PDA

View Full Version : Legacy Champion Extending Uncanny Trickster?



EndlessKng
2019-09-13, 10:17 PM
So there are the ubiquitous tricks of using Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Champion to extend prestige classes - i.e. stretching theurge builds out, Hellfire Warlock, and so on. But I just realized something, and I want to see if my understanding works:

If you rule that you can extend a prestige class past their cap, even three-level classes, progressing those features which logically can progress (I have read that there were arguments against that, but it seems to be widely applied), could you build a character to exploit the Uncanny Trickster to extend it, then after getting three levels in it, use Legacy Champion to extend Uncanny Trickster, thus extending the original class AND getting bonus tricks and Favored Tricks?

Rationale: Per the Uncanny trickster, the added level of features occurs for each level after first; it doesn't reset if you theoretically could find a way to extend it. The Bonus Trick and Favored Trick options are pretty much every level, so there's no reason they wouldn't continue. So, by applying the benefits of LC to UT, you would continue to advance in UT, gaining skill tricks, and thus extending the class it's applied to. You'd potentially miss 3 levels of features, but it's still a way to get levels beyond anything intended, plus a ton of skill tricks, and if you can find a Legacy worth it, a few legacy abilities.

In action:
Start with Wu Jen 1 and Precocious Apprentice to start with a second level spell. You can use other arcane classes, but I want to avoid using any "adaptations" right now to keep it as "by the book as possible." Wu Jen comes with the Ancestral Spirit and a free metamagic feat.
Go to Wu Jen 2. Pretty basic.
Take Binder 1, and the Improved Binding feat.
Grab Anima Mage - you can get the skills easily enough, have the binding, and have the spellcasting thanks to precocious. And, Wu Jen gives you the metamagic feat you need to qualify. Advance it for 10 levels; by 13th, you're casting as a 12th level arcane caster, and binding as an 11th level binder.
Grab Uncanny Trickster through three. You'll lose out on one level of each thing, but you're still pretty high up - by 16th, you've progressed Anima Mage to an effective level of 12, and thus have Wu Jen casting at 14 and Binding at 13. You also gain three free skill tricks and made three favored
Grab Legacy Champion 4. You lose one more level of abilities, but gain three more tricks, favored three, and have an effective Anima Mage level of 15. That gives you Binding at 15th level - not the highest, but still pretty good - and more importantly casting as a 17th level wu jen, getting 9th level spells in addition to binding.

Silvercrys
2019-09-13, 11:42 PM
I think most of the time you're trading the last 3-4 levels of Legacy Champion for Uncanny Trickster if you do this, because if you don't you lose too many caster levels and Legacy Champion 10 gives you one extra level of progression over Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 6.

Binder 1/Wu Jen 2/Anima Mage 2/Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 6/Anima Mage +6 has essentially the same binding and spell casting abilities as Binder 1/Wu Jen 2/Anima Mage 2/Legacy Champion 10/Anima Mage +5, the only difference is that Uncanny Trickster requires a ton of skill points to get into and it gives you the 9 free tricks. Collector of Stories is good but I dunno if getting to use it twice in one encounter is worth the other 4 levels of class features like getting to swap a Greater Legacy ability, especially if you're stuck with a premade legacy item.

EndlessKng
2019-09-14, 12:11 AM
I think most of the time you're trading the last 3-4 levels of Legacy Champion for Uncanny Trickster if you do this, because if you don't you lose too many caster levels and Legacy Champion 10 gives you one extra level of progression over Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 6.

Binder 1/Wu Jen 2/Anima Mage 2/Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 6/Anima Mage +6 has essentially the same binding and spell casting abilities as Binder 1/Wu Jen 2/Anima Mage 2/Legacy Champion 10/Anima Mage +5, the only difference is that Uncanny Trickster requires a ton of skill points to get into and it gives you the 9 free tricks. Collector of Stories is good but I dunno if getting to use it twice in one encounter is worth the other 4 levels of class features like getting to swap a Greater Legacy ability, especially if you're stuck with a premade legacy item.

I admit it was more about making sure the concept would work overall (I'm playing with the idea more than planning to play this as a character, and the trickster element felt... right to me, given the wu jen is a bit more of a trickster amongst arcane classes and because anima magic is all about tricking vestiges into the binding), but I do appreciate the added layer of optimization! (and the confirmation that it would, in fact, work)

Silvercrys
2019-09-14, 07:52 AM
Yeah, if you read those prestige classes as being able to extend other prestige classes it ought to work in principle, just usually not worth it. If Uncanny Trickster allowed you to use Favorite Trick on the same trick more than once it'd be pretty useful for an Iaijutsu Focus build or something, but I'm struggling to come up with a character that might be able to take advantage of extra skill tricks and being able to use a whole ton of them 2/encounter.

Maybe Factotum 8/Uncanny Trickster 2/Legacy Champion 10? Factotum appreciates being able to use Iaijutsu Focus from skill tricks multiple times per encounter and can use Collector of Stories to fuel Knowledge Devotion, and has the skill points left over to play a party face role that could use the social skill tricks and stuff.

Or something like Factotum 8/Swordsage 1/Uncanny Trickster 1/Legacy Champion 10? Depending on how you read initiator level stacking that could give you a pretty big initiator level. 9 from non-Swordsage levels plus 9 Swordsage levels from adding Swordsage class features gives you IL 18 and a couple of 9th level maneuvers, a ton of skill tricks so you can do maneuvers on flat-footed people and add Iaijutsu Focus, and multiple standard actions to spam maneuvers with.

And if you read it the other way it's 4 (Factotum) + 1 (Swordsage) + 4 (Uncanny Trickster 9) + 4 (Legacy Champion 8) + 8 (Uncanny Trickster added to Swordsage) = IL 21.

Of course, RAI you probably only get IL... 4 (Factotum) + 1 (Swordsage) + 1 (Uncanny Trickster 1 plus Legacy Champion 1 and 7) + 8 (Added Swordsage Class Features) = 14? Might have done that wrong, but 7s with Cunning Surge is still pretty good.

Warblade for the Int synergy might be better, actually...