Arbitrarily high caster level

[Pippin]

Playground,

is there really no way to increase a wizard's caster level to insane numbers (4 digits) without actually botching his class progression with things like Sublime Chords, etc?

Isn't there a spell or class feature out there that would let you 'receive' a few (stackable) caster levels from friends? I'm looking for something like Red Wizards, but with a limit on the number of caster levels they receive per friend, rather than a limit on the total caster level.

[Surpriser]

The problem I see with that approach is that negative levels don't only reduce caster level. In fact, as soon as you have a number of negative levels equal to your level (not caster level), you die. So for this to work you need to also find some way to get additional class levels at the same rate.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

That doesn't actually work, because as soon as you have as many levels as your total hit dice/character level, you automatically die. Why do you need a caster level over 40 pre-epic, anyway? The best use of circle magic is to go Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 10/ X 5, make nine Simulacrums of yourself which are each Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 5, have your simulacrums all work together taking turns leading a circle and contributing spells to each other, and then each of them heightens a single spell to 20th level. When you lead a circle, all nine of them each cast their 20th level spell, contributing 180 spell levels to you.

Maybe go with something like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246510-Theurgic-Specalist-and-Necromancy-why-has-nobody-caught-onto-this/page2#56), but switch it to Wizard 7/ Sorcerer 1/ Dread Necromancer 1/ Spellthief 1/ Ultimate Magus 10, which gets 17th level Wizard spellcasting and 8th level Sorcerer spellcasting, and four classes with a caster level of 33. That makes your Song of the Dead Wings of Flurry spell deal 132d6 damage without even using Reserves of Strength. If you want to lose a few more Wizard levels for dips into Bard, Beguiler, Warmage, etc., each additional class increases your overall caster level for necromancy spells by 33. With Wizard 3/Spellthief 1, one level in each of six other arcane spellcasting classes, and Ultimate Magus 10, you'll have a caster level of 264 for your specialist school, though only with 13th level Wizard spellcasting at 20th level.

[Eloel]

you'll have a caster level of 264 for your specialist school, though only with 13th level Wizard spellcasting at 20th level.

Follow-up question:
Which spells would have ridiculous effects with such a caster level?

[ace rooster]

Follow-up question:
Which spells would have ridiculous effects with such a caster level?

If 3.0 is in, extended power leech from BoVD. You will need a wand of resoration for the target (Assuming you can't get away with using yourself as the target and offset the drain with the increasing bonus until finally casting restoration to negate the drain), which will probably burn through most of it's charges, but if you do that you can boost an ability score by 528, lasting 2640 mins (almost 2 days). The question then becomes what you do with a caster level of 264 and an int modifier of 271 :smallamused:.

At that point blindness/deafness and ghoul touch become very powerful. Ray of exhastion slows enemies considerably, and with a caster level of 264, even a short range spell has a range of 685ft. Finger of death is nice with a DC that high, but immunity to death effects is probably going to be common. My personal favorite though is magic jar. You are able to inhabit creatures in a radius of 2640', meaning for most dungeons you can leave your body outside and adventure in a borrowed one at no personal risk!

[Evolved Shrimp]

If there's isn't such spell or class feature, the only way that crossed my mind would be:


decrease the wizard's caster level to 1 with negative levels (watch the HP),
then use circle magic to increase it to 40 for the next spell (this takes one hour),
then decrease it to 1 (watch the HP) with negative levels again,
then increase it with another 40 levels with circle magic again (not necessarily the same circle though) for the next spell (this takes another hour),
repeat until you're satisfied with the caster level (within 24 hours),
then dispel all negative levels with something like restoration.


There appear to be at least three issues with this approach:

Only the circle leader reaps the benefits of a magic circle. The circle leader must be a Red Wizard 5 or Hathran 4. Both prestige classes require minimum spellcasting abilities. A 1st-level character does not meet them and so cannot be a circle leader.
The circle magic does not raise the caster level by up to 40 levels, it raises it to a maximum of level 40. There seems to be no indication that any dispelled negative levels will simply be added to the 40 caster levels. Instead, the caster level would remain at 40, because that is the maximum that the magic circle can produce.
Any benefit gained form the magic circle is not a full character level, it only counts as a level for very specific purposes. As such, it does not raise the leader’s character level to 40 (for example, the leader does not get increased hit points, bonus feats, etc.). Therefore, even if the circle would work, the wizard would still remain at level 1 and could not take an additional negative level.

[Evolved Shrimp]

If 3.0 is in, extended power leech from BoVD.

I’m missing something – how does power leech increase caster level?

