Shadowcraft Mage (or similar) at 2nd level?

[Pippin]

Race: Gnome
Skills: Bluff 4 ranks , Hide 4 ranks
Feats: Spell Focus (illusion)
Spells: Able to cast at least three illusion spells, including at least one shadow spell of 4th level or higher.

Is it possible to enter this PrC with a scroll? If that isn't possible, how can we get around this?

[Yuki Akuma]

You can't really enter Shadowcraft Mage much earlier than level 5. Scrolls absolutely don't count. You could maybe enter a level earlier than a Wizard can with a Sorcerer entry and Versatile Spellcaster and Earth Spell on a 2rd level Shadow illusion.

But, you need a bunch of levels to get all the feats you need to make Shadowcraft Mage good anyway. It's not much use without Earth Spell, and that's three feats (Heighten Spell, Earth Sense and Earth Spell). Wizard (Gnome Illusionist 3)/Master Specialist 4 is a much better entry than Sorcerer 4.

You could enter at Wizard 3/Master Specialist 2 using the Earth Spell trick I guess? I don't think it's really worth it that way either.

[darksolitaire]

I guess heightening second level shadow spell with Earth Sence would work, but that would only allow entry after five levels. :smallconfused:

[Pippin]

You can conceivably get in at level 7 using. It's really not worth it, though - best to go Wizard (Gnome Illusionist) 3/Master Specialist 4 as an entry anyway. Master Specialist 4 is great.

You need a bunch of levels to get all the feats you need to make Shadowcraft Mage good anyway. It's not much use without Earth Spell, and that's three feats (Heighten Spell, Earth Sense and Earth Spell).
I'd rather not specialize. I know that Shadowcraft Mages need quite a few feats to be nice, but I will get them all eventually. I'm trying to enter the PrC as soon as possible to optimize further PrCing.

[Yuki Akuma]

If you're doing Shadowcraft Mage why not specialise? Silent Image cantrips are pretty great (+1 bonus CL whenever you cast a shadow illusion effectively), and it's not like you're ever going to use Evocation or most of Conjuration. Alternatively, you can drop Enchantment and lose basically nothing because most of its tricks either don't work or can be replicated using Illusions.

Shadowcraft Mage is a fairly specialised PrC - it's only five levels but it kinda dominates most of your build if you use it. It's not the best for PrC dipping.

[Necroticplague]

Yes, easily. Take Precocious Apprentice for a 2nd level spelll of the Shadow subschool. Then, use the Eldritch Corruption feat to Heighten it by two levels. Bam; level 4 spell at level 1 for 2 feats.

[Pippin]

Yes, easily. Take Precocious Apprentice for a 2nd level spelll of the Shadow subschool. Then, use the Eldritch Corruption feat to Heighten it by two levels. Bam; level 4 spell at level 1 for 2 feats.
Wow. Well done, sir.

That... just... ends the thread. XD

[Talar]

I would just like to point out that you still need spell focus (illusion) to enter the PRC, and I am unsure of a way to get three feats at first level on a gnome wizard beyond flaws, which I personally dislike and not all DM's allow.

[Necroticplague]

I would just like to point out that you still need spell focus (illusion) to enter the PRC, and I am unsure of a way to get three feats at first level on a gnome wizard beyond flaws, which I personally dislike and not all DM's allow.

1. The Adaption section lists the possibility of humans entering.
2. the taint system can give you bonus feats (which works well, since eldritch corruption requires mild depravity).

[Extra Anchovies]

1. The Adaption section lists the possibility of humans entering.
2. the taint system can give you bonus feats (which works well, since eldritch corruption requires mild depravity).

Hm. So we either need a lenient DM (human entry and/or flaws), or we need for our would-be Shadowcraft Mage to have severe depravity (maybe a severe phobia of waiting a few levels). Does moderate depravity and moderate corruption give two bonus feats, or just one? I'm not sure if I'm reading the relevant passage correctly (Heroes of Horror p. 67).

[Grooke]

Actually what makes the early entry hard is 4 ranks in two cross-class skills.
It actually helps to specialize since A) Master Specialist 4 is a good PrC for SCMs and B) and ASF gets you hide as a class skill. For bluff, you can't get 4 ranks at level 1 (for entry at level 2) without yet another feat.

