A shadowmage build

[PresidentCthulhu]

I was looking into the class and created my own build and I'm still wondering why do people think it is weak... I think it is a stronger, more heavily focused caster. It has strong necromantic summons that makes soloing easy like hell, extremely powerful enchantment/illsuion/necromantic spells with DC sky high and a free hide in plain sight at epic levels... Also it is unaffected (normally) of the wild magic areas which can make life extremely painful for regular casters. Just forget about the shadowdancer part in the PnP version they were pure casters too.

[EDIT: Incorporated all the suggestions form below and expanded on the skills]

Race: Sunelf

Stats:
Str: 9
Dex: 12
Con: 14
Wis: 10
Int: 21 (with gift) -> 28 unbuffed at the end
Cha: 8

Gifts (ECL +1)
Learning (+2 Int)
Stardom (+6 Perf.)
Sneak (+4 hide/ms)

Levels:
1-18 wizard, bard 19-21, 22-29 wizard, 30 bard

Feats/Abilities
1 SF: Enchantment
3 GSF: Enchantment
4 Int: 22
5 SF: Abjuration
6 GSF: Abjurtion
8 Int:23
9 SF: Necromancy
10 GSF: Necromancy
12 SF: Illusion, Int: 24
15 GSF: Illusion, Extend spell
18 Craft wand
20 Int: 26
21 Mummy dust
23 ESF: Abjuration
24 ESF: Enchantment, Int: 27
26 ESF: Illusion
27 ESF: Disc.
28 Int: 28
29 ESF: Necromancy
30 Epic Mage Armor

Skills (achievement unlocked at lvl 30 it's exactly 300 points)
1 - S.craft (4), Conc. (4), Heal (4), Lore (4)
2 - S.craft (5), Conc. (5), Heal (5), Lore (5)
3 - S.craft (6), Conc. (6), Heal (6), Lore (6)
4 - S.craft (7), Conc. (7), Heal (7), Lore (7)
5 - S.craft (8), Conc. (8), Heal (8), Lore (8)
6 - S.craft (9), Conc. (9), Heal (9), Lore (9)
7 - S.craft (10), Conc. (10), Heal (10), Lore (10)
8 - S.craft (11), Conc. (11), Heal (11), Lore (11)
9 - S.craft (12), Conc. (12), Heal (12), Lore (12)
10 - S.craft (13), Conc. (13), Heal (13), Lore (13)
11 - S.craft (14), Conc. (14), Heal (14), Lore (14)
12 - S.craft (15), Conc. (15), Heal (15), Lore (15)
13 - S.craft (16), Conc. (16), Heal (16), Lore (16)
14 - S.craft (17), Conc. (17), Heal (17), Lore (17)
15 - S.craft (18), Conc. (18), Heal (18), Lore (18)
16 - S.craft (19), Conc. (19), Heal (19), Lore (19)
17 - S.craft (20), Conc. (20), Heal (20), Lore (20)
18 - S.craft (21), Conc. (21), Heal (21), Lore (21)
19 - S.craft (22), Conc. (22), Heal (22), Lore (22), Disc. (22), Tumble (22), Hide (14), M.S. (14) UMD (10), Perf. (11)
20 - S.craft (23), Conc. (23), Heal (23), Lore (23), Disc. (23), Tumble (23), Hide (15), M.S. (15) UMD (12), Perf. (12)
21 - S.craft (24), Conc. (24), Heal (24), Lore (24), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
22 - S.craft (25), Conc. (25), Heal (25), Lore (25), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
23 - S.craft (26), Conc. (26), Heal (26), Lore (26), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
24 - S.craft (27), Conc. (27), Heal (27), Lore (27), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
25 - S.craft (28), Conc. (28), Heal (28), Lore (28), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
26 - S.craft (29), Conc. (29), Heal (29), Lore (29), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
27 - S.craft (30), Conc. (30), Heal (30), Lore (30), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
28 - S.craft (31), Conc. (31), Heal (31), Lore (31), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
29 - S.craft (32), Conc. (32), Heal (32), Lore (32), Disc. (24), Tumble (24), Hide (16), M.S. (16) UMD (15), Perf. (13)
30 - S.craft (33), Conc. (33), Heal (33), Lore (33), Disc. (33), Tumble (33), Hide (27), M.S. (27), UMD (25), Perf. (23)

[Lorkas]

A simple improvement would be dropping the starting INT by 1 and increasing some low attributes by up to 3. 3 points of STR or DEX will be way better for you than an extra point of INT that doesn't contribute anything.

[susitsu]

see invis and true seeing are v important aspects of divination after permonition. just go generalist

[PresidentCthulhu]

Fair advises both thanks! I wanted to add that I picked sun-elf mainly for RP reasons, if someone wishes to tweak it a bit human is a solid choice. The int is already reasonable and getting an extra feat would allow to cram in craft wand or empower (the latter would only strengthen the ability boosting spells though mainly as the build doesn't contain many direct damage options).

[susitsu]

just KNOW

the cliche sharran sun elf was done by me before shadow mages were even a thing on here

additionally, your focuses for the sake of easier leveling would be better as enchantment, abjuration, then necromancy. endure elemental is more useful than ray of enfeeblement, and uh, ray of enfeeblement isn't even worth your time to use. the blind from enchantment is actually useful.

[Nitro]

Ray of Enfeeblement has the potential to be useful. But on Arelith, where level 3-5 mobs have as high as 11 fort save, and it only gets higher from there, it's sadly quite useless except in low-level PvP to drain players who don't have the fort save to withstand it of their strength.

[Peppermint]

Bear in mind that necromancy is pretty poor for leveling right now. It's good once you get mummy dust, but meh until then.

The standard wizard build is Wizard 26/Bard 4. You go Wizard 18/Bard 2* pre-epic. Then take the final bard level late for a skill dump. The reason you're doing this is so that you can push your 20th level wizard feat back into epic levels, essentially trading a pre-epic feat for an epic one.

Speaking of extra epic feats, I'm seeing no ESF: Discipline here. That's an absolute must for you. You're KD bait without it.

Personally, I'm not that fond of Spell Penetration feats. They're nice while leveling, but by the time you reach epic levels, there are very few things that will resist your spells. And as for those that do -- that's what breaches are for.

(* Something I see advocated a lot by more inexperienced players is Wizard 17/Bard 3 pre-epic. Don't do that. You lose out a bit on saves for no real gain.)

[PresidentCthulhu]

just KNOW
the cliche sharran sun elf was done by me before shadow mages were even a thing on here...

I'm not even surprised considering how old the server is. You know what they say, great minds think alike. I played with my shadow mage sunelf character about 9 years ago though in a PnP campaign (and he was not Sharran just used the shadow weave). I'm confident the similarities will stop there I have some neat ideas.

Bear in mind that necromancy is pretty poor for leveling right now. It's good once you get mummy dust, but meh until then...

You are right I thought the bonus wizard feat is obtained at lvl 27 not 26 for some reason that's why I though the bard cannot be picked earlier on Arelith.

If the SR scales as it does on the table version then for example a drow on lvl 30 would have a native SR of 41 (Not sure how the monsters SR is set in the epic levels). This would mean that with 26 caster level only a roll of 15 would go through. This one can be lowered with breaches, calculating with greater breach that's -6 (does it stack?). So it would still need A roll of 9. Getting penetration mitigates the chances by a lot. Getting knocked down sucks and means death in pvp I know that, but yeah.... decisions, does it really worth 2 feats?

I will edit the original post to reflect all the suggested changes.

[Peppermint]

Drow SR caps at 32.

And ESF: Discipline costs just one feat. You don't need to take SF: Discipline as well. It's a must for most builds.

[Maladus]

And ESF: Discipline costs just one feat. You don't need to take SF: Discipline as well. It's a must for most builds.

I never knew this.

[Ambigue]

Any build that does not maximize a certain limited set of skills seems to be considered non-viable. This is why almost every recommended build includes 3-4 levels of a skill-based class, like bard or rogue.

