Things to do with a high CL

[MR_Anderson]

Ok, that seems very strange to me. Granted, english is not my first language so I might be wrong.

I want to compliment you on your use of the English language, it is far better than the limited ability I have in other languages I have studied. English is the most difficult language in the world with Japanese/Chinese probably being second.

But what you are essentially saying is that there is NO context in english and that you've always precisely qualify what you are refering to in a setence.

There are certain contextual rules, but no where near as extensive as other languages. Your example actually uses one.

"The aple is infested by a worm. It still has a fresh green colour."

According to you, english speakers would be completely dumbfounded by this sentence and be like "Whaaaaat? I don't know what the 'it' refers to. Is the worm green?" - which I don't think is the case.

Actually that is exactly the case.

By rule a Pronoun is tied to the previous Noun it could correctly represent. Therefore in your example the Pronoun “It” would go back to the Noun “Worm.”

While most people would understand that you intended to describe the Apple, by rule it would be describing the Worm.

Another Example: “Harry was in love with Jane. He blew a kiss and smiled. Jane was happy the rest of the day.”

In this example Harry blows the kiss and smiles while Jane is happy. If you change Jane to Bob in both instances of the name Jane, then Bob becomes the one who blows the kiss, smiles, and is happy the rest of the day. This is because the Pronoun would then target Bob as the most recent correct Noun (Proper Noun) going backwards in the script.

In casual dialogue most rules aren’t really followed, and many people who speak English as their first and only language don’t even understand the language. English has developed into a slang means of communication more so than the formal tool the language could be.

By you knowing this, you know more than most english speakers.

To me there is no ambiguity in Reserves of Strength. Of course there is a context. Of course the "increased caster level" refers to the +1,+2 or +3 increase by the feat. Of course the ability to exceed level limits of spell variables applies to the increase by this feat.
This is just standard reading comprehension. It is the writer's responsibility to make the context clear (which is pretty much a given for a feat description). The reader in turn has to accept this context instead of just inventing something. Also, by principle of charity, the reader should assume that the writer did their job proficiently. As such, if the writer refers to something that lies outside the current context the writer would have made that explicit.

Thus, IF the writer of Reserves of Strength had meant that the "You can exceed the normal level-fixed limits of a spell withthis feat" part of the feat is completely independent from the rest of the feat the author would have made that explicit.

I have previously broken down why Reserves of Strength does indeed increase “Caster Level.” I will spoil the response here, but mainly it is because “Caster Level” is the context and the differences of different types of Levels.

Spoiler: A previous post

Show

Except you can't have a 15th level wizard with a caster level of 25 cast the fireball at level 28 for 28d6. The highest you could get with the feat would be 13d6 as +3 is the highest the feat allows.



You chose your caster level before using the feat. The feat's benefit is the only caster level bonus that bypasses the limit.



What feats get you +5 BAB or spontaneously cast 3rd level spells at level 2? Heighten earth spell?

I think you are conflating or trying to make more out of the difference between a Character’s Caster Level and that of a Spell’s Level.

Reserves of Strength
[General]
When you cast a spell, you can choose to increase its effective caster level at the cost of exausting yourself.

Prerequisite
Iron Will (PH) , Spellcaster Level 1,

Benefit
When you cast a spell, you can decide to increase YOUR CASTER LEVEL with that spell by 1, 2, or 3, but you are stunned for an equal number of rounds immediately after doing so. Your increased caster level affects all level-based variables of the spell, including range, area of effect, spell penetration, and the difficulty of dispelling the spell. You can exceed the normal level-fixed limits of a spell withthis feat, so a 9th-level wizard could use Reserves of Strength to cast a Fireball as a 12th-level wizard and deal 12d6 fire damage.
If you are not subject to stunning effects, you instead suffer 1d6, 3d6, or 5d6 points of damage when you call upon your Reserves of Strength feat.

If a Character of Level 15 has the ability to cast Arcane spells as a 25th Level caster, his Spells are Caster Level 25. Let’s look at what happens when he casts a Greater Magic Weapon.