If you allow 3rd party material & retraining, I can share a build that, while not entering SCM at 2, only takes 1 lvl of straight wizard (IIRC), the rest being free for PrCs. The build uses the Metaphysical Spellshaper PrC from the Book of Erotic Fantasy (3rd party) who's class feature allows "free" (Ability damage) metamagic (read "heighten to 9 at any level").

The combo is really cheasy though, since Metaphysical's free heighten allows you to use every single one of your spell slots (including cantrips) to cast lvl 9 spells, as long as you can heal/become immune to the ability damage.
(note: Tainted Scholar/Sorcerer's tainted metamagic is a similar, WoTC way to do this but you need tto be using the taint system and probably be evil (also, CON damage immunity explicitly doesn't work))

Edit: since I mentioned Master Specialist, taking a level or two of this PrC before going into SCM can be a good way to reduce staight Wizard levels.

[sleepyphoenixx]

A cleric with the Illusion & Trickery domains and DMM:Heighten can enter at level 2 if he has at least 12 charisma, but you'll need flaws to get all the feats. Without flaws you'll have to wait until level 4, if you use the human adaption.
Edit: Scratch that, you can't actually get a shadow spell as a cleric before 2nd level spells. So 4th level it is.

A bard can enter at level 4 with Talfirian Song, or at level 3 if you allow flaws (again for humans).

Without flaws and the human adaption you won't get in before level 6, simply because of the feat requirements for SF:Illusion and heightening a spell to 4th level.

[Grooke]

I just checked my build, it has two levels of straight wizard, not one.

Like Sleepypheonixx said, it requires too many feats to really do better, and you are better off trying to early entry the other PrCs you want if you want to minimize your straight Wizard level.

Even with Eldritch Corruption, it requires 1 metamagic feat as pre-req, Eldritch corruption itself, Spell Focus (illusion), and Skill knowledge(Bluff)/Apprentice(Criminal), and Precocious Apprentice. Thats 5 Feats at level 1, 6 if you need a feat for Hide (non-specialist wizard).

Here is my build for reference:



1
Gnome (Focused) Illusionist 1
ACF: [Chains of Disbelief, Illusion Mastery, Shadow Shaper]; Feat : [Heighten Spell, Flaw1 → Easy Metamagic (Heighten), Flaw2 → Precocious Apprentice]


2
Illusionist 2



3
Metaphysical Spellshaper
Skill Knowledge(bluff), Precocious Apprentice→Spell Focus (Illusion)


4
Metaphysical Spellshaper 2
(Bonus metamagic feat)


5
Shadowcraft Mage 1
Skill Knowledge→Earth Sense


6
Shadowcraft Mage 2
Earth Spell, Easy Metamagic → Signature Spell (Silent Image)


7
Shadowcraft Mage 3



8
Shadowcraft Mage 4



9
Shadowcraft Mage 5
(any feat)




As soon as you hit lvl 7, you can cast lvl 9 spells out of every slot for ability damage. Metamagic reducers become useless with Metaphysical Spellshaper. You get 11 lvls of free PrCs, and already have all the necessary SCM feats (excepts Arcane Disciple for Shadow Miracle).

[Pippin]

I really had no idea that cross-class skills had a different maximum rank value.

Everything's ruined. I do hate this game...

[Necroticplague]

Hmmm....why do we keep focusing on wizard entry? Beguiler seems a pretty viable entry option, even flavor-wise. So assuming human adaption; beguiler could pick up Precocious Apprentice(Wall of Gloom) and SF(illusion) for his normal feat+race feat, get some severe taint and use the two feats to pick up Heighten Spell (or any other metamagic) and Eldritch Corruption. You need at least moderate depravity anyway, might as well go whole-hog.

Beguiler has the skills without going cross-class, you have the fourth level spell, you have the spell focus, go to town!

Even without adapting it for human and without using flaws, you'd only lose one level to dipping into Generic Expert; entering SCM at third level.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Hmmm....why do we keep focusing on wizard entry? Beguiler seems a pretty viable entry option, even flavor-wise. So assuming human adaption; beguiler could pick up Precocious Apprentice(Wall of Gloom) and SF(illusion) for his normal feat+race feat, get some severe taint and use the two feats to pick up Heighten Spell (or any other metamagic) and Eldritch Corruption. You need at least moderate depravity anyway, might as well go whole-hog.

