About Spellshaping

[DonQuixote]

Introduction
Spellshaping is a project begun at the beginning of 2011.  The goal?  Blast-centric casters, like the warlock, but with the versatility of Tome of Battle characters.

The first draft of Codex I was completed in mid-Spring, and posted to the old Brilliant Gameologists boards.  After a few weeks of feedback, an additional five circles were written, as well as two new prestige classes.  Over the course of the summer, the original seven circles were heavily revised, bringing them more in line with the new circles and generally balancing everything more evenly.

In fall of 2011, work began on Codex II.  The actual mechanics of Codex II were completed in early November, with a few extra weeks spent tweaking and adjusting everything from formulae to fluff.

It's a lot of material, but it's fairly easy to understand if you're familiar with the Tome of Battle.  Essentially, Major Formulae function as Strikes, while Minor Formulae function as Boosts.  Spellshape attacks--spell-like abilities that resemble a warlock's eldritch blast--are used in place of melee attacks for the purpose of shaping (initiating) formulae (maneuvers).

In general, spellshape attacks and arcane formulae are ranged touch attacks and subject to spell resistance.  However, in some cases--the powers of Blustering Gale, Crushing Stone, Natural Balance, and Roaring Tide, to be specific--the spellshape attacks are instead normal ranged attacks, but are not subject to spell resistance.  In such cases, you use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus when making your attack.

Anyone is welcome to use any of the spellshaping material.  My primary desire is for feedback--I want to know how it feels to play, how you feel in terms of power level with relation to other characters, and so on.  My mission with spellshaping is to make it as perfect as possible, so any and all feedback counts.  Anything, anything at all--be it a mere comment or a fundamental flaw with some aspect of the entire system--will help.


Status
The spellshaping material is currently undergoing a system-wide revision, which will culminate in a single PDF containing all of the material.  In general, I'm hoping not to change too much--just tighten things up and bring everything together.  Of course, I have very little control over what I actually do here, so who knows?

Activity

2011

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11/10/11 - Material from Codex I transferred to spellshaping subforum.
11/11/11 - Races, Class, Alternative Class Features, and Racial Substitution Levels from Codex II posted.
11/12/11 - New circles from Codex II posted.
11/13/11 - Six prestige classes from Codex II posted.
11/14/11 - Another two prestige classes from Codex II posted.
11/15/11 - Codex I PDF updated.
11/17/11 - The last two prestige classes from Codex II posted.
11/17/11 - Codex indices collapsed into one thread.
11/18/11 - New "Web Enhancement" base class added.  The dragonheart adept.

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12/1/11 - New chapter added to Codex II.  Chapter Six: Spellshape Items.  Includes lamens and spellheart items.
12/16/11 - A great deal of errata has been applied to Codex I.  The PDF has been updated accordingly.
12/30/11 - Codex II PDF posted.  Codex I PDF updated with changes to spellshape champion, feats, and physical damage spellshape attacks.

2012

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1/8/12 - Both PDFs updated with melee-friendly changes.
1/10/12 - New "Web Enhancement" base class added.  The mage-knight.  Codex II PDF updated.
1/11/12 - Both PDFs updated with changes to the spellshape champion.
1/12/12 - Codex I PDF updated with a change to the spellshape champion's recovery mechanic.
1/13/12 - New "Web Enhancement" base class added.  The flamespeaker.
1/14/12 - Codex I PDF updated with slight changes to the system.
1/15/12 - Codex II PDF updated with slight tweaks to Battle Sage and Disciple of the Circles.
1/29/12 - New "Web Enhancement" circle added.  Screeching Roc.
1/30/12 - Massive errata sweep.  Accompanying it, both Codex PDFs have been updated.
1/30/12 - New "Web Enhancement" options added for the elemental adept.

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2/9/12 - Both Codex PDFs have been updated, reflecting errata and changes for the lavamancer and the spellforge warsmith.
2/20/12 - Fixed a small typo in the Codex I PDF formula list section.  Re-uploaded both PDFs.
2/29/12 - Both Codex PDFs have been updated, with some errata, clarifications, and typo fixes.

