Shadowcasters anyone?

[The Mister Guy]

I've noticed an extreme lack of the Shadowcaster class on this forum. Truenamers (snicker) and Binders, the two other ToM classes, are mentioned sometimes, but Shadowcasters are seemingly forbidden territory. Are they that bad? I personally see that they aren't much use in optimization, as they are quite specialized, but they just seem completely unmentioned. Whats up?

The Mister Guy

[Halae]

See, they suffer from something the Dread Necromancer does as well - their selection of abilities isn't very versatile, and in the shadowcaster's case, not all that great even. Compared to what a binder can do and the horror that is a turenamer, it should be obvious why shadowcasters are kind of overlooked

[Big Fau]

See, they suffer from something the Dread Necromancer does as well - their selection of abilities isn't very versatile, and in the shadowcaster's case, not all that great even. Compared to what a binder can do and the horror that is a turenamer, it should be obvious why shadowcasters are kind of overlooked

The difference being that a Dread Necromancer is playable below 5th level, whereas Shadowcasters are close to unplayable due to low mystery access (and none of them are that good).


Above 5th level, a Shadowcaster is decent. Tier 3 material easily, once you pass that ungodly low-level hurdle.

[Zaq]

I love how this is almost exactly how this topic is phrased every time it comes up.

Basically, they have immensely high opportunity costs for every mystery they know, they hit Crossbow Mode way too easily at way too late a level, and they have very few unique and truly interesting abilities. That said, they're not bad at the 7-10 range . . . not amazing, but a decent T4, I'd say. The key is figuring out what to do with most of your actions, since if you cast a mystery every turn, you'll be out of them before noon.

[The Mister Guy]

I love how this is almost exactly how this topic is phrased every time it comes up.

What do you mean?

[Big Fau]

What do you mean?

This is a common topic because the Truenamer is infamous and the Binder is famous. "What about the Shadowcaster?", is a natural question as a result.

[Tvtyrant]

The easy way to play a Shadowcaster is to play a Wizard and then use the Creeping Darkness addition to swap out levels when you get to level 3-5. Or play a Wizard until level 4, swap out a wizard level for a shadow caster at level 5 and take a shadow caster, and then take one more Shadowcaster to get into Noctumancer and on to mystic thuerge.

Shadowcaster gets some neat abilities, like casting shadow spells above the level of the slot they used to cast them, but for the most part they Nova 3 times a day and then are out.

[gorfnab]

Here is a Shadowcaster Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11610.0) I made recently over on BG. Shadowcasters are also really difficult to optimize because of the whole "mystery" system. However if you have a lenient DM you can fix some of that with houserules.

[NecroRick]

Here is a Shadowcaster Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11610.0) I made recently over on BG. Shadowcasters are also really difficult to optimize because of the whole "mystery" system. However if you have a lenient DM you can fix some of that with houserules.

Mysteries look about as complex (in fact; remarkably similar to) as stances and maneuvers from the ToB.

So if you're willing to wade through ToB or Binder, I don't see how crying complexity is a good argument against them.

The primary problem (as I see it) with Shadowcasters is that there are about a dozen different shadow-themed classes and prestige classes out there, all of which are pretty much fundamentally incompatible with each other. But hey, the plane of shadow is a reflection of the prime material plane, and you don't get much more of a mixed up melange of incompatible mess than that :D

-----

As for Truenamers, the primary complaint seems to be that it is a skill driven system. The guy who wrote the handbook on them is part of the problem. He spends pages and pages whinging about how the difficulty goes up faster than your levels (hence faster than you can put ranks into the skill), but then busts out moderate levels of skill cheese and ends up with a 60+ skill at level 10. He even admits that getting a high level skill is trivially easy, and then goes right back to whinging about it being skill based.

This is like whinging about a Barbarian's rage, or that Bards need to perform. The *whole point* of the Truenamer is that it is skill based.

In any case, looking at his character, it was badly un-optomised because he somehow overlooked the best low level power-bomb, the Heat Metal equivalent. At low levels Heat Metal on an opponent in armour is like "I'm going to walk away now, and come back in a minute, and collect all your treasure.". It's not even save or die because there is no save, it's just die or die.

Then he goes on to relate how in a combat with the BBEG in that campaign his character did the vast majority of damage, despite having a bad build.

Okay, so the conclusion is what? A skill based class is trivially easy to break? Truenamer dishes out more damage than the combat specialists?

No, the conclusion is that he wants some whine with his cheese....

[Shadowknight12]

No, the conclusion is that he wants some whine with his cheese....

For you, sir, we have a Pinot Noir that we've been saving for such a succulent occasion.

On topic: Shadowcasters have very limited support outside ToM, and unlike binders, who don't actually NEED the support in order to be fun and versatile to play, the shadowcaster suffers from all the other things people have mentioned previously in this thread.

[gorfnab]

Mysteries look about as complex (in fact; remarkably similar to) as stances and maneuvers from the ToB.

So if you're willing to wade through ToB or Binder, I don't see how crying complexity is a good argument against them.


It's not that the whole "mystery" system is complex. It's just that it doesn't really mesh well with what's already out there. Unlike spells and spellslots, mysteries don't have much in the way of support from prestige classes, feats, magic items, and other abilities in sources other than ToM. Basically the Shadowcaster suffers from a lack of supportive material.

[Divide by Zero]

As for Truenamers, the primary complaint seems to be that it is a skill driven system. The guy who wrote the handbook on them is part of the problem. He spends pages and pages whinging about how the difficulty goes up faster than your levels (hence faster than you can put ranks into the skill), but then busts out moderate levels of skill cheese and ends up with a 60+ skill at level 10. He even admits that getting a high level skill is trivially easy, and then goes right back to whinging about it being skill based.

