Dezakin's page

This is not something I am willing play houserules with, as I am not the DM, and I am an advocate of minimal houserules.

Fair enough.

I do believe the spell needs some clarity.

I do not believe it needs to "fixed".

Well, its got to be clearer to explain it.

A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body.

What's a feat and whats a racial trait? Human bonus feat counts, and maybe human skills. Dwarven hatred and giant dodging bonus? Weapon familiarity?

First eliminate the subject's racial adjustments (since it is no longer necessarily of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

Whatever this means needs to be addressed. What are the racial adjustments? Does it include mental racial adjustments?

If you go closest to RAW, then this strongly favors starting as a human with racial points put into a mental stat. It could be argued either way that mental stats if you're going as close to RAW as possible because skill ranks are determined by int retroactively and RAW says you keep your skill ranks.

Okay.

I have never seen anyone try to "break" reincarnate.
I am not really seeing balance concerns.
The cost, negative levels, and gamble keep most PCs wary of using it.

Its cheaper than raise dead, so if you started as human with your racial ability score in some mental stat and you reincarnate, you get two negative levels that you can remove for 2000gp and a couple weeks, for a total savings of 5000gp. And you only get stuff, so for 3000 gp you get to change to a new race with all the benefits and very few of the drawbacks.

Lots of fun in my opinion if you're starting as a human and you want to play the race lottery. Pretty awful of you're playing as a half orc barbarian with the racial point in strength and you come back as a halfling; Or a human, with no bonus feat.

There are much more logical reasons why it's banned in PFS, other than balance.

Well, yeah. There's no clear explanation of how it works for a start, but balance is part of it. You can get some crazy abilities just by luck even if you try to balance the spell out.

I still would like to get this down rules-wise, and would not want to try to convince my DM to shoehorn some sort of houserules in.

If you use this spell at all, its house rules. It's a fun spell, and in every home game I've run we've used it, but its so vague your DM just has to sit down and think about what he wants this spell to do. The safest thing to do is just to ban it, but I don't think that's as fun.

The most balanced thing is to strip off all racial class features, from mental ability scores to racial skill points and bonus feats. Keep track of where you're spending your 'bonus' skill points if you plan on ever having to use reincarnate a human, and what the first feat to lose is as a human.

Okay, so going through the magic weapons caster levels just for examples for things that all cost 8000 gp base

+2 sword, caster level 6
+1 corrosive sword: caster level 10
+1 bane sword: caster level 8
+1 flaming sword: caster level 10
+1 frost sword: caster level 8
+1 ghost touch sword: caster level 9
+1 shock weapon: caster level 8
+1 spell storing: caster level 12

So... what gives? all these different caster levels, giving much different results for exactly the same price, different resistance to dispelling.

And how does dispelling the weapon work when spells are cast on it? Say you have greater magic weapon on a +1 corrosive weapon cast at level 13. Does it dispel the greater magic weapon or does it dispel the corrosive weapon?

Or say you have hardening cast on a +1 corrosive weapon at level 13 and greater magic weapon cast on it at level 9...

The metamagic feat is referring to items that actually cast spells like wands.

Er, yeah but I still don't know what they mean by "Using metamagic feats, a caster can place spells in items at a higher level than normal."

The caster level being higher would also apply in these cases. As an example creating a wand of fireball or magic missile at caster level 10 instead of 5 would produce a more powerful spell, and increase the price.

Can you make wands and scrolls with metamagic on them? Extended mage armor scrolls or something?

Going back to weapons, the core rules assume what is in the book. Any deviation is GM Fiat territory. If that were not the case then no PC would buy a sword made by a lower level caster if a higher level caster could make a better weapon for the same price.

Sounds reasonable. Casters might reasonably charge services based on caster level, the way that spellcasting services are charged extra for higher levels (Caster level × spell level × 10 gp) even if the item creation was the same cost.

Still seems strange that there aren't rules covering raising caster level for items besides consumables though for resisting dispels and the like.

For potions, scrolls, and wands, the creator can set the caster level of an item at any number high enough to cast the stored spell but not higher than her own caster level. For other magic items, the caster level is determined by the item itself.

Probably this is the most likely supporting text in the SRD for your position, which is reasonable I suppose.

So by RAW the only way to make a higher caster level is to make a more powerful weapon. Seems a bit obnoxious if you only want to defend against dispelling.

That's just for default descriptions of magic items, and doesn't relate to magic item creation rules directly. There's some contradiction going on, but obviously you can make items at higher level or you wouldn't be able to make higher level scrolls and potions.

From SRD

Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions. These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by 5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting its prerequisites.

While item creation costs are handled in detail below, note that normally the two primary factors are the caster level of the creator and the level of the spell or spells put into the item. A creator can create an item at a lower caster level than her own, but never lower than the minimum level needed to cast the needed spell. Using metamagic feats, a caster can place spells in items at a higher level than normal.

I'm not sure what metamagic feats they're talking about and how to use this for magic item creation exactly.

Reincarnate is one of those funny spells that really has no clear rules on how it actually works. When you start your campaign you really should lay down the house rules reincarnate of how it works.

1: Reincarnate lets you keep every trained/mental stat you start with from human bonus feat to extra skill points per level, weapon familiarity, hatred, etcetera, but you lose all physical stats from darkvision and the like. Harder decisions are weather original humans get an extra skill point each level after they reincarnate.

2: Reincarnate obliterates all racial modifications from the extra feat to skill points and whatnot, and replaces them with the new racial modifications. You can say that death made these memories fuzzy.