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3/1/12 - New "Web Enhancement" options added for the spellshape champion.
3/19/12 - New "Web Enhancement" circle added.  Fleeting Image.
3/19/12 - Both Codex PDFs have been updated, with some errata, clarifications, and typo fixes.
3/20/12 - New "Web Enhancement" creatures added.  Elemental Shapers.
3/26/12 - New "Web Enhancement" options added for the impulse mage.
3/27/12 - Heavy errata to the Elemental Adept.  New PDFs of both Codices.
3/28/12 - New "Web Enhancement" spellshaping race added.  Spellsoul Armor.
3/29/12 - Low-level spellshapers were capable of dealing far too much damage.  Errata has been applied, and new PDFs posted.
3/31/12 - Elemental Adept received some quality-of-life changes.  New PDF of Codex I.

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4/2/12 - New "Web Enhancement" options added for the spellsage.  Also a new PDF of Codex II, as a small clarification was needed for the Spellshape Paragon alternative class feature.
4/2/12 - New "Web Enhancement" spellshaping race added.  Cambians.
4/3/12 - New "Web Enhancement" spellshaping race added.  Living spellshapes.
4/4/12 - Finally got around to writing out the flavor for spellshaping.  And that's where magic came from.
4/11/12 - New "Web Enhancement" racial feats added for spellsoul armor and stoichen.
4/12/12 - Errata-ed lamens so that you can no longer benefit from multiple at once.  New Codex II PDF with the errata.
4/24/12 - A few typo fixes in Codex I, and an important piece of errata that actually allows the spellshape champion to shape formulae with her hands full.  New Codex I PDF to go with it.

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5/7/12 - New "Web Enhancement" racial feats added for masked ones.
5/25/12 - New "Web Enhancement" prestige class added.  The Ashbound Oracle.

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7/2/12 - Slightly altered the Ashbound Oracle and the Sublime Shaper.
7/8/12 - Slightly tweaked the Sublime Shaper.
7/11/12 - New "Web Enhancement" base class added.  The Spellshot Marksman.  New PDFs for both codices, fixing typos and small errors.
7/17/12 - Finally started to get some more character options done.  The anchorite got a new ACF--Aspected Meditant.  Also updated the Codex I with errata clarifying that spellshape attacks ARE subject to damage reduction, when appropriate.
7/18/12 - Another anchorite ACF.  Everyone likes animal companions, right?  Good.
7/20/12 - Two savant ACFs--Keeper of Songs and Tinkering Savant.  Updated both PDFs with fixes for Circle Focus and Mastered Formula.
7/21/12 - New Codex II PDF, containing a minor correction to the savant that I had forgotten to include in the earlier pushes.
7/23/12 - New "Web Enhancement" prestige class added.  The Chromatic Initiate.
7/29/12 - Added my elemental revisions to Codex I and altered the Elemental Adept so that all of its abilities referenced the new, revised elementals.  New PDF, accordingly.
7/31/12 - Replaced the elemental adept capstone and changed the physical spellshape attacks such that the "shaper level instead of base attack bonus" thing is capped at your character level.  New PDF with the changes.

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8/1/12 - New PDFs of Codex I and Codex II, containing errata dealing with physical damage spellshape attacks and the ability to change prepared formulae in combat.
8/11/12 - New "Web Enhancement" supplemental rules added.  Incantations--because, sometimes, you want to use magic for something other than blowing things up.
8/19/12 - Revised the stoichen and the elemental adept.
8/20/12 - Revised the caymir, the anchorite, and the spellshape champion.
8/21/12 - Revised the living spellshape, the cambian, the spellsage, and the impulse mage.

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9/1/12 - Revised the masked one and the savant.
9/13/12 - Revised and compiled all of the feats.  New feats have been written for the anchorite and the savant, as well as racial feats for the cambians, the caymir, and living spellshapes.

