Calling out, "systems mastery"

[Cadence]

You're wrong here, but this is by far the best-supported argument against me here. First allow me to say it was well-done and a fun read.

I think I'd like to take a second stab at it. (And thanks). To make it easier for you to indicate specifically which detail I'm off on, I've broken it up and numbered/lettered it. If you think I've misinterpreted something, it would be great if you could offer what you think is an equally plausible interpretation that still allows the WotC quote to make sense.


Claim 0 - Standard Class means Base Class from the Player's Handbook

Justification -

SRD 1: Base Class: One of the standard eleven classes.
DMG 1: Base Class: One of the eleven classes descried in the Player's Handbook

Each is from the sub-section labeled "Definition of terms" in the section on "Prestige Classes"

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Claim 1 - Three parts that are closely related and based on the same quotes from Unearthed Arcana. (c) is the part that is needed for claim 2.

(a) UA must be using "class" to sometimes mean a particular character class (a single specified standard class or specified variant class) and sometimes to mean "a standard class plus it's related variant classes". For clarity, call this later meaning a "class-group".

(b) In the case of a particular name that in some cases denotes a single specified standard class, that name could also denote the larger class-group containing that standard class. So "rogue" could mean "standard rogue" or "the rogue class-group" depending on the context.

(c) A standard class and the variant classes within a class-group are different classes.

Justification -

(i) That a standard class and a variant class are different entities is demonstrated by:

UA1: "With your DM’s permission, you can use any one of these variant classes in place of the standard class of the same name. Depending on the campaign world, variant classes may exist side by side with standard classes, or they may replace standard classes entirely."

(ii) That a standard class and variant classes of the same class-group are different classes are demonstrated in the following where "rogue" and "wilderness rogue" are both classes, and "rogue" is the class gained first.

UA2: "In any case, only the first version of a favored class is treated as favored; a halfling rogue/wizard who later begins gaining levels in the wilderness rogue variant class can’t treat both the rogue and wilderness rogue classes as favored, only the class gained first (in this case, rogue)."

(iii) This paragraph seems to make sense only if "favored class" is actually "favored class-group" and each incident of "rogue" (not "wilderness rogue") properly means "standard rogue".

UA2-trans: "In any case, only the first verison of a favored class-group is treated as favored, a halfling standard rogue/wizard who later begins gaining levels in the wilderness rogue variant class can't treat both the standard rogue and wilderness rogue class as favored, only the class gained first (in this case, standard rogue)."

In the next:

UA3: "Under no circumstances does spellcasting ability from multiple classes (even variants of the same class) stack. A character with levels of bard and levels of bardic sage has two separate caster levels and two separate sets of spells per day, even though the classes are very similar."

(iiib) the "same class" seems to be "same class-group", while "bard" seems to be "standard bard".

UA3-trans: "Under no circumstances does the spell casting ability from multiple classes (even variants of the same class-group) stack. A character with levels of standard bard and levels of bardic sage has to separate caster levels and two separate sets of spells per day, even though the classes are very similar."

(iv) Thus, to interpret the rules about class it is necessary to distinguish between the standard class, variant class, and class-group.

(v) @N'raac 's concern in post #132 is dealt with by using the math specified in:

UA4: "This section presents sixteen variant versions of the standard character classes, along with several additional variants created by swapping one or more class features for features of other classes."

There are 15 sections at the level below the "Variant Character Classes". Of these 13 use the term variant in the singular, one uses it in the plural (listing three variants), and the final is the list of the "Other Class Variants" given in a format of gain and loss.

UA5: "Each fully detailed variant has entries for one or more of the following topics." (Alignment, Hit Die, BAB, Base Save Bonuses, Class Skills, Class Features)

This quote removes the "Other Class Variants" section from consideration as they are identically formatted and must all either be in that format (thus exceeding the count of 16 in UA4) or not in that format and thus not full variants.

The remaining 14 sections thus contains exactly 16 variants listed at the same level, and with the requisite detail to count as a "fully detailed variant". That each Totem Barbiran, Monk Fighting Style, Domain Wizard Domain, etc... is not a separate variant occurs because within each grouping they are all parallel and the count of 16 would be violated.

The remark concerning "In cases where a single class offers a variety of paths (such as the totem barbarian or the monk fighting styles)" is not a contradiction. For example, "Totem Barbarian" is a variant class within the "Barbarian Class-Group".

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Claim 2 - A Domain Wizard and Standard Wizard are separate classes within the Wizard-group.

Justification - Follows immeidately from Claim 1c and that Domain Wizard is one of the variants mentioned in UA1&4.

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Claim 3 - A Domain Wizard cannot be an Elf Generalist at level 1.

Justification -

RotW1: "A substitution level is a level of a given class that you take instead of the level described for the standard class."