The first one is fun, but it encourages everyone to play human's with the extra racial ability score in some mental stat and play the reincarnate lottery when they die.

The second one is much more balanced and shows an actual cost for casting reincarnate, as its one of the lowest get out of death spells there is. You can be reincarnated for cheap, but if your character concept depended on your racial type you will run a large risk of losing out big, and almost all casters will wish to avoid it.

There's a reason its banned in PFS.

When you create the magic item you generally get to choose which level it is made at, but if you use a higher caster level than normal it generally increases the price of the item.

I wasn't aware of that. I looked through the magic item creation rules and the pricing was related to the features you're trying to implement, not the caster level you're trying to implement. The spellcraft DC is related to the caster level though.

Weapons and armor are assumed to be made to made at a certain caster level. I think the GM would have to ad-hoc the price for a higher level weapon. As for other magic items the GM will have to do some ad-hoc pricing also.

Pretty sure that price isn't related to caster level in RAW.

I'm referring to magic item creation. Sorry, I forgot to mention that.

I've been interested in some dangers that might exist in combat when someone shuts down magic items, say a quickened dispel magic and a sunder on the fighters favorite sharp stick, and how to try to defend against such nastiness if you're a cautious PC or BBEG.

So how do you defend against this? You could use an orange ioun stone for +1 caster level, and theoretically you could use a moon circlet if you only work on your sharp stick during the new moon... but then making a +4 sword would take a year.

Are there any other ways to make caster level higher or defend against dispelling magic items?

What about if its a magic item that has other spells cast on it? (Say hardening, greater magic weapon, and weapon of awe amongst other things) How does the dispel check work, and how would you defend against it?

I've been interested in some dangers that might exist in combat when someone shuts down magic items, say a quickened dispel magic and a sunder on the fighters favorite sharp stick, and how to try to defend against such nastiness if you're a cautious PC or BBEG.

So how do you defend against this? You could use an orange ioun stone for +1 caster level, and theoretically you could use a moon circlet if you only work on your sharp stick during the new moon... but then making a +4 sword would take a year.

Are there any other ways to make caster level higher or defend against dispelling magic items?

What about if its a magic item that has other spells cast on it? (Say hardening, greater magic weapon, and weapon of awe amongst other things) How does the dispel check work, and how would you defend against it?

I'm sorry, but anyone who simply disregards Rage Prophet and says flat out that it's a terrible prestige class has completely lost my attention.

It should be obvious if you just look at what rage prophet gets you with what it costs. 1 rage power, 3 revelations (each of which more powerful than a feat), 3 caster levels, and .25 of a BAB point for some pretty marginal benefits. I'm glad that you liked the PrC, sure its about fun and flavor, but mechanically its simply inferior and there's not much a rage prophet can do that an oracle with 2 levels of barb can't do better.

Also I play a Barbarian1/Sorcerer7 in PFS that does just fine without Maigcal Knack. I'm not saying that I'm against making the trait legal, I really couldn't care less, but the argument that you can't play a multi-classed caster just because the trait is not allowed is false and hyperbole.

That's not what anyone is saying. Allowing magical knack makes some suboptimal choices better to play, that's all, and it affects some playstyles more than others. The trickster that attacks with spells using sneak attack is much more hit by reduced caster levels for touch and ranged touch that do damage based on level than the eldritch knight who uses spells to cast some personal buffs then wades into combat hitting things.

Dezakin wrote:

In fact, I can't think of a single PrC that's even equally powerful to a single classed character.

Diabolist for either a cleric or arcane caster. You lose access to granted abilities (although if you were an arcane caster delaying entry for one level to get one back isn't a bad idea) and you gain a full strength animal companion with better HP and a nasty, re-usable poison. The damage is a little weak compared to druid ACs, but he doesn't have to drop the opponent's HP, just their dex. In the meantime you also gain valuable bonuses on getting a decent deal with Infernal outsiders on Planar Binding. Hellfire damage on any energy spell is icing on the cake in a more 'gray' campaign where not every BBG is going to be evil (And if that isn't the case, the Diabolist probably won't be allowed anyway.)

Dezakin didn't say that. Eldritch knight, dragon disciple, master chymist, loremaster are all powerful PrCs.

I'm mostly playing around with different builds. I'm trying to figure out all the different sword and board builds and their comparative advantages and disadvantages. I like the fighter/close thing, but it just seems sorta strange to me to have a sword and board fighter hitting with his fist all the time. I can't stand the idea of some dual shield fighter, stinks of a molten velveta volcano incinerating cities to me.

I like the scimitar/shield idea for the bashing finish critical, but don't like the idea of using a kukri to use a large shield because that also sorta seems cheesy to me, where your main weapon is the shield and the kukri is some sort of afterthought.

A lot of the trip feat chain requires combat expertise, which sort of sucks up lots of int to qualify, and I'm not sure how well tripping works at higher levels when you're fighting all kinds of things that can't be tripped for some reason or another. Still, screwing over people that are prone and making them prone does have some appeal to me, but a feat that adds just one situational attack I'm concerned about unless I can make it reliably work regularly. Especially seeing how feat heavy the sword and board fighter is.

And Rage Prophet does not suck. And mind you, I’m advocating keeping Magical Knack banned, because I’m happy with my character the way he is.

Hey, you don't have to change it. For rage prophet it wouldn't do anything worthwhile anyways, as you're so far behind on caster levels that overcoming SR is sort of a waste and you don't really cast anything that's level dependent in a way that matters.

