Beguiler shadowcraft mage

[Venusaur]

My brother wants to play a beguiler shadowcraft mage (minus the earth spell cheese). The handbooks say the beguiler can qualify by level 7, but I can't figure out how to get 3 shadow spells on his list. He is good, so no mindbender. Help!!!

[AmberVael]

You only need one shadow spell, actually. However, if you want to enter at level 7, you pretty much have to use some form of cheese, since normally Beguiler can't cast level 4 spells until level 8.

Presumably, the way to do it at level 7 (or 6, even) would be to use Versatile Spellcaster to cast a Heightened Legion of Sentinels, which would qualify as your level 4 shadow spell.


Now, the handbook I know of DOES qualify at beguiler level 7, but that's a bit different, because they're still taking eight total levels. Namely, it does take that 1 level of mindbender, which gives them an effective spellcasting level of 8 by level 8 (or level 7 beguiler), which allows them to take Shadow Conjuration for their 7th level advanced learning. This can be replicated by adding a level of any spellcasting advancing class into your build before level 7 of beguiler, as the point is mainly to just bump back when you get your advanced learning (So you can qualify for higher level spells).

Mindbender is a popular choice for this because it gives 100ft telepathy, which is a very useful tool (particularly when you take the Mindsight feat). It is, however, not necessary.