Greater Magic Weapon is Spell Level 3 or Level 4 depending on what class is casting it. In this case we’ll say a KotW, so level 3, where as if it was a Cleric, it would be level 4. The Character’s Arcane Caster Level is 25 for this example, but the Spell has fixed limits on the effect of the spell to a max of 20 levels, but the Caster Level for the spell is still 25th normally, because if someone were to try and Dispel Magic the Greater Magic Weapon it would be against a 25th level caster, not 20th.

Now if the caster had the feat Reserves of Strength, he could choose to add 3 more levels to his CASTER LEVEL and make it 28th, and the feat would remove the fixed limit of 20, which means the spell would now provide +7 on this casting.

Note that the duration of the Greater Magic Weapon Spell is only 3 hours extra as a spell that has been limited by effect on modifier to +5, but the duration is always by Caster Lever. A similar effect is seen with the Fireball spell in which the range of the spell continues to increase with levels, even though damage is fixed at 10d6.

It is true that a caster can cast a spell at less than his max caster level, but spells with limits are cast at the Character’s caster level, unless the spell specifically says otherwise, or the player states he/she is doing otherwise.


Edit to show difference between the examples provided...

Greater Magic Weapon (w/o RoS)
Spell Level: 3rd
Class Level: 5th or higher
Caster Level: 25th in this example
Range: 85’ [25’ + 5’ / 2 Levels(25)]
Duration: 25 Hours
Effect: +5 (Maximum Fixed)
||
Greater Magic Weapon (w/ RoS+3)
Spell Level: 3rd
Class Level: 5th or higher
Caster Level: 28th in this example
Range: 95’ [25’ + 5’ / 2 Levels(28)]
Duration: 28 Hours
Effect: +7 (No longer a Maximum Fixed)

Fireball (w/o RoS)
Spell Level: 3rd
Class Level: 5th or higher
Caster Level: 15th in this example
Range: 1,000’ [400’ + 40’ / Level (15)]
Effect: 10d6 (Maximum Fixed)
||
Fireball (w/ RoS+1)
Spell Level: 3rd
Class Level: 5th or higher
Caster Level: 16th in this example
Range: 1,040’ [400’ + 40’ / Level (16)]
Effect: 16d6 (No longer a Maximum Fixed)

I know it wasn’t your intention to get into a Reserves of Strength discussion, and really the feat was designed perfectly fine. However, thought wasn’t given to the fact that people would find ways to make their Caster Levels 5-10 times (or more) their Character Level.

[Beni-Kujaku]

English is the most difficult language in the world with Japanese/Chinese probably being second.

I... Have serious doubts about that. There is a reason english is the international language, and it is mostly because it is in fact pretty simple. Granted, the pronunciation is a mess sometimes, but written, it doesn't have the intricacies that other languages have. It has next to no conjugation of its verbs (compare to french, spanish or the strong verbs in german, you'll find english pretty welcoming), and no compound words like in german. There is no gender for every word, very few irregular verbs and a pretty simple sentence structure (no putting adjectives both before and after the word they describe like in french, no putting the verb at the end of the sentence half the time...). And finally, english is a patchwork of many other languages, with words copied from french, german, spanish, turkish, polish.... which means many languages from western Europe have something on which to rely to learn english more easily.

[MR_Anderson]

I... Have serious doubts about that. There is a reason english is the international language, and it is mostly because it is in fact pretty simple. Granted, the pronunciation is a mess sometimes, but written, it doesn't have the intricacies that other languages have. It has next to no conjugation of its verbs (compare to french, spanish or the strong verbs in german, you'll find english pretty welcoming), and no compound words like in german. There is no gender for every word, very few irregular verbs and a pretty simple sentence structure (no putting adjectives both before and after the word they describe like in french, no putting the verb at the end of the sentence half the time...). And finally, english is a patchwork of many other languages, with words copied from french, german, spanish, turkish, polish.... which means many languages from western Europe have something on which to rely to learn english more easily.

I understand your point of view. I would say that language use is driven by two things Culture and Wealth. The main wealth and cultural power in the world has resided with the United States and England for the last few hundred years, and thus people have wanted to be able to speak the language. The three international languages are English, French, and Chinese.