It would matter for an arcane trickster or eldritch knight who wants to cast scorching rays and be able to overcome SR while getting the extra ray. Its a must have only in the sense that reactionary is a must have for a god wizard.

Rage Prophet gave my character access to See Invisibility, I get a special Guidance Bonus, I can cast healing spells while raging without using moment of clarity.

My character’s deaf condition is getting better, can expend spell slots for more rage rounds, add barbarian levels to caster level for spells cast while raging and using moment of clarity, add con bonus to spell DCs for same.

Or you could have taken two levels of barbarian and the lame curse, taken dangerously curious for UMD so you can use see invisibility scrolls, not have to take moment of clarity at all so you can turn rage on and off at will whenever casting, gotten a rage power that's useful like intimidating glare or lesser spirit totem, gotten extra revelations and more spellcasting levels. With the extra revelations and rage power, that frees up feats that you can use to put into spell focus or heighten if you want more DC on spells, while being able to cast higher level spells. All while having equal or higher BAB, and getting favored class bonus. Rage prophet is a trap that just happens to look cool.

Requirements for this class did not include any feats.

Requires moment of clarity, which is sort of pointless if you take the lame curse. A rage power is an opportunity cost equivalent to a feat, except many rage powers are more powerful than most feats.

Bbauzh is a highly versatile and effective character, without magical knack.

Sure, so which is it, either magical knack is a must have that is too overpowering to allow, or its a situationally useful trait that benefits some builds the way dangerously curious or reactionary does.

When you multiclass, expect to lose something.

Wow, you're bringing up the weakest possible class combinations too. Rage prophet is awful, and mystic theurge is worse. Rage prophet is better served just staying oracle with 2 levels of barbarian, because you get nothing from that PrC, and you lose a bunch of feats while paying a dumb feat tax to enter. Mystic theurge is essentially the same as any character with high umd.

When you multiclass as either one of these loser class combinations, yeah, you lose something. You don't have to lose any caster levels either to realize you've lost a lot.

When there is a feature that is apparently a must have (my experience says it isn’t), then it means its too powerful, or you aren’t looking hard enough to ameliorate your troubles.

Better get rid of power attack for fighters and weapons finesse for dex based characters then.

Level 1-3: Yay, I'm a real caster. No loss here.
Level 4-5: Uh, more first level spells. stuff I couldn't do before... not terrible I guess. I can't cast haste or prayer but I got a few other tricks.
Level 6-15: My party treats me as a wandering collection of scrolls and a summoned monster. I can be marginally useful, but no outstanding abilities. Once I start running into things with SR I just forget about casting anything on them directly anymore. Spell focus feats become a waste.
Level 16: Yay, spell synthesis. I can do one amazing opener move once a day. I even get an intrinsic +2 to the DC. Too bad that everything with SR just ignores it, and its just once a day, and you're casting level 7 spells like banishment or prismatic spray instead of the goodies one level higher... and the next level the single class caster gets wish, time stop, etcetera while you're still playing around with delayed blast fireball.

Oh, and school abilities and bonus feats. The BBEG is a diviner, so he gets to go first, He notices you've got a real nasty opener move so he casts time stop and, yeah...

Level 17-20: Depends if you houserule extending MT or not. Its not good, no matter what you do until level 20.

I really like the idea but with 3/3 entry at the very best and a huge feat tax, just for some neat tricks like contingency raise dead and about 12 levels of pain...

Dodge + combat reflexes seem like it synchronizes well with sword and board. Lots of good saves seems like it synchronizes well. Wearing a mithril breastplate isn't that bad compared to heavy armor.

I was thinking if I mixed it with maneuver master to do flurry of maneuvers to trip a bunch of things or the free knock prone from shield slam it wouldn't be bad.

So I was thinking of putting together a sword and board fighter with a couple levels of monk for some of the feats and evasion, and was trying to figure out how to leverage the most out of that idea, and I noticed:

Vicious Stomp (Combat)

You take advantage of the moment to brutally kick an enemy when he is down.

Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes, Improved Unarmed Strike.

Benefit: Whenever an opponent falls prone adjacent to you, that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you. This attack must be an unarmed strike.

So I assume I can take this as a fighter combat bonus feat.

Can I also use this while armed with a scimitar and using a light shield then? Is this a good idea for a feat?

I've been thinking about the Mystic Theurge a lot lately (been contemplating writing up a guide) and I've decided that I really feel like the MT is fine as it is. Paizo has stuck with a core philosophy of making sure that prestige classes are capable of fulfilling specific concepts while never being more powerful than a single-classed character. In fact, I can't think of a single PrC that's even equally powerful to a single classed character.

Eldritch Knight isn't that bad, except that the capstone is dumb. Dragon Disciple is pretty good, and master chymist is good; Several of these options can provide classes that are stronger than some pure classes in my opinion.

Arcane trickster is weaker than pure classes but has the fun sneak attack with spells mechanic, while rage prophet is a big fail which at least had the right idea.

Mystic theurge is just awful though. You get hit with 1.5 spell levels on both sides in something where the action economy means you can't ever be powerful except once a day with lower level spells with spell synthesis. Further, your caster level is hit on both sides meaning you will never overcome SR on level appropriate encounters. You'll never make caster level checks to dispel, your spells will crumple like paper to enemy dispels. And that's only the spellcasting part, which is pretty sad for a class that's supposed to be all abouts the magicks.

You lose out on bonus feats, familiar progression, energy channeling, domain abilities, school powers, bloodlines, revelations, and so on for a few spells that are vastly below level appropriate.

