So... How insane is Shadowcraft Mage at lower levels?

[danielxcutter]

Note: This is mostly about the Wizard(Illusionist)/Shadowcraft Mage type, since Sorcerers and Beguilers have spontanous casting.

It doesn't take much looking at Shadowcraft Mage to see just how broken it can be, especially with some tricks like taking Arcane Disciple (luck) to cast Shadow Miracles at 100% quasireality.

But what about at lower levels? I mean, yeah, using one spell to more or less duplicate the spontanous casting of the Sorcerer... as a Wizard, is still really broken. But quasireality doesn't hit 100% until you get 9ths, and since constructs and undead don't have enough of a mind to believe in illusions they could be a huge weakness to low-level Shadowcraft Mages, since you'll mostly be preparing figment spells.

Well... maybe not. After all, there are still good spells in the other schools, and even if you're a specialist, Conjuration(for the Teleportation subschool), Abjuration(Dispel Magic and Greater Magic. 'Nuff said.), and Divination(Three words: scry-and-die. I wouldn't give this up even if I could.) probably won't be your banned schools.

But still, won't you be at a huge disadvantage if your enemy is immune to illusions and the quasireality of your Shadow Illusion spells isn't that high yet? Sure, a full caster will be powerful in any situation, but if you didn't prepare any "real" Evocation or Conjuration spells, then it's going to really suck(albeit much less than a normal Illusionist).

[MesiDoomstalker]

Shadowcraft Mage is a great class and gets broken when you start stacking Metamagic (with reducers) onto Silent Image and when quasirealtiy reaches and exceeds 100%. At low level, it'll struggle to pull these tricks off. It won't have enough feats to do crazy Metamagic, it's spell level (and class level) isn't high enough to hit large percentages. Yes, a Shadowcraft Mage will have greater flexibility than an equal level Wizard, but will suffer effectiveness for flexibility. Depending on the exact level your talking and how much optmization involved, a low level Shadowcraft Mage won't be terribly more powerful or even that more flexible than an equal level Wizard.

[Malroth]

they're pretty crappy damage dealers early on but you're wrong about mindless creatures being too dumb to believe illusions, mindless creatures automaticaly believe anything they can sense so always react to illusions as if they were real.

[danielxcutter]

they're pretty crappy damage dealers early on but you're wrong about mindless creatures being too dumb to believe illusions, mindless creatures automaticaly believe anything they can sense so always react to illusions as if they were real.

Eh, must have gotten confused. :smallannoyed:

[Rebel7284]

How early are we talking here?

Cleric 3/Shadowcraft Mage 3 with Divine Metamagic:Heighten Spell is probably too powerful for many parties even if the limited turn undead only gives a single 8th level spell per day.

Barring early entry abuse, Shadowcraft Mage is still a full casting class. You can do anything that a regular wizard (or illusion focused cleric) can do. If the situation doesn't call for any conjuration/evocation spells, you don't actually have to prepare any silent images. It's pretty much an all upsides class. Whether that's too powerful for a particular group will depend on a bunch of factors.

Also, Shadow Conjuration/Evocation has some weird corner cases that the DM needs to rule on which will affect the power of the class.
- Do you automatically disbelief your own spells? If you do, that's a problem for many of them.
- What does it mean to interact with an disbelief something like a 50% real mage armor? What about 80% real contingency?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think, as long as you don't allow Shadow Miracles or metamagic reducers letting the ScM (or anyone) from ending up with a negative spell level adjustment, they're really not bad at all, even at higher levels. EDIT: Or early entry abuse
I've played them before, both in the build up and early levels from ECL 3-10, and in a short high level game where we were ~ ECL 14 and I had the whole class already. In my experience, they're basically the jack of all trades of the primary casters. They have a lot of options for what to cast on the fly (assuming you were smart and chose a build that let you spont. convert spells into Silent Image and took Rapid Casting or such to metamagic them w/o increased cast time), but none of those options are really much better than what another caster could do, and often are weaker.

Specifically, you can do the following:
- Summoning: oooh....scary (sarcasm), and that's for the ones you're getting full reality on. With none of the buffs a specialized summoner like Malconvoker gets
- Blasting spells: Even less troubling. I was actually in a party in the high level game w/ a blaster sorc who had arcane thesis on scorching ray and wings of flurry. He did far more damage than me.
- Nondamaging evocations: These aren't nearly as good for you as they are in their original form because of the shadow evocation clause ("Nondamaging effects have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them. Against disbelievers, they have no effect."). This means no matter how "real" it is, every single such spell of yours does absolutely nothing if they save.
- Creation spells: This of course is the stuff you care about, they're the best combat spells in the game. Of course, that means other casters can just as easily specialize in them w/ spell focus and such already, and probably are doing so. And you're forfeiting the biggest attraction of these spells...yours have SR!

So, I never found ScM to actually be that overpowered compared to other decently built mages. I never used Shadow Miracles or insane metamagic reduction cheese, either, though. I guess Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis + Planar Bubble for relatively inepensive permanent Maximize is pretty strong, but mostly just affects blasting spells. And I'd be hesitant to take away this combo, as without it...ScM is screwed when traveling outside of the Material, Shadow, Ethereal, or Astral planes (as Plane of Shadow does not border any others and thus you lose access to all shadow spells).
I guess if you're getting like 150% "real" spells for more effect, that can be good. But that's only very high level spell slots and requires a lot of powergaming to manage. Me? I try to make a common sense compromise w/ my DM when playing a ScM: Shadow spells can never be more than 100% real, BUT...any that are 100% real ditch that annoying shadow evocation clause.

[Jack_Simth]

they're pretty crappy damage dealers early on but you're wrong about mindless creatures being too dumb to believe illusions, mindless creatures automaticaly believe anything they can sense so always react to illusions as if they were real.

constructs and undead don't have enough of a mind to believe in illusions
Citation, please? For both of you, I mean. Objects always save... but neither undead nor constructs are objects in the game sense. Shadow illusions do in fact affect objects (just not as well), so neither has immunity. Likewise, Shadow illusions aren't mind-affecting (nor are regular illusions) so they're not immune that way.

From the other perspective, though, nothing about mindlessness, the undead type, nor the construct type says it'll always fall for illusions. Sure, they maybe can't decide to go poke the illusion with a stick to see if it's solid, but if they interact with the illusion they get a save just like everything else (so an illusion of, say, a giant wall of honey over a wall of stone may draw the beast over to it, but when it goes to lick the wall, it tastes stone).

Do either of you have a citation that states that the standard rules don't apply? I know there were some interesting things in that regard prior to 3.5....

[danielxcutter]

Citation, please? For both of you, I mean. Objects always save... but neither undead nor constructs are objects in the game sense. Shadow illusions do in fact affect objects (just not as well), so neither has immunity. Likewise, Shadow illusions aren't mind-affecting (nor are regular illusions) so they're not immune that way.

From the other perspective, though, nothing about mindlessness, the undead type, nor the construct type says it'll always fall for illusions. Sure, they maybe can't decide to go poke the illusion with a stick to see if it's solid, but if they interact with the illusion they get a save just like everything else (so an illusion of, say, a giant wall of honey over a wall of stone may draw the beast over to it, but when it goes to lick the wall, it tastes stone).

Do either of you have a citation that states that the standard rules don't apply? I know there were some interesting things in that regard prior to 3.5....

Eh, just got it confused with the part about mind-affecting ones. Shadow spells don't fall into that category, right?

[Necroticplague]

Eh, just got it confused with the part about mind-affecting ones. Shadow spells don't fall into that category, right?

Nope. Shadow spells don't have the [mind effecting] descriptor, and their immunity to saves that don't effect objects only extends to FORT saves.

Personally, I find the greatest use of the SCM's abilities to be making stuff. You can always fail your saves intentionally so you're effected by the stuff normally, so you can use it to make all matter of food, alchemical items, and dungeon features for you to use on yourself. Like say, a bridge (for gaps), flight of stairs (for heights), elevated platform (for avoiding floor-based traps), antitoxin, torch, ect.

[OldTrees1]

The Residual Magic [Tactical] feat only becomes available at 9th (Spellcraft 12 ranks) and thus using Lingering Metamagic to increase the number of effectively high level spell slots is capped to 9th+ level.


Lingering Metamagic: If you cast a spell affected by one or more metamagic feats, and then cast the same spell in the next round, you can apply any one of the metamagic effects from the first casting to the second casting, but without any change to the spell's level. The second spell doesn't count as being affected by a metamagic feat for the purpose of this benefit (that is, it doesn't entitle you to apply the metamagic feat to a spell you might cast in the following round).