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11/15/12 - Revised Searing Flame, removing Blast Wave and Wildfire from fireblast attacks.
11/17/12 - Revised the "Formula Descriptions" section of the Rules chapter.  It is now the "Formula and Incantation Descriptions" section.  Finished revising the Rules chapter.
11/24/12 - Revised Astral Essence, removing the temporary immunity to disease and poison from the "Alignment" line of formulae and detaching Heavenly Awe from starsurge.
11/25/12 - Revised Perfect Freeze, replacing Forced Hibernation with Frost Armor and detaching Frozen Haze from frostray.

2013

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1/3/13 - Revised Natural Balance, basically overhauling the circle.

2/17/13 - Revised Roaring Tide, detaching a lot of effects from surging jet, changing the damage type to bludgeoning, and renaming a lot of things.
2/26/13 - Revised Crushing Stone, cleaning up and tweaking a few things.

[DonQuixote]

Change Logs

Base Classes

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11/11/11 - Spellsage: Spellsages now have access to seven circles, chosen at 1st level.

11/14/11 - Savant: Savants now have a poor Fortitude save and no longer have the Lore Mastery class feature.

11/18/11 - Anchorite: The Devouring Shadow aura now specifies that temporary hit points gained from its effect last until the end of the encounter.  No more slaughtering puppies to prepare for the big bad!

12/12/11 - Elemental Adept: Elemental companions now scale with shaper level and receive an extra attack at 7th level.  However, elemental aura no longer causes your spellshape attacks and arcane formulae to deal extra damage.  Elemental Empowerment has lost a useless paragraph that was no longer applicable.  Elemental Magic has been redone.  ----  Impulse Mage: Rules text regarding the number of formulae that occur to you when you recover your formulae has been clarified slightly.

12/15/11 - Dragonheart Adept: Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus now increase the save DC of your breath weapon by 1 and 2, respectively.  In addition, if you choose the Desert Wind or Shadow Hand martial discipline, you use your Charisma modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier for the purpose of calculating save DCs.

12/16/11 - General: All spellshapers, except for spellsages, are now proficient with--and capable of shaping formulae in--light armor.  All spellshapers other than spellsages may now also change their prepared formulae once per encounter, as a swift action.  ----  Impulse Mage: The number of formulae that occur to you when you recover your formulae has been adjusted.

12/28/11 - Dragonheart Adept: Formulae and Maneuvers known increased, making it easier to gish well.  A new class feature added at 4th level to give you a scaling enhancement bonus on attacks with your natural weapons.  In addition, you can now channel your spellshape attack through your attacks while your breath weapon is unavailable.

12/30/11 - Spellshape Champion: A single move action is now sufficient to recover all of your expended formulae, regardless of when you shaped them.  In addition, the class lost Armored Shaper, Spellshaping Prowess, and Moment of Timelessness.  In exchange, it received Armor Mastery, Champion's Resolve, Shaper's Focus, and the baseline ability to shape in all types of armor.

1/10/12 - Dragonheart Adept: Scales moved to 2nd level, bonus feats added, allowed to use Charisma in place of Constitution for metabreath feats.

1/11/12 - Spellshape Champion: Number of formulae known and prepared significantly increased.  Recovery mechanic tweaked again.

1/11/12 - Sublime Shaper: Renamed.  The "Strikes" line of abilities can now also augment martial strikes.  Forceful Blows replaces your Strength bonus with Charisma, rather than letting them stack.  Arcane Assault no longer counts as a use if it misses.

1/12/12 - Dragonheart Adept and Sublime Shaper: Changed the recovery mechanics slightly.  You can now recover only one ability per round from shaping formulae or initiating maneuvers, but a full attack lets you recover two abilities of your choice.

1/12/12 - Spellshape Champion: Recovery mechanic tweaked again.

1/13/12 - Sublime Shaper: Arcane sight and improved uncanny dodge moved around.  Sublime Focus added.

1/30/12 - Elemental Adept: Elemental companions now gain an enhancement bonus on attack rolls and to AC equal to 1/4 their master's shaper level.  ----  Spellshape Champion: Armor Mastery ability divided between 9th and 18th levels.  ----  Sublime Shaper: Rebuke Spell made into an immediate action.

2/22/12 - Dragonheart Adept: Popped scales back to 2nd level, removed Charisma bonus to AC, restricted options for secondary disciplines, slightly reduced formulae/maneuvers known, removed stances.