You can do some cool openers, like haste, prayer, slow, stinking cloud and the like, and maybe summon a few archons. But you wont be able to ever pump these openers with metamagics without rods, and you cant follow up with level appropriate control like cloudkill, mindfog, wall of stone, or greater command, nor can you save the day with breath of life.

It's pretty established here that spellcasting is the most powerful mechanic in the system. This class allows you to pursue two separate spellcasting classes while never being more powerful than a single-classed wizard/cleric/whatever, while also allowing you to remain viable as a player. No, it doesn't have as much raw power as a wizard or cleric, since they're drawing on spells 1-2 levels higher. What it does have is staying power and a staggering amount of versatility.

Problem is, your role in the party has been demoted from god and buffer to cohort or summoned monster for combat. 3 level hits on spellcasting classes is tolerable in a gish like dragon disciple, eldtritch knight, or specialty striker like arcane trickster. There your spells are combat tricks that make you a better fighter, backed up by stuff that synergizes with it from arcane strike at full bab with mirror image or using sneak attacks with spells.

There isn't cool synergy like that with mystic theurge. Its just sort of an unorganized mess with a big spell list, as if having a big spell list is worth a giant hit to power; It isn't. Further, the prepared caster options are very MAD.

It might be if it was 2/2 on entry (2 levels sorcerer/2 levels oracle would be tolerable) and had more class abilities that actually synergized from both spell lists besides the almost completely wasted combine spells and the once a day awesomeness of spell synthesis at the capstone. As is, this is easily the weakest, most pointless PrC I've seen.

I really like the idea, because I really like the idea of a dedicated opener that drops a hasted prayer then a slow. I just cant see how this can work though.

It's actually simple. It's a trait that simply too good to pass up as it was if you were a multi-classed caster. It was considerably more powerful than "half a feat".

Magical Knack would have probably been balanced, if it was only a +1 boost.

Argh, that's terrible reasoning. It's only "too good" because pathfinder screws over multiclassed casters. It's not like power attack or improved initiative or reactionary even. Reactionary is easily more powerful than magical knack. Eastern mysteries is as well for the same build.

The problem is there is no reasonable way in pathfinder for multi classed casters to make up for caster level loss for level appropriate encounters besides that trait. Oh sure you can make stupid builds where you dump 3 feats or more so you can cast one spell as good as a single class caster. Of course a single class caster could do that too and hit way harder than you, so yeah. At that rate you might as well just stick with level independent spells like buffs and save or suck, damage spells that have already capped out and just forget about even trying on anything with spell resistance.

Is +2 caster levels worth it? For an arcane trickster probably. For a paladin or ranger, probably not. For a multiclassed divine, not necessarily. For every class combination there is a must have trait. For any battlefield controller that's going to be reactionary.

No I had no problem with the game itself. The people playing EVE were awful though. I enjoyed the corp I was in, but the elitist, psychopathic overall community that had the maturity of youtube comment writers really got on my nerve. The restaurant review would be that the food was awesome, but you got really tired of the crowd.

I loved the structure of the market and resource management and the scope, but it was incredibly disheartening to participate in a corp that was continually taken advantage of an manipulated by larger alliances "for the lulz." I hated having to always be aware of politics, and I hated the whole killboard system where if you weren't a sociopath griefer who scored lots of kills against newbies or ganking ratters/miners you got blackballed by the larger alliances as being useless as allies.

I hated being assured by the alliance we were renting from that we had security, then watching them warp a titan in to pop all our ships when we were trying to defend our system from a couple of ratter hunters so they could pad their killboards.

I didn't like the whole concept of merc corps. I hated how you had to vet people in corps because people would actually lie about their allegiance to get access to corp intelligence to do social engineering with people. It encouraged seriously creepy behavior in something that's supposed to be a game.

And I hated that the measure of players was is how much damage they caused to other players in the community as a whole. It just wasn't fun anymore, and the whole laugh while drinking care bear tears mindset that was endemic among players was just creepy to me. When I got popped trying to move about 200m ISK of junk from lowsec to market, taking a stupid risk, I was in a funk already about it and decided, naw I'm not happy in this game and went back to playing DDO.

I love pathfinder, and I love the structure of EVE, but if the community evolves into something like that, I'll stick with theme park games and write off sandbox games as someplace where psychopaths can play be the bigger bastard; Which sucks, because I really like the idea of sandbox games.

So yeah, I hope it works, because I really like the idea of a EVE like pathfinder game that's not a bunch of sociopaths playing gank the weak for the lulz and better killboard stats.

MT is awful. I posted a suggestion for fixing it, and to fix it you need early entry at 2/2, free magical knack traits for both sides, combined spells to not have the dumb penalty, and a lesser spell synthesis at level 5 that lets you do the same thing as spell synthesis with lower level spells. Then it might not be terrible to play.

But as is, its just an awful awful PrC that is essentially a bunch of scrolls and wands.

Sorta found it for RAW, but its not awesome flavor wise IMHO, because the best man for this is a neutral cleric.

You get prayer beads for that +4 CL karma bead, prepare death knell, use a moon circlet and an orange ioun stone. Use death knell on some bad guy, and then you can cast at +8 caster level altogether. Enough to repair a +4 weapon at level 16 I guess.

The prayer beads are cheap enough to use at lower levels though, enough to pump caster level from 7 to 12 to repair destroyed +2 weapons or to repair destroyed +3 weapons at level 13. Probably worthwhile so PC's can sell them I guess, since a PC is probably using something more valuable than a +3 weapon at level 13

Rage caster is useless, because rage caster only adds barbarian levels, not rage prophet levels. So you might as well just go oracle after the barb dip. CON to DC is pointless, because you can't cast high level spells with so many caster level hits.

