Shadow Magic vs. Arcane and Divine

[Maerok]

I've been thinking over the Shadowcaster and its spell progression and I originally thought that it seemed very underpowered. But then just recently I statted out a BBEG, a Shadowcaster 20, and I've change my opinion a bit. I like how there's reasonable control on the number of spells and their access, which requires less bookwork than Wizard. The spell effects seem very potent against concentrated groups of enemies, which is acceptable as I wasn't expecting it to be flashy.

But I haven't played one out yet to see how long those spells/SLAs/SUs will last, and I'm interested if they end up with more or less per day than a Wizard of comparable level.

[Maerok]

Has anyone used shadowcasters?

[TheLogman]

I ran one as a BBEG in my campaign, but he wasn't alone. I gave him two Hobgoblins to help take down the Players though. He was third level, and had the Darkvision one, the Light/Darkness one, and the battle-field control one that deals damage. He was more of a support character, but with the allies he had, he was quite effective. There aren't really that many flashy or damage dealing spells in the lists for Shadowcasters, but if they have minions to support, or are hiding in the darkness, they can be creepy and effective.

[SadisticFishing]

I love the idea of Shadowcasters. Their problem is simple - not enough spells per day. Make a great BBEG, but for a PC? You run out of steam 3-4 times faster than a wizard.

[Alleine]

I was just thinking of making one.
I love the concept and flavor, but I was thinking of how few spells it gets. I don't think it would be bad at all for a level 20 Shadowcaster, considering the chart in ToM is uses per mystery per day, but you could still easily run ut of the spells you need early on.

[String]

One redeeming factor is that if you decide you want more of a particular mystery, you simply take it again. Not as effective as more spells off the bat, but hey; If you want 9/day, be a duskblade.

[Maerok]

Maybe increase the spells per day by one on the table?

[Alleine]

You really don't need to, not if you're going to be specialized in what you do, then you just invest extra mysteries into the same ones.

[Maerok]

Well I guess it's not exactly spells per day; if I read it correctly it says that that's the amount of times per day you can use each of your mysteries of that level.

[Alleine]

Thats exactly it, and you get extra uses by taking the same mystery twice. So as long as you don't care about not having versatility you should be good.

[Fax Celestis]

An alternative fix that I've implemented to some success is as follows:

A Shadowcaster does not have a "uses per mystery per day" table, and instead refreshes mysteries by spending a full round in concentration. Doing so allows them to recover one tier (Apprentice, Initiate, or Master) of mysteries they know.

[Icewalker]

you mean all apprentice, all initiate, or all master? That seems pretty good.

Edit: looking over, you also mean they get each mystery 1/day? Hmm...seems more balanced.

[Fax Celestis]

you mean all apprentice, all initiate, or all master? That seems pretty good.

Edit: looking over, you also mean they get each mystery 1/day? Hmm...seems more balanced.

Exactly. In essence, they act like martial adepts do: they have all their mysteries known as readied mysteries, but cannot use the same mystery twice in a row.

[Lord Tataraus]

I just change "mysteries per day" to "mysteries per encounter".

[Maerok]

Exactly. In essence, they act like martial adepts do: they have all their mysteries known as readied mysteries, but cannot use the same mystery twice in a row.

What do you mean? (I was waiting for you to reply. )

I see shadowcasters as even more self-sufficient than sorcerers because they don't even need to carry materials; I measure that in terms of, "If I were locked in a cell with nothing but clothes, can I still cast my spells?" Yet they're even more limited in spell choice (but cooler, in my opinion), and are double attribute dependent (Int for spell level, Cha for DC).