Best use for Psuedocasting?

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

To start things off, since people seem a bit hesitant to dive in to this lovely new subforum, a thread about one of the more interesting (to me, anyway) abilities to come out of this project.

Psuedocasting, or Affinity (as it is termed in FireInTheSky's index tables) reads as follows:

"a [monster class] who multiclasses for a [type of casting and/or manifesting] class can count his [monster class] levels as levels of that class for purposes of CL/ML and for the purposes of learning new spells/powers and getting new spell slots/power points. So for example, a [monster class] 3 who took 1 level of sorcerer could choose to have CL 4, get 3 2nd level spell slots, 1 1st level spell slot, 1 2nd level spell known and 1 0th level spell known. He wouldn't get the spell known and spell slots of a sorcerer 3 however. He would get the familiar ability, but [monster class] levels wouldn't count for it."

Some examples of classes with the ability:
Aboleth (Psionic and Arcane)
Monavic Deva (Divine)
Firbolg (any casting)

It's an interesting alternative to giving reduced casting progression as it grants nothing while you stay in the class, but once you multiclass, your top level of spells is the same as a full caster of your level.

Thoughts on the ability? What are the best/worst casting classes to go into from a class with this ability? What is the best way to take advantage of it in a build?

[Garryl]

I've never been a big fan of that pseudocasting progression. It heavily encourages taking levels in specific (and occasionally non-intuitive) orders to maximize the number of spell slots (and spells known) that you get.

I haven't heavily examined it, but I suspect that pseudocasting usually works best with manifesters and worst with spontaneous casters who have limited spells known.

Manifesters do well as you can just grab all of the low-level powers you want with your powers known (they tend to function across greater level ranges than spells do, so you don't lose as much by having lower level powers instead of higher level ones), while power point progression ramps up at higher levels and you still gain a good baseline due to bonus PP from ML.

Spontaneous casters would work the worst as even though you get the bonus spell slots for a high ability score for your lower level spell slots, you don't have any spells known with which to use them.

Proper interleaving of monster class levels and spellcasting class levels should push prepared and spontaneous casters up above manifesters. By multiclassing into the casting class at the levels that maximize new spell slots and spells known, you can get the best of both worlds.

[DavidWL]

Garryl says stuff ... spontaneous bad, prepared good

+1

Another observation - while not intended (and not that uber) I think a Warlock is considered a "casting class" ...

Finally, stereotypically, casters start to rock around 7th level.  This lets you play something else for those first levels, and only start to be a caster when it is convenient...

Best,
David

[Raineh Daze]

As it turns out from asking elsewhere (I hadn't even noticed this thread), Warlock does benefit from pseudocasting progression. Eldritch Blast and all.

Succubus seems like one of the best classes with this feature--huge mental stat boost, finishes just after you get fourth level spells, permanent flight, collection of defences, and some convenient SLA's. Including Teleport. Oh, they also get to bypass immunity to mind resisting effects.

Succubus/Beguiler?

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Beguiler would be perfect, if it ran on cha instead of int. That's something I've run into several times trying to find good uses for this ability. There's lots of options with a good cha boost (verdant prince is one of the more obscure ones) but not many good cha based casting classes to go into.

The spells known thing is difficult and does make the ability almost useless for classes with that mechanic. I wonder if granting the full spells known of your caster level would be all that problematic?

[Raineh Daze]

Beguiler would be perfect, if it ran on cha instead of int. That's something I've run into several times trying to find good uses for this ability. There's lots of options with a good cha boost (verdant prince is one of the more obscure ones) but not many good cha based casting classes to go into.

The spells known thing is difficult and does make the ability almost useless for classes with that mechanic. I wonder if granting the full spells known of your caster level would be all that problematic?

Never actually looked at Beguiler before. I'm not sure which is worse: that I didn't know this, or that the class you would most expect to use CHA after Bards... doesn't.

I presume granting full spells known is a bad idea because it's kind of... well, unbalancing. Take Illithid and Ullitharid. Huge INT or CHA boost, full CL/ML progression. Go into Wizard. Congratulations, you are now a wizard with 30 INT butt naked.

[DavidWL]

The spells known thing is difficult and does make the ability almost useless for classes with that mechanic.

Malformed Mind (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=327.20)
Dynamic Priest

Both help.

Succubus seems like one of the best classes with this feature

+1 for Mind Flayer / Ulitharid.  +12 to Cha or Int, full pseudo casting, and 5 spell like abilities _of_choice_.  Probably my favorite caster entrance.

The Mindflayer is really a gish entrance, so levels 2-8 may or may not be taken, depending on your desire.  However ... level 8 gives you astral projection ... immunity to death for the whole party.  Wow.

Best,
David

[Raineh Daze]

Succubus lets you use mind control on Undead and Constructs, plus get past Mind Blank. Swap the CHA to INT (and Altered Eldritch Source), give yourself some decent starting Charisma, go be a Beguiler and make all the friends. Not to mention you already have a bunch of the lower-level abilities anyway.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

The spells known thing is difficult and does make the ability almost useless for classes with that mechanic.

Malformed Mind (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=327.20)
Dynamic Priest

Both help.

Those help with the "no good cha based casters" issue but they don't really address the problem where a monster class 5, wizard 1 spends its WBL on having a spellbook as good as a wizard 6 but a monster class 5, sorcerer 1 has 1 cantrip and 1 lv 3 spell known and that's it.

The best part is that it has a lv2 spell slot (plus bonus slots of lv 1 and 2) but no lv 2 spells known and it has a cantrip known but no lv0 slots to cast it from. What you end up doing is using your lv1 and 2 slots to cast the cantrip you know, but that sucks hardcore.

If full spells known/ CL is too much, what about 1 extra spell known of each level it can cast but does not know spells of?

[oslecamo]

Sorcerors wwho want more stuff to do with their spell slots?
1-Take Rainbow Puppeteer.
2-?
3-Profit!

If the pseudowizard wants to spend his full money writing a spellbook from almost scratch, let him.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Rainbow Pupeteer is a really interesting option for pseudo spontaneous casters. Will have to look over Doll Judgement again with that feat in mind.

[Raineh Daze]

How many pseudocasters are there that advance Dexterity (worst comes to worst, using one of the feats to shift a bonus from strength or con into it)? They would go into that perfectly.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Several of the Giants (Storm, Stone, Cloud, Firbolg) get the ability and have +1 str and con at each level. They'd be good candidates for malformed body. Verdant Prince gets large dex boosts but equally large cha boosts so the switch isn't as great as it could be.

[Yogibear41]

Couldn't you use Pseudo-casting on something like a Paladin who doesn't get spells for the first several levels to basically skip the non-casting part of the class, for example 5 levels of a pseudo-casting class into 1st level paladin to gain spells per day as a 6th level paladin, essentially missing nothing?

Granted that still nothing amazing, because paladin casting is still paladin casting, beats being a spell-less fighter though 

[DavidWL]

Couldn't you use Pseudo-casting on something like a Paladin who doesn't get spells for the first several levels to basically skip the non-casting part of the class, for example 5 levels of a pseudo-casting class into 1st level paladin to gain spells per day as a 6th level paladin, essentially missing nothing?

Granted that still nothing amazing, because paladin casting is still paladin casting, beats being a spell-less fighter though 

That's true, although why take Psuedo 5/Paladin 1 when you can take Psuedo 5/Full Caster 1 ... I can't think of virtually any circumstance when Paladin would be better ...

Best,
David