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nycfarmkid
Underboss
1210 Posts
    
Wadsworth, OH
 | | 12/20/2006 6:18 AM |
| I need some input on the caster level rules for Sublime Chord. The confusing text is found below. Please read it carefully as it is a tad wonky. The prestige class can be found in Complete Arcane if you need to look it up.
"A Sublime Chord's caster level for both her sublime chord spells and the spells she gains from other arcane spellcasting classes is determined by adding her sublime chord level to her level in another arcane spellcasting class. If she had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming a sublime chord, she must choose which to class to add her sublime chord levels for the purpose of determining her sublime chord caster level."
I've read a lot of rule interpretations from people who use theCaster Level of the original class to determine the caster level
of the sublime chord. I'm not sure this is the right method since the
text specifically says "class levels" and not caster levels.
Now this seems fairly straight forward if you are running a Bard 10/ SC 10 build. your bard caster level, but not spells known, increases with every sublime chord class level you have. The SC adds the ten bard levels to her caster level for all of her Sublime Chord Spells.
Now it gets a little confusing when you take missing caster levels or multiclassing into account. In the case of Bard 8/fighter 2/Sublime Chord 10 we can safely say that the bard caster level and sublime chord level are both 18. But what if Practiced Spellcaster feat is taken for the bard? Does that make the bard caster level 20 and the SC caster level 18? The text doesn't say anything about the caster level of the original class, just the levels in it.
Also, what if there are more than one class involved? Take wizard 9/bard1/Sublime Chord 10. The text "A Sublime Chord's caster level for both her sublime chord spells and
the spells she gains from other arcane spellcasting classes is determined by adding her sublime chord level to her level in another arcane spellcasting class" seems to be confusing here. Would that make her caster level 19 in SC, 19 in Wizard, and 11 in bard? It says specifically that she has to choose where to apply her SC caster levels for her SC spells, but it says nothing about spells she had before then. Could we also argue that the caster level for bard spells is also 19? The rules don't say that you HAVE to use the levels in bard to determine the caster level for the bard spells. could we choose to use the levels in wizard to determine the bard caster level? It seems possible.
So this brings to light another problem. Lets try bard 8/fighter 2/sublime chord 2/eldritch knight 8. Based on this combination we can say that the character's sublime chord caster level would be 17. 8 bard +2 SC + 7 from EK. However, what are the bard spells caster level? I'm thinking that with a strict definition of the rules the bard caster level would only be ten. 8 bard + 2 Sublime Chord. The levels in Sublime Chord caster gained from Eldritch knight would not count for the bard spells.
Now if we add the practiced spellcaster feat into the above picture it only gets worse. Any thoughts on these issues?
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gss_000
Commander
3204 Posts
Baltimore, MD
| | 12/20/2006 9:14 AM |
| Your hunch is right. If it says class levels, that is different than caster levels or spells known as if they gained levels in a class (which is what happens if you take a prestige class level). I think you have to think of sublime chord as the same as the practiced spellcaster feat.
With multiple spellcasting classes, I think the wording is supposed to clarify that you can't add the levels to both caster classes, like you can with a class like Mystic Theurge. In your second case, if she chose the Wizard class, the SC would be caster level 19, wizard caster level 19, but bard caster level of only 1. The second sentence in the description again is what makes this class ability like Practiced Spellcaster: only applicable to one class. I'm not clear on what you mean about applying wizard levels. I can't see how wizard levels could apply to bard levels at all. There is no "Air Bud" Rule here (Nothing in the rues says a dog can't play basketball...). Bad and Wizard levels can't be interchanged.
In your last example, the caster level calculation is correct. You can only add the benefit from EK once, and you did it to SC. Adding practiced spellcaster isn't too bad here. Again you choose the calss and add up to +4 caster level. So you could have a caster level of the bard be 14th or the SC of 20th.
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