Min/Max Boards

12:11 PM: Replaced the silly initiative bonus with a "jumps through time" deal.  Also noted that the chronarch doesn't learn a new formula at 2nd level.

Yay, limited to self time hop! Maybe cut duration and change the activation to immediate action, it would become better defensive ability.

Actually, stealing from psionics is a very good idea. How about Elemental Adept ACF called primal adept or something with access to eternal time, astral essence and unseen hand circles with Astral Construct instead of elemental companion and few other psi-like goodies?

Done.  It's now a 1st level ACF, to add the class skills early.

Big thanks! This change would drastically improve my PC.

Well, spellshapers already have pretty big skill lists for magic-users.  I figured Ride doesn't come up terribly often.  It's also one of the skills that I frequently forget about the existence of.

Yes, it's true, but actually a Spellshape Champion with his knight-like feel could also get it.

After playing as an Anchorite for a while, I have few thoughts about equality of numens. First of all, I understand that complete balance is both impossible and unnecessary. On the other hand, the Crushing Stone numen quickly becomes very obsolete. DR 1/- for entire party is nice at first level, but DR 5/- at 20th level is likely ignorable.

The Natural Balance numen is a completely different case. Fast Healing 2 at first level is a bit too strong. I recommend to tune in down to Fast Healing 1. It would be still miraculous out-of-battle heal, but less powerful as the passive healing during an encounter.

Meanwhile, the new Wild Ascetic ACF lets you play a spellshaping druid.

Very, very cool change. Shameful that wild ascetic anchorite cannot pick Glimmering Moon circle. For me it doesn't make sense flavor-wise, because lycanthropy and madness are quite 'druidic'.

I killed Mage-Warrior's Steed.

Why?

How bad of an idea would it be to give most spellshaping classes one free set of incantations?

I really don't know. I would be quite a power bump, because of gaining some utility for free. On the other hand, incantations are very cool.

I say "most" because I was thinking that the spellsage would eventually get the set of incantations for every circle to which it has access.

The spellsage is quite strong. Equivalent of seven feats would make him even stronger.

I'd rather give incantations for free to the Anchorite (he needs it), Spellshape Paragon ACF, add the Spellshape Incanter feat to the savant's bonus feats list and give the Impulse Mage ability to receive each day Spellshape Incanter tied to random known circle.

There is a lot of interesting prestige classes in older DnD supplements. Obviously, they aren't compatible with spellshapers. Because of that, I decided to convert one of my beloved classes - Walker in the Waste from Sandstorm. The adaptation was very quick and easy, but do you consider this prestige class as balanced and comparable to your creations? I post only adapted/clarified abilities to avoid copyright issues.

If you want a skillmonkey spellshaper off the Savant chassis, how about a spellshaping Indianna Jones type "archaeologist"?

You are brilliant genius, sir.

I made a little ACF for Savant which turns her into spellshaping variant of the beguiler. Sorry for clunky wording.


Savvy Trickster
Some savants, instead of academic lore, gather wisdom of rogues and other scoundrels.

   Class: Savant.
   Level: 1st.
   Replaces: You do not gain the Savant's Knowledge and Scholar's Cantrips class features.

   Benefit: At first level you treat Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Climb, Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Forgery, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Open Lock, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Speak Language, Spot, Swim and Tumble as class skills. In addition, you receive trapfinding (as rogue).

At 5th level, your formulae become more effective when shaped against an unwary foe. All of following abilities affects only opponents which are denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether they actually has a Dexterity bonus or not).

At 5th level, you gain a +1 bonus to the save DC of any shaped formulae.

At 8th level, you gain a +2 bonus on rolls made to overcome the spell resistance.

At 11th level, you deal additional two dices of of damage with a spellshape attack.

At 14th level, your bonus to DC increase to +2.

At 17th level, you automatically overcome spell resistance of any foe.

At 20th level, the number of additional dices of damage of a spellshape attack increases to five.

Thanks for clarification! It's a small detail, but very important in my build

You seem to be correct on this subject. Thanks for explanation!

Personally I love Living Armor race. All of their racial feats are fine for me with one exception: Mithral-Forged Body feat is strictly better than Alloy-Forged Body one. For the price of one point of Armor, Mithral-Forged Body offers a) light armor (ability to cast without ASF in light armor is far more often than casting in medium armor), b) -1 ACP (far better than -3 offered by Alloy-Forged Body) and higher Dexterity mod. Is  Alloy-Forged Body feat a bit redundant?

Thanks for adjusting this ACF!

On the other hand, do you know such item as ring of spellbattle (MIC or CA, but short description can be also found in first post HERE). It has quite unique and powerful ability, maybe it could be nice addition to the last ability of arcane path instead of true seeing?