2/29/12 - Spellshape Champion: Hit Die increased to d12, Champion's Threat removed, Armor Mastery reconsolidated and moved to level 7, Enduring Champion moved to level 18.  ----  Anchorite: Anchorite now has a formal "Spellshape Attacks" ability, clarifying the point that they do, in fact, receive spellshape attacks.

3/27/12 - Elemental Adept: Overhauled much of the class, giving you a more compelling reason to not immediately start taking prestige class levels.

3/29/12 - Elemental Adept: Spellshape Attunement has been replaced with Attuned Adept.

3/31/12 - Elemental Adept: General quality of life changes.

7/2/12 - Sublime Shaper: The Sublime Shaper's Formulae and Maneuvers known and readied have been reduced at all levels.

7/8/12 - Sublime Shaper: The Sublime Shaper no longer gets Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, and its Forceful Blows class feature has been removed.

7/31/12 - Elemental Adept: Replaced the Summon Monolith ability with Elemental Rebirth.

7/1/12 - General: The ability for most spellshapers to change their prepared formulae 1/encounter as a swift action has been changed.  It now leaves all of your formulae expended, rather than leaving all your formulae prepared.

8/13/12 - Dragonheart Adept: The dragonblood subtype is now granted at 1st level.

8/19/12 - Elemental Adept: Revised.  Incantations granted at 2nd level, Blessing of the Elements moved to 18th level, new Master's Adaptation ability added at 19th level.  Choice of the Devoted folded into the base class.

8/20/12 - Anchorite: Revised.  Now uses meditative aspects, rather than numena.  Gained AC bonus and Spellshape Strikes, lost the ability to shape in light armor.  Added Numinous Anchorite and Wild Ascetic alternative class features.  ----  Spellshape Champion: Removed Mage-Warrior's Steed alternative class feature.  The Spellshape Paragon alternative class feature now grants the ability to shape your chosen circle's incantations at 2nd level.

8/21/12 - Impulse Mage: Revised.  New Impulsive Surge ability.  Other abilities shuffled around.  Removed Temporal Adept and Prescient Mage alternative class features.  Added Trance Mage alternative class feature.  ----  Spellsage: Revised.  Completely changed how Arcane Knack works.  Added detect magic, spellgrace,arcane sight, and arcane mastery.  Removed Arcane Mastery alternative class feature.

9/1/12 - Savant: Revised.  Bonus feat progression slowed.  Added Lore Mastery.  Moved Still Mind to 4th level.  Added Gnosis.  Added Chronarch alternative class feature.

3/1/13 - Dragonheart Adept: The Draconic Empowerment progression has been corrected, now capping at +5 at 20th level.  In addition, the Charisma bonus to AC has been removed.

Formulae

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11/11/11 - Searing Flame: Scorching Blast, Searing Blast, and Incinerating Blast now add an additional +1 point of damage per shaper level.

12/12/11 - Roaring Tide: Cleansing Water no longer cures insanity, nor can it end area effects that happen to be affecting you.  Cleansing Stream now properly capitalizes "Cleansing Water."

12/16/11 - Unseen Impetus: Marionette has been replaced with Jolting Blast, a minor formulae that forces any creature that takes damage from your kinetic blast to make a Reflex save or fall prone.

12/30/11 - General: Physical-damage spellshape attacks now note that you may use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus, rather than forcing you to do so.  This is to prevent weirdness if your base attack bonus is higher than your shaper level.

2/29/12 - Devouring Shadow: Devouring Touch and Hand of Endless Shadows have been changed to "Fortitude negates"

3/19/12 - Glimmering Moon: Lunatic Delusion has been tweaked slightly, making it less horrible to deal with.

3/29/12 - All: 1st-level major formulae no longer add damage to spellshape attacks.

8/1/12 - Spellshape Attacks That Deal Physical Damage: Instead of letting you use your shaper level in place of your base attack bonus, these spellshape attacks now grant you a bonus on your attack rolls equal to 1/2 your shaper level.  ----  Blustering Gale: Embrace of the Air now allows characters to fly while wearing armor.

