Obtain Familiar question

[schreier]

I was surprised to find varied interpretation of this sentence, "[f]or the purpose of determining familiar abilities that depend on your arcane caster class level, your levels in all classes that allow you to cast arcane spells stack."

Some people said that the +1 to existing spellcasting class didn't count, since it didn't allow you to cast spells, it just made you better at them. Not sure I buy that argument, but I figured I would double check here. My interpretation is that any class that improves arcane casting counts ... but I guess I could be wrong?

It also brought up the question about classes with less than full progression. For example, Green Star Adept (it's weak, and no one takes it, but it does demonstrate the question) - 1/2 spell progression, starting at level 2 ... do all of the levels count in this case?

What about something like Loremaster or Dweomerkeeper, where it allows you to improve either divine or arcane casting? Does it depend on which casting level you actually improved? If you go half and half (since you can pick each level), what then?

I'm assuming something like Ultimate Magus would just count once, even though it improved two spellcasting classes?

Thanks in advance
schreier

[SangoProduction]

Way I would do it, if the class advances arcane casting at all, its level counts toward the feat. If the GM is really hating the idea, you could probably compromise to let it only advance on levels that directly grant arcane progression.

[schreier]

Makes sense to me .... and that's my thought as well. The only one I'm not certain about would be the ones that you can pick Divine or Arcane (Loremaster / Dweomerkeeper) - I'm tempted to go w/ just the levels you increase Arcane then on those (basically, it's just an arcane class for those levels you increase arcane, but it's divine for the others)

[Odin's Eyepatch]

When I hit this sort of question, my first thought is: what was the developer trying to do? What seems like the most obvious interpretation? I too, thought that the "+1 to existing arcane caster level" applied to your familiar. It was my first interpretation of the feat, and it was only afterwards that I heard about the disagreement that some people have with it. I then checked with the rest of the table, who also saw the first interpretation as the more obvious one, and that's why we are sticking with it.



But the real clincher was this example (using the less favourable interpretation, where each class must grant its own spellcasting):

One character is a Sorcerer/Assassin with obtain familiar, and all of his levels count towards the familiar.
The other is a sorcerer/incantatrix (with the familiar feat), but only his sorcerer levels contribute to his familiar. Despite having more magical power, its familiar is distinctly weaker.

It is the first character, with a lot less arcane power, that has the strongest familiar. This felt wrong with our group, and convinced us that the more favourable interpretation (everything that also gives you +1 to existing arcane caster level) was the right one.

Obviously this is still all highly subjective, but that is how we worked it out in our group :smallsmile:



And I agree that only your arcane caster level should count, not anything that could also potentially increase divine. Similarly, with the Ultimate Magus, I would say that each level in it only counts once for your familiar level.

Finally, the familiar does not gain much after hitting arcane level 5, so it wouldn't be a huge power problem if you just let it continue to advance with every prestige class (with the obtain familiar feat).

[Venger]

I was surprised to find varied interpretation of this sentence, "[f]or the purpose of determining familiar abilities that depend on your arcane caster class level, your levels in all classes that allow you to cast arcane spells stack."

Some people said that the +1 to existing spellcasting class didn't count, since it didn't allow you to cast spells, it just made you better at them. Not sure I buy that argument, but I figured I would double check here. My interpretation is that any class that improves arcane casting counts ... but I guess I could be wrong?

It also brought up the question about classes with less than full progression. For example, Green Star Adept (it's weak, and no one takes it, but it does demonstrate the question) - 1/2 spell progression, starting at level 2 ... do all of the levels count in this case?

What about something like Loremaster or Dweomerkeeper, where it allows you to improve either divine or arcane casting? Does it depend on which casting level you actually improved? If you go half and half (since you can pick each level), what then?

I'm assuming something like Ultimate Magus would just count once, even though it improved two spellcasting classes?

Thanks in advance
schreier

There is no ambiguity in this feat. +spellcasting advances spellcasting. if you're wizard 3/master specialist 5, then your level for improved familiar is 8. No arguing necesary.

GSA is trash. it gives 1/2 casting, so it'd give you +5 to your familiar over the coure of its 10 level.

if you picked loremaster and theurged for some reason (don't), only the +arcane levels count.

ultimate magus... is a point of contention. I'm assuming you're talking about taking it the way the man wants and not through alacritous cogitation or similar. the intent is that each level gives you +1 level of a class at most, but talk to your DM if you want to pull any tricks.

