D&D 3.5 Magical Training feat, Sorcerer Edition: Which two 0-level spells to pick?

[thorr-kan]

Magical Training from the FR series allows a character to have two 0-level spells and cast any combination of them up to three times a day. (Ignore the Wizard option for now.)

Independent of any other character features what two would you choose? Any WoTC 3.5 publish book, excluding Dragon Magazine.

[schreier]

Prestidigitation and Light

Light - never be scared of the dark

Prestidigitation because it can do almost everything - as we know, they call it "minor wish" for a reason -- http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20010707

[liquidformat]

Prestidigitation is probably number one choice for any individual I don't think there is much argument for that but from the view of a country or survival it isn't the highest.

Produce water can literally solve global problems, if every person in the country knows produce water you never have to worry about drought and by extension starvation again.

Similarly Purify Food and Water can be used for water treatment, you know the number one way plagues and disease sped through out our history? That's right improper sanitation causing contamination. With this spell a country can solve another one of its most pressing concerns.

Beyond those, mending is also another extremely useful spell having daily utilitarian use. Also a liberal reading of it allows a person to solder, so with just one spell someone could become a jeweler.

Light is honestly a waste of resources, candles, torches, and so on do a good enough. It is easy enough with mundane solutions to deal with light that it isn't worth the cost.

Amanuensis is actually a pretty amazing spell equivalent to the printing press in its power as a tool to be used for dissemination of knowledge.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

How can everyone forget the humble Detect Magic? It's an amazing spell that can be used to detect high-level characters and traps (magic items have auras!), that can be useful when shopping or if you have a bout of paranoia, and that can even be used to pinpoint an invisible or hidden creature if you're really desperate.

[Jack_Simth]

Prestidigitation is probably number one choice for any individual I don't think there is much argument for that but from the view of a country or survival it isn't the highest.
It does cleaning, and....


Similarly Purify Food and Water can be used for water treatment, you know the number one way plagues and disease sped through out our history? That's right improper sanitation causing contamination. With this spell a country can solve another one of its most pressing concerns.

... Purify Food and Drink is a Cleric spell, not available via the feat in question (at least not without a lot of hoops).

[Feantar]

Prestidigitation is definitely the first choice.
In case you have darkvision, No Light is pretty useful (Book of Vile Darkness).
If you want to UMD scrolls, read magic is useful.
In case you're tolerant of gouda, you could take silent image, since it's a 0 level spell for gnome illusionists...

While that is cheesy, the feat by itself is not very useful, so depending on your DM they might allow it.

[thorr-kan]

For myself, yeah, prestidigitation seems to be a winning choice all around. But I was a fan of the Cantrip spell in 2E, so that's not really a surprise.

My second choice is resistance. Being able to use even minor magic to save yourself or assist others in saving themselves seems right.

Basic utility and a magical defense. What more could a less-than-fledgling sorcerer ask for?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have that feat on my current character. Went with prestidigitation and arcane mark. It's probably noteworthy that the character has detect magic and read magic at will through my class choices otherwise I'd likely have gone with one of them instead of arcane mark, if not both.

Independent of class, detect magic is a -big- thing. Do you have any idea how hard that is to come by if you can't cast it? Had to go to the bloody Stronghold Builder's Guidebook last time.

Prestidigitation is lots of fun, if not particularly useful.

[Fizban]

Prestidigitation is actually textbook OP, with many other zero level spells barely coming close to the expanded use list for single-shot effects (if you made a proper zero and fist level version of every effect, this might be less true, but the power of those effects required to beat out Prestidigitation looks super wonky at those levels).

Light is complete and utter trash garbage. It lasts for 10 minutes. It's like playing a horror game where the flashlight battery dies in 10 minutes, except you never find any batteries. Candlelight from the Ghostwalk WE is better, but still only lasts 1 hour, when candles are mega cheap.

Amanuensis is so powerful it used to be a 3rd level spell. And now that it's 0th, it's so cheap no one should ever need to cast it, because a magical printing press revolution should have already occurred.

Detect Magic, as Kelb has noted, is kinda ridiculously huge and nigh-impossible to find on printed items that aren't wands (though wands are cheap enough you could use them). Detect Magic is only foiled by Magic Aura, which only works on objects. As I discussed in a past magical voting thread, anyone capable of using Detect Magic can verify that someone is completely without magical influence. There is already no reason for any competent organization to ever fear continuous magical compulsion, because it's so easy to check, even without the possibility of people taking this feat (Suggestions carried out without notice are still a danger if your detection isn't round the clock).