11/15/12 - Searing Flame: Blast Wave and Wildfire are no longer attached to attacks with fireblast.


11/24/12 - Astral Essence: Astral Alignment, Celestial Alignment, and Heavenly Alignment no longer grant temporary immunity to disease and poison.  Heavenly Awe is no longer attached to starsurge.

11/24/12 - Perfect Freeze: Forced Hibernation has been replaced with Frost Armor.  Frozen Haze is now larger, deals more damage, imposes a harsher miss chance on attacks, and is no longer attached to frostray.

1/3/13 - Natural Balance: The circle has been heavily revised.  Most formulae have either been entirely replaced or mostly rewritten.

2/17/13 - Roaring Tide: Surging jet now deals bludgeoning damage, rather than piercing damage.Water Pulse and Billowing Fog have been detached from surging jet.  Rainstorm has been replaced with Refresh.  Siphon Life's Water has been replaced with Fluid Barrier.  Tidal Burst has been rewritten as Roaring Geyser.  Drain Fluids has been replaced with Tidal Ebb.  Fist of the Geyser has been replaced with Binding Currents.

2/26/13 - Crushing Stone: Animated Stone has been replaced with Aegis of Stone.  Earthbreaker has been cleaned up.  Swallowing Earth has been detached from rockslam.  Wrath of Stone has been replaced with Wrack the Earth.

Prestige Classes

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11/11/11 - Archmage of the Tower Conclave: The additional formulae learned from this class must now come from circles to which you have access.

12/12/11 - Flamedancer: Flamedancers now receive enhancement bonuses with their fire blades, to match that received by spellforge warsmiths.

12/15/11 - Edgewalker Knight: Service of the Suppliant is now a swift action that can be used only once per encounter.

12/16/11 - Flamedancer: As most spellshapers can now shape in light armor by default, Skirmishing Shaper was removed.

1/8/12 - Corrosive Blade: As most spellshapers can now shape in light armor by default, the corrosive blade's Skirmishing Shaper ability now allows you to shape formulae in medium armor.

1/15/12 - Disciple of the Circles: Disciple's Strike now functions with all uses of spellshape hand.

1/30/12 - Corrosive Blade: Skirmishing Shaper removed.  ----  Darkened One: Duration of Dominate Soul ability changed to five rounds, with a save each round to end the effect.  ----  Edgewalker Knight: Knight's Oath now allows the shaping of all formulae in armor.  Sublime Shaping ability added.  ----  Elemental Channeler: Elemental Shape can now be used once per day per class level.  ----  Flamedancer: The fire blade's enhancement bonus has been changed to 1/4 your shaper level.  Sublime Shaping ability added.  ----  Unseen Master: The Concealed Stride and Unfettered Sight abilities now have a limited number of uses per day.  The Telepathy ability no longer includes the Mindsight feat.  The Alter Memory ability can now be used only once per day.  ----  Woodspeaker: Call Brambles and Call Healing Spore have been changed slightly.  Body of the Forest now changes your type to plant and grants you bonuses, rather than giving you a template.  ----  Spellforge Warsmith: The enhancement bonuses on spellforged equipment have been changed to 1/4 your shaper level, rather than 1/2 your class level.  Spellforge Armor now grants immunities or damage reduction, rather than dealing damage to attackers.  ----  Wildheart Mage: Fey Transformation now increases your mental ability scores and improves your natural armor, in addition to changing your type to fey and granting you damage reduction.

2/9/12 - Lavamancer: Heavily revamped.  That's really the only way to put it.  Pool of magma is gone, wall of magma is gone, and the capstone functions entirely differently.  ----  Spellforge Warsmith: Some rules on spellforge weapons have been tweaked and/or clarified.

3/19/12 - Lavamancer: Volcanic blast has been changed to a 18-20 critical threat range.  ----  Spellforge Warsmith: Master of the Spellforge has been altered slightly and no longer allows you to completely ignore immunity to an energy type.  Warsmith's Assault now clarifies that making a full attack as part of shaping a formula changes the formula's shaping action to a full-round action.

