Prestigious Spellcaster - A Game Changer?

[DarkOne-Rob]

Prestigious Spellcaster and it's prerequisite Favored Prestige Class are potential game changers for Pathfinder players who want to play flavorful PrCs without losing out on the most important class features for spellcasters (higher level spells). What PrCs are you most excited about trying out with these feats?

Personally, I am leaning towards the transformative PrCs like Dragon Disciple or Agent of the Grave. The hybrid/theurge classes are potentially exciting too, but the chance to actually play a Draconic Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple and not hamper my PC is really too appealing to beat out an Eldritch Knight...

Your thoughts?

[Azoth]

It is too costly to do it for PRCs that don't already have near full progression. If you wanted to do it for Dragon Disciple and keep full progression you would need to give up 4 feats. That is a tough thing to swallow.

Now, if you can get a copy of Inner Sea Magic look at the Mage Guild rules. For about 500GP/level you can end up with 3 levels of spell progression regained.

If you combine the two, then it is much more stomachable to give up 2 feats and some gold to keep full progression on a Ftr1/Sorc9/DD10 build.

Personally, I have used it for a Scaled Monk1/ Paladin2/ Sorc2/Dragon Disciple10/Eldritch Knight 5 build. I only took Prestigious Caster 2 times so I lost two levels of progression, but the build was a monster in a fight. Charisma to AC and Saves, BAB 15, and still squeezed in 9th level spells. I really should have dropped the last 3 levels of Dragon Disciple for more Eldritch Knight to have better BAB, but it was still a blast.

[Hackulator]

Honestly, I think those feats are broken and a terrible idea.

[Florian]

I´ve mixed feeling about those two feats. On one hand, it always hurt martial classes to potentially miss up to 10 hp (more pronounced with Fast Learner or Unbreakable), especially on one of the more flavorful PrC, like Hellknight, Sanguine Angel or Mammoth Rider.
On the other hand, I don´t really have the feeling that prestigious spellcaster is really needed, as the build-defining PrC already push the base casting class hard.

[Cosi]

It's not really enough. You shift from losing levels to losing feat slots, and those are still costly enough to make half casting PrCs like Mindbender or Green Star Adept not worth it. As always, the best casting PrCs are already full casting. You can become an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil or Shadowcraft Mage without giving up any casting or any feats, and those are already better than Effigy Master or Acolyte of the Skin.

Honestly, I think those feats are broken and a terrible idea.

As always, Hackulator makes a detailed argument that honestly considers both sides of the issue before presenting a conclusion in the politest possible terms.

But really, this isn't close to broken. Honestly, all casting PrCs should just be full casting to begin with. There's no reason that you should lose half your casting just to get some flavor abilities from being a Green Star Adept. Particularly in Pathfinder where casting classes have class features.

[Hackulator]

It's not really enough. You shift from losing levels to losing feat slots, and those are still costly enough to make half casting PrCs like Mindbender or Green Star Adept not worth it. As always, the best casting PrCs are already full casting. You can become an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil or Shadowcraft Mage without giving up any casting or any feats, and those are already better than Effigy Master or Acolyte of the Skin.



As always, Hackulator makes a detailed argument that honestly considers both sides of the issue before presenting a conclusion in the politest possible terms.

But really, this isn't close to broken. Honestly, all casting PrCs should just be full casting to begin with. There's no reason that you should lose half your casting just to get some flavor abilities from being a Green Star Adept. Particularly in Pathfinder where casting classes have class features.

Sorry, who are you?

But yeah, PrCs should be a tradeoff for interesting abilities, not clearly superior.

[Florian]

Honestly, all casting PrCs should just be full casting to begin with.

There´s absolutely no need for that, especially in PF. A PrC should give an alternative set of class features while keeping the same power level of the original class. A, say, gish build will have to compete with a Magus and not with a full caster class, and so on.

[Azoth]

There´s absolutely no need for that, especially in PF. A PrC should give an alternative set of class features while keeping the same power level of the original class. A, say, gish build will have to compete with a Magus and not with a full caster class, and so on.

