My thoughts on the Holy Vindicator.
Works best with a vanilla paladin or battle cleric. The channel smiting works nicely with smite evil/good.
Best with a buddy who fights with you such as a flanking rogue or said battle cleric. If you are using Stigmata having someone who can take some heat off for a round while you Lay on Hands is very useful.
Toughness and/or HP favored class choice is a must.
Bloodfire(+1d6+Sickened on a failed save) Channel smite+Smite Evil makes a potent combo. Bloodrain can sicken large numbers of undead/outsiders
Also as soon as you hit 9th level it doesn't really matter what you might find from enemies in the AP as the whole world is open for you to head off and trade with people in more civilised areas.Serpent's Skull had like 3 wizard spellbooks you could find scattered around the city. Every enemy wizard you fight has one as loot, and they are generally higher level then you. Best of all, after you copy everything you need, you can sell the book for more cash.
==Aelryinth
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right? And going off the rails of the AP is totally legit.
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Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right? And going off the rails of the AP is totally legit.Also as soon as you hit 9th level it doesn't really matter what you might find from enemies in the AP as the whole world is open for you to head off and trade with people in more civilised areas.Serpent's Skull had like 3 wizard spellbooks you could find scattered around the city. Every enemy wizard you fight has one as loot, and they are generally higher level then you. Best of all, after you copy everything you need, you can sell the book for more cash.
==Aelryinth
Usually you can. A lot of AP have downtime. A ridiculous amount of it but it is always assumed that you will come back eventually to finish or take on the next part. They give downtime in AP to offer time for pcs who want to craft or take care of various things including sidequests. Kingmaker can be very passive at times. Rise of the runelord has many downtime.
You still need to know where you are going, or you can't use the spell. Just because your players have heard of Absalom for instance, doesn't mean the characters can port over there to unload their items whenever they care to.
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right?
If you are a wizard, presumably you learned to be a wizard somewhere. From someone who was better at being a wizard than you. Teleport there. Is the DM going to say that your wizard doesn't remember the tower of the master wizard she apprenticed under well enough to teleport there?
Sorcs might not gain spells as FC bonuses, but they definitely get more new Spells Known. That's a function of leveling as a sorc.
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As for copying spells:(Quoted from a post on Enworld)
The Blessed Book Will Lead The Way...
Yes, there is. The below chart reflects the impact of what as this analysis demonstrates, is the second most important spell in the game – namely, Secret Page. Why is Secret Page so important? Because this spell is the pre-requisite for creating the Wondrous item, Blessed Book.
Blessed Books are fundamentally important to any Wizard amassing a collection of spells. The description of this standard Wondrous Item, (known as Boccob’s Blessed Book in ver 3.5) quickly indicates why:
Blessed Book
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 7th
Slot —; Price 12,500 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This well-made tome is always of small size, typically no more than 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked.
A wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the material cost. This book is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already inscribed in it.
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The cost of scribing from a spellbook into a spellbook the core spells is 156,620 gp, ignoring free spells, and takes SIXTEEN spellbooks.
The cost of copying from a spellbook into a Blessed Book? 71,010 and takes TWO. Costing 6,250 gp each, cost included, if you make them yourself.
==Aelryinth
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right?If you are a wizard, presumably you learned to be a wizard somewhere. From someone who was better at being a wizard than you. Teleport there. Is the DM going to say that your wizard doesn't remember the tower of the master wizard she apprenticed under well enough to teleport there?
And then what?
My party's wizard learned her craft in Sasserine, from the House of the Dragon. Teleporting back to Sasserine is not the same thing as "the whole world is open for you to head off and trade with people".
One correction here:
The Wizard is assumed that he will spend cash to gain extra spells by copying them, NOT by buying scrolls. Scrolls are like potions, they are meant to be used.
Assumed? Citation please? Where is this this assumption stated?
