Can you progress Chameleon spellcasting with another PrC

[Jeff the Green]

As the title. I know you can't use Aptitude Focus to qualify for one, but if you took, say, Dragonslayer, which doesn't have a casting prereq, would it advance your Arcane Focus?

[Venger]

Chameleon does not give spellcasting, so it unfortunately can't be progressed. you can't "progress" your aptitude focus ability with +spellcasting classes.

[Jeff the Green]

Chameleon does not give spellcasting

Neither do Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard, though. They give "spells". You explicitly gain the ability to cast spells and a CL; why then is it not a spellcasting class?

[Extra Anchovies]

From the description of the arcane focus ability:

You prepare and cast these spells just as a wizard does
If a wizard can qualify, so can you. You cannot, however, advance in or take advantage of a PrC's benefits when you don't meet its requirements, so if you take levels in Incantatrix or whatever, you're a bit gimped unless you stick with Arcane Focus every day.

[Jeff the Green]

From the description of the arcane focus ability:

If a wizard can qualify, so can you. You cannot, however, advance in or take advantage of a PrC's benefits when you don't meet its requirements, so if you take levels in Incantatrix or whatever, you're a bit gimped unless you stick with Arcane Focus every day.

There are Chameleons who don't use Arcane Focus every day? :smallconfused:

[DarkSonic1337]

Okay, this is a little tricky.

Chameleon's aptitude focus cannot be used to qualify for any prestige classes. However, they do grant spells per day and a caster level, and "spellcasting class" is never actually defined anywhere. So it would have to be up to your DM as to what a spellcasting class technically is....but I think granting the ability to cast spells should be enough even without an explicit "spells" ability. The other issue is whether Chameleon is an arcane or divine prestige class, to which I say it's both as that is determined by what spell list they cast from (which is all of them).

So you'd have to use some other class combination to qualify for your desired prestige class, but could use it to advance your casting (similar to how invocation uses and shadow casters can be progressed by prestige classes that they don't natively qualify for). Being outside of your arcane/divine focus wouldn't make you lose your prestige class abilities since you qualified for them through other classes anyway (but why would you want to?)

[dextercorvia]

You cannot, however, advance in or take advantage of a PrC's benefits when you don't meet its requirements

Can you provide a citation that shows this is true in general, and not just for classes in CArc or CWar?

[Thiyr]

Can you provide a citation that shows this is true in general, and not just for classes in CArc or CWar?

Races of the Dragon, page 32, in the Substituting Spellscale Racial Traits sidebar.


The loss of racial traits might mean you no longer meet the prerequisites for a prestige class, feat, or some other feature. In general, you lose any special ability for which you no longer qualify, and nothing is gained in its place.

Obviously bold is mine, but I felt like emphasizing the extremely convenient wording there.

[prufock]

Say hello to Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster. Both should progress all your Chameleon abilities, albeit at a 7/10 and 2/3 rate, respectively.

[Extra Anchovies]

Can you provide a citation that shows this is true in general, and not just for classes in CArc or CWar?

Oh, it is just CArc and CWar? I thought there were more than that. Those are the two non-PHB books that I've read most thoroughly (they were my first two splatbooks), so I assumed they were the norm.

[Psyren]

Oh, it is just CArc and CWar? I thought there were more than that. Those are the two non-PHB books that I've read most thoroughly (they were my first two splatbooks), so I assumed they were the norm.

This is a matter of intense debate that hasn't been settled in years. Short answer: ask your DM.

[dextercorvia]

Races of the Dragon, page 32, in the Substituting Spellscale Racial Traits sidebar.



Obviously bold is mine, but I felt like emphasizing the extremely convenient wording there.

That "In general" still refers to Spellscales undergoing the rite. The words "in general" are used as opposed to the two exceptions that follow -- not stating that this rule applies to all of qualification in all books.

[Thurbane]

Say hello to Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster. Both should progress all your Chameleon abilities, albeit at a 7/10 and 2/3 rate, respectively.