By claim 2, a Domain Wizard does not have a level described for the standard class to be substituted for (they differ in their powers).

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In any event, the whole thing's close enough to RAW that I have to believe at least one part of it would have been errata/FAQ'd if it had been found before they stopped supporting 3.5. (I didn't think I'd ever see anything as bad as Asteroid Sanctuary in the old Decipher SW:CCG).

 

[pemerton]

Yes, because that's what it is. See, the Wizard entry is kinda nice like that.

Show me in the text of the scroll rules where it says a scroll is casting a spell, or that scrolls give you slots.

Show me in the text of Domain Wizard or (Elven) Generalist Wizard where is says that either ability gives you slots.

Unless those abilities have been misquoted upthread, it doesn't say that.

A wizard knows every spell in their spellbook. And the domain spells from Domain Wizard.

You only know those spells when you have the ability to cast spells of that level: "A domain wizard automatically adds each new domain spell to her list of known spells as soon as she becomes able to cast it."

>You can cast a higher level spell
>You know the domain spells of that level.

It's really clear. But, as I've mentioned, if that isn't good enough, then use heighten

I don't think you are addressing the issue. You can't cast a higher level spell, using Versatile Spellcaster, unless you know such a spell. But your trick requires using Versatile Spellcaster to generate knowledge of such a spell. That is, you are requiring Versatile Spellcaster to bootstrap itself. I don't think such a reading of the feat is very strongly supported by the text itself, and there is nothing in the broader context that supports such a reading either.

Heighten Spell a different issue: it is not clear - as others have pointed out upthread - that a heightened spell counts as a spell "known" by a wizard. For instance, it is not a spell in their spellbook, nor a domain spell from Domain Wizard, and so doesn't fit either of the criteria you yourself have put forward for identifying a wizard's known spells.

And the same bootstrapping issue also comes up. If the only basis on which a wizard can claim to "know" a heightened spell is that Versatile Spellcaster lets him/her cast it, then how can s/he already know it so as to unlock that potential within Versatile Spellcaster?

The "in exchange, blah blah blah" is not a rules statement.

<snip>

The only cases that have been made involve making claims that aren't supported, involve rearranging sentences, or flagrantly disregarding other rules in poorly-made, blatantly false appeals to RAW. None of those fly with me.

I have no idea on what basis you say that part of the text of the class feature is not a rules statement. It strikes me as a pretty crucial one. Here is the whole passage:

A wizard who uses the arcane domain system (called a domain wizard) selects a specific arcane domain of spells, much like a cleric selects a pair of domains associated with his deity. A domain wizard cannot also be a specialist wizard; in exchange for the versatility given up by specializing in a domain instead of an entire school, the domain wizard casts her chosen spells with increased power.​

The rules state that a DW cannot be a specialist wizard, and they explain why: because one class feature - specialisation, and the versatility inherent to it - has been exchanged for a different class feature - the potency(+1 caster level) with which the domain spells are cast.

Of course if you ignore rules text you can generate deviant interpretations - but I thought the goal here was to make sense of the rules, not to make stuff up by picking and choosing. This is what I meant upthread when I said that you had suspect interpretive methodology. Only now I'm more inclined to describe it as flawed methodology.

A comparable example that I found after looking through the US Constitution for about a minute or so: section 8 of Article 1 grants Congress the power "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin".

On your methodology, this provision would confer upon Congress the power to coin any and all money, including foreign money. Whereas I regard it as interpretively obvious that, given the preambular text of the Constitution, plus the reference within the clause itself to regulating the value not only of money but of foreign currency, that the power to coin money is purely a power to coin US money.

Turning back to Domain Wizard, the text explaining the rationale for the inability to specialise is not extraneous to interpretation, particularly on the questin of combing DW with other class features that deal in trade offs with specialisation. That text is utterly crucial to reaching a defensible interpretation. Perhaps there is an interpretation out there that would explain it away, but you haven't presented one. You've simply ignored it, and have expressly stated that your are doing so. That's not rules interpretation. It's just rewriting things - wishful rewriting, as I said in my earlier post.

 

[Dandu]

A domain wizard automatically adds each new domain spell to her list of known spells as soon as she becomes able to cast it. These spells do not count against her two new spells known per wizard level.

See, I understand that as saying you get it when leveling up.

 

[pemerton]

And 9th level spells are automatically entered into the 1st level domain wizard's spellbook if he has Versatile Spellcaster, Elven Generalist, and spontaneous spellcasting?

Pretty much. Well, A 9th level spell, anyways.

This is another relevant interpretive consideration that tells against the putative build. First, we have the "pretty much". Which is it? Do the runes spontaneously appear in the book, or not? Which book? What if the caster has had his/her book destroyed and is relying on Spell Mastery?

