Shadowcraft Mage Handbook

[Archmage Joda]

Personally, I'm wondering how Kell's getting the ability to cast 18th level spells, which is needed to get a 17th level slot from Extra Slot, and also how he's getting around the XP cost which stays with you for Innate Spell

[KellKheraptis]

Personally, I'm wondering how Kell's getting the ability to cast 18th level spells, which is needed to get a 17th level slot from Extra Slot, and also how he's getting around the XP cost which stays with you for Innate Spell

Well, the 18th level slot is no problem.  DMM:Heighten.  However, having read that myself in CoArc...I need to find a way to heighten a shadow miracle...or more like get a shadow miracle at will.

[Negative Zero]

Personally, I'm wondering how Kell's getting the ability to cast 18th level spells, which is needed to get a 17th level slot from Extra Slot, and also how he's getting around the XP cost which stays with you for Innate Spell

Well, the 18th level slot is no problem.  DMM:Heighten.  However, having read that myself in CoArc...I need to find a way to heighten a shadow miracle...or more like get a shadow miracle at will.

Actually, Heighten caps at 9th.

[snakeman830]

Heighten + Earth Spell can get a spell being the equivalent of a 10th level spell for all level-dependant purposes except it takes a 9th level slot.  Using Silent Image and Shadowcraft Mage, you can replicate any Sorcerer/Wizard Evocation, Conjration (Summoning), and Conjuration (Creation) spell up to 9th level, but you only have the casting time and components of Silent Image.  Using Arcane Disciple (Luck), you get Miracle added to your class spell list (assuming at least a 19 Wis, but that's easy to get).  Since it's an Evocation and now on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list (assuming you are a Sorcerer or Wizard), it's a fair target to mimic with Silent Image.  Since you aren't actually casting Miracle, you don't care about its components (such as the XP cost).

I don't know why Innate Spell is in there, myself.

[Archmage Joda]

The Innate Spell (which was in some way at the center of my earlier queries) was an attempt to get the Miracles at-will, but then hit the snags of heighten capping at 9th level spells, and the problem of the Innate Miracle still costing XP.

Are there any metamagic reducers that work on heighten spell besides Incantatrix 10, Practical Metamagic, and Easy Metamagic?

[Havok4]

Halruaan elder works for reducing the cost of heighten spell by one. Combining all of those methods of cost reduction and earth spell could give you the ability to heighten a spell by one and get an effective +6 to the spell level. But this only works if you are a dragonblooded human so it is not overly useful for a shadowcraft mage except for the non-gnome adaption.

Edit: metamagic school focus works as well. So you could get +7 for a +1 spell level increase.

[KellKheraptis]

The Innate Spell (which was in some way at the center of my earlier queries) was an attempt to get the Miracles at-will, but then hit the snags of heighten capping at 9th level spells, and the problem of the Innate Miracle still costing XP.

Are there any metamagic reducers that work on heighten spell besides Incantatrix 10, Practical Metamagic, and Easy Metamagic?

DMM : Heighten has no such caps, and I beleive is used in PhaedrusXY's Cloistered Cleric SCM?  Or was it the Archivist...I'll have to check page 1.  But anyhow it's used for casting bookoo shadow miracles.  What I wanna know is what happens when you combine SCM with Red Wizard...since by level 10 they can turn cantrips into 9th level spells.  My current UM isn't a SCM, but can do something very similar with HalEld and Dweomerkeeper, but if I can mix RW/SCM, that might be even better.

[PhaedrusXY]

DMM : Heighten has no such caps, and I beleive is used in PhaedrusXY's Cloistered Cleric SCM?  Or was it the Archivist...I'll have to check page 1.  But anyhow it's used for casting bookoo shadow miracles.  What I wanna know is what happens when you combine SCM with Red Wizard...since by level 10 they can turn cantrips into 9th level spells.  My current UM isn't a SCM, but can do something very similar with HalEld and Dweomerkeeper, but if I can mix RW/SCM, that might be even better.

Yes, Heighten does cap at 9th level normally.

A heightened spell has a higher spell level than normal (up to a maximum of 9th level).