[Kraken]

A wizard5/incantatrix4/mindbender1/ur-priest2/mystic theurge8 (or some approximation thereof) could get an arbitrarily high caster level if:

-You're willing to allow consumptive field and greater consumptive field to stack.
-You're okay with using energy transformation field to obtain an arbitrarily high number of spells per day.

If you're okay with those things, I can go into greater detail. There are some murkier ways to do it as a pure arcane caster, basically you just need to get consumptive field and greater consumptive field as spells known, somehow.

[Bullet06320]

in gestalt specialist wizard//any other spell casting class the feat Theurgic Specialist from Dragon Magazine 325 pg 62 is particularly broken for increasing castor level in your specialty school

[Pippin]

There appear to be at least three issues with this approach:

Only the circle leader reaps the benefits of a magic circle. The circle leader must be a Red Wizard 5 or Hathran 4. Both prestige classes require minimum spellcasting abilities. A 1st-level character does not meet them and so cannot be a circle leader.
The circle magic does not raise the caster level by up to 40 levels, it raises it to a maximum of level 40. There seems to be no indication that any dispelled negative levels will simply be added to the 40 caster levels. Instead, the caster level would remain at 40, because that is the maximum that the magic circle can produce.
Any benefit gained form the magic circle is not a full character level, it only counts as a level for very specific purposes. As such, it does not raise the leader’s character level to 40 (for example, the leader does not get increased hit points, bonus feats, etc.). Therefore, even if the circle would work, the wizard would still remain at level 1 and could not take an additional negative level.


Regarding your first point, the fact that my character becomes level 1 doesn't mean he'd lose his class features, does it?
Regarding your second point, it is my understanding that, if you have a level 1 character and increase its level caster to 40, you increase its caster level by 39. Unless I'm mistaken.
Regarding your third point, I'm afraid you're right so I should drop the entire thing.


A wizard5/incantatrix4/mindbender1/ur-priest2/mystic theurge8 (or some approximation thereof) could get an arbitrarily high caster level if:

-You're willing to allow consumptive field and greater consumptive field to stack.
-You're okay with using energy transformation field to obtain an arbitrarily high number of spells per day.

If you're okay with those things, I can go into greater detail. There are some murkier ways to do it as a pure arcane caster, basically you just need to get consumptive field and greater consumptive field as spells known, somehow.
Please elaborate! I'm curious as to why a mindblender would be needed. (CF and greater CG stacking with each other sounds wrong, though.) The fact that you "only" lose two levels of wizard (with Ur-Priest 2) makes it worth a shot.

PS. I'm still sad to see that arbitrarily high caster level still means taking a specific class path, one way or another T_T

[ace rooster]

I’m missing something – how does power leech increase caster level?

It doesn't. It gives you an (uncapped) enhancement bonus to an ability equal to the points you drain from someone, and it drains at 1 per round. It can give you an enhancement to an ability of twice your caster level (extended), which is sweet when used normally, but gets silly when you already have a silly caster level.

I was responding to the question of which necromancy spells work well with high caster levels.

[Kraken]

Please elaborate! I'm curious as to why a mindblender would be needed. (CF and greater CG stacking with each other sounds wrong, though.) The fact that you "only" lose two levels of wizard (with Ur-Priest 2) makes it worth a shot.

PS. I'm still sad to see that arbitrarily high caster level still means taking a specific class path, one way or another T_T

Mindbender is totally unnecessary, I just like it so I threw it in to fill out all 20 levels. The keys to this are the spells absorption, consumptive field, and greater consumptive field, all found in the Spell Compendium. Once you understand the concepts behind the trick, any class combination can pull it off, as long as they're able to cast those spells, and of course have some way of persisting them in order to make the whole ordeal worthwhile. I used the class combination I did because it provides easy, unambiguous access to all spells involved. Anyway, here's the meat:

At your base of operations, you'll want to make yourself two energy transformation fields. One keyed to absorption, another keyed to any level 9 spell that targets you (freedom is a solid choice for being harmless if something goes awry). You'll want to get an at-will way to trigger each energy transformation field, for which any unlimited use magic item is a valid choice. But you'll probably also be persisting shapechange at this level of optimization, and will also probably become familiar with turning into a nightmare via shapechange. Step into your energy transformaton field keyed to absorption, and use a nightmare's astral projection ability, and the field will absorb the magical energy of the astral projection attempt and instead cast absorption on you. Now walk over to the freedom field and attempt to astrally project again. The field will absorb the magical energy and cause freedom to be cast on you instead, which triggers absorption, giving you free spell energy points to spend - absorping 9 levels of spells lets you cast a 9th level spell, or a 5th and 4th for instance: "You can use captured spell energy to cast any spell you know or have prepared, but spells so cast don’t disappear from your list of prepared spells or count against the number of spells you can normally cast per day." You can do this an unlimited number of times in a day to get spell energy as often as you're so inclined.

