Help with shadowcraft mage build

[purpenflurb]

I am working on creating a shadowcraft mage build for a friend. General philosophy is early levels stealth with the dark template, and using earth spell and lingering effect for fun with metamagic. The build will also use a runestaff with as many iterations of silent image on it as it needs, for more spontaneity and spontaneous application of metamagic (multiple instances of the same spell on the staff/the custom staff have been explicitly OK'ed). What I have is as follows...

Race: Dark forest gnome (+1 LA bought off)
Classes: Wizard 3/Master specialist 4/Shadowcraft mage 5/Wizard 2
ACFs: Focused specialist (dropping necromancy, enchnatment, and evocation), chains of disbelief
Feats:
1: Heighten spell: flaw
1: Spell focus (illusion)
3: Earth Sense
4: Skill focus (spellcraft): master specialist
6: Greater spell focus (illusion): master specialist
6: Earth spell
9: Arcane Thesis (silent image)
12: Residual magic
14: Twin spell: Wizard
??: Quicken spell: metamagic storm

The biggest issue I am having now is lack of feats. The DM has disallowed chaos shuffling turning feats into something you couldn't have picked that level anyways. I would also like to figure out a way to get the benefit of darkstalker, and to make hide a class skill (without losing feats).

Alternate possible progression, based on feedback (DM approval pending in places):

Race: Dark forest gnome (+1 LA bought off)
Classes: Wizard 3/Master specialist 4/Shadowcraft mage 5/Incantatrix 4/Wizard 2/Nightmare Spinner 2
ACFs: Specialist (dropping necromancy and evocation), chains of disbelief, dropping enchantment for incantatrix
Feats:
1: Heighten spell: flaw
1: Spell focus (illusion)
3: Earth Sense
4: Skill focus (spellcraft): master specialist
6: Greater spell focus (illusion): master specialist
6: Earth spell
9: Quicken Spell
12: Residual magic
13: Twin spell: incantatrix
15: Arcane thesis (silent image)
16: Fell drain: Incantatrix
18: Arcane Mastery
18: Repeating Spell: Wizard

The omission of persist was intentional, but the last two metamagic feat choices are definitely tentative. Arcane mastery was put in because I doubt the build is going to be played a the maximum possible power level. The order of picking banned schools is largely a matter of flavor. Iron will will, hopefully, be gained from the hole.

[Lightlawbliss]

also just putting this out directly:

DM saying hello

[purpenflurb]

I was also trying to figure out what might fill the last 6 levels well. Extra bonus feats seem like they would be great, but thus far what I have come up with is wizard for a bonus feat, fatespinner, and paragnostic apostle. They are all ok but none seem to synergize with the build concept.

[Keld Denar]

I still think the best entry into ScM is actually Wiz5. You want the goodies ASAP. Wiz5 is needed to get the feat you need to get in. You just don't get enough from Wiz3/MS2 to get in, and waiting until Wiz3/MS4 to enter is less good unless you are starting above 12.

Arcane Thesis is less than amazing on this build. The only real MM you have other than Heighten is Twin Spell and Quicken Spell both very late. AT doesn't work with Heighten, IIRC, it explicitly states it. So all you get for the most part is the +2 CL. Your CL will already be turboamped up with Earth Spell. More if often better, but that might be more than needed given general spell caps. I'd swap places with Residual Magic, at the bare minimum, and possibly consider dropping it.

I don't think you'll really need the Runestaff idea. Really, if you are a Focused Spec, you have 3 slots per level to dedicate to illusions. Other than maybe a Legion of Sentinals or Illusory Pit, you'll generally be filling those slots with Heightened Silent Images. You have PLENTY of spontaneity built in simply with the application of the Shadow Illusion feature.

[Rebel7284]

I agree about arcane thesis in the current build.

Incantatrix can be very good with ScM due to bonus feats and free metamagic and with magical locations seemingly allowed, you can get Iron Will for free! Due to giving up a school of magic though, it may be better to avoid focused specialist if you go that route.

There is also Shadowcrafter and Shadow Adept.

Nightmare Spinner is considered a good topping once you have 9th level spells.

