Master of Shadows, Shadow Elemental Advice?

[Xuldarinar]

Im looking for advice regarding the Master of Shadow PrC from Tome of Magic. Just anything helpful. Though, a few specific questions.

1: Feat interactions. Could feats that benefit familiars be applied to a MoS's Shadow Elemental?

2: Shadow Necromental. Is there a way that a Master of Shadow could have control over a Shadow Necromental rather than a Shadow Elemental?

3: Advancement. Lets say one has a character such as; Shadowcaster 5/Master of Shadow 10/Legacy champion 5. Could the advancement from Legacy Campion be applied to Master of Shadow to take it above 10? How would this effect their companion?

4: Feats for the Elemental. Are there any must have feats for the shadow elemental? Any feat combinations that would be valuable to have for them?

[Xuldarinar]

I had forgotten I had asked this a while back, with no answers at all.

Could anyone answer any if not all of these questions?

[Piggy Knowles]

1. As written, you functionally lose access to a familiar and instead have a shadow servant. I certainly would not argue that familiar-specific feats and abilities should still affect your shadow servant, but by RAW, they do not. So, ask your DM - I certainly would allow it in any campaign I ran.

2. I'm away from my books right now, but as far as I know, the answer is no short of PAO abuse. I don't know of any spells, items or abilities that can create a necromental except for high-level Transmutation spells. However, while you can't find a necromental and take control of it as your shadow servant, if you found a way to turn your shadow servant into a necromental (again, PAO is the only thing that comes to mind, but perhaps there are other ways), there's nothing stopping that change from occurring.

3. Sadly, Legacy Champion doesn't technically work in this instance. If the table had said that the shadow servant gained bonus HD equal to your Master of Shadow level minus one, instead of just listing a table with those bonuses, that would be the case, but it doesn't - it just directly references the table. Again, a DM might easily extrapolate from that table to continue advancing bonus HD and Dexterity beyond ten levels, but as written, they stop at ten even with Legacy Trickster shenanigans.

4. Some feat combinations to consider include...

TRACKER/SCOUT:

Shape Soulmeld (Shedu Crown)
Open Least Chakra (Crown)
Mindsight


Focus on having your shadow elemental avoiding detection by traveling inside walls and floors, tracking enemies with Mindsight and relaying what they find to you telepathically. Unlike blindsight, this will work through walls, around corners, etc.

WHITE RAVEN BOOSTER:

Martial Study (Douse the Flames)
Mage Slayer
Martial Study (White Raven Tactics)


An extra buddy with White Raven Tactics is pretty fantastic. Mage Slayer is so that you can hang out below the feet of an enemy mage and prevent them from casting defensively - swap it out for another feat as you see fit.

[Xuldarinar]

-snip-


1. Shame on that, but I appreciate the "If I were the DM" contribution though.

2. If 1 were viable, I'd say Stitched Flesh Familiar would accomplish a similar effect but, yeah I see that. I will note that when a necromental kills a elemental, the elemental rises as a necromental after 1d4 days (not under the necromental's control). So maybe in that case.. but otherwise, yeah… PAO abuse.

3. Never before have I heard of that abuse not working for something. That is both disappointing and refreshing.

4. Thank you. Those are some interesting examples.