Hello everyone! I have another series of questions to bother you about.
So I am rolling up a new character coming into a campaign at level 4. I have a few ideas about what I want to do, and I need a bit of advice from you guys, because I just cant make up my mind it seems.
The party Im coming into has no primary casters at all (there were a hilarious amount of rangers and a bard), so Im figuring I should try to even things out. Also, with the recent inclusion of shadow magic to the campain, plus the fact that Ive never played a character with shadow magic, Id like to see if I could play a shadow magic using character.
I was looking at two prestige classses: Osteomancer(from dragon magazine 317) and Geomancer (from CD I believe). My initial ambitions told me to try to take both(as my dm said I could substitute the arcane req of geomance for shadow magic) , but as I look at it, it sems somewhat unreasonable.
Now, if I did do Osteomancer, I would like to play it as a sneaky caster type of guy. The whole using the natural weapons he gets from his bones plus his spells to fight seems like it would be alot of fun.I was thinking, If I did this, I would do Cleric 5/ Shadowcaster 1 to meet the prereq, jump into the class, and slowly swap out my cleric levels for Shadowcaster levels as I went along, taking Osteomancer all the way.
Also, in my DMs campaign, he has switched around the pantheon a bunch, and now Palor is a god followed by few, and is considered to be a cultist religion. Seeing as we have no healing, I guess I could always default to that, because it seems like it would be fairly fun to play in this setting.
So now, I come to you. Any ideas for a Shadowcaster/Osteomancer, Shadowcaster/Geomancer, or Shadowcaster / Cleric build? Any of these would be additions into the party. If not I might just play a cleric of Palor or something. Sorry for being so vauge; Ive done a bunch of reasearch and have formed an opinion, I just wanted to see if I could get another. Thank you in advance.
Yeah, I know its not absolutely optimized. Im just asking for ideas in terms of these classes. If everything I come up with really is just that terrible I wont play it. Nothing wrong with going for a little flavor every once in a while.
(Sub-)Race(s): (Whisper (RoS) or Half (RoA)) Gnome, (Stonehunter), Base class(es): (Focused) Gnome Illusionist (racial substitution level(s) (RSL), RoS) (or (Focused) Conjurer, more general), Bard, Prestige class(es): Shadowcraft Mage (RoS), Shadowcrafter (Und, p.43), Shadow Adept (PG72), Master Specialist (CM 70), Nightmare Spinner (CM 74), Mindbender (CAr 54), Feats: Enhanced Shadow Reality (Dragon Magazine), Spell Focus (Illusion), Shadow Weave Magic, Invisible Spell &/or Deceptive Spell (Cityscape), Alternate class features: Shadow Shaper, Illusion Mastery, Gnome cantrips (RSL), Magically Adept (Dragon Magazine, No Light from BoVD), School Mastery (Illusion, Dragon Magazine), Template(s): Dark (Tome of Magic), Item(s): Rod of Embassy (A&E), Ring of the Darkhidden (MIC), (Continuous) Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis (CoUM, ToM),
Powerful, sneaky, and shadowy [caster].
[-0800 07/02/2010 Sun 14:57:58] Earliest entry (entering the ScM PrC at level 2) means nabbing the "Shadow Illusion"-CF (the ascendant's apple) at level 4.
However, I'm all for delving into the depths of unknown "mysteries" (pun-intended) of DND, especially to yield results for the diffusion of optimization information, so play a pure Shadowcaster. One can never know until one tries (it) oneself.
(Sub-)Race(s): (Whisper (RoS) or Half (RoA)) Gnome, (Stonehunter), Base class(es): (Focused) Gnome Illusionist (racial substitution level(s) (RSL), RoS) (or (Focused) Conjurer, more general), Bard, Prestige class(es): Shadowcraft Mage (RoS), Shadowcrafter (Und, p.43), Shadow Adept (PG72), Master Specialist (CM 70), Nightmare Spinner (CM 74), Mindbender (CAr 54), Feats: Enhanced Shadow Reality (Dragon Magazine), Spell Focus (Illusion), Shadow Weave Magic, Invisible Spell &/or Deceptive Spell (Cityscape), Alternate class features: Shadow Shaper, Illusion Mastery, Gnome cantrips (RSL), Magically Adept (Dragon Magazine, No Light from BoVD), School Mastery (Illusion, Dragon Magazine), Template(s): Dark (Tome of Magic), Item(s): Rod of Embassy (A&E), Ring of the Darkhidden (MIC),
Powerful and shadowy [caster].
[-0800 07/02/2010 Sun 14:57:58] Earliest entry (entering the ScM PrC at level 2) means nabbing the "Shadow Illusion"-CF at level 4.
However, I'm all for delving into the depths of unknown "mysteries" (pun-intended) of DND, especially to yield results for the diffusion of optimization information, so play a pure Shadowcaster. One can never know until one tries (it) oneself.
Yeah, thats what I was looking at. Unless I do like, Shadowcaster into a shadow magic PrC, I will probably not play a Shadowcaster. What Im looking at right now is probably Cleric/Geomancer (full progession :D) or maybe Cleric/Osteomancer.
I might look into some other cool Cleric PrCs, just to see what I find.
Don't know much about the Geomancer, but as long as it has more spellcasting progression/advancement than the Osteomancer, it'd be recommended.
Its full progression, but you have to have 2nd level arcane and divine, which shouldnt be too hard. They definately get some reallyt interesting abilities, like being able to swap around mechanics for the two different spellcasting types they have (Like they can cast arcane spells in full armor by making them have no spell failure like divine spells); I think it might be really cool to see where that goes.
Im reading up on all the things you suggested right now, I am definately considering them, thanks alot. What is bone knight btw?
Yeah, I was xcited for the idea of a shadow caster RP wise, but the more and more I read about them, the more and more I was against playing them. Our party really doesnt need a **** caster atm.