Yep, this is the only airtight answer I could think of as well. Uncanny Trickster works quite well with Chameleon, too (both thematically, and the mechanics are pretty good too: 8 skill points/level instead of 4, 1 good save instead of none, and same BAB. Main downside is 1 level that could have another base class or PrC jammed in, and d6 HD instead of d8.)

[Ruethgar]

Do note, however, that although Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Cham advance Chameleon beyond the cap, there are very few things that are altered beyond cap, pretty much only caster level.

[Jack_Simth]

As the title. I know you can't use Aptitude Focus to qualify for one, but if you took, say, Dragonslayer, which doesn't have a casting prereq, would it advance your Arcane Focus?
Theoretically yes, as would Ruathar (Races of the Wild). Honestly, that sort of thing is probably the best way to finish up a Chameleon build at higher levels - a "standard" entry of something like Rogue-5/Chameleon-10 doesn't have any obvious direction to go for 16th level. Ask your DM, though, as certain aspects of that are a little dicey.

[Thiyr]

That "In general" still refers to Spellscales undergoing the rite. The words "in general" are used as opposed to the two exceptions that follow -- not stating that this rule applies to all of qualification in all books.

That seems like a kinda narrow reading of what's presented. The two sentences, as presented, seem more like they read as a pair of related if-then statements.

"If you lose racial traits, Then you might not continue to fill a prerequisite for an ability."

Followed by

"If you don't meet prerequisites for an ability, Then you lose access to them, barring exceptions."

The first statement is related to spellscales specifically, while the second is spelling out why the first is relevant. The "in general" is setting a baseline, which is needed for ther to be exceptions.

Plus, if you look at the exceptions it further supports this. The first sets up "if you don't qualify because of this rite, while the second calls out prestige classes without providing any such qualifiers, stating no matter what you keep the chassis. It also sets precedent that you can regain class abilities if you meet all the prerequisites. This supports that it isn't just loss or regaining of racial abilities, but of any abilities. At that point, it is broad enough that it can easily cover just spellscales.

So to that, I pose the opposite of your initial assertion. Can you provide a citation which shows that "the loss of prerequisites cause the loss of abilities" is only applicable to the prestige classes in CWar and CArc, or for anything spellscales do? (Preemptive note, just to save us some time, these rules aren't in contradiction to anything, so their absence from primary sources isn't relevant. The PHB Errata's bit on prescedence of primary sources is only for situations of contradiction. Not saying that's your position, just addressing it ahead of time.)

[Jack_Simth]

Intent is not provable, so the "does the CW rule apply to all PrC's" is not really provable either.

However...

1) There's the Primary Source Rule at the top of the errata (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata) for the core books:

Errata Rule: Primary Sources
When you find a disagreement between two D&D rules sources, unless an official errata file says otherwise, the primary source is correct. One example of a primary/secondary source is text taking precedence over a table entry. An individual spell description takes precedence when the short description in the beginning of the spells chapter disagrees.
Another example of primary vs. secondary sources involves book and topic precedence. The Player’s Handbook, for example, gives all the rules for playing the game, for PC races, and the base class descriptions. If you find something on one of those topics from the Dungeon Master’s Guide or the Monster Manual that disagrees with the Player’s Handbook, you should assume the Player’s Handbook is the primary source. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is the primary source for topics such as magic item descriptions, special material construction rules, and so on. The Monster Manual is the primary source for monster descriptions, templates, and supernatural, extraordinary, and spell-like abilities.

2) The limitation found in Complete Warrior was present (word for word) in the PrC header in the 3.0 DMG. In the 3.5 DMG, the PrC header was word-for-word the same as it was in the 3.0 DMG... minus the limitation found in Complete Warrior.

I choose to treat the DMG as the primary Source for general rules no how to handle PrCs, and treat the Complete Warrior limitation as a conflict (specifically as a copy/paste error during development - they copied the text from the wrong version of the DMG). Not everyone will choose the same way.

That said: I also don't take things verbatim from the DMG when I'm DMing. I treat it thusly: If you voluntarily relenquish a PrC requirement, then you lose most PrC benefits (with exceptions to avoid things like the quantum dragon disciple). If a PrC requirement is stripped from you, then you maintain all PrC abilities but can no longer advance in that PrC. Why? I don't want people cheating their way out of the feat tax built into a lot of PrC's, but I also don't want that Ex-Paladin-5/Blackguard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/blackguard.htm)-10 NPC the party is fighting to suddenly turn into an NPC Warrior because of a first level spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/rayOfEnfeeblement.htm).

