Sejs said:
You're not giving up a level - Wild Mage has full spellcaster progression. Caster level is the meat and potatoes of a caster. Three things make up the holy trinity of casterdom: Spell Access, Caster Level, and DC. The Wild Mage gains a significant boost (+1 to +3) for essentially no substantial loss.
To put it another way: what Wild Mage wouldn't take Practiced Spellcaster? Would people consider dipping into Wild Mage to be a good career move if the Practiced Spellcaster 'trick' wern't available?
It's not like there are feats that are just 'huzzah, free caster level for you!' floating around. The closest thing is Divine Spell Power, and that's viewed with equal trepidation.
The power boost really isn't that significant, at least, compared with the base wild mage.
10th-level wild mage
1. Without Practised Spellcaster: CL 7+1d6 - Avg (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) = 10.5
2. With Practised Spellcaster: CL 7+1d6 (min 10) - Avg (10, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13) = 11.
The average boost is half a caster level, for the cost of a feat. Two-thirds of the time, the feat isn't even useful to the wild mage (if he rolls 3+ on 1d6).
In terms of power, Divine Spell Power allows a PC to exceed his base caster level. Practised Spellcaster doesn't allow a wild mage to increase his caster level any more than what he could already get from his class ability.
In terms of power, the reserve feats in Complete Mage give a straight +1 caster level to a subset of spells, and a reserve ability, too. Practised Spellcaster gives an average +0.5 bonus to caster level to all spells, but not much else.
Practised Spellcaster mitigates the downside risk for a wild mage, and I suppose it offends those that think that every advantage must be balanced by a cost, or that the lack of a downside risk makes a wild mage less of a "wild" mage. For the former, consider that many prestige classes offer advantages without any drawbacks (apart from the opportunity cost of taking a level in that prestige class instead of another base or prestige class) and that several feats are set up to offset disadvantages or downside risks of some sort (e.g. Weapon Finesse, Diehard, Practised Spellcaster for a paladin, ranger, or multiclass spellcaster, Luck feats from Complete Scoundrel). For the latter, maybe the wild mage has learned to tap into the forces of luck instead of pure chaos. Call him a luck mage instead.
