Complex Retraining, want to audit legality in a conservative way

[James Risner]

I'm trying to audit the legality of a PFS retrain event.

Character has a 3rd level Arcane SLA (Aasamir).
Wizard level provides Spell Focus pre-requisite.
Bloatmage has two +1 casting level of Wizard.
3rd level take Spell Focus of a different one than provided by the Wizard.

Retrain away Wizard 1 to Arcanist 1 seems legal but leaves the Bloatmage without pre-requisites.

Bloatmage requires 3rd level spell casting (Aasamir) and Spell Focus (one left taken at 3rd level) seems to be legal.

Bloatmage +1 level effects pointed toward Wizard, retrain class feature to point toward Arcanist seems legal.

Any dissenters to these positions?

The only I can think of now is that the character may need to expend two retrain class feature for the Bloatmage, to move both of them to Arcanist.

[Menacing Shade of mauve]

I assume he qualifies with the SLA under the grandfather clause of the reversal?

Conservatively, I agree that each level of +1 casting needs to be retrained separately.

[Menacing Shade of mauve]

The theoretical moment where he doesn't actually have spell focus is not a problem.

[James Risner]

Yes grandfathered clause.

[Avatar-1]

You've explained this in a very confusing way.

What was the character before and what does the character want to become?

[James Risner]

Wizard 1
Bloatmage 1 -> Wizard
Bloatmage 2 -> Wizard
With racial SLA providing 3rd level casting from grandfathered clause.

to

Bloatmage 1 -> Arcanist
Bloatmage 2 -> Arcanist
Arcanist 1
With racial SLA providing 3rd level casting from grandfathered clause.

At least one retrain (Wizard -> Arcanist) is required, 5 days not 7 days as there is obvious synergy between the two.

The character may also need to retrain the Bloatmage class feature of "+1 level of existing arcane class" to redirect it to the Arcanist.

This may need to be done twice.

[Ferious Thune]

EDIT: Ah. I see the problem. Bloatmage also requires the Bloatmage Initiate feat. I'm not sure you can actually do this and maintain your early access.

What is the character's regular first level feat? The issue I see is with trying to use the third level feat to qualify for Bloatmage. It makes taking Bloatmage at second level illegal. What I think you would have to do is retrain the level 1 feat to Spell Focus, then take that level 1 feat again as your third level feat, as long as that doesn't break any prerequisites. Out of the two FAQs on retraining, I think the second one applies. That's the one that says you can't use anything gained from a prestige class to qualify for that prestige class. In other words, as soon as you retrain out of Wizard and lose Spell Focus, you no longer qualify for Bloatmage. So you can't use anything gained from those Blcatmage levels (BAB, class abilities, or, in this case, your level 3 feat), to qualify for Bloatmage. So instead, you need to retrain your Level 1 feat to Spell Focus. FAQ

Spells per Day/Spells Known is a single class feature of the Bloatmage, though, so I don't think you would need to retrain that twice. Just once to switch your chosen class from Wizard to Arcanist. It's not like you can select a different class each level of Bloatmage, so I see no reason why you'd have to retrain the selection for each level.

So here's my take on it:

Retrain Level 1 from Wizard to Arcanist - 5 days, 5 prestige, and 150gp
Retrain Level 1 feat to Spell Focus - 5 days, 5 prestige, and 150gp
Retrain Bloatmage class ability Spells per Day/Spells Known to choose Arcanist - 5 days, 5 prestige, and 150gp

Now, the next important question is whether or not the character has been played at third level. If so, then you would also need to add:

Retrain Level 3 feat to whatever your Level 1 feat was previously - 5 days, 5 prestige, and 150gp

If you haven't played the character at third level, then I see no reason why you couldn't just change your feat selection for free before you do play the character.

Total of either 15 prestige and 450gp or 20 prestige and 600gp.

[andreww]

There is no generic "retrain class feature" option in UC. The list on page 189 appears to be exhaustive:

Quote:

Class features you can retrain are as follows (some entries also call out other retraining options that are significant for the class in question, such as retraining feats for fighters, skill ranks for ogues, or spells known for sorcerers)

That would mean you would need to retrain the bloatmage levels. It is debateable if you could retrain a bloatmage level into a bloatmage level pointing to a different class as you must retrain class levels into another class. You cannot retrain from base class levels to prestige class levels.

