Infinine Caster Level? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Infinine Caster Level?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
malkavon
Apr 27, 2008 0:44:52 Heylo,
I'm new posting here, though I have been reading for a bit. Anyways, I was just discussing some things with a friend of mine, and we hit upon a (potentially) infinite caster level loop. It's a tad convoluted, but as far as I can tell, it works. The idea is to (ab)use Ur-Priest, Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord in order to achieve infinite Caster Levels. The basic build is as follows: Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1, having Nar
Demonbiner use Ur-Priest to determine its CL and Mystic Theurge advance Wizard and Ur-Priest. This leads us to the following CLs (after doing the math):

Duskblade: 1
Bard: 1
Wizard: 5
Ur-Priest: 12
Nar Demonbinder: 13

Now, we add one level of Sublime Chord, using Nar Demonbinder to determine our Sublime Chord CL. Thus, we have:

Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1

This leads to the following CLs (note that I have not adjusted Ur-Priest to account for the raised Arcane CLs):

Duskblade: 14
Bard: 14
Wizard: 14
Ur-Priest: 12
Nar Demonbinder: 14
Sublime Chord: 14

So, now we add in the arcane CLs to Ur-Priest, as follows:

Duskblade: +7 to Ur-Priest
Bard: +7 to Ur-Priest
Wizard: +5 to Ur-Priest
Nar Demonbiner: +1 to Ur-Priest
Sublime Chord: +7 to Ur-Priest
or +22 to our Ur-Priest CL (and thus our Nar Demonbinder CL).

This gives us a new Ur-Priest CL of 34, which in turn is added to Nar Demonbinder, bringing its CL to 36, from which we derive our Sublime Chord CL at 37. And since we determine all of our Arcane CLs based off of Sublime Chord, this bumps them all up to 35. After the first round of additions:

Duskblade: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest)
Bard: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest):
Ur-Priest: 32
Nar Demonbinder: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest)
Sublime Chord: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest)

As you can see, this leads to an accelerating CL increase across the board, to the point where we can declare it infinite. Now, this may not seem useful, considering our casting is limited .... but that is where Mystic Theurge comes in!

Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1/Mystic Theurge +5/Ultimate Magus 4 gives us 10th-level Sublime Chord casting (9th-level Sorc/Wiz spells), 9th-level Wizard casting (5th-level Sorc/Wiz spells) and 9th-level Ur-Priest casting (9th-level Cleric spells), along with infinite CLs.

I realize that to achieve this class breakdown one has to jump through some serious hoops (I'm seeing Human + Able Learner as pretty much the only way to achieve the skill requirements for Sublime Chord by 10th level), but it achieves infinite CLs at 11th level, and goes on to score both 9th-level arcane AND divine spells.

So CO, my question to you is this: Is this progression legal by the RAW (I think it is, but I'm often wrong about this sort of stuff) and is there a faster way to do this without resorting to Pun Pun-esque or Gestalt tricks?

Edit: I just realized that Nar Demonbinder doesn't grant 3rd-level spells. I'm still working on how to get 3rd-level Arcane spellcasting for Sublime Chord.

Edit2: Found it. Editted above.
#2
callen
Apr 27, 2008 5:39:20 I believe the rule is that you choose the order in which to apply all of them, so you choose the most advantageous one, but that you only apply each once and then you're done. Or maybe that's just the standard way to avoid such recursion since there are a bunch of ways to get it.

Chris
#3
smrtac_dup
Apr 27, 2008 6:31:01 It doesn't work like that ....

Mystic Theurge get +1 level of existing spellcasting to any one of his arcane and divine classes. Which leads to only giving CL to lets say bard and Ur-Priest.

How can Ur-Priest raise Arcane CLs, when Ur-Priest is divine spellcaster ?

Also i would love to know how Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord give CL to Ur-Priest when both Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord got their own spell list ?

Maybe i missed something ... but none of PrC's you mentioned except Mystic Theurge here give CL to other caster classes you got, instead all of them come with their own spell lists. Which means you don't stack them, instead with this build you got like 5 separete spell lists.

Maybe i missed the rule saying that all of this PrC stack with both Arcane and Divine spell casters :P
#4
bigrobc101
Apr 27, 2008 8:29:29
It doesn't work like that ....