Even on that front a Fighter1/Wizard5/HellKnight Signifier 4/Eldritch Knight10 has BAB16 and casts as a Wizard 18 meaning 9th level spells. Magus, eat your heart out with BAB15 and 6th level spells.

[Florian]

Even on that front a Fighter1/Wizard5/HellKnight Signifier 4/Eldritch Knight10 has BAB16 and casts as a Wizard 18 meaning 9th level spells. Magus, eat your heart out with BAB15 and 6th level spells.

The way things are developing right now, multi-PrC builds might become a non-issue.

Edit: Meaning that PrC, archetypes and feats are affiliated now.

[chaos_redefined]

Sorry, who are you?

But yeah, PrCs should be a tradeoff for interesting abilities, not clearly superior.

Sure. And in this case, we are trading some feats for those original class features.

[Cosi]

But yeah, PrCs should be a tradeoff for interesting abilities, not clearly superior.

Some points:

1. In PF, casters get enough class features to make PrCs a tradeoff. Insofar as it was reasonable to cost caster levels in 3e, it is no longer reasonable to do so in PF.
2. The goal is not necessarily to have PrCs tradeoff, but rather to maximize the number of interesting characters, and it is easier to do that if you make PrCs cheap.
3. The best casting PrCs already don't cost caster levels. You can become an Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper without having to lose any caster levels, so being asked to do so to become a Spellsword is somewhat insulting.
4. Even if PrCs aren't a fair tradeoff with classes, they are a fair tradeoff with other prestige classes. Every level of Mage of the Arcane Order you take is a level of Primal Scholar you don't take.
5. The paradigm of giving up caster levels for class features is very difficult to balance, because caster levels are of scaling cost. At 6th level, losing a caster level costs a (3.5) Wizard a 2nd and a 3rd level spell slot. At 16th, that same lost level is costing him a 7th and an 8th level spell slot. Unless you make all PrC abilities scale, whatever ability a PrC gets him will be either brokenly good at 6th or brokenly useless at 16th. If you want to make PrCs have a cost, the correct solution is the one the Archmage uses -- spend spell slots, which are of fixed value, to buy fixed abilities.

For people who aren't Hackulator: Over/Under on sentences in their response. I would put it at under three.

There´s absolutely no need for that, especially in PF. A PrC should give an alternative set of class features while keeping the same power level of the original class. A, say, gish build will have to compete with a Magus and not with a full caster class, and so on.

I don't necessarily agree. Certainly, archetypes are PF's attempt to fill the same hole 3e filled with PrCs and it would be more in keeping with the house still to cover any given hole by using one, but they're not perfect at doing so. They have advantages. It's easier to write an archetype, and you get archetype bonuses sooner than you can take a PrC. But they also have disadvantages. Principally, PrCs cover more classes. A single Mage Knight PrC could cover every Gish combination from Wizard/Fighter to Dread Necromancer/Samurai, while you would have to have an archetype for each class pair to do the same.

Personally, I don't consider either solution ideal. Had I my druthers, I would have a system where all classes picked from the same pool of archetypes, and classes had built in "ACFs" that allowed them to choose between abilities that nudged them in specific directions. That would cover most of the Theurge (Knight Phantom, Ultimate Magus) or Specialist (Master Transmorgifist, Elemental Savant) PrCs. That still leaves stuff like the Archmage that is conceptually prestigious, but that's probably best handled by something like Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies.

[DarkOne-Rob]

As the original poster I appreciate that I am getting some discussion to happen, but I am not really so interested in the balance discussion (in this thread). I really want to know what PrCs appeal to people now that these feats exist as options to help shore up weaker caster PrCs. Can we get back to that question, please?