Arcane Mark of course has an entire guild devoted to it in Eberron.

While Sor/Wiz doesn't have Purify, Detect Poison functions similarly in detecting spoiled food. I would note that Create Water 1-3 times per day is not going to solve starvation, because you need a lot more than 3 gallons to water your crops during a drought- best to stick with Purify if you have a divine version of the feat.

Dancing Lights is known to be pretty good at long-range signaling, and is once again absent on published items outside of wands.

Apparently no mention of Mending yet, despite its power as the only Sor/Wiz item repair spell (the 1 lb limit once again makes you question why the big P can do a million 1 lb things and this spell can only do a 1 lb thing, the minimum change should be 5lb, as Mage Hand's increase).

Launch Item is the best at what it does, once again inexplicably reduced to 0th, but again possibly more effectively used via Oil if you can already afford the consumables you'd throw with it.


My choice? I'd take Night Haunt from Complete Arcane instead, because an invisible automated force that lasts an hour (Unseen Servant) per day is way better than Prestidigitation. . . and you also get Prestidigitation 1/day, and Dancing Lights 1/day as well. And as SLAs you can use them without moving, untying yourself easily in the case of a kidnapping situation.

[liquidformat]

While Sor/Wiz doesn't have Purify, Detect Poison functions similarly in detecting spoiled food. I would note that Create Water 1-3 times per day is not going to solve starvation, because you need a lot more than 3 gallons to water your crops during a drought- best to stick with Purify if you have a divine version of the feat.

Farms are normally quite population dense places and if you have each person on a farm cast create water 2 times per day you are looking at 24 gallons of water per person per day. That plus the correct choice in crops could easily stave off a drought. Expand that to everyone in a community also being required to cast it each day, I am seeing a pretty solid argument that this could reasonably protect a community from starvation because of drought.



Apparently no mention of Mending yet

Cough cough see my post above...

[Feantar]

Detect Magic is only foiled by Magic Aura, which only works on objects.

Wait what? Nondetection, mind blank, misdirection... that's just core.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Detect Magic is only foiled by Magic Aura, which only works on objects.

Misdirection. They try to read your aura and get the information for the potted plant in your office. Non-detection works too and there's absolutely no reason you can't cast both. They're not infallible but neither is magic aura and that's probably for the best anyway.


My choice? I'd take Night Haunt from Complete Arcane instead

Eh, for the sorcerer version of magical training, it's a close call. Three 1/day SLAs vs Three 0 level slots and two spells known would be tight.

The thing is, magical training makes you a first level arcane spellcaster. The benefits of that are a bit marginal, I admit, but they're not null. It qualifies you to use eternal wands, for example, and it allows you to qualify for several prestige classes in complete arcane when you pair it with practiced spellcaster. It also allows you to qualify for things that demand first level spells if you combine it with versatile spellcaster and heighten. My favorite use, though, has to be qualifying for blade dancer without having to dip a spellcasting class.

The wizard version magical training is just plain better than both; you get a spellbook and the capacity to learn as many cantrips as you want if you've got the pocket change and the will. It just about outweighs all of the feats like night haunt in complete arcane and elsewhere.

[Fizban]

Farms are normally quite population dense places and if you have each person on a farm cast create water 2 times per day you are looking at 24 gallons of water per person per day. That plus the correct choice in crops could easily stave off a drought. Expand that to everyone in a community also being required to cast it each day, I am seeing a pretty solid argument that this could reasonably protect a community from starvation because of drought.
Unless you can provide numbers, I'm really not*. 24 gallons isn't even half a cubic foot, and every single one of those people needs a significant area of crops to sustain them. I also don't see where you're getting 24 from, when it's 2 gallons per casting, 6 per day from three slots. Maybe with modern technology, but not with medieval.

*I tried "gallons of water to grow wheat" and got 1,000 gallons for a 2lb loaf of bread, and I saw two egg results at 64 and 120 gallons per egg. Or 27,000 to irrigate 1 acre to 1 inch, and I'm getting 12-30 acres per family from "size of medieval farm." And with "inches of water to grow wheat," that's 4 inches (vegetables want like an inch per week), so 108,000 gallons per acre to reach harvest. Granted, a drought doesn't mean *zero* water availability, but if you've got no rain and your canals have run dry, I don't think you're doing the job on 5-6 gallons per day. 6 gallons per day over say 6 months, is only 1,080 gallons.

Cough cough see my post above...
You capitalized all the other spells but not Mending, so I missed it.


Wait what? Nondetection, mind blank, misdirection... that's just core.

