Candle Caster - Any Experience?

[Chaosvii7]

I know that it's buried in a book from a time before optimizations and NI stats, or black holes caused by giant pigs, but does anyone have any experience with using a Candle Caster? I regularly play in games with all 3.x material allowed, and I was wondering if anyone can attest to the effectiveness of the class, if any.

Any opinions?

[Blackhawk748]

While i havent played one my group once discussed it. The fact that it can effectively make scroll that anyone can use is awesome. We were making jokes about using the candles like grenades.

[Pluto!]

I've never used it and had previously written it off as comparable to straight Wizard levels, but on review, the level 5/9 ability looks powerful - especially with candles that lack durations (blasting and teleportation spells are the first that come to mind, but I'm sure there are other good options), because they let the level 5 ability effectively add a standard action to the Candle Caster's turn. The class also looks friendly to early entry tricks by level 3 characters, which could help wedge it into a build.

[Chaosvii7]

The class also looks friendly to early entry tricks by level 3 characters, which could help wedge it into a build.

If you dip early and have enough room left over you might be able to make a candle gish, kind of like an arcane Runecaster. It might come out a little wonky but it would be pretty spectacular, if not hilarious.

[Fizban]

No official experience here either, but I've always thought it was nifty. Scrolls and thus Candles are way too expensive for using every fight, and the class has none of the cost reducing and/or "use without expending" abilities of modern scroll based prestige classes. Metamagic scrolls also a rather terrible idea, as there are relatively few spells that both ignore saves and have variables worth empowering or maximizing. As Pluto mentioned, their best ability is eventually creating Candles that trigger two spells. It's still really expensive and you can only set up so many, unlike other classes that might just give you a quickened spell-but Dipped Candle/Striped Candle don't count against your swift actions so there's some ubermaxing potential there if you need just that one more spell in your pre-prepared combo attack. Other than that you're a standard wizard who traded his two bonus feats and opportunity for a different prestige class, so I guess you'd better have some godly combos in mind.


The fact that it can effectively make scroll that anyone can use is awesome. We were making jokes about using the candles like grenades.
Unfettered Candle specifically references Brew Potion, so it will cost twice as much as a scroll and technically can't be used for anything that doesn't target the user or a held item (as Oils do). The Alchemist Savant from Eberron can brew Spellvials for offensive spells, but it still costs twice as much as a scroll for a sub-par effect, which will break the bank very quickly. But yes, using a roman candle or stick of dynamite visual effect is definitely one of the reasons to play it.