Hey all, I'm looking to see if anyone has found a clever way to early enter into a prestige class since the SLA reversal. Are there any prestige classes that can be entered before level 6 (X 5/Y 1)?
If it matters, I'm hoping to go Arcane Caster 4/PrC 1, but this is more of a thought experiment at this point so I'll take any crazy combo you can think of to get that first level of a PrC at 5 (or earlier!)
And by SLA reversal, I'm talking about no longer being able to qualify spellcasting requirements with Spell-like Abilities. Any official rules work, no 3pp, sorry! Does not need to be PFS legal.
You can very likely qualify for entry to Mystic Theurge by paying a cleric to cast Imbue with Spell Ability on you.
I am not a Pathfinder rules guru, but this looks 100% legit to me. It will just cost you money.
So if you can cast level 2 Arcane spells and have a level in a divine casting class, then this will qulalify you for entry.
Hm. Clever, but wouldn't you need at least 5 HD to gain a 2nd level spell? I guess you would also need a Bard Inspiring Greatness on you.
But that also would require Imbue with Spell Ability qualifying for Mystic Theurge, which is in the rules grey area. Definitely a solid option, though.
Nice catch, though.
I believe that you need to keep the bonus spells or HD for 24 hours before it ceases to be a temporary bonus. That is the case with items such as a headband of inspired wisdom.
And that is longer than you can really expect a bard to keep performing.
There is a lot of point in my suggestion, if its legit, however.
The earliest normal entry to mystic theurge, under the current FAQ, is level 7. Say wizard 3/ cleric/1 mystic theurge/1. That puts you 3 levels behind a pure wizard in arcane casting and likewise 3 levels behind in divine casting.
With imbue with spell ability, you can go wizard 4/ cleric/1 mystic theurge/1. More important than getting into the PrC 1 level early is you only lose 1 level in arcane spell casting, and that is very very important.
I definitely see the strength of that Mystic Theurge build. I feel it has a lot of the strength the SLA Mystic Theurge has. Very interesting...
Anwyho, I'm actually looking for the earliest a character can enter ANY PrC. After the SLA FAQ, I'm not sure if any could be entered at level 5 but I'd like to believe there is some trickery out there that could allow it.
For the most part the PrCs need 5 ranks in a skill or a BaB among their pre-requisites, and those set a hard limit. I that is deliberate.
If you really want a definitive answer you can go here http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes
which has a list of every PrC and look at the pre-reqs of every single one. If you can find a PrC that has pre-reqs that don't involve a skill at 5 or a BaB of 5 I will see if I can find a way to get in early.
I am interested to see if there is a way. But not so interested I am going to go through every PrC. Are you?
The problem with that build is that if someone casts Dispell Magic on you and dispells the effect of IwSA, you lose all class features of MT, including all spellcasting levels above those you took in the classes directly.
I personally wouldn't be willing to take that risk.
Well, until you get enough casting levels to have the 2nd level divine casting.
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It ain't so.
does heighten spell still work? You take a 1 point metamagic adjust on a spell and heighten spell lvl1 and boom 2nd level spell. Is that still legit?
That never worked.
There were some 3.5 shenanigans you could pull off with Heighten Spell Illumian Naenhoon things, and some feat that gave you extra spell slots of the highest level you could cast.
See also: Sanctum Spell, the easier version of this crap but for prepared casters.
Anywho, I went through a list of all the PrCs and didn't see anything. Arcane Trickster is the closest, but I don't think there is any way to get 2d6 Sneak Attack and 2nd level spells in 4 levels. Then Mystic Theurge, I would say.
EDIT: Maybe this item can help? Only 118k gold away!
Maybe.
It is subject to the same sort of problem as mentioned by Paladin of Baha-Who? If you lose the armour.
And the same thing may well apply if you take the armour off, to sleep or something.
And getting an item worth over 100k in gold by level 4 is far fetched. but with a benevolent GM it could work, technically.
Xethik, you might be interested in the following idea. It only works in a campaign that is using the old FaQ. I might play it in a coming campaign, if the party needs a divine caster.
"The second character idea absolutely has to be evil. It is a Duergar that starts with 3 levels of Cultist of Charon. This archetype gives you a sneak attack, though you only get one domain.
Then you take one level of Empyreal sorcerer [obviously so your spells run off wisdom, very efficient] in a campaign where the GM is using the old FAQ allowing you to qualify for PrCs with a SLA. Next you take 10 levels of Mystic Theurge and finally 6 levels of Arcane Trickster.
Surprisingly Arcane Trickster allows you to gain the spells of a divine casting class, check the wording if you don't believe me.
At level 20 you are a Cultist of Charon 3/ E Sorcerer 1/ Mystic Theurge 10/ Arcane Trickster 6. Because you never had to take any levels in Rogue or other non-casting classes to qualify as an Arcane Trickster, at level 20 you can have the spells of a level 19 cleric and level 11 sorcerer or, what I would do, the spells of a level 18 cleric [with a CL of 20 cos you wisely took magical knack] and a level 12 sorcerer to get access to 6th level arcane spells.