Note that absorption does not specify arcane or divine spells, or anything else that would restrict the class or type of spells you can use spell energy to cast. With all that spell energy you're simply going to be casting consumptive field and greater consumptive field, over and over. Supposing a starting caster level of 20, you cast consumptive field, and get your caster level up to 30. Then you cast greater consumptive field, and with your caster level of 30 can now get your caster to 45. Then you cast consumptive field again, getting you to 67, then greater consumptive field to get you to 100, consumptive field again to get you to 150, greater consumptive field to get you to 225, and so on. Your only difficult task at this point is finding creatures for consumptive field to absorb. At minimum, with your unlimited spell energy you can create them with polymorph any object. There are probably better and faster ways to do this, I'm sure someone out there can think of a way, I remember there was once a whole thread devoted to this.

[Anthrowhale]

The keys to this are the spells absorption, consumptive field, and greater consumptive field, all found in the Spell Compendium.

You must kill many more creatures and it's slower than stated because multiple Consumptive Field's do not stack.



In cases when two or more identical spells are operating in the same area or on the same target, but at different strengths, only the best one applies.


20->30 (Consumptive Field +10)
30->45 (Greater Consumptive Field +15, CF+10)
45->57 (CF +22, GCF+15)
57->70 (GCF +28, CF+22)
70->83 (CF +35, GCF+28)
etc...

The other issue is that when a target is affected by both CF and GCF, it's not clear they will fail the save to the correct one or that you control the order in which they save. Given this, you really want to apply dispel magic to older CF and GCF, you may need to kill many more, and you want creatures that actually have a chance of saving so some of them will fail the save to the second effect.

[Pippin]

20->30 (Consumptive Field +10)
30->45 (Greater Consumptive Field +15, CF+10)
45->57 (CF +22, GCF+15)
57->70 (GCF +28, CF+22)
70->83 (CF +35, GCF+28)
etc...

The other issue is that when a target is affected by both CF and GCF, it's not clear they will fail the save to the correct one or that you control the order in which they save. Given this, you really want to apply dispel magic to older CF and GCF, you may need to kill many more, and you want creatures that actually have a chance of saving so some of them will fail the save to the second effect.
Yes I was about to point it out but you were faster.

I used a basic program to see how fast it actually escalates:


From step 3. onwards, each spell only grants an additional +13 to CL, so this is linear.