Mystic Theurge get +1 level of existing spellcasting to any one of his arcane and divine classes. Which leads to only giving CL to lets say bard and Ur-Priest.

How can Ur-Priest raise Arcane CLs, when Ur-Priest is divine spellcaster ?

Also i would love to know how Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord give CL to Ur-Priest when both Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord got their own spell list ?

Maybe i missed something ... but none of PrC's you mentioned except Mystic Theurge here give CL to other caster classes you got, instead all of them come with their own spell lists. Which means you don't stack them, instead with this build you got like 5 separete spell lists.

Maybe i missed the rule saying that all of this PrC stack with both Arcane and Divine spell casters :P

The reason it works how he say it does, is the way your work out your caster level for Ur-priest, which is his levels in Ur-priest plus one half of he's levels in any other spellcasting class,

Sub-lime cords caster level is the levels in it, plus the levels of one other arcane casting class, sub-lime cord also say it advances the caster level of that one other class as well, In this case Nar-demonbinder,

Nar deamon binder caster level is, your nar deamon binder plus the level in one other spell casting class,

so you go ur-priest+nar casting for you nar caster level

Nar+cord for your cord there by increasing your Nar caster level as well

and your Ur-priest is equal to ur+plus 1/2 of all other classes,

I dont think it does work, becuase they state that you add your level in the classes to your caster level, not your caster level from one class to the other.
#5
malkavon
Apr 27, 2008 9:05:40 Well, I solved the issue of how to qualify for Sublime Chord.

To answer the questions regarding if it works or not: I'm not sure. My current DM has ruled that you utilize CLs, not class levels in order to determine the stacking, as above (we don't have anything as bad as the above in our game though) and I personally don't play casters very often, so I'd never looked closely at them. Reading the relevant sections, I can see how it might not work, depending on whether you read it as applying only to class levels or if caster level is carried through in context.
#6
loganic1
Apr 27, 2008 9:23:47 I confirmed what BigRobC101 said.
Sub-lime chord, ur priest and nar demonbinder all add levels in other classes not caster levels
Read the RAW
"To determine caster levels of an ur-priest, add the character's ur priest levels to one half of her levels in other spell casting classes. (Any levels in the cleric class by an ex-cleric don't count)"
Similar wording for the others.
Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels.
It's very clear cut.

Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1

Duskblade: 1
Bard: 1
Wizard: 5
Ur-Priest: 12
Nar Demonbinder: 4
Sublime chord: 4

I'm not even sure if they stack with mystic theurge. Can someone confirm a yes or no to that?
#7
brainpiercing
Apr 27, 2008 10:20:45
I confirmed what BigRobC101 said.
Sub-lime chord, ur priest and nar demonbinder all add levels in other classes not caster levels
Read the RAW
"To determine caster levels of an ur-priest, add the character's ur priest levels to one half of her levels in other spell casting classes. (Any levels in the cleric class by an ex-cleric don't count)"
Similar wording for the others.
Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels.
It's very clear cut.

Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1

Duskblade: 1
Bard: 1
Wizard: 5
Ur-Priest: 12
Nar Demonbinder: 4
Sublime chord: 4

I'm not even sure if they stack with mystic theurge. Can someone confirm a yes or no to that?

But going by that Ur-priest could take the full halved class-level in non-full-casting classes, right? So basically a 50% casting class adds its entire caster level to Ur-priest. I don't see that flying past many DMs, either.
#8
loganic1
Apr 27, 2008 10:47:45 Any casting class would
Why would that not fly?
Those rules mean that the best CL a UR priest can have at level 20 is 15.

A UR priest is Cl challenged anyways.
I'm not sure if Mystic theurge stacks, but for the moment I'm going to assume it doesn't.
90% of caster PrCs don't gain spells themselves, so they don't count towards Ur priest caster.

Even if Mystic theurge works, a ur priest 10, druid 1, wiz 1, Mystic theurge 8, would be
Ur priest 10, CL 19
Druid 9
Wiz 9

That's still only about as powerful as
Cleric 8/Wiz 2/Mystic theurge 10
Cleric 18
Wiz 12
#9
callen
Apr 27, 2008 15:11:17
Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels.
It's very clear cut.

