Practiced Spellcaster feat

[Methos of Aundair]

quoted by Thanee

LOL, oops.

But that doesn't change anything, just replace it with the following:

"Enlarge Spell makes spells reach farther than they normally do. Practiced Spellcaster makes spells reach as far as they normally do."

Bye
Thanee

P.S. They should call that feat Far Spell.

I agree with you on that, but the enlarge spell feat when used in conjuction with a spell requires that you cast the spell at 1 level higher than the actual level, the majority of metamagic feats do. Yet with the PS feat you cast the spells at their normal spell level. This seems to take away from the balance.

 

[Methos of Aundair]

quoted by Laman Stahros

What I think you are missing here is that a Druid 5/Sorcerer 5 is still primarily a spellcaster and this feat (which I have allowed in my campaign and I have not seen any problems with it) would allow such a character to operate (within limits, of course) in his/her primary focus without severe and unreasonable limitations.

Good point Laman Stahros, and to be honest with you I would not play a multiclassed spellcaster as to the simple fact that yes, they are way to disadvantaged. In that I agree. When create a multiclassed character I tend to make sure my primary focus is not spellcasting. I agree that a multiclassed character (both classes spellcasters) would fall way behind, but once again, that is because this characters basis is still spellcasting.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Good point Laman Stahros, and to be honest with you I would not play a multiclassed spellcaster as to the simple fact that yes, they are way to disadvantaged.

Yup.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a feat that made it a viable concept?

... oh, wait!

-Hyp.

 

[atra2]

Methos, the post on TWF is the most clear analogy I've seen.

Practiced Spellcaster REDUCES a penalty.

Spell Penetration gives a REAL BONUS.

a pure warrior bends all his feats to combat (for the sake of argument).

a pure caster bends all his feats to casting/crafting (again for the sake of argument)

a warrior/caster splits his feats, and now he has to consider giving up one of his
few feats just to have his LOWER LEVEL spells on par with the LOWER LEVEL spells
of the rest of the party.

Thanee nails it on the head in pointing out that having the highest level of spells
trumps any perceived advantage over a mutt caster having practiced spellcaster
feat.

TWF for warrior types, Practiced Spellcaster for caster mutts. Same thing.

You know, you could make a deal with the ArcTrick in your game and see if
the feat actually makes the character too powerful. If it doesn't, well, your
problem is solved and you can stop reading this thread

the ftr5/sor1 w/ practiced spellcaster? Ooh, so powerful. Maybe he just gets
a 1st level pearl of power, asks the 6th wizard to cast mage armor on him,
and he'll give the spell slot right back

1000gp, 6 hours mage armor, no feat wasted.

mage armor + shield + dex = nice AC at level 2, even 4.

At level 6 to 8 you can face stone giants with +18 to hit.

In fact, monster bonus to hit (including strength) tends to add up to +5 per
two PC levels, if not more.

at level 10, see if fire giants aren't +20 to hit with a greatsword.

Your problem is self-solving, and in fact the ftr5/sor1 has nerfed himself for high
level because he probably could do a lot better if he were a pure fighter wearing
chain shirt +4, which is +8 AC, all the time. (Ok, so it's not a force effect, and
incorporeals ignore it. Wah.)

Mage Armor and Shield? he'd get more mileage as:

Ftr4/bard2. wear light armor with no arcane failure. Be able to activate a wand of
cure light wounds (which all clerics make dozens of over their career and have
some decent spell choices, plus contribute a bard song twice a day, freeing up the
cleric from casting bless and doing prayer instead before beginning the flame strikes

With one level of sorc, I'd be a fighter in full plate with these two spells:

True Strike
Feather Fall

both are verbal-only, suffer no arcane failure, and you can skip practiced spellcaster.

(True Strike = auto-disarm, auto-hit with a maxed power attack, etc.)

Sounds like you have a good gaming group, but they aren't even close to powergaming
3e/3.5, and they probably don't care to.

Practiced Spellcaster won't make your campaign world any worse. Multiclassed
casters were always too weak for the few spells they got. A straight fighter with
a good rack of potions or caster support behind him is much better than a caster
mutt, so let the mutts have their practiced spellcaster bone.

 

[Methos of Aundair]

quoted by atra2

Sounds like you have a good gaming group, but they aren't even close to powergaming
3e/3.5, and they probably don't care to.

Thanks for the compliment atra2, it is a very good group. The average age of my players is probably around the mid to upper 30’s, and most of the players have been playing since basic DnD, with the least experienced player starting at 1st ed. And yes, I will have to agree that are group isn’t power gamers. Recently my wizard players stated one of the spells he wanted, out of a non-core book, was too weak for it’s 5th level and had no problem with me house ruling it to a 6th level spell, without me even mentioning it, so yes, they aren’t power gamers and don’t want to be. My players like keeping things very balanced. Also, most of them don’t typically multiclass. Your suggestion about letting the Arcane Trickster in our group have the PS feat and playtest it may work but the consensus of our group is that it is unbalanced and they don’t want it in our campaign. This wasn’t just my opinion, but an overall opinion made by the group. Truthfully, none of the group has stated they believed this feat was balanced. Also, as you may be able to understand from the posting I quoted from one of my players is that my group tends to stick to the core books, with occasionally bringing in stuff from supplements or accessories. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s just how we like to play. I have heard on multiple occasions (from our group) about how the gaming industry puts out all these books and we pay for them, only to come back, create another edition and reprint everything with a few modifications. How many of us have boxes and boxes of previous editions stacked away in closets. Many of my players won’t buy the 3.5 books since we have mostly houseruled what we felt were unbalanced and they don't wish to donate more money to WizCo. Neither will they buy the supplements or accessories, I have no problem with this and understand their reasoning. We spent all this money on 3.0 books, now that 3.5 has come out WizCo is reprinting the 3rd ed books for the new edition, more ways to take our money.