Beguiler has the skills without going cross-class, you have the fourth level spell, you have the spell focus, go to town!

Even without adapting it for human and without using flaws, you'd only lose one level to dipping into Generic Expert; entering SCM at third level.

I find it doubtful that any DM would actually allow you to start with severe taint.

Still, if you actually play in a campaign that uses taint and you manage to reach severe depravity early enough you could go necropolitan, which would both eliminate the drawbacks from taint and reset your level to 1 so you could get SCM at level 2.
Assuming you survive having severe taint at that low a level of course.

You could also go for a Faustian Pact (FC2) to get bonus feats.

[Pippin]

You could also go for a Faustian Pact (FC2) to get bonus feats.
That would solve the equation for wizards.



Spell Focus (Illusion)
Human: Heighten Spell
Flaw: Eldritch Corruption
Flaw: Precocious Apprentice
Faustian Pact: Apprentice (Criminal) -> Bluff as class skill
Faustian Pact: Martial Study (Shadow Hand) -> Hide as class skill

And a box of chocolates for the DM (due to the above and the PC not being a gnome)



Is it possible to dismiss a Faustian Pact, though?

[Necroticplague]

I find it doubtful that any DM would actually allow you to start with severe taint.

Still, if you actually play in a campaign that uses taint and you manage to reach severe depravity early enough you could go necropolitan, which would both eliminate the drawbacks from taint and reset your level to 1 so you could get SCM at level 2.
Assuming you survive having severe taint at that low a level of course.
Actually, now that you bring up necropolitan, that could actually solve the 'how to get to severe taint'. Undead have a fixed amount of taint based on their CHA. So theoretically, once you could survive the Necropolitanism, if your CHA is high enough relative to your WIS (and CHA is at least a decent secondary stat for a Beguiler), you could go straight from completely clean to severe taint once the template is applied. With the bonus of getting to ignore the downsides of taint.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Actually, now that you bring up necropolitan, that could actually solve the 'how to get to severe taint'. Undead have a fixed amount of taint based on their CHA. So theoretically, once you could survive the Necropolitanism, if your CHA is high enough relative to your WIS (and CHA is at least a decent secondary stat for a Beguiler), you could go straight from completely clean to severe taint once the template is applied. With the bonus of getting to ignore the downsides of taint.

I can't really imagine anyone wanting to play a character with severe taint without ignoring the negatives. And iirc getting to severe taint requires a corruption or depravity score in the 20s to 30s, so a few points of charisma won't really cut it (they can help though).
You do get taint just from casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor though, so getting more shouldn't be that hard.

[Extra Anchovies]

Actually, now that you bring up necropolitan, that could actually solve the 'how to get to severe taint'. Undead have a fixed amount of taint based on their CHA. So theoretically, once you could survive the Necropolitanism, if your CHA is high enough relative to your WIS (and CHA is at least a decent secondary stat for a Beguiler), you could go straight from completely clean to severe taint once the template is applied. With the bonus of getting to ignore the downsides of taint.

I don't know if inherently tainted creatures can receive bonus feats from taint, though. I can't find an explicit ruling on this, but being "immune to the negative effects of taint" implies that you don't gain corruption or depravity regardless of taint score (and thus don't gain the bonus feats). To back this up, the Bane Wraith (an intelligent undead from Heroes of Horror) has an effective corruption score of 10 (18 Charisma/2 = 9, +1 for being undead), which is enough to give them moderate depravity (14 Wisdom), but they do not have any bonus feats due to their taint score. The same goes for the Phantasmal Slayer, with a taint score of 15 (26 Charisma/2 = 13, +2 for being an evil-subtype outsider), which would give it moderate depravity as well.


I can't really imagine anyone wanting to play a character with severe taint without ignoring the negatives. And iirc getting to severe taint requires a corruption or depravity score in the 20s to 30s, so a few points of charisma won't really cut it (they can help though).
You do get taint just from casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor though, so getting more shouldn't be that hard.