You might as well just take heighten without rage prophet since you'll have more oracle levels and more spellcasting, or realize that you can just cast higher level spells that are more powerful than trying to squeeze a boost to DC's from low level spells from con while raging with moment of clarity.

Yeah you could take extra rage as a feat. Rage prophet doesn't grant any extra rage rounds either so, there you go. Forget rage prophet, a pointless PrC that makes you weaker than just dips in barb or oracle won't already get you.

It needs: Full BAB, 9 spellcasting levels, 2 rage powers, 1 revelation, additional rage rounds, level qualifications for barb powers and revelations

Right, so I present some encounter's and how any multiclassed caster is significantly below power compared to full caster or full melee, and note that one trait that makes it less awful, and now I'm a whiner. Way to keep it mature.

Sheesh. It's pretty obvious to anyone that actually bothers doing head to head comparisons. Missing two caster levels is awful. They don't synergize well the way something like feats, rogue talents, and barb rage powers do with each other.

Hrrr. I'm quite nervous about the prospect of an EVE like game for PFO if it encourages the same sort of gameplay: pretty much directed at PVP, enormous time devotion, and the general stratification of players as a bunch of sociopaths where the goal is to make someone else have as bad of a day as possible.

I really liked the structure and gameplay of EVE, the market system and so on. All the people were terrible though, and I didn't exactly have a great experience in the couple of years I played it. A whole bunch of politics, backstabbing, and the game ran around schadenfreude. The notion of PFO being a schadenfreude game sounds just awful.

Well, yeah. I just think there should be something between "Hey it was great, but now its garbage... Hey look, a brand new shiny stick." and cast the spell as a standard and poof its all better. Ritual magic to raise caster levels or something, I dunno. Or a higher level spell that can make the shiny stick shiny again that isn't quite as pricy and arbitrary as a wish.

It just seems to me there's a hole here between make whole, item creation, and wish.

I can't for the life of me understand why you think practiced spellcaster was overpowered. The only way that's possible is if multiclassed casters that used spells that depended on caster level were overpowered; which sort of implies to me not a whole lot of system mastery.

A level 12 character that's 4 level's of sorcerer, 4 levels of rogue, and 4 levels of arcane trickster without practiced spellcaster has a caster level of 8. The scorching ray that she depends on does 1 step less damage, wont overcome any SR if its there. Its pointless for most buffs unless combat lasts longer than 8 rounds.

Meanwhile the level 12 rogue moves into flank and destroys the bad guy with a zillion sneak attacks and the level 12 sorcerer says "forget this" and turns the guy into a statue.

Worrying that a feat that makes very underpowered flavor options suck less is overpowered because it has utility for suboptimal choices just strikes me as odd.

So I was browsing some threads about sundering weapons and gear, along with make whole and I cant seem to wrap my head around what to do when you have someone break their shiny stick if its real nice. Except say "well, its broken. Guess that dragon had another one just like it in his horde" to keep wealth by level normal, which feels a bit kludgy to me.

Make whole works great, and seems pretty reasonable if the broken shiny stick is just broken, but when it's destroyed you need double caster level to repair it; So a +3 weapon needs an 18th level caster to fix it.

That sounds fine and well, except I don't know any downtime way of boosting caster level. You can either go for the 1/2 cost and time of making the item rule and try to figure out item creation or try to hire the in town magic weapon and armor smith, or you can shove the busted piece of junk into your treasure horde to be sold when you have enough caster levels to make make whole work.

Is there any higher level spell that would be appropriate that doesn't require you to hire a 30th level caster to fix a busted +5 weapon for example? All I can guess is death knell, which sucks as its only +1 caster level and is limited to clerics and witches that don't mind pissing off the party paladin, or limited/full wish, which is GM adjudication depending on weather or not he's having a bad day.

It seems like there should be something between 2nd and 9th level to make repairing items go from 1/2 cost to something a little less expensive, even if it isn't free.

You'll have the same hp, because of the favored class bonus. You will have 16 more hp while raging with the greater rage at level 16 I guess.

I really do like the flavor, I just wish someone ran the numbers on this before releasing it in the APG. I thought about making a rage prophet character to play and realized just playing oracle with a couple levels of barbarian is the same flavor and much more powerful. Now I realize you can make the build work just by forgetting rage prophet and just calling yourself that, getting more spells, more feats, but losing spirit guide and greater rage... and the sorta pointless ragecaster junk.

Get lesser spirit totem, intimidating glare, reckless abandon, inspire ferocity and you're a powerful buffer/debuffer with a bunch of spirits dealing damage around you while casting spells around the party.

If you looking at the class purely in terms of relative power it might not measure up to a straight oracle in spell casting nor will it measure up to a straight barbarian but it is going to hit harder than a melee oracle

No, it won't. 2 Barbarian/x oracle will hit harder than rage prophet. Same BAB, more spells for self buffing, and more feats that can be put into combat. That's the problem with rage prophet. It doesn't fit the niche of a hybrid class, because a melee oracle will out melee the rage prophet, and out cast the rage prophet.

Oh yeah, and it doesn't have to take that pointless moment of clarity rage power.

From Zark's post:

Oracle 4 + Barbarian 2 + Rage Prophet 10 = BAB 12, CL 11 (or 13 when raging), highest pell level 5

vs

Oracle 14 + Barbarian 2 = BAB 12, CL 14, highest spell level 7, 3 extra revelations.