[Hackulator]

Some points:

1. In PF, casters get enough class features to make PrCs a tradeoff. Insofar as it was reasonable to cost caster levels in 3e, it is no longer reasonable to do so in PF.
2. The goal is not necessarily to have PrCs tradeoff, but rather to maximize the number of interesting characters, and it is easier to do that if you make PrCs cheap.
3. The best casting PrCs already don't cost caster levels. You can become an Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper without having to lose any caster levels, so being asked to do so to become a Spellsword is somewhat insulting.
4. Even if PrCs aren't a fair tradeoff with classes, they are a fair tradeoff with other prestige classes. Every level of Mage of the Arcane Order you take is a level of Primal Scholar you don't take.
5. The paradigm of giving up caster levels for class features is very difficult to balance, because caster levels are of scaling cost. At 6th level, losing a caster level costs a (3.5) Wizard a 2nd and a 3rd level spell slot. At 16th, that same lost level is costing him a 7th and an 8th level spell slot. Unless you make all PrC abilities scale, whatever ability a PrC gets him will be either brokenly good at 6th or brokenly useless at 16th. If you want to make PrCs have a cost, the correct solution is the one the Archmage uses -- spend spell slots, which are of fixed value, to buy fixed abilities.

For people who aren't Hackulator: Over/Under on sentences in their response. I would put it at under three.



I don't necessarily agree. Certainly, archetypes are PF's attempt to fill the same hole 3e filled with PrCs and it would be more in keeping with the house still to cover any given hole by using one, but they're not perfect at doing so. They have advantages. It's easier to write an archetype, and you get archetype bonuses sooner than you can take a PrC. But they also have disadvantages. Principally, PrCs cover more classes. A single Mage Knight PrC could cover every Gish combination from Wizard/Fighter to Dread Necromancer/Samurai, while you would have to have an archetype for each class pair to do the same.

Personally, I don't consider either solution ideal. Had I my druthers, I would have a system where all classes picked from the same pool of archetypes, and classes had built in "ACFs" that allowed them to choose between abilities that nudged them in specific directions. That would cover most of the Theurge (Knight Phantom, Ultimate Magus) or Specialist (Master Transmorgifist, Elemental Savant) PrCs. That still leaves stuff like the Archmage that is conceptually prestigious, but that's probably best handled by something like Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies.

I'll be honest, I briefly considered reading this and then decided that for the rest of my life that would be a minute I wished I could have back.

[grarrrg]

I really want to know what PrCs appeal to people now that these feats exist as options to help shore up weaker caster PrCs. Can we get back to that question, please?

One of the biggest gains is that Spontaneous casters (Sorc/Oracle/etc...) can consider fully taking 7/10 casting PrCs and not worry about losing 9ths. (Yes there's the 'magic guild' option, but feats are easier to slap on and go)

[Cosi]

I really over-played on that. Hackulator can't even muster two sentences defending his belief that giving the Mindbender full casting is broken in a world when Incantatrixes exist.

As the original poster I appreciate that I am getting some discussion to happen, but I am not really so interested in the balance discussion (in this thread). I really want to know what PrCs appeal to people now that these feats exist as options to help shore up weaker caster PrCs. Can we get back to that question, please?

Uh, I guess you can take the final level of Fatespinner now? I think the balance concern is actually pretty relevant here, as the core of is that partial casting PrCs just ... aren't that good. Like, you could be a Knight Phantom with full casting now, but this feat doesn't make you have any less full casting as an Incantatrix, so why do you care? I guess maybe PF added some better partial casting classes?

But seriously, there's no reason for casting PrCs to cost any levels at all, so ultimately you don't care. The people who make power based choices will still not take partial casting classes (because the feat cost is real, and those classes are just flat worse than full casting ones) and the ones who make flavor based choices will still be punished (though admittedly less so). Ultimately, it's a marginal change, and on the margins it makes worse PrCs better, but it's not really enough to move the needle.

[Coretron03]

I'll be honest, I briefly considered reading this and then decided that for the rest of my life that would be a minute I wished I could have back.

