Shadow Magic

[Solo]

Yeah, you could play a Shadowcaster. Alternatively, you can ignore the existence of that sad little class and actually play something worthwhile, like the Truenamer.

The Truenamer, when optimized, is a solid Tier 4 (sometimes even 3). It's not really as terrible as you make it out to be, it was just written by idiots.

Why do you think I'm being sarcastic?

[kurashu]

Yeah, you could play a Shadowcaster. Alternatively, you can ignore the existence of that sad little class and actually play something worthwhile, like the Truenamer.

The Truenamer, when optimized, is a solid Tier 4 (sometimes even 3). It's not really as terrible as you make it out to be, it was just written by idiots.

Why do you think I'm being sarcastic?

A. Black Mage wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
B. You're Solo
C. Truenamer.

[gorfnad]

I would really like to see this handbook completed.

[Amechra]

I'll get around to it eventually.

Actually, I'll probably review Apprentice Mysteries, and will go ahead and edit the Fundamentals to add on criticism/advice from people in the thread.

[jameswilliamogle]

One thing the old handbook stated was actually wrong: you do not need to have 2 mysteries of each lower level to gain the next highest one every time.  A careful recent reading of the book clearly says that this is the case only when within the 3 categories (apprentice, novice, whatever-its-called).  So you don't need 2 level 3 mysteries for L4 mysteries to be learned, and same for L7 mysteries.

This only affects a few types of builds, but still is significant (a lot of builds which I've seen only focus on the debilitating and crowd control effects, which are L1-L2 primarily in the novice mysteries).

[Tenebrus]

Like many people, I love the Shadowcaster for the style and flavor of the class.  Like many people, I find the class underpowered.  Like many people, I want to restore the $38 I spent on Tome of Magic to some kind of usefulness. 

If anyone can help, I have re-interpreted the Shadowcaster based on the Dread Warlock.  The SC gets all the mysteries of a given level when s/he qualifies (1st, 4th, 6th, etc.) like the Dread Necromancer, Warmage, Beguiler, etc. since this seems to be a focused area of casting just like the classes mentioned previously.  I am using Charisma only as the casting stat, since this class isn't strong enough to need a split stat to control it.  Like the classes I mentioned, these Shadowcasters (ver 2.0?  3.0 since the author's fixes?) do not need to prepare spells ahead of time.

I could use help on the specials per level.  I personally think the later 3.5 classes get too much, and that "dead levels" are part of the game.  Nonetheless, here's where I've been going with this.

LVL  SPECIAL
1    Natural Caster, Rebuke Shadows
2    Umbral Body: Darkvision 30; Bonus Metashadow Feat
3    DR 1/-, Cold Resistance 3
4    Familiar
5   - - -
6   DR 2, Cold Resistance 6, Bonus MS feat
7   Umbral Body: Eat 1/day, +4 vs. poison
8   Shadow Form 1/day
9   DR 4/-, Cold resistance 9
10  Bonus MS feat
11 Shadow Form 2/day
12 DR 6/-, Cold resistance 12, Umbral Body: DV 120, Sleep 1 hr/night
13  - - -
14 Bonus MS feat, Shadow Form 3/day
15  DR 8/-, Cold resistance 15
16  Umbral Body: DV 180; no longer breathes
17  Shadow Form 4/day
18  Bonus MS feat, DR 10/-
19  - - -
20  Shadow Form at will

Any thoughts from the veterans out there?