Practiced Spellcaster Breaks D20

[Thanee]

Antoine, maybe you are one of the persons that confuse caster level with the spell power PrC give?

Practiced Spellcaster only adds caster level, not spells per day or spells known.

Multiclassed spellcasters - even with Practiced Spellcaster - are far less powerful spellcasters than singleclassed spellcasters!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

It is universally accepted, that spellcasters do not work well with the multiclassing rules in D&D.

There is the 1/X-1 approach, but beyond that, spellcasting power diminishes too quickly, as you lose in three areas at once, spell power, spell number and spell effectiveness.

There are already some PrC to address this, mainly the Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight and Mystic Theurge, but even adding more than a PrC share of abilities on top of a full or almost full spellcasting progression isn't enough, therefore the designers went one step further by introducing Practiced Spellcaster (and/or the UA MR) as a fix (I'm quite certain, that the multiclassing rules will eventually be changed to address this more properly in 4th edition, by giving all classes a base caster level (I had written up something like that in the house rules forum once), for example).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Antoine]

I think maybe if practised caster added the other benefits that come with a higher level in a casting class (like more spells and spell slots) you might have a point here.

Comparison is difficult, cause BAB is the raw power of fighter type, a characteristic "caster level" shares with the "highest spell level available" for spell casters.
But I wouldn't like a feat phrased like :
"When you get this feat, you gain two fighter bonus feats. You must have 4 non-fighter levels/hit dice to take this feat.
Special : you love this new feat.
Normal : fighter have more feats than you do."
Now it wouldn't change much D&D on fighter still being the best fighters. But it would make very powerful fighting clerics (for instance) even more powerful and thus is innapropriate; even if it may help an otherwise sub-optimal fighting multiclassed Rog/Brd to get some combat skills.

 

[Antoine]

Antoine, maybe you are one of the persons that confuse caster level with the spell power PrC give?

Practiced Spellcaster only adds caster level, not spells per day or spells known.

I'm pretty sure a hierophant, for instance, trades the fact that he doesn't get more spells per day for power a regular cleric does not have, even if they still share the same caster level.
And when I refer to spell power, I think of the archmage (for instance) ability, not the lines in the table saying "add one caster level + spell progression in one (sometimes both) of your previous casting classes".
Maybe I used the wrong terms, sorry.

 

[Thanee]

Ah, I see.

Again, however, the Archmage's ability (and even the Hierophants, altho there is the same "loss" in spell levels and spells per day) surpasses the caster level of a regular spellcaster, something Practiced Spellcaster will never do.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Shadowdweller]

ASIDE from the (little) relative casting ability afforded by merely dipping into a spellcasting class, it seems all too easy to gloss over the fact Practiced Spellcaster DOES in fact have a pre-requisite that could be painful for some types of characters: 4 (full) ranks in Spellcraft.

Personally, I'm much more excited about using Practiced Spellcaster with semi-casters (Paladins, Rangers). YIPPEE! Casting Greater Magic Weapon might almost occasionally be worth it as a Paladin.

 

[ARandomGod]

Huh? Early 1st edition AD&D was unlimited in level - although wizards topped out at about 29th level for their spell-casting tables, IIRC.

However, in practice, AD&D characters retired at 12th level or slightly before; the "name" levels of multi-class advancement didn't occur. In addition, multiclass characters were much more limited in level - I think you might get a half-elf Cleric/Wizard of about 5th/9th level and that was it!

AD&D 2nd edition broke the multi-class/XP system by allowing progression to 16th level+ for multi-classes. Because the PCs had reached the "name" levels and flat advancement, the gap between multi-classes and single-classes became very wide indeed.

Cheers!

I'm talking very, very early.
The first few levels came out with nowhere to go from there! I think it was only five or six (I still have that book somewhere). Then there were more levels, up to ten or so... That was the top for a long time, before they had the "advanced" levels, where you could go up to a godlike nearly 20th level! And yes, eventually they even released some information about levels above level 20. But early, early on, hitting level ten you build you a castle or mage tower and retired to live the good life.

Now that's a good point. But I can't tell if PC falls in this category or is closer to "add 4 to your BAB, to the limit of your hit dice". I certainly have some bards and clerics who would spend one of their really few feats to get something like that.

No, not at all... let's look at bards and clerics BAB progression a moment, shall we?
They start at a buy in of 0 BAB.
They go up one BAB every three levels thereafter. So at level 4 they have a BAB of three. Then another zero, and another three... So, adding 4 to the BAB of either of those classes would be comparable to compensating for 13 (that's THIRTEEN!!) levels, not four. Sure, that's overpowered, I agree.

Precticed spellcaster does not do anywhere near this. And, for that matter, bringing a fighting class up to full BAB completely overcomes his loss, bringing a caster up to full caster level does not grant the real power of the class... it does not grant higher level spells or more spells per day. It simply increases the ability to overcome SR, and makes some of the spells last longer or do damage a little closer to their max.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Comparison is difficult, cause BAB is the raw power of fighter type, a characteristic "caster level" shares with the "highest spell level available" for spell casters.
But I wouldn't like a feat phrased like :
"When you get this feat, you gain two fighter bonus feats. You must have 4 non-fighter levels/hit dice to take this feat.
Special : you love this new feat.
Normal : fighter have more feats than you do."
Now it wouldn't change much D&D on fighter still being the best fighters. But it would make very powerful fighting clerics (for instance) even more powerful and thus is innapropriate; even if it may help an otherwise sub-optimal fighting multiclassed Rog/Brd to get some combat skills.

That's because THAT feat is equivalent to
"You gain spells known and spells per day as if you were a caster 4 levels higher. Your caster level remains where it is. You must be missing 4 levels of spells known and spells per day to get this feat".

IOW - the feats are the more powerful half of the fighter equation. I think perhaps a feat that replaced 4 of your non-fighter bab levels with fighter-bab levels wouldn't be too bad.

 

[Malimar]

I de-nixxed it...

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know, that after this thread, I've allowed my player to use Practiced Spellcaster. I did drop the +4 CL to +2, though. I agreed with both camps - the multiclass spellcasters could use help camp and the PS feat was too powerful camp - so I split the difference.