Earth Spell can raise it to 10th, but that's about it, AFAIK. Great idea with the Red Wizard, though. I hadn't thought of that one.

[JaronK]

Heighten is indeed capped at 9th level, as per the description of the metamagic feat itself.  This is why Earth Spell is so critical to the build... it allows you to heighten to 10, and thus cast 9th level shadow spells (Shadow Genesis!).

JaronK

[KellKheraptis]

The question then, is how to get a shadow miracle heightened to where we can make it an Innate Shadow Miracle of Doom.  And I just reread your entry Phaedrus, I'd see it more as early entry and early access to higher level spells than hosing the system.  That leaves our Circle Masters, it looks like.  Who all can do Circle Magic?  I know Red Wizard, Halruuan Elder, and Hathran off the top of my head.  There was a feat mentioned in the Red Wizard Handbook too, gonna look into that (divine caster oriented though).  Do circle magic all of once for every spell and power ever at will with 0 XP, and keep the actual spell slots available for nuking, if we can pull it off?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Does Eldritch Corruption stack with normal heighten?

[Archmage Joda]

If it does, would that also enable you to heighten past 9th level, or even the effective 10th level with earth spell?

[Archmage Joda]

A couple questions:

1. Can shadow illusion be used with charged items like staves?

2. Can dual school spells that have evocation or conjuration (creation)/(summoning) as one of their schools be mimicked with shadow illusion?

[snakeman830]

A couple questions:

1. Can shadow illusion be used with charged items like staves?

2. Can dual school spells that have evocation or conjuration (creation)/(summoning) as one of their schools be mimicked with shadow illusion?

I'm no expert, so don't quote me on the first one, but I don't think so.  I'm AFB, so I can't give a good reason at the moment.

#2, though, the answer would be yes.  Those spells are in the necessary schools to mimic.  The fact they also have another school that may or may not be legal is irrelevant.

[Archmage Joda]

Here's something I posted in the dirty trick handbook: Be a shadowcraft mage with either circle magic or epic levels (specifically improved heighten), heighten that silent image so that it counts as an 11th+ level spell.

As I recall (admittedly, I only have the SRD to go by), Epic Spells, for the purposes of things that count on spell level, are 10th level spells, that are also sorted into schools such as Evocation...

[KellKheraptis]

Here's something I posted in the dirty trick handbook: Be a shadowcraft mage with either circle magic or epic levels (specifically improved heighten), heighten that silent image so that it counts as an 11th+ level spell.

As I recall (admittedly, I only have the SRD to go by), Epic Spells, for the purposes of things that count on spell level, are 10th level spells, that are also sorted into schools such as Evocation...

Heh...the Killer Gnome is a better healer than the cleric

[Gnorman]

Heh...the Killer Gnome is a better healer than the cleric

The Killer Gnome is a better anything than anything, basically.

[KellKheraptis]

Heh...the Killer Gnome is a better healer than the cleric

The Killer Gnome is a better anything than anything, basically.

Wait til you see what my Red Wizard can do   Though if I had a way to work it in...I'd try and sneak a changeling into both and add in Recaster...imagine echoing that CL 40 20 die <nasty blasty> over and over and over...hell it would have to echo 5 times to get it down to his ACTUAL CL.

[PhaedrusXY]

Using the non-gnome adaptation, an Illumian with the Improved Sigil (Krau) feat is a nice entry. It could let you replace Earth Spell with a single feat. This assumes that the Improved Sigil (Krau) benefit stacks with a spell that's already Heightened, which I guess is a bit more shaky than Earth Spell. Illumians fit well flavor-wise also, as they have fluff ties to the Plane of Shadow.

[Freshums]

Regarding Cleric Entry,

Cons: Requires the use of an Eberron domain (Shadow) - likely not going to happen except in an Eberron game. Pretty much requires the use of Domain Spontaneity from PHB2 for the Illusion domain.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the need for the Shadow Domain, I'd like to point out that you can get into Shadowcraft Mage by heightening Dark Way (SpC 58), a Cleric 2 spell, as a requirement for the ability to cast a fourth level Shadow Spell.