Ridiculous combinations: Psychic Reformation meets Shadowcaster

[mabriss lethe]

Ok. Here's the deal. What happens, by RAW, if a shadow caster blows all of his uses of a mystery, then uses Psychic Reformation to rewrite his selection of mysteries?

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it looks like the caster would get a fresh batch of uses of any new mysteries because Shadowcaster doesn't use a spell slot mechanic and each use of a mystery is effectively a self contained mini mechanic. It also looks like he couldn't cycle back to spam used ones, but would have to keep picking new mysteries if he wanted to do it again.

An example: Tom the Shadowcaster is progressing through both the Night's Long Fingers and Touch of Twilight paths. He currently knows Umbral Touch and has used it for the day. Through whatever means he uses Psychic Reformation and unlearms Umbral Touch, instead learning Umbral Fist from the NLF path. He should then be able to use Umbral Fist normally, since he hasn't used it today and Shadowcaster lacks the sort of resource management limiters like spell slots or power points that would get used up in another type of caster.

Is this even a remotely good way to do things? Obviously not. It just looks like it's a possible corner case where two completely alien mechanics overlap in an interesting and unintended way.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Yes. Please make that into an Iron Chef build.

[Silva Stormrage]

The only problem with this concept RAW is the line, "Although you do not prepare spells, you must rest for 8 hours and meditate for 15 minutes each day to regain use of mysteries just as a sorcerer or bard must rest and meditate to regain use of spell slots."

"Regain" is kinda weird in this situation though since its the first use of those mysteries. I would generally go with, 1) RAI Obviously not how it is supposed to work. 2) It doesn't really break shadowcaster because its a 10 minute cast time on a non shadowcasting class and Shadowcaster isn't really strong in the first place. 3) As a DM I would probably not allow this to work because of just how weird this interaction is but I don't think it would break anything.

Some kind of gestalt build with psychic reformation + linked power could be interesting as a boss encounter using this trick though.

[mabriss lethe]

The only problem with this concept RAW is the line, "Although you do not prepare spells, you must rest for 8 hours and meditate for 15 minutes each day to regain use of mysteries just as a sorcerer or bard must rest and meditate to regain use of spell slots."

"Regain" is kinda weird in this situation though since its the first use of those mysteries. I would generally go with, 1) RAI Obviously not how it is supposed to work. 2) It doesn't really break shadowcaster because its a 10 minute cast time on a non shadowcasting class and Shadowcaster isn't really strong in the first place. 3) As a DM I would probably not allow this to work because of just how weird this interaction is but I don't think it would break anything.

Some kind of gestalt build with psychic reformation + linked power could be interesting as a boss encounter using this trick though.

The "regain" line is literally what makes it (dys)function, since you aren't regaining a spent mystery, but casting a completely new one that you haven't spent. And it's why if you want to keep (ab)using the loophole you have to select ones you haven't cast that day.

As for RAI and DM Permissibilitiy, that's outside the scope of the exercise, really. I know it a dumb corner case that definitely isn't how anyone intended either the class or the power to function, but it still kind of does due to mechanical inconsistencies between two different optional rule sets. I was mostly highlighting a dysfunction that I don't think anyone has ever pointed out. And while you could possibly spend buttloads of XP to repower a spent shadowcaster and then top back up with a Thought Bottle, It's obviously a really silly way to go about things.

As for getting it working, it can be achieved as an out-of-combat refresh with a single class shadowcaster, but the simplest way will cost you an arm and a leg. Or really just your arm. A kalashtar of 7th+ level with the Kalashtar mindlink feat would have the PP and ML to cast it 1/day via their racial manifesting, and with the warforged arm graft (i forget its name) you can equip warforged power crystals in your glove slot. Power crystals don't allow for augmentation and must be powered by your own reserve or from the reserve granted by Warforged body (not applicable in this case) but PR does all of its work via XP cost which the crystal handles normally. And due to the cross compatibility explained and expanded on in CPsy, all those parts mesh.