Retraining class levels to Arcanist would also take 7 days. You may consider the synergy obvious but no ACG retrain synergies have actually been published as far as I am aware.

[James Risner]

I'm aware of the "can't use anything Bloatmage gives to qualify for Bloatmage" issue.

A more full detail of the character:
Aasamar with 3rd level Arcane SLA
Wizard 1 with Spell Focus Enchantment
1st level Bonus Feat Bloatmage Initative
Bloatmage 1 and 2 next 2 levels +1 Wizard
3rd level Bonus Feat Spell Focus Evocation

to

Aasamar with 3rd level Arcane SLA
Bloatmage 1 and 2 next 2 levels +1 Wizard (Wizard gone now)
1st level Bonus Feat Bloatmage Initative
3rd level Bonus Feat Spell Focus Evocation
Arcanist 1 (retrain)

---

At no point did the character lose pre-reqs for Bloatmage or Bloatmage Initative, well it lost one Spell Focus but I had two at all times.

Retraining class levels away doesn't have the clause "you can't if you'd lose pre-reqs".

So I'd have a Arcanist with 1st level casting at this point, and a Bloatmage with two levels pointing toward a non-existent Wizard class level.

Worse case would be 7 day if we ignore the "should err on the side of generosity" line in the class retraining when going from a base class Wizard to a hybrid class based on Wizard. Otherwise 5 days.

Then there is no generic retraining on generic class features. Options:
Wait until the character gains a 4th level and point the +1 class level to Arcanist to fix the other two if they must go in lock step?
Retrain the two levels into the same class.

The best recommendation is really abandon the -x character to "nothing worth playing can ever become of this" and be done with it.

[Ferious Thune]

Read the FAQ again. You can't use anything gained from the levels of Bloatmage to qualify for Bloatmage. That includes things gained from being third level. That was specifically put in place in the FAQ to prevent things like using the BAB (or anything else) from a prestige class to qualify for that prestige class and build a character that would have been illegal if leveled normally. Once you lose your first level Spell Focus, you lose access to everything from the two levels of Bloatmage, including the third level feat. Even with allowing early access from the SLA, it's not possible to build an Aasimar Arcanist 1/Bloatmage 2 from first level, so it's not something you can retrain into.

[Ferious Thune]

Additional thought... You could, potentially, take two more levels of Arcanist, giving you enough non-Bloatmage levels to have Bloatmage Initiate and Spell Focus. Then you might be able to retrain Wizard to Arcanist and be Arcanist 3/Bloatmage 2. I'm less sure about that one. Or, you could retrain all three levels to Arcanist then go Bloatmage from there. It solves assigning Bloatmage's spell levels to Arcanist. I don't know if you then run into an issue with losing early SLA access.

[James Risner]

Ferious Thune wrote:

Read the FAQ again. You can't use anything gained from the levels of Bloatmage to qualify for Bloatmage

Considering the character is not doing that and I'm aware it can't, I'm unsure why you keep point it out?

What am I using from Bloatmage to qualify for Bloatmage? Nothing.

The FAQ covers things like BAB and Saves benefits. It was designed and directly related to the "Hellknight 6 at level 6" crap threads. Where Hellknight required a BAB, provided by Hellknight levels.

If your their was true you couldn't use a feat gained at 5th to qualify for a PrC at 5th that requires that feat. But you can.

[James Risner]

Ferious Thune wrote:

Additional thought... You could, potentially, take two more levels of Arcanist

At that point, I'm thinking the character isn't worth the trouble. It's already pretty much worthless with 1 level of something and 10 levels of Bloatmage. It wouldn't be nearly as effective as a straight Arcanist 99% of the time and would be worse with more base levels.

[James Risner]

There are enough holes and debated points that it sounds like there isn't any way to do this where every person looking at it would agree it is legal and solid. So it seems like it is effectively a dead character.

[Ferious Thune]

You're using your feat from third level to qualify for a class at second level. You can't do that.

[James Risner]

Ferious Thune wrote:

You're using your feat from third level to qualify for a class at second level. You can't do that.

I see, I get your view. I don't believe that was the position or intent of the "can't use anything" FAQ.

But this issue is sufficiently complex from other angles, that I don't even get to that issue before I've hit other issues.