Spell Specialization + Spell Perfection

[Ravingdork]

I want to make a character with Spell Perfection and Spell Specialization, that way, my spell is cast at +4 caster level (I will likely stack more CL bonuses on top of this as well).

The problem is, I don't know which spell to pick. What spell (from any list) do you think would most benefit from a really high caster level and actually be worth taking?

[james maissen]

Ravingdork wrote:

I want to make a character with Spell Perfection and Spell Specialization, that way, my spell is cast at +4 caster level (I will likely stack more CL bonuses on top of this as well).

The problem is, I don't know which spell to pick. What spell (from any list) do you think would most benefit from a really high caster level and actually be worth taking?

There are lots of uses to this combination (and throw in the next feat to spontaneously convert to it as well), but CL isn't all you need to figure on. The spell itself matters much more and how it fits with you.

For example you could do this with a level 15 Magus I something like shocking grasp can make sense. The quickened intensified ones (via lineage) you pearl 1 back, the ones that are say quickened empowered intensified you improved spell recall back.

If you're instead a pure wizard you could go for the cheap enervate the heck out of things route. Quickened threndic (or empowered/etc) ones followed by maximized (or dazing) threndic ones is a nice welcome to the party have your 5-10 negative levels...

But like I said neither of these really leverages the CL boost. And by 15th level you can likely boost CL a good amount outside of this. You could consider something like greater dispel magic (which you could quicken via magical lineage) but really disjunction is just 2 levels off at that point.

But if you do find something you might consider the teamwork feat if you can have someone else with your spell beside you.. it really rocks with spell perfection.

-James

[Serisan]

Ravingdork wrote:

I want to make a character with Spell Perfection and Spell Specialization, that way, my spell is cast at +4 caster level (I will likely stack more CL bonuses on top of this as well).

The problem is, I don't know which spell to pick. What spell (from any list) do you think would most benefit from a really high caster level and actually be worth taking?

Pretty much anything you want to avoid SR on. I think there are better ways to obtain that. You've got a minimum of 6 feats invested in this 1 spell (Spell Focus, Spell Spec, 3 metamagics as a prereq, and Spell Perfection). You might have 3ish in your build anyway.

Spell Specialization is pretty cool if you are lower level, but I don't see a point by the time you'd have Spell Perfection available to you.

That said, I tend to think of Spell Perfection as best augmenting Evocation spells, meaning something like Cone of Cold or Fireball are solid choices. If you pull this on a Wizard (where you're most likely to have all of the prereqs), you can also grab Greater Spell Spec for the spontaneous option on your choice spell. It's pretty much the best way to make blasting work for you.

Cone of Cold makes the best use of the bonus caster levels once you factor in Intensify. The only blast spells that get a further bonus are high enough level that you can't do any other tricks with them. Supporting this with the metamagic trait (Magical Lineage?) lets you throw Quickened Intensified CoCs around. Eventually, though, you'll want to drop the Spell Spec from whatever you had on Perfection, unless you stacked Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (both or it really doesn't count).

Some other poster suggested a Time Waster Sorceror who uses Perfection on True Strike (quickens every time) to initiate grapples.

[Lathiira]

That combo might be fun with holy word :)

[thepuregamer]

not that this is a great use of spell perfection but I could see it being pretty damn useful with animate dead.
Spell perfection would double
undead master( I think)
Spell specialization
varisian tatoo

And you could boost further with non feat bonuses to your cl(traits, items, class benefits, death knell)

[FuzzyrabbitMD]

It's a little off-beat, but on my current Wizard I just took Spell Perfection for Greater Dispel Magic. The +2 from Spell Specialization gets doubled, meaning you get a solid +4 to your CL for the caster level checks involved. In addition, I now have the option to freely add either (in my instance) Echoing Metamagic or (my new favorite) Empower Metamagic to it. Empower is especially nice, as it should (theoretically) multiply your entire caster level check. This makes it much more reliable for stripping off 4 buffs off of the buff, or removing 1 buff from everything. Though my personal favorite will probably be readying a counterspell Echoing Greater Dispel, then Empowering the free echo copy on my next turn.

[thepuregamer]

empower increases all variable, numeric "effects" by half.

A caster lvl check is not an effect of dispel magic but a check to see if dispel magic even works(like an attack roll)

Similarly, an empowered scorching ray would not get its attack roll increased but its damage would be increased.

[Ymmijx]

caster level cheese is best spent on spells meant to scale well such as control winds(hit cl 15 and you make a tornado). if your dm allows 3.5 spells be a druid with an animal companion that has a poison attack and use venomfire

[Ryze Kuja]

Although cliche, you can never go wrong with Fireball or Firesnake. Get Greater Spell Spec and trash spells when you need to as well.

[Lady-J]

fireball, disintegrate are both good choices

[WagnerSika]

Clearly someome chose Raise Thread as Perfected spell.
Anyway, Battering blast could be nice choice also.

[Gallant Armor]

I had a lot of fun with Spell Perfection (Snowball) with my Eldritch Archer Magus. A maximized snowball every round and a quickened snowball whenever I didn't use a swift action meant that there wasn't much that could stand up to a full attack.

Spell choice depends a lot on the type of game. My table likes to push resources meaning we could see 30 to 40 rounds of combat in an adventuring day at high level. A heaping handful of level 1 pearls of power kept me in business all day. For games with fewer combats per day, a higher level spell could be chosen and used most rounds.

In general I would say the most important thing would be to make sure to pick a spell that you can get a lot of use out of and optimally one that can be used with Quickened Spell.