Pathfinder Shadow Gambit Feat

[Hallack]

Does this feat really basically let you convert Minor Image into Shadow Evocations-like goodness at 50%?

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/shadow-gambit/

You can tap into the Plane of Shadow to momentarily lend reality to one of your illusion (figment) spells.

Prerequisites: Spell Focus (illusion), caster level 5th.

Benefit: As a standard action, you can draw upon energies from the Plane of Shadow to cause an ongoing figment spell you cast to damage a foe as if the illusion were real. The illusion must be one you retain ongoing control of, such as minor image, and the target must be both visible to you and within or adjacent to the area of your illusion. Using this feat immediately ends the figment’s duration.

You must either make a melee touch attack or give the target a saving throw (Fortitude or Reflex) to resist the damage (see below). If you choose a melee touch attack, you use your own melee touch attack bonus, and if you miss, the spell deals no damage. If you choose to allow the target a saving throw, a successful save means it takes half damage. The shadowy attack deals 1d6 points of damage per spell level. If the target disbelieves or sees through the illusion, reduce the damage by half.

The shadowy attack can deal acid, bludgeoning, cold, electricity, fire, piercing, or slashing damage, but the damage must be appropriate to the illusion. For example, an illusory wall that collapses deals bludgeoning damage with a Fortitude save for half, an illusory swordsman strikes with a melee touch attack deals slashing damage, and an illusory wall of fire deals fire damage with a Reflex save for half.

[Power]

It's honestly rather weak. All it does is let you end an ongoing figment spell as a standard action in exchange for 1d6 damage per spell level to a single enemy.

[Hallack]

Yeah, single target kinda makes it meh at best.  So much for dreams of new ways of creating shadowy area damage

[Power]

Pathfinder already has a ton of shadow evocation/conjuration/etc. spells for that kind of purpose though.

[Hallack]

I was putting together a PHBII Beguiler for a Pathfinder game.  At glance it looked like a very interesting way to fill the damage gap in the Beguiler spell list. 

[Stratovarius]

It's something I'm particularly partial to because of my love of the sourcebook, but the Sand Shaper from Sandstorm is a reasonable way to enhance a fixed list caster like the Beguiler. However, it does require an investment that may or may not be considered appropriate for the character design.

[Hallack]

In this case is was for a Beguiler in a Pathfinder game where the Beguiler is the only 3.5 material being used.  Of course one of the easiest best ways to help spell lists in Pathfinder is the Samsaran race with Mystic Past lives.  But I'm playing a different race. Just didn't want to be blue this time

[Power]

If doing Shadow Evocation type damage is what you are hoping for, just prestige into Veiled Illusionist. Every level gives you a Wizard spell of the illusion school, among other perks. With just illusions you can help yourself to everything from Shadow Conjuration/Evocation/Enchantment/Transmutation to Simulacrum to Shadow Step/Shadow Walk to Subjective Reality to Create Mindscape and Psychic Asylum.

Remember to use a Shadow Stencil set, get a metamagic rod of Persistent Spell, and learn the Tenebrous Spell metamagic feat. There is also the Solid Shadows metamagic, but it costs a spell level so without a metamagic rod it's not as useful and you usually want to use Persistent Spell rods instead.

If you're looking to expand your spell list, you can also take the Loremaster PrC and use the Secret of Magical Discipline feat as many times as you want (which you should be able to gain as a bonus feat on Loremaster 1 with a high enough int score). You could also take the Stargazer PrC for all its various perks (including adding flight and planar binding spells to your spell list). And you can also use Pathfinder Savant to obtain any spell you want (at a 1 level penalty) and Daivrat to gain access to any spell on a temporary basis (at a 2 level penalty), but they cost you 1 dead spellcaster level (but you can use the Prestigious Spellcaster feat to cover them). The Runeguard PrC similarly has 1 dead level but adds all the symbol and glyph spells to your class list. It also allows you to use any metamagic feat with a level adjustment of 1 for free by spending swift actions.