The lack of consistency in the english language is exactly what makes it so difficult for many. So many other languages have pronunciation rules, sentence structure rules, form/gender rules, and many other rules like spelling. We have I before E except after C, but that isn’t even a rule, just an ancient mnemonic device that lacks efficiency and I in good conscience can not teach my children or their children after them.

There are other languages that are very difficult for other reasons like Thai where “cow” can mean four things (white, rice, news, and very white) depending upon the inflection of tone. The Thai language has 44 letters with multiple tone marks, it is pretty darn difficult.

English has an advantage in the adaptation of basically adding any non-language word into the language for use if there isn’t a better word to use. This allows English to better describe things that many structured languages do not have the means to do. For example, in Hebrew each letter has a sound, multiple meanings, and at least one numerical value; when adding words to the language all three must be taken into consideration, to balance with other existing words.

Ultimately, difficulty depends on the person, but for some you would be right that it isn’t the most difficult. I am glad that it was my first language, because I struggle at learning other languages. I do know english quite well because of the great teachers I had. That is why I view Reserves of Strength the way I do, but the lack of understanding by others has led to broken feats.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I still think it's ambiguous. I'm not going to get into the weeds of English context rules and how that applies to D&D rules text. The key for me is the ambiguity of the phrase "with this feat." I see three possible readings of the CL-cap-breaking clause based on that phrase:

1. Simply by having the feat, you can break all CL caps. (Or, strike "with this feat" entirely, as it is a filler phrase that only creates confusion)
2. You need to enjoy the benefit of the feat (at least +1) to break level caps. (Or, replace "with this feat" with "by using this feat")
3. The benefit provided by this feat can be used to break level caps (Or, replace "with this feat" with "with the benefit provided by this feat")

I think 1-3 are all valid readings because the phrase "with this feat" is really vague. Figuring out what it means takes a degree of judgement/adjudication that goes beyond a literal and supposedly universal reading of the text.

It does seem like it's supposed to be doing some heavy lifting, which pushes me away from interpretation 1, but who knows.

[MR_Anderson]

I still think it's ambiguous. I'm not going to get into the weeds of English context rules and how that applies to D&D rules text. The key for me is the ambiguity of the phrase "with this feat." I see three possible readings of the CL-cap-breaking clause based on that phrase:

1. Simply by having the feat, you can break all CL caps. (Or, strike "with this feat" entirely, as it is a filler phrase that only creates confusion)
2. You need to enjoy the benefit of the feat (at least +1) to break level caps. (Or, replace "with this feat" with "by using this feat")
3. The benefit provided by this feat can be used to break level caps (Or, replace "with this feat" with "with the benefit provided by this feat")

I think 1-3 are all valid readings because the phrase "with this feat" is really vague. Figuring out what it means takes a degree of judgement/adjudication that goes beyond a literal and supposedly universal reading of the text.

It does seem like it's supposed to be doing some heavy lifting, which pushes me away from interpretation 1, but who knows.

If you aren’t going to break it down, or go into the weeds as you stated, aren’t you really just admitting you don’t care to use English Grammar to understand what is said?

RESERVES OF STRENGTH
General
When you cast a spell, you can choose to increase its effective caster level at the cost of exausting yourself.

This is not official Rules As Written, but merely a short introduction to the explanation of the feat.

I decided to use this as additional context when choosing not to follow RAW for my game. I did so by using this statement to mean the choice to apply the +1, +2, or +3 was tied to the increase of Caster Level limits being broken, but only because the Character was going to abuse other means to obtain extremely high Caster Level.

Prerequisite
Iron Will (PH) , Spellcaster Level 1,

Reserves of Strength has a prerequisite feat, meaning that it carries more power than a feat without one, as well as more power than other feats with lesser non-feat prerequisites.

Benefit
When you cast a spell, you can decide to increase your caster level with that spell by 1, 2, or 3, but you are stunned for an equal number of rounds immediately after doing so.

Clearly the +1, +2, or +3 is a choice tied to the stunning effect. The +1, +2, or +3 is applied to CASTER LEVEL of the character with this feat.

Your increased caster level affects all level-based variables of the spell, including range, area of effect, spell penetration, and the difficulty of dispelling the spell.

