Simple RAW for 3.5: 38 pages, and I still don't know how to play D&D

[Vaern]

Q81.e



I'll preface by saying please do not argue raw vs rai of luck arcane disciple. or any nuance there in of that specific part. I've seen the arguments, its an issue of semantics, really, that is best discussed in its own thread and not here.

shadowcraft mage, sanctum, and earth spell, luck arcane disciple trick to cast miracle

the combination is that shadow craft make can use specific types of spells to copy any evocation spells of 1 level lower then the spell used.
sanctum raises spell level by 1. Earth spell again raises that by 1.
I cant remember which one it is, but one of this caps at 9th level, so the idea is you enhance a spell to 8, then either sanctum or earth spell raises it to 9 (I think sanctum is the one thats capped) then the other one raises it to 10. technically you can just enhance and earth spell if you already have 9th level slots but sanctum has other benefits like that you can do wish (or miracle) with an 8th level spell slot.

Miracle and wish are 9th level spells, it is seen then that miracle allows you to cast cleric spell of 8th level or lower (or any spell 7th level or lower).
Wish does the same thing as miracle, just its 8th level of lower wiz/sor spells. And wish has a minimum gp/xp cost no matter how you use it, miracle tends to be more desired because no minimum and it branches the shadow mage into a new caster list.

So you boost the spell that becomes shadow evocation to level 10... allowing you to cast an evocation spell of up to level 9 (such as miracle (or wish)).

The only RAW vs RAI semantics issue I could see to argue with it is earth spell. Its description is prefaced by saying that it enhances the effects of heighten spell, but it then doesn't specify that a spell's level has to be increased specifically by the heighten spell feat, so there could be a bit of argument to be had as to whether enhancing it with sanctum spell will have an effect. Even then, heighten spell is a prerequisite for earth spell so I'm assuming you're just heightening, say, a silent image to 8th or 9th level which would allow the full cheese to work anyway. I only mention this because someone in another thread mentioned combining sactum spell with earth spell to boost something's level by 2.

Anyway, if your DM has decided that Miracle is a valid sor/wiz spell for your character then yes, you should be able to cheese a level 10+ spell slot to shadow cast it like this.
It would not work for Wish, though, as Wish is a universal spell. It does not belong to any school of magic, and is therefore not a valid target for an ability that can only mimic specific school.
Whether you can then metamagic a spell that's cast via Miracle, though? I don't know if that's normally something that you can do, and I don't see why shadow casting the spell should have an impact on whether you could do that.