[Person_Man]

You're a Wizard, Shadowcraft Mage is a very potent PrC, and you intelligently put all your Feats into Metamagic. You'll be fine no matter what other choices you make.

Having said that, I'm not sure what the Dark template adds to this build, other then slowing down your level progression. Honestly, how often are you going to use and need Hide in Plain Sight as an illusionist with access to Silent Extended (provided for free by Shadowcraft) Invisibility and Greater Invisibility and teleportation magic? How often do you honestly encounter creatures with See Invisibility/Tremorsense/True Seeing, and when you do encounter them, is it really that difficult for you to kill them with your reality altering magic without being hidden?

[purpenflurb]

Thanks for the advice so far, my thoughts for arcane thesis were to fit in a couple more metamagic feats at higher levels, this group's campaigns have a history of playing into really high levels and with a couple of extra metamagic feats I could see it being potent. Also, is the +2 CL really not useful? I figured one of the biggest weaknesses of this build was SR, and even with assay spell resistance there is a chance of failure.

I suppose I should also clarify further, this build is actually for someone completely new to DnD. The goal is to give him a build with a lot of flexibility that is hard to mess up, and will be able to contribute meaningfully in a group of much more experienced players with reasonably optimized builds. Also, he liked the concept. This is also where the runestaff comes in, I think it will be a lot easier for him to play if he doesn't have to worry about what to prep of heightened silent image vs. other useful illusions (I would imagine stuff like project image and permanent image having their uses).

The dark template is because he wanted to play a stealth type character, and it will make it play much more like a stealth character (particularly at low levels), plus LA buyoff makes it not quite so bad. Although if there were another similarly themed template I would definitely consider it. I am also still interested in finding ways to bump up his mundane hiding ability without costing the casting side of the build anything.

Addressing a couple of the other points, I think using earth spell for early qualification is going to be considered cheese and should generally be avoided. I also considered incantatrix, but likewise, I think that would put it over the power level being considered reasonable. Some of the other classes mentioned do look interesting though, I will have to investigate them further.

Anyways, looking at the suggestions, would swapping the feat progression to quicken at level 9, twin at 14, arcane thesis at 15, and using metamagic storm for something else (maybe empower?). I am also still looking for a way to get another feat in the build, and potentially a way to swap out scribe scroll without losing the other wizard bonus feats.

[Rebel7284]

Shadowcraft Mage may be difficult to play for a new player... every time you cast a spell you need to make a choice between nearly a hundred options? I played an Unseen Seer/Shadowcraft Mage before and it's non trivial even with prep work. A sorcerer is a way better intro to D&D. Something like Dragonwraught Kobold Rogue 1/Sorcerer 4/Unseen Seer X is very sneaky. =)

[ZamielVanWeber]

It isn't too bad (I am running an Arcane Gnome Beguiler/Shadowcraft Mage now actually) because there are still a lot of restrictions and a good chunk of yummy spells are in Core.

I would recommend Rapid Spell as a possibility over Arcane Thesis. For a +1 caster level it turns those Shadow Summons into standard actions. (A rod of it is pretty cheap, so that works out nicely too).

[Person_Man]

Shadowcraft Mage may be difficult to play for a new player...

I agree with this. Wizard is more powerful, but Sorcerer is a lot easier.

Another suggestion: Beguiler 20. You get all of the Skills you want and a strong list of spontaneous illusion and enchantment stuff, but with no hassle or decision making and minimal book keeping.

[purpenflurb]

In terms of entry I considered all of the options. I would say sorcerer isn't really easier, because if you pick a spell you end up not liking you can't go back on it very easily. The idea was to play shadowcraft mage sort of like a sorcerer to start with. Get a short list of spells that could be useful to use with shadow magic, and learn those. If he doesn't like one of them he can swap it out with nothing lost. Once he starts to get the hang of it he can add more. It also makes wizard a lot easier to play since you get the sorcerer's benefit of not having to worry about specific situations, but because you are a wizard you can stick other utility spells/spells that don't allow SR in your other slots more easily. I am relatively certain that he will be able to handle this, he may be new to DnD but he has plenty of experience dealing with complex systems (junior studying computer science), and everyone else is quite happy to help.

EDIT: Alternate version of the build posted in the first post, it should incorporate quite a bit of the advice that has been given.