Dm Help for a Shadowcaster?

[CyberThread]

Player is bringing a new book to the table, and wants to try out a shadow caster, I haven't had a chance to look over the class yet, and most guides for it are from a players perspective.

What as a DM , do I need to know about it, to help the player out, or to give it challenges to make the player feel good overcoming something their class is good at.

[Morbis Meh]

Player is bringing a new book to the table, and wants to try out a shadow caster, I haven't had a chance to look over the class yet, and most guides for it are from a players perspective.

What as a DM , do I need to know about it, to help the player out, or to give it challenges to make the player feel good overcoming something their class is good at.

The class is a pretty weak one, the creator of the class posted a fix for it and it is floating around the boards somewhere; however, if you are not using the fix the class is generally regarded as almost unplayable until level 7 due to how quickly the classes resources tend to sputter out.

[ahenobarbi]

Shadowcraft Mage from Races of the Stone, Shadowcrafter from Underdark, Shadowcaster fron dnadwiki or some other class?

[JoshuaZ]

The Shadowcaster is one of the weaker casters. The good news is that the optimization isn't that hard to mess up (partially since they don't have that many options). They'll be about T3/T4. They'll be weaker than almost any standard caster, and at low levels will run out of things to do that aren't just take low hit chance shots with a bow. But overall they are ok. Consider using the semi-official fix (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?184955-Shadowcaster-fixes-by-Mouseferatu).


Shadowcraft Mage from Races of the Stone, Shadowcrafter from Underdark, Shadowcaster fron dnadwiki or some other class?

I'm pretty sure that OP is referring to the official Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic.

[Piggy Knowles]

Although the link in my sig is targeted toward players, it might be worth reading through to get an idea of what a Shadowcaster can and cannot do.

The biggest problem that your player will face, at least until level 7, is that he or she will have very few uses of his iconic powers. The impact that each mystery has is fairly low, but the player will only have one use per day. This can lead to a frustrated character who ends up spending most of their time plinking away with a crossbow.

In the first post of the handbook in my signature, there is a copy of the Shadowcaster's creators suggested fix. This gives some more uses of the mysteries, and lets players jump around in a path. As a DM, I would strongly suggest that you allow this fix.

[ahenobarbi]

I'm pretty sure that OP is referring to the official Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic.

Thanks / I don't have access to Tome of Magic and didn't know the class.

[WhatBigTeeth]

What as a DM , do I need to know about it, to help the player out, or to give it challenges to make the player feel good overcoming something their class is good at.
The major difference from a Sorcerer with a mediocre spell selection is the Shadowcaster's severely limited spells/day. Expect a lot of time spent firing crossbows or spamming much lower-level spell-effects than its party members. This also means that Shadowcasters are basically obligated to blow some feats on item creation, just to have the juice to last a whole adventuring day.

It also has a split casting stat, but I think that's overstated. Shadowcasters don't get bonus mysteries, so there's little reason to put more than a 13 into Intelligence - it's a slight drain on ability rolls/point buy and WBL, but that's not as crippling as the daily limits.

If you've been reading shadowcaster handbooks, I'm sure you've run into Ari Marmell's unpublished revision. You'll probably want to implement those changes, maybe more. You might want to work some shadowcasting into the campaign's villains as well, to stick some mystery wands and staffs into the player's gear bag. This would also give the opportunity to subtly slip some stronger homebrewed mysteries into your game (better-scaling low-level mysteries are badly needed).

[CyberThread]

Alright thank you, I will suggest for them to consider noctumancer then

[Tvtyrant]

My favorite way of dealing with Shadowcasters is to let them gestalt with the Warlock class. Warlock never runs out of weak things to do, while Shadowcasters have slightly stronger abilities but run out in moments.