001. CF Bonus = 010, GCF Bonus = 000, Total CL = 030
002. CF Bonus = 010, GCF Bonus = 015, Total CL = 045
003. CF Bonus = 022, GCF Bonus = 015, Total CL = 057
004. CF Bonus = 022, GCF Bonus = 028, Total CL = 070
005. CF Bonus = 035, GCF Bonus = 028, Total CL = 083
006. CF Bonus = 035, GCF Bonus = 041, Total CL = 096
007. CF Bonus = 048, GCF Bonus = 041, Total CL = 109
008. CF Bonus = 048, GCF Bonus = 054, Total CL = 122
009. CF Bonus = 061, GCF Bonus = 054, Total CL = 135
010. CF Bonus = 061, GCF Bonus = 067, Total CL = 148
011. CF Bonus = 074, GCF Bonus = 067, Total CL = 161
012. CF Bonus = 074, GCF Bonus = 080, Total CL = 174
013. CF Bonus = 087, GCF Bonus = 080, Total CL = 187
014. CF Bonus = 087, GCF Bonus = 093, Total CL = 200
015. CF Bonus = 100, GCF Bonus = 093, Total CL = 213
016. CF Bonus = 100, GCF Bonus = 106, Total CL = 226
017. CF Bonus = 113, GCF Bonus = 106, Total CL = 239
018. CF Bonus = 113, GCF Bonus = 119, Total CL = 252
019. CF Bonus = 126, GCF Bonus = 119, Total CL = 265
020. CF Bonus = 126, GCF Bonus = 132, Total CL = 278
021. CF Bonus = 139, GCF Bonus = 132, Total CL = 291
022. CF Bonus = 139, GCF Bonus = 145, Total CL = 304
023. CF Bonus = 152, GCF Bonus = 145, Total CL = 317
024. CF Bonus = 152, GCF Bonus = 158, Total CL = 330
025. CF Bonus = 165, GCF Bonus = 158, Total CL = 343
026. CF Bonus = 165, GCF Bonus = 171, Total CL = 356
027. CF Bonus = 178, GCF Bonus = 171, Total CL = 369
028. CF Bonus = 178, GCF Bonus = 184, Total CL = 382
029. CF Bonus = 191, GCF Bonus = 184, Total CL = 395
030. CF Bonus = 191, GCF Bonus = 197, Total CL = 408
031. CF Bonus = 204, GCF Bonus = 197, Total CL = 421
032. CF Bonus = 204, GCF Bonus = 210, Total CL = 434
033. CF Bonus = 217, GCF Bonus = 210, Total CL = 447
034. CF Bonus = 217, GCF Bonus = 223, Total CL = 460
035. CF Bonus = 230, GCF Bonus = 223, Total CL = 473
036. CF Bonus = 230, GCF Bonus = 236, Total CL = 486
037. CF Bonus = 243, GCF Bonus = 236, Total CL = 499
038. CF Bonus = 243, GCF Bonus = 249, Total CL = 512
039. CF Bonus = 256, GCF Bonus = 249, Total CL = 525
040. CF Bonus = 256, GCF Bonus = 262, Total CL = 538
041. CF Bonus = 269, GCF Bonus = 262, Total CL = 551
042. CF Bonus = 269, GCF Bonus = 275, Total CL = 564
043. CF Bonus = 282, GCF Bonus = 275, Total CL = 577
044. CF Bonus = 282, GCF Bonus = 288, Total CL = 590
045. CF Bonus = 295, GCF Bonus = 288, Total CL = 603
046. CF Bonus = 295, GCF Bonus = 301, Total CL = 616
047. CF Bonus = 308, GCF Bonus = 301, Total CL = 629
048. CF Bonus = 308, GCF Bonus = 314, Total CL = 642
049. CF Bonus = 321, GCF Bonus = 314, Total CL = 655
050. CF Bonus = 321, GCF Bonus = 327, Total CL = 668
051. CF Bonus = 334, GCF Bonus = 327, Total CL = 681
052. CF Bonus = 334, GCF Bonus = 340, Total CL = 694
053. CF Bonus = 347, GCF Bonus = 340, Total CL = 707
054. CF Bonus = 347, GCF Bonus = 353, Total CL = 720
055. CF Bonus = 360, GCF Bonus = 353, Total CL = 733
056. CF Bonus = 360, GCF Bonus = 366, Total CL = 746
057. CF Bonus = 373, GCF Bonus = 366, Total CL = 759
058. CF Bonus = 373, GCF Bonus = 379, Total CL = 772
059. CF Bonus = 386, GCF Bonus = 379, Total CL = 785
060. CF Bonus = 386, GCF Bonus = 392, Total CL = 798
061. CF Bonus = 399, GCF Bonus = 392, Total CL = 811
062. CF Bonus = 399, GCF Bonus = 405, Total CL = 824
063. CF Bonus = 412, GCF Bonus = 405, Total CL = 837
064. CF Bonus = 412, GCF Bonus = 418, Total CL = 850
065. CF Bonus = 425, GCF Bonus = 418, Total CL = 863
066. CF Bonus = 425, GCF Bonus = 431, Total CL = 876
067. CF Bonus = 438, GCF Bonus = 431, Total CL = 889
068. CF Bonus = 438, GCF Bonus = 444, Total CL = 902
069. CF Bonus = 451, GCF Bonus = 444, Total CL = 915
070. CF Bonus = 451, GCF Bonus = 457, Total CL = 928
071. CF Bonus = 464, GCF Bonus = 457, Total CL = 941
072. CF Bonus = 464, GCF Bonus = 470, Total CL = 954
073. CF Bonus = 477, GCF Bonus = 470, Total CL = 967
074. CF Bonus = 477, GCF Bonus = 483, Total CL = 980
075. CF Bonus = 490, GCF Bonus = 483, Total CL = 993



At your base of operations, you'll want to make yourself two energy transformation fields. One keyed to absorption, another keyed to any level 9 spell that targets you (freedom is a solid choice for being harmless if something goes awry). You'll want to get an at-will way to trigger each energy transformation field, for which any unlimited use magic item is a valid choice. But you'll probably also be persisting shapechange at this level of optimization, and will also probably become familiar with turning into a nightmare via shapechange. Step into your energy transformaton field keyed to absorption, and use a nightmare's astral projection ability, and the field will absorb the magical energy of the astral projection attempt and instead cast absorption on you. Now walk over to the freedom field and attempt to astrally project again. The field will absorb the magical energy and cause freedom to be cast on you instead, which triggers absorption, giving you free spell energy points to spend - absorping 9 levels of spells lets you cast a 9th level spell, or a 5th and 4th for instance: "You can use captured spell energy to cast any spell you know or have prepared, but spells so cast don’t disappear from your list of prepared spells or count against the number of spells you can normally cast per day." You can do this an unlimited number of times in a day to get spell energy as often as you're so inclined.

