18th level caster, only 7th level spells - what’s your tale of bad ideas that worked?

[Quertus]

So, contrary to Playground wisdom, I’m looking to play an 18th level caster who is only capable of casting 7th level spells (for a 1-shot). Now, as I recognize how boneheaded a move the Determinator would say that is, I’m planning on cheesing the character up to par in other ways.

The purpose of this thread isn’t actually to discuss that character (although such comments are not unwelcome), but to provide an opportunity for Playgrounders to tell tales of their own, of bad ideas, suboptimal builds, etc that actually worked out.

If it helps provide incentive, you can pretend I need encouragement to run something so against conventional wisdom (although, having run a sentient potted plant before, I obviously need no such encouragement).

[Metastachydium]

having run a sentient potted plant before

…
I need to know the details.

[animorte]

…
I need to know the details.

“Feed me Seymour!”

[Quertus]

…
I need to know the details.

Ah, it’s kinda a Playground meme (a “Quertus in the Playground” meme?). So… I was helping a friend test out their homebrew… and I kinda pushed the the limits of character creation.

I wasn’t alone.

So, we basically had a “normal” party, except one player was playing Not!Thor, totally OP demigod, while I was playing, quite literally, a Sentient Potted Plant. Who viewed things like “move under own power” and “push buttons” to be super powers beyond his ken. Or, in retrospect, it may have come off like we planned this, and the demigod was insane, and I was playing his split personality, personified by the potted plant he always carried. Because I’m not 100% sure if anyone else could hear me (I think they could). Shrug.

Anyway, because there was no point in me paying attention to details my character couldn’t interact with, I was the one with the free head space to remember where we parked. And I got to crack jokes, and help with planning. But I had 0 ability to “interact with the box”. Yet it was an enjoyable character.

So, although one of my most common phrases is “balance to the table”, it’s with the understanding that balance is a range, not a point - and I enjoy tables with huge ranges.

EDIT: I suppose I should have realized earlier that “Sentient Potted Plant” is definitely a “bad idea that worked anyway”.

[Tanarii]

I played a cleric that memorized spells other than Cure Something Wounds, and the party didn't throw a fit.

[Pauly]

I’ve had a lot of success with low STR and low CON martials.

Basically by the time you reach level 5 or 6 with your class bonuses, feats, potions and magic items it means that there is negligible combat difference between a STR 16 CON 16 fighter and a STR 13 CON 10 fighter.

Admittedly the first 2 or 3 levels are a bit hairy, but once you get over the hump having actual positive modifiers in INT, WIS or CHA makes the character far more useful in roleplaying.

Just to be clear I’m talking about running a straight martial with no multi-classing into non-martial classes or a half caster like a paladin or ranger

[Jay R]

Playing a caster and losing effective levels is a bad idea.
Ultimate Magus loses levels to start with by requiring two different classes, and then occasionally loses levels on your highest caster class every few UM levels.
When running a character with two caster classes, taking several levels in a PrC that only advances one of them is a really bad idea.
Playing a caster with a race with a +LA is a bad idea. That’s just more levels lost.
Pixie has +4 LA. A pixie caster would be a really bad idea.

The problem with lost levels is you don’t get the highest level spells on time. Even when you get them, you have very few.

BUT …

At epic level, his wizard level doesn’t affect how many spell slots he gets. And the +6 INT and +6 CHA for being a pixie does. Ultimate Magus costs effective caster levels, but increases CL.

The DM was running an epic level game. I had to put together a 26th level character. I asked, “26th level, or 325,000 xps”? The DM said 325,000 xps.

So I put together a pixie Ultimate Magus with four levels of Incantator. We extended the Ultimate Magus PrC using the rules in the Epic Handbook.

The pixie race has +6 INT and +6 CHA.

At 12th level UM, he can use a 6th level slot in one class as a metamagic feat for the other class. So each day he cast chasing perfection with Persistent Spell with 2 sixth level slots, for +8 on all abilities (Focus Caster – transmutation). He had also bought a Tome of Clear Thought +5 and a Tome of Understanding +3. And of course, he bought off the LA adjustment for 72,000 xps. [He had an item familiar for +10% xps.]

The crucial aspect is that he gets lots of bonus spells for his INT of 43. That affects how many spell slots he gets, and being “only” level 21 doesn’t.

With a few more adjustments, he was “only” a 21st level wizard. But he was a wizard with CL 28, with 6 slots for level 9 spells and 7 slots for levels 5-8.

