[3.5] A Translation of Vancian Spellcasting to Psionic Mechanics

[Jallorn]

That sucks then, losing SP reduces versatility which a PrC should be doing the opposite of, sure some of the abilities are cool or good for a specific build but I don't see it being taken past lvl2-3 (Mastery of Elements for use against Immune Enemies, Arcane Reach for some cool Touch Spells, Spell Power for an odd-numbered casting stat) and certainly not all 5 levels simply from the SP cost.

Au contraire, PrCs are precisely supposed to reduce versatility. They're supposed to specialize a character more definitely into a specific niche.

I partially disagree with both of you. Yes, a PRC is supposed to improve specialization, no it shouldn't damage generalization, however, that only means that a Class x/PRC y should have the generalized abilities of Class x+~1/2 Class y, because they trade some of that new generalization for specialization. Therefore, the trade off for the Archmage is viable, given that it gains additional casting as well as abilities, the cost of those abilities is absorbed by the additional casting.