CD-feat Practiced Spell Caster compared to my own creation

[Verequus]

Practiced Spell Caster - general - benifits those you are not casting spell at their full hit dice. bascially you get a +4 level to determine the effect of a spell but you do not get more spells as level increase. Also can't go above your hitdice for spell levels. So a fitr3/Cleric5 with this feat can cast his cleric spells at 8th lvl effects .. if he levels to ftr4/clr5 he cast at 9th level effects. Basically no extra spells but cast yous at greater effect .. much like a bead of karma. Need four ranks of spellcraft for the feat.

Some weaks ago I had a similar idea, but I forgot to post it:

Improved Spellcasting [General]
Prerequisite: Multiclassing with at least one spellcasting class.
Benefit: Choose one spellcasting class. You gain new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in this spellcasting class you belonged to before you took this feat. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that you add +1 to the level of some spellcasting class you have, then determine spells per day, spells known, and caster level accordingly.
Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Choose the spellcasting class. Its effects stack for the same spellcasting class. If you would gain a caster level greater than your character level, then the effect of this feat is suspended until you gain a level in another class which doesn't improve your caster level.

With this feat you can take non-spellcasting classes without losing power - as long the mixture is two-thirds spellcasting. A Fighter 6/Wizard 14 has then a caster level of 20, but otherwise with the general feat at first level only 4 fighter and 2 metamagic bonus feats available, has 6d10 + 14d4 + 20xCon-modifier of hit points available (ignoring the full hit die at first level). A Cleric 6/Wizard 14 has a Wizard caster level of 20 and is the same as above, except the exchange of Fighter abilities to Cleric abilities and hit dice. A Cleric 1/Wizard 19 has a Cleric caster level of 7, 3 metamagic bonus feats and has 1d8 + 19d4 + 20xCon-modifier of hit points available.

After Upper_Krust's CR system, a feat is worth +0.2, while primary spellcaster level are worth around +0.4 - the doubled value as a normal feat. WotC's solution may cost at least around that. So, are the above mentioned combinations too weak compared to Practiced Spellcaster?

 

[Verequus]

Bump

Are all guys with an opinion on vacation?

 

[Thanee]

I think your version is far too powerful and easily abuse-able.

Basically, if you take the sorcerer or wizard as base (they pretty much only have spellcasting), you gain the full class abilities of one level in another class at the cost of only one feat.

The CD version is a lot more reasonable, as it doesn't advance spell progression.

Bye
Thanee

 

[rkanodia]

I think your version is far too powerful and easily abuse-able.

Basically, if you take the sorcerer or wizard as base (they pretty much only have spellcasting), you gain the full class abilities of one level in another class at the cost of only one feat.

The CD version is a lot more reasonable, as it doesn't advance spell progression.

Bye
Thanee

What Thanee said. I made a similar feat to the CD feat that called 'Practice Makes Perfect', except it granted a max caster level bonus of +3 - the idea being, you could advance in another class and exactly maintain your caster level if you were willing to spend all of your feats on it.

 

[Thanee]

We once used a feat that simply allowed to have the levels of one class stack with another for this purpose (caster level). Might even have been limited to a single school of magic, I don't know anymore. It was for a sorcerer 1/wizard X character, who then was able to use his magic missile spells for full effect, but he still lost a caster level on the wizard side, as it was one-way only.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Oh, and here's a simple example, why your feat is no good.

fighter 1/wizard X

With just one feat, the wizard would gain a bonus feat (a feat and more for a feat - yes it's 'only' a fighter bonus feat, but such a character probably wants some of those, anyways) plus slightly better BAB (increase at odd levels instead of even levels), better HPs, all martial weapon proficiencies, all armor proficiencies. He'd still have full spell power.

That hardly seems acceptable for a single feat.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Verequus]

I think your version is far too powerful and easily abuse-able.

Basically, if you take the sorcerer or wizard as base (they pretty much only have spellcasting), you gain the full class abilities of one level in another class at the cost of only one feat.

The CD version is a lot more reasonable, as it doesn't advance spell progression.

Do you mean, that the CD version doesn't allow to use spells two levels higher than normally the character could take? If so, I completely misunderstood the quoted text. (I don't have CD, so I couldn't recheck that.)

But if that's true, then psions would be at disadvantage, wouldn't they? Their powers don't scale with their 'caster level'. EoM has the same non-scaling problem (and because I use EoM, I don't know, if CD has enough useable content for me. The same is true for CA. At least I don't have use things like Mystic Theurge, because caster level always stack in EoM.) Would be for psions and mages reasonable to consider their caster level +4 higher regarding the spending of PP and MP?

Oh, and here's a simple example, why your feat is no good.

fighter 1/wizard X

With just one feat, the wizard would gain a bonus feat (a feat and more for a feat - yes it's 'only' a fighter bonus feat, but such a character probably wants some of those, anyways) plus slightly better BAB (increase at odd levels instead of even levels), better HPs, all martial weapon proficiencies, all armor proficiencies. He'd still have full spell power.

That hardly seems acceptable for a single feat.

Most of that is true for Practiced Spellcaster - the consequence is to get rid of classes entirely and restructure the basics (ok, one of the possible consequences, but maybe the best one). But that's another matter.

BTW, Thanee, shows your avatar really you?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

It gets quite nasty as well if used to offset the 'level loss' from prestige classes.

i.e. Fighter 1:Wizard 5:Eldritch Knight 10 with this feat twice...

You'd even get 2 (albeit fighter) feats back to compensate for the two you used... Still, I think this don't think it's a bad trade for +5 BAB. And the spell casting ability of a wizard of your level... Its getting to that point where I can't mechanically find a reason not to use this combination.



IM(next)C - We going to houserule a base spellcasting progression into the game - much like BAB - Although it only advances caster level rather than spell progression. Helps offset the sting of cross classing somewhat. Be interested to see if it works.

 

[rkanodia]

IM(next)C - We going to houserule a base spellcasting progression into the game - much like BAB - Although it only advances caster level rather than spell progression. Helps offset the sting of cross classing somewhat. Be interested to see if it works.

To be honest, I think that multiclass casters suck enough that I might just say 'caster level = character level' in my next campaign. But, for a BAB-like variant, there's already a 'Magic Rating variant in Unearthed Arcana. Basically, it works like BAB, with Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorceror, and Wizard getting 1 MR/1 level, Monk, Paladin, and Ranger getting 1 MR/2 levels, and Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue getting 1 MR/2 levels. Add the MR from all of your classes, and that's your caster level.

 

[Thanee]

Obviously, the game designers agree with you there. Otherwise they wouldn't have introduced a feat like Practiced Spellcaster or the UA rules variant.

The caster level is too much an integral part of CL-CR balance (CL = character level).

Bye
Thanee