Note that absorption does not specify arcane or divine spells, or anything else that would restrict the class or type of spells you can use spell energy to cast. With all that spell energy you're simply going to be casting consumptive field and greater consumptive field, over and over. Supposing a starting caster level of 20, you cast consumptive field, and get your caster level up to 30. Then you cast greater consumptive field, and with your caster level of 30 can now get your caster to 45. Then you cast consumptive field again, getting you to 67, then greater consumptive field to get you to 100, consumptive field again to get you to 150, greater consumptive field to get you to 225, and so on. Your only difficult task at this point is finding creatures for consumptive field to absorb. At minimum, with your unlimited spell energy you can create them with polymorph any object. There are probably better and faster ways to do this, I'm sure someone out there can think of a way, I remember there was once a whole thread devoted to this.
That is very clever, well done. You aren't using Lv8/Lv9 divine spells with this (unless I overlooked something) so you don't need more than 5 levels of Mystic Theurge!

I'm still having a hard time convincing me that CF and GCF stack, though.

[Kraken]

Anthro: Consumptive field's duration is merely rounds/level. You can simply let old ones expire instead - the level of optimization at play here probably doesn't preclude customized demiplanes, so I'm not too worried about time being an issue. You're right though, I did botch the math on how it'd scale upwards.

Pippin: Technically they stack because they're not identical spells (see the stacking rules Anthro posted). It's outrageously cheesy, but it's true.

[Pippin]

I used the class combination I did because it provides easy, unambiguous access to all spells involved..
I believe choosing arcane disciple as a feat would be enough, if you choose the Luck domain (Miracle). Just link energy transformation field with maximized absorption if you don't want to fail miracle 50% of the time!

[Kraken]

It's less clear that CF and GCF are no longer identical when cast via miracle, though. Because technically you're not casting those spells, it's miracle mimicking their effects, so both bonuses are being provided by the same spell. However, the miracle's effects are slightly different each time. Whether this is enough to be considered identical or not is totally unclear, and something I'd check with your DM on. Arcane disciple (luck) or planar touchstone (catalogs of enlightenment, luck) are solid as feats already though, so they might be worth picking up regardless. Algid enhancement (Frostburn) and mantle of the icy soul (originally Frostburn changed in Spell Comp.) are spells that you can miracle in to take advantage of your outrageous caster level.

[Pippin]

It's less clear that CF and GCF are no longer identical when cast via miracle, though. Because technically you're not casting those spells, it's miracle mimicking their effects, so both bonuses are being provided by the same spell. However, the miracle's effects are slightly different each time. Whether this is enough to be considered identical or not is totally unclear, and something I'd check with your DM on. Arcane disciple (luck) or planar touchstone (catalogs of enlightenment, luck) are solid as feats already though, so they might be worth picking up regardless. Algid enhancement (Frostburn) and mantle of the icy soul (originally Frostburn changed in Spell Comp.) are spells that you can miracle in to take advantage of your outrageous caster level.
I see the problem, you're right. Still, I'd rather use limited wish to mimic CF each time, rather than botch my entire class path. Since we reach CL 1000+ with 76 different castings (38 miracles and 38 limited wishes), that's only 11,400 XP required. If CL 1000 isn't enough for some reason, you can always buy two Thought Bottles and repeat almost indefinitely. :smallbiggrin:

[atemu1234]

Mindbender is totally unnecessary.

No, no it's not. You need some way to get bluff as a class skill, and that's one of the easier ways.

[shaikujin]

If customized demiplanes are on the table, just make 1 that has enhanced magic traits.

Traits - All arcance spells are empowered, maximized, persisted, heighted by 1000 spell levels, CL +1000.

Then cast planar bubble to bring the traits to where ever you go.

No specific class levels required.

It's a cop-out (compared to class optimization exercises) and cheesy beyond words though.

[Flickerdart]

In terms of stacking negative levels on yourself for whatever reason, you can use an awaken loop to give yourself an arbitrary number of HD, and then burn them off later with level drain.

[Forrestfire]

Or Reincarnate them away to keep the BAB, feats, and skill points.

Why not just use Reserves of Strength to uncap a Consumptive Field and then find a few anthills and beehives (or a commoner with infinite chickens). It lasts one round per level, and the duration should go up every time you kill something. Just make sure you kill at least 14,400 things with it per day, and you're good.

I guess technically Imbue With Spell Ability would give them the ability to cast at your CL, but not truly share CL with them...