Misdirection. They try to read your aura and get the information for the potted plant in your office. Non-detection works too and there's absolutely no reason you can't cast both. They're not infallible but neither is magic aura and that's probably for the best anyway.
Eh, I was remembering in the context of having Dispelled people first, and most of my other research was from the angle of proper Divination. Misdirection can still be read such that it doesn't actually work for this, as it makes the target detect as "not magical," but their magicalness has nothing to do with the separate aura of the spell itself, though later parts of it suggestion multiple auras are mashed together somehow.

The wizard version magical training is just plain better than both; you get a spellbook and the capacity to learn as many cantrips as you want if you've got the pocket change and the will. It just about outweighs all of the feats like night haunt in complete arcane and elsewhere.
For the people I'd expect to ever actually take such a feat, outside of juking PrC requirements*, spell scribing is rather more than pocket change. The significance of 1st level feats that grant magic is what their availability to the other 95% of the world would do. As the writer realized with Eberron, you can't change the world with 1st level spells from rare elites, but you can if you put spells in the hands of a major fraction of the population, and that means no paying for spellbooks.

As for beating all the other 1st level magic from feat feats, gonna have to disagree. There's no 0th level version of Unseen Servant, Comprehend Languages, Floating Disc, Cause Fear, or Detect Secret Doors (Complete Arcane), or Identify, Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Speak with Animal, Lesser Restoration, Make Whole, Expeditious Retreat, Mount, Dimension Leap, Whispering Wind, Mage Armor, Protection from Arrows, Darkness, Disguise Self, Minor Image, Endure Elements, Fog Cloud, Alarm, Arcane Lock, or Fire Trap (all the non-0th Least Dragonmarks). If you want a feat that does something other than technically unlock other things, there are many choices that beat Magical Training. It's a very narrow cash band where adding multiple new spells to your book is feasible, but buying wands or permanent items of 0th level spells is not.

*Which I pretty much don't care about at all. Either the requirements are well set and you're not ignoring them, or they aren't and I'll change them to what they need to be. And don't even start with that "Versatile+Heighten" cheese.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Eh, I was remembering in the context of having Dispelled people first, and most of my other research was from the angle of proper Divination. Misdirection can still be read such that it doesn't actually work for this, as it makes the target detect as "not magical," but their magicalness has nothing to do with the separate aura of the spell itself, though later parts of it suggestion multiple auras are mashed together somehow.

If it includes all of the other auras on you for such spells, why wouldn't it include its own? It's like saying that you can detect the aura of magic aura, it's entirely self-defeating.


For the people I'd expect to ever actually take such a feat, outside of juking PrC requirements*, spell scribing is rather more than pocket change. The significance of 1st level feats that grant magic is what their availability to the other 95% of the world would do. As the writer realized with Eberron, you can't change the world with 1st level spells from rare elites, but you can if you put spells in the hands of a major fraction of the population, and that means no paying for spellbooks.

It was just to hammer home how very "magical" Halruua is, really. 75gp per new spell is chump change unless you're a level 1 commoner. An expert will have it in a couple weeks, an aristocrat can arrange it at the drop of a hat, and the magewrights and adepts don't care. For warriors it'll be more a function of who's employing them.

Then there's the question of qualification: NPCs have the standard array by default and that means 1/3 won't make the int 10 requirement. Then there's the human/elf racial requirement knocking off most of the PC races. I'll assume we're waiving or refluffing on the regional bit but that still leaves quite a substantially smaller portion than 95% of the population of basically anywhere.

All that aside, my current character has the feat and didn't strictly need it to get where I wanted to go. Though, I did take advantage of its mechanics as fully as I could. It's not as though it's a feat that has no place on a PC even if they're not using to "juke PrC requirements."


As for beating all the other 1st level magic from feat feats, gonna have to disagree. There's no 0th level version of Unseen Servant, Comprehend Languages, Floating Disc, Cause Fear, or Detect Secret Doors (Complete Arcane), or Identify, Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Speak with Animal, Lesser Restoration, Make Whole, Expeditious Retreat, Mount, Dimension Leap, Whispering Wind, Mage Armor, Protection from Arrows, Darkness, Disguise Self, Minor Image, Endure Elements, Fog Cloud, Alarm, Arcane Lock, or Fire Trap (all the non-0th Least Dragonmarks). If you want a feat that does something other than technically unlock other things, there are many choices that beat Magical Training. It's a very narrow cash band where adding multiple new spells to your book is feasible, but buying wands or permanent items of 0th level spells is not.