Of course, by RAW your caster level is your class level for purposes of casting spells. (Yes, it does say this, and I referenced it somewhere in another thread.) So, technically it doesn't matter which way it's written because your caster level replaces your class level. This does help a lot for matters of consistency such as the half progression mentioned above, but it also opens up a lot of room for abuse.

Chris
#10
loganic1
Apr 28, 2008 0:45:56 That the default, but it's much less reliable because some classes like the former three have specified rules for their class levels. On top of that there's a number of items, spells, and feats to buff CL.

Unless otherwise stated, CL is derived from class level, but otherwise stated includes those three items you found in that dungeon, masochism feat, greater consumptive field, metamagic vigor, whatever else you want to throw at it.
#11
ChristopherGroves
Apr 28, 2008 7:22:20 It is definitely class levels; this is why Hexblade is often used in Ur Priest builds ...
#12
zorgling25
Apr 28, 2008 15:53:27 Ur-Priests are amazing. This isn't anything surprising.

Quite frankly, this isn't doing anything that you can't do by abusing Greater Consumptive Field (which IMO is more likely to fly with a DM than this is, and THAT'S saying something).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 malkavon Apr 27, 2008 0:44:52	Heylo, I'm new posting here, though I have been reading for a bit. Anyways, I was just discussing some things with a friend of mine, and we hit upon a (potentially) infinite caster level loop. It's a tad convoluted, but as far as I can tell, it works. The idea is to (ab)use Ur-Priest, Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord in order to achieve infinite Caster Levels. The basic build is as follows: Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1, having Nar Demonbiner use Ur-Priest to determine its CL and Mystic Theurge advance Wizard and Ur-Priest. This leads us to the following CLs (after doing the math): Duskblade: 1 Bard: 1 Wizard: 5 Ur-Priest: 12 Nar Demonbinder: 13 Now, we add one level of Sublime Chord, using Nar Demonbinder to determine our Sublime Chord CL. Thus, we have: Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1 This leads to the following CLs (note that I have not adjusted Ur-Priest to account for the raised Arcane CLs): Duskblade: 14 Bard: 14 Wizard: 14 Ur-Priest: 12 Nar Demonbinder: 14 Sublime Chord: 14 So, now we add in the arcane CLs to Ur-Priest, as follows: Duskblade: +7 to Ur-Priest Bard: +7 to Ur-Priest Wizard: +5 to Ur-Priest Nar Demonbiner: +1 to Ur-Priest Sublime Chord: +7 to Ur-Priest or +22 to our Ur-Priest CL (and thus our Nar Demonbinder CL). This gives us a new Ur-Priest CL of 34, which in turn is added to Nar Demonbinder, bringing its CL to 36, from which we derive our Sublime Chord CL at 37. And since we determine all of our Arcane CLs based off of Sublime Chord, this bumps them all up to 35. After the first round of additions: Duskblade: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest) Bard: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest): Ur-Priest: 32 Nar Demonbinder: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest) Sublime Chord: 37 (+11 to Ur-Priest) As you can see, this leads to an accelerating CL increase across the board, to the point where we can declare it infinite. Now, this may not seem useful, considering our casting is limited .... but that is where Mystic Theurge comes in! Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1/Mystic Theurge +5/Ultimate Magus 4 gives us 10th-level Sublime Chord casting (9th-level Sorc/Wiz spells), 9th-level Wizard casting (5th-level Sorc/Wiz spells) and 9th-level Ur-Priest casting (9th-level Cleric spells), along with infinite CLs. I realize that to achieve this class breakdown one has to jump through some serious hoops (I'm seeing Human + Able Learner as pretty much the only way to achieve the skill requirements for Sublime Chord by 10th level), but it achieves infinite CLs at 11th level, and goes on to score both 9th-level arcane AND divine spells. So CO, my question to you is this: Is this progression legal by the RAW (I think it is, but I'm often wrong about this sort of stuff) and is there a faster way to do this without resorting to Pun Pun-esque or Gestalt tricks? Edit: I just realized that Nar Demonbinder doesn't grant 3rd-level spells. I'm still working on how to get 3rd-level Arcane spellcasting for Sublime Chord. Edit2: Found it. Editted above.
#2 callen Apr 27, 2008 5:39:20	I believe the rule is that you choose the order in which to apply all of them, so you choose the most advantageous one, but that you only apply each once and then you're done. Or maybe that's just the standard way to avoid such recursion since there are a bunch of ways to get it. Chris
