Shadow Evocations and Conjurations - How successful

[Duder]

I've never really used them. Wondering if others have had success casting these.

[fox5s]

We can debate about what they are intended to do versus what they actually do. If they all scaled off of your Illusion DC, as you would expect them to, they would have a useful and versatile place.

However, since they don't, you are better off just memorizing a metamagiced spell that they would be copying instead.

[Gracey Face]

The whole point of the shadow X spells in the actual ruleset is that they scale off of your Illusion school's DC and they also all work at the spell level of the shadow X spell rather than the spell level of what you're simulating so you can get higher DCs without metamagic and you determine what spell you're mimicking at time of casting so you have a load of versatility and they allow you to apply your metamagic feats on the fly as long as the spell you're casting is within the level limits with the metamagic feat. The versatility especially is good for sorcerers as it allows them to get a greater breadth of available spells withing having to take any of the feats that give them a pseudo-spellbook. Oh and I should add that since you can choose to auto fail saves this means that buffs and utility spells have no downsides when cast as shadow variants as your teammates will just choose to beleive whatever you cast.

In this game they have the DC that the spell they're mimicking would have had if your character had cast it and are missing a lot of their other functionality, which along with the extra will save that they have makes them of low value.

[Duder]

Yeah I've felt they are overall much weaker and like said above there is metamagic.
So they scale off your caster level then, not Illusion DC?

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Duder:

Yeah I've felt they are overall much weaker and like said above there is metamagic.
So they scale off your caster level then, not Illusion DC?

No, they just scale of off whatever your school DC is for the spell they are imitating.

Shadow Evocations use your Evocation DC and Shadow Conjurations use your Conjuration DC.

[Duder]

Originally posted by fox5s:

Originally posted by Duder:

Yeah I've felt they are overall much weaker and like said above there is metamagic.
So they scale off your caster level then, not Illusion DC?

No, they just scale of off whatever your school DC is for the spell they are imitating.

Shadow Evocations use your Evocation DC and Shadow Conjurations use your Conjuration DC.

So effectively makes a fireball about (guesstimating) 2 DC higher.
Metamagic seems better

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Duder:

So effectively makes a fireball about (guesstimating) 2 DC higher.
Metamagic seems better

From the spell level of Shadow Evocation alone, yes. You could achieve the same with the Heighten Spell metamagic. Or achieved more damage with an Empowered or Bolstered Fireball. Or just used Firesnake since it's the same level as Shadow Evocation.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Duder:

Originally posted by fox5s:

No, they just scale of off whatever your school DC is for the spell they are imitating.

Shadow Evocations use your Evocation DC and Shadow Conjurations use your Conjuration DC.

So effectively makes a fireball about (guesstimating) 2 DC higher.
Metamagic seems better

Makes a fireball 2 DC higher yes, but also makes a bolstered fireball 2DC higher because a bolstered fireball is only a lvl 4 spell. And that's not something you could do with metamagic alone.

But the actual purpose of the spell is that instead of the way it works in this game, where you can cast one of a limited number of spells, you can cast any spell from the school the shadow spell is mimicking and if you have any penalties to that school (such as having evocation as an opposed school for a specialist wizard) it allows you to completely ignore the restrictions attached to it by casting the shadow version instead. Also for casters which have limited spells known like sorcerors or clerics it gives you access to entire spell schools.

They're actually really powerful options in the full ruleset, just the limited version in this game is bad. But that's because they didn't fully port it over like a lot of the things in this game. (ie building Staunton as a tower shield and polearm specialist and then forgetting to add the feats that allow this build to work :D).

[xunlaiAgent]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

The whole point of the shadow X spells in the actual ruleset is that they scale off of your Illusion school's DC and they also all work at the spell level of the shadow X spell rather than the spell level of what you're simulating so you can get higher DCs without metamagic and you determine what spell you're mimicking at time of casting so you have a load of versatility and they allow you to apply your metamagic feats on the fly as long as the spell you're casting is within the level limits with the metamagic feat. The versatility especially is good for sorcerers as it allows them to get a greater breadth of available spells withing having to take any of the feats that give them a pseudo-spellbook. Oh and I should add that since you can choose to auto fail saves this means that buffs and utility spells have no downsides when cast as shadow variants as your teammates will just choose to beleive whatever you cast.

In this game they have the DC that the spell they're mimicking would have had if your character had cast it and are missing a lot of their other functionality, which along with the extra will save that they have makes them of low value.

This really sucks. The whole point of those spells is basically to "have multiple spell choices on one slot at the cost of them allowing an additional will save". Plus casting a fireball that is actually a pseudo-real illusion made of shadow stuff is super cool. But with the bugged DCs, they aren't really what they should be.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by Duder:

So effectively makes a fireball about (guesstimating) 2 DC higher.
Metamagic seems better

Makes a fireball 2 DC higher yes, but also makes a bolstered fireball 2DC higher because a bolstered fireball is only a lvl 4 spell. And that's not something you could do with metamagic alone.

