Legalistic Reading and Boosting Caster level

[Sebastian Krows]

Greetings fellow Pathfinders, I'm concocting a character that will be based around the feat Legalistic Reading

Spoiler:

Any Wisdom check you attempt to avoid a mishap when casting a spell from a scroll fails only on a natural 1. When you cast a spell from a scroll, you can attempt a caster level check with a DC equal to 25 + the scroll’s caster level as a free action. If you succeed, the magical writing does not vanish for 1 round; if the spell’s casting time is no longer than a standard action, the scroll can be used again in the following round before its writing fades. You can’t use this feat on a scroll a second time, and you can’t use this feat if the spell on the scroll requires a material component worth more than 10 gp.

and I wanted to know what methods are out there to boost my own CL to make the DC more feasible? I've got Potent Magic and the Orange Prism, and a dwarven trait that grants +1 CL while touching earth or stone, are there any other methods that come to mind? Thanks everyone for any ideas that come to mind!

[andreww]

While Legalistic Reading is technically on the allowed list of feats its pre-requisite Scribe Scroll is not and I cannot find anything in additional resources or campaign clarifications allowing for a substitute pre-req.

[Belafon]

Before you get too far into hunting down CL boosters, one point of clarification: this is for Pathfinder Society? (It’s posted in the PFS forums.)

At the moment Legalistic Reading is PFS legal, but you can’t actually take it because it has a prerequisite of Scribe Scroll - which is not PFS legal.

Edit: and... ninja’d

[Belafon]

As for your question, it’s actually REALLY hard to find things that flat-out boost Caster Level (rightly so, as that increases the power of all your spells).

And there aren’t many things that generically boost “caster level checks” either. There are items and abilities that boost Spell Resistance checks and concentration checks (which are subsets of caster level checks), but not generic caster level checks.

You are probably best off looking for ways to get a bonus to a generic d20 roll, such as the Human Inexplicable Luck feat.

[cavernshark]

Sebastian Krows wrote:

Greetings fellow Pathfinders, I'm concocting a character that will be based around the feat Legalistic Reading ** spoiler omitted ** and I wanted to know what methods are out there to boost my own CL to make the DC more feasible? I've got Potent Magic and the Orange Prism, and a dwarven trait that grants +1 CL while touching earth or stone, are there any other methods that come to mind? Thanks everyone for any ideas that come to mind!

This thread documents a lot of ways to increase your caster level.

That said, aside from the issue of Scribe Scroll not being legal, there's a more practical reason you might not want to do this: that DC is ludicrously challenging for most scrolls worth casting twice in a row. A level 4 spell is going to be CL 7 minimum, so you're looking at a DC 32. Even if you managed to get your CL up 4 points, at CL 11, for a total CL of 15 you'd need a 17 or higher on the die. Apply to a 5th level scroll (CL 9) scroll and its DC 34. Assuming you try it on something like a CL5 scroll of fireball at level 5, you'd be looking at DC30, which isn't achievable without a +5 CL boost and even then it's only on a 20. Basically, towards the end of your career you might be able to reliably do this on 1st to 2nd level scrolls.

[shaventalz]

Maybe the fact that you have to carefully read the legality of every step in your process just to figure out whether it's a legal feat is meant to immerse you in the setting?

Regardless, if it ever gets legalized through a campaign clarification, you might look into the Cyphermage prestige class. One or two times per day, it can add double its Int mod on "any caster level checks attempted when activating a scroll spell." Legalistic Reading says "when you cast a spell from a scroll, you can attempt a caster level check." It would take 6 levels in a prestige class, but you could make your feat actually work twice per day.