Second we have "a 9th level spell, anyways". Why not the lower-level domain spells? After all, they have been leveraged at each point to ratchet (via Versatile Spellcaster) up to 9th level.

Third, the domain wizard text says that "A domain wizard automatically adds each new domain spell to her list of known spells as soon as she becomes able to cast it. These spells do not count against her two new spells known per wizard level." The wizard class text says that "At each new wizard level, she gains two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new wizard level) for her spellbook." Does the failure of the domain wizard text to mention that the bonus domain spells are gained for the wizard's spellbook imply that they do appear in the book (it was thought this was so obvious as to not need mentioning), or to imply that they do not as such appear in the book (after all, the text mentions that the domain bonus spells don't overlap with the other two free spells, which are expressly called out in the rules as appearing in the spellbook).

Nothing in the domain wizard text that I've noticed suggests that a wizard needs his/her spellbook to prepare a domain spell. It seems to me that the wizard has, in effect, free Spell Mastery with his/her domain spells, much like Read Magic.

The fact that, if Versatile Spellcaster is used to ratchet up to 9th level like this it gives rise to these complex questions about what spells the wizard knows, and in what manner, is a good reason to think that the interpretation that gives rise to such questions is spurious. Once we interpret Versatile Spellcaster in a more plausible way, each table is free to decide whether domain wizard is a spellbook thing, or a Spell Mastery thing, free of the need to decide how that interacts with the "triggering" of known spells via Versatile Spellcaster.

UA must be using "class" to sometimes mean a particular character class (a single specified standard class or specified variant class) and sometimes to mean "a standard class plus it's related variant classes". For clarity, call this later meaning a "class-group".

I agree, and think that it is obvious that this is so. (Your patient setting out of the reasoning verges on the heroic in the context of this sort of thread!)

Given that legislation and constitutions, which are drafted with the utmost care by multiple skilled professionals, routinely exhibit this sort of plurality of meanings across a single term or set of synymous terms (as per the examples of "coin" and "money" I mentioned upthread, which in the US Constitution sometimes refer to US money, and sometimes to all money whether US or foreign), it is utterly unrealistic to expect RPG rules, drafted with much less care by people who are not professional drafters, to avoid the problem.

In the current discussion, the issue is present not only in relation to "class" (as you have shown) but in relation to "knowing a spell", "being able to cast a spell", "being able to spontaneously cast a spell", "having a spell slot", and probably other terms as well that are slipping my mind.

Presuppositions are another issue that can cause problems in real-world interpretation of high stakes texts (eg constitutions, legislation) that are relevant here too. For instance, Generalist Wizard presupposes that you have specialisation available as a class feature, and hence are giving it up to take up the option. Whatever exactly one should make of Domain Wizard (have you given up specialisation? taken on a different variant of specialisation? something else?), it is clear that once you take the Domain Wizard option the presupposition that underlies the availability of Generalist Wizard has failed, and hence that option is not available. (An example in the legal context: there is a good argument that, within the Australian Migration Act, the availability of the power of the government to lock up unlawful boat arrivals rests upon a presupposition that either the granting of a visa to a person, or their deportation, is in the process of unfolding, and hence that once it has become clear that neither of those things (visa or deportation) is going to occur, that the power of detention is lost because the presupposition upon which it rests has failed: see the judgements of Gummow and Bell JJ in this case.)

This "9s-at-1st" build is interesting for the way in which it raises interpretive questions about some of this more obscure rules text, in much the same way as someone wondering whether the US Congress has the power to mint French francs, or the power to raise an airforce (given that the Constitution mentions only armies and a navy). But in my view at least there is no serious argument that the US Congress has the first power, or lacks the second; and the same conclusion applies to this wizard build. No serious argument has been advanced that it is actually permissible under the rules.

 

[pemerton]

See, I understand that as saying you get it when leveling up.

Also a very plausible interpretation: the reference to "not counting aginst two new spells known per level" suggests an interpretive constraint on "as soon as she becomes able to cast it", along the lines of "as soon as she becomes able to cast it in virtue of having gained a level and hence access to spells of the domain spell's level".

 

[Umbran]

You've gone 15 pages. The topic has been pretty well explored, and nobody seems to be budging from their stated positions. At this time, this thread sure looks like folks beating heads together pretty much for the sake of beating heads. Perhaps ego is not allowing one side or the other to back down, as if stopping is somehow admission the other guy is correct. Well, since EN World does not exist for the purpose of supporting competitions for who is most stubborn, I'll take the question off your hands. I'm closing the thread. Consider yourself to have won, or lost, as you see fit.

And, for those who are new - when we close a thread, we expect the topic to be dropped. No starting up another thread to continue the same argument. Thanks, all.