the "Mystic" PrC (from Dragon Magazine #274)

[Shariell]

One question about the "Mystic" PrC (from Dragon Magazine #274):

The Mystic don't ever advance in caster level?
This seems a huge disavantage, that kill a caster...altough the flavor text says:
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"Mystics are spellcasters who focus solely on the pursuit of magic. Only the most diligent student of the magical arts joins the tanks of the mystics, who reward the hard work and study of devoted spell-casters with secrets of magic unavailable elsewhere. Characters without at least one level of wizard,sorcerer, cleric, or druid gain almost no benefit from becoming a mystic.
Paladins, rangers, and bards might gain some benefit, but overall, it would be minor."
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A full caster cannot afford the sacrifice of 10 caster levels. And a half spellcaster probably suffer the fact he has at maximum 2-3 spell levels.
Maybe I miss something... but I don't see the PrC viable at all.
Are the caster levels incidentally left from the text, or the class is intended to obtain a huge amount of super-low levels slot that can't ever bypass any kind of spell resistance?

[Shariell]

hey.. is anybody out there? :D

[Fraust]

I think Monte Cook wrote somewhere that he made that prestige class to show that you don't always need spell progression. Might have been on his sight, or I might be halucinating *shrugs*

Either way, I think the class is feesible depending on the campaign. Like you said, anything with spell resistance is going to murdidilyurder this class.

[FireLance]

Bear in mind that this was one of the earliest PrCs in 3e. The impact of the lost caster levels was probably not realized at that stage.