Prestige Classes and Dips worth a caster level

[bekeleven]

For instance: Dipping Binder before entering Anima Mage saves a feat and gets 11 levels of Binding. Combined with the free persists, the class is viable even in high-op.

Malconvoker is nice in niche builds, but its 8/9 caster level doesn't have a lot to offer in the highest op situations.

I'm looking for prestige classes that are worth it despite lost levels. Preferably ones that trade out more than 1 level.

[A_S]

Swiftblade (-4 CL/10 levels, though the last is usually not worth taking); the class features are just that good.
Ruby Knight Vindicator (-2 CL/10 levels); only way to make a ToB divine gish.
War Weaver (-1 CL, 5 levels); obligatory for all high-op party buffers and healers.
1 level of Druid to qualify for Fochlucan Lyrist on a gish optimizing Inspire Courage; it's the only class that advances BAB, Bardic Music, and casting all at a decent rate, so you sorta have to just tack on some Druid casting even if you don't really want it.

[Bakkan]

Ultimate Magus loses one caster level because of a (usually) required dip beforehand. If you're only using Practised Spellcaster to balance out the caster levels, you also lose another level partway through the build.

[Ramza00]

Ultimate Magus loses one caster level because of a (usually) required dip beforehand. If you're only using Practised Spellcaster to balance out the caster levels, you also lose another level partway through the build.

I am sorry but it is kinda meh (unless you are doing nar demonbinder or caster level shenigans with master spelltheif), you are keeping about the same power level as a normal wizard maybe a slight decrease. You are losing 1 caster level and it takes a while for the spontaneous side to get high enough (at least 3rd level spells) to be useful. You do get some metamagic options.

As soon as uncanny forethought came out with exemplars of evil (a year after complete mage) it really didn't make much sense to do ultimate magus to make your wizard more spontaneous. Uncanny Forethought requires 2 feats (3 without a caster level loss) but you can cast any spell spontaneously and multiple ones per day and there is no caster level loss (only a feat tax). Ultimate Magus also requires at least 1 feat with practiced spellcaster.

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I would argue that cerbemancer is worth the 3 wizard level loss if you can get early entry into cerbermancer with only 1 level of wizard. With cerbemancer you can get most of the good psionic action boosters (schism, synchronicity, linked power, hustle, etc), awesome powers like astral construct and time hop, as well as 17 out of 20 levels of wizard.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Cognition Thief (PGtF) can be worth it for a 1 level dip. You lose a ML but can pick up two telepathy powers regardless of your discipline.

[Amphetryon]

It's entirely personal preference, but I think Jade Phoenix Mage is worth the Caster levels lost.

[AMFV]

It really depends on your optimization assumptions. Usually being one caster level behind isn't enough to make you feel noticeably weaker. Two might be enough to have that effect. As far as actual power goes, even two or three CL behind you can pretty much still be an impressive force in the game, so I'd say that's manageable, if only just, it may hurt your feelings of fun though.

[Leon]

Anything is if it makes the character idea you have work.

[Gemini476]

While Sand Shaper does not lose you a caster level, it does not increase your spellcasting on the first level.
That first level adds 43 spells known, though, so it's pretty good.

Oh, and retroactive Sand Shaping. Gotta love sending sand tablets five minutes into the past at-will.

Ten levels also gets you a free ressurection if they bury your body in a wasteland, but you lose a caster level at ninth.


And despite it making you losing lots of caster levels, I have to admit to loving Wu Jen/Crusader/Jade Phoenix Mage/Archmage/Eldritch Knight, if I recall the build correctly. Exploding Body Outside Body clones are fun.


Wizard/Shadowcaster/Noctumancer/Mystic Theurge loses you (at the very least) three levels of Wizard and one of Shadowcaster. It's awesome, though, and gives you double nines. Albeit double nines from a weird list, but Shadow Time is better than Time Stop. And I'll never not push Black Labyrinth when the opportunity presents itself, despite it working more for villains. Practiced Spellcaster will also make up for the Shadowcaster levels.


Actually, did you mean Caster Level or Spellcaster Level? Because one of those gives you spells, and the other can be fixed with Practiced Spellcaster.

[Karnith]

Wyrm Wizard (Dragon Magic, pp. 55-58) drops 3 spellcasting levels along the way, but it lets you add a limited number of spells from any spell list to your own class's spell list, which can be quite nice.

[Pluto!]

Recaster is free meta magic and extra spells at the cost of one CL - not one of the options that just eclipses others, but it makes solid competition for all but the most insane full casting classes.

Dweomerkeeper doesn't need to lose CL, but if you're not being tricksy, it will, and will still do lots of downright broken things.

