On Base Classes, Prestige Classes, and Spellcaster Level

[Ninten]

Ok, so funny rules question here. It’s never come up in close to 8 years of me playing 3.5/Pathfinder, and in any case may never come up, but I didn’t see any answer anywhere, and thought it was a good question:

Let’s say I’m playing a Wizard (school specialization and familiar not important). I take Wizard levels all the way up to Wizard 4, stopping one level shy of getting 3rd level spells.
I then take a level in a Prestige Class (which one again isn’t important), which gives me spells as though I’d progressed a level in Wizard. Now I’m Wizard 4/Prestige Class 1, and can cast spells like Wizard 5.
My next two levels are also in this Prestige Class, making me Wizard 4/Prestige Class 3, and giving me the spells of a 7th level Wizard, or in other words 4th level spells.
Now things get tricky. Instead of taking Prestige Class 4, I decide to go back and take Wizard 5. What happens to my spellcasting ability, exactly? I think it could be any of:
1.) I just get the same spell increase a normal Wizard 5 would, basically a new 3rd level spell, etc. My spellcaster level doesn’t go up. This is a simple enough solution, but has some odd consequences, such as making it possible for the character to have more than the maximum 6 spell slots per level, by essentially double-dipping.
2.) I get the BAB, Saves, and Class Features of Wizard 5, but the spellcasting abilities of Wizard 8, because technically I already had seven levels of spellcasting as a Wizard. This also makes a degree of sense, but then what happens when my spellcaster level caps out before my Wizard class levels do? (IE: what if I get to the spellcasting power of Wizard 20 before taking 20 actual levels in Wizard? And then want to take another Wizard level for some odd reason? I can’t?)
3.) I just take Wizard 8 instead of Wizard 5, only adding the BAB/Saves/Class Features added between Wizard 7 and 8. Seems the least likely option.

So yeah. Hope nobody’s brain asplodes from reading this. Does anybody have any actual text info for what happens?

Thanks.

[Kamelguru]

You get the class abilities of a wizard 5 (like bonus feat), but the spellcasting progression of a wizard 8, as long as the prestige class grants +1 spellcasting on all levels. There is no way to get more spellcaster levels than character levels. If you have 20 levels of casting, you are lv20, and the game currently does not support higher level play than that.

[Ninten]

Ok, thanks for the quick answer. Just two more things then:

1.) What do I write on the character sheet? "Wizard 5 (Sub Wizard 8)/Prestige Class 3"? What's the notation for this?

2.) Supposing I take those Prestige Class levels until I have 6 3rd level spell slots, and then get another one from Wizard 5, does that mean I can have 7 base 3rd level slots? Or is there a rule against that?

[Elven_Blades]

Ninten wrote:

Ok, so funny rules question here. It’s never come up in close to 8 years of me playing 3.5/Pathfinder, and in any case may never come up, but I didn’t see any answer anywhere, and thought it was a good question:

Let’s say I’m playing a Wizard (school specialization and familiar not important). I take Wizard levels all the way up to Wizard 4, stopping one level shy of getting 3rd level spells.
I then take a level in a Prestige Class (which one again isn’t important), which gives me spells as though I’d progressed a level in Wizard. Now I’m Wizard 4/Prestige Class 1, and can cast spells like Wizard 5.
My next two levels are also in this Prestige Class, making me Wizard 4/Prestige Class 3, and giving me the spells of a 7th level Wizard, or in other words 4th level spells.
Now things get tricky. Instead of taking Prestige Class 4, I decide to go back and take Wizard 5. What happens to my spellcasting ability, exactly? I think it could be any of:
1.) I just get the same spell increase a normal Wizard 5 would, basically a new 3rd level spell, etc. My spellcaster level doesn’t go up. This is a simple enough solution, but has some odd consequences, such as making it possible for the character to have more than the maximum 6 spell slots per level, by essentially double-dipping.
2.) I get the BAB, Saves, and Class Features of Wizard 5, but the spellcasting abilities of Wizard 8, because technically I already had seven levels of spellcasting as a Wizard. This also makes a degree of sense, but then what happens when my spellcaster level caps out before my Wizard class levels do? (IE: what if I get to the spellcasting power of Wizard 20 before taking 20 actual levels in Wizard? And then want to take another Wizard level for some odd reason? I can’t?)
3.) I just take Wizard 8 instead of Wizard 5, only adding the BAB/Saves/Class Features added between Wizard 7 and 8. Seems the least likely option.

So yeah. Hope nobody’s brain asplodes from reading this. Does anybody have any actual text info for what happens?...

1. ) you gain spells per day as a Wiz 7 up to this point, but do not learn new spells for leveling beyond level 4, I'll post link at bottom. You can still add more/higher level spells to your book via the other methods of learning spells. You caster level does go up.

2. ) your BAB = that shone on table for Wiz lvl 5 + prestige class lvl3, saves work the same way. You have the feature of Wizard 5 + PrC 3 also.
3. ) basically, the only thin you will be level 8 for will be spells per day, caster level, and things derived from those 2. In other respects your considered a lvl 5+ lvl 3, such as for your base attack, saves, class abilities, and the like. Note: some class abilities say that your multiple levels will stack, but they specifically say so.

you can not learn mw spells when gaining a level as a wizard when advancing in a prestige class, it says so here. You do learn now spells if you are a sorcerer. The wizard can add spells by other means, such as copying from a scroll, as normal

[Elven_Blades]

Ninten wrote:

Ok, thanks for the quick answer. Just two more things then:

1.) What do I write on the character sheet? "Wizard 5 (Sub Wizard 8)/Prestige Class 3"? What's the notation for this?

2.) Supposing I take those Prestige Class levels until I have 6 3rd level spell slots, and then get another one from Wizard 5, does that mean I can have 7 base 3rd level slots? Or is there a rule against that?

1.) that's how I do it

2.) no, your example of Wiz 5/ prestige 3 = caster level 8, would use spells per day from level 8 on the wizard table. Its not like saying wizard 5 gives me 2 spell slots for 2nd levels spells, and prestige class (treated as level 3 wizard) grand me 1 2nd level spell slot, for a total of 3 2nd level spell slots. It would instead read simply 8th level wizard according to table, has 3 2nd level spell slots. I know the math comes out to same number of spells here, but that is not always the case. Also, i have not taken bonus spell slots from high ability score in account on any of my examples. And lastly, a wizard will never have more than 4 spells per day at a given spell level (again, ability bonus not included).the only way to do this, tequnically, would to be to take another base class, the spell progression table could be thought of as saying, " +1 level to a different spell casting class

[OilHorse]

Elven_Blades wrote:

1. ) you gain spells per day as a Wiz 7 up to this point, but do not learn new spells for leveling beyond level 4, I'll post link at bottom. You can still add more/higher level spells to your book via the other methods of learning spells. You caster level does go up.

That is interesting. We have never played it like that in all our years of 3e/PF.

[Hobbun]

Elven_Blades wrote:

you can not learn mw spells when gaining a level as a wizard when advancing in a prestige class, it says so here. You do learn now spells if you are a sorcerer. The wizard can add spells by other means, such as copying from a scroll, as normal

Quote:

Does a wizard (or other character that uses a spellbook), receive bonus spells to add to his spellbook when he gains a level in a prestige class that grants an increase to spellcasting?

No. The increase to his spellcasting level does not grant any other benefits, except for spells per day, spells known (for spontaneous casters), and an increase to his overall caster level. He must spend time and gold to add new spells to his spellbook.

–Jason Bulmahn (11/24/10)

Wow, I completely missed that. Was that the same in 3.5? Or new to PF?