Wayangs
Wayangs are shadowy little
creatures who are relatively rare in Golarion. They’re also the only race that
is small size and has no Strength penalty, so they can do some fun things that
other small races don’t excel at!
Racial
Traits:
Ability
Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom. Wayangs are quick and good at
reasoning, but not the wisest of the bunch. These scores make Wayangs excellent
as Rogues and prepared casters.
Type: Wayangs
are humanoids with the wayang subtype, so nothing special here.
Size: Wayangs
are small-sized, so their natural stealthiness is even more enhanced from being
small! The only bad thing about this is the slow speed.
Speed: Wayangs
have a base speed of 20 feet.
Shadow
Resistance: Wayangs get an inherent resistance to spells of
the shadow subschool, which don’t come up a TON but could come in handy once in
a while.
Lurker: A +2 to
Stealth is excellent for these guys, making their overall inherent bonuses to
Stealth at 1st level a total of +7! (+4 size, +2 racial, +1 Dex). They also get
a +2 bonus to the best skill in the game, Perception!
Shadow
Magic: Wayang casters get a +1 to the DCs of any shadow school spells that
they cast, and get three racial spell-like abilities usable once per day, ghost
sound, pass without trace, and ventriloquism, which are all fun if
not the most useful spells out there.
Darkvision: Wayangs
get darkvision 60, and as I’ve said before, darkvision is the best kind of
visoin!
Light and
Dark: This is a strange and unique ability, allowing a wayang to be treated
as an undead for the effects of positive and negative energy once per day. For
a necromancer, this ability could be really useful, so that you can heal
yourself along with your undead creatures once per day, but otherwise I can’t
really see a huge benefit.
Alternate
Racial Traits:
Dissolution’s
Child [Shadow Magic]: This ability is strange, because it says you turn into
a four-foot tall shadow, but it somehow also works as invisibility? Will this
work in bright light? If so, can enemies see where you move in your shadowy
form? Despite these questions, for a Rogue or any other non-caster character,
this is probably a better option than Shadow Magic.
Classes:
Alchemist: With
their boosts to Int and Dex, a wayang can make a very good bomb-focused
Alchemist. You’ll likely want to pick up the Smoke Bomb discovery to give you even more
cover when you’re trying to be stealthy.
Barbarian: It’s tough for me to imagine a
wayang, with their dark, stealthy nature, turning to the life of a Barbarian.
However, with no penalty to Strength or Con, it’s actually not a terrible
choice.
Bard: No Charisma bonus means a wayang isn’t ever going
to be an optimal choice for a bard, and even their racial archetype, the Shadow Puppeteer, leaves a lot to be
desired. The favored class option is cool, letting you add Wizard spells to you
list, but I just don’t see it as a realistic option, in the end.
Cavalier
[Samurai]: Like the Barbarian, I have trouble imagining a
wayang Cavalier. Riding a wolf or other medium animal into battle just seems
against their nature. However, this IS the only small race that doesn’t have a
Strength penalty, so even though it’s hard to imagine, it could work out quite
nicely as long as you build it out correctly. Samurai is a bit better than
Cavalier because of the mounted archery abilities.
Cleric: A penalty
to Wisdom hurts a spellcaster Cleric build, though a tank-style build would do
just fine, and you’ll get a boost to the DCs of your shadow-subschool spells.
You’ll definitely want the Darkness domain, and I would suggest the Loss subdomain for the ability to make
creatures forget everything they do in an area you designate. Useful for
infiltration, that’s for sure!
Druid: Same as for the Cleric, a spellcaster Druid is
doing to hurt a little from the Wisdom penalty, but a wild shape focused Druid
will do just fine! If you don’t take an animal companion, grab the Darkness domin for sure!
Fighter: With no
Strength penalty, a wayang Fighter can do just fine, though a ranged build will
benefit from the Dex bonus. Fighters are too variable to really suggest any
specific archetypes, so just go with what makes sense for your character
concept!
Gunslinger: A wayang
can make a fine Gunslinger, thanks to their Dex bonus. However, the Wisdom
penalty does hurt your Grit points, so you might want to grab the Mysterious Stranger archetype.
Inquisitor: The
Wisdom penalty hurts an Inquisitor more than a Cleric or Druid because it
affects other aspects of the character than just the spellcasting. I’d say this
is probably a bad choice.
Magus: A sneaky
little Dex-based wayang Magus could be absolutely devastating, sneaking up
behind an enemy and using a quick shocking grasp through a poisoned
blade to paralyze them and damage them all at the same time. I can also imagine
the Hexcrafter archetype making a lot of sense
for a wayang, because hexes are kinda mean and tricky without being evil.
Monk: The
Wisdom penalty definitely doesn’t do anything good for a wayang Monk, so this
one’s never going to be optimal. You could probably pull off a decent Martial Artist, but otherwise I’d stay
away.
Oracle: Without a Charisma bonus, a wayang Oracle only makes
slightly more sense than a wayang Cleric, and none of the mysteries have any
good shadow spells. HOWEVER, pay attention to the favored class option, which
lets you grab spells from the Wizard spell list, which obviously you’ll want to
be shadow subschool spells. This is probably not the BEST option, but it’s
certainly not bad!
Paladin
[Antipaladin]: The wayang’s
natural sneakiness is lost on a Paladin, for the most part, and they don’t have
a Charisma bonus, so this isn’t a great option, though it’s probably not the
worst one.
Ranger: A
ranged-focused wayang Ranger could be super deadly, hiding in the shadows and
getting critical hits on her favored enemies. With the Wisdom penalty, you
might want to consider going with one of the spell-less archetypes, like the Skirmisher.
Rogue [Ninja]: I think when they wrote this race, the
writers said to each other “how can we make the best Rogue out there? Hmm...
let’s give them tons of bonuses to Stealth, small size, and no Strength
penalty! COOL!” Wayangs were obviously written to be great Rogues, and even
better Ninjas since they get their own racial vanishing trick at level 1 (if
you take Dissolution’s Child, of course, which you will). Make sure to grab the
racial feat, Shadowy Dash. I’m actually surprised there
isn’t a racial archetype for the Rogue, given the obviousness of the choice.
Sorcerer: Without a Charisma bonus, you probably aren’t going
to be the BEST Sorcerer out there, but the Shadow bloodline is seriously excellent for a
wayang, and I’d honestly have trouble choosing between the regular version or
the Wildblooded one, Umbral. Shadow gives you an extra Stealth
bonus after you cast shadowy spells, which you’ll do a lot of, but Umbral gives
you a similar ability as a 1st-level power and increases your caster level by 1
in dim or darker light, so I’ll have to give it to Umbral as the better option.
You could always go Crossblooded to get both Umbral and Sage, so that you use Int instead of Cha for
your spellcasting, just make sure to purchase Pages of Spell Knowledge to make up for the
loss of one spell known per spell level. Don’t forget about the favored class
option, which gives your illusion spells extra damage!
Summoner: Again,
despite the lack of a Charisma bonus, I find myself rating this as a decent
option, mostly because of synergy with some specific Eidolon evolutions. Pick
up Shadow Blend and Shadow Form, along with Skilled [Stealth], and your Eidolon is just as
stealthy as you, if not more so! Grab a few teamwork feats like Outflank and
Precise Strike, and you’ve essentially created a pair of Rogues out of a single
character!
Witch: I imagine a wayang Witch being a sneaky little
thing, hiding in the shadows and tossing out hexes and shadow spells while her
allies pummel their foes. While none of the hexes are specifically good for
stealthy characters, evil eye and misfortune work great for anyone. The bonus
to Intelligence is obviously helpful for hex and spell DCs, and the Shadow
patron is an obvious choice.
Wizard: As with
the Witch, a wayang Wizard is an obvious choice, thanks to the Int bonus and
shadow spell boosts. You’ll obviously want the Shadow subschool, and the Infiltrator familiar archetype is worth a look
so that you can scout out all kinds of situations without worrying about your
familiar getting squished.
Racial
Favored Class Options:
Bard: The Bard
and Oracle both have the same option here, and it’s a great one: You can add
spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list to your list! There are some great
shadow subschool spells you’ll want to grab, of course, and it can also let you
be a bit more of an offensive caster than a Bard normally is.
Oracle: See Bard
just above this!
Sorcerer: Adding
+1/2 damage to illusion spells is pretty cool, though I would have preferred
+1/2 to the DC of the spells!
Summoner: An extra
skill rank for the eidolon doesn’t seem that exciting, but if you’re building a
Ninja-style sneaky Eidolon, it can be a HUGE bonus. I like this option a lot.
Racial
Archetype:
Shadow Puppeteer (Bard): So, I mentioned up in the bard section that
I’m not a huge fan of this archetype. You only get two new abilities, and they
replace some of the Bard’s most important performances. You switch out inspire
courage and inspire competence for a shadow servant ability (not very
useful), and the ability to summon some quasi-real creatures from the summon
monster lists. This would be really nice if it scaled like the normal
spells, but you only increase the summon monster level every three Bard
levels, so this is just hands-down worse than a normal bard.
Racial Feat:
Shadowy Dash: If you plan to move around the battlefield
stealthily (which you should, as a wayang), then you want this feat, as it
removes the penalty for moving at full speed when using Stealth!