Your best response to Cosi's 5 reasons is that his post is such a utter waste of time you would fovermore regret wasting your time reading it? After he gave a direct disagreement to your assertion of the feat being op? You know, the same post where you implied both feats were overpowered, which includes the earth shattering ability of "you get 1-10 hitpoints or skill points, which you would have got anyway (probably better, as you could pick different favoured class bonuses) if you kept progressing in your normal class" and "Regain what you gave up to gain sub-par abilities"?

Thats something i've never seen before and I've read Pickford/visgani threads.

[Psyren]

I think these feats are great; they open up a lot of interesting new options for both PF and 3.P games. There are a lot of PrCs out there that nobody gives the time of day simply because they're missing 2-4 caster levels. I'd happily give up a bunch of feats to make a character concept work - heck, that's what most of us are doing with PrCs anyway.

[enderlord99]

I'll be honest, I briefly considered reading this and then decided that for the rest of my life that would be a minute I wished I could have back.

Then read this instead: "They cost feats, idiot. They aren't free."

[Malimar]

Renegade Mastermaker. So subpar, so much flavor; not losing two casting levels would make it no longer completely not worth taking. (I say this as the guy who wrote the (hand)book on RMs, so I'm already invested in the class.)

Fleshwarper's similarly flavorful, but a bit more well-balanced, got enough going for it that the single lost casting level is just about nearly worth it, so getting it back would be a bonus.

Thrallherd is already too good, would be even better without two lost manifesting levels.

Would it make True Necromancer worth it, or would it just require you to take the relevant feat too many times?


EDIT: Of course, if we're talking Pathfinder, I probably still wouldn't take any prestige class with my, say, human sorcerer -- twenty free spells known as a favored class bonus is better than pretty much anything a prestige class would give. Wake me when they start giving to prestige classes something worth giving that up.

[Endarire]

It makes those with plenty of feats have more PrC options. <shrug>

[Florian]

I really want to know what PrCs appeal to people now that these feats exist as options to help shore up weaker caster PrCs.

Personally, I don´t see those feats having too high an impact on PrC choices, less impact than VMC, which opened up the option to use dual-class PrC on a single class chassis (Battle Herald, Rage Oracle). Yes, you could do things like full-caster Arcane Archer now, but that´s pretty much it.
On the rare build I actually went for PrC (Winter Witch, Blackfire Adept), the overall synergy is high enough to willingly trade away a caster level and I wouldn't fit two additional feat in, as they must be taken before the first level of the PrC.

[Mordaedil]

I'll be honest, I briefly considered reading this and then decided that for the rest of my life that would be a minute I wished I could have back.

Friend, if reading a few sentences of non-aggressive feedback is too much for you, then perhaps forums aren't the medium of response you are looking for?

[Hackulator]

Friend, if reading a few sentences of non-aggressive feedback is too much for you, then perhaps forums aren't the medium of response you are looking for?

It was way more writing than was necessary for this discussion. Being able to express your ideas in a succinct manner is a sign of good thinking (excepting certain creative endeavors). If someone seems incapable of that, I will often not bother with what they say.

Then read this instead: "They cost feats, idiot. They aren't free."

Please feel free to quote where I said they were free. It's a pretty logical progression. I feel like we can all agree a spellcasting level is just superior to a feat. Therefore, a feat which gives you a spellcasting level is out of balance. If you don't agree with that, have fun with your wizard who sacks the majority of his spellcasting levels for feats.

[Coretron03]

It was way more writing than was necessary for this discussion. Being able to express your ideas in a succinct manner is a sign of good thinking (excepting certain creative endeavors). If someone seems incapable of that, I will often not bother with what they say.

Or maybe, just maybe, your wrong in so many ways that someone needs that much space to cover it all. Plus, dismissing what they wrote because it was too long is insane, much more so because what Cosi wrote was informative, contained logical reasoning, solid points and, most of all, Cosi gave reasons to support his side while you dismissed his points as a waste of time with little reason why.

Please feel free to quote where I said they were free. It's a pretty logical progression. I feel like we can all agree a spellcasting level is just superior to a feat. Therefore, a feat which gives you a spellcasting level is out of balance. If you don't agree with that, have fun with your wizard who sacks the majority of his spellcasting levels for feats.