War Weaver does dirty things to the action economy that even make Swiftblades jealous. It's one of the strongest classes outright, and is strong in a way that let's it's party members feel like they're doing a lot of the cool stuff.

I'm also fond of classes like the Knight Phantom, Bone Knight, Fist of Raziel, Knight of the Raven, Dragon Prophet, Pale Master, Master of Shrouds, Wild Soul, Stormcaster, Virtuoso and similar, but they're rarely as strong as full casters, even if their trade offs are fun and flavorful enough for me to consider them worth it.

[Humble Master]

I assume you mean this from a power perspective.

Tome of Battle Gish classes (Ruby Knight Vidicator/Jade Pheonix Mage) are both respectable PrCs.

Complete Divine:
Rainbow Servant: -4 CL but 10th level ability is literally: "You add Cleric spells to your spell list"
Void Disciple: -5 Cl and 13 levels but it has a potentially powerful ability that lets it extend it's senses up to 1,000 miles with a meager DC 25 Spellcraft check. Moreover, the DC does not increase if you want to look at unframiliar areas. Yup, ability to know everything that goes on within 1,000 miles of yourself.

Lords of Madness:
Fleshwarper: -1 CL and you get a pool of free XP to make grafts with. In total, assuming you spent all the extra XP each level, you get 21,300 XP by 10th level. You also gain the ability to make grafts faster and make grafts without needing to meet the race requirements.
Sanctified Mind: Some weird requirements but only -1 CL for some cool things like Partitioned Mind and at 6th level Power Resistance equal to your class level + 5

[Chronos]

Sanctified Mind: Some weird requirements but only -1 CL for some cool things like Partitioned Mind and at 6th level Power Resistance equal to your class level + 5
Power resistance at class level + 5 is a joke. Assuming that you enter the PrC after about 5 levels, and don't take anything else, that means that your PR is about equal to your character level. An enemy trying to get through that will have to roll 1d20+level, which means that opponents one level below you will auto-succeed, and even two or three levels below you will nearly always.

[EugeneVoid]

Hmm...
Anima Mage is worth losing a CL, though you really shouldn't if you're OP-ing.
Same with Dweomerkeeper.
Thrallherd is 100% worth losing those ML.
Walker in the Waste is really decent.

[Humble Master]

Power resistance at class level + 5 is a joke. Assuming that you enter the PrC after about 5 levels, and don't take anything else, that means that your PR is about equal to your character level. An enemy trying to get through that will have to roll 1d20+level, which means that opponents one level below you will auto-succeed, and even two or three levels below you will nearly always.Double checking I misread the entry. You get PR equal to your character level +5. Even with that the class is, in retrospect, not really that good.

[Divayth Fyr]

Rainbow Servant: -4 CL but 10th level ability is literally: "You add Cleric spells to your spell list"
Doesn't text trump table making RS a -0 CL class?

[Humble Master]

Doesn't text trump table making RS a -0 CL class?Hmm, yes it does. Again my bad is misreading the entry. Though that does make the class as a whole extremely powerful. By 15th level you are casting 8th level Wizard and Cleric spells.

[Chronos]

OK, power resistance of character level +5 is enough to be useful, but not extraordinarily so. It means that equal-level opponents will still be succeeding about 80% of the time.

[molten_dragon]

Malconvoker definitely. Twin spell for free is so worth it.
Thrallherd. I can't really think of a class that gets a better tradeoff for losing two caster levels.
It's more subjective, but I think Arcane Heirophant (if early entry shenanigans are allowed) is worth it. Lose one druid caster level to get 11 levels of wizard casting and a decent boost to your caster level.

[Pluto!]

Malconvoker's a fine class but its "Free Twin Spell" thing is pretty overstated. An extra summon is on average what you get from summoning, say, SM 4 monsters from SM 5 slots - essentially a +1 Spell Level Adjustment on certain spells the Malconvoker casts in exchange for being one spell level behind on all its spells for half its career.

I think it's a completely playable class, but unless its less lauded level 6 ability is being abused, I don't think it breaks even in terms of power until ECL 18 on a Wizard/Cleric base, but that's when most -1 CL classes start breaking even or pulling ahead.

[Mithril Leaf]

Hmm, yes it does. Again my bad is misreading the entry. Though that does make the class as a whole extremely powerful. By 15th level you are casting 8th level Wizard and Cleric spells.

I thought it meant at level 11 you're spontaneously casting 7th level Cleric and Warmage spells. :smallconfused:

[AMFV]

Hmm, yes it does. Again my bad is misreading the entry. Though that does make the class as a whole extremely powerful. By 15th level you are casting 8th level Wizard and Cleric spells.

