[3.5] Arcane PrC, PEACH

[Kumori]

Several times before, I've thought about the arcane casting classes Sorcerer and Wizard, and wanted a character who can cast some or all of the lower level spells limitlessly. Finally, I've decided to try to make something to allow that to be possible.


Current design:

It was suggested below to include a feat as a lead in to the class, so first the feat:


Arcane Mastery:
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 2nd level arcane spells.
Benefit: Choose a spellcasting class with which you meet the requisite for this feat. When casting level-0 spells of that class you are no longer restricted to a certain number of spells per day.
Special: You may take this feat more than one time. Each time, it applies to a different spellcasting class.

Second, the prestige class:


The High Arcanist
Requirements:
Feats: Arcane Mastery
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 8 ranks.
Spells: Ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells in at least one class (referred to hereafter as the "base class").


Hit Dice: d4
Class Skills: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int)
Skills Points at Each Level: 2 + int

Table: The High Arcanist
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Spells
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Greater Mastery|+1 caster level
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+2|Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|Greater Mastery|+1 level of arcane casting class
4th|+2|+1|+1|+3||+1 level of arcane casting class
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|Improved Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
6th|+3|+2|+2|+4|Greater Mastery|+1 caster level
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5||+1 level of arcane casting class
8th|+4|+2|+2|+5||+1 level of arcane casting class
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|Greater Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
10th|+5|+3|+3|+6|Greater Mastery|+1 level of arcane casting class[/table]

Spells per day / Spells Known: At each level, except the first and sixth, a High Arcanist gains spells per day and spells known as if he had also gained a level in his base spellcasting class.
At first and sixth levels, although he gains no new spells or spells per day, a High Arcanist's caster level still increases.

Greater Mastery: At first level, you are skilled enough to cast level-1 spells an unlimited quantity of times per day. This ability grows to include level-2 spells at third level, level-3 spells at sixth, and finally level-4 spells at tenth.

Swift Spell: Your skill with cantrips continues to improve. At second level, you may cast level-0 spells as swift actions (As though by means of the Quicken Spell feat) as many times as you would ordinarily be allowed to cast them each day if it were not unlimited by the Arcane Mastery feat.

Improved Swift Spell: As Swift Spell, except it also applies to 1st-level spells.

Greater Swift Spell: As Swift Spell, except it also applies to 2nd-level spells.[/indent]

[Istari]

A couple things
1. Does it advance casting, you have it advance CL, but it doesn't mention actually advancing your spellcasting
2. What knowledges are class skills? You didn't specify
If it does give full casting, why wouldn't you take it, and if it doesn't why would you?
Other then that looks fairly decent

[Kumori]

(Edited these answers into the first post)

The improvement of caster level doesn't give anything else from the base class' spellcasting such as spells per day and spells known. The idea is that the high-end spells are traded to allow for unlimited lower-end spellcasting. A Wizard 7 / High Arcanist 10 could throw and Empowered Scorching Ray every round, and not have to worry about resting to recharge his spells.

Knowledge is all skills, taken individually, just as the Wizard.

[Latronis]

Did you intend to allow single class arcane casters to get in?

[Kumori]

Yes, I did.

[Latronis]

ah I thought from the opening statement you wanted low level sorcerer and wizard combined.

CL advancement is nice, not as nice as gaining higher level spells though, even with eventually unlimited use because it is still only low level spells.

Also It's a little bare on special abilities for a PrC that doesn't advance spellcasting fully. Filling it out a bit more would make it more appealing. Compared to say not going out of wizard(who gets higher level spells and bonus feats) or some other PrC with full spellcasting progression(or close to it) sometimes with other bonuses ontop of that

[Kumori]

Would this be better, then?

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Reflex Save|Will Save|Special
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Arcane Mastery 0, +1 Caster Level
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
4th|+2|+1|+1|+4|Arcane Mastery 1, +1 Caster Level
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
6th|+3|+2|+2|+5|Arcane Mastery 2, +1 Caster Level
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
8th|+4|+2|+2|+6|Arcane Mastery 3, +1 Caster Level
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
10th|+5|+3|+3|+7|Arcane Mastery 4, +1 Caster Level[/table]

[Latronis]

Looking at sorc5 or Wiz5\PrC10 You've got 10th level spellcasting (with a caster level of 15) giving you upto 5th level spells 0th-4th being unlimited in use.

That makes more sense than the original version (which may not even be able to use all it's abilities until after the progression had finished being able to get in and not having 3rd(sorcs) or 4th level spells)

Also much more appealing now, having 'less dead' levels. Also unlimited spells is potentially abuseable though my gut says it's not really anything beyond what full progression casters can do at that point with a handful of spell slots. Something that would probably warrant some playtesting before allowing it.

[Kumori]

Updated the first post with 1/2 spell progression. Any one have anything else to suggest/add, or should I go to playtesting?

[DragoonWraith]

Having spells an unlimited number of times per day just isn't worth 5 spellcasting levels. Most high level Wizards (not to mention Sorcerers) end the day with more lower level spell slots than they know what to do with.

