+CL; Crushing the will of fighters

[Campbellk8105]

Essentially, I'm looking for ways to boost your CL way high, as too make other's roll a nat 20 to save.

I've never played too many full casters other than straight druid and cleric. So, I'm looking to play an arcane caster, and have his CL go way up as to make the spells hard to save.

All 3.5 material is allowed. Anything from Dragon Magazine can be added(if any) but I'd have to run it by my DM.

Now I know the easiest way to do it is circle magic but, I've never really looked into it.

Thank you everyone for the help.

[Douglas]

Sorry, but caster level has no effect whatsoever on save DCs.

[Campbellk8105]

Sorry, but caster level has no effect whatsoever on save DCs.

I thought if your caster level was higher, you could cast spells at higher levels, thus raising the DC's?

[Flickerdart]

I thought if your caster level was higher, you could cast spells at higher levels, thus raising the DC's?
You're mixing together two rules here:
1) The Heighten Spell feat lets you cast a lower level spell in a higher level slot in order to get a DC bonus as if it were a spell of that level;
2) You may not cast a high level spell if your CL is too low, even if you're entitled to the slots through virtue of class levels.

What you want are psionics - there, it's possible to augment powers past what you would normally get by using Manifester Level boosters and Power Point cost reducers. Some augments increase the DC, so you'd get powers that are more difficult to resist this way.

[Douglas]

The normal way to get higher caster level is to get more levels in your casting class. Getting more levels in your casting class also allows you to cast higher level spells. Thus, someone who has a higher caster level by the usual means will also be able to cast higher level spells, but this is an indirect relationship resulting from a shared cause, not one affecting the other. Increasing your caster level by means other than additional class levels does nothing at all to get you higher level spells.

[Campbellk8105]

You're mixing together two rules here:
1) The Heighten Spell feat lets you cast a lower level spell in a higher level slot in order to get a DC bonus as if it were a spell of that level;
2) You may not cast a high level spell if your CL is too low, even if you're entitled to the slots through virtue of class levels.

Ah, so I was. Thank you for the clarification.


What you want are psionics - there, it's possible to augment powers past what you would normally get by using Manifester Level boosters and Power Point cost reducers. Some augments increase the DC, so you'd get powers that are more difficult to resist this way.

My DM and other players believe psionics are crazy over powered in that they can augment things to an amazing extent. One player in particular has a major issue with them being able to shatter a mind blank.

Otherwise, I would love to try a psionic.

[gkathellar]

CL has nothing to do with Save DCs. The one exception is with the Earth Spell feat: when you Heighten spells using Earth Spell, you get a CL boost.

But in case you're still interested in pumping CL: here. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872350/Raising_Caster_Level)

[olentu]

Well there is one spell I can think of off hand with a DC based on caster level. That spell is poison.

[The Glyphstone]

Ah, so I was. Thank you for the clarification.



My DM and other players believe psionics are crazy over powered in that they can augment things to an amazing extent. One player in particular has a major issue with them being able to shatter a mind blank.

Otherwise, I would love to try a psionic.


1) A PSION CAN NEVER AUGMENT HIGHER THAN HIS MANIFESTER LEVEL. Capslock for emphasis. Barring Overchannel, a psionic character will never, ever do more damage than a spellcaster.

2) Considering that when a psion can Shatter Mind Blank, a wizard can Greater Dispel Magic said Mind Blank, that makes little sense either.

But welcome to the world of us psionic fans, eternally frustrated by luddites who can't be bothered to read the rules they decry as broken.

[Flickerdart]

Ah, so I was. Thank you for the clarification.



My DM and other players believe psionics are crazy over powered in that they can augment things to an amazing extent. One player in particular has a major issue with them being able to shatter a mind blank.

Otherwise, I would love to try a psionic.
Like Glyphstone says, you can't augment for more PP than you have ML. It is also far more difficult to get extra ML, as most options that raise effective level are Arcane or Divine. Outside of things like Psiotheurgist (which is Dragon material) it's exceedingly difficult for a psionic character to churn out more than 5 or so above his level, and not without significant investment. Psionics is actually far more balanced than either kind of magic.

[FMArthur]

Ease up a little, guys. They'll get to psionics eventually. Right now it's important that they at least get the basics of regular spellcasting so that there is a point of reference to compare psionics to.

OP: your Caster Level is actually a separate stat that is not the same thing as your number of levels in a spellcasting class. Caster Level generally just affects the range, duration and damage of your spells and your ability to overcome Spell Resistance; it does not advance you up the spells chart of your class to grant you access to higher level spell slots. So a 3rd level wizard with +1 Caster Level from somewhere would be casting exactly the same spells as he would without it, but they would have slight improvements to various numbers in the spell's effect, as detailed in the spell description. Save DCs are not one of the things that are affected by Caster Level.

[Randomguy]

What level are you starting out?

Play a character with an incredibly high UMD check and emulate an ability score that's extremely high so that you can cast spells with an extremely high DC (Since it's ability score, not CL, that determines the save DC.)

At level 20, a factotum with a level of exemplar can get a UMD check of about 71, which is the same as having an ability score of 56, which means that you can get the save DC of a level 9 spell up to 42, which is very hard to make. The downside is you can only do this with scrolls and the like.

I suggest you don't focus on save or dies, though. Even if you do, as a full arcane caster, get extremely high save DC's for your spells, it's only a matter of time until either everything becomes immune to save or dies anyway or until the DM gets annoyed and starts sending people with extremely high saving throws at you. (It's much easier to optimize saving throws than to optimize save DC's, especially for villains.

[Urpriest]

If you want to have really high save DCs and crush the will of Fighters, there's an Enchanter's Handbook on the WotC boards (maybe also on the new brilliant gameologists) that has a lot of support for that.

[Ernir]

2) Considering that when a psion can Shatter Mind Blank, a wizard can Greater Dispel Magic said Mind Blank, that makes little sense either.

The Wizard can do it better.

Hell, the Psion would be better off too just Dispelling it. Shatter Mind Blank is nothing but a dispel that only affects the Mind Blank powers and allows a will save. :smallyuk:
It's one of the biggest disappointments I've ever had when reading a spell/power. :smallfrown: