Stacking caster levels

[Voldrath]

Would it be unbalancing to allow wizard and sorceror caster levels to stack? Say a SOR:2 WIZ:3 throws a magic missile would it be reasonable to allow him to throw three of them? Sure he'd be as powerful in magic missile as a dedicated Wiz or Sorc and he can do it more often if he has it for both classes. However he’ll never be casting the same level spells as a more focused character. Would that many low level spells at high Clvl be more powerful than fewer spells of higher level?

I’d appreciate any input you experienced fellows can offer. I’m going to sleep now so I won’t be replying till about 3-4Pm eastern time.

 

[Vrecknidj]

If you allow them to stack, you'll end up with someone who is too powerful (at least, I think so, I haven't allowed this so I'm just going with an educated guess).

You could introduce some kind of house-rule that allows some stacking. Say, add the two levels together and subtract 1. That might work.

Dave

 

[robberbaron]

Why would you take both Wizard AND Sorcerer levels?

Unless you can get your DM to allow them to stack, of course.

 

[Chacal]

I haven't playested it, but it seem ok to me.
There are plenty of house rules concerning this. I can't search on enwordl so here's a discussion about it
on NKL

http://www.nutkinland.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1596


Chacal

 

[LightPhoenix]

There's even a mention of a variant in UA that talks about each class having a "magic" bonus, much akin to BAB. This stacks for caster level, but not for spells known. All the major spellcasting classes (except Bard, which I don't recall off hand) have +1/level.

 

[Marius Delphus]

I have not extensively playtested this, but I have been permitting the Wiz/Sor in my game to stack *half* of one class's arcane spellcasting levels with the other. So at Wiz4/Sor2 the character casts Wiz spells as if Wiz5 and Sor spells as if Sor4. Still limited to the Spells Known/Spells Per Day charts per class and level, of course; the only thing affected is caster level.

Just an idea.

And the reason this character is both Sor and Wiz has to do with an experiment: the player just wants the character to be able to cast scads of spells. Though we realized that a Wiz10/Sor10 would never have access to 6th level spells, I think the player still wants to go that route. Scads of 0-5th level spells, all cast at 15th level. Could be interesting, could be ugly; we'll see.

 

[Terath Ninir]

There's even a mention of a variant in UA that talks about each class having a "magic" bonus, much akin to BAB. This stacks for caster level, but not for spells known. All the major spellcasting classes (except Bard, which I don't recall off hand) have +1/level.

That seems to be a common house rule. As long as only the caster level, and NOT the spells per day, accumulates, it doesn't seem like it would hurt anything. The lack of high level spells is a serious check and balance, especially if you play in an official module.

 

[Voldrath]

Why would you take both Wizard AND Sorcerer levels?

Unless you can get your DM to allow them to stack, of course.

Therein lies the real reason for this proposal. IMHO while a multi-class character should lose some power in exchange for versatility. It shouldn’t be the death sentence it is for multi-casters. The idea came up for an NPC I was building who started out as a “natural” but didn’t have the talent (CHA) so she turned to more traditional wizardry.

There's even a mention of a variant in UA that talks about each class having a "magic" bonus, much akin to BAB. This stacks for caster level, but not for spells known. All the major spellcasting classes (except Bard, which I don't recall off hand) have +1/level.

That’s pretty much what I was thinking about. I’m going to have to get UA I hear so many good things. I do tend to agree that loss of higher level spells is a sufficient balance.

On a side note should the wizard half be specialist, witch she is, to disallow stacking for prohibited schools.