That's not what I meant and not a remotely fair comparison. 1 feat vs, what, a couple dozen; many of which are mutually exclusive? The ability to learn up to 40+ cantrips far outweights -all- of those individually if not all at once; not that any character -could- take all of them.

As for wands; you're talking 375 per cantrip and expendable vs 75 per and daily use for each one learned. You can learn 5 for each wand you could get and practiced spellcaster isn't a terrible choice if you're going to make heavy use of your magical training and have a feat free.


*Which I pretty much don't care about at all. Either the requirements are well set and you're not ignoring them, or they aren't and I'll change them to what they need to be. And don't even start with that "Versatile+Heighten" cheese.

It may not have been intended but versatile + heighten both fulfills the letter of RAW and the spirit of it as outlined in complete arcane's section on what those requirements are supposed to represent in-universe. Honestly, the opportunity cost balances out the power gained pretty well, IMO. 2 feats, one of which is generally considered a bit of a waste, when you're likely only getting 7 is no small price to pay. There's plenty of bonus feats to be found* if you're willing to dig for 'em but they're not generally attached to caster classes or PrC.

To each his own, I suppose.

*No joke; a couple characters back I had a one who consistently had more feats than HD with no fighter levels and without even considering VoP or flaws.

[Fizban]

If it includes all of the other auras on you for such spells, why wouldn't it include its own? It's like saying that you can detect the aura of magic aura, it's entirely self-defeating.
Indeed, it is a pretty thin reading, but it's not alone in thin RAW readings. I'd actually prefer the one that makes sense, but there are so many hard stops in the game that it actually seems more consistent to take the obtuse reading and make Detect Magic unbeatable :smallamused:

It was just to hammer home how very "magical" Halruua is, really. 75gp per new spell is chump change unless you're a level 1 commoner. An expert will have it in a couple weeks, an aristocrat can arrange it at the drop of a hat, and the magewrights and adepts don't care. For warriors it'll be more a function of who's employing them.
And level 1 commoners are 90-95% of the population. A 1st level expert with a full +10 will take 7.5 weeks, two months, not counting living expenses- two months' full pay is the kind of thing I buy at most once every several years, and I don't actually have to worry about starving to death because a drought drove up the cost of food.

Then there's the question of qualification: NPCs have the standard array by default and that means 1/3 won't make the int 10 requirement. Then there's the human/elf racial requirement knocking off most of the PC races. I'll assume we're waiving or refluffing on the regional bit but that still leaves quite a substantially smaller portion than 95% of the population of basically anywhere.
This will have a written answer- Shining South says Halruua is 90% human. The DMG also defaults to human for city generation, unless you decide to switch the dominant race with another. Interestingly the city demographics do not brook with the idea of a truly cosmopolitan makeup, which one might assume based on the PHB spread of races and and fantasy-ness.

That's not what I meant and not a remotely fair comparison. 1 feat vs, what, a couple dozen; many of which are mutually exclusive? The ability to learn up to 40+ cantrips far outweights -all- of those individually if not all at once; not that any character -could- take all of them.
I know it's not what you meant, it's what I meant. Learning 40 cantrips doesn't mean anything when 35 of those cantrips are pointless and the other 5 have minimal effect. Being able to change your daily abilities doesn't matter if those abilities suck, espeically if you paid for the privelage.

But for the same feat cost you can get an actual 1st (or even 2nd with some of those dragonmarks) level spell. No 0th level spell cast 1-3 times per day is as significant as basically any of those other feat spells I listed 1/day. Due to lack of scaling the Complete Arcane feats are pretty weak (though still equal to Magical Training's CL 1, and adding some cantrips on top), but the dragonmarks just crush it, even before scaling. Mending is chump change compared to Make Whole. Mage Hand is garbage compared to Unseen Servant. Comprehend Languages/Animals doesn't even have an analogue.

As for wands; you're talking 375 per cantrip and expendable vs 75 per and daily use for each one learned. You can learn 5 for each wand you could get and practiced spellcaster isn't a terrible choice if you're going to make heavy use of your magical training and have a feat free.
If you are anything higher than first, then you have hundreds of gp in wealth (PC or NPC) and a wand is plenty affordable, or more importantly, an item that just lets you use the spell daily or at-will. Thus there is an essentially non-existent level band where you can pay 75gp over and over and over again to learn new cantrips (most of which do nothing), but can't afford to just buy a consumable or non-consumable item instead. The cost per charge doesn't matter unless it's something you're actually using every day, in which case you'd have been better off taking a feat that just gave you that spell, or buying an item that does it every day. And if it's something you aren't using every day, then 75gp is pretty steep when you could have paid 25 for an oil- or your organization could have paid 7.5gp per wand charge and not needed to bother preparing the spell or calling in a specific person (due to Arcane Schooling or cross-class UMD, which has 2:1 success over time with even one rank). And if you're talking about higher level characters, the significance of having a few cantrips just gets worse and worse, while being able to perfectly activate wands, have a no-hands SLA, or progress a feat tree only increases. It is an extremely specific case of a 2nd level character who wants more than 2 but no more than half a dozen cantrips available every day and has the int but can't or won't take a level of wizard and. . .