You can also use the Magaambyan Arcana race trait (if you are not Human, the Adopted social trait can be used to take it anyway) to add any 1 Druid or Cleric spell with the good descriptor to your class list and the Two-World Magic magic trait to add a cantrip from another spellcaster to your Beguiler. That's a lot more flexible if you use the Additional Traits feat with the Paragon Surge spell to expand your spell list temporarily with the spell of your choice. You can also use a Ring of Spell Knowledge (use UMD to circumvent the spell level penalty, preferably with a Pragmatic Activator magic trait or Clever Wordplay social trait to make UMD int-based instead) to add just about any spell 4th level or lower to your repertoire. It's probably not supposed to let you cast divine spells though.

There are more stunts too.

[zook1shoe]

Fetchling Shadow Blood Arcanist is the best shadowmage. you can sub fetchling for a human/partial-human and use Planar Heritage (fetchling) to get access to the favored class bonus.

it can get you 150-170% shadow spells

(click to show/hide)

80% Shades
+10% Shadow Invasion (max 90%)
+10% favored class bonus (max 100%)
+20% Solid Shadows
+50% Crook of Cidhureen

=170%

60% Greater Shadow Conj/Ench/Evoc/Trans
+20% Shadow Invasion (max 90%)
+20% favored class bonus (max 100%)
+20% Solid Shadows
+50% Crook of Cidhureen

=170%

20% Shadow Conj/Ench/Evoc/Trans
+20% Shadow Invasion (max 90%)
+40% favored class bonus (max 100%)
+20% Solid Shadows
+50% Crook of Cidhureen

=150%

[Power]

Fetchling favored class bonus for Arcanists is explicitly capped at 100%. You can also do Shadowcaster Wizard 10 / Bloatmage 10 (drink a shadow conjuration for bloodline) to get +40% real shadow spells, and this way you can actually break 100%. Incidentally, casting on the shadow plane increases shadow conjuration/evocation spell reality by another 10%.

Generally speaking a Crook of Cildhureen and a Solid Shadows metamagic is all you need to make any spell that is 40% real become 110% real.

[Craiconn]

Hallack, I think I recall your level-by-level play-journal postings on your 3.5 Beguiler from years ago.  Good stuff!  Like you, I love the Beguiler and have lengthy experience playing them in the trenches -  two of them I got 10+ levels out of.

Sounds like you probably already know of the freely-available two PDF documents for ERTW's Pathfinder Beguiler.  His PF Beguiler project was crowd-sourced for a looooooooong time.  And from my experienced eyes, it looks fantastic.  Although I've not had a chance to play it yet.  ERTW has gone silent as of recent.  But the level of minutiae, playtest revision, and quality control he put into the class was super impressive. He spent 6 years tweaking those 2 Beguiler documents.

Here's a link to his main Paizo Forum thread.  Go down to his posts on April 12, 2018 for the most recent to ERTW's most up-to-date class documents.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qmqe&page=last?Beguiler-conversion-for-Pathfinder

***

On to Shadow Gambit ....

I played an illusionist with it. It's a fun feat that is "good" - not great.  The flexibility of damage types is key here.  Let's say you are 12th level and you want to blow-up your, 4th level level figments against your foes.  You're best using this combo against elementally-vulnerable foes to get the 50% bonus tacked on (like, say, frost damage vs. a Fire Giant).  Even so, that means your 4th are still only causing a meager 6d6 damage. 

Note these 2 lines from the feat:
"The shadowy attack deals 1d6 points of damage per spell level."
"The shadowy attack can deal acid, bludgeoning, cold, electricity, fire, piercing, or slashing damage, but the damage must be appropriate to the illusion. "

So against hard-to-ID creatures or ones that have tons of resistances, immunities, DR and what-not ... choose plain old Magic damage.  Which means passing on the option to choose a damage type (note my bolded/underlined word up above).

Adding rider bad-status effects via Metamagic feats is quite mandatory in order to boost the weak offensive output of the feat.

What everyone else wrote in this thread are also great ideas.  Although keep in mind, the Stencil Set mentioned earlier can only be used by Wayangs.  You can't even do a "Emulate Race" UMD check to use it since it's a mundane item.

***

Finally, my fave figment spell to Shadow Gambit is the 2nd level Haunting Mists.  Independently, the spell does a lot of nice things.  Although the things it does do not neccessarily match up well with a spell that is a "illusion (figment) [fear, shadow]" spell. The spell is notorious for causing a lot of headachey disagreements at the tabletop.  Behold one of the reasons why ...

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/41043/does-haunting-mists-deal-wisdom-damage-once-or-repeatedly