New Early Entry Method [3.5]

[Doc Roc]

Item: Codex Anathema
Citation and Rights: LoM - pg. 214; non-OGL
Charges: Violation of usual skill bonus mechanic, offers additional ranks
Punishment: Use in CharOp Penal Colonies as EE Mechanic.
Notes: Lack of constraint clauses leads to high likelihood of repeated offenses.

Please discuss.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I have not the relevant book.

[ex cathedra]

It gives a certain amount of skill ranks to three pre-determined knowledge skills (arcana, the planes, dungeoneering).

To put it in perspective, 3/4 of the prestige classes in... oh.. complete arcane alone use at least one of those skills. This can allow you to exceed your maximum number of skill ranks, hence qualifying early.

[Zaq]

I can see an argument that this nevertheless does not allow you to exceed your maximum. There is no text that would indicate that you can break the level cap on skills, as there is in Favored (Cityscape). Just like how you can't heal more than your max HP, you can't gain more than your max skill ranks.

It's interesting, but I don't think it's quite as simple as it could be.

[Doc Roc]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's that clean-cut. In most cases, specific trumps general. The general rule is that you cannot spend skill points to raise your ranks above the appropriate cap. The specific case here is an effect that causes you to gain ranks. Whether this trumps or not, and what precisely that means are likely to boil down to personal interpretation.

Naturally, I suspect that it was intended to increase your ranks, as knowledge(dungeoneering) is not precisely a common class skill.

There is a third reading, which is probably RAI, which is that it sets your skill to that number of ranks if beneficial, but that really isn't supported RAW.

Curiously, this effect drops late enough that it can't really get you any place good that I could find. As far as it goes, it's probably fine to allow it.

[sadi]

The cost alone makes it not viable if you actually use the WBL. You should be level 10 by the time you can afford it, and the way my group runs you can't spend more than half your money on a single item so in our case it'd be level 12.

[Doc Roc]

You can get it considerably earlier if you craft it.

If only there was some full-casting class that was int driven and could afford to craft an item now and then. Some sort of... Mage.

[Zaq]

All I can say is that it doesn't seem to follow precedent. As I mentioned, Favored explicitly allows you to gain more than your maximum ranks. The Codex does not. I know once we get into hardcore CO (this isn't TO territory, but it's clearly more than workaday CO) that's not a strong enough argument, but... that's what I've got for now.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

You can get it considerably earlier if you craft it.

If only there was some full-casting class that was int driven and could afford to craft an item now and then. Some sort of... Mage.

As long as we're Char-oping this, how about using Candles?

[Doc Roc]

As long as we're Char-oping this, how about using Candles?

I don't think three or four crafting feats is really candle of invocation territory. :: grins affably ::

[Kylarra]

You can get it considerably earlier if you craft it.

If only there was some full-casting class that was int driven and could afford to craft an item now and then. Some sort of... Mage.

I suppose that's contingent on what your DM sets the value of an expended Codex at, as the crafting requires you to have read it in the first place, putting us back at square one if we're talking an unexpended version.

[sadi]

You can get it considerably earlier if you craft it.

If only there was some full-casting class that was int driven and could afford to craft an item now and then. Some sort of... Mage.

As long as you happen to have easy access to a level 17 caster or 9th level scrolls and an old copy of the book. Crafting it would take most of an 8th level characters money. So either this magical class you talk about doesn't have any extra spells in his book, or you're not paying the 100 gp per level cost to scribe stuff, or you have no other equipment. My cost benefit analysis says it's probably not worth the having very limited equipment and the 1500 xp loss.

If you're talking about making a level 12+ character and just using all the wealth to say that you would have made the item at level 5 to get into a class is a different story.

[PhoenixRivers]

So, to summarize, WBL mechanics provide restrictions on early entry for most PrC's, as typical PrC's become available at level 6, and this does not become available before that.

[Doc Roc]

Yes. That said, I think I can get the item's crafting cost down to around 14k quite easily if we can circumvent the Must-Read-That-Sucker cost. Also, unlike tomes, it's not clear that an expended book is useless, it seems that it's just not useful to that particular character anymore. I'm an idiot.

Even if it still only drops at ECL 8 or so, I'm curious as to if we can get into anything early with it.

[Eldariel]

Yes. That said, I think I can get the item's crafting cost down to around 14k quite easily if we can circumvent the Must-Read-That-Sucker cost. Also, unlike tomes, it's not clear that an expended book is useless, it seems that it's just not useful to that particular character anymore.

Even if it still only drops at ECL 8 or so, I'm curious as to if we can get into anything early with it.

The principal issue is that it doesn't grant ranks in Spellcraft, something most higher-up Wizard PrCs require. I mean, I guess you could early entry Loremaster, but bleh. Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Archmage, etc. all require Spellcraft. Maybe in combination with Favored...

[Doc Roc]

The principal issue is that it doesn't grant ranks in Spellcraft, something most higher-up Wizard PrCs require. I mean, I guess you could early entry Loremaster, but bleh. Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Archmage, etc. all require Spellcraft. Maybe in combination with Favored...

Yeah, that was a problem in my early scanning. All I came up with easily was Dispassionate Watcher Of Chronosepsis (Hard to be a proper dwagon) and Fatespinner, which is probably not worth bankrupting yourself to try an' get into a single level early. That said, I didn't look as hard as I would have liked.

Right now, it's looking like it's fairly safe to allow it. I couldn't get into any epic PrCs without additional HAX.