7/2/12 - Ashbound Oracle: Traded Burning Gaze for an AC Bonus, increased base attack bonus to full, doubled the number of rounds per day you can use Fire Sight.

9/4/12 - Ashbound Oracle: Changed to grant additional formulae known from any circle to which you have access.  Added Secrets of the Ash.

Other

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11/12/11 - Battle Sage: Bonus to AC and Concentration checks moved to 3rd level.  Now grants bonus damage at 9th level and bonus hit points at 15th level.  ----  Shaman of the Elements: Aura now gained at 4th level, full-round action required to change auras, healing and status removal moved to eighth level and 12th level.  ----  Stoichen Elemental Adept: The elemental aura now functions as an aura, affecting creatures in a 5-foot radius area centered on you.  Radius increases to 10 feet at 11th level and 15 feet at 17th level.

11/13/11 - Stoichen: Water stoichen now receive animate water as their spell-like ability.  ----  Elemental Spirit: The revive ability can now be used no more than three times per day.  ----  Mage-Warrior's Steed: Mount now gained at 4th level.  ----  Spellshape Paragon: No longer grants your Charisma modifier as a bonus on saving throws.

11/14/11 - Feats: Metashaping feats now function more or less as if you always had Metashaping Mastery.  So, yeah, enjoy metashaping!  A few other minor changes were administered to a few other feats.  ----  Idiosyncratic Shaper: Now specifically notes that Impulse Mages have their occurred formulae reduced, as well.  ----  Spellshape Auras: Now specifically note that gaining auras from multiple sources does not allow you to project multiple auras at once.  ----  Shaman of the Elements: At 16th level, you now gain the ability to project both of your spellshape auras at once.

12/1/11 - Feats: Still Spellshape removed.

12/12/11 - Feats: Precise Shaper and Tactical Shaper no longer apply only to ranged touch attacks.  They now apply to ranged attacks.  Spellshape Study has received a much-needed line break in the "Special" section.

12/15/11 - Feats: Spell-Linked Companion removed.  The Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus feats now increase the Reflex save of a sculpted spellshape by 1 and 2, respectively.

12/16/11 - Feats: Brilliance of Flame has been removed.  Elemental Healing is no longer reprinted here.  Extend Formula, Maximize Formula, Persistent Formula, and Quicken Spellshape have been moved to Codex I.

12/20/11 - Feats: Empower Formula, Fortify Spellshape, Heighten Formula, and Metashaping Focus have been added to Codex II to offset the feats that were moved to Codex I.

12/30/11 - Feats: Extra Prepared Formula and Formula Study can now be taken multiple times.  However, Extra Prepared Formula cannot be taken if doing so would increase your Formulae Prepared beyond your Formulae Known.

1/8/12 - General: All melee-based spellshaping classes and prestige classes now note that they are immune to the harmful effects of formulae that they shape through spellshape channeling/spellforged weapons/whatever.  ----  Feats: Reshape Formula has been reworded.

1/15/12 - Battle Sage: The AC bonus now does not stack with that from disciple of the circles.

1/30/12 - Feats: Heighten Formula now adds two dice of damage to major formulae for every level by which the formula is heightened.  ----  Spellshape Paragon: The rebuke spell ability is now an immediate action.

2/29/12 - Feats: The Spellshape Aura feat no longer penalizes your shaper level for the purpose of determining your aura's bonus.  The fact that you're spending two feats on the aura is enough.

3/27/12 - Stoichen: Stoichen have been tweaked as a part of the elemental adept overhaul.

3/29/12 - Feats: Spellshape Focus and Greater Spellshape Focus now require shaper level 3rd and 12th, respectively.  ----  Lamens: The volatile lamen property has been redesigned.

8/19/12 - Stoichen: Revised.  Elemental Blood has been simplified.  Stoichen now gain the ability to shape the incantations associated with their elemental ancestry.  Stoichen feats tweaked slightly to account for the addition of incantations.  Stoichen elemental adept revised to keep it in line with the revised stoichen and elemental adept.

