Truenamer/Shadowcaster gestalt

[Grim Reader]

"We hear the echoes of the first words spoken, the syllables that rent the world from void. A language that is older than voices and time. We shape the echoes and the shadows of the long-gone words of creation. We speak in whispers and walk in the dusk on the edges of reality, for our words have the weight of eternity."

Fluff: Duskwhisperers study what they believe to be the words by which the universe was created and shaped. The words of God can never be completely silenced, and sometimes a syllable can be discerned in the depths of shadow. But mortals can only bear a faint derivative of such power, shadows and faint echoes. They speak in whispers, for their words warp the world around them, and would break lesser minds. They often try to rest lightly on the world and walk the edge between the world and shadow.

Crunch: This is a gestalt between Truenamers and Shadowcasters.

How would it play? Im not excessively familiar with either class beyond forum writings.

[Flickerdart]

The rule of thumb is that a successful gestalt class has an active side and a passive side. Both truenamers and shadowcasters are active classes, so your effectiveness is not increased because you don't have enough actions to cast a mystery and utter in the same round.

Aside from Intelligence synergy, there's no advantage to this pairing.

[Grim Reader]

I was thinking more along the lines of the Shadowcaster running out of steam far quicker than the Truenamer, as well as having more direct attack and some defense options, whereas the Truenamer does buffs and heals.

Thought it might result in a package that can contribute in a large number of situations without hitting the top tiers.

[FearlessGnome]

Alright, this can be done. Breathe, people, we mustn't scream at OP here.

Step 1: What is everyone else playing? You can have fun with this build, but know that both your classes are relatively weak, and if everyone else is picking classes that synergize or are strong on their own, you'll fall behind. In addition, Truenamer gets weaker every level (because Truename checks increase in difficulty based on your level) while Shadowcaster gets a bump at levels 7 and 13 and then get gradually weaker on every other level (because you have very few castings per day, and much fewer spells to choose between than a Sorcerer has).

I have never looked into the Truenamer much, so my advice will focus mostly on the Shadowcaster.

Step 2: This is the Author's own proposed Fix for the Shadowcaster class. Read it. Ask your DM for it. If your DM is familiar with the class, they will allow it. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?184955-Shadowcaster-fixes-by-Mouseferatu)

Step 3: There are, in fact, ways to get more spells known as a Shadowcaster. You can get a (better) Familiar at third level, which qualifies you to take a Bloodline feat from Dragon Compendium. Your DM will very likely rule that you don't get bonus feats or faster access to higher level spells based on these spells, so just accept that. Even so, the extra spells from a Bloodline feat will expand your Mysteries/day by 50%. I'd also ask if you can get Knowstones for Mysteries for the same reason, but by RAW there are no such things.

Step 4: The Dark Reflections path is your friend, starting at level 7. If your DM allows retraining (and depending on starting level), Shadow Evocation and later Greater Shadow Evocation are both worth taking Favoured Mystery for, especially when you hit level 13 and can make them Supernatural for free Heighten and to bypass Spell Resistance.

At higher levels, as much fun as it would be, don't take Black Labyrinth. Enemies will very quickly start being prepared to handle it, and any commoners caught in the one mile radius will starve to death because they can't find their pantries in the more than a week your labyrinth lasts.

Lastly, on Truenamer, you will need to really pump up that Truenaming check. As much as an Item Familiar is generally frowned up around here, I think we'd all look the other way for a Truenamer who took one.

[Grim Reader]

I think I may have lead you into a misapprehension here. I'm not thinking about playing the gestalt, I am musing generally about adding more variety to the magic-using classes. And I don't really have anyone offline to run these ideas by.

My thought was simply that both classes are arcaneish base classes that are poor. Shadowcaster is said to be nearly unplayable at lower levels without the fix, and Truenamer usefulness dies a slow death as it advances in level. My though was that a gestalt may be about as playable as an out-of-the-box Bard.

[Flickerdart]

My thought was simply that both classes are arcaneish base classes that are poor. Shadowcaster is said to be nearly unplayable at lower levels without the fix, and Truenamer usefulness dies a slow death as it advances in level. My though was that a gestalt may be about as playable as an out-of-the-box Bard.
Truenamer sucks at high levels, but it also sucks at low levels. I'd say that the tier of the gestalt doesn't actually budge from where Shadowcaster already is, and if given the choice, I would pick Bard every time.

[Meianleader]

It'd definitely be cool & unique, with all the fancy things both classes have that others don't. With the 4 skill points, the shadowcaster might actually have hide & move silently & I like the idea of lurking around in darkness & silence whispering at people violently, perhaps with assassin's stance & craven
With heavy optimization on the truespeak check (which is nearly required to play the class...) you could be doing shadowcaster things & swift action utterances
As a truenamer, you could also finally use some utterances on yourself, like the one that increases caster level & there's alright synergy in that both classes have many spell-like abilities
As for overall effectiveness? Ehh...in my group where I've played both these classes, i need to use a lot of resources to keep up, resources that you couldn't do for both classes at the same time, but it'd definitely be fun to play I think

[MeeposFire]

If you are trying to make a way to make a better truenamer and a better shadow caster I think it would be better to keep them separate and boost both.

Personally I do not really bother with the idea of the shadow caster since I do not feel it is different enough mechanically from other casters. Yes they have some differences that make them different but they are not THAT different. Give them casting similar to the beguiler and warmage but with the mysteries and allow them to take thematic spells from the wizard list once every so often and it could work fine. Makes it less mechanically distinct (though you could keep a variation of spells becoming spell likes and then supernatural if you want) but brings it up closer to par and keeps the funnish flavor of the class.

Truenamer on the other hand would probably do better as a warlock type class. Keep the truespeak skill and use it so a character can add effects to the basic utterance (and to use map and item utterances later on) otherwise have the utterances of the mind be used like an invocation (at will). They have a decent skill list and if you add a few more passive abilities and some things like item creation the ability to use a standard utterance and follow up with a likely quickened one can be a decent total effect.

[Troacctid]

It's a poor fix because combining the two classes undermines the aesthetic of both of them.