Calling out, "systems mastery"

[Cyclone_Joker]

Dude, despite how stupid casters are(Even when not completely ludicrous abominations of RAW like this), 3.5 gave us Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, and Tome of Magic! Why would you ever turn your back on such wonderful books like them?

Nah, don't give up on good ol' 3e yet. This is just theoretical Munchkinism

Theoretical optimization

, but yeah. with a good dose of optimizers fallacy all over the place (like pun pun).

Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed and cared.

I don't think any DM with any experience under their belt would allow it, and doing that to a noob DM is just plain mean.

Actually using it, unless everyone goes in with both eyes open, is just douchey. But, still, it's a fun trick.

But while we are at it, is there any similar combo that works for sorcerers?.

Well, I don't think I can make 9s on a sorcerer until level 5 or 6, but learning 9s is the bigger problem. Bloodline feats could work, as could Arcane Disciple, although the Wis penalty would hurt.

If you were to make the sorcerer, you'd want to be Illumian Sorcerer 2/Human Paragon 3(Since Illumians are Humanoid(Human), they technically qualify), so you get a bonus feat at level 5. With the Planar Sorcerer variant(Or whatever it's called), you get Know(The Planes) as a class skill, although human paragon can dodge that, I guess. Then you take the Catalogs of Enlightenment Touchstone feat, get the DLCS Sun Domain. Then, at level 6, you take Extra Slot for 9s.

Your feats look like this:
1)(Random Metamagic)
F)[Whichever Bloodline feat]
F) Sanctum Spell
3)Arcane Disciple(Whichever domain you want)
5)Planar Touchstone
6)Extra Slot(9s)

This works because Sanctum Spell is broken and the Naenhoon is awesome. You could also use my 9s fighter trick on a sorcerer, I suppose, to give it wizard 9s, although it's slower.

 

[Crothian]

This thread has inspired me to run Basic D&D and nothing else.

Really? It makes me hug my players and appreciate them all the more.

 

[MoonSong]

Theoretical optimization

Oh sorry I'm just a rules lawyering Thespian Scruff who believed 15 point buy is too high, to me all optimization is Munchkinism

Nice trick, by the way. more seriously do you know of a good trick to get more known spells as a sorcerer? Wizards dominate on my arena and knowstones are off-limits.

 

[billd91]

Very little in the rules is precisely defined. Hence, the need for interpretations.

Drawing meaning out of text is always interpretive, including Cyclone_Joker's interpretation of the each of the rules in a highly literal fashion devoid of the context of the game's other rules and balancing mechanisms. He's ascribing a meaning to those words that is not intended, and as clearly so as the rules that surround the Pun-Pun exercise.

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

Oh sorry I'm just a rules lawyering Thespian Scruff who believed 15 point buy is too high, to me all optimization is Munchkinism

Heh.

Nice trick, by the way.

Thank you. It's not my favorite trick I've discovered, but it's up there.

more seriously do you know of a good trick to get more known spells as a sorcerer? Wizards dominate on my arena and knowstones are off-limits.

Without Knowstones it becomes more tedious. Runestaves, from the MiC, are pretty nifty, if inconvenient to carry around in bunches.

That aside, Complete Divine's Arcane Disciple and the various Bloodline feats(About half of which suck) from DrC are the only efficient ways I can think of. They hardly qualify as "tricks," but they work. There's also Mother Cyst and the Cerebrosis feat from Dragon 330, but those have problems.

Or, you could do my favorite way and say "Screw them" in the way only several thousand damage can.

Drawing meaning out of text is always interpretive, including Cyclone_Joker's interpretation of the each of the rules in a highly literal fashion devoid of the context of the game's other rules and balancing mechanisms. He's ascribing a meaning to those words that is not intended, and as clearly so as the rules that surround the Pun-Pun exercise.

Oh, boy. Pun-Pun? Again? Really? Can't you come up with some original hyperbole?

 

[tomBitonti]

The text is right but you're reading it wrong. All that's needed is the inherent ability to cast it and then Elven Wizard and Domain Wizard do their magic. It's like using Sanctum to qualify.

What I'm missing is what being able to cast a spell already known triggers. Not sure about cases where a caster has a 0 in the slots per day entry in the spell table, who then gains a bonus spell, leaving that aside. When are spells known which cannot be selected to be cast? That is, the effective slot granted by Versatile Wizard seemingly must be no higher than any slot the caster already has available.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Dandu]

That aside, Complete Divine's Arcane Disciple and the various Bloodline feats(About half of which suck) from DrC are the only efficient ways I can think of. They hardly qualify as "tricks," but they work. There's also Mother Cyst and the Cerebrosis feat from Dragon 330, but those have problems.

The Mage of the Arcane Order, Sand Shaper, and Rainbow Servant prestige classes.

 

[Hussar]

BTW, how would Contingency actually work since you can only cast spells up to 1/3 your CASTER level. Yes, you can cast Contingency, but, only to make 1/3 level spells work. So, how do you jack up your caster level high enough to cast anything through Contingency?

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

What I'm missing is what being able to cast a spell already known triggers. Not sure about cases where a caster has a 0 in the slots per day entry in the spell table, who then gains a bonus spell, leaving that aside. When are spells known which cannot be selected to be cast? That is, the effective slot granted by Versatile Wizard seemingly must be no higher than any slot the caster already has available.

Because you are capable of casting spells of that level. I've been over this.

But, as I've said, if that's not good enough for some reason, just insert Heighten into the build. An extra flaw hardly matters much.

The Mage of the Arcane Order,

Problematic class for many reasons, including a rather expensive feat cost.

Sand Shaper,

That level of skill cost on a Sorcerer? Also, the expanded list really isn't much to write home about.

and Rainbow Servant prestige classes.

Dude, you still have to blow spells known on all the spells added via Rainbow Servant.

BTW, how would Contingency actually work since you can only cast spells up to 1/3 your CASTER level. Yes, you can cast Contingency, but, only to make 1/3 level spells work. So, how do you jack up your caster level high enough to cast anything through Contingency?

Huh, I can only reach CL 10 before resorting to magic items. So unless we start laughing at the WBL table(Something trivially easy to do, but I'll hold off on it for now), so I'll have to concede that, without items, feats, traits, and so on, at least for the time being, I can't quite reach fourth level contingencies.

Well, unless I use Su abilities.

 

[tomBitonti]

Because you are capable of casting spells of that level. I've been over this.

But weren't you already able to cast spells of the level granted by Versatile Spellcaster? What has changed? The spell which you cast by Versatile Spellcaster must be one which is already known, not one which can be cast based on triggers of Versatile Spellcaster.

Thx!

TomB