Sand Shaper Warlock -- Blatant abuse of RAI: Is it RAW though?

[Demidos]

Hey all,

I was thinking about how one would go about boosting the versatility of a warlock, and happened to think of the sandshaper. Now, the warlock is technically treated as an arcane caster of their level. The sand shaper prestige class states "If you are a spontaneous caster (such as a sorcerer), these spells are available to you like any other spell you know. You cannot cast a spell of higher level than the maximum spell level you can cast. These spells become options for you when you gain access to the appropriate spell level."

A post on rpgstackexchange states the rules of warlocks taking prestige classes as --


Spell-like abilities have Caster Levels, and therefore things that require a particular Caster Level can be met with a spell-like ability that has sufficient Caster Level. Warlock invocations are specifically arcane, which means they can also meet requirements for Arcane Caster Level.
Having spell-like abilities is not the same as knowing how to cast spells; no number of spell-like abilities allows one to qualify as being “able to cast spells” of any level, even if one knows spell-like abilities that emulate spells of a higher level.
Spell-like abilities that mimic particular spells, on the other hand, do count as those spells for the purposes of requirements.


What would this get you? Well it would almost certainly pull a warlock up to tier 3, with the likes of moderately powerful combat summons with Summon Desert's ally, utility with dispel magic and some transmutation spells, and some BFC with wall of sand and haboob. However, it would not give it anything utterly broken, and actually could be quite a formidable high tier 3. The lack of special abilities on the summons would leave it lower in tier than the binder vestige, but it seems quite interesting.

Thoughts on balance and/or whether there is anything RAW to prevent this?

[Vaz]

You know the spell. You can't cast the spell.

[Troacctid]

You can qualify for and take the prestige class, but there's not a whole lot of reason to, since the biggest draw of Sand Shaper is the extra spells known, and you don't get those.

You do get some other abilities, but they're not really worth losing a level for. I would not take Sand Shaper on a Warlock.

[Demidos]

Right, I get what you guys are saying, which is indeed the most logical interpretation.

More specifically though, sand shaper states "these spells are available to you like any other spell you know". By a close RAW reading, there is an argument for them granting them as SLAs at will, since the warlock's invocations are treated as "spells known" for the purposes of prestige class stuff.

Can you see a line that would make this NOT true, despite obviously being, as stated in the thread title, not at all the expected use of the respective abilities?

[Troacctid]

Right, I get what you guys are saying, which is indeed the most logical interpretation.

More specifically though, sand shaper states "these spells are available to you like any other spell you know". By a close RAW reading, there is an argument for them granting them as SLAs at will, since the warlock's invocations are treated as "spells known" for the purposes of prestige class stuff.

Can you see a line that would make this NOT true, despite obviously being, as stated in the thread title, not at all the expected use of the respective abilities.
That only applies to spontaneous spellcasters. Warlocks do not cast spells spontaneously, nor do they know any spells. Invocations are not spells. There's absolutely no RAW argument for it. Sorry. 😕

[Gruftzwerg]

Troacctid is 100% correct on topic. no RAW arguments, since warlocks never gain access to cast a spell of a certain level. They invoke SLA's and that doesn't count here.


I was thinking about how one would go about boosting the versatility of a warlock

The base build for a versatile warlock is normally warlock 12 / chameleon 2. You get Imbue Item and a floating feat to use for crafting. That's the base to build upon.

Maybe try Effigy Master. You could build Effigy and even equip em with magic items.

edit: forgot to mention that the floating feat can also be used for "extra invocation" to build an undead in downtimes and change it when heading into fights.

edit2: since we now have a lil army of undead and effigy with magic items, we could add something with good buff skills for the last 5lvl, dunno what atm..^^

[Demidos]

Fair enough. That is a valid complaint from a RAW perspective, though I feel like that's a fairly general statement that is used in the PRC to explain how the spells are gained, and were we talking about a more general class ability and were I not skating on such thin ice myself, I would probably contend that more.

While looking into that, however, I noticed Sand Shaper specifies you only gain the spells known once you learn spells of that level, and invocations are specifically not applicable as spells of a certain level (CAr pg. 71), which is a final nail in that coffin.

In short, I bow to your superior wisdom. Many thanks!

[icefractal]

Would it work with Nosomatic Chirurgeon (Eberron PrC, from Dragonmarked, I think) though? NS lets you convert SLAs into casting Inflict spells (specifically spells, not SLAs).

It does limit it by spell level (must be <= to SLA used), but that would still be very nice.

[Troacctid]

Would it work with Nosomatic Chirurgeon (Eberron PrC, from Dragonmarked, I think) though? NS lets you convert SLAs into casting Inflict spells (specifically spells, not SLAs).

It does limit it by spell level (must be <= to SLA used), but that would still be very nice.
No, you still don't have spells known.


The base build for a versatile warlock is normally warlock 12 / chameleon 2. You get Imbue Item and a floating feat to use for crafting. That's the base to build upon.
That's not really the base or the standard FYI, but whatever, I won't go into it in this thread.