You are being needlessly confusing. First, I don't think you can apply metamagics to Shadow Evocation on the fly for ultimate flexibility like you seem to be describing. You would have to apply the Metamagic to the Shadow Evocation as a whole raising it to a sixth level spell slot for Bolster. And yes, you can get that exact combination with Metamagics alone. You would apply Bolster for one spell level and Heighten it by two levels reaching the same sixth level spell slot.

Or perhaps I'm wrong about being able to apply metamagics within the Shadow Evocation. Or misunderstanding what exactly you mean.

I do agree with your point about the Shadow spells opening up whole schools to casters with limited spell slots. That's one very useful application of them. It's less useful here in WotR because you are rewarded more for specializing in a damage type and the spell selection is far more limited than in PnP.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by fox5s:

...

So far there's been no FAQ on it (at least that I am aware of) but right now there's 2 valid interpretations of shadow X and metamagic.

1) You can innately apply metamagic to any spell being simulated by shadow X as the metamagicked version of a spell is a spell itself, as long as the result is still under the limit of the shadow X spell.
2) You have to apply the metamagic to the base spell itself and depending on the specific wording of the metamagic feat you are using you may not be able to even apply the metamagic in the first place be and then depending on how your DM wants to interpret the wording (for example intensified increases the damage dice of a spell by +5 up to your CL, except shadow evocation itself doesn't have damage dice it just simulates a spell that does) you may not be able to use metamagic at all depending on DM discretion.

DM's choice of course but 1) is simply cleaner and less arbitrary.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

So far there's been no FAQ on it (at least that I am aware of) but right now there's 2 valid interpretations of shadow X and metamagic.

1) You can innately apply metamagic to any spell being simulated by shadow X as the metamagicked version of a spell is a spell itself, as long as the result is still under the limit of the shadow X spell.
2) You have to apply the metamagic to the base spell itself and depending on the specific wording of the metamagic feat you are using you may not be able to even apply the metamagic in the first place be and then depending on how your DM wants to interpret the wording (for example intensified increases the damage dice of a spell by +5 up to your CL, except shadow evocation itself doesn't have damage dice it just simulates a spell that does) you may not be able to use metamagic at all depending on DM discretion.

DM's choice of course but 1) is simply cleaner and less arbitrary.

Ah, so you are quoting PnP again. A place where the Bolster metamagic does not exist. So you were indeed being needlessly confusing by referring freely between PnP and WotR as though they were one and the same. Thanks.

In case number 1, you would be correct that you can get a slightly higher DC than would normally be possible via metamagic application in the same level spell slot.

In case number 2, everything I said applies just like I said it did. Unless you are in PnP and your DM is a ♥♥♥♥ about allowing you to metamagic a Shadow spell.

Glad we are now on the same page.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Duder:

I've never really used them. Wondering if others have had success casting these.

Oh! One more use for Shadow spells that works for PnP but sort of doesn't for WotR. An Illusion specialist wizard (or really any specialist wizard) who took Evocation or Conjuration as denied schools could use the Shadow spells to effectively cast Evocations and Conjurations anyway.

You can still do that in WotR but, again, since it doesn't use your Illusion DCs, it's more work than it's worth.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by fox5s:

In case number 2, everything I said applies just like I said it did. Unless you are in PnP and your DM is a ♥♥♥♥ about allowing you to metamagic a Shadow spell.

It's not even your DM being a ♥♥♥♥ in most cases. A lot of the metamagic feats explicitly say they can't be applied to spells which lack certain effects or descriptors. So modifying a shadow spell with those metamagics for a prepared caster would legitimately be impossible and modifying them for a spontaneous caster has the problem below;

Even the idea of applying metamagics which do not explicitly have limitations isn't really being a ♥♥♥♥. Shadow X allows you to mimic any spell regardless of that spell's casting time. Shadow X doesn't give you a differing casting time depending on the casting time of the spell being cast, it has a set standard action. It also doesn't require you to have the material components for the spell you're mimicking. This strongly implies that you're specifically casting shadow evocation itself and not casting the other spell, so then metamagic feats you apply to it would then have to be applied to the actual spell you're casting as that's how metamagic works so things which, say, change your damage type or give you extra dice or make your summons stronger won't have any effect as shadow X itself doesn't have any of those functions.

It's not your DM being a ♥♥♥♥ as much as the rules need to be better written. This isn't even some edge case that couldn't reasonably have been predicted either. Questions like this are almost inevitable due to the function of the spell, they should have been clarified from the start.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

It's not your DM being a ♥♥♥♥ as much as the rules need to be better written. This isn't even some edge case that couldn't reasonably have been predicted either. Questions like this are almost inevitable due to the function of the spell, they should have been clarified from the start.

I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying that a reasonable DM would probably let you apply metamagics to your Shadow spell that could logically be applied to the spells it's mimicing. And it is still taking that higher leveled slot. It would take a rather rules-lawyerly DM not to allow that.