That's not really that powerful to be honest, there isn't really that much gold in the cleric list that can't be replicated in the other list. The Wizard list is slightly better for this than cleric without domains. Of course if you're using something like Warmage or Beguiler it becomes considerably better, but as a straight Wizard or Sorcerer it's really not as good as many other prestige classes are.

[bekeleven]

Thanks for the help everyone, I just finished designing a wizard prestige class that costs 2+ caster levels. I gave it a bunch of metamagic shenannigans, because obviously that's never been done in any prestige class before ever.

[AMFV]

Thanks for the help everyone, I just finished designing a wizard prestige class that costs 2+ caster levels. I gave it a bunch of metamagic shenannigans, because obviously that's never been done in any prestige class before ever.

Also for a reference Malconvoker places +5 free metamagic on a particular class of spells as equivalent to one lost caster level, or thereabouts. Although they get a few other benefits. I would try for at least two such instances if you're wanting people to take a two CL losing prestige class. Since -10 adjustment against one class might have other difficulties.

[molten_dragon]

Malconvoker's a fine class but its "Free Twin Spell" thing is pretty overstated. An extra summon is on average what you get from summoning, say, SM 4 monsters from SM 5 slots - essentially a +1 Spell Level Adjustment on certain spells the Malconvoker casts in exchange for being one spell level behind on all its spells for half its career.

It's a decent bit better than that because it doesn't require you to summon weaker creatures to get twice as many.

Plus you get to double the duration for free, you get to essentially double the bonus of augment summoning for free. And you get a couple of significant bonuses to the planar binding line, which is already one of the more broken spells in the game.

It's not the best tradeoff for a lost caster level in the game, but it's considerably better than most classes which lose caster levels.

[AMFV]

Malconvoker's a fine class but its "Free Twin Spell" thing is pretty overstated. An extra summon is on average what you get from summoning, say, SM 4 monsters from SM 5 slots - essentially a +1 Spell Level Adjustment on certain spells the Malconvoker casts in exchange for being one spell level behind on all its spells for half its career.

Well the free twin spell is pretty amazing particularly when combined with all of their tricks to make their summons stronger, last longer, have more starting health. Also the free twin spell while it may be the same as getting SM V in an SM IV slot, that's still pretty snazzy, particularly since you still use fourth level slots, not fifth level slots. So you wind up pulling ahead, as far as being a focused summoner goes it's a clear improvement, if that's your character concept, Malconvoker is pretty amazing.

Of course it's not as good as a focused summoner Incatatrix build, or something of that nature, but then again nothing really is, and flavor is an important point here.



I think it's a completely playable class, but unless its less lauded level 6 ability is being abused, I don't think it breaks even in terms of power until ECL 18 on a Wizard/Cleric base, but that's when most -1 CL classes start breaking even or pulling ahead.

No -1 CL classes are really going to ever break even or pull ahead... They're just not, because as a straight Wizard you can go into so many better prestige classes that don't lose a CL, and then get free metamagic there and many other amazing things. In the end it might be worth it for flavor, but you're not going to pull ahead of a standard Wizard build.

[Chronos]

Quoth molten_dragon:

It's a decent bit better than that because it doesn't require you to summon weaker creatures to get twice as many.
I think you misunderstand: The point isn't to summon weaker creatures with the same spell; it's to summon the same creatures with a more powerful spell. Which, half the time, a straight wizard will be able to do, just by virtue of having that one level of casting that the malconvoker lacks. Except the straight wizard has it even better than that, since he also has the option of going for quality instead of quantity, getting a single creature off of a list that the malconvoker doesn't even have access to, and options are always good.

In other words, while Twin Spell might usually be worth a +4 adjustment, on a summoning spell, it's only worth +1, or less, because the summoning spells already have a twin-like option built in.

[Osiris]

Don't know if it was mentioned, but Sand Shaper is a great choice for sorcerers, if you can survive 1 lost caster level (optimizers, I'm looking at you)

[Dread_Head]

Bone Knights great for the awesome list of immunities it grants you along with some other decentish undead controlling features.

Virtuoso is good on a sublime chord build to progress IC if you take the first level before you take any sublime chord you don't even lose the caster level off your main progression.

[dysprosium]

Ordained Champion lets you channel spells and smite.

If you are not playing a DMM Persist Cleric here is a good melee based Cleric type for you.

[Pluto!]

It's a decent bit better than that because it doesn't require you to summon weaker creatures to get twice as many.