Typically, these are Discipline, Tumble, and UMD. Discipline because of knock-down spam, tumble because HEY FREE 6 AC, and UMD because absolutely every single player needs to be able to cast time stop and keep themselves maximally buffed forever using wands, scrolls, and whatnot.

[Hunter548]

Tumble and UMD are less important for mages, to be fair. Tumble is less useful because Mage AC tends to be pretty bad with greensteel getting nerfed -- But if you can get ahold of a legacy set and take EMA, tumble suddenly becomes optimal again. UMD because there's less stuff mages need through it -- It's primarily freedom wants you get use out of, and you can make do without it. UMD is nice for artifacts on mages, though.

Discipline, however, is always super important.

[Wytchee]

Any build that does not maximize a certain limited set of skills seems to be considered non-viable. This is why almost every recommended build includes 3-4 levels of a skill-based class, like bard or rogue.

Typically, these are Discipline, Tumble, and UMD. Discipline because of knock-down spam, tumble because HEY FREE 6 AC, and UMD because absolutely every single player needs to be able to cast time stop and keep themselves maximally buffed forever using wands, scrolls, and whatnot.

This is so depressing.

[Ambigue]

This is so depressing.

Well. That's what happens when you let folks bank skill points for 27 levels. It makes heavily investing in skill-heavy classes a complete waste of time.

EDIT: I also makes a minimal investment mandatory.

[susitsu]

is there actually a build that doesn't take esf discipline?

[Peppermint]

You can arguably neglect it on some STR-based builds, especially those that gain bonus discipline from other sources (e.g. Fighters, Bards).

[susitsu]

Fair.

Regarding the build again! I didn't notice you took necromancy and illusion. That's a very redundant combo, and a lot of spells with extremely similar effects, some of which necromancy is far stronger in, fall on the same levels.

I'd advise against it, and take something else over illusion.

That's also room for things like craft wand, maximize, and empower spell.

In epics, that could give you EDK, and I'd still take it even on a necromancer with EMD. It's got a save debuff aura, which means all of your DC based spells which is your entire kit as a shadow mage, will then be empowered as a result.

This also allows you to call summons in waves, so when one goes down, you just pull out another.

[Hunter548]

This is so depressing.

Well. That's what happens when you let folks bank skill points for 27 levels. It makes heavily investing in skill-heavy classes a complete waste of time.

EDIT: I also makes a minimal investment mandatory.

It's largely an artifact of arelith's low magic level, and how NWN handles Knockdown compared to Trip attempts in PnP. If you can think of a way to fix it without breaking the game, feel free to chime in.

[Giftstoff]

Any hints on whats in store for shadowmages? They are pathetically bad atm.

[PresidentCthulhu]

Any hints on whats in store for shadowmages? They are pathetically bad atm.

I think you just missed the point of the whole thread, but in TL:DR - They are superior to a regular caster wizard in a way of freely increased DCs in no less than three schools and they get free hips for the only price of prohibiting a single school that is not really optimal to begin with. The prestige class they have access to sadly makes no sense on them for sure, but that does not make them bad just misleading.

Regarding the build again!...

These are all fair points as illusion is indeed somewhat redundant to necromancy (which is a superior school game-play wise). Therefore for maximizing build efficiency it is a sound advice!

However I will not really use it in this case, but only out of "fashion" or RP sense. To me the original shadow mage concept means to be adept in illusions/necromancy/enchantment and weak in evocation/conjuration/transmutation. To portray this evocation is prohibited, I try to limit my conjuration use and my transmutation will not be cast with empowerment (which is a classic). As long as we don't get a shadow dragon in the EDK line (or at least the dracolich), I'm not really fond of the idea of picking it. Even though it bleeds my heart as I love dragons. If it will get patched in the meantime I would drop the epic focus in a heartbeat for it though.

: Discipline costs just one feat. You don't need to take SF: Discipline as well. It's a must for most builds.

I did not know this either. In this case the simple SF:Disc can be scrapped for craft wand. The other two feat options would be empowerment and maximize, but I think they are somewhat inferior in this build as it does not have many direct damage options (empowerment makes sense on buffs though).

[Giftstoff]

I mistakenly posted in the wrong thread.