A feat for a spellcasting level would be Op, yes, if it let you get more then a character of your ECL should have. As is, its just playing catch up because you picked a Prc thats weaker then the base wizard.

[Cosi]

Please feel free to quote where I said they were free. It's a pretty logical progression. I feel like we can all agree a spellcasting level is just superior to a feat. Therefore, a feat which gives you a spellcasting level is out of balance. If you don't agree with that, have fun with your wizard who sacks the majority of his spellcasting levels for feats.

Except you can only take them if you've already taken options that are underpowered. A feat that gave you +20 on all your attack rolls would be overpowered. But if it required that you first took a feat that gave you -19 on all your attack rolls, it would be far less so, for reasons that one hopes would be obvious.

Or maybe, just maybe, your wrong in so many ways that someone needs that much space to cover it all. Plus, dismissing what they wrote because it was too long is insane, much more so because what Cosi wrote was informative, contained logical reasoning, solid points and, most of all, Cosi gave reasons to support his side while you dismissed his points as a waste of time withh little reason why.

Pretty much. Those were five largely unrelated points about the issue, Hackulator's point seems to be that if he is wrong in a sufficiently large number of ways, that's like being right, which seems ... strange to say the least.

[Psyren]

I feel like we can all agree a spellcasting level is just superior to a feat.

Actually it's two, and the reality is that you're giving up much more than that. In Pathfinder especially, every PrC has a heavy opportunity cost, which is no less real just because you're not physically paying for something. Many of them also have additional costs in the form of their prerequisites, both in terms of the feats, skills and other requirements you need to invest in, as well as the effect that qualifying timely has on your build's choices.

[Grim Reader]

Sand Shaper -40 odd extra spells known and interesting class features. Your capstone is the ability to resurrect yourself, which is competitive with the Pathfinder capstones.

Swiftblade. Walker in the Waste. Might work on some of the invocation/spellcasting Theurges. EK and Knight Phantom of course. Dipping into Spellsword for Channel Spell may be viable.

Would Racial Paragon classes count as PrC for this? 3/3 advancement Human Paragon for example. Then again, you are limited to only one PrC to use this on, so a 3-level one might not be the thing.

[Jormengand]

I feel like prestigious spellcaster really deserves to be OP - that is, any PrC that loses caster levels, any caster levels, should have enough stuff to be worth the caster level.

That is, the ability to get a caster level back on a PrC that's lost one, at the low price of a feat should be really powerful. Certainly a character with a prestige class which loses caster levels who takes the feat is way more powerful than one who's spent their feats on almost anything else. But then the PrCs which give up caster levels rarely get anything worthwhile in return.

I don't put much truck in the argument that it's actually two feats - it's not like favoured PrC is a total waste of a feat, and if you're trying to get, say, pathfinder's dragon disciple up to full then it's 4/3 of a feat for each level.

[Psyren]

Certainly a character with a prestige class which loses caster levels who takes the feat is way more powerful than one who's spent their feats on almost anything else.

This is correct, but it's also the wrong comparison to be making. You should be comparing a character who took a PrC along with this feat (however many times needed) to one that didn't PrC at all, because that is actually the calculation players will be making mentally. So rather than comparing Sorc/DD without PrS to Sorc/DD with PrS and saying the latter is unequivocally stronger, you should be comparing Sorc/DD with PrS to a pure Sorcerer who has all those feats free to spend wherever he wants, plus his full favored class bonus, access to archetypes and other bloodlines etc.

[Zanos]

Digging the new avatar, Jorm.

Honestly I've noticed in PF that almost every build in the game is base class to 20 with different ability picks. Despite pathfinder having a couple dozen PrCs I hardly ever see them. Hopefully these feats will make some of them more popular, but in most cases I honestly don't think it would be OP to give PrCs full casting progression because base classes already have a lot to offer that you're losing by taking a PrC, which wasn't the case in 3.5. Usually.