Interesting. Do you have a citation for that? (I looked in the FAQ and saw nothing, though admittedly I didn't search the forums or anything.) The RAW suggests otherwise, but if this has been clarified by the devs, then I would stand corrected.stuffYou still get the domain slots and spells as far as I recall.I'm not sure if someone else posted a citation to this, but here goes:
<some stuff>
Mmm... that's... mildly plausible, but I don't think it would convince me, as a DM. For example, it could also be said that Domains are a class feature of the cleric, separate from the Spells class feature, and thus are the "other benefits of spellcasting" that PrCs specifically don't advance.
I would certainly prefer a comment from the devs.
If you're 10th level, the 7th level wizard's spellbook might contain spells you don't know, sure, but in no event will it contain spells that will take the place of the spells you'd take on level-up, because in 99% of cases, you always take for free spells of the max level you can cast. And if the found book doesn't replace the free-from-level-up spells, then it is irrelevant to this discussion.They replace your free-from-level-up spells from 2 or 3 levels ago.
That... doesn't make sense.
Let's say I've just hit level 7, and want to learn a bunch of level 4 spells. I've drawn up a list of all the level 4 spells I want to have ASAP, preferably before adventuring any further but definitely sooner than getting to level 8.
Either I can expect to find all said spells in other people's spellbooks within the next several encounters, or I need to buy scrolls. If the level I just gained is a wizard level (rather than a PrC level), then I can buy two scrolls less, by learning two spells for free.
If you're a PrC instead, then you have to buy two scrolls more than the wizard.
It makes no sense whatever to say "Ah, well, I'll just buy two scrolls less, because in 2-3 levels we'll surely find a spellbook with these spells". You need these spells now, not someday in the future.
(This is, of course, totally ignoring the question of just which spells the spellbooks you find contain. Are we to believe found/borrowed spellbooks always have exactly the spells you're missing?)
(I also note that you addressed my less-substantive point and not my primary one. That's fine, I don't mean to put you on the spot; I just don't want the primary point to get lost.)I think my previous post comes off too strongly for spellbooks. I think what matters is the end result, not how you get there. The important thing is that the player playing a wizard has reasonable access to ways to expand their spellbook. I don't think this means those spells can only come from other spellbooks, but that is the most economical way to do it. As a DM, you could instead leave lots of scrolls as loot. But it's much easier to drop the occasional spellbook or to allow the wizard to seek out other wizards. ...
I agree that the wizard should have reasonable access to ways to expand their spellbook...
... I just think that being able to buy scrolls is "reasonable access".
Finding scrolls and spellbooks would, imo, be "quite a bit more generous than merely reasonable access".
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right?If you are a wizard, presumably you learned to be a wizard somewhere. From someone who was better at being a wizard than you. Teleport there. Is the DM going to say that your wizard doesn't remember the tower of the master wizard she apprenticed under well enough to teleport there?And then what?
My party's wizard learned her craft in Sasserine, from the House of the Dragon. Teleporting back to Sasserine is not the same thing as "the whole world is open for you to head off and trade with people".
Indeed.
I'd also like to note that the people you learned wizardry from don't have to be very high level.
If I learned how to be a wizard from a level 10 wizard (who, in Golarion, is already pretty impressive), then as soon as I hit level 11, said mentor no longer has anything to teach me. Teleporting to his tower is now pointless if I want new spells.
TLDR: killing enemies and taking their stuff certainly doesn't replace 2 spells/level, but neither is it negligible. Doug M.
Yes, that is what I am saying: occasional, sure, but not regular. Certainly nowhere near regular enough to get all your spells from copying spellbooks, such that you'll just never need to buy scrolls.
But again, unless getting spells from enemy/friendly wizards replaces all the spells you'd want, it doesn't actually affect the value of the free-from-level-up spells.
Some theorycrafting follows:
Let's say we have no access to found/borrowed spellbooks at all.
The PrC'd wizard hits level 7, and wishes to learn ten level 4 spells. He needs to buy ten scrolls.
