Beleaguered Spellcaster (or how a Hexblade/Ur-Priest can be a Blood Knight)

[true_shinken]

This is an alternative class feature from Dragon Magazine 357. You sacrifice your familiar (so you need Hexblade 4) and 'whenever you take an amount of damage equal to 3 times your spellcaster level from an attack, the next spell you cast is automatically maximized or extended'. Oh, works Cha mod +1 times a day. I say Hexblade because this screams 'Karmic Strike silliness' to trigger that hits, pulverize the sucker with weapon attacks then unleash maximized divine magic onto some sucker around.
Masochism is good for this, as are the Karmic Strike and Robilar's Gambit feats.

Thoughts?

[tyckspoon]

That doesn't sound like a good idea to me, especially when you get to higher levels- either you'll be eating really big hits to get your benefit, or you won't get hit hard enough to activate it (it would be pretty nice if you could make it based off your Hexblade CL, but unless it specifies that it works only on the CL of the class that gave you the feature it'll be based on your higher Ur-Priest CL.) So you'll need to be eating 40+ damage to Maximize your spells, depending on level.. that doesn't strike me as a sustainable battle plan. You'd probably get more use from the Dark Companion ACF to lower the saves of your victims, as per the usual Hexblade builds.

[true_shinken]

That doesn't sound like a good idea to me, especially when you get to higher levels- either you'll be eating really big hits to get your benefit, or you won't get hit hard enough to activate it (it would be pretty nice if you could make it based off your Hexblade CL, but unless it specifies that it works only on the CL of the class that gave you the feature it'll be based on your higher Ur-Priest CL.)
Of course not. It's based on arcane spellcaster level. Ur-priest is a divine caster. 12 damage for maximized spells? Can I have fries with that?
Scratch that. Actually, it is spellcaster level (can't believe I misremembered a text I just wuoted, really). It just makes the trick a lot more ridiculous.
Take Mage-Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment and Pierce Magical Protection. Each gives you -4 to your caster level. You can have a caster level of 0 with this. Not low enough? Unseen Seer gets you an extra -3.
Load up on spells that don't care about CL and go to town.

[tyckspoon]

Take Mage-Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment and Pierce Magical Protection. Each gives you -4 to your caster level. You can have a caster level of 0 with this. Not low enough? Unseen Seer gets you an extra -3.
Load up on spells that don't care about CL and go to town.

Your CL still has to be high enough to cast the spell (ie, for a typical full caster, if your CL drops under 5 you can't cast level 3 spells), which can be problematic if you're going all-out on that, and is kind of conflicting with trying to abuse free Maximizes. Most of the spells that benefit most from being Maximized are also highly CL-dependant for their effects (Summons are probably the main exception category, as long as your duration is still long enough to be useful, so you can get 3-5 summons from the 'multiple lower level list' choice.) Works a little better with Ur-Priest, probably, since they tend to have a little bit of spare CL and the accelerated progression lets them use higher spell levels with lower caster levels.

[true_shinken]

Your CL still has to be high enough to cast the spell (ie, for a typical full caster, if your CL drops under 5 you can't cast level 3 spells)
Nope. You don't need a minimum CL, you need spell slots. Plenty of examples where a spell is cast below caster level, even. Artificers do it all the time. If you look around TO threads, you will find people saying they bought magic items from casters that took those feats, because their minimum CL to create items is lower.
Or do you really think Unseen Seer makes you incapable of casting your higher level spells?

[tyckspoon]

I'll admit I may be wrong- it's a deduction from the rule on voluntarily downgrading your CL, which limits you to going only as low as the CL that first let you cast the spell. I don't know if there actually is any RAW text regarding what happens if other penalties force your CL lower than that minimum.

Still, deliberately tanking your CL is at odds with Maximizing or Extending your spells, since those are almost always working on aspects of spells that are directly more powerful when you have higher CL.

[true_shinken]

Still, deliberately tanking your CL is at odds with Maximizing or Extending your spells, since those are almost always working on aspects of spells that are directly more powerful when you have higher CL.
Indeed. There are plenty of spells that don't care about CL, though. That was my point.

[Siosilvar]

Indeed. There are plenty of spells that don't care about CL, though. That was my point.

How many spells are there that are useful Maximized with lowered CL?

Extended... if you lose more than half your CL you come out worse for the deal.

[true_shinken]

How many spells are there that are useful Maximized with lowered CL?
Seeking Ray, Poison, Energy Drain, Chill Touch, Touch of Idiocy, Shivering Touch, Explosive Runes, Ice Storm, Spell Turning, Sunburst (I believe undead would actually take less damage :smalltongue:), (Greater) Shout, Meteor Swarm, Time Stop... I'm pretty sure there are many many others.


Extended... if you lose more than half your CL you come out worse for the deal.
Indeed, except for any spell with duration 24 hours. The whole Primal line, for example.

[tyckspoon]

Poison

The spell whose most interesting feature is that the save is explicitly based on your caster level, allowing you to make it reaaaalllly hard to resist with some CL optimization? Yeah, tanking your CL doesn't seem the greatest idea on that one.

[dextercorvia]

Wait is it spellcaster level or CL? If it is spellcaster level then you are fine, Ur-Priest never goes above 10.

Also, you don't want to tank the CL on Poison. IIRC, the save DC is based on CL.

Edit: Semi-ninja'd