Why does Caster Level matter? (Above 15)

[StevenC21]

I understand some spells are affected by it. But almost all of them are capped at 5/10/15 CL. What's the point of having a CL above that? I'm not talking about spell slots. Like, if I'm a 20th level Wizard, what do I gain from wearing something that boosts CL?

[Chrion]

Off the top of my head, a higher caster level is vital for protecting against dispel magic/ dispelling other people's buffs. So, even if you are a playing a God wizard, you want to be sure that your battlefield control spells/buffs stick around even when people start slinging dispel magic around.

[StevenC21]

Alright, thanks. I guess I'm just annoyed that CL doesn't affect DC for spells in some way. Especially since at high levels your lower tier spells become super easy to overcome. Gah!

[JoshuaZ]

Chrion gave a good answer, but there are other aspects also.

Duration also matters, and penetrating spell resistance. And even with level caps, most high level spells have high caps. Also, some utility spells have other aspects which depend on caster level (e.g. animate dead and similar spells).

[flappeercraft]

Well you can easily break the cap of a spell with the feat Reserves of Strength.

[Silva Stormrage]

Plus there are some very good spells which don't have caps. Wings of Flurry and Maw of Chaos come to mind for offense and plenty of other things like Animate Dead for utility.

Other factors include number of targets for spells which is almost never capped. Spells like chain lightning for example.

[Psyren]

As others have mentioned, even when damage is capped, targets and duration usually aren't.

What's even more important is Manifester Level, because it drives everything - damage, targets, duration, PR/SR, augments/DCs, metapsionics etc.

[Jack_Simth]

I understand some spells are affected by it. But almost all of them are capped at 5/10/15 CL. What's the point of having a CL above that? I'm not talking about spell slots. Like, if I'm a 20th level Wizard, what do I gain from wearing something that boosts CL?

Just the low level ones are capped that way. Higher level ones have higher caps. I suspect it's to encourage you to use higher level slots at higher levels. 1st level spells usually cap at 5. 2nd and 3rd, at 10. 4th and 5th, at 15. 6th and 7th, at 20. 8th and 9th, 25. There's exceptions - occasionally a spell is a category off, no cap is in play, the spell does a fixed thing and no cap applies, a spell inherits a cap from a lower level version, the cap is based on a different spell list where it's a different spell level, or similar - but for the most part, that's the pattern. And it's not just damage - Moment of Prescience (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/momentOfPrescience.htm) also caps at a +25 bonus. Polymorph (4th level spell) caps at 15 hit die forms (which PaO inherits... maybe...). Shapechange caps at 25 HD forms. And so on.

Edit: Oh yes, and what everyone says. SR penetration, range, dispel resistance, and duration will very often key off of caster level.

[Jack_Simth]

Outside these 3 cases CL isn't worth a damn.Even on spells with a cap, unless you are playing above the caps, or are already boosting caster level a lot, caster level will come into play coming up to those caps. Lots of nice Shapechange forms have more than 17 hit dice, after all.

[ezekielraiden]

Others have covered the more general stuff but, in my (relatively limited) experience of high-level 3.5e, caster level *checks* are more common than you might think. Being able to say, "nah bron my CL is 24 even though I'm only level 17" is very helpful in enough minor contexts that...yeah, if you factor in all the *other* bonuses, it's super worth getting.

I also find that DMs have a tendency to invoke some kind of check that benefits from higher CL (perhaps dispel checks, but others too) often enough that I am really glad I listened to conventional wisdom. For once in my charop life, I really have found the received wisdom to be actually wise.

[T.G. Oskar]

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but you need CL 17th to cast 9th level spells.

If you check the Magic section, where Caster Level is explained, it makes a very specific ruling; "you can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question". To cast a 9th level Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer or Wizard spell, you must have a caster level of 17th or higher, because that's the level in which you acquire those spells (provided you remain at that class). Now, some spells are exceptions (Lesser Restoration is a 1st level Paladin spell, so the Paladin can cast it at CL 2nd, which correlates to the first time it gains 1st level spells through bonus spells; also, note that the Paladin can't cast spells by reducing its CL to 1st, if you use the same logic), but for the most part, that's the intention.

[Mordaedil]

Some 8th and 9th level spells (such as polar ray) have damage caps beyond 20th level.

[Elkad]

1. Dispel Magic. Don't want your persisted spells dispelled.
2. Spell Resistance. You need high CL to overcome spell resistance.
3. Spells without a cap. To create a 144hd Simulacrum of an Iron Colossus you need CL144. I can't hit that high even with all the cheese accessible to me (minus red wizard because i can't fit that PrC onto my build) so I settle for like CL100 scrolls of Simulacrum i can UMD with outrageously high CL scrolls of Improvisation which also doesn't have a cap to CL.

Outside these 3 cases CL isn't worth a damn.

edit:Also duration. Sufficiently high enough caster level will make 1 round/CL spells last an hour.

Agreed. Dispel resistance and SR penetration are both reasons enough on their own to keep pushing CL.

Even in a low-op game, something as simple as getting to 24 hour duration on your 1hr/level spells is also nice, so your daily buffstack is always running without needing 17 various Extend rods.


Well you can easily break the cap of a spell with the feat Reserves of Strength.

No, you can easily bend the cap slightly (3 levels) with RoS. Breaking it requires as big a RAW over RAI interpretation as drowning people to heal them.

[Menzath]

Besides the above mentioned, the other two uses for a high caster lvl tend to be spell range, and area.

I know I want a high enough CL for my fimbulwinter to effect most of the setting(if not the entire continent/planet).

And trying to "snipe" with short range spells without a high CL takes way to much metamagic.

[Ruethgar]

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but you need CL 17th to cast 9th level spells.
The issue is that, aside from the Fireball spell, no minimum caster level is ever defined. You can interpret it to mean when you get access to that spell level, but that is a house rule. You can take all the mage hunter feats and cast at -12 CL all you like if you were so inclined, gets a little strange since most damage spells heal at negative CL.

[fallensavior]

At least for the core classes the minimum CL is spelled out in the item creation section. For Sublime Chord or Nar Demonbinder your guess is good as mine since you can get their spells to CL2, but the core classes have spelled out minimum CLs.

Agreed. See DMG chapter seven.

[Ruethgar]

Please site, paragraph 3 under Creating Magic Items p283 only gives the minimum for Fireball and presumably 3rd level spells in general but doesn’t actually define the metric for any other spells.

[ericgrau]

It doesn't matter much for most spells, but you get to pick your spells and your build. There are some spells and other abilities where caster level makes a huge, huge difference. So you pick those. Holy word is a famous example. But there are many others too, some of which are also being brought up in this thread. Both spells and other effects of caster level.

So if you build around it caster level is very powerful and highly abusable. Or even if you don't build around it and switch some prepared spells.

5 minutes ago I was critical of trying to call something powerful for bringing up specific situations that you can't always choose (sometimes you can which is what made it not useless). But with caster level you can pick exactly what you apply it to and stack the deck in your favor. And these are very powerful effects. That makes it uber.

[fallensavior]

Please site, paragraph 3 under Creating Magic Items p283 only gives the minimum for Fireball and presumably 3rd level spells in general but doesn’t actually define the metric for any other spells.

The tables list a value for every possible minimum caster level up to 9th level spells for each core class. Yes, text is a primary source over tables when they conflict, but these tables do not disagree with the Fireball example or any other text.

[Particle_Man]

There are a lot of critters out there with SR.

There is a reason that the Practised Spellcaster is seen as a "Feat tax" for eldritch Knight/mystic theurge/arcane trickster types.

[Cosi]

It also depends how big of a CL bump you're talking about. Two or three points of CL isn't a big deal for most things. Five or ten points makes some things spike in power (as noted, holy word is a central example of this), but isn't a huge deal generally. And then you have the tricks that let you get basically infinite CL, which allow you to do things like make divine power last all day without using Persistent Spell.

[flappeercraft]

No, you can easily bend the cap slightly (3 levels) with RoS. Breaking it requires as big a RAW over RAI interpretation as drowning people to heal them.

Fair enough, I'm just so used to using literal RAW to the point of drown healing being a thing that I occasionally even forget of thinking RAI.

[ericgrau]

There are a lot of critters out there with SR.

There is a reason that the Practised Spellcaster is seen as a "Feat tax" for eldritch Knight/mystic theurge/arcane trickster types.
I don't see why EK, other blended casters or even most full casters should be using SR yes spells. It is nice for extending buff duration a little on the blends but I wouldn't see it as feat tax. You could get items too, settle for less buffs, or etc.

But yeah for full casters the ability to bust SR does open up more spell options on foes with SR, rather than simply using SR no spells. And dispel protection on buffs, your own dispelling and longer buffs. And many specific spells that get better with a high caster level, besides just their duration. There's also the polymorph line and other HD capped spells for example. Mass CLW: hits friends and foes, high CL cap. Etc., etc.

[Endarire]

Because you want to do more sooner with spells. Getting +5 AC from barkskin at level 12 is on par. Getting it at character level 6 or below is ahead of the curve. It's a similar notion to dealing 6d6 damage at level 6 or 10d6 damage at level 6.

I'm also a big fan of boosting CL for duration. Sometimes, the difference between base CL and boosted CL effects means you can make a spell last another fight or floor or day or more!

[heavyfuel]

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but you need CL 17th to cast 9th level spells.

If you check the Magic section, where Caster Level is explained, it makes a very specific ruling; "you can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question"

You do need it. INB4 someone willfully misinterpreting that that only Fireball has a minimum CL even though the language used in the book clearly refers to all spells.... Oops, seems I'm too late


Well you can easily break the cap of a spell with the feat Reserves of Strength.

Assuming your DM allows for the more permissive reading of the feat.

[Mordaedil]

For a long time I thought I could actually cast all spells at a lower level than necessary, but I never saw a real reason to do so. But the rules on spellcasting very explicitly state you must have a casterlevel high enough to cast the spell in the first place. So there's always a band on what casterlevel your spells can be cast at, and some spells have caps on their usefulness.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Most benefits have been covered already. CL boosters probably matter more at mid levels (it's nice to have +5 weapons with colossal damage dice from Greater Magic Weapon and Greater Mighty Wallop at mid-levels), but they still matter at level 20. To add to the list, Disjunction has a 1%-per-CL chance of removing AMFs, uncapped.

When you're level 20, your direct attack spells should either have no save or be in high-level slots to maximize their effectiveness. Your lower level spell slots should be buffs, BFC, utility, and so on. Those types of spells often benefit quite a bit from CL boosting because they're dependent on the things already mentioned: Duration/Area/Range/Targets. For example, Wall of Force still has its uses in the late game and adds one 10' square of wall per CL.

[StevenC21]

I've never seen a spell that does any significant damage with no save.

Can you give an example?

[gkathellar]

I've never seen a spell that does any significant damage with no save.

Can you give an example?

Any of the Orb spells? Touch spells in general, really. There are AoEs like Ice Storm, too.

[StevenC21]

Ah, I didn't consider Touch spells. Thank you.

[magic9mushroom]

I've never seen a spell that does any significant damage with no save.

Can you give an example?

Orb of X, Meteor Swarm (assuming you hit), Maw of Chaos, Scorching Ray. There are also a bunch of debuffs with no save, like Waves of Exhaustion, Shivering Touch, Enervation and Power Word X.

[StevenC21]

Enervation

Ah, yes. I love to use a Quickened SplitCA Enervation to rapidly break down the ability of an enemy to fight. Then, I usually do that a couple more times until I can start hitting with my save-or-suck spells, such as Stop HeartBoVD​. Fun times.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The psionic power swarm of crystals is no save, no PR, no DR, just damage, in a 15' cone. The only defenses against it are resistance to slashing damage that isn't DR, immunity to slashing damage, and immunity to damage period. The main drawbacks are that it's very short range, and it only deals 1d4 damage per power point spent. The more MLs you have, the higher the pp cap and the more d4s you get to roll.

I managed to kill an epic BBEG with it at level 16, once, and she was ensconced in an antipsionic field effect with super-high saves and tons of spells to boost her resistances and immunities sky-high, including immunity to non-magical weapon damage. Swarm of crystals was about the only thing anyone in the whole party had that could hurt her, and I managed to whip out enough action economy breakage and metapsionic abuse that she died on the surprise round, before she could even act.

And she thought she'd blackmailed me into being her [Evil] mole in a mostly-[Good] party. I showed her. And then I got all her epic gear for myself. The party was terrified that I was about to wipe them out, since she'd outed me as her co-opted minion only moments before, but instead I spat on her corpse and asked the party when dinner was.

Good times.

[magic9mushroom]

The psionic power swarm of crystals is no save, no PR, no DR, just damage, in a 15' cone. The only defenses against it are resistance to slashing damage that isn't DR, immunity to slashing damage, and immunity to damage period.

Complete Psionic specifies that DR applies to metacreativity powers that deal slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage. It's in a sidebar on page 79.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Complete Psionic specifies that DR applies to metacreativity powers that deal slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage. It's in a sidebar on page 79.Complete Psionic is also not errata and has no ability to act as such.

[AmeVulpes]

A lot of spells do things similar to wall of force, expanding their area/volume (not just range) with CL. Reverse Gravity varies wildly in usefulness, in my experience, based on that. CL is the difference between flinging them way up, or just hovering them a bit, and between targeting most of the encounter and absolutely everyone.

And who doesn't want to use a cantrip (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Create_Water) to produce arbitrarily massive amounts of water?

EDIT: sorry for the non-sequitur, I didn't notice that there was a page 2.

[magic9mushroom]

Complete Psionic is also not errata and has no ability to act as such.

As a matter of fact, I don't believe there are any explicit rules regarding damage reduction and non-energy powers. What, precisely, would CPsi need to errata?

That little oddity aside, Rules Compendium does note that specific trumps general, and a statement on how one power interacts with one special ability is about as specific as you can get.

[PrismCat21]

~snip~

I do believe that's game, folks. :D

[MaxiDuRaritry]

As a matter of fact, I don't believe there are any explicit rules regarding damage reduction and non-energy powers. What, precisely, would CPsi need to errata?Adding DR to effects that are not subject to them (which spells and powers are not).

If I say that that empty sky over there now has a rainbow in it even though it doesn't, things would have to change for that piece of sky to have a rainbow. Just because nobody said the sky didn't have a rainbow in it doesn't mean it had one but nobody noticed.


That little oddity aside, Rules Compendium does note that specific trumps general, and a statement on how one power interacts with one special ability is about as specific as you can get.And CustServe made up a ton of very specific stuff to go along with the rules (and in many cases were flat-out wrong, according to RAW). That doesn't mean they had the authority to overwrite the rules to go along with whatever crap they were spouting that day.


I do believe that's game, folks. :DAnd it's a game of make-believe.

[edit] According to the entry on Damage Reduction:


Damage Reduction
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.DR only affects weapons and natural attacks, not magical attacks that aren't those things.