Chameleon and Sublime Chord like class

[Binho]

Hi, everyone.
I need some advice about this build. I'm planning to use the chameleon prestige class. But his spells stop at 6th spell level. So I thought to use the sublime chord prestige class to supplement it. But the casting ability os SC uses CHA and the Chameleon uses INT. I don't like the idea of increasing the MAD like that.
Don't you guys know some other prestige class that complete the spellcasting development of the previous class (like Sublime Chord)? Preferably that advances arcane casting, but divine should be ok.
Any tips for the five initial levels? Which class works best with chameleon?

Thanks in advance
P.S.: sorry for the awful English.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Your English is good!

Wow, taking the Chameleon past it's Spell level 6 limit is making an already incredible PrC and making it more so. I'd be nervous to be the DM of such a PC.

With that said, the build looks legitimate, as long as you keep your Arcane Focus. Any day you don't have Arcane Focus up, you lose the qualification for the Sumblime Chord PrC. But that should be pretty easy to do.

As for the first 5 levels, You'll need 1 level of Bard to meet Sublime Chord's "Bardic Music Ability" prereq. Past that I'd recommend Factotum 4 as a solid choice. Bard or Sorcerer for the CHA investment could be good. Warlock 4 might be very interesting.

I'm assuming you're taking Chameleon to 10 before starting in Sublime Chord. If that's the case, by level 20 you'd only start casting your first level 7 spell. Do you have a different build in mind?

By the time you've reached level 15 (5 levels base, 10 levels Chameleon) You should be able to invest gold into some useful stat-boosting items. Also, your +6 ability boon from Chameleon 10 on top of a CHA of 13 fully covers whatever you'd need for spellcasting from Sublime Chord. Yeah, it would be nice to invest those stat points into something else, but I think you'd be ok.

 

[Sekhmet]

To reach a higher level of casting you can pick up either of the following: Planar Touchstone (PlH), Extra Slot (CAr), and Improved Sigil (Krau) (RoD); or Sanctum Spell, Versatile Spellcaster, Heighten Spell + Earth Spell, or Improved Sigil (Krau), followed by Wonderworker (BoED), Mystic (Dragong #274), Dragon Disciple, or Eunuch Warlock (OA).

For particulars, The Chameleon Handbook is your go to resource for Chameleons in all their glory.

OF SPECIAL NOTE: The Trapsmith PrC from Dungeonscape has Haste and Dispel Magic as 1st level spells (among others), Dimension Door and Stoneskin as 2nd level spells (among others), and as 3rd level spells has Greater Dispel, Fabricate and Wall of Stone (among others). The Chameleon can draw from ANY spell list. USE THIS KNOWLEDGE WISELY.

 

[emoplato]

Hi, everyone.
I need some advice about this build. I'm planning to use the chameleon prestige class. But his spells stop at 6th spell level. So I thought to use the sublime chord prestige class to supplement it. But the casting ability os SC uses CHA and the Chameleon uses INT. I don't like the idea of increasing the MAD like that.
Don't you guys know some other prestige class that complete the spellcasting development of the previous class (like Sublime Chord)? Preferably that advances arcane casting, but divine should be ok.
Any tips for the five initial levels? Which class works best with chameleon?

Thanks in advance
P.S.: sorry for the awful English.

What you need to do to advance Chameleon is find PrC's that advance existing spell casting. You do need to find requirements outside of Chameleon as it says its class features do not qualify for other PrC's. You can actually pull it off with a Geomancer(Dragonwrought Kobold cleric/factotum with Precocious Apprentice). This actually allows you to select any spell in existence as the Chameleon gets access to all spells it is capable of casting and the key feature of a Geomancer is sharing spells of the two types in the slots.
As for independent casting Complete Divine is filled with independent casting classes most notably the Ur-priest.

 

[Binho]

Thanks for the answers.

Your English is good!

Wow, taking the Chameleon past it's Spell level 6 limit is making an already incredible PrC and making it more so. I'd be nervous to be the DM of such a PC.

With that said, the build looks legitimate, as long as you keep your Arcane Focus. Any day you don't have Arcane Focus up, you lose the qualification for the Sumblime Chord PrC. But that should be pretty easy to do.

As for the first 5 levels, You'll need 1 level of Bard to meet Sublime Chord's "Bardic Music Ability" prereq. Past that I'd recommend Factotum 4 as a solid choice. Bard or Sorcerer for the CHA investment could be good. Warlock 4 might be very interesting.

I'm assuming you're taking Chameleon to 10 before starting in Sublime Chord. If that's the case, by level 20 you'd only start casting your first level 7 spell. Do you have a different build in mind?

By the time you've reached level 15 (5 levels base, 10 levels Chameleon) You should be able to invest gold into some useful stat-boosting items. Also, your +6 ability boon from Chameleon 10 on top of a CHA of 13 fully covers whatever you'd need for spellcasting from Sublime Chord. Yeah, it would be nice to invest those stat points into something else, but I think you'd be ok.

The Factotum really suits the chameleon flavor! I never played one, but it worth a try.

I made a research and came across to this two builds:


factotum 4, cloistered cleric 1, chameleon 8, nar demonbinder 7 (PrC of Unapprochable East pag. 25) - cast 8th spells at lv 20, CL23

and

factotum 4, bard 1, chameleon 7, sublime chord 8 - cast 8th spells at lv19, CL 22.