The only wide significance is that a group of people with spellbooks can share them (ignoring where they got the money for their "free" starting books of course). Which lets you have the arbitrarily high number of commoner 1's also having their pick of the several useful cantrips, rather than being restricted to something like the Eberron guilds. An organization would also be able to front the cash for 1 HDs to expand their books (because failing those spellcraft checks is inconvenient to them). But again, the number of useful cantrips and the cost of putting them into daily or at-will items vs the number of times you'll actually need to cast them, means 75gp to give one person with this specific feat the ability to prepare it is preposterous. Arcane Mark so Important is should be used all the time? Make a stamp and use it more than 3/day! Same with Detect Magic, and basically all the other notable cantrips.

From the perspective of a PC or higher level NPC who wants to feel like they're getting a bunch of options for their money, for a very specific 2nd level setup, sure. For anyone who wants their feats and money to do something, right now and forever, nah I don't think so.

when you're likely only getting 7 is no small price to pay. There's plenty of bonus feats to be found* if you're willing to dig for 'em but they're not generally attached to caster classes or PrC.
The price is not small, except the price is small?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Indeed, it is a pretty thin reading, but it's not alone in thin RAW readings. I'd actually prefer the one that makes sense, but there are so many hard stops in the game that it actually seems more consistent to take the obtuse reading and make Detect Magic unbeatable :smallamused:

Yeah, I'm gonna put this "thin reading" right up there with drown-healing. Any reading of any rule that is both nonsensical and self-defeating to the thing itself should be discarded out of hand.


And level 1 commoners are 90-95% of the population. A 1st level expert with a full +10 will take 7.5 weeks, two months, not counting living expenses- two months' full pay is the kind of thing I buy at most once every several years, and I don't actually have to worry about starving to death because a drought drove up the cost of food.

Craftsmen have an edge on that in that they can take a big commission at the limit of their skill, take 10, and make 40gp worth of something in a week. Minus the 33% material cost and that's still 26.8 gp per week or 3 weeks worth of work to make more than the 75gp needed. If he's just making cutlery for the neighbors (taking the half check result per week pay) then you're right. Yours is also the case for most professions, though some hirelings under the employ of adventurers can do pretty decently too.


This will have a written answer- Shining South says Halruua is 90% human. The DMG also defaults to human for city generation, unless you decide to switch the dominant race with another. Interestingly the city demographics do not brook with the idea of a truly cosmopolitan makeup, which one might assume based on the PHB spread of races and and fantasy-ness.

90% human is still only 66% int 10+.

While the text in the city generation rules does use human for the default in racial demographics table on pg 139 it also gives a guideline for swapping other races as appropriate and has a column for properly metropolitan settlements like you might expect in trade hubs.


I know it's not what you meant, it's what I meant. Learning 40 cantrips doesn't mean anything when 35 of those cantrips are pointless and the other 5 have minimal effect. Being able to change your daily abilities doesn't matter if those abilities suck, espeically if you paid for the privelage.

I won't deny that a first level spell will be better than a cantrip that dose a similar thing but I think you're seriously underestimating having a wide variety of abilities. There are a handful of obvious winners but a lot of the more specific ones, while rarely useful to an adventurer, are of a great boon in the daily life of one or another stripe of common folk. Having all of the ones that are particularly useful to adventurers, and I think there's more than just 5, is probably more useful than just 1 first level spell.


But for the same feat cost you can get an actual 1st (or even 2nd with some of those dragonmarks) level spell. No 0th level spell cast 1-3 times per day is as significant as basically any of those other feat spells I listed 1/day. Due to lack of scaling the Complete Arcane feats are pretty weak (though still equal to Magical Training's CL 1, and adding some cantrips on top), but the dragonmarks just crush it, even before scaling. Mending is chump change compared to Make Whole. Mage Hand is garbage compared to Unseen Servant. Comprehend Languages/Animals doesn't even have an analogue.

No one cantrip cast 3 times in a day will be the equal of a 1/day first level sounds like a shakey statement to me. No 3 cantrips though? Nah. I don't buy it.