Seriously, no. Rage prophet is awful. Its a huge feat tax to keep up with rage powers and revelations, you lose a lot of spellcasting levels (5 altogether!) 2 levels of barb/x oracle is better than rage prophet. Its easily the worst of the fighting/casting PrCs.

Zark spelled it out best:

Oracle 1 + barbarian 5 + Rage Prophet 10 = BAB 12, CL 8 (or 13 when raging) , highest spell level 4

Oracle 4 + Barbarian 2 + Rage Prophet 10 = BAB 12, CL 11 (or 13 when raging), highest pell level 5

There is some talk about Rage caster and Spirit Guide.
Rage caster is a joke. DC doesn't matter when you cast 3rd level spells at level 16. Even 5th level spells are but a joke - if we talk about spells that calls for a saving throw.
Unless he is ranging his his CL will suck.

So what is good with this Class? The fighting power or the caster power.
Let's take a look at other 3/4 BAB classes.
Bard, Magus, Inquisitor: BAB 12, CL 16 highest spells: 6.
Cleric and druid: BAB 12, CL 16 highest spells: 8.
Fighter 1, wizard 5 + 10 level Eldritch Knight: BAB 12, CL 14, highest spell 8th.

A 4th level oracle + 2nd levels barbarian + 10th levels Rage prophet can't even cast heal. Even a 6th level Inquisitor can cast heal. So is the Rage prophet a good spell casting class? No.
Concentration checks? Your casting spells in battle? The highest spells you can cast is 5th level spells. Even a Bard can d hat without a problem at level 16.

So let's go Barbarian. 1 level oracle + 5 levels barbarian + 10 levels Rage prophet. Highest spells: 4th.
Ant can any other classes that at level 16 cast 4th level spells?

Ranger and Paladin: BAB 16, CL 13, Highest spell 4th.

Sure you can have fun playing a rage prophet. You can have fun playing an expert also. Its a terrible design and someone was asleep at the wheel when they made it... even before considering the enormous feat tax that goes into making it because of the rage power and revelation feats required.

The 2nd thing being done is adding the spell to her Familiar for free. But that is something that is NEVER done via PrC advancement... It's basically the same thing as Wizards' free 2 spells/ level which PrCs also don't advance.

No, its not. Patron spells are spell access to spells not on the witch spell list; Its much more isomorphic to bloodline spells or mysteries; Specifically, bloodline spells and mysteries aren't called out in RAW as advancing with prestige class enhancement, but sorcerer and oracle class levels list bloodline spells and mysteries as sorcerer and oracle class features; Not spellcasting progression. It isn't clarified anywhere in any FAQ and arguing that they should get it is interpretations of conflicting ideas about the class features versus spellcasting progression.

Yeah I think they should get it, but I also think multiclassed spellcasters should have their caster levels be their hit dice.

The mystic theurge is mechanically viable if you actually take the time to decide which spells you want and which ones you dont, you must remember though most prestige classes dont give their best abilities till level 15 (5 levels to enter and 10 levels in the class) so your comparing what is a slow starter with a decent mid level range and a powerful finish with classes that are strong all the way through (as pure caster levels are strong at all levels).

The supposed powerful finish for mystic theurge, or any other prestige capstone, is meaningless for PFS play. You don't go to level 16 in PFS.

The idea that the mystic theurge is mechanically viable is ludicrous for PFS play. The only thing it can do is be the waste of space that casts a bunch of 1st and 2nd level spells, even if they did have full caster level. That they don't makes them nothing but a walking collection of scrolls that anyone with use magic device could imitate.

You're trying to sell the notion that multiclassed characters aren't awful without magical knack. Sure, I guess they can be something other than terrible if they only cast spells that don't respect caster level like true strike or endure elements.

But you're not convincing at all that any feat or trait that raises caster level to something closer to hit dice is inappropriate for PFS play at low levels when you actually need those caster levels, let alone overpowered. Further, crippling caster levels by multiclassing when most of the actual power from casters is in spell access adds nothing to game balance. It does make multiclassing less desirable if you really hate multiclassing though.

Yeah, I can make an arcane trickster or eldritch knight for PFS play that's playable. It won't ever be level appropriate compared to any pure class though, and offering feats or traits that makes it closer wouldn't unbalance the game or make multiclassing desirable, let alone a no brainer. All it would do is make the characters a little more fun and a little less useless at the table; Which sort of is the point of the game.

IIAK, they have refused to tell us exactly why they made the choice, only that they "talked about it".

Whats IIAK? I looked it up and all I got was independent insurance agents of Kentucky

but it DOESN'T call for spells known table, or specify the 'spells' class feature.

just spells known gained 'if you gained a level in that class'. that is the RAW.

Not according to the faq regarding witch patron spells. Bloodline spells and mystery spells are similar.

FAQ

As for cleric domain spells:

A cleric gains one domain spell slot for each level of cleric spell she can cast

Explicitly RAW the opposite of what you're suggesting. Clerics get domain slots for cleric spellcasting progression, not cleric levels.

I think your reasoning entirely omits the reason why something like mystic theurge is a terrible terrible class.

It actual gameplay your caster level isn't just behind, but your spell access is behind. Having a caster level equal to your character level is in no way unbalancing towards multiclassed casters compared to pure casters and pure melees.

