexterity modifier.

When you succeed the process you gain full control of the host till it dies or runs out of vital essence.

Your vital essence reserve is equal to (the HP of your host / 2 ) + the difference between the host save and the difficulty of the possession roll.

EX: 

possession difficulty is 15 , ths host needs to make more than 15 with (his roll + CON mod - (your DEX mod + your CON mod)

if the result is 7 , the possession is a success and you gain Vital essence points equal to  (HP of the target)/2 + 8 

Shadow Condition

Starting at level 3

As a bonus action, you can use 2 Vital Essence point to cover the hosts body with a cloak of shadow for 10 min and you gain access to your shadows skills

You loose your Shadow condition if you are incapacitated or die. While you are in Shadow condition, you gain the following benefits:

• You can use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
• You gain an AC bonus depending on your level :                                                                                     +1 at level 3 / +2 at level 9 / +3 at level 12

Shadow Augment

Starting at level 3

Using an Action you can spend 3 Vital essence points to boost one characteristic of your choice.

You gain +2 in this charac as long as you are in Shadow condition.

You can only augment 1 charac at a time using this skill

You can use Shadow augment on a weapon , if you do so it does +1  magic damage

Shadow Straw

Starting at level 6

Using an Action you can spend 3 Vital essence points to create a shadow straw from your body.

The straw count as a normal unarmed strike.

You can steal 1d6 Vital essence from the target.

The target take that amount as magic damage and it heals your vital essence reserve from that amount.

Each turn you can spend 1 Vital essence point to keep sucking the vitality of your target.

After 1 turn , the target can do a consitution save to free itself from your straw each turn.

Shadow Raise

Starting at level 11

You can use your shadows to bring a dead animal spirit back to life in a shadow form.

Your pet is fully made of shadow so it can hide in the shadows

The process is the same as Shadow possession but it takes only 1 min to ressurect an animal.

You can see and ear things from your Shadow friend.

Your pet can make simple attacks (same as the original animal)

You always know where your pet is.

If your pet dies, you immediately know it and its shadow comes back to you.

At level 11 you can control small animals

At level 17 you can control medium animals

At level 20 you can control Large animals

Horrific Shadow

Starting at level 17

While using Horrific shadow you can choose your appareance.

When you use Horrific shadow, ennemies around you that sees your Horrific form for the first time are scared and must do a constitution save roll.

Also you can chose between one of the following benefits while you are in Shadow condition.

- You chose to improve your defense and you AC bonus gain an additionnal +2 bonus

- You choose to create a pair of shadow wings on your back, gaining a flying speed equal to your current speed.

- You choose to create a pair of shadow arms that allows you to attempt 2 bonus unarmed strike when you attack a target.