I'm really not convinced it's worth more than one spell casting level. I mean, yes, this is a major problem with full-casters, since their one major 'drawback' isn't, really, but so long as that is the case, this class just comes off looking like a trap.

[Kumori]

So do you think 2/3 casting would be better, or am I going about this the wrong way? Maybe trying to find a way to go with a tree of feats or something would be better, perhaps?

[DracoDei]

Chop off the basically meaningless level 1 and make this a 9 level class say I.

[A.J.Gibson]

I went through a similar train of thought to this class when I was developing my Heart of Arcana PrC a while back:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140036

I wanted to create a class to create a mage that could fire off lots of magical powers, but trying to keep it balanced is difficult. Lower level slots become worthless at higher levels, and higher level slots are already very powerful. The route I ended up going was creating a class that can cast almost unlimited spells *outside of combat*.

Being able to cast lots of lower level spells is only useful at lower levels, so your PrC has to be available quickly. An alternative, though, it to replace your PrC levels with a feat chain that a character can start taking at level 1. First feat: unlimited cantrips
Second feat: extra first level spells
...and so forth

Another thing you might want to consider (that I did) is to, instead of granting extra daily slots, to give the character ways of using spells more often based on spell or based on encounter (like 4e) An extra spell slot that refreshes after every encounter would be very useful, or maybe a feat that allows the character to cast the same spell over and over again (although I think there is something in Complete Arcana that does this already).

[DragoonWraith]

I don't honestly know. 7/10 spellcasting retains 9th level spells for prepared casters, but only at 20th. 17, 18, and 19 still hurt. And spontaneous casters lose out entirely. 8/10 gives your spontaneous casters back their 9th level spellcasting, but again at 20th. 9/10 spellcasting is pretty solid; losing one level often isn't the end of the world, but then the reward is... debatable. The average 15th level Wizard has 7/day 4th level spells as it is, and there's a lot of other things he could be doing with those levels. 10/10 is an obvious gimme; it's too much, much like Incantatrix or Iot7V is too much.

Feats are an interesting proposition. Something like this, perhaps?

Arcane Mastery
Prerequisites: (some related feat), Arcane Mastery in the previous spell level.
Benefit: Choose a spell level at least two lower than the highest spell level you can cast (and no higher than 4th). You may now prepare as many spells per day as you normally would, but you may cast any of these spells as many times as you wish.
Special: If choosing 0th level spells, no previous Arcane Mastery feat is required.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Perhaps the problem of the spell level loss could be circumvented by something like the following?

Bonus to the DCs of at-will spells...something like +1/2 class level, or +1/3 class level. It keeps them slightly competitive.
Ability to cast level 1-3 spells (maybe once every 3 levels, starting at level 2) as a Swift action...or something similar, enabling the class to fire off, say, a level 4 spell, a level 2 spell, and a level 1 spell in a single standard + swift action.

[A.J.Gibson]

Feats are an interesting proposition. Something like this, perhaps?

Arcane Mastery
Prerequisites: (some related feat), Arcane Mastery in the previous spell level.
Benefit: Choose a spell level at least two lower than the highest spell level you can cast (and no higher than 4th). You may now prepare as many spells per day as you normally would, but you may cast any of these spells as many times as you wish.
Special: If choosing 0th level spells, no previous Arcane Mastery feat is required.

I like this quite a bit, but it strikes me as a bit too powerful; a human wizard would have unlimited level 7 spells at level 18 by spending all their feats. It also creates problems outside of combat; what if you get a copy of Greater Resistance (level 6 spell that gives +6 to all saves for 24 hours, from Spell Compendium)? This character would be casting it on every party member every day, along with every other buff spell. There needs to be some sort of limit: either the number of slots, or the chances of a spell being free (my PrC had unlimited spell casting as well, but required a SpellCraft check or a slot was lost). How about this: you gain a number of bonus spells of that level, and one bonus spell of every lower level? And maybe just limit the level of spell casting you can get feats for, so for any spell level you must be able to cast twice that spell level.

Being able to swift cast spells sounds like a neat feature, but it probably should be a separate feat. Or maybe a spell like Arcana Spellsurge, except it lasts all day and there are limits on what spells can be quick cast.

[Kumori]

The feat he proposed does limit itself to fourth level spells, so the worst you could get buff-wise would be Bulls' Strength and the like as well as Greater Invisibility.

[Kumori]

Hmm... maybe to combine several of these ideas would give the result I seek in a balanced way. First, the feat:


Arcane Mastery:
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 2nd level arcane spells.
Benefit: Choose a spellcasting class with which you meet the requisite for this feat. When casting level-0 spells of that class you are no longer restricted to a certain number of spells per day.
Special: You may take this feat more than one time. Each time, it applies to a different spellcasting class.