The end result a flexible character that can do many things, one that is not that far short of a full divine caster, a support arcane caster, a poor rogue and has a bunch of useful tricks gained from the the 2 PrCs."
Thoughts?
Very interesting. Is Cultist of Charon a 3rd party archetype? I remember seeing something like that in Deep Magic, but I can't find it online (and don't have my Deep Magic pdf in me).
Yes, Cultist of Charun is a cleric archetype from Deep Magic, p 334.
They only get one domain, which must be death, murder or undead, lose some other stuff and are antisocial at best.
But I finally found a way to get both arcane trickster and mystic theurge into the one character in a way that does not suck. Very flexible and gets a caster level every time.
A friend has told me I am obsessed with the dual class type PrCs. Its a fair cop. You seem to have the same sort of interest.
Another freak idea that you can do if a GM lets you use 3rd party and 3.5 stuff is take 4 levels in Theurge, a 3rd party class you can find at pfsd20, has arcane and divine spells. Then one level of arcanist.
You now qualify for mystic theurge even under the new FaQ, you can cast lvl 2 divine and arcane spells as a theurge. After taking ten levels of mystic theurge you go into ultimate magus for 6 levels.
It gives you the max flexibility and depth as a spellcaster, with the benefits of having a spontaneous and prepared casting class as a mystic theurge as explained in the guide on these boards.
The really hard thing is finding a GM who will let you do it.
I'm trying to stay away from 3rd party as it isn't embraced in my groups and you have to either have a GM willing to say no or self-balance, which I know I won't do well while trying to optimize. Plus, this is mostly theorycraft. That being said:
I'm really fond of that MT/AT build. I definitely want to try to give something like that a spin one-day, maybe with Inquisitor instead of Cleric if I can't 3rd party.
I'm obsessed with weird and unconventional builds, but I usually break RAI making them optimal. In this case, I was hoping to break retraining rules to get into a prestige class early until qualifying for a stronger and then retraining all levels to it.
So for example
Go VMC Rogue
Wizard 5, then 2 levels of Inner Sea Pirate. At level 7, you gain 1d6 Sneak Attack from VMC Rogue. Retrain one pirate level to Arcane Trickster. Take AT levels to 11, and then retrain out of Pirate and into AT once you get your level 11 VMC Sneak Attack die. You are now a full caster Arcane Trickster with no spell level drops and are able to cap AT at 15.
The retraining rules FAQ say you cannot use rule elements of a prestige class to qualify for itself it retrain base class to PrC, so you need the external source of Sneak Attack to qualify, which with VMC comes online based on character level, and prestige class levels to retrain.
Alternatively, you could go Wizard 5/PrC full caster 6, then retrain all PrC levels to Arcane Trickster. You bite more gold cost for having a stronger character up to level 11.
Xethik- I am only vaguely familiar with the rules you are talking about in the later part of you post, so I am not going to say anything. Usually the thing to do when you don't know much.
The whole point of my MT/AT idea is to get all the levels in a casting class. Retraining aside, the weak thing about both AT & MT is the levels behind what you would be as a pure caster.
It is only by taking 3 levels of Cultist of Charun that allows you to mix AT & MT this way. You can perhaps substitute Inquisitor for Cultist, but you won't get the same spell power. You need to be able to use the old FaQ and the Cultist to make it work.
Its also quite possible to make a character this- Cultist 3/ AT 10 / Cultist 7.
You would need one more level prior to AT due to skill requirements, but otherwise the Cultist AT seems legit.
For the Inquisitor, it's unfortunately the only way of mixing MT with AT reasonably without 3rd party (using Sanctified Slayer to get Sneak Attach). Honestly, probably not worthwhile using a 2/3rds caster in a MT or AT build, but it seems like an interesting build nonetheless.
For context on my previous post, since I was exhausted and not 100% of a sane-mind, VMC is Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder Unchained. You trade half of your feats for a class features. If you select Rogue, you get something like:
7: 1d6 Sneak Attack
11: 2d6 Sneak Attack
15: 3d6 Sneak Attack
19: 4d6 Sneak Attack
as well as Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, and Trapfinding. That's my understanding, at least.
It's a pretty big cost but you can get the Sneak Attack for AT without needing to use a class that offers it.
I have heard of variant multi-classing, but your post is the first details I have seen. Seems interesting. I know Pathfinder... imperfectly. There is an awful lot to know to know everything, so things like re-training that rarely come up in my groups games I know in outline.
And I too had a bit of a brain fade about the level you can get into AT.
I have pretty much dismissed 2/3 casters for AT and the like w/o really looking too closely.
I have read guides that say the way to make a good AT is finding synergy between the spells and the rogue abilities. That is when starting as a rogue and then entering a arcane casting class. Even so its never a power gamer's delight.
I am quite proud of the Cultist MT/ AT. There is nothing overpowered about it, but it's fully viable. And it took a long time to find a viable MT/ AT and it's my own idea.
I am currently playing a Cerebremancer, who is currently level 11 and manifests as a level 10 Psion, casts as a level 7 Wizard. The character is really a lot of fun to play, good depth and flexibility.