The minor/moderate/severe taint thresholds scale with Constitution and Wisdom, actually; they have nothing to do with level. Strikes me as a little odd but that's how the system is designed.

[Necroticplague]

I don't know if inherently tainted creatures can receive bonus feats from taint, though. I can't find an explicit ruling on this, but being "immune to the negative effects of taint" implies that you don't gain corruption or depravity regardless of taint score (and thus don't gain the bonus feats). To back this up, the Bane Wraith (an intelligent undead from Heroes of Horror) has an effective corruption score of 10 (18 Charisma/2 = 9, +1 for being undead), which is enough to give them moderate depravity (14 Wisdom), but they do not have any bonus feats due to their taint score. The same goes for the Phantasmal Slayer, with a taint score of 15 (26 Charisma/2 = 13, +2 for being an evil-subtype outsider), which would give it moderate depravity as well.

Well, in terms of gaining Corruption and Depravity, the relevant section says:

Creatures with the Evil subtype and undead creatures are immune to any negative effects from taint. They automatically have effective corruption and depravity scores equal to one-half their Charisma score, +1 for undead or +2 for outsiders. They take no penalties due to these taint scores, but they can use them to qualify for feats or prestige classes (see Chapter 5)
They very explicitly say they do have effective corruption and depravity, never say that this effective taint doesn't qualify you for the bonus feats like normal taint does, and are very specific that it's only the negative effects.Twice. You'd have to make a pretty hard sell to say that free feats are a penalty/negative effect.

[Extra Anchovies]

Well, in terms of gaining Corruption and Depravity, the relevant section says:

They very explicitly say they do have effective corruption and depravity, never say that this effective taint doesn't qualify you for the bonus feats like normal taint does, and are very specific that it's only the negative effects.Twice. You'd have to make a pretty hard sell to say that free feats are a penalty/negative effect.

And yet, none of the undead or evil-subtype monsters in the book who would receive taint bonus feats do so.

[Necroticplague]

And yet, none of the undead or evil-subtype monsters in the book who would receive taint bonus feats do so.

Yes, because WOTC has such a good memory for remembering all of its own rules, especially when making monster statblocks.

[Pippin]

Okay so, if we tackle the OP again (:smalltongue:), is anything wrong with the bunch of feats I listed earlier? Can we easily nullify a Faustian Pact?

Since there seems to be another thread out there about the validity of precocious apprentice, let's consider it valid here.

[Extra Anchovies]

Can we easily nullify a Faustian Pact?

Well, you just need to make a Pact Insidious with some one-time actions, or some continuous actions that you don't mind keeping up, such as Acts of Obeisance if you're already Lawful (or don't mind switching). You only switch alignments if you sign a Pact Certain, and a Pact Insidious doesn't even necessarily bind your soul to Baator or require you to swear allegiance to an archdevil.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well, you just need to make a Pact Insidious with some one-time actions, or some continuous actions that you don't mind keeping up, such as Acts of Obeisance if you're already Lawful (or don't mind switching). You only switch alignments if you sign a Pact Certain, and a Pact Insidious doesn't even necessarily bind your soul to Baator or require you to swear allegiance to an archdevil.

It doesn't work that way. A Pact Insidious explicitly requires corrupt acts, not acts of obeisance. Also, a bonus feat has a cost of 4 corruption points, which require a corrupt act worth at least that much to pay off. You can't pay it off with a series of smaller corrupt acts by RAW.

4 point acts start of with "inflicting cruel and painful torture". Doing that or something worse for personal gain is more than enough to justify an alignment shift.
Also you lose the benefits of the pact as soon as you refuse further acts of corruption. You're also not allowed to tell anyone about it, so you can't atone without breaking the pact.

Chances are your DM will rule that you were evil in the first place, because no other alignment would do that. The exact terms of the pact are also up to DM adjudication, so it's doubtful that you're getting out for free.

If you choose this option you're Evil, no way around that. No good or even neutral character would do the acts required, especially not for personal power. That's so far beyond the line that it's not even worth arguing about.

[Extra Anchovies]

It doesn't work that way. A Pact Insidious explicitly requires corrupt acts, not acts of obeisance. Also, a bonus feat has a cost of 4 corruption points, which require a corrupt act worth at least that much to pay off. You can't pay it off with a series of smaller corrupt acts by RAW.

