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?