First and foremost, notice that Damage or Effect is not listed, because the majority of variables of spells in the game are not the damage or effects in the description of a spell that is limited, but rather other characteristics.

As previously explained the CASTER LEVEL of a Spell with Limits such as Fireball is not Level 10, but the actual Caster’s damage is merely capped to that of what 10th level caster could do, because of wording in the spell.

For example, a 20th level caster without this feat would still cast a 20th Caster Level Fireball. It would only do 10d6 because of Spell Limitation, but it’s range would be calculated with 20 levels, and using Dispel Magic to try and counter it would still require it to be countered at a Caster Level of 20, it would also penetrate as a 20th caster level spell.

The “increased caster level” in this sentence applies to the +1, +2, or +3 choice effect, meaning in the previous example that the Caster Level would have been 21, 22, or 23.

You can exceed the normal level-fixed limits of a spell with this feat, so a 9th-level wizard could use Reserves of Strength to cast a Fireball as a 12th-level wizard and deal 12d6 fire damage.

This is the sentence people have a problem with.

This sentence is written to a prospective player reading the book. The “You” applies to the prospective player reading that may choose this feat for a character, and the phrase “with this feat” is tied to the player and possible Character the player might chose the feat for play.

This sentence is not contextually tied to the +1, +2, or +3 choice. It is actually a complete standalone sentence. It is similar to other feats that do more than one thing.

The feat does two things:

1 - Increases Caster Level by the +1, +2, or +3 with a very negative drawback of being completely defenseless.

This alone is horrible and would make the feat pretty bad, matter of fact, it would probably not ever be taken if this was the case.

2 - Removes normal Fixed Level Limits of spells.

This is the only reason for the feat, if it was for the 2nd ability this feat would be in the threads about worst feat.

If you are not subject to stunning effects, you instead suffer 1d6, 3d6, or 5d6 points of damage when you call upon your Reserves of Strength feat.

We all agree on this part of the feat.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Reserves of Strength having multiple effects is similar to Blind-Fighting, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes, Improved Grappled, Run, Master Spellthief, and many other feats.

I understand why people argue over it, but RAW is pretty clear as on the side of being fully abusive to the maximum interpretation of the feat. However, the Rules As Interpreted or Rules as allowed by the DM makes sense to at least tie the Limitations removal to the choice of adding +1, +2, or +3 to the Caster Level of the feat.

As a DM, you should realize that if you choose only to allow adding +1, +2, or +3 to the Caster Level Limit in exchange for stunning/damage then the feat becomes underwhelming, and frankly not worth it in my opinion.

[Crake]

If you aren’t going to break it down, or go into the weeds as you stated, aren’t you really just admitting you don’t care to use English Grammar to understand what is said?

That is, in fact, not what it means when someone says that.

[JNAProductions]

Reserves of Strength having multiple effects is similar to Blind-Fighting, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes, Improved Grappled, Run, Master Spellthief, and many other feats.

I understand why people argue over it, but RAW is pretty clear as on the side of being fully abusive to the maximum interpretation of the feat. However, the Rules As Interpreted or Rules as allowed by the DM makes sense to at least tie the Limitations removal to the choice of adding +1, +2, or +3 to the Caster Level of the feat.

As a DM, you should realize that if you choose only to allow adding +1, +2, or +3 to the Caster Level Limit in exchange for stunning/damage then the feat becomes underwhelming, and frankly not worth it in my opinion.

How ever will casters survive. Surely they can't stand to lose a feat like that. -_-

[Calthropstu]

You can exceed the normal level-fixed limits of a spell with this feat, so a 9th-level wizard could use Reserves of Strength to cast a Fireball as a 12th-level wizard and deal 12d6 fire damage.

Notice the part I bolded? That's the key part. WITH THIS FEAT means this feat and this feat alone is able to break the usual level cap.
It does not mean "a 20th level caster using this feat can cast a fireball with 23d6 damage" it means a 20th level caster can use a 13d6 fireball.

[MR_Anderson]

Notice the part I bolded? That's the key part. WITH THIS FEAT means this feat and this feat alone is able to break the usual level cap.
It does not mean "a 20th level caster using this feat can cast a fireball with 23d6 damage" it means a 20th level caster can use a 13d6 fireball.