The pure wizard hits level 7, and wishes to learn ten level 4 spells. He needs to buy eight scrolls, as he gets two spells for free. He saves the cost of two scrolls.
Now let's say we do have access to found/borrowed spellbooks, and can expect, on any given level's worth of adventures, to find in said spellbooks half the spells we'd want to learn.
The PrC'd wizard hits level 7, and wishes to learn ten level 4 spells. He needs to buy five scrolls, and expects that he'll find the other five spells in found/borrowed spellbooks*.
The pure wizard hits level 7, and wishes to learn ten level 4 spells. He needs to buy three scrolls, expects that he'll find five spells in found/borrowed spellbooks*, and gets two spells for free. He saves the cost of two scrolls.
*We imagine that we find in found/borrowed spellbooks exactly the spells that the wizard wanted, but didn't buy/select, because the DM has generously finagled this to be the case.
The real problem with relying on found spellbooks is that it requires your wizard (and your party as a whole, by extension) to not be proactive in terms of what capabilities they acquire. The entire point of wizards is that they've always got exactly the spell needed to solve any problem that can be solved with arcane magic (just give them a day to prepare). Every wizard I've played with or DM'd for knows exactly what spells he'll want to have when gaining access to a new spell level, and prefers to have those spells immediately, or at least as soon as is feasible, because there are problems just waiting to be solved, tricks and combos just waiting to be executed, new and significant tactics just waiting to become viable, as soon as the requisite spells are acquired.
For these wizards (and this is a wizard played right), saying "eh, I can get dimension door whenever; save the cost of a scroll, I'm sure we'll find it in a spellbook at some point" is utterly ludicrous.
For these wizards (and this is a wizard played right), saying "eh, I can get dimension door whenever; save the cost of a scroll, I'm sure we'll find it in a spellbook at some point" is utterly ludicrous.
You don't just wait around to serendipitously find it in a dropped spellbook. You can spend the 1/2 scribing costs to copy from another wizard's spellbook.
If you somehow end up in a place where you can buy the scrolls you want, but cannot pay to copy from another spellbook, then you buy two scrolls of teleport. If you're scribing four 4th level spells (or seven 3rd level spells), this is cheaper than buying four 4th level scrolls. Once you're 9th level, you don't need to buy the scrolls of teleport. When you get high enough level, you may have to ask the wizards you teleported to for recommendations on where to find higher level spells. Having someone in the party with high diplomacy is helpful here. Once you reach 13th level, this isn't a problem. You just use greater teleport to get to Quantium (or whatever the equivalent is in your setting).
If the DM doesn't like the party teleporting around so the wizard can expand her spellbook at a reasonable cost, there's a really easy fix: let the party access spellbooks of appropriate level without teleporting. If someone in the town the party's in has a spellbook with 6th level spells, then you don't have to teleport about to get 6th level spells.
everyone losing favored bonuses,
Last game I was in where someone played a prestige class, the DM houseruled that everyone could have one favored class and one favored prestige class. So if you took two prestige classes you were out of luck, but just one was fine. I really think the favored class bonus should just be something you get from leveling, regardless of whether you multiclass, but this is a step in the right direction.
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Note that, once again, all of this is affected by the existence of Blood Transcription. That spell turns every enemy caster (including monsters with SLAs!) into a source of spells. Putting the whole "enemy spellbook" issue aside, Blood Transcription makes life much, much easier for the PrCing wizard.
Doug M.
Sure, If you're evil.
Sure, If you're evil.
Not a bad alignment for a wizard. How many of the NPCs you're fighting bother to prepare protection from evil? Also you can become a lich!
And it's really easy to do, too. All you have to do is cast a few healing spells, use blood transcription, and make the occasional zombie.
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Casting an Evil spell doesn't automatically make you Evil.
Also, why the hell is Blood Transcription considered Evil? IMO, evil would be killing someone to get their spells.
