Remaking the Shadowcaster?

[StevenC21]

Ah, the Shadowcaster. Such a cool idea. Such a sad, bad execution.

Are there any ways I might salvage it for a player of mine, so they can have the cool class, and not be throwing his character away?

[DrMotives]

This post is actually the original author, of his suggested fixes.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?184955-Shadowcaster-fixes-by-Mouseferatu&p=3273239&viewfull=1#post3273239

[StevenC21]

I am aware of that, yes. It is very good.

Are there any other ideas the community has?

[Eldan]

I think the question we need to start at is... why?

It's a very cool fluff idea, I will give you that. But I think the first consideration would be: why is this a new magic system? Wouldn't it also be perfectly well served as being a variant arcane caster class with a list of new spells?

I'm not sure it's mechanically distinct enough to be its own class, unlike the binder. Rewriting it as "A wizard/sorcerer variant where you only get Illusion and one other school of magic, but at higher levels, your lower level spells gain various bonuses like being quicker to cast and harder to resist" would already be mostly there.

[StevenC21]

Well, for one, some of us don't like refluffing stuff when a class already exists, bad or not. Especially when said class has real potential to become good.

More importantly, the Shadowcaster has many unique mysteries. They're so much more than just an Illusion Sorceror.

[Eldan]

I mean, yes. They do have a lot of unique mysteries and I love those. But my question is, what makes htem more distinct than just more focused variant spell list, like the druid list to the cleric list.

TO make this clear: I love the Shadowcaster. I want to see it prosper. But I also think that it would kind of have to be rebuilt from the ground up, so we need to start at the absolute basics.

So, what unique thing does the shadowcaster do that no other class out there does?

[Mr Adventurer]

So, what unique thing does the shadowcaster do that no other class out there does?

Could you expand a little bit on what you mean by this question? Because on the face of it, it doesn't seem that useful - I can't think of any feature a base class has that another class doesn't, except for facile ones (only the Ninja has Sudden Strike - but Sneak Attack is almost identical), Skirmish, and Wild Shape. Oh, Breath Effects, I guess. If you look at features in terms of theme, classes start to look even closer to each other.

[Eldan]

I mean, I already think a lot of things that are classes in 3.5 wouldn't necessarily have to be classes. Ninja is a good example, Samurai even more so.

It doesn't have to be totally unique, but a class needs a real shtick, I think. Yes, many classes have spellcasting, but a wizard casts differently from a sorcerer, casts differently from a cleric (who also has armor and turn undead). Even the ninja has at least an ability to turn invisible, which is fairly unique for a fighting class, at least, even if an Arcane Trickster probably does the same thing much better.

What makes a Shadowcaster, is what I mean, I suppose. If you have to sum up in one sentence what the Shadowcaster is, what is it?

[pabelfly]

This post is actually the original author, of his suggested fixes.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?184955-Shadowcaster-fixes-by-Mouseferatu&p=3273239&viewfull=1#post3273239

Reading through that thread, found this web enhancement which I thought worth adding:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070307a

[Piggy Knowles]

I've played two shadowcasters and written a handbook on them, and absolutely love the class. That said, it definitely is very sad.

Any suggested fix to the shadowcaster needs to address how terrible its early levels are. There are three main issues:


Low number of mysteries per day, especially at the lowest levels. Until level 7, you know one mystery per day per level. If you're starting at level one, that means you get one first level mystery and then... I guess you can plink away with a crossbow or arrow of dusk? A generalist wizard will have two 1st-level spells, while a specialist will have three. You have... one. So for probably something like the first three or four sessions, you're doing almost nothing.
Low impact on low level mysteries. Low level mysteries just aren't that powerful. You're not going to have encounter-ending options like sleep or gamechanging BFC/debuffs like grease or powerful buff spells like enlarge person. Instead, you can... make difficult terrain in a small patch of land. Or do a small amount of nonlethal damage with a touch attack and make someone save versus fatigue. Or see around corners for a while. And those are the GOOD options. Let's not even get started on some of the others.
A system that forces you to take suboptimal mysteries. The path system is neat, but the fact that many of the more interesting and powerful mysteries are gated behind mediocre or outright bad mysteries that come before it in a path feels like a real slap in the face when you're level 2 and that mystery literally represents 50% of your daily utility for several sessions. If you want something cool like flicker, you've got to suck it up and take voice of shadow and congress of shadows at a point in your progression when you really really could use better options.