My DM do not roll the abilities. He houserules that the sum of the abilities must be 84, so it would be ok to go for Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 18 and Cha 18. What do you guys think of this builds? would you allow it? which one is best?

I need at least Cha 18 to cast spells from higher levels. Additionally, I need Wis 16 and Int 16. I would like to have some more points in Dex and Con, but no one is perfect.

To reach a higher level of casting you can pick up either of the following: Planar Touchstone (PlH), Extra Slot (CAr), and Improved Sigil (Krau) (RoD); or Sanctum Spell, Versatile Spellcaster, Heighten Spell + Earth Spell, or Improved Sigil (Krau), followed by Wonderworker (BoED), Mystic (Dragong #274), Dragon Disciple, or Eunuch Warlock (OA).

For particulars, The Chameleon Handbook is your go to resource for Chameleons in all their glory.

OF SPECIAL NOTE: The Trapsmith PrC from Dungeonscape has Haste and Dispel Magic as 1st level spells (among others), Dimension Door and Stoneskin as 2nd level spells (among others), and as 3rd level spells has Greater Dispel, Fabricate and Wall of Stone (among others). The Chameleon can draw from ANY spell list. USE THIS KNOWLEDGE WISELY.

Thanks for the handbook. As for the little tricks, i believe the builds I posted would be a fair substitute. These builds are already powerful without questionable matters, so I think i won't use them.

What you need to do to advance Chameleon is find PrC's that advance existing spell casting. You do need to find requirements outside of Chameleon as it says its class features do not qualify for other PrC's. You can actually pull it off with a Geomancer(Dragonwrought Kobold cleric/factotum with Precocious Apprentice). This actually allows you to select any spell in existence as the Chameleon gets access to all spells it is capable of casting and the key feature of a Geomancer is sharing spells of the two types in the slots.
As for independent casting Complete Divine is filled with independent casting classes most notably the Ur-priest.

Ur priest are out, because evil characters are forbidden. On the other hand, the geomancer is a prestige class that I don't know well, I'll give a look.


For some reason, I can't XP you RUMBLETiGER and Sekhmet...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

As for which build is better, depends upon what you want to do. Either looks fun to play! Good call with Cloistered Cleric vs Bard.

As for not being able to XP us, you've likely XPed us recently, spread some love around to others first =).

Enjoy!

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=6674967]Binho[/MENTION] I'm playing a Factotum/Chameleon/Cabinet Trickter/Master of Masks at the moment. Chameleon/Factotum meshes really well together. "His" stats are S8, D12, C14, I16, W10, and Ch22 before items. I put my floating +4 in Ch most days.

Remember you can supplement a slightly low Int/Wis with items to let you cast those spells, so don't worry too much about hitting that 16 cap.
If I were you, I'd probably use S8, D14, C14, I16, W16, Ch16 and put your level up bonuses in Charisma.

 

[Empirate]

What you need to do to advance Chameleon is find PrC's that advance existing spell casting.

I'm positive this won't work. Chameleon casting is not genuine casting, but Arcane/Divine Focus. See, Chameleon doesn't have its own casting. It has the Focus class features instead. To my knowledge, no class explicitly advances the Arcane/Divine Focus class feature. So the emulated arcane or divine (pseudo-)casting cannot be advanced in any way - except by "+1 existing class feature" advancement. That kind of advancement is found with Uncanny Trickster, Legacy Champion and maybe elsewhere, but it is very rare. Even with this kind of advancement, you won't be getting higher than 6th level spells, since that is where Arcane/Divine Focus cap out!

However, it is not impossible to reach higher level spells via some (to me) somewhat questionable tricks. Those tricks can be found in the Chameleon Handbook that @Sekhmet linked to.

 

[Binho]

I'm positive this won't work. Chameleon casting is not genuine casting, but Arcane/Divine Focus. See, Chameleon doesn't have its own casting. It has the Focus class features instead. To my knowledge, no class explicitly advances the Arcane/Divine Focus class feature. So the emulated arcane or divine (pseudo-)casting cannot be advanced in any way - except by "+1 existing class feature" advancement. That kind of advancement is found with Uncanny Trickster, Legacy Champion and maybe elsewhere, but it is very rare. Even with this kind of advancement, you won't be getting higher than 6th level spells, since that is where Arcane/Divine Focus cap out!

However, it is not impossible to reach higher level spells via some (to me) somewhat questionable tricks. Those tricks can be found in the Chameleon Handbook that @Sekhmet linked to.

That applies even to Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord? The prerequisite of these prestige classes are "Able to cast Xth-level arcane spells". Well, the Chameleon is able to cast spells of that level. And the the fore mentioned PrC do not advance spellcasting, it gives you casting from a new list, giving you a new spellcasting ability too (CHA, that sucks, but whatever). Of course, the Caster Level is added, but the chameleon has CL equal to double his class levels, so that is not a problem.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

That applies even to Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord? The prerequisite of these prestige classes are "Able to cast Xth-level arcane spells". Well, the Chameleon is able to cast spells of that level. And the the fore mentioned PrC do not advance spellcasting, it gives you casting from a new list, giving you a new spellcasting ability too (CHA, that sucks, but whatever). Of course, the Caster Level is added, but the chameleon has CL equal to double his class levels, so that is not a problem.

No, I think your 2 PrC examples work, because they have thier own caster progression, where as the "+1 Caster level" ones build upon a previous class.