Balancing poll-- merging fixed-list casters

[Grod_The_Giant]

If a prestige class existed that would, over the course of ten levels, slowly merge adding the spells known from class-- say, Warmage-- to the list of another-- let's say Beguiler... while only advancing the casting of the second...

Would that be conceivably possibly to balance?
How many caster levels should the advancement drop? I'm thinking 3, plus those lost to dipping the secondary class.

[ngilop]

I think you fall into the realm of 'nigh impossbile to balance' with that


I think it would be easier to add a hanfful of spells to a class list with a PrC like with my Master of Radiance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16403022&postcount=29) fix. that just giving a whole brand new spell list.

especially whne you consider you parted the spell lists to balance a caster's power in the first place, making a PrC that undoes that is against the grain of the whole idea itself. In my opinion at least.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Honestly, I'd say none, aside from those lost to the dip.

Existing theurge classes are generally considered to be weaker than simply progressing one class. They only cause you to lose dipped levels, and you gain the benefit of having a second full list of spells per day. You gain versatility (more options), flexibility (more options at once), and stamina (more spells per day) at the cost of some raw power, and it's still considered a poor deal. In this case, you're giving up both stamina and power just by taking a few levels of the "seed" class, while gaining hefty versatility (though presumably less than, say, a wizard theurging to cleric would gain). The flexibility gain is fairly extreme, of course.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the normal casting classes don't really have significant class features. Just taking a quick skim at tables, your fixed list casters do at most or all levels. I'm not certain just how powerful those features are pound for pound, but they still represent an opportunity cost for this extra versatility (unless of course, they're made up for/progressed by the prestige class).

So yeah, I think it can be balanced by requiring just a three...maybe even two level dip in the "seed" class. It's not really any more powerful than normal theurging, and in some ways is notably weaker.

[Zaydos]

Ok assuming you can get in as a single class character, I'd say it depends upon which fix list casters list you gain, but probably no more than 2.

Even with 2 your permanently a spell level behind everyone and while you have a useful plethora of options you are still behind in spells per day and power of your spells known.

To explain further, 3 loses you 9th level spells completely, and while gaining access to a warmage's entire list is useful it doesn't make up for that, and half the time it's losing you 2 spell levels which hurts far more than it's worth.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My expected prereqs were 3rd level spells from one list and first level spells from another. I'm worried because, well... you're going from a (hopefully, probably strong) T3 to a (rather weak) T1.


It'll be better than a standard theurge class in that I'll be fixing CL loss and potential MAD issues. Additionally, new spells will benefit from stuff like Armored Mage, or become arcane or divine.
It'll be worse than a standard theurge in that you won't have significantly more spells/day than other casters.


So... would being one spell level behind, coupled with the loss of class features* be enough to balance having a spells known list twice the size? One and a half levels?

*This is intended to go with my fixed-list caster project (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16545265#post16545265), all of which get nice stuff as they level up.

[Just to Browse]

They will not go from Tier 3 to Tier 1 with a doubling in spell list size, because the scope of a spell list will (ideally) only provide utility in a certain focus and nowhere else. They will stay T2 as before.

If you charge them for an early dip, then the PrC needs to have low low requirements and do something similar to the mystic theurge. In this case, classes like warden will be the best (and potentially only) choice.

Alternatively, if you make the dipping thing not normal and have some PrC with a class feature like "pick a class list, gain the spells from that list" you could just make a single PrC that advances casting at SL - 2. So you can be a warmage 5 / list theurge 1 and get 1st level beguiler spells on top of your 3rd level warmage spells, but you don't get 3rd level beguiler spells.