After level 7, it's not so bad. Your uses per day of apprentice mysteries suddenly double, and there are some great options as far as initiate mysteries go. But those first half-dozen levels are a real meatgrinder.

Anyhow, I've given a lot of thought as to how I'd fix things if anyone ever wanted to play a shadowcaster in one of my campaigns, and this is what I think I'd do:


Make fundamentals at-will from the get-go. You eventually get fundamentals at-will anyhow, so why not bump it up a bit? Making these at-will can be a huge boon at low levels. Arrow of dusk does nonlethal damage, but it hits slightly harder than a crossbow and it's a touch attack, letting you play baby warlock. Black candle gives you darkness or light as needed. Caul of shadow suddenly becomes pretty decent right off the bat, since you can keep refreshing it to keep your AC up. And since you're supposed to be a sneaky mage, you can now spam sight obscured right from level one. Nothing here is gamebreaking, but it'll provide a lot more utility and keep you from running out of things to do.
Introduce Ari Marmell's proposed rules about mystery selection and bonus mysteries. The creator of the class suggested that shadowcasters should get bonus mysteries per day from a high Charisma like a sorcerer, and that instead of requiring you to pick up every mystery in a path, you are allowed to hop around between paths, but you receive a bonus feat for every "completed" path. This way there is still encouragement for you to stick it out to the end of a path, but you're not forced to pick underwhelming mysteries just to gain access to cool stuff later.
Make shadowcasters Cha- or Int-SAD. This one isn't actually required to make shadowcasters playable, since the dual stat casting is not at all what holds them back, but it's nice. Obviously Int-SAD is better, but really just picking one and sticking to it would be nice.
Give sleight of hand and listen as class skills, and increase skill points to 4/level. Seriously, multiple mysteries that boost sleight of hand are just screaming out for getting it as a class skill. And spot without listen is almost as annoying as the bard, who gets listen but not spot.
Allow mysteries cast as spells to ignore ASF for light armor. Sure, a good chunk of your mysteries will be SLAs or Supernatural and won't care about casting in armor, but that's kind of hard to take advantage of when all your highest level mysteries are cast as spells and therefore keep you out of armor. Just light armor is fine, you probably won't want more than that anyhow since it screws with your stealth.


Honestly just do that and I'd play a shadowcaster again in a heartbeat, even at low levels. They still won't be anywhere near as gamechanging as a moderately optimized wizard, but they'll at least be decent.

[Troacctid]

Make mysteries per encounter instead of per day.

[StevenC21]

Aaaaaaaaand I think that's exactly what I want to do.

Thank you.

Do you think that should also apply to Metashadow feats?

[jedipilot24]

Aaaaaaaaand I think that's exactly what I want to do.

Thank you.

Do you think that should also apply to Metashadow feats?

The Recharge Magic Shadowcaster is the fix that I prefer for the class:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7859199&postcount=152

It uses an existing variant rule set, and whereas it would significantly unbalance standard spellcasters, the Shadowcaster is already severely underpowered and so Recharge Magic merely gives it a competitive boost. I've tested it out, and it works beautifully.

[MisterKaws]

My personal fix when I was DMing and a player asked for a shadowcaster was simply changing the mysteries per day progression from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, letting them take mysteries out of order, but giving them feats for finishing a path and making them SAD(as Mouseferatu recommended). He ended up not playing it, because that particular table did not last long. DMing for twelve when most were not interested and just randomly called by a more enthusiastic player didn't go well.


The Recharge Magic Shadowcaster is the fix that I prefer for the class:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7859199&postcount=152

It uses an existing variant rule set, and whereas it would significantly unbalance standard spellcasters, the Shadowcaster is already severely underpowered and so Recharge Magic merely gives it a competitive boost. I've tested it out, and it works beautifully.

Good Idea. Might try to test later.

[Segev]

My question for the OP is this: what is it about the Shadowcaster that you (or your player) like? Because there are different ways to answer your question depending on what, specifically, draws you to it.