[dextercorvia]

I hear you. And, I think we are starting to get into a tangent about prereqs. Thankfully, we are not debating losing actual prereqs. The statement I was questioning was that you only get the benefit of Incantatrix while in arcane focus. However, assuming you qualified for Incantatrix using something other than Chameleon (which is required), then you aren't losing the prereqs.

Also, if we allow that Chameleon is an arcane spellcasting class, then it is so whether or not you have arcane focus up. The class grants casting, even if you aren't using it. Next, Incantatrix says:


When a new incantatrix level is gained, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class granted her access to 3 rd-level spells before she added the prestige class.

Notice that it just grants spells as if you had gained a level of chameleon, not a level of arcane focus. So, Incantatrix advances the arcane and divine casting of Chameleon.

[Divide by Zero]

Regardless of what a strict reading of RAW says, does anyone actually think it makes sense for the restriction on prestige class prerequisites to only apply to ones in the books where it's specifically called out? Because that just seems dumb to me.

[Kraken]

Regardless of what a strict reading of RAW says, does anyone actually think it makes sense for the restriction on prestige class prerequisites to only apply to ones in the books where it's specifically called out? Because that just seems dumb to me.

Not really. The reason there's even an argument about it, and similar things in the first place, is that there's so little to go off of that the uncertainty makes it a fertile ground for arguments. In a real life scenario, it's pretty much always 'ask your DM' territory. As a DM I don't set rules on it, I just treat each case as I see fit.

[Psyren]

Regardless of what a strict reading of RAW says, does anyone actually think it makes sense for the restriction on prestige class prerequisites to only apply to ones in the books where it's specifically called out? Because that just seems dumb to me.

I for one don't. If you're (for example) a Blackguard who becomes Lawful Good, I see no reason why you would still have an aura of evil, a blessing/spells from dark powers, or a fiendish creature following you around, and if I'm revoking all of that I'm going to revoke the rest too.

[Jeff the Green]

I for one don't. If you're (for example) a Blackguard who becomes Lawful Good, I see no reason why you would still have an aura of evil, a blessing/spells from dark powers, or a fiendish creature following you around, and if I'm revoking all of that I'm going to revoke the rest too.

That's fine, but why would he suddenly lose the ability to make sneak attacks or use poison? Why would an Assassin turned Good, why would you suddenly lose all your knowledge of assassination techniques? Why would an Arcane Archer lose their ability to channel spells through their bows if they're reincarnated as a dwarf (let's assume they have a couple levels of fighter so they still have bow proficiency)?

The fact is that whichever way you rule it something breaks. RAW is ambiguous. The only sane real-game answer is individually adjudicating abilities.

[Extra Anchovies]

That's fine, but why would he suddenly lose the ability to make sneak attacks or use poison? Why would an Assassin turned Good, why would you suddenly lose all your knowledge of assassination techniques? Why would an Arcane Archer lose their ability to channel spells through their bows if they're reincarnated as a dwarf (let's assume they have a couple levels of fighter so they still have bow proficiency)?

The fact is that whichever way you rule it something breaks. RAW is ambiguous. The only sane real-game answer is individually adjudicating abilities.

True. It makes sense to prevent advancement in a PrC that you no longer meet the prereqs for (nonevil characters can't take Assassin 1, why can they take Assassin 3?) but I wouldn't have them lose the benefits (except for alignment-based things such as the Blackguard's non-Ex abilities).

[Thiyr]

Usually I find the issue is more with bad prerequisites more than anything. If I lose, say, Weapon Focus, it makes sense that I can't use Invisible Blade stuff. That's sensible. If I get reincarnated at a dwarf, it makes no sense that I can become a dwarven defender, nor does it make sense that I can't keep progressing shadowcraft mage. Still, ultimately I tend to divorce the effects of that from what makes sense in-universe. There's gonna be corner cases where things stop making sense either way, and I prefer leaving an incentive to not find ways to trade prereqs away.