Adding a feat tax on top of it is just plain silly. Yeah you can play flavorful arcane tricksters, but they will never be as powerful as pure rogues or pure casters even with a full caster level. At higher levels when things like spell resistance and the like come into play, its just plain silly, as your spells become mostly for show and a few buffs and your character concept is all flavor and no punch.

Why wouldn't you take magical knack? Power attack is a must have feat for anything that hits stuff with strength, why wouldn't you take that? Weapons finesse is a must have feat for anything that melee's with dex, why wouldn't you take that? Magical knack is likewise a must have for anything that is a multiclassed caster and depriving multiclassed casters of feats to make them more convenient to play when they're already the weakest sort of class to play doesn't make much sense to me.

Domain spells are explicitly in cleric spellcasting progression. bloodline spells and mystery spells are explicitly in class features by level; RAW it calls for the spells known table but doesn't mention mystery spell progression.

I think they should get it, but its entirely unclear from the text that they get it, especially as mystery spells, bloodline spells, patron spells are class features and not spellcasting progression.

That would be surprising to me. It's unclear from RAW that you get sorcerer bloodline spells or oracle mystery spells with prestige class advancements to caster level as the bonus bloodline and mystery spells are described as class features at certain levels as opposed to tied to casting progression, especially with how the rage prophet mystery is described.

I'm sure its not as awful as playing an NPC class, but its definately not better than 2 barb/x oracle or x/oracle... or EK or dragon disciple or arcane trickster or arcane archer if we're comparing PrC's.

Better than mystic theurge I guess. But too weak. Needs full bab or it needs some bonus rage powers, probably some bonus rage rounds. The class is a feat tax with 3/4ths advancement (same as oracle already) diminished spellcasting. Two rage powers, a revalation, and rage prophet levels stack with barb levels for rage rounds per day and I could maybe see it.

Magical Knack's only point is to make multiclassing effectively not change your caster level, which isnt the point of multiclassing.

Huh? It is the point if you're making a multiclassed caster of any point at all. It's the entire point of an arcane trickster, where you do sneak attack touch spells. Even more so with mystic theurge, where you sacrifice higher level spells for lower level spells.

Maybe I can't help you with your opinion of it's balance, etc, but I've mentioned a bunch of stuff that it does that you seemed to have missed.

Not stuff that is worth 3 caster levels, 5 rage powers, 2 revelations and 3 BAB, which is why I'm asking why they're so weak. They need either more BAB, more spellcasting levels, or bonus rage powers or bonus revelations. You end up spending all your feats on rage powers and mysteries.

It would have been trivially easy to restrict Spells Known gained to being only from the Spells Class Feature...

Look, I'm not even sure we're disagreeing here, I'm probably just confused why you brought this up at all. I'm guessing its because it was the mystery spells that spirit guide grants you that aren't on the oracle list when I was asking what's the point of rage prophet.

Say you're a 2 barb, 4 oracle with battle domain, and 4 rage prophet. You get enlarge person and fog cloud from your oracle spell list from oracle but not magic vestment because you have no oracle levels. Rage prophet you can take maybe see invisibility and spiritual weapon or something. I'm guessing we're not disagreeing and you're not saying you get magic vestment in addition to the rage prophet mystery spells.

Huh? It only works with multiclass characters.

If you have two level 3 characters, one 1 wiz/2rog, and one 3 wiz

The one that has rogue levels spends a trait to have 2 magic missiles just like the primary caster and can cast it probably twice, maybe 3 times if evocation is the specialist school. A total of 3d4 +3 per day extra. I can't see this worth the extra d6 of sneak attack die unless you're going for the explicit purpose of building an arcane trickster.

The primary caster can cast it 4 or 5 times, has an extra trait to spend, and can cast three second level spells as well. And has more bonuses for school powers on top of that.

This doesn't make caster's more effective, it only makes multiclassed characters balanced with the rest of the encounters.

Can't say I agree. You can't get power attack or arcane strike on an item. You can get something like evasion for 20k. For 25 gold, 50 for a potion, you can get protection from evil, so I can't see how something that's at worst 50 gold a pop worth sacrificing a few feats, +1 bab, etcetera. Yeah it can be relevant, so can mage armor, but a dip in a caster class rarely is worth it without caster levels IMHO.

I'm pretty confused about what you're suggesting with oracle mystery spells. Spells you know from oracle are allready there. They progress with caster level, sure. But you don't get more mystery spells without oracle levels so I'm not sure why you would call out that rage prophet grants you the spirit guide spells in addition to mystery spells, because it seems pretty obvious to me.

I just cant see any reason to take rage prophet over oracle, given you lose BAB and spellcaster levels. It looks like a poorly thought out PrC, and should have full BAB and caster classes with maybe a hit at level 1 to mirror EK, instead of copying dragon disciple.

I'm confused. Are you saying its worth sacrificing a feat or two and class features for a couple of level 1 spells? A casting of a level 1 spell is worth 25-50 gp a cast, a feat is 20k on an item or more and takes up a slot.

As far as I know, rage prophet spells aren't in addition to your mystery spells. You don't gain oracle mystery spells without oracle levels.

Paizo made PrC's balanced. Thus, they are rarely worth going into if not for specific advancement or flavour.

It's not balanced. Full caster, full barb, or caster with a barb dip is better than rage prophet.

Rage prophet might be better than a barb with a caster dip, but there's hardly any use for a melee taking a dip in a caster class given how low level caster abilities scale with spells.

Yeah I read those links, but there never was any reason why it was banned given in those links. Just "We talked about it and said no." As far as I could tell Joshua Frost originally didn't like it for some reason or other and no one else really wanted to think too much about it so they kept it banned. No one's ever given a satisfactory reason why, and any time anyone asks the answer seems to be "just because." I especially liked the answer where one of the people involved suggested if they didn't like it, maybe they shouldn't be involved in Pathfinder Society.

I'd like to know if there's any way PFS members can petition for it to be changed, because I can't see any reason for it to stay banned, unless part of the reasoning is that PFS wants to discourage prestige and multiclass characters.

I first looked over the class of rage prophet and thought it looked like fun flavor for an interesting class. A barbarian oracle that can actually make good use of barbarian charisma powers.

Then I realized that the class made no sense at all. BAB is 3/4ths unlike eldritch knight. It looks like it borrows the same advancement table as the dragon disciple without the power advancement. As is, its mechanically its better to take 2 levels of barbarian and just go full oracle than to take any rage prophet at all; The prestige class grants almost nothing for the loss of caster levels and oracle mysteries, where dragon disciple grants bloodline power advancement and faster BAB than strait sorcerer.

Even moment of clarity doesn't make much sense as a rage power prereq for it, since you can rage on and off as a free action with the lame curse. Strait oracle and two levels of barb you get the same BAB, more spells, same rage rounds. The only thing you lose is extra barb levels for determining effects of rage powers, but that's meaningless since you have to spend feats to get rage powers that actually are affected by barb levels anyways, and you can't qualify for most of those feats without more barb levels...

Whats the point of this class? As far as I can tell the only thing you get out of it is a ghost touch and a greater rage at the cost of 3 caster levels and a whole bunch of mysteries and oracle goodies.

Or any other trait/feat that allows characters to make up caster level loss that makes prestige classes that have caster levels not so awful?

I mean an arcane trickster or eldritch knight can be fun, but they're decidedly behind the power curve without traits that make up for caster level loss when played at level.

I'm still confused why this is banned from PFS organized play, or how PFS members can petition for this to be changed.

Ellington wrote:

DeathQuaker wrote:

ProfessorCirno wrote:

Just be a bard!

:D

I know you're just being silly, the only thing is that you don't get the ranged legerdemain and sneak attack that way. :)

But you got me thinking... qualifying for Arcane Trickster through Bard isn't a horrible idea, especially if you're thinking of being a party face and are planning to play a support character (not a heavy hitter) anyway.

It's almost a shame you need 2d6 sneak attack to qualify for the PrC. It would be interesting to see an Arcane Trickster whose base class was Bard alone.

A bard variant that lost out on some party support and gained some rogue-ish abilities instead could be really cool.

There are already a couple Bard variants like that: Archaeologist and Sandman.

Archaeologist doesn't mesh well with AT, but could serve as a replacement, if what you're after is a rogue-like spellcaster.

Sandman gets sneak attack at 5th, so an interesting option for entry into Arcane Trickster could be Rogue 1/Sandman 5. Even better, I think, would be Sandman 5/Vivisectionist 1.

I think that'd be a terrible build. Bard's abilities are tied mostly in with class features than spells. getting AT for bard spell progression and sneak attack while losing BAB and bard abilities sounds like a loss to me.

If they had a 'bardic trickster' prestige class maybe, but just take the archetype. As is it sounds like a great way to make a really weak character.

I am torn a bit on the MT I think it is slightly weak, but think giving them an extra casting level in both classes will be a bit too strong.

The class needs to be accesible from level 6 onward, so that a 3/2 wizard cleric or cleric/wizard can enter next level. I use a houserule to stack all effective casterlevels, so that 3/2 wizard cleric would cast their spells effectively as a 5th lvl caster (variant of magic rating system), so that a silly feat/trait tax isn't required and they can function better as Mr. Magic of the party. I have no clue what the PrC entry requirements would have to be to make the entry requirements so btw.

3/2 Feels just tiny bit weak to me, but it would probably still work if you gave MT some more class features. Then you end up focusing on one class with backup spells from the other. You're one spell level below in one class and 1.5 spell levels below in the other...

Pure class wizard can drop black tentacles, you're not terrible because you can still drop a slow, but your cleric spells give you the ability to cast a couple of heals and maybe bulls strength.

I'd like to adapt the Pathfinder Savant to be a workable base class that functions much like what people expect from the MT, optionally it could be an alternate class of the sorcerer just give the sorcerer esoteric magic for all the spells on the cleric/druid (and other full 1 to 9 casters) list and make the favored class ability for humans allowable for all races and you have a workable 'MT' with nearly full magical potential.

Witch sort of does that. I was trying to find a way to do the PrC that doesn't suck where you pay a penalty in spellcasting for versatility. 3 levels just seems like too much of a penalty to be useful though.

You can Skip MT and progress as a single caster of a single type of magic OR you can take a little bit of a dip in power to be able to wreak havoc on both sides of the Arcane/Divine Spectrum.

You end up with a crap load more spells per day and can use the other type magic to power the spells you REALLY like.

This PC is already making a monster. Let's not make it worse.

MT is overpowered as is because they can cast a bunch of low level arcane/divine spells? You get a few more spells per day, they're all lower level, and your caster level and spell pen are compromised, all out of the door. While the pure caster casts plane shift or baleful polymorph, or magic jar along with a quickened spell, you're playing fun games with stinking cloud or prayer. Three levels of spellcasting progression is not by any stretch a "little dip in power."

Theurge is weak. Caster levels hit, and spell progression hit without any synergy makes it unattractive unless you like the idea of playing an adept. Not exactly sure how you think its a monster, but okay...