Dragonmarks don't scale either unless you invest further in them. Practiced spellcaster boosts all your cantrips up to CL 5 (hi, candle light) while there's nothing you can do about the caster level of least dragonmarks that doesn't cost class levels.


If you are anything higher than first, then you have hundreds of gp in wealth (PC or NPC) and a wand is plenty affordable, or more importantly, an item that just lets you use the spell daily or at-will. Thus there is an essentially non-existent level band where you can pay 75gp over and over and over again to learn new cantrips (most of which do nothing), but can't afford to just buy a consumable or non-consumable item instead. The cost per charge doesn't matter unless it's something you're actually using every day, in which case you'd have been better off taking a feat that just gave you that spell, or buying an item that does it every day. And if it's something you aren't using every day, then 75gp is pretty steep when you could have paid 25 for an oil- or your organization could have paid 7.5gp per wand charge and not needed to bother preparing the spell or calling in a specific person (due to Arcane Schooling or cross-class UMD, which has 2:1 success over time with even one rank). And if you're talking about higher level characters, the significance of having a few cantrips just gets worse and worse, while being able to perfectly activate wands, have a no-hands SLA, or progress a feat tree only increases. It is an extremely specific case of a 2nd level character who wants more than 2 but no more than half a dozen cantrips available every day and has the int but can't or won't take a level of wizard and. . .

PC wealth at level 2 is 900gp. 75 gp is not a dramatic investment at that level while 375 still is. It's a narrow band, granted, but it's not non-existent. An at will item of a 0 level spell is 900gp on its own. That's a third of your wealth at level 3 and you're definitely going to have better things to spend your money on at that point. The wand at level 3 and the command item at 4 aren't unreasonable but by then you could spend the same gold and just plain know that cantrip plus between 4 and 11 more.




The only wide significance is that a group of people with spellbooks can share them (ignoring where they got the money for their "free" starting books of course). Which lets you have the arbitrarily high number of commoner 1's also having their pick of the several useful cantrips, rather than being restricted to something like the Eberron guilds. An organization would also be able to front the cash for 1 HDs to expand their books (because failing those spellcraft checks is inconvenient to them). But again, the number of useful cantrips and the cost of putting them into daily or at-will items vs the number of times you'll actually need to cast them, means 75gp to give one person with this specific feat the ability to prepare it is preposterous. Arcane Mark so Important is should be used all the time? Make a stamp and use it more than 3/day! Same with Detect Magic, and basically all the other notable cantrips.

Again, the guy with the feat isn't casting one cantrip 3/day. He's casting 3 cantrips per day in any combination of those he knows from the same one 3 times to any 3 of them once each. To even match the base feat, before expansion, you'll need three such items; 1125gp for regular wands, 1380 for eternal wands, 540 for three 1/day items (closest match), 1620 for three 3/day items, or 2700 for 3 at will items. If he then expands his book you have to start looking at custom staves for a fair comparison. There's also the question of 1 time expense versus an ongoing expense in the case of charged items.

Bonus points; it's hard to argue you'd even need UMD to activate a wand of a spell you know. So the extra 75gp past the wand is likely not a bad investment if it's a spell the guy doesn't already know from his 3 freebies.

As far as organizational expenses, rather than personal ones, I'd think investing in a blessed book that the whole organization can use (obviously including actual NPC hedge wizards in the org) would be a solid idea. Then it's just a scheduling issue and/or you can reduce that 75 to 50 gp per spell learned since the org can waive the usual 50gp per page fee for letting you borrow his spellbook while you copy a spell. This is getting pretty far afield from the discussion of the feat itself at this point, though.


From the perspective of a PC or higher level NPC who wants to feel like they're getting a bunch of options for their money, for a very specific 2nd level setup, sure. For anyone who wants their feats and money to do something, right now and forever, nah I don't think so.

I disagree, primarily with your assessment of all but a bare handful of cantrips being useful. For a wizard getting all of them, yes, most are going to pale next to higher level spells -very- quickly but even then those few are forever useful. For non-casters though, that's a few of the forever useful ones for free and the capacity to pick up a whole host of useful-if-minor abilities they'd otherwise need to pay a -lot- more to get.


The price is not small, except the price is small?

The price is not small.

You generally can't access non-casting classes early because of BAB or skill requirements. The same holds for most hybrid caster/warrior or caster/skirmisher classes. In the few cases where the trick is applicable at all, you're very likely -not- going to have a large number of feats without sacrificing casting ability to get them, shifting you from early entry to on-time entry with extras.