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right? And going off the rails of the AP is totally legit.You can totally teleport to a major metropolis, they being you know really well known. If you are stuck on the rails on an AP with no chance to actually do any other stuff then you have a terrible GM.
As usual wizard supremacist doesn't bother to read his own spell descriptions. You cannot teleport somewhere you have not seen with teleport. Period. End of story. You were wrong about a 9th level wizard being able to go wherever he wants with teleport. The fact that it is well known doesn't matter. There is no teleport based on a description option.
You can only teleport somewhere that you have a 'clear and detailed description of' with greater teleport. That, I'll grant you, may vary depending on the GM, but simply knowing the name of the city and that it's a metropolis doesn't cut it for many games and GMs (including the three I am currently playing with). In my case, generally speaking, you need a detailed description from an individual that has been there or a detailed description of a specific place from a relatively recent literary source.
In neither case is it as simple and point and click.
As usual wizard supremacist doesn't bother to read his own spell descriptions. You cannot teleport somewhere you have not seen with teleport.
This is absurdly trivial to get around. The solution is, of course, more magic.
1. Teleport to wherever you learned to be a wizard.
2. If one of the wizards there has the spells you need in your spellbook, great, you are done.
3. Otherwise, ask for recommendations on where to go to get the spells you are looking for. They will probably know other wizards who might have what you want.
4. Pay one of them to cast share memory (or cast it yourself) to share a memory of the place you want to go.
5. Cast teleport, and roll on the "viewed once" row of the table. You've about a 3/4 chance of arriving there correctly. If you arrive off-target, simply try again. If you arrive in a similar location, then try again. If you have a mishap, you take a small amount of damage and then try again.
Step 4 can be replaced with any other means of seeing the place you want to teleport to. Having other spellcasters in the party can help too. Wind walk, transport via plants, and shadow walk can all be used for rapid transit.
Casting an Evil spell doesn't automatically make you Evil.
Also, why the hell is Blood Transcription considered Evil? IMO, evil would be killing someone to get their spells.
Without getting too much into alignment: casting an evil spell is an evil act, doing it often enough will turn you evil. Mainly it is supposed to be a roleplaying consideration though, you are supposed to act according to your alignment not have your acts dictate your alignment.
I am not sure the spell should be evil but I can imagine why it would be categorized as such. Memorizing the spell in the hope you will 'find' a dead creature you can benefit from is a bit on the shady side. Probably not something a virtuous character would or should consider doing.
A neutral character holding on to a scroll with the spell in case it comes up, not so much a big deal. In the end I think such spells are included as evil so GMs can say no to good characters using or less virtuous, neutral, characters overusing it.
Guess I did get a bit more into alignment than I intended..
Without getting too much into alignment: casting an evil spell is an evil act, doing it often enough will turn you evil. Mainly it is supposed to be a roleplaying consideration though, you are supposed to act according to your alignment not have your acts dictate your alignment.
If casting blood transcription and infernal healing gets your N wizard switched over to NE, so what? Just keep playing your character like usual. Maybe memorize misdirection if you think you might be around overzealous paladins. You don't have to murder orphans just because your DM switched your alignment because you cast blood transcription one too many times.
Without getting too much into alignment: casting an evil spell is an evil act, doing it often enough will turn you evil. Mainly it is supposed to be a roleplaying consideration though, you are supposed to act according to your alignment not have your acts dictate your alignment.If casting blood transcription and infernal healing gets your N wizard switched over to NE, so what? Just keep playing your character like usual. Maybe memorize misdirection if you think you might be around overzealous paladins. You don't have to murder orphans just because your DM switched your alignment because you cast blood transcription one too many times.
Indeed... That said, I'd be really pissed off if my GM changed my alignment because I cast a Evil spell for a non-evil objective... It may be RAW, but it's the kind of thing that annoys me to no end...
By all gods, I hate alignment...
