Gnome Illusionist questions

[Rygel]

Hi,

I'm looking to create a gnome illusionist class for a 3.5 campaign I'll be playing soon. And I have 2 questions: the first is that I've read somewhere that there's a gnomish feat that allows you to concentrate on maintaining a spell as a swift action, but I haven't seen the name of that feat. Does anyone know what it is?

and my second question is, I know about the Shadowcraft Mage PrC, and might go into that (mainly because my party is fairly low magic, and I will be playing a control mage type wizard, however wouldn't mind having the flexibility and RP potential of the shadow illusions), but does anyone know of any class that can actually make their illusions themselves semi-real/tangible? (such as create a ladder and then proceed to climb it, or create an illusionary wall that is tangible/semi-tangible).

I'm not trying to min/max my character by any means, I just want to develop a really fun character to play that's outside my norm of, skill-monkey or dex based DPS monster.

[Eloel]

Shadow Conjuration, willingly fail your save vs illusion, proceed to climb it because it's at 100% effect to you.

[Deophaun]

Shadow Conjuration, willingly fail your save vs illusion, proceed to climb it because it's at 100% effect to you.
If you could do this, (what Conjuration spell are you immitating here?), you would need to take the chains of disbelief ACF for this to work. As it is, if you have proof that an illusion isn't real, you automatically disbelieve it without a save. Chains of disbelief, however, still requires a save even if given proof, although at a -10 to the DC. But hey, you can still willfully choose to fail even ridiculously low saves, so it's all good.

[Rygel]

Shadow Conjuration, willingly fail your save vs illusion, proceed to climb it because it's at 100% effect to you.

I didn't think Shadow Conjuration (or the Shadow Illusions that work like Shadow Conjuration from the Shadowcraft Mage) worked like that, I thought you had to mimic an actual Conjuration school spell, and it didn't have a "make my illusion semi-tangible" portion (since it has to actually be a conjuration spell you pick from)