The shining example of early entry at its greatest is mystic theurge wherein you get the first level of the PrC at level 4. In the 3 preceding levels, you might get as many as 4 feats by making your arcane side either wizard or wu-jen and your divine side cloistered cleric. All four of those are restricted in what you can choose; scribe scroll or a fighter feat for the former, and whatever bonus feats you can get via domain choices plus knowledge devotion from the latter. Two of those definitely don't directly contribute to your casting power and the other two aren't likely to unless you use them to meet qualifications for something else down the line like another prestige class. After that, you're getting nothing but character level up feats until 13 and probably beyond and this is, IMO, the worst pairing for MT; it takes no advantage of the ability to mix prepared and spontaneous casting and can't easily be continued after with a similar prestige class like fochlucan lyrist or arcane hierophant.

Pretty much any other use of early entry is going to be saving you fewer levels, for the same substantial cost. Digging for bonus feats usually involves peculiar class choices and restricted lists that are just -not- conducive to building a caster. The character I mentioned was a Athasian Human Monk 3/ Sohei 1/Soulknife 2/ Soulbow 1/ Kensai 1 when the campaign fell apart. That's 10 feats at level 8 (bought off the LA) and there were more on the slate when I got into tattooed monk and shintao monk. Not much for a caster there though.

[liquidformat]

So quick question for you guys, rereading through Magical Training feat it seems to suggest your arcane caster level is equal to your ECL (are treated as a sorcerer or wizard of your arcane spellcaster level (minimum 1st) for the purpose of determining level-based variables of the spells you cast.) is this correct?

Also I am wondering if there are any cool interactions with Magical Training and Sword of The Arcane Order that anyone can think of, it seems like these should be pretty powerful together. Especially if Magical Training feat gives you caster level equal to ECL and Sword of The Arcane Order gives you caster level of your 'wizard' level + paladin/ranger level. Seems to me you potentially have a caster level of 30 at at paladin 20...

[Kelb_Panthera]

So quick question for you guys, rereading through Magical Training feat it seems to suggest your arcane caster level is equal to your ECL (are treated as a sorcerer or wizard of your arcane spellcaster level (minimum 1st) for the purpose of determining level-based variables of the spells you cast.) is this correct?

You've misunderstood. If you have actual levels in an arcane caster class, you get to use that caster level for your cantrips from Magical training. If you're a sorcerer or wizard and it matches with your magical training feat, you essentially just get an extra three 0 level spells. If they don't match, either because you chose that or you have neither sorcerer nor wizard levels, then you still have the three zero level slots and your caster level is still set for it by your arcane class but you can only use those slots for the spells you got from the feat.


Also I am wondering if there are any cool interactions with Magical Training and Sword of The Arcane Order that anyone can think of, it seems like these should be pretty powerful together. Especially if Magical Training feat gives you caster level equal to ECL and Sword of The Arcane Order gives you caster level of your 'wizard' level + paladin/ranger level. Seems to me you potentially have a caster level of 30 at at paladin 20...

They don't meaningfully interact except that you can use the same spellbook to hold all of your spells from both feats. Not unless SotAO gives you an arcane caster level, which is anything but clear because of how poorly that feat is written.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In case you have darkvision, No Light is pretty useful (Book of Vile Darkness).
Even better, add a ring of the darkhidden and you have a super cheap greater invisibility with the benefit/problem that the area around you is blanketed in darkness.

[Fizban]

90% human is still only 66% int 10+.
Which doesn't get you out of them still being 1st level commoners, presumably without the cash to buy more spellbook pages. As for altering world assumptions, you don't need a full 90%, just a lot more than the 1% that you normally get. I've heard Eberron says 25% have dragonmarks somewhere?

Craftsmen have an edge on that in that they can take a big commission at the limit of their skill, take 10, and make 40gp worth of something in a week. Minus the 33% material cost and that's still 26.8 gp per week or 3 weeks worth of work to make more than the 75gp needed. If he's just making cutlery for the neighbors (taking the half check result per week pay) then you're right. Yours is also the case for most professions, though some hirelings under the employ of adventurers can do pretty decently too.
Except that's not how making money over time works. You assume that the week's check is for small items, I assume that it includes any and all business from nails to art commisions. If you want to invoke individual item crafting you'll need to sell the item for half, as that's the standard sale price.

While the text in the city generation rules does use human for the default in racial demographics table on pg 139 it also gives a guideline for swapping other races as appropriate and has a column for properly metropolitan settlements like you might expect in trade hubs.
Which I already acknowledged? But the ratios for that "integrated" breakdown still range from 37% to 3%, which may be realistic, but is not what I'd call seriously integrated.

