SangoProduction
2019-08-10, 06:27 AM
Well, depends on the definition of "cheese." Any amount of optimization is going to be seen as cheesy by someone.
Spheres of Power has several Caster Level bonuses available through tradition boons. If we take enough drawbacks (which would be rather incredibly difficult, but with the new Oath subsystem, you can just take Vow of Poverty, and gain 4 of these, no casting drawbacks required). I will sort the options from best to worst, considering the bonus to CL, and the requisite conditions for them to be active.
Wild Surge: +2 CL, and have a +100% chance of having a wild magic event. Is that even a drawback? I love it! *Friends die in chaotic explosion.* I still love it.
Deathful Magic: +2 CL while at 1/4 life. Temporary hit points will be great. Deeper/Greater Invigorate from the Life sphere lets us largely negate how dangerous this is, while still getting the full benefits.
Draw Magic: +2 CL while 6 creatures are affected by your sphere abilities. The *number* of targets is much harder than the actual affection. After all, you can have a spell-point-free, hours/level effect with Greater Invigorate. Maybe get a familiar and animal companion.
Sanguine Empowerment: Get a bleed 1 going, and get +1 CL. This is reasonably easy, and you can heal it even easier. But it's not a great improvement on CL.
Empowered Abilities: +1 CL while at half spell points. +2 when at 0. Obviously, you *could* get higher caster level at 0, but then you're stuck with the free stuff, which is nice and all, but yeah. Also, unless you're spending like mad, you might not actually get to even have the +1 bonus without intentionally setting yourself down to that. However, this incentive to spend makes Metamagic Expert better.
Metamagic Expert: +1 CL when using metamagic. Enlarge and Extend Spell are both solid, generic options that work well. only +1 though, and it necessitates spending spell points each time, or gain no benefit.
Overcharge: +2 CL, but increase fatigue by 1 level. Helps when going super nova. But otherwise, you're taxing yourself with the talent Greater Restore, and spending the SP and action every 3 turns.
Atmoturgy: Ew. Unless going for a weather-focused build (also ew), this is pointless.
I am going to assume we are taking the top 4 boons, as they are the easiest to deal with, giving us a +7 caster level.
If you were a bit insane, and took all of them, you could have a situational +12, not including Atmoturgy. (You're insane, not stupid.)
Now for the classes. We've got 2 choices: Sphere Wizard, or Incanter. The authors have come out to say that they were not intended to stack, so doing so is cheese that we will not accept! Rawr. At least not both specializations in one sphere.
Either way, +1 Caster Level in the chosen sphere(s) of your choice, and you get a familiar to come along with it. If you specialize in Nature sphere, you also get an animal companion. Boom, you have enough for Draw Magic in a typical party.
However there is also another class that adds caster levels. It is incredibly starved for magic talents, but it's the Wilder of the Spheres. Thaumaturge. It grants up to +6 bonus to caster level, with a 15% chance of taking 1 temporary caster level loss each time you cast. Pretty good odds. If we limit out spheres to Light, Telekinesis and Creation, we can improve that to +9 with the Knight of Willpower archetype.
But wait! That's not all! You can also have +5 Staves of [Sphere], which grant a +5 bonus to caster level...well, actually...vow of poverty might hamper that. Haven't checked.
------
So, with everything tallied up, we've got up to +17 caster levels with the basic package. +22 if you can afford the staves, and +27 if you somehow get all the tradition boons, and get them all functioning.
So...yeah. Impressive. That's worth a +13 to save DC. It's more than the difference between being able to lift a dagger and lift a yacht with telekinesis.
Of course, at the levels we're talking about, the raw numbers matter less than the fact that you don't have access to those Vancian spells. I mean, no matter how high you get the caster level, you're not going to be porting the entirety of the material plane in to the outer realms.
But at level 1, it's much, much more substantial. A +8 to caster level (from Incanter) at level 1 is extremely noticeable.
Spheres of Power has several Caster Level bonuses available through tradition boons. If we take enough drawbacks (which would be rather incredibly difficult, but with the new Oath subsystem, you can just take Vow of Poverty, and gain 4 of these, no casting drawbacks required). I will sort the options from best to worst, considering the bonus to CL, and the requisite conditions for them to be active.
Wild Surge: +2 CL, and have a +100% chance of having a wild magic event. Is that even a drawback? I love it! *Friends die in chaotic explosion.* I still love it.
Deathful Magic: +2 CL while at 1/4 life. Temporary hit points will be great. Deeper/Greater Invigorate from the Life sphere lets us largely negate how dangerous this is, while still getting the full benefits.
Draw Magic: +2 CL while 6 creatures are affected by your sphere abilities. The *number* of targets is much harder than the actual affection. After all, you can have a spell-point-free, hours/level effect with Greater Invigorate. Maybe get a familiar and animal companion.
Sanguine Empowerment: Get a bleed 1 going, and get +1 CL. This is reasonably easy, and you can heal it even easier. But it's not a great improvement on CL.
Empowered Abilities: +1 CL while at half spell points. +2 when at 0. Obviously, you *could* get higher caster level at 0, but then you're stuck with the free stuff, which is nice and all, but yeah. Also, unless you're spending like mad, you might not actually get to even have the +1 bonus without intentionally setting yourself down to that. However, this incentive to spend makes Metamagic Expert better.
Metamagic Expert: +1 CL when using metamagic. Enlarge and Extend Spell are both solid, generic options that work well. only +1 though, and it necessitates spending spell points each time, or gain no benefit.
Overcharge: +2 CL, but increase fatigue by 1 level. Helps when going super nova. But otherwise, you're taxing yourself with the talent Greater Restore, and spending the SP and action every 3 turns.
Atmoturgy: Ew. Unless going for a weather-focused build (also ew), this is pointless.
I am going to assume we are taking the top 4 boons, as they are the easiest to deal with, giving us a +7 caster level.
If you were a bit insane, and took all of them, you could have a situational +12, not including Atmoturgy. (You're insane, not stupid.)
Now for the classes. We've got 2 choices: Sphere Wizard, or Incanter. The authors have come out to say that they were not intended to stack, so doing so is cheese that we will not accept! Rawr. At least not both specializations in one sphere.
Either way, +1 Caster Level in the chosen sphere(s) of your choice, and you get a familiar to come along with it. If you specialize in Nature sphere, you also get an animal companion. Boom, you have enough for Draw Magic in a typical party.
However there is also another class that adds caster levels. It is incredibly starved for magic talents, but it's the Wilder of the Spheres. Thaumaturge. It grants up to +6 bonus to caster level, with a 15% chance of taking 1 temporary caster level loss each time you cast. Pretty good odds. If we limit out spheres to Light, Telekinesis and Creation, we can improve that to +9 with the Knight of Willpower archetype.
But wait! That's not all! You can also have +5 Staves of [Sphere], which grant a +5 bonus to caster level...well, actually...vow of poverty might hamper that. Haven't checked.
------
So, with everything tallied up, we've got up to +17 caster levels with the basic package. +22 if you can afford the staves, and +27 if you somehow get all the tradition boons, and get them all functioning.
So...yeah. Impressive. That's worth a +13 to save DC. It's more than the difference between being able to lift a dagger and lift a yacht with telekinesis.
Of course, at the levels we're talking about, the raw numbers matter less than the fact that you don't have access to those Vancian spells. I mean, no matter how high you get the caster level, you're not going to be porting the entirety of the material plane in to the outer realms.
But at level 1, it's much, much more substantial. A +8 to caster level (from Incanter) at level 1 is extremely noticeable.