Methos of Aundair said:
“Since the advent of 3.5 WotC has been trying to take away most of the disadvantages of multiclassing through feats (like this one), prestige classes (Mystic Theurge) and other rule changes. I think it's completely ridiculous and over-powered. Multiclassing is SUPPOSED to have disadvantages to offset the advantages of greater versatility. This is especially important for spellcasting classes, where multiclassing in two or more gives you a MUCH wider range of spells and more spells per day (though of a lower level). In my opinion it's driven by the company's (mostly correct) assumption that players seeking new and better advantages for their characters drive a large portion of the sales, so each new edition, book, etc. has something slightly MORE powerful or slightly MORE advantageous than everything that's come before to tempt people into buying. ”
I think he says it very well.
I think he completely missed the point.
Yes, there are plenty options to make multiclassed spellcasters better via feats or prestige classes.
There is a reason, why these are especially aimed towards multiclassed spellcasters, and that is, simply put, that multiclassed spellcasters suck.
Ok, now that's a bit harsh and surely not true for every single multiclassed spellcaster, but take for example a cleric/wizard, who takes both classes at an equal level. This character will be about as good as a 14th level character at level 20.
Yes, multiclassing adds versatility and takes away specialization, but multiclassing normally stacks. Hit points, BAB, saves, skills, feats, all these just add up, if you go towards a fighting class, BAB and hit points increase faster, if you go towards a skill class, skills increase faster. With multiclassing you control how fast these aspects of your character improve, and which you want to give more weight to.
However, spellcasting does not stack in any way with any other class, even other spellcasting classes.
There is no improvement, if you advance in other classes, and without an increase in caster level, many of the spells become completely useless later.
That's why there are so many options to improve multiclassed spellcasters, because they are needed to make like 80% of the multiclassed spellcasters viable (pretty much everything but the 1-2 levels of one and 18-19 levels of the other, which works fine without any such options).
Yes, Practiced Spellcaster is obviously better than Spell Penetration, if you have at least two levels of a non-spellcaster class, but that doesn't make it a better feat. For every pure caster it isn't even an option, because the feat won't do anything at all. A multiclassed spellcaster would pick Spell Penetration for the sole reason to keep his offensive spells useful at higher levels, but it isn't really enough to achieve this. In fact, these two feats aren't even compareable, since they are something completely different. Spell Penetration lets you increase your ability to punch through spell resistance beyond your level limit, while Practiced Spellcaster allows you to keep your ability at your level limit, so that the loss of spell levels doesn't result in too many penalties, as it would otherwise (lower caster level, lower spell level, lower spells per day).
Practiced Spellcaster is meant to lessen the impact of multiclassing on the spellcasters, since that impact is
too high normally.
And it achieves this in a very sensible and balanced way, I might add.
Bye
Thanee