8/20/12 - Caymir: Revised.  Speak with Animals replaced with Animal Speech.  Caymir anchorite revised to keep it in line with the revised caymir and anchorite.  Caymir anchorite lost its 1st-level substitution.

8/21/12 - Cambian: Cambian impulse mage revised.  Now trades adept's knack for eclectic knowledge, evasion for indomitable soul, and quick to act for additional rerolls with the lucky racial ability.  ----  Living Spellshape: Revised.  Spellshape attack replaced with spellshape body.  Living spellshape spellsage revised to keep it in line with the revised spellsage.  Now trades detect magic for rebuke spell, spellgrace for spell resistance, and arcane sight for command magic.

9/1/12 - Masked One: Masked one savant revised.  Now trades the first lore mastery for shadowed lore, still mind for dark mind, and gnosis for extract knowledge.

11/17/12 - Formula and Incantation Descriptions: Revised.  Incantation information added.

[DonQuixote]

Posting Spellshaping Material
So, it is a fact of reality that I am not the only person in the world who has ideas.  Though I may have dozens of brains kept in jars, feeding me a constant supply of thoughts, I don't have your brains.  And your brains might be having ideas, too.

Just as anyone is welcome to use spellshaping material, anyone is welcome to write spellshaping material, and to post it here.  However, there are some rules, caveats, and guidelines.  The following is not an exhaustive list of what can and cannot be posted--I'm very bad at seeing things coming in advance.  So, if I take issue with something posted, but it doesn't fall under anything mentioned here, I'll likely message you about it and open a dialogue on the matter.  However, here are the rules, caveats, and guidelines as they stand now:

• All spellshapers should be assumed to follow the same progression in terms of the highest-level formulae that they can know, and all spellshapers must meet the prerequisites of a formula in order to learn it.  The first of these two is really more of a guideline--if, for some strange reason, you really want there to be a spellshaping class that never gets to 9th-level formulae, I suppose I can't stop you from writing it...though you'll have to have a pretty good reason.  The second, however, is set in stone.  While some people might choose to ignore formula prerequisites, much as some people do for martial maneuver prerequisites, that is a houserule, not a class feature.  If one spellshaping class can ignore the prerequisites of formulae, that class gains a strong advantage over other spellshapers.  Playing that way as a houserule is completely acceptable; playing that way as a class decision, however, is not.
• A formula's duration should not exceed 5 rounds in most cases.  Certain high-level formulae might acceptably have longer durations than this, but never more than 8 rounds.  Because arcane formulae can be recovered so easily, you do not need things that last 1 round/level.  It's just not necessary.  Moreover, in order to avoid the scenario of spamming powerful formulae with durations--such as shaping Ashen Pyre against several enemies at once--it has been ruled that, unless otherwise noted, you may only have a single instance of a given major formula in effect at once.  This means that you actively do not want formulae with long durations, as you'll end up shaping all of your formulae, recovering them, and then sitting on your thumbs as you wait for the effects of the previous shaping to end.
• I may ask you to change wording around.  So, I can't just sneak in and edit your post if I want to reword things--it is board policy that you cannot edit other users' posts without permission from the higher-ups.  However, I am a stickler for structure, proper wording, and grammar.  There is a decent possibility that I'll draft up a re-worded version of something that you post and ask if you'd mind changing to it.  This is not meant as an insult or anything of the sort.  I'm just obsessive and really like consistency in how things read.
• Spellshaping material posted on this board should require only official Wizards of the Coast material and the other spellshaping material on this board.  While there is a lot of good homebrew on the internet, I don't like sending people jumping around just so that they can decide whether or not they want to play a class.  Especially since Codex I and Codex II are intended to also be usable in PDF format--and there may be compendiums of later content released in the future--I prefer to keep things in here as stand-alone.  Ideas that combine spellshaping and other homebrew are wonderful, and I'd be happy to collaborate on such stuff, but I'd prefer to put it in the general homebrew section, just for consistency.  I'll be happy to post links to such material, but this is just one of my neuroses.  (This rule may be rescinded at some point, but it is still in effect for now.)

Those are all the big issues that come to mind at the moment, but these rules, caveats, and guidelines are subject to change at any point.