And to point out further "huh?" moments, why are monks incapable of learning to punch harder if they start taking after the slaad? Why can't a bard keep learning to sing better if they play by the rules? Requirements force the world to be kinda weird sometimes.

[Fax Celestis]

This is why alignment and class-specific prerequisites are stupid.

[torrasque666]

This is why alignment and class-specific prerequisites are stupid.

Not really. Considering how many things work off of alignment (Smite, Protection/Circle against X, the Artifact books) alignment is a key part of D&D. Not as key as classes and skills, but a key part nonetheless. The class-specific requirements keep the classes separate past level 5. Otherwise it doesn't matter your lead up as you can get into any class that only has skill requirements with Able Learner and a Factotum dip. Two things and all classes are open to you now. You'd still have to wait until your BAB is the right rank for the ones that care, but now there's really nothing to differentiate a Soulbow(bad class I know) from a Dervish or a Kensai from a Master of Nine(because martial maneuvers in the quantity needed can only be achieved by Martial Adepts)

[Psyren]

That's fine, but why would he suddenly lose the ability to make sneak attacks or use poison? Why would an Assassin turned Good, why would you suddenly lose all your knowledge of assassination techniques? Why would an Arcane Archer lose their ability to channel spells through their bows if they're reincarnated as a dwarf (let's assume they have a couple levels of fighter so they still have bow proficiency)?

The fact is that whichever way you rule it something breaks. RAW is ambiguous. The only sane real-game answer is individually adjudicating abilities.

Well, you could say that they aren't as practiced with poison anymore if they turn good but I actually agree with you on these. So I would limit it to Supernatural, Spell-like abilities and spells that come from the class. That just leaves the aura and servant, which should probably be magic anyway.

[Fax Celestis]

Not really. Considering how many things work off of alignment (Smite, Protection/Circle against X, the Artifact books) alignment is a key part of D&D. Not as key as classes and skills, but a key part nonetheless. The class-specific requirements keep the classes separate past level 5. Otherwise it doesn't matter your lead up as you can get into any class that only has skill requirements with Able Learner and a Factotum dip. Two things and all classes are open to you now. You'd still have to wait until your BAB is the right rank for the ones that care, but now there's really nothing to differentiate a Soulbow(bad class I know) from a Dervish or a Kensai from a Master of Nine(because martial maneuvers in the quantity needed can only be achieved by Martial Adepts)

You're missing my point. Things that are built into "being the elfiest elf that ever did elf" make sense. Arcane Archer being elf only is dumb, because obviously only elves like magic and archery enough to mix the two.

[Psyren]

Agreed - it's worth noting that PF removed the racial restriction as well.

[Anlashok]

Yep. Chameleon is advanced by other classes.

Regardless of what a strict reading of RAW says, does anyone actually think it makes sense for the restriction on prestige class prerequisites to only apply to ones in the books where it's specifically called out? Because that just seems dumb to me.

When a rule is only mentioned in that specific book and causes things to utterly break if applied to other books, yeah. Ignoring the stuff about alignment and race goofiness, PrCs like Dragon Disciple and Ur-Priest simply do not function at all if you apply this rule generally. So given that it was intentionally removed from the DMG, intentionally put in a splat and does not function if applied to classes outside that particular splat... I think it's safe to say that no, it's not a general rule.

[dextercorvia]

It is also completely unrelated to this thread. A Chameleon cannot stop qualifying for a PrC by changing Focus, since it can't use its Foci to qualify in the first place.

[Jeff the Green]

When a rule is only mentioned in that specific book and causes things to utterly break if applied to other books, yeah. Ignoring the stuff about alignment and race goofiness, PrCs like Dragon Disciple and Ur-Priest simply do not function at all if you apply this rule generally. So given that it was intentionally removed from the DMG, intentionally put in a splat and does not function if applied to classes outside that particular splat... I think it's safe to say that no, it's not a general rule.

While I tend to agree with most of this, I'm not entirely sure putting it in CW/CArc was exactly intentional. They're some of the earlier 3.5 splats, and it seems likely that they didn't realize that had been stripped from the DMG during the transition.