[Inevitability]

Sentry Ooze (gives oozes an intelligence score) Skitterhaunt (turns a vermin into an ooze) Hairy Spider (fine-sized spider that somehow counts as a playable race), I gave it warlock levels so it could make magical darkness to sneak around in, teleport short distances, and fire off Eldritch Blasts.

[No brains]

This has happened to me more times than I really care. Usually involving builds that have levels in Ranger. I think this happens because one particular DM of mine seems to hate optimization to the point that they 'reward' me for playing awful characters.

[RazorChain]

I always try to push my characters to 3rd circle of sorcery where I can start altering reality and leveling mountains. Being confined to something like terrestrial circle of sorcery is kinda boring so I advice you not to limit yourself.

[GeoffWatson]

Only 7th level spells?
That's a big disadvantage, as there are many useful spells at lower levels.

[Notafish]

All of my 5e characters so far have wound up being frustratingly competent.

I did have a 3e Ranger/Bard whose entire concept was "singing cowboy" and whose character goal was to get enough ranger levels that he could ride a super-intelligent horse as an animal companion. Fun to play, but only marginally useful to the party in encounters. In 5e, I could play him as a Bard/Paladin or Bard/Ranger, but I could also just make a singing Paladin and get the horsie sooner.

[dspeyer]

The game was set in the modern day, using Universal Decay rules, which are basically dnd 3.5 but more complicated. The DM ruled that we could play as mutants with essentially level adjust, or we could play as ordinary characters, take mutagens, and roll on giant tables for both good and bad effects.

The tables were such that taking mutagens as an existing character was mostly a bad idea. One character had to be retired after losing most of her con.

Leaving the PCs with a large stockpile of unlabeled mutagens. We did some lab tests that didn't work very well and then used k-means to cluster them, but we didn't know what each cluster meant.

Also, we each played multiple characters. So the next time I added a character, I started as a warrior/technician/rogue/scholar with a few ranks in everything and as many choices as possible deferred. Then, in a special session, I took one mutagen from every cluster.

I had *so* many psionic powers.

I had *so* many physical deformities.

I had a charisma score of 3, and couldn't pronounce human languages. We put a text-to-speech app on my smartphone. NPCs tended to regard me as a monster.

The DM later revealed that he'd expected me to die during that pre-session.

But ultimately the character worked. Enough of the psionics were usable to let me do pretty awesome stuff. And when that didn't apply, I had a solid jack-of-all-trades build underneath.

[Quertus]

Only 7th level spells?
That's a big disadvantage, as there are many useful spells at lower levels.

Touché. “Unable to cast spells above 7th”?

Although, if it really were literally “only 7th”, they could always use Limited Wish to get the lower level ones, right?

[GeoffWatson]

This reminds me of the problems with the 3e/PF caster supremacy obsession.

If being limited to 7th level spells is "boneheaded", what does that mean for all the players who happen to play non-casters or semi-casters?

[Telok]

I once, 3.5 D&D, rolled a character legit bad enough to qualify for a by-the-book reroll. Kept it. Charisma 13 highest stat warlock. Started at 3rd level and retired at 7th level to a manor (quest reward) with the nearly-full TPK party worth of loot. Just, ya know, real darkness and spider climb and knowing when to run.

Also 3.5 did a dex based warblade with 10 str & 14 con. That was legit difficult to pull off. The class and maneuvers are really geared towards strength builds. Ended up with only three damage maneuvers by late game, the two concentration check -> damage ones and one of the mountain hammer line. But dang, had like a 120+ base move with a racial boost & magic boots, bad reflex save better than the good fort save, really high acs (even touch a ac 30+), blindsense & blindsight, 16+ crit threat. Ended up leaping insanely over monster squads into clumps of back line casters & bosses, would sometimes one-shot some of them (a few were well enough prepped to evade, but not a lot of npcs get the full pc style win-caster optimization), and then ignored or noped many "gank the typical strong warrior" type spells.

[animorte]

This reminds me of the problems with the 3e/PF caster supremacy obsession.

If being limited to 7th level spells is "boneheaded", what does that mean for all the players who happen to play non-casters or semi-casters?

Thank you for pointing this out. People tend to have a problem with the concept of anybody not utilizing each character build to optimum efficiency.

That means your full caster is allowed 1, maybe 2 levels of a dip for cheese or armor (because there’s no spell failure anymore). And even some people feel that pushing back access to valuable features/spell levels, by merely one level, will keep you behind the curve drastically.

But you know, if that’s fun for them, by all means. It’s not for everybody.