Anyway... Back to PrCs... My issue with them is that they are often very weak, have awful prerequisites and usually don't offer anything truly unique.
What's the point of making PrC is they are intentionally designed to suck? They shouldn't be superior to base classes, but I wish they were not so weak either...
What's the point of making PrC is they are intentionally designed to suck? They shouldn't be superior to base classes, but I wish they were not so weak either...
The thing is, you are giving something up by taking a prestige class (favored class bonus, feat and skill cost, etc.). If prestige classes aren't at least somewhat superior to base classes, then they aren't worth taking.
What's the point of making PrC is they are intentionally designed to suck? They shouldn't be superior to base classes, but I wish they were not so weak either...The thing is, you are giving something up by taking a prestige class (favored class bonus, feat and skill cost, etc.). If prestige classes aren't at least somewhat superior to base classes, then they aren't worth taking.
And for some of us who play wizards, the prestige classes are not superior due to the free spell issue and, thus, not worth taking.
Edit: And Lemmy said it better. Often, a lot of these are not better. Dragon Disciple, for example, is a great PrC for draconic bloodline sorcerers... except for its spell progression, which can leave them magically underpowered at a critical time. The physical abilities are nice... except sorcerers can gain all of those benefits, and even more, by just using a special to turn into an actual dragon. And the fact that, if my experience with the 3.5 version of the class holds true (by what I've seen of Pathfinder, it will), the special add-ons from this class are only going to hinder a sorcerer at higher levels. The natural armor bonus doesn't matter that much, they don't have the BAB progression to make the claws useful, flight is so common by that point it's not even worth considering as a benefit, and the breath weapon is of a situational use and comes with a problem that several of the breath weapon spreads required the dragon disciple to be dangerously close to an enemy at a level where distance truly is their friend. So, overall, none of these "benefits" are worth losing access to 9th-level spells.
Sadly, it's still one of the better PrCs in the core rulebook.
What's the point of making PrC is they are intentionally designed to suck? They shouldn't be superior to base classes, but I wish they were not so weak either...The thing is, you are giving something up by taking a prestige class (favored class bonus, feat and skill cost, etc.). If prestige classes aren't at least somewhat superior to base classes, then they aren't worth taking.
I don't mind if they are slightly better or worse... The problem is that more often than not, PrC are not just slightly inferior.
And Lemmy said it better. Often, a lot of these are not better. Dragon Disciple, for example, is a great PrC for draconic bloodline sorcerers... except for its spell progression, which can leave them magically underpowered at a critical time. The physical abilities are nice... except sorcerers can gain all of those benefits, and even more, by just using a special to turn into an actual dragon.The thing about Dragon Disciple is that it really isn't for sorcerers. It looks like it but as you note most of its abilities are entirely irrelevant to someone playing a pure spellcaster. Unfortunately this idea also seems to afflict the decisions around bloodlines many of which are filled with utterly terrible abilities for a spellcaster.
Dragon Disciple is really for a melee class which grabs maybe a level of sorcerer or bard to qualify for it.
In which case, the issue people have with PrCs requiring skills unrelated to the actual purpose or flavor of the class comes to play. It requires Knowledge (arcana) of five ranks. Top it all off, the way the entire class is written in both fluff and crunch, they were obviously intending it for sorcerers. After all, why else would the class add to levels of sorcerer for spellcasting progression? And why else would they talk only about draconic bloodline sorcerers throughout the entire writeup of the class?
Tying the class to sorcerers in both fluff and mechanics so much pretty much creates a secondary issue that the actual usage of the PrC doesn't match up at all with what the class was obviously intended for.
And, yeah, I'll admit a lot of the sorcerer bloodlines are, mechanically, pretty bad for the class. I end up taking some of them just for flavor purposes, but that's for games where combat is less likely to occur.