Second, the prestige class:

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Spells
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Greater Mastery|+1 caster level
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+2|Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|Greater Mastery|+1 level of arcane casting class
4th|+2|+1|+1|+3||+1 caster level
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|Improved Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
6th|+3|+2|+2|+4|Greater Mastery|+1 level of arcane casting class
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5||+1 caster level
8th|+4|+2|+2|+5||+1 level of arcane casting class
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|Greater Swift Spell|+1 level of arcane casting class
10th|+5|+3|+3|+6|Greater Mastery|+1 caster level[/table]


Prerequisites:
Feats: Arcane Mastery
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks, Spellcraft (8 ranks)

Greater Mastery: At first level, you are skilled enough to cast level-1 spells an unlimited quantity of times per day. This ability grows to include level-2 spells at third level, level-3 spells at sixth, and finally level-4 spells at tenth.

Swift Spell: Your skill with cantrips continues to improve. At second level, you may cast level-0 spells as swift actions (As though by means of the Quicken Spell feat) as many times as you would ordinarily be allowed to cast them each day if it were not unlimited by the Arcane Mastery feat.

Improved Swift Spell: As Swift Spell, except it also applies to 1st-level spells.

Greater Swift Spell: As Swift Spell, except it also applies to 2nd-level spells.

Maybe I should add Quicken Spell as a Prereq?

[Milskidasith]

This class is very weak. It doesn't hurt that you already have about 10+ spells per day of any spell level this gives benefits to. The fact you lose 9th level spells means it isn't even worth the free quickening (which, by the way, is a pretty cheap item if you want to use it, or a very nice 7th level spell, Arcane Spellsurge. Arcane Spellsurge won't directly let you cast twice per round, since all spells become swift actions, but if you metamagic spells as a sorcerer with free metamagic [invisible spell, anybody?] then they become standard actions.)

[Cataphract]

This class, while extremely interesting, falls prey to the basic D&D law of magic: Higher level spells are always 100% best than lower level ones.

This is what ruins every class or prestige class that does not get you full or near full advancement in that department.

While not the thread for this, I'd be eager to discuss it.

[Kumori]

I'd settle for the class reaching a point of being "decent" strength-wise, but weak isn't good enough. Are you willing to discuss a solution to the "Higher levels are always better" problem?

[Cataphract]

I'd settle for the class reaching a point of being "decent" strength-wise, but weak isn't good enough. Are you willing to discuss a solution to the "Higher levels are always better" problem?

Well, I'm more than willing to. Would you like to use this thread? I'd rather we started a new one.

[Kumori]

Well, I'm more than willing to. Would you like to use this thread? I'd rather we started a new one.

Either's fine by me. I always hit writers block when starting a new thread, so you go ahead.

[Doppelganger]

For a BBEG this isn't a bad class.

Make him a wizard X/high arcanist 10 and give him lich loved and fell drain.

Now you have a perfect "Beat the clock" situation that may actualy challenge Robin and co.

He can run around a large city (teleport is 4th level, he gets it free at level 10) and throwing Fell Drain fireballs at random pedestrians. The cops show up, he just leaves.

At night fall, a LOT of wights (who won't attack him, thanks to lichloved) rise up and attack, and he still has just as many spells as he got up with.

And, if you're feeling cruel, give him a ring of counterspelling/rod of quicken to counter demensional anchor.

The party wizard will turn him into a goey paste if they go toe-to-toe, but that shouldn't happen. the party should be running around, trying to find a guy who can move 100 miles every 6 seconds. And, a fell drain scorching ray is going to hit the spellcasters in the party HARD, and he has them comming out his ears.

-Pixie

[DragoonWraith]

That... is patently awesome.

[Kumori]

Doppelganger, I love it. I might just have to use that...

[Dante & Vergil]

I say going along with Djinn's suggestions or something else/similar to keep things competitive will work.

[Doppelganger]

Oh, by the way, the BBEG can also cast quickened 0th level spells at will, so he can hit the party's mage with sonic snap (0th level spell from SC, does 1 point of damage and deafens the victim for 1 round) and then port out. And if the wizard (since it IS a wizard) in the party can't to a thing, because if he trys spells with a verbal component, there's a fair chance it will fizzel, and magic will be precous the upcoming night....

-Pixie

[Raendyn]

Well this is a fair concept.

But,you actually dont benefit that much as it sounds...

Even wizards don't get out of spells even with 3 random encounters + the story encounter it's just dificult after a while for this to happen.(beyond 6th lvl)

So practicaly,you can just show off your limitless low lvl spells while the wiard near you toss pollar rays you toss scorching ray's....many more scorching rays...

[Dante & Vergil]

Give it two more caster levels, at the very least, so spontaneous casters get some leeway from this.

[Siosilvar]

He can run around a large city (teleport is 4th level, he gets it free at level 10) and throwing Fell Drain fireballs at random pedestrians. The cops show up, he just leaves.

Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleport.htm) is 5th level.

DD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionDoor.htm) is 4th level.

[Kumori]

Updated the first post. The class now only puts spells known and per day by 2.

[Doppelganger]

oops. :smallredface:

Well, that makes it a much more do-able encounter. But he is still going to be zipping all over the place.

-Pixie