[ToM]Shadowcaster - weak?

[Psion]

Hey all. Forgive it there was a thread like this before all the old threads were swept away...

Anyways, I got to tinkering with a few NPCs for my game, tapping into a few new books. In the Tome of Magic, the sole class that appeals to me is the shadowcaster.

But I can't help but feel, after tinkering with the Shadowcaster a bit, that at low levels, the class doesn't pull its weight, given a narrow selection of relatively weak low level mysteries, and a limited amount of use of them.

Am I missing something? Anyone play from low levels yet that can relate experiences and strategies?

 

[Nightfall]

Psion,

Well it's not as weak as say an Illusionist 5/Penumbral Lord 10 would be...

 

[satori01]

That's kinda funny, because just reading the class, and stating out a
15-17 level BBEG, I kinda felt the class may not pull its weight in terms of High level play.

The class is so different, it is hard to project out what it can do, because you can have so many varying builds with it. I played one in what became a one shot adventure. Using Steel Shadows and Caul of Shadows you can boost your AC to a pretty high level. I also went with Voice of Shadows and Sight Eclipsed.

Played the character as the scout in a very melee oriented party.
Oddly enough, you can do it pretty well, though the lack of Trapfinding and Search hurts you compared to a rogue. The Arrow of Dusk Fundamental is pretty good even if it does only subdual damage,(not really an issue at lower level). I chose to select Arrow of Dusk twice as one on my intial Fundamentals (Caul of Shadow being the other), and being able to cast it 6x day felt pretty cool.

The Class is a strange one, cant say I have what I would call an experts grasp on it. One can hope Ari will pop by and show us the way, or at least offer some advice on builds.

 

[Shellman]

Shadowcaster in our current game

We are going up against a Shadowcaster and a Shadow Demon in our current campaign. The Shadow demon was my character, he was a Half-Fiend Warmage of Shar before he was betrayed and killed by party members who jumped over to Cyric's church. Shar and Cyric were briefly allied.

Shar took his soul and reformed him into a Shadow Demon and is sending the Shadowcaster with him to extract revenge against the Cyrisists for betraying Shar.

The Shadowcaster is a 17th level NPC in our game though. Its going to be a fun fight this weekend! Here is what the Shadowcaster has:

Master Path Mysteries (1/day): 9th-ephemeral storm* (DC 27); 8th-greater flesh fails* (DC 26), soul puppet (DC 25); 7th-dark soul (DC 24), greater life fades* (DC 25). Caster level 17th. *Caster level 18th.
Initiate Path Mysteries (2/day) (Sp): 6th-flood of shadow, shadow investiture (DC 23); 5th-echo spell, languor (DC 22); 4th-bolster (DC 21), warp spell (DC 21). Caster level 17th.
Apprentice Path Mysteries (3/day) (Su): 3rd-killing shadows (DC 20), sharp shadows; 2nd-piercing sight, sight eclipsed; 1st-bend perspective, steel shadows. Caster level 17th.
Fundamental Mysteries (At will): 1st-arrow of dusk, black candle, caul of shadow, umbral hand (DC 18) widened eyes; 0-mystic reflections, shadow hood (DC 17). Caster level 17th.

 

[Nightfall]

Those crazy Cyricists! They'll kill anyone they find expendable.

 

[Shellman]

Those crazy Cyricists! They'll kill anyone they find expendable.

Tell me about it, my warmage took out almost the entire group of Cyrisits, but he was backstabbed by a Succubus in the party who flipped sides to Cyric.

They offered my Warmage a chance to flip too, but he would have no part of it. Unfortunately the +4 LA for Half-Fiend reduced my caster level and HD, so I couldn't quite hang on long enough1

 

[Nightfall]

See this is why I stick with guys like Tyr and Kelvemor. They tend not to have succubuses.

Course I'm an Orcus fan so I guess I should expect this more from CE fiends. I just expect them to follow me since Orcus is da'man.

 

[Beckett]

Compare them to a wizard, and how quickly they can go through their spells, and just what good they are after that point. Admittedly, the wizard does have a greater variety to choose from, and probably more potent spells.

I'd have to say the shadowcaster can make a good 5th party member, and takes a while to become effective. There are some pretty potent mysteries they can pick up; Killing Shadows doing several D8 of damage, or one which give 5 temporary HP per caster level.

Overall, there just isn't enough there to expect a solo shadowcaster to be a credible threat. However, one shadowcaster and her bodyguard, buffed up with some of her mysteries, gave my players' party of six quite a bit of trouble. But, she could only count on at most three uses of a spell- after that, she was tapped.

 

[lukelightning]

They seem kind of weak to me, like a sorcerer with an even more limited spell list.

 

[Nail]

The flavor is good....but they do seem weak. I'd like to see 'em in play, though.