I've been a *little* stupid

[Carla the Profane]

It's about this trait, magical knack. I built my bard (now lvl 8) around it, giving her 2 levels of rogue because I knew her spellcasting wouldn't lag behind because of the trait.

I built my oracle/paladin (now lvl 4) around it, giving him 2 levels of paladin because I knew his spellcasting wouldn't lag behind thanks to the trait.

I built my early-entry Mystic Theurge with it, because I thought it would keep my cleric levels at lvl 3 while I took 2 levels of sorcerer and have a 2nd-level SLA.

Now, I found out that the trait does NOT grant you your 'lost' spellcasting levels back, but only increases your effective caster level for the purpose of DC's and the like.

What this means for me is that I've A. played my characters wrong for all this time, B. they're mostly useless now due to losing their key spells (haste for the bard, early entry for the MT, 2 useless levels of paladin that I can now also use a feat for) and C. I can't go back, because retraining will be way too expensive.

What can/should I do? Is there a special dyslexic pardon? :(

[Thea Peters]

Unfortunately, after level 1 there are no options to rebuild the character; unless there are campaign changes and characters are given limited rebuild rules to accommodate those changes.

Best advice is to see if you can still work with the trait and continue to play the characters. Some of my favorite characters are ones with flaws; makes them seem a bit more human.

If you honestly just cannot work with the trait and feel that you cannot play the character; then retiring the character and rolling up a new one might be the best option -- would give you a chance to rebuild the character into something you want to play at that point

AKA PFCBG

[Belafon]

That's pretty rough. Let's start with a little bit more about the trait:

Carla the Profane wrote:

Now, I found out that the trait does NOT grant you your 'lost' spellcasting levels back, but only increases your effective caster level for the purpose of DC's and the like.

Caster level doesn't affect DCs. Caster level affects durations, ranges, and variables (like the number of dice in a fireball or the bonus of barkskin). And you may have already realized this but Magical Knack only grants the increase to one spellcasting class, not every class (like in the case of your cleric/sorcerer).

As far as what to do - Retraining would be the ideal solution. If you can't retrain you have to play it where it lies. For the bard and oracle it's pretty straightforward. You are what you are. You are going to be behind unless/until you retrain.

The Mystic Theurge is more difficult. I'd go with this quote from the core rulebook:

Feats wrote:

A character can’t use a feat if he loses a prerequisite, but he does not lose the feat itself. If, at a later time, he regains the lost prerequisite, he immediately regains full use of the feat that prerequisite enables.

Yes, we are not talking about feats but that's the best guidance I can find. Basically play your character as if it was a cleric 1/sorcerer 2 until you reach cleric 3 and meet all the prerequisites to become a Mystic Theurge. Then immediately factor those levels back in.

One last thing:

Quote:

2 useless levels of paladin that I can now also use a feat for

I assume you mean that you took the paladin levels for the Divine Grace class feature. The Divine Protection feat (which adds your charisma to all saving throws) is not legal for play in PFS.

[Woran]

We need a hat of shame ;)

But in all seriousness this sucks for you Vincent.

[Carla the Profane]

After thinking about it I feel like the bard will be ok, she wasn't much of a spellcaster to begin with. Even the oracle/paladin might not lag behind too much as he's focused on his animal companion. But I think the mystic theurge might be less fortunate. Ah well.

[Damanta]

The MT can be solved as followed

You have a 2nd level SLA (arcane probably) because you're tiefling/aasimar. Which means you need an 2nd level divine SLA. The following can help with that: Trickery Domain or the Fate Inquisition
Retraining a domain costs 5 days (thus 5 PP) and 50xlevel in gold.

If you have a 2nd level arcane SLA, and you're an aasimar, it's possible to get a 2nd level divine SLA by retraining one of your feats to Heavenly Radiance and taking Wake of Light (paladin 2). This would have the same cost as retraining the domain.

As for the others, that's really up to your creative imagination. Retraining rogue to bard or paladin to oracle costs 5 prestige per level you want to retrain.

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

Yeah, I feel your pain. I also have some poor choices on my highest level PFS character. Sometimes retraining is not too terribly hateful.

I guess my suggestion would be to post the full build individually in the advice forum. Ask for help on a PFS legal fix. Might have to play a level or 2 without all the capabilities to re-qualify to use things. Or possibly just retraining a few things.

[Zach Klopfleisch]

Carla the Profane wrote:

After thinking about it I feel like the bard will be ok, she wasn't much of a spellcaster to begin with. Even the oracle/paladin might not lag behind too much as he's focused on his animal companion. But I think the mystic theurge might be less fortunate. Ah well.

With the MT: Did you use Magical Knack on the Sorcerer levels so you could get to level 4 and thus be able to cast level 2 arcane spells, and then do 3 regular levels of Cleric?

In that case, yeah that's a tough one. The only way I know of to get the level 2 arcane requirement early is through race. There are several ways to get the divine 2nd level spell casting requirement early.

It looks like you might be stuck going into Mystic Theurge normally, at level 8 for a Cleric/Sorcerer. Since Tieflings and Aasimar are out, the earliest you can get into MT now is 5 with Cleric or Oracle 1/Wizard 3. If that's not playable for you, your best bet is to retire the character. (Retraining those Sorcerer levels to Wizard levels probably won't do you much good since you probably don't have the Int to support it.) 7 levels is a LONG time to play a character that isn't the character you want to play, doesn't leave all that much time to play the character you do want to play, and puts you way behind the power curve of even the iconics just as scenarios start getting seriously difficult.

[Jiggy]

Re: Thread title — Making a rules mistake is not stupid (not even "a little"). In fact, just by having recognized and admitted the error, you're already a step ahead of a great deal of very experienced players/GMs. Bravo to you for stepping up to take care of business even while people are looking. :)

[BigNorseWolf]

You can use ultimate campaigns retraining rules to get rid of the dips if you think they're ill advised with your new understanding of the rules.

[Carla the Profane]

Jiggy wrote:

Re: Thread title — Making a rules mistake is not stupid (not even "a little"). In fact, just by having recognized and admitted the error, you're already a step ahead of a great deal of very experienced players/GMs. Bravo to you for stepping up to take care of business even while people are looking. :)

Thanks Jiggy, I appreciate it. Now, let's see if I have enough pp/cash to retrain all of this :P

[Nefreet]

If you need to save up gold or Prestige you could always GM a few games for a while.

I have a 3rd level Cleric that I really want to retrain into Shaman, but I won't have enough Prestige until he's level 5 or 6.