Why take practiced Spellcaster for Ultimate Magus?

[PhantomVector]

So I've been trying to figure out, and explain why I should take practiced spellcaster to the DM for a game coming up. Could some one explain this to me so I can pass it on?

[Ilorin Lorati]

The PrC? Because otherwise you're going to lose out several caster levels from either of the classes.

[Snowbluff]

Okay, you have 2 classes. The UM splits your spell progression to the lowest CL class every few levels. This makes it harder to gain higher level spells. So you take Practiced Spellcaster to raise the CL on the class you don't want as many spells from so you get higher level spells with the other. :smallsmile:

[Chronos]

If you take Ultimate Magus without Practiced Spellcaster, then your two classes will end up more or less balanced. But it's much stronger to focus on one of the two classes, to the detriment of the other. Practiced Spellcaster will let you put all (or at least, most) of the levels that advance only one class on the same class.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

At the 1st, 4th, and 7th levels of Ultimate Magus, it progresses the spellcasting of whichever class has the lower caster level. Not whichever class counts as lower level for spells/day, spells known, and highest level spells, but whichever class has a lower caster level for purposes of spell duration, range, damage, caster level checks, etc. That means a Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4 with Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler has a caster level of 5th for Beguiler and 4th for Wizard, so UM 1 progresses his Wizard spellcasting.

A Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ Ultimate Magus 3 has a caster level of 8th for both classes, counting UM's +1 caster level, so he gets to progress the class of his choice at UM 4, which will obviously be Wizard. At Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ Ultimate Magus 6 has a caster level of 11th for Beguiler and 12th for Wizard, meaning you must apply UM 7 toward your Beguiler casting.

However, an Illumian from Races of Destiny with the Krau sigil will have equal caster levels in both classes at that point, and you can apply all ten levels of UM toward Wizard. Illumians are Humanoid (Human) and can take the feat Able Learner from that same book, so it's easy to keep up your ranks in those amazing Beguiler class skills.

If Illumian is not an option, then there's a slightly better way to go about it than Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ UM 10. You'll still end up with Beguiler 9 and Wizard 13 spellcasting at 15th level, but that one gets you 2nd level Beguiler spells at your 10th character level. Instead you should go Beguiler 2/ Wizard 3/ UM 10, which is still Beguiler 9 and Wizard 13 spellcasting, since UM 7 can go toward Wizard, but in that case you'll get 2nd level Beguiler spells at your 8th character level, plus a few more skill points early on. In any case you should still get Able Learner.

Another amazing trick for this is to take Versatile Spellcaster in Races of the Dragon, which allows you to spend two spontaneous spell slots of the same level to cast any spell you know of one level higher. This allows you to spend two Beguiler spell slots to spontaneously cast any Wizard spell you've learned and placed in your spellbook. It also allows you to spend two of your highest-level Beguiler slots to cast a Wizard spell of that level, thus achieving capability of casting that level of spells via Beguiler and thus automatically learning every spell of that level on the Beguiler class spell list, therefore being able to spend two of those slots to cast a Beguiler spell of one level higher than you would normally have access to.

[Lerondiel]

This is all assuming you're not going Master Spellthief shenanigans :)