Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Luthien Greyspear" data-source="post: 2680442" data-attributes="member: 34334">Okay, lets use an example:Wizard 13/Archmage 5 with a 22 Int (reasonable, perhaps even underpowered) gets 2 9th level spells per day normally, if he doesn't take the "Spell-like ability" power of the Archmage class. This allows him the versatility of ANY ninth level spells from his spellbook.  He can change them as the situation requires.Same Wizard, but with Spell-like Ability for the Prismatic Sphere spell.  He is now limited to a huge area-effect spell that could harm his own party and any ONE other ninth-level spell.  He is ALSO out one 5th-level spell that could have been devoted to...teleport. Or break enchantment.  Or hold monster.  Or any number of very versatile, party-supporting spells.Overall, it is never to one's advantage to limit your options.  (Note: This does NOT apply to sorcerors, who just trade out one 5th level and one 9th level spell per day to gain two ninth level spells, effectively.  They don't unlearn spells, and they lose much less versatility.  They have a harder time qualifying for the class, of course, but nothing's free.)Yep, it's more powerful than a feat that anyone can take at a lower level.  That's because it's a class-specific ability that you have to be at least a 14th level arcane caster to get.  That's a lot of devotion to your spellcasting.  That puts you at risk of physical death for a LONG time, lagging in both combat capability AND hit points.  With the ease of multi-classing in 3.5, it takes a devoted character concept to keep pushing the spellcasting envelope.This is a character class that requires 13 levels of caster levels (minimum for 7th-level spells) AND three feats (which is a big deal for a feat-starved class) AND a combined total of 30 skill ranks in two skills (another big deal for a skill-point starved class) just to take the first level in it...  Of course the class abilities are going to seem overpowered.  These are the levels at which the fighters are getting their fourth iterative attack, and are probably also bench-pressing ogres.  The cleric is healing everyone in the party AT ONCE, and the rogue is sneaking up on people and doing 8d6 of damage plus...with a dagger.Another thing to consider is that parties at this level are fighting more dangerous singular monsters.  Balors, pit fiends, great wyrm dragons, tarrasques, titans...  Augment these monsters with the token annoyance minions (easy to deal with) or, better yet, class levels, and a full party is hard pressed.  If I were targeting a big baddie like this with a spell, I would definitely appreciate any ability to spare my party the same damage.  Archmages with Mastery of Shaping become the safest blasters anywhere.  No party member need ever fear getting caught in the blast...provided they haven't pissed off the mage. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

Verification