That isn’t how English works. I broke each sentence down above, including the WITH THIS FEAT phrase.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Please do not continue a semantics debate on a poorly worded feat when both parties seem to stand on their opinion without evolution. You can ask your DM at the start of your game if you want to use the feat. Can we go back to the matter at hand?

A high CL can also be used to Permanency spells way earlier than you should, like Animate object (a permanencied animated object has a lower XP cost than a Minor Servitor if you're at least lv 12, and is more obedient, since it is not awakened), or Shrink object (I love this spell when permanencied).

Also, if you're exalted, there is Hammer of righteousness. An uncapped, 1d6/CL at level 3 is very interesting if you can get your CL high early, and still interesting if you don't want to use these high level slots later. The 1d3 Str can easily be Restoration'd away.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If you aren’t going to break it down, or go into the weeds as you stated, aren’t you really just admitting you don’t care to use English Grammar to understand what is said?

I "don't care" to use a narrow, robotic method of interpreting text that ignores any and all context not linked to the sentence's grammatical structure, correct. I instead prefer to embrace the ambiguity of (the English) language and genuinely attempt to interpret the meaning of the text based on the preponderance of all available evidence.

the phrase “with this feat” is tied to the player and possible Character the player might chose the feat for play.

This sentence is not contextually tied to the +1, +2, or +3 choice. It is actually a complete standalone sentence. It is similar to other feats that do more than one thing.

While it is of course true that some sentences in some feat descriptions stand alone, it is not necessarily the case that sentences in feat descriptions stand alone, even if the sentence is poorly written. One must look for clues, some of which are not based on grammatical structure.

It is possible that "with this feat" is simply tied to the PC, but again that implies that the phrase "with this feat" is vacuous filler. Of course a feat is connected to the PC taking it. The full context of the paragraph suggests the author is at least attempting to convey a connection between the two benefits using the phrase "with this feat."

Another way to phrase this is that the author definitely made some sort of mistake communicating the effects of the feat. Either he failed to use the proper words to connect the benefits to one another (and in so doing committed a minor grammatical error as well), or he introduced a phrase that adds no information and only serves to confuse the reader. I really want to emphasize that these are both mistakes; you can have perfect grammar and still make an error in communication. The question then becomes which mistake did the author make, which again is a judgement call.

And then, somehow, there is an argument from balance, in favor of the completely uncapped version of Reserves of Strength. To this I'll simply say that the feat is strong even under the stricter Interpretation 3, despite the onerous prerequisites of being a spellcaster and having a feat that costs 3k gp. If the PC is immune to stunning it's basically a non-psionic version of Overchannel, and if not, one can take Quick Recovery (which is a nice feat to take anyway). Even without any of that, it's a solid feat just for buffing prior to the adventuring day, similar to Elder Giant Magic (SoX).

[H_H_F_F]

Mr. Anderson, I think you're overstating the case. The writers of the book were humans, speaking English as spoken IRL. I'm not a linguist, and I don't have the tools to really debate you on the principal, but I do know modern linguistics are overwhelmingly descriptive, not prescriptive. Famous Israeli linguist Gila'd Zuckerman (גלעד צוקרמן) went as far as saying "A native speaker does not err." Even if you refuse to go that far (which I do), when reading a text you have to come to terms with the langauge actually spoken by the text's writers.

If I were to read a book which featured the apple-worm sentence mentioned earlier, I would say the book called the apple green. As written, not just as intended. Regardless of classical English linguistics (which, again, I don't know enough about to debate you), the langauge spoken by the writer employs context clues and has a clear meaning.

Aside from that, I don't know of any cases in which Gematria was seriously considered when incorporating new words into modern Hebrew. If you have any concrete examples, I'd love it if you directed me to them.

[MR_Anderson]

It is possible that "with this feat" is simply tied to the PC, but again that implies that the phrase "with this feat" is vacuous filler. Of course a feat is connected to the PC taking it. The full context of the paragraph suggests the author is at least attempting to convey a connection between the two benefits using the phrase "with this feat."

I believe that it is filler, because of how the feat is written.