Sorry about going off on a tangent, just trying to point out our groups’ style.

Due to our groups’ style, I brought this feat up for debate on this board so as to see what others thought of it, I’m definitely getting a lot of opinions and suggestions. Hopefully the above references to our gaming style may help you all understand why I think the way I do. My problem isn’t as much with the unbalance of the PS feat, but with the so-called disadvantages of multiclassing. The choice was made, the player knew. Are Arcane Trickster has no problem with his current spellcaster level, and thoroughly enjoys his character.

 

[Scion]

Just because they all agree it is unbalancing does not make it so, sometimes it takes a lot of looking and some playing to really get a feel for something.

Lots of people thought that the thuerge was highly overpowered when it first came out.. now most people think it is actually pretty far under par.. views change.

See what they have to say about this thread Maybe it will help them.

 

[Methos of Aundair]

@scion

I will have to agree with you on the MT. When I first saw it I thought it was way overpowered, but to try it out I ran one against my players when they were average 10th level. The MT was Wiz3/Clr3/MT7, a CR rating 3 higher than that of the pc's. Though I did kill one of the players, power from the death domain, it wasn't as challenging as it should have been for as high of a CR as it had, plus the MT had a CR 10 bodyguard. So after the fight, I realized how underpowered the MT is.

I don't know if reading this thread will as much as help them or just give them a different outlook. I'm sure they might be willing to playtest this feat in another campaign, I'm actually tempted to now, for playtest purposes, but they don't want it in this particular campaign.

 

[Methos of Aundair]

@scion

Interesting thing scion, you might know most of my players. We play in Columbia, MO and originally met several years ago while playing at Valhalla's Gate on Nifong. Several of my players, including me, were co-DM's in the Ashes campaign (which consisted of approx. 25 to 30 players) that used to play every other Saturday at the Gate.

 

[Pax]

I don't know EXACTLY what Practiced Spellcaster does as I don't have the book. But let me say the following:

The feat gives a +4 bonus to caster level (for all purposes except spells per day and spell levels castable), to a maximum caster level equal to the character's current HD. So, a fighter(1)/Wizard(3)/Eldritch Knight(6), with an innate caster level of 8 (3 from wizard, 5 from eldritch knight) and a total character level of 10, will only get a +2 bonus, since they have only 10 HD.

And yes, I agree with my statement seriously. Basically what I am saying is if I choose to play a multiclassed spellcaster I go into it knowing that more than likely I will never have access to high level spells.

Thepoint, however, is that those lost spell levels are in and of themselves a sufficient penalty / cost / "price paid" / whatever, to offset any other class abilities you gain through the process of multiclassing. And then, on top of those lost spell levels, you also lose sheer ability to effectively cast the spells you can use, as well as sheer numbers per day of those spells.

Practised Spellcaster only addresses one of those three reductions in spellcasting capacity - it [p]partially[/b] offsets the cost of multiclassing out of a Spellcasting class. Just like the one-for-two BAB of a Wizard partially offsets the loss of combat prowess a fighter suffers for multiclassing out of a combat-oriented class.

I make the choice of being a multiclassed spellcaster with the full knowledge that spellcasting will more than likely be a secondary focus of my character, not his primary focus.

The problemis, for every multiclass option except those involving spellcasting, you can choose which "side" of yoru character willbe primary, and which will be secondary.

As soon as one side of your character involves spellcasting, however ... you no longer have that choice. Why? Why can't I be a Sorceror with just a splash of fighter, without having to make combat my "primary focus" ... ? Try a vanilla Sorceror(10)/Fighter(10) some day, and see if you even can be more effective at spellcasting than you are at melee combat.

I guarantee youwill find that it is impossible to emphasise spellcasting instead of combat - that's because the 10 sorceror levels are 5 levels of fighter in terms of BAB. Yep, you guessed it, that character is able to connect blows as well as a 15th level Fighter ... but is not as able to connect with spells as a 15th-level Sorceror.

Practised Spellcaster seeks to redress that balance; the character gets no new spells-per-day, no access to higher-level spells - but it does let his spells have nearly as good a chance to get past the spellcaster-equivalent to AC (Spell Resistance), and incidentally makes his spells nearly that effective in general, as well.

I agree with you on that, but the enlarge spell feat when used in conjuction with a spell requires that you cast the spell at 1 level higher than the actual level, the majority of metamagic feats do. Yet with the PS feat you cast the spells at their normal spell level. This seems to take away from the balance.

So, answer me this: if my Sorceror(10)/Fighter(10) casts a Close-range spell, it could reach 50' away (25', plus 5' per two caster levels).

If I use enlarge spell, my range doubles, to 100' - costing me +1 spell level.

OTOH, if I picked up Practised Spellcaster instead of Enlarge Spell, my range goes up ... by all of 10', to 60' total.

Could you show me how it is that Practised Spellcaster is just as good as Enlarge Spell, again? Outside of artificial and misleading cases where only one or two levels of a spellcasting class are taken, mind.

 

[Psiblade]

In my experience even with this feat a multiclassed caster is still a significantly weaker caster than his single classed brethren. My 16th level MT is in awe of how damage and havoc our 17th level wizard can do with shapechange and Otto's Irresistible Dance. His favorite tactic is to change to a different dragon form every round and use his new breath weapon.

The power level of every campaign is different. Detect evil at will by a Paladin made my mystery / noir campaign have problems, so I ruled 0 that ability . The feat removes a penalty, but still leaves a character without access to the appropriate spells for their level. For, a standard D&D game this feat is nice, but not overpowering.

-Psiblade