i would not call it easy to get it.
It requires dedication to a guild, not something that most adventures have time for.
I consider the whole Eclectic Training just awesome for a Mystic theurge build.
Anything that can save that prestige class is welcome.
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Does anyone else think that this fame reward is out of proportion with the rest of the rewards?
I agree, but there are already too many knacks, feats and traits that grant a simple "+1 to spell DCs" so this makes a nice change.
A GM would be wise to demand true loyalty to the specific spellcasters' guild though.
No, you are right. It is pretty crazy. I think the reason more people haven't mentioned it is that few people use these faction/school rules. It also helps that it isn't one of the big major hardcovers... put this in Ultimate Combat, and there would be much forum rage.
Just ban it. Like Butterfly Sting or Antagonize, after people realize what they can do with it, it will be too good to let live.
I'll note that the GM has a great deal more veto-power over prestige awards than over feat/trait selection.
There's an organization in the game that you must be in good standing with to achieve the prestige award. The GM doesn't need to house rule to cut you off from it.
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From my reading such Fame-based awards can be taken away by the DM - if the character in question fails to pay his guild dues, for example, or if he falls out with the guild in some other fashion. So, on that basis, it's a lot more controllable than a Feat or Trait which are assumed to be permanent additions to a character's sheet.
Yes, it's a powerful award if you happen to be building a multi-class character or (as I'd probably lean towards) if you take one of those Prestige classes which don't grant the +1 to effective caster level every level, and the DM is using the Fame awards system, and the DM introduces a suitable Guild into your game, and you manage to both get into that Guild and keep on its good side. So it's powerful if all the dominoes happen to line up just right. On the other hand, if it weren't as good, how much incentive would there be for the character in question to bother paying much attention to his Guild at all? If it only matched the power of a Trait, for example, then how many players would bother with all that effort when they could take the Trait easier and more effectively?
Is it balanced with other possible Fame awards? Well, looking through Inner Sea Magic and the Faction Guide (which has similar things) there are some pretty choice 'freebies' characters can pick up via associating with an organisation, and this is just one of them. The Acadamae's 'Summoning Specialization' for 3 PP a pop looks like it could be really powerful in the hands of the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) gamer. Or the whole of the Church of Razmir in the Faction Guide - where you can buy Prestige for a mere 190gp a pop, which you can then trade for permanent spell-like abilities, amongst other things (for 9,500gp you can attain 50 TPA, the highest rank in the Church, and mass suggestion as a spell-like ability...). Those are just a couple of examples, but yeah - there's some powerful stuff in those books if you look... It's just very much DM-controlled stuff. If you run a campaign with both Factions and Magic Schools, along with all the usual benefits from adventuring, WBL, etc., then yes - you're giving your PCs more than they'd usually have... but you're likely doing so for good, solid, role-play reasons which bring their own benefits and drawbacks too.
The Factions and Magic Schools are interesting options, IMHO, but with pretty much no control left in the hands of the players (as opposed to the DM) also pretty easy to manage.
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I'll note that the GM has a great deal more veto-power over prestige awards than over feat/trait selection.
There's an organization in the game that you must be in good standing with to achieve the prestige award. The GM doesn't need to house rule to cut you off from it.
I slightly disagree, actually. The relevant passage is:
Once a student leaves a school, he can no longer spend Prestige Points on that school’s benefits. If he was expelled,
he might even lose access to some of the advantages and boons he had already acquired from the school, at the GM’s discretion.
It makes a whole lot of sense that you could easily lose boons like having spells cast on your behalf, items lended to you, monthly stipends, social interaction bonuses, or access to retainers. It seems harder to argue that modifications to your body, spells that have already been taught to you or training that you already have received could be revoked. It would be very nice if one of the writers could chime in on this, though.
That said, this is doubtlessly much stronger than any of the other boons in the book, though...
You like
Guilds often require members to master and train in different subjects. When your Fame score in a guild reaches 5, choose one spellcasting class you have at least 1 level in—you increase your effective caster level in that class (including the number of spells you know and can cast per day) by +1, to a maximum caster level equal to your total Hit Dice. Single-classed spellcasters should still pick a class to which this bonus applies, since this bonus is retroactive
Check out:
The bonus to caster level you gain from Eclectic Training increases to +3 (but is still limited by your total Hit Dice). You may select a second spellcasting class to gain a +1 bonus to effective caster level
/cevah