Author Topic: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?  (Read 4739 times)

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Dragonamedrake

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Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« on: August 15, 2010, 02:52:17 AM »
Alright so I'm trying for early entry into Shadowcraft Mage. Does the following work

Requirements
Race: Gnome.
Skills: Bluff 4 ranks, Hide 4 ranks.
Feats: Spell Focus (illusion).
Spells: Able to cast at least three illusion spells, including at least one shadow spell of 4th level or higher.

Stonehunter Gnome
6 Flaws

1st lvl: Heighten Spell, Earth Sense, Earth Spell, Easy Meta magic(Heighten), Practical Meta magic(Heighten), Spell focus Illusion, Apprentice (criminal)

1st lvl Gnome Illusionist specialist (UA variant) Wizard w/Gnome Illusionist Racial Sub lvl
Silent Image = 0 Level Spell
Heighten Silent Image to 4th level - 1st +1 from Earth Spell, +1 Easy Meta magic, +1 Practical Meta magic
You heighten a silent image to 3rd lvl using a 1st lvl slot because of the Easy Meta and Practical Meta... Because of Earth spell it considered a 4th lvl spell.

UA Illusion variant gives Hide in class
Apprentice (criminal) gives Bluff in class
Gnome Illusionist sub lvl gives Silent image as a 0 lvl spell.

I believe this works... that would qualify me for Shadow Craft Mage at 1st lvl.

If I waited until 3rd lvl I would only need 4 flaws instead of 6... I wouldn't need Practical Meta or Dragonborn... and I would have an extra Feat slot.

What do you think... does this work? I believe that a combo like this could be used for Beguiler at 3rd lvl for early entry also.


Benly

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2010, 03:03:01 AM »
The text "A player may select up to two flaws when creating a character." is the one that jumps out at me as severely limiting a build that requires six flaws. ;)

Practical metamagic requires spontaneous spellcasting, as well.

Edit: Also, Silent Image isn't a shadow spell until a ScM gets his hands on it. You'd need a level 0 spell that has the shadow descriptor, although there's probably one lying around somewhere.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2010, 03:12:00 AM by Benly »

Dragonamedrake

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2010, 03:33:49 AM »
Ba... didn't see that about spontaneous spell casting. Still 3rd lvl should be doable. Also the Beguiler is still an option at 4th lvl.

And 2 flaw max can be waved by your DM if you keep reading that same text. I know 6 flaws are pushing it but I was looking at all the Killer Gnome builds and I couldn't understand why there wasn't an early entry build. I figured I would try and come up with something. I'm not the best at this however so any help would be great.

Ok what about this...

Beguiler 4rd lvl
3 Flaws
1st: Heighten Spell, Earth Sense(Flaw), Earth Spell(Flaw), Easy Meta magic(Heighten)(Flaw),
2nd: Spell Focus Illusion

Edit Ack! ... another wrinkle in my plans! Maybe that's why there isn't an early entry for Shadowcraft Mage. I really like the class but it would be nice to get the 3rd lvl ability asap.

« Last Edit: August 15, 2010, 03:36:39 AM by Dragonamedrake »

Benly

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2010, 03:48:16 AM »
And 2 flaw max can be waved by your DM if you keep reading that same text. I know 6 flaws are pushing it but I was looking at all the Killer Gnome builds and I couldn't understand why there wasn't an early entry build. I figured I would try and come up with something. I'm not the best at this however so any help would be great.

The DM can give you a dozen free feats at first level if he really feels like it. You can do a lot of things early with a dozen feats. :) Most DMs won't, so unless you're building for an actual game where the DM is giving you extremely generous chargen house rules it feels a bit pointless to make builds that rely on them.

It's pretty easy with two flaws to get Wiz5/ScM X going (Spell Focus, Heighten, Earth Sense, Earth Spell.) If the DM lets you enter ScM as a human (or azurin, or strongheart halfling) following the cabal idea in the "adaptation" section of ScM and permits Easy Metamagic (not every DM is keen on Dragon material), you can pull that down to Wiz3. (Net of Shadows, heighten to 3 in a 2 slot with Easy Metamagic, Earth Spell overheightens to 4.) Note that this requires a very generous DM, of course, but it's still probably more feasible than convincing him to let you start with six flaws. :)

Although you'd still need to get Bluff as a class skill somehow. Hm.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2010, 03:50:27 AM by Benly »

PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2010, 06:17:11 AM »
You know I have a handbook to prevent these sort of threads... PMs and QA can handle everything else
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An interesting read, nice to see a civil discussion
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Mixster

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2010, 06:51:40 AM »
You could retrain it later if I am not mistaken?
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2010, 06:46:16 PM »
It can be done much more easily.
Necropolitan Whisper Gnome Shaman 1
* feat from first level: Heighten spell
* (flaw 1) Versatile spellcaster
* (bonus taint feat from corruption) Eldritch Corruption
* (bonus taint feat from depravity) Spell focus: illusion
* (flaw 2)  Chosen of Tem Et Nu
Heighten Dead End to second level with two first level slots, then burn the Naberius binder's constitution to raise it to fourth level.  You do have someone binding Naberius, right?






« Last Edit: August 16, 2010, 12:56:23 AM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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Endarire

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2010, 12:06:41 AM »
If you can bypass the skill reqs, Gnome Illusionist1 with Spell Focus: Illusion, Heighten Spell, and Metamagic School Focus: Illusion will work.
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Dragonamedrake

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #8 on: August 16, 2010, 02:44:14 AM »
You know I have a handbook to prevent these sort of threads... PMs and QA can handle everything else

Ive read most of the Shadowcraft handbooks/post... if fact I have a hard copy of them. But Ive not seen an early entry build as of yet. Forgive me for posting something the forum police you don't like. I was just trying to start up a conversation and was looking to get something together for a starting game. I wanted to get into the class asap to be as versatile as possible as soon as possible.

BTW I always go by the statement "If you don't have something nice(Constructive) to say then... well you know the rest". Then again maybe you don't.

If you can bypass the skill reqs, Gnome Illusionist1 with Spell Focus: Illusion, Heighten Spell, and Metamagic School Focus: Illusion will work.

The skills are really the thing holding me back at this point. Hide is in class with shadow shaper variant. Bluff however is alluding me. Entering at 3rd lvl would be easier if I can get around that.


weenog

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #9 on: August 16, 2010, 02:48:12 AM »
Forgive me for posting something the forum police you don't like.
BTW I always go by the statement "If you don't have something nice(Constructive) to say then... well you know the rest". Then again maybe you don't.

Sarcasm and hypocrisy, he's a double threat!  :lmao
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Early Entry for Shadow Craft Mage. Does it work?
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2010, 04:03:18 AM »
Well, assuming you're using taint, going necropolitan will net you one or two bonus feats.
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