In feats, a new sentence with, “you” followed by a verb tends to establish a new ability separated from other parts of a feat so long as there isn’t another Pronoun or Conjunction tying back to a previous sentence.

If the PC is immune to stunning it's basically a non-psionic version of Overchannel, and if not, one can take Quick Recovery (which is a nice feat to take anyway).

In reading Overchannel you can tell that the people writing these books with Caster Level and Manifester Level don’t think about the extreme cases of super high levels above Character Level. Also, Overchannel doesn’t have a Prerequisite.

Mr. Anderson, I think you're overstating the case. The writers of the book were humans, speaking English as spoken IRL. I'm not a linguist, and I don't have the tools to really debate you on the principal, but I do know modern linguistics are overwhelmingly descriptive, not prescriptive. Famous Israeli linguist Gila'd Zuckerman (גלעד צוקרמן) went as far as saying "A native speaker does not err." Even if you refuse to go that far (which I do), when reading a text you have to come to terms with the langauge actually spoken by the text's writers.

You are probably right, but I am making the case for RAW. The writers fail us all the time. I am not a doctor of English, but I had one who taught me so much. Writers have a duty to define things, this writer failed. The example of a 9th level caster could have been 11+ and we wouldn’t have to question. I actually have the gut feeling that the writer did it purposely.

If I were to read a book which featured the apple-worm sentence mentioned earlier, I would say the book called the apple green. As written, not just as intended. Regardless of classical English linguistics (which, again, I don't know enough about to debate you), the langauge spoken by the writer employs context clues and has a clear meaning.

In this case I wouldn’t fault you, but there are other examples where it actually matters. Similar to the feeding of animals example for comma use.

I fed a dog, an armadillo and an octopus. -Verses- I fed a dog, an armadillo, and an octopus.

One feeds the Dog two other animals for dinner, the other feeds three different animals separately. :)

Aside from that, I don't know of any cases in which Gematria was seriously considered when incorporating new words into modern Hebrew. If you have any concrete examples, I'd love it if you directed me to them.

I am not a Hebrew scholar, I wish. I have heard of certain words that meet the Gematria, but I can not provide an example. That said, there are different Gematria systems, and there have been modern words that carry over to English Gematria system. I could break it down, but Fire in English would be 21 and Shin is the 21st letter of the Hebrew alphabet and is the symbol for fire shocking enough.

However, Gematria is far beyond this discussion.

[Beni-Kujaku]

And then, somehow, there is an argument from balance, in favor of the completely uncapped version of Reserves of Strength. To this I'll simply say that the feat is strong even under the stricter Interpretation 3, despite the onerous prerequisites of being a spellcaster and having a feat that costs 3k gp. If the PC is immune to stunning it's basically a non-psionic version of Overchannel, and if not, one can take Quick Recovery (which is a nice feat to take anyway). Even without any of that, it's a solid feat just for buffing prior to the adventuring day, similar to Elder Giant Magic (SoX).

If we are going this way‚ there is Enhance spell‚ an Epic metamagic feat that only increases by 10 the CL cap of a spell for damage only at the cost of +4 levels. Sure‚ you could say that being stunned for 1 round is a harsher cost than increasing the spell level by 4 (even though I seriously doubt it‚ with stun immunity existing) ‚ but I'm pretty sure it was never intended for a normal feat to replicate what an epic feat does‚ let alone replicate it with way less restriction and increasing the spell damage on top of it. And contrary to Overchannel‚ Enhance was definitely written with CL way over 20 in mind.

[H_H_F_F]

I fed a dog, an armadillo and an octopus. -Verses- I fed a dog, an armadillo, and an octopus.

I don't think the first sentence has correct grammar. You're looking for "I fed a dog an armadillo and an octopus" I think, no commas at all.

But we're not really looking at sentence structure when talking about reserves of strength, are we? Your claim is wider than that it's about the meta structure of the language (context rules, etc).

And if we go that route, we can see English (and most languages) some times has ambiguity issues even with completely correct grammar. "The murderer threatened the man with the gun", for example. The existence of ambiguity unto itself, even if one has grammatical reasons to believe one interpretation more likely, is not reason enough to abandon the contextually reasonable conclusion.

But at this point I feel like neither of us are likely to convince the other.