[schreier]

Only reason I'd theurge (and is the case here) is in epic ... once you hit 20 mage, additional caster levels seem to lose value (making an npc)

[Crake]

Only reason I'd theurge (and is the case here) is in epic ... once you hit 20 mage, additional caster levels seem to lose value (making an npc)

If you want to theurge, i'd suggest double arcane theurging. There are rules for extending prc beyond 10 for epic, using any repeating patterns. You can use this with the Ultimate Magus to make a level 28 character with level 9 spontaneous and prepared casting, versatile spellcaster to be able to spontaneously cast anything from your (presumably eidetic) spellbook, along with a crazy amount of spellslots that can be used to spontaneously apply metamagic to spells. Additionally, you'd have a caster level above 30 thanks to arcane spellpower. I have a build somewhere that I use for a demon lord (the progression is gestalted all the way with outsider HD, but you can just ignore that if you want).

The build, all up, was the following: Elven Generalist wizard 1/Sorcerer 2/Wizard 2/Ultimate Magus 10/Sorcerer PrC 5 (i picked a 3rd party seducer prc here, but anything works, including 5 levels of incantatrix if desired)/Epic Ultimate Magus 8

That's 28 levels, with the epic ultimate magus progression granting extra arcane spellpower every 3 levels and getting expanded spell knowledge every 2nd level. Additionally, 18 levels of Ultimate Magus lets you use Augmented casting on 9th level spells, and if you repeat the spellcasting progression from the first 10 levels (resulting in a total of 12/18 progression to both sides, and an additional 6 to place on either side) you should end up with a total of 20/20 sorcerer/wizard casting.

Being an elf is nice for the proficiency feats that you can DCFS away, and at level 28, you can use the DCFS to nab a bunch of epic spells, including 3x automatic still/silent for up to 9th level spells, along with all the metamagic you could want for use with Augmented casting.

When you cast a persisted shapechange and persisted selective antimagic field at that level on both you and your familiar, it's not really gonna matter whether or not you get the full progression, cause it's gonna run around rampaging everything anyway.

[Segev]

Does it have to get 8 levels into Epic before it has 9ths? That seems awfully late, not really that powerful.

[Crake]

Does it have to get 8 levels into Epic before it has 9ths? That seems awfully late, not really that powerful.

nah, it can have 9ths as early as 18 or 19 with a few tweaks (namely putting the sorc prc levels into wizard instead), though doing it that way would mean that you would cap wizard while while UM still double advances, so you'd be being rather wasteful. Note that 28 is when it hits double 20 progression, you can still cast 9ths on your wizard side by 24 (26 for your sorc side) while maintaining roughly equal progression, just in time for your second epic feat to nab epic spellcasting (this made me notice that I'd penciled in epic spellcasting at 21 on the spreadsheet, when it should be at 24. I'd recommend ignore material components at 21).

The aim of the build was focused around equal casting progression, but also allowed the use of things like using DCFS, sanctum spell, snowcasting, and extra spell slot to nab a 9th level slot a little earlier. It's not a build meant to be done level by level for characters, and is strictly based on the history of a demon lord in my setting.

The main perk of 18 levels of ultimate magus is that you can use the augment casting ability on 9th level spells, along with the abundance of spell slots, and versatile spellcaster to give you access to anything you want when you need it. Putting more focus on a single side will mean it will cap out at 20 earlier, at which point a decent portion of Ultimate Magus' benefit (the dual progression) becomes pointless. For example, a build that focused entirely on wizard casting could get wizard 19 by level 20, and only sorcerer 8. At that point, 2 levels of Ultimate Magus would cap out wizard, and then the rest seems pointless to take, short of capping out augmented casting, so at 22, you'd have wizard 20 and sorcerer 10, and you'd need another 10 levels in some other prc (incantatrix can be a good fit here I suppose), capping at 32, 4 levels later.

It remains my favourite final build to date, but I would never actually play it level by level, because yes, it would be rather underwhelming compared to other casters (though I suppose if you were the only caster in the party, you might not feel so bad)

tl;dr: 9ths are at 24, augment casting on 9th level spells, and double 20 sorc/wiz progression is at 28

[Chronos]

Quoth Odin's Eyepatch:

But the real clincher was this example (using the less favourable interpretation, where each class must grant its own spellcasting):

One character is a Sorcerer/Assassin with obtain familiar, and all of his levels count towards the familiar.
The other is a sorcerer/incantatrix (with the familiar feat), but only his sorcerer levels contribute to his familiar. Despite having more magical power, its familiar is distinctly weaker.
On the other hand, a sorcerer 10/wizard 10 (with no particular feats, and with the default familiar granted by the core rules) would have a 20th-level familiar, while a sorcerer 10/loremaster 10, with significantly greater magical power, would have only a 10th-level familiar. I expect that the intent of Obtain Familiar was that it would behave in the same way as the normal class-feature familiar, just extending the list of classes that have it as a feature.