4 point acts start of with "inflicting cruel and painful torture". Doing that or something worse for personal gain is more than enough to justify an alignment shift.
Also you lose the benefits of the pact as soon as you refuse further acts of corruption. You're also not allowed to tell anyone about it, so you can't atone without breaking the pact.

Chances are your DM will rule that you were evil in the first place, because no other alignment would do that. The exact terms of the pact are also up to DM adjudication, so it's doubtful that you're getting out for free.

If you choose this option you're Evil, no way around that. No good or even neutral character would do the acts required, especially not for personal power. That's so far beyond the line that it's not even worth arguing about.

Huh. I thought there was a clause that nonlawful characters could fulfill pacts with acts of obeisance, but after a second look I guess I was mistaken. Good catch.

[Necroticplague]

*Shrug* Might as well go for the Pact Certain then. Less reward, but enough for the free feat. I mean, the Pact Certain doesn't seem to have the clauses that let you lose the benefits like a Pact Insidious does. So make the Pact Certain, then run to a cleric for an Atonement (or, failing that, Helms of Opposite Alignment are cheap), since it looks like the only problem is an alignment change to LE. Heck, the list of corrupt acts doesn't even include signing a pact on it's list, so it seems pretty trivial to worm out of it in life.

Or heck, just deal with. I mean, it's not like that's gonna have any penalties for you until you die (barring some rarely-ever-used anti-evil stuff), and it doesn't require you to actually change your behavior to be in accord with your new alignment.

[sleepyphoenixx]

*Shrug* Might as well go for the Pact Certain then. Less reward, but enough for the free feat. I mean, the Pact Certain doesn't seem to have the clauses that let you lose the benefits like a Pact Insidious does. So make the Pact Certain, then run to a cleric for an Atonement (or, failing that, Helms of Opposite Alignment are cheap), since it looks like the only problem is an alignment change to LE. Heck, the list of corrupt acts doesn't even include signing a pact on it's list, so it seems pretty trivial to worm out of it in life.

Or heck, just deal with. I mean, it's not like that's gonna have any penalties for you until you die (barring some rarely-ever-used anti-evil stuff), and it doesn't require you to actually change your behavior to be in accord with your new alignment.

You can't get out of a voluntarily signed Pact Certain. It's in the rules. Even atoning won't change the fact that your soul goes straight to hell when you die.

[Extra Anchovies]

Or heck, just deal with. I mean, it's not like that's gonna have any penalties for you until you die (barring some rarely-ever-used anti-evil stuff), and it doesn't require you to actually change your behavior to be in accord with your new alignment.

Exactly. The easiest way around a Pact Certain is not dying.

[Pippin]

Exactly. The easiest way around a Pact Certain is not dying.
The way I see this, any PC not worrying about automatic eternal damnation is quite unreal. If you contracted a Pact Certain or even a Pact Insidious, you must attempt to invalidate it sooner or later. We're supposed to play our characters as if we were them, aren't we?

[Extra Anchovies]

The way I see this, any PC not worrying about automatic eternal damnation is quite unreal. If you contracted a Pact Certain or even a Pact Insidious, you must attempt to invalidate it sooner or later. We're supposed to play our characters as if we were them, aren't we?

Well, yeah. And it's a very evil thing to do to make a deal that gives you something you want and then try to avoid holding up your end of the deal. Just move to a timeless plane (Astral is a good pick) and git gud enough to fight off anybody Baator sends at you (which, as a Shadowcraft Mage, shouldn't be hard).

[Necroticplague]

The way I see this, any PC not worrying about automatic eternal damnation is quite unreal. If you contracted a Pact Certain or even a Pact Insidious, you must attempt to invalidate it sooner or later. We're supposed to play our characters as if we were them, aren't we?
Not eternal. Your soul is relatively quickly turned into a lemure with nothing in common with no, not even memories. Given that it has nothing in common with you, you can't really consider it you, so your damnation is really only for the time period while you're being processed (which, thanks to bureaucrats with millennia of experience, should be rather expedient).