[Thiyr]

When a rule is only mentioned in that specific book and causes things to utterly break if applied to other books, yeah. Ignoring the stuff about alignment and race goofiness, PrCs like Dragon Disciple and Ur-Priest simply do not function at all if you apply this rule generally. So given that it was intentionally removed from the DMG, intentionally put in a splat and does not function if applied to classes outside that particular splat... I think it's safe to say that no, it's not a general rule.

The breakage caused by that isn't exactly astoundingly widespread, though, and could easily be mistakes on the part of the authors/editors of those individual classes. Outside of the those two , I can't think of a whole ton of self-disqualifying PrCs (though I'm willing to retract that position if other examples come up, I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of this system yet. Give me time!), and that's the only issue that this really causes. On the other hand, it can be used to your advantage (People love to take advantage of it for War Hulk, for instance), and it cuts off things like renting some Mobility armor to qualify for classes, or having Frenzied Berserker without having power attack anymore, which is pretty borked as well. Both ways cause dysfunction (it's 3.5, what's new there?), so given that there's no language that I've seen suggesting it's limited to a subset of classes, and that it could easily have been a retraction of the decision to remove it from the 3.5 DMG if that removal was intentional in the first place, I think it's safe to say that yes, it is a general rule :smalltongue:


While I tend to agree with most of this, I'm not entirely sure putting it in CW/CArc was exactly intentional. They're some of the earlier 3.5 splats, and it seems likely that they didn't realize that had been stripped from the DMG during the transition.

Eh, RotD came late enough in that I can see it being an intentional addition.

Still, I agree with Dex on this one. Much as I love arguing this, we're getting pretty off topic. Probably want to make a new thread, or just agree to drop it.

[.Zero]

Ok, chameleon can be progressed by PrCs. So is it plausible for us to apply some Sublime Chord levels and Master Spellthief feat for some silly caster level shenanigans?

[Fax Celestis]

Obligatory link: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?95070-3-5-The-Spellthief-Theurge

[.Zero]

I don't see why every time i try to talk about caster level shenanigans and sublime chord, someone always brings in ultimate magus...

However, by things i read in this thread it seems that chameleon is both an arcane caster and a divine caster, because it gives spells and a caster level. If this is true, and nobody has contradicted this yet, i think we can apply Dat Sublime Chord Shenanigan to it, resulting in a caster level boost of respect. Next step is: apply master spellthief and go to town.

The most generous reding of master spellthief lets you add your caster levels together to determine your caster level for arcane spells.
Sublime Chord spells per day ability determines your caster level for arcane spells as equal to your sublime chord levels plus your levels in another spellcasting class. Please note that SC's ability specifically refers to levels, not to caster level.

If this works, it means that with sublime chord you set all your arcane caster levels *for arcane spells* to the same number, then with master spellthief you multiply that number per the number of arcane spellcasting classes you have.

So a character like spellthief1/bard1/wizard3/chameleon10/sublime chord1 uses SC ability to set his caster level for arcane spells to SC + Chameleon (11), and that's the caster level for arcane spells even for his wizard, bard, spellthief and chameleon spells. Master spellthief adds all together resulting in a caster level for arcane spells equal to 55 at level 16.

What cares to me, is that we are allowed or not to count chameleon levels two times, because of his caster level equal to twice its class levels. SC specifically talks about levels, i know, but the fact is that chameleon levels count as double to determine its caster level, so it is reasonable (if reason is something we have the right to call upon in this see of cheese) to count it twice for determining a SC caster level. The poin is that we're not talking about some sort of class feature that raise caster level like sandshaper1 or ultimate magus, but the key is that chameleon caster level is just 2*class levels all by itself. And if SC's ability determines caster level on the base of class levels, then yes, chameleon levels should be counted twice here.

Obviously this leads to a walking mountain of garbage cheese, because if that's true, the the build above should have a caster level for arcane spells equal to 105. At ecl 16.

What's your thoughts?

It's worth noting that the build uses sanctum spell applied to wizard's spells to meet "able to cast 3rd level spells" requirement of sublime chord.