Does this work?

[8wGremlin]

Generic Spellcaster in to Anima mage at level 2!

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Alignment: Any nongood
Skills: Intimidate 4 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 4 ranks
Feat: Any meta magic feat
Spellcasting: Ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells
Special: Ability to bind a 2nd-level vestige


Skills: easy

Feats:

1)Heighten (metamagic)
human) Versatile Spellcaster
bonus) Bind Vestige
flaw) Improved Bind Vestige


so what happens when I level up to 2nd level and take Anima mage.
Bind Vestige, says that I lose the benefit of the feat if I become a Binder.
But Anima Mage states


At each anima mage level, your soul binding ability improves as if you had also gained a level in the binder class.

so what happens?

[Ashtagon]

so what happens?

Imagine you strapped some buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it.

That's what happens.

[Amnestic]

RAW? You end up with equivalent binding ability to a 10th level Binder plus your two feats (which I suppose you could retrain out later), I guess?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I thought the whole point of generic classes was to avoid the whole class/prestige class dynamic. (?)

Anyway, there're two interpretations here. Either bind vestige ceases to function and your anima mage level becomes your effective binder level or bind vestige continues to function normally and all the anima mage levels get you is a higher EBL. The latter requires that the DM decide if the increased binder level will allow you to bind higher level vestiges and if it does which of their abilities you get since you won't get all the abilities from any vestige.

I'm inclined to think the former interpretation is the correct one simply because it's the simplest to implement and the designer for anima mage had to realize that the bind vestige feat would allow a non-binder to qualify but made no note in the class about that interaction.

[W3bDragon]

the designer for anima mage had to realize that the bind vestige feat would allow a non-binder to qualify but made no note in the class about that interaction.

Given the Dysfunctional Rules Collection, that would be giving the designers too much credit. :smallwink:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Given the Dysfunctional Rules Collection, that would be giving the designers too much credit. :smallwink:

There's a world of difference between designing an entire system on which to model a game world and simply creating a relatively enclosed subsytem to interact with it. Combined with the fact that each section of ToM was mostly the purview of a single designer it's not at all an unreasonable conclusion to draw.

The designers are often bashed for "not knowing what they were doing" but they made a fairly comprehensive system that's been drawing players for over a decade, so they must've had some clue.

[W3bDragon]

The designers are often bashed for "not knowing what they were doing" but they made a fairly comprehensive system that's been drawing players for over a decade, so they must've had some clue.

I agree with that. However my reading of the Anima Mage suggests that the designer intended to make a theurge PrC for arcane casting + Binding. Allowing the binding feat to qualify for a theurge PrC seems like a simple oversight.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Upon a closer inspection of the RAW. It's very clear; the anima-mage class feature basically gives you effective levels in binder.
At each anima mage level, your soul binding ability improves as if you had also gained a level in the binder class. That's pretty clear-cut.