[Extra Anchovies]

Not eternal. Your soul is relatively quickly turned into a lemure with nothing in common with no, not even memories. Given that it has nothing in common with you, you can't really consider it you, so your damnation is really only for the time period while you're being processed (which, thanks to bureaucrats with millennia of experience, should be rather expedient).

True, but there's still a chance that you get kept as a soul-maggot and are traded as currency, which isn't exactly the most exciting life.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The way I see this, any PC not worrying about automatic eternal damnation is quite unreal. If you contracted a Pact Certain or even a Pact Insidious, you must attempt to invalidate it sooner or later. We're supposed to play our characters as if we were them, aren't we?

There's a whole bunch of fluff about that in FC2. Something along the lines of people who actually make those pacts believing themselves superior enough that they'll get to be higher devils straight away (which can happen, rarely) and quickly rise to the top of the infernal ranks, which is not a bad place to be if you're not bothered by being evil.
Keep in mind that you don't have all the background information IC that the book gives you as a player.

The devils don't go out of their way to correct that assumption, obviously.

[Pippin]

So, to sum up:



Spell Focus (Illusion)
Human: Heighten Spell
Taint: Arcane Mastery
Flaw: Apprentice (Criminal) -> Bluff as class skill
Flaw: Martial Study (Shadow Hand) -> Hide as class skill
Faustian Pact: Eldritch Corruption
Faustian Pact: Precocious Apprentice

And a box of chocolates for the DM (due to the above and the PC not being a gnome)


should enable a moderately depraved human wizard to become a Shadowcraft Mage at second level. Then try to get rid of the Taint and Faustian Pact bonus feats (if you want to), or DCFS them away along with the Flaw feats.

Thanks a lot people :)

[Necroticplague]

So, to sum up:



Spell Focus (Illusion)
Human: Heighten Spell
Taint: Arcane Mastery
Flaw: Apprentice (Criminal) -> Bluff as class skill
Flaw: Martial Study (Shadow Hand) -> Hide as class skill
Faustian Pact: Eldritch Corruption
Faustian Pact: Precocious Apprentice

And a box of chocolates for the DM (due to the above and the PC not being a gnome)


should enable a moderately depraved human wizard to become a Shadowcraft Mage at second level. Then try to get rid of the Taint and Faustian Pact bonus feats (if you want to), or DCFS them away along with the Flaw feats.

Thanks a lot people :)
If you used Beguiler instead of Wizard, you wouldn't need Martial Study or Apprentice (criminal), so you could do it all without flaws. Going into Severe depravity would give you another bonus feat, so you wouldn't need human.

[Grooke]

If you plan on using taint, I have to repeat that Tainted Scholar/Sorcerer's replacing metamagic costs by CON damage is insanely good for an SCM. Take a level of Binder for Naberius, and thats lvl 9 spells all day, everyday.

[Pippin]

If you plan on using taint, I have to repeat that Tainted Scholar/Sorcerer's replacing metamagic costs by CON damage is insanely good for an SCM. Take a level of Binder for Naberius, and thats lvl 9 spells all day, everyday.
Well Naberius enables you to heal "only" 1 point per round, right? Are you sure that's fast enough during combat?

Anyway, uncanny forethought + arcane spellsurge gives me free Quicken Spell all day, and planar bubble gives me free maximization, so I'd rather spend my HDs on even cheesier PrCs :smalltongue:

[Extra Anchovies]

If you plan on using taint, I have to repeat that Tainted Scholar/Sorcerer's replacing metamagic costs by CON damage is insanely good for an SCM. Take a level of Binder for Naberius, and thats lvl 9 spells all day, everyday.

The taint system we're discussing is the Heroes of Horror taint system. Does the Unearthed Arcana taint system grant bonus feats?

[Necroticplague]

The taint system we're discussing is the Heroes of Horror taint system. Does the Unearthed Arcana taint system grant bonus feats?

Um, Tainted Scholar is a HoH prestige class, using the HoH taint system. I'm not sure how UAs taint system is relevant.

[Extra Anchovies]

Um, Tainted Scholar is a HoH prestige class, using the HoH taint system. I'm not sure how UAs taint system is relevant.

He also mentioned the tainted sorcerer (Unearthed Arcana). I should have made it clear that I was referencing that in particular.