This is like whinging about a Barbarian's rage, or that Bards need to perform. The *whole point* of the Truenamer is that it is skill based.

In fact, at higher levels of optimization, the skill check is the least problematic part of the Truenamer. The LoS (barring questionable interpretation of the meta-utterance rules) and the fact that most of their utterances are really pretty mediocre can't be overcome by any level of cheese.

[drakir_nosslin]

For those of you who want a bit more support for the shadowcaster and don't mind homebrew, check out RoC's Project Shadow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74519). It contains a lot of new mysteries and feats for shadowcasters. Actually it's a half-finished campaign setting focusing on shadows...

[Zaq]

Mysteries look about as complex (in fact; remarkably similar to) as stances and maneuvers from the ToB.

So if you're willing to wade through ToB or Binder, I don't see how crying complexity is a good argument against them.

The primary problem (as I see it) with Shadowcasters is that there are about a dozen different shadow-themed classes and prestige classes out there, all of which are pretty much fundamentally incompatible with each other. But hey, the plane of shadow is a reflection of the prime material plane, and you don't get much more of a mixed up melange of incompatible mess than that :D

-----

As for Truenamers, the primary complaint seems to be that it is a skill driven system. The guy who wrote the handbook on them is part of the problem. He spends pages and pages whinging about how the difficulty goes up faster than your levels (hence faster than you can put ranks into the skill), but then busts out moderate levels of skill cheese and ends up with a 60+ skill at level 10. He even admits that getting a high level skill is trivially easy, and then goes right back to whinging about it being skill based.

This is like whinging about a Barbarian's rage, or that Bards need to perform. The *whole point* of the Truenamer is that it is skill based.

In any case, looking at his character, it was badly un-optomised because he somehow overlooked the best low level power-bomb, the Heat Metal equivalent. At low levels Heat Metal on an opponent in armour is like "I'm going to walk away now, and come back in a minute, and collect all your treasure.". It's not even save or die because there is no save, it's just die or die.

Then he goes on to relate how in a combat with the BBEG in that campaign his character did the vast majority of damage, despite having a bad build.

Okay, so the conclusion is what? A skill based class is trivially easy to break? Truenamer dishes out more damage than the combat specialists?

No, the conclusion is that he wants some whine with his cheese....

I . . . have to say I've never seen that kind of misinterpretation before. Impressive, sir. I didn't think I could still be surprised in quite that manner.

Anyway, I like Shadowcasters a lot. I think they have a lot of potential. They just need some kind of good fallback so that their resource management isn't quite so, well, touchy. It's possible to get a decent fallback, but you usually have to stray from the class a bit to get it.

[Feytalist]

The guy who wrote the handbook on them is part of the problem.

I literally giggled. At work.

Like Zaq says, this is impressive for all the wrong reasons.

Also, I'm in the process of playing a Shadowcaster from level 1. Our campaign is very low op and low difficulty, but the problems I've run into so far are lack of options, as has been mentioned. Hell, I end up using my crossbow more often than not. It has some potential as a disabler and might have a bit of battlefield controller in later levels, but that's about it.

Hmm, perhaps I should try my hand at a Shadowcaster handbook...

[Godskook]

I . . . have to say I've never seen that kind of misinterpretation before. Impressive, sir. I didn't think I could still be surprised in quite that manner.

Zaq, you have just witnessed someone actually crit-fail a read-check.

[Psyren]

TVTyrant mentioned the Creeping Darkness feature and I cannot stress this enough. It's a great way to slip into Shadowcaster and get to Noctumancer fast without exposing yourself to quite as much low-level fail. It's sad that Ari included this option (likely realizing how painful the lack of mysteries at low levels is) but did not notice just how starved the class truly was until it had been printed.

And the other thing that really, really sucks about them are Metashadow feats. 1/day, really?

One neat aspect to the Shadowcaster I haven't seen mentioned here is the adaptation (ToM pg. 116) that gives you license to refluff the class away from "gloomy shadows rawr!" and become a Mistmage or Cloudmancer. This works especially well if you're going into a less dark PrC like Celestial Mystic.

[TheGeckoKing]

It's a shame, but a Shadowcaster is just not good at all to play at low levels, and their isn't enough Mysteries (barring homebrew, which I hear is quite good).
A quick fix could just be to just give the Shadowcaster sorcerer casting and limit it to only learning Mysteries. Fundamentals are 0th level spells (obviously), and the path limitations could stay, I guess. Not sure how to do the SLA/SU ability conversions, but that's something.

In short, only play if you're starting above 5th level or are in a low-op group. Or if you like crossbows. Crossbows are cool. :smallcool:

[Feytalist]

Or if you like crossbows. Crossbows are cool. :smallcool:

They sure are. Especially since I crit-killed three goblins in our first session. That's more that I've been able to do with all my mysteries since ><

[Psyren]

Suprised this hasn't been linked yet (except indirectly via gorfnab's handbook.) The class designer, Ari Marmell, wrote a fix online (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/184955-shadowcaster-fixes-mouseferatu.html) that gives them bonus mysteries from Cha among other benefits - this is a nice way to increase their ammunition and make them more playable.

With Cha determining both save DCs and bonus mysteries, this becomes your primary stat, with Int wanting to be at least 19 after buffs by level 17 to ensure you can learn the highest-level Mysteries.

The save DC change for Apprentice mysteries that become Su is very welcome as well. Pump your CL and you'll find very little that can resist you, since you're already auto-bypassing SR.