I won't deny that a first level spell will be better than a cantrip that dose a similar thing but I think you're seriously underestimating having a wide variety of abilities. There are a handful of obvious winners but a lot of the more specific ones, while rarely useful to an adventurer, are of a great boon in the daily life of one or another stripe of common folk. Having all of the ones that are particularly useful to adventurers, and I think there's more than just 5, is probably more useful than just 1 first level spell.
And I think you're vastly overestimating how many 0 level spells a normal person would find *hundreds of gold pieces* useful. So I guess we're not getting out of this without listing every single one. Since you think more are useful, why don't you go first? (Not a taunt btw, if you don't want to then when I've got a couple hours I feel like dredging through cantrips then I can present a list. But I'll take a couple days rest first).

Dragonmarks don't scale either unless you invest further in them. Practiced spellcaster boosts all your cantrips up to CL 5 (hi, candle light) while there's nothing you can do about the caster level of least dragonmarks that doesn't cost class levels.
Incorrect. You can take Lesser Dragonmark as a normal feat, and the feat increases the caster level of all your dragonmark abilities. It's just easy to miss when the actual dragonmark options are in a different chapter than the feat, so you never see both at the same time.

An at will item of a 0 level spell is 900gp on its own. That's a third of your wealth at level 3 and you're definitely going to have better things to spend your money on at that point. The wand at level 3 and the command item at 4 aren't unreasonable but by then you could spend the same gold and just plain know that cantrip plus between 4 and 11 more.
Still sounds like you're talking adventurer to me. If you're an NPC that has frequent or constant need of a cantrip, what else are you going to spend that NPC wealth on?

Again, the guy with the feat isn't casting one cantrip 3/day. He's casting 3 cantrips per day in any combination of those he knows from the same one 3 times to any 3 of them once each. To even match the base feat, before expansion, you'll need three such items; 1125gp for regular wands, 1380 for eternal wands, 540 for three 1/day items (closest match), 1620 for three 3/day items, or 2700 for 3 at will items. If he then expands his book you have to start looking at custom staves for a fair comparison. There's also the question of 1 time expense versus an ongoing expense in the case of charged items.
Can you come up with scenarios that don't sound contrived where a person would actually need some precisely varied amount of cantrips to get through their normal day, nearly every day? 'Cause the more specific you get like that, the less this is a commoner or expert that wants the effect for their dayjob/convenience, and more it becomes an adventurer/call a specialist type problem. If this position requires that much versatility, why weren't you priced out of the job by a 1st level wizard who started with all the cantrips before you could start copying the spells out of their book?

As for pricing, the price of a 1/day cantrip is 180 (1/5 of command word 0th). And if you really want to compete RAW, you have to deal with Faith Tokens and Drow House Insignia, which give 2 cantrips (either one twice or two once each) for 300gp and a single 1st for 620gp (at a ridiculous cl 5), respectively.

As far as organizational expenses, rather than personal ones, I'd think investing in a blessed book that the whole organization can use (obviously including actual NPC hedge wizards in the org) would be a solid idea. Then it's just a scheduling issue and/or you can reduce that 75 to 50 gp per spell learned since the org can waive the usual 50gp per page fee for letting you borrow his spellbook while you copy a spell. This is getting pretty far afield from the discussion of the feat itself at this point, though.
Except they can't, because they need to roll 15 spellcraft on their 1st level not actually a caster skill. That was a the whole point, that the organization could pay to make one person avoid that check, but the rest still have to roll it, and they'd be better off just buying an item.

[liquidformat]

They don't meaningfully interact except that you can use the same spellbook to hold all of your spells from both feats. Not unless SotAO gives you an arcane caster level, which is anything but clear because of how poorly that feat is written.

True, my group has always ignored the first half of the last sentence so that it reads: your wizard caster level is treated as the sum of your wizard, paladin, and ranger class levels. That seems to be a reasonable RAI reading. Also since Magical Training Does give you a minim of 1 CL of Wizard or Sorcerer, at the very least magical training seems to fix that goofyness of SotAO wording.

[thorr-kan]

Fizban, Kelb_Panthera, to argue in your own thread.

Detect Magic is certainly an arguable choice as well.

[thorr-kan]

So general consensus is prestidigitation and one other of your preference.

Thanks for everyone's input.

I've got a similar question for Precocious Apprentice, over here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?602507-D-amp-D-3-5-Precocious-Apprentice-feat-Sorcerer-Edition-Which-2nd-level-spells-to-pick&p=24256111#post24256111