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And Lemmy said it better. Often, a lot of these are not better. Dragon Disciple, for example, is a great PrC for draconic bloodline sorcerers... except for its spell progression, which can leave them magically underpowered at a critical time. The physical abilities are nice... except sorcerers can gain all of those benefits, and even more, by just using a special to turn into an actual dragon.The thing about Dragon Disciple is that it really isn't for sorcerers. It looks like it but as you note most of its abilities are entirely irrelevant to someone playing a pure spellcaster. Unfortunately this idea also seems to afflict the decisions around bloodlines many of which are filled with utterly terrible abilities for a spellcaster.
Dragon Disciple is really for a melee class which grabs maybe a level of sorcerer or bard to qualify for it.
This is pretty much true~
If you go DD, you're going to want to be more melee focused.
For these wizards (and this is a wizard played right), saying "eh, I can get dimension door whenever; save the cost of a scroll, I'm sure we'll find it in a spellbook at some point" is utterly ludicrous.You don't just wait around to serendipitously find it in a dropped spellbook. You can spend the 1/2 scribing costs to copy from another wizard's spellbook.
<... stuff about teleporting ...>
Ok, perhaps. But are we agreed that found spellbooks can't be a replacement for the free-from-level-up spells?
As far as the teleporting thing goes... yeah, with enough magic, enough application of splatbook spells, you're right: a solution is found.
I don't think this goes to show design intent being to have wizards be able to get all their spells without buying scrolls, though.
If the DM doesn't like the party teleporting around so the wizard can expand her spellbook at a reasonable cost, there's a really easy fix: let the party access spellbooks of appropriate level without teleporting. If someone in the town the party's in has a spellbook with 6th level spells, then you don't have to teleport about to get 6th level spells.
The other easy fix is to have the wizard buy scrolls. Still seems reasonable to me. On the other hand, teleporting around to get spells is also perfectly fine. (In some settings (Golarion probably included), though not all.)
Lets walk this back a little bit. Your statement started with the following:
Also as soon as you hit 9th level it doesn't really matter what you might find from enemies in the AP as the whole world is open for you to head off and trade with people in more civilised areas.
I took objection to that statement, because it’s inaccurate on its face in its implications. Teleport does not open up the ‘whole world’ to you. It opens up places within 900 miles of you that you have been to at level nine. That’s a lot less than the whole world. Given that this suggestion that teleport takes games off the rails is thrown around quite a bit I responded.
Right, because you can totally teleport anywhere you want right?
Obviously I’m baiting you here, because I know good and well that teleport does not let you go anywhere, but rather only to places you have seen. You respond.
You can totally teleport to a major metropolis, they being you know really well known. If you are stuck on the rails on an AP with no chance to actually do any other stuff then you have a terrible GM.
I spring my trap on your claim that you can simply teleport to a major metropolis on a whim.
You cannot teleport somewhere you have not seen with teleport. Period. End of story. You were wrong about a 9th level wizard being able to go wherever he wants with teleport. The fact that it is well known doesn't matter. There is no teleport based on a description option.
You can only teleport somewhere that you have a 'clear and detailed description of' with greater teleport. That, I'll grant you, may vary depending on the GM, but simply knowing the name of the city and that it's a metropolis doesn't cut it for many games and GMs (including the three I am currently playing with). In my case, generally speaking, you need a detailed description from an individual that has been there or a detailed description of a specific place from a relatively recent literary source.
In neither case is it as simple and point and click.
At no point is my statement that you cannot travel somewhere else. I don’t say you can’t get on a boat, or wind walk, or whatever. My statement is that teleport does no enable what you have casually claimed.
If you want to be a dick about teleportation then simply get on a boat and travel there or have the Cleric get everyone there with Wind Walk. The idea that just because you are playing through an AP that you can never take a side trip or excursion to somewhere which might actually have something which everyone in the group might want is rather tedious and a sure sign of a GM incapable of handling the fact that players have freedom to act. It doesn't surprise me that you seem to subscribe to such a method of play.
