The Soulcaster: A matter of value

[weckar]

The Soulcaster from magic of incarnum looks like a fun class that has as its only crime that it sucks away two perfectly good caster levels in order to enter it.
Here I wonder: What if only one level of an incarnum-using class was taken and two feats were used to get the required third meld and chakra opening?
In other words: is retaining a caster level worth paying two feats?
One way I could see this paying out is going totemist and picking a non-totemist meld for the feat (or the other way around). Negative: you won't get level 2 so you won't get the totem chakra ever (there is no feat that opens that chakra).
Seeing as how whatever chakra you open you will eventually get access to anyway... is this a candidate for retraining? I don't see why not as long as you do it after you get access to the Soulcasters bind to maintain qualifications... For that matter, you could retrain the meld feat after just the first level, no?

[Segev]

Losing 2 CLs is usually not considered a deal-breaker; it puts you a spell level behind, but you will still hit level 9 casting. There are better ways to get where you want to be, though. Sublime Chord is a PrC that gives sorc-like casting; intended for a Bard, you could probably make it work just playing Bard/Totemist into it, or you could splash Bard and run Sorcerer for faster access to Sublime Chord via spell level capacity. I believe you need 4th level spells to get into it, so you'd be one level behind as a Sublime Chord because you'd have to enter it at character level 12.

[weckar]

But... Sublime chord doesn't advance incarnum does it? Please explain where you think I'm trying to be because I don't follow...

[Flickerdart]

Losing 2 CLs is usually not considered a deal-breaker; it puts you a spell level behind, but you will still hit level 9 casting. There are better ways to get where you want to be, though. Sublime Chord is a PrC that gives sorc-like casting; intended for a Bard, you could probably make it work just playing Bard/Totemist into it, or you could splash Bard and run Sorcerer for faster access to Sublime Chord via spell level capacity. I believe you need 4th level spells to get into it, so you'd be one level behind as a Sublime Chord because you'd have to enter it at character level 12.

Bard 1 + Heighten Spell + Talfirian Song + Extra Music, you can now cast 4th level spells, you can get into Sublime Chord, and are free to use your other 9 levels on whatever.

But... Sublime chord doesn't advance incarnum does it? Please explain where you think I'm trying to be because I don't follow...

Sublime Chord can be advanced by Soulcaster, as it is an arcane spellcasting class (it grants its own progression). It's also fast-progressing, helping you catch up after losing CLs on the incarnum side.

[Segev]

Bard 1 + Heighten Spell + Talfirian Song + Extra Music, you can now cast 4th level spells, you can get into Sublime Chord, and are free to use your other 9 levels on whatever.

Nice; I knew I was missing some potential tricks.

Sublime Chord can be advanced by Soulcaster, as it is an arcane spellcasting class (it grants its own progression). It's also fast-progressing, helping you catch up after losing CLs on the incarnum side.

Indeed. Sorry I didn't spell that out; it was what I had in mind.

I'm also fond of advancing Ur-Priest or Beholder Mage with other PrCs that give better non-casting abilities as you level them up.

[Flickerdart]

Nice; I knew I was missing some potential tricks.

Talfirian Song opens up a ton of opportunities for bards, by giving them the ability to cast 9th level spells at an arbitrarily early time. Metamagic Song + Persist Spell is the most obvious option.

[weckar]

Right, that all makes a certain amount of sense actually. I actually never really considered Sublime Chord before... The high skill requirements make for a really late entry though, with a relatively small spells known pool...

I'd rather use a prepared caster, really. Can we step back to checking the balance of feats and caster level, and whether these feats could be retrained?

[Flickerdart]

Can we step back to checking the balance of feats and caster level, and whether these feats could be retrained?

Feats are simply not as good as spells. "You'll get 9th level spells eventually" is an argument that's a small consolation for 90-95% of the game, where everyone else has better spells than you. Spells are better than feats. Spells are especially better than feats at early levels, even though spells are weaker, because feats are very cheap (flaws, Human, trading out domains, bonus feats from classes, etc).

The feats cannot be retrained, because retraining explicitly doesn't allow "sequence breaks." They can, however, be chaos shuffled.

[weckar]

The feats cannot be retrained, because retraining explicitly doesn't allow "sequence breaks." They can, however, be chaos shuffled.

Could you point me to that? I see no such text in the PHB2 but I could well just be missing it.

[Flickerdart]

Could you point me to that? I see no such text in the PHB2 but I could well just be missing it.

Huh, I could have sworn it was there, but the Feats section seems to have forgotten that feats can serve as prerequisites.

[weckar]

Such text seems to only appear on class features, and only if it would actually invalidate other choices - not if they would have been invalidated 'at the time' of taking the option originally...

[Waker]

Frankly i don't mind losing a caster level for two feats. Sure, you do fall behind a little with spellcasting, but the useful feats can help compensate. Midnight Metamagic is a great low level way to offset the cost of some of your Metamagic feats, expanded soulmeld capacity or improved essentia capacity can really add to your flexibility.

[weckar]

That's certainly a far point of view.

I'm getting to feel there's a bit of a curve when it comes to the hurt of missing caster levels. They hurt a lot at low levels, not so much at mid levels, then a lot again at high levels...

[MisterKaws]

Losing 2 CLs is usually not considered a deal-breaker; it puts you a spell level behind, but you will still hit level 9 casting. There are better ways to get where you want to be, though. Sublime Chord is a PrC that gives sorc-like casting; intended for a Bard, you could probably make it work just playing Bard/Totemist into it, or you could splash Bard and run Sorcerer for faster access to Sublime Chord via spell level capacity. I believe you need 4th level spells to get into it, so you'd be one level behind as a Sublime Chord because you'd have to enter it at character level 12.

It's 3rd-level only, so you can get into it at 11 with a Bard 1/Totemist 2/Sorcerer 6/Bard +1(damn skills).

[Segev]

If you can get in for 2 feats to keep a full caster level, it is USUALLY worthwhile to do so.

[Troacctid]

It's not as if they aren't also good feats. This isn't Anima Mage where you're just straight-up burning two feat slots. An extra soulmeld and an extra bind? Sign me up! Those are powerful enough effects that you'd be happy to take the feats even if they didn't save you a caster level.

[Nifft]

I'm really curious how well a character can make the transition from Totemist 2 -> Wizard -> Soulcaster.

It's a build that seems charming and interesting and strong, but I have not yet gotten the opportunity to put it into practice.