Also the free twin spell while it may be the same as getting SM V in an SM IV slot, that's still pretty snazzy, particularly since you still use fourth level slots, not fifth level slots. So you wind up pulling ahead, as far as being a focused summoner goes it's a clear improvement, if that's your character concept, Malconvoker is pretty amazing.
Chronos had what I was getting at:

I think you misunderstand: The point isn't to summon weaker creatures with the same spell; it's to summon the same creatures with a more powerful spell. Which, half the time, a straight wizard will be able to do, just by virtue of having that one level of casting that the malconvoker lacks. Except the straight wizard has it even better than that, since he also has the option of going for quality instead of quantity, getting a single creature off of a list that the malconvoker doesn't even have access to, and options are always good.
It's a decent ability, but when comparing Wizard 11 to Wizard 5/Malconvoker 6, the straight wizard can summon one Summon Monster 6 monster or 1d3 Summon Monster 5 monsters while the similarly-leveled Malconvoker can just summon two Summon Monster 5 monsters - and then only with the evil selections.

It's not the worst thing, and on even-numbered character levelsor when both the casters get access to level 9 spells, the Malconvoker's ability does replicate casting spells one spell level higher than the straight caster could, which is pretty good, and doesn't have to deal with the risk of bad rolls, which is even better.

But throughout the Malconvoker's progression it's just waffling between being one effective spell level ahead in one spell series and being one level behind in all its spells, where some classes like Recaster and War Weaver's effective metamagics can push them more than one spell level ahead at a time, and that IMO makes them look a bit better when comparing their "bad" even-numbered levels to those of a straight caster.

[ImaDeadMan]

If you ever wanted to go the fear route with your casting then Nightmare spinner and Dread Witch are well worth the 2 lost CL between the 2 classes

[Petrocorus]

For a Druid with some Int, dipping 1 lvl of wizard for entering Arcane Hierophant can clearly worth it.


Hmm, yes it does. Again my bad is misreading the entry. Though that does make the class as a whole extremely powerful. By 15th level you are casting 8th level Wizard and Cleric spells.
It's still pretty decent. Compare to many PrC or straight Wiz. Anyway, it's more often made with warmage.


I thought it meant at level 11 you're spontaneously casting 7th level Cleric and Warmage spells. :smallconfused:
How do you do this at lvl 11?

[kardar233]

How do you do this at lvl 11?

I believe that with some early entry tricks (likely Versatile Spellcaster and something else) it's possible to enter Rainbow Servant after Warmage 1. Then, once you reach the tenth level of Rainbow Servant you get the entire Cleric spell list added to your Warmage spells known, and since you're a Warmage you can spontaneously cast anything on your spells known list.

[Zancloufer]

By caster, I'm assuming Psion's count as well?

Thrallherd looses you two Manifester levels, but you get Ultra-Leadership on steroids in return. Heck get a pair of casters as your thralls and you end up ahead by a fair margin for the most part IMHO.

[Petrocorus]

I believe that with some early entry tricks (likely Versatile Spellcaster and something else) it's possible to enter Rainbow Servant after Warmage 1.

That's what i meant, what early entry tricks can you use to enter RS after only Warmage 1?

[Gemini476]

That's what i meant, what early entry tricks can you use to enter RS after only Warmage 1?

Let's see. Versatile Spellcaster will get you second-level arcane spells, and taking Sanctrum Spell with your Human feat will pump that up to a third-level spell.

Then you just take four ranks in Knowledge(Arcana) (You'll need 14 Int, in other words - but hey, Warmage's Edge), and choose a non-evil non-chaotic alignment.

Oh, and you need to get around the "Special: Must find the hidden jungle temples of the couatls." requirement. Bribe the DM or write that your character hails from the jungles or whatever. Most builds here assume that you'll figure some way around that, but it's not like DM's always ban reflavoring.

I knew most of this by heart (except the Rainbow Servant requirments. I had to look those up.) I feel slightly dirty now.

[Mithril Leaf]

Let's see. Versatile Spellcaster will get you second-level arcane spells, and taking Sanctrum Spell with your Human feat will pump that up to a third-level spell.

Then you just take four ranks in Knowledge(Arcana) (You'll need 14 Int, in other words - but hey, Warmage's Edge), and choose a non-evil non-chaotic alignment.

Oh, and you need to get around the "Special: Must find the hidden jungle temples of the couatls." requirement. Bribe the DM or write that your character hails from the jungles or whatever. Most builds here assume that you'll figure some way around that, but it's not like DM's always ban reflavoring.

I knew most of this by heart (except the Rainbow Servant requirments. I had to look those up.) I feel slightly dirty now.

Actually you have to use flaws because sanctum spell has a requirement of one metamagic feat, which is not taken care of by versatile spellcaster. Since it is usually assumed that 2 flaws are on the table when discussing such online, you use those to take Extend Spell and Sanctum Spell with your versatile spellcaster. Also, backstory is free.