You move to ‘well you can wind walk or take a boat or go off the rails by some means’, which is not the same as the ability to go anywhere you want specifically at level 9 (when you get teleport) by any stretch of the imagination. At no point have I argued PCs can’t take side trips. At no point have I argued that PCs can’t go do what they wish. I’ve observed that the often thrown about statement about teleport letting you go anywhere is false, and backed up my statement with citations from teleport. Your response is to insult me, my GM, and the people I play with by suggesting we play a ‘tedious’ way and claiming my GM is “incapable of handling the fact that players have freedom to act’.
1. Teleport to wherever you learned to be a wizard.
2. If one of the wizards there has the spells you need in your spellbook, great, you are done.
3. Otherwise, ask for recommendations on where to go to get the spells you are looking for. They will probably know other wizards who might have what you want.
4. Pay one of them to cast share memory (or cast it yourself) to share a memory of the place you want to go.
5. Cast teleport, and roll on the "viewed once" row of the table. You've about a 3/4 chance of arriving there correctly. If you arrive off-target, simply try again. If you arrive in a similar location, then try again. If you have a mishap, you take a small amount of damage and then try again.
Vivianne chimes in with a scenario in which she things you can use teleport to travel more freely than simply visiting places you’ve been. The use of share memory here calls for GM interpretation and is totally within the bounds of the GM to shut down. The idea that your master is within 900 miles is not always true.
The scenario has now changed from ‘teleport wherever you want whenever you want’ to ‘teleport to where you learned to be a wizard, use a source outside of core to gain access to a memory of another place that someone has and is willing to share (which is a GM call), and then teleport there. A bit more than ‘teleport opens up the entire world’.This actually sounds like the beginnings of an mini-adventure of its own.
Given you are looking at going somewhere like, say, Absalom, it really shouldn't be hard to find someone who has been there before. Heck if it is really an issue just set your own background as coming from there originally
Argument now changes to ‘you can borrow someone’s memories or set your background where you want to go’, which again is different than teleport opening the entire world to you.
Teleport opens up the world to immediate transportation. If you haven't been to the place yourself find someone who has, make contact with someone who lives there, wind walk there, double planeshift to get vaguely close or just ride there. If you cannot handle the fact that the game changes as the players reach higher levels or that they will have far greater ability to dictate their own path and the pace of the game you should probably play E6.
We’ve now shifted to using cleric spells, spells that are not available to the wizard at 9th levels, making contact with people from far off, and so forth, along with suggesting that I’ve said PCs can’t go off rails or take side trips. This is a notable departure from teleport opening up markets everywhere to you.
How does having teleport not enable travel over large distances? Most APs have you go through a large town at one point or another. That was the point of the statement. Once you have teleport, it's pretty easy getting to where you need to be to trade for items you want.
I don’t agree.
Just two spells are needed. Teleport and Scrying. Teleport to your master's demesne. Ask him if he has any friends in a big city. Ask him if you can use his scrying tools so you can teleport to the city to do some buying/selling. Chances are hes got a lock of the person's hair for easy scrying. Scry. Teleport. 3/4ths chance of success. Technically more than that since a similar area will do as well.
So you’re saying your wizards are totally cool with handing over clips of hair, blood samples, and so forth to other wizards, and that NPC wizards should be willing to do so as well on a regular basis? I don’t think that’s a given assumption of the game.
Look, my point is not that you can’t travel. You can travel anywhere you want at any level with a good GM. My point is that teleport is not as cut and dry a means of easy transport as some love to suggest – Andreww included.
Here's where the entire argument of using teleport to learn spells fails: It assumes that, somehow, you managed to actually learn teleport. Which, in turn, is a good argument to make... if you're getting free spells every level.
The use of share memory here calls for GM interpretation and is totally within the bounds of the GM to shut down. The idea that your master is within 900 miles is not always true.The use of share memory is only open to GM interpretation in the sense that a GM can always house rule that something doesn't work:
"Viewed once" is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic such as scrying.
If the place where you learned magic is more than 900 miles away, memorize teleport more than once. Unless you got from there to where you currently are via teleportation, you can just backtrack your route via teleport.
use a source outside of core to gain access to a memory of another place that someone has and is willing to share (which is a GM call)
If the DM rules that someone you know well and are on friendly terms with is unwilling to use share memory with you, even if you roll well on a diplomacy check, etc., then the DM is being an ass.
If your DM is for some reason not okay with spells from Ultimate Magic, a book in the core line of Pathfinder books, fortunately there's ways to do this without share memory! Andreww outlined a way to do this using scrying. If you don't think that wizards keeping hair cuttings of acquaintances is reasonable, fortunately we can do without!
Secondhand (you have heard of the subject): +5 bonus to will save
Can you find a book which mentions a famous living person---preferably one without access to detect scrying---from the area you want to go? Alternatively, can your wizard friend tell you about someone from the area? You can scry them! It might take several days to do it successfully, but eventually they'll fail their save.
Teleport does not open up the ‘whole world’ to you.
A single casting of teleport by itself does not open up the whole world. Multiple castings of teleport, supported with other spells, do. Having another full caster in the party (such as a cleric) makes it even easier.
Here's where the entire argument of using teleport to learn spells fails: It assumes that, somehow, you managed to actually learn teleport. Which, in turn, is a good argument to make... if you're getting free spells every level.
Right. It's here we see why prestige classes not granting the free spells known weakens them versus going pure wizard. But I think everyone can agree it's a stupid rule which just makes prestige classes unappealing.
Assumed? Citation please? Where is this this assumption stated?One correction here:
The Wizard is assumed that he will spend cash to gain extra spells by copying them, NOT by buying scrolls. Scrolls are like potions, they are meant to be used.
This is a facetious question.
Where is it assumed that a wizard will take the most expensive and least advantageous means of acquiring spells for his spellbook in the rules?
Answer: It does not exist.
What does exist is:
1) Copying spells directly to a spellbook is CONSIDERABLY cheaper then buying a scroll of said spell, and then STILL having to copy the spell.
2) Spells are like potions for wizards...spells in a can meant to be used. That's why they have caster levels attached to them, and require an Item Creation feat to make. Copying spells takes a Spellcraft check.
3) Blessed Books render the ink cost of scribing spells to nil, reducing the cost still further.
1,2 and 3 are game reality. Where is the assumption that wizards will use the least advantageous method which costs them the most money, vs the most advantageous method that costs the least amount of money?
Rules citation that PC's must act against common sense when accruing their spell libraries, please.
==Aelryinth
Assumed? Citation please? Where is this this assumption stated?One correction here:
The Wizard is assumed that he will spend cash to gain extra spells by copying them, NOT by buying scrolls. Scrolls are like potions, they are meant to be used.
This is a facetious question.
Where is it assumed that a wizard will take the most expensive and least advantageous means of acquiring spells for his spellbook in the rules?
Answer: It does not exist.
What does exist is:
1) Copying spells directly to a spellbook is CONSIDERABLY cheaper then buying a scroll of said spell, and then STILL having to copy the spell.
2) Spells are like potions for wizards...spells in a can meant to be used. That's why they have caster levels attached to them, and require an Item Creation feat to make. Copying spells takes a Spellcraft check.
3) Blessed Books render the ink cost of scribing spells to nil, reducing the cost still further.1,2 and 3 are game reality. Where is the assumption that wizards will use the least advantageous method which costs them the most money, vs the most advantageous method that costs the least amount of money?
Rules citation that PC's must act against common sense when accruing their spell libraries, please.
==Aelryinth
Except that wizards are notorious about being PARANOID about their books, and are not exactly known to just hand out their SPELLBOOK to random people...
Your assumption does not take into account things like the fluff of the wizard and general habits of the wizard...