#3 smrtac_dup Apr 27, 2008 6:31:01	It doesn't work like that .... Mystic Theurge get +1 level of existing spellcasting to any one of his arcane and divine classes. Which leads to only giving CL to lets say bard and Ur-Priest. How can Ur-Priest raise Arcane CLs, when Ur-Priest is divine spellcaster ? Also i would love to know how Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord give CL to Ur-Priest when both Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord got their own spell list ? Maybe i missed something ... but none of PrC's you mentioned except Mystic Theurge here give CL to other caster classes you got, instead all of them come with their own spell lists. Which means you don't stack them, instead with this build you got like 5 separete spell lists. Maybe i missed the rule saying that all of this PrC stack with both Arcane and Divine spell casters :P
#4 bigrobc101 Apr 27, 2008 8:29:29	It doesn't work like that .... Mystic Theurge get +1 level of existing spellcasting to any one of his arcane and divine classes. Which leads to only giving CL to lets say bard and Ur-Priest. How can Ur-Priest raise Arcane CLs, when Ur-Priest is divine spellcaster ? Also i would love to know how Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord give CL to Ur-Priest when both Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord got their own spell list ? Maybe i missed something ... but none of PrC's you mentioned except Mystic Theurge here give CL to other caster classes you got, instead all of them come with their own spell lists. Which means you don't stack them, instead with this build you got like 5 separete spell lists. Maybe i missed the rule saying that all of this PrC stack with both Arcane and Divine spell casters :P The reason it works how he say it does, is the way your work out your caster level for Ur-priest, which is his levels in Ur-priest plus one half of he's levels in any other spellcasting class, Sub-lime cords caster level is the levels in it, plus the levels of one other arcane casting class, sub-lime cord also say it advances the caster level of that one other class as well, In this case Nar-demonbinder, Nar deamon binder caster level is, your nar deamon binder plus the level in one other spell casting class, so you go ur-priest+nar casting for you nar caster level Nar+cord for your cord there by increasing your Nar caster level as well and your Ur-priest is equal to ur+plus 1/2 of all other classes, I dont think it does work, becuase they state that you add your level in the classes to your caster level, not your caster level from one class to the other.
#5 malkavon Apr 27, 2008 9:05:40	Well, I solved the issue of how to qualify for Sublime Chord. To answer the questions regarding if it works or not: I'm not sure. My current DM has ruled that you utilize CLs, not class levels in order to determine the stacking, as above (we don't have anything as bad as the above in our game though) and I personally don't play casters very often, so I'd never looked closely at them. Reading the relevant sections, I can see how it might not work, depending on whether you read it as applying only to class levels or if caster level is carried through in context.
#6 loganic1 Apr 27, 2008 9:23:47	I confirmed what BigRobC101 said. Sub-lime chord, ur priest and nar demonbinder all add levels in other classes not caster levels Read the RAW "To determine caster levels of an ur-priest, add the character's ur priest levels to one half of her levels in other spell casting classes. (Any levels in the cleric class by an ex-cleric don't count)" Similar wording for the others. Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels. It's very clear cut. Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1 Duskblade: 1 Bard: 1 Wizard: 5 Ur-Priest: 12 Nar Demonbinder: 4 Sublime chord: 4 I'm not even sure if they stack with mystic theurge. Can someone confirm a yes or no to that?
#7 brainpiercing Apr 27, 2008 10:20:45	I confirmed what BigRobC101 said. Sub-lime chord, ur priest and nar demonbinder all add levels in other classes not caster levels Read the RAW "To determine caster levels of an ur-priest, add the character's ur priest levels to one half of her levels in other spell casting classes. (Any levels in the cleric class by an ex-cleric don't count)" Similar wording for the others. Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels. It's very clear cut. Duskblade 1/Bard 1/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Sublime Chord 1 Duskblade: 1 Bard: 1 Wizard: 5 Ur-Priest: 12 Nar Demonbinder: 4 Sublime chord: 4 I'm not even sure if they stack with mystic theurge. Can someone confirm a yes or no to that? But going by that Ur-priest could take the full halved class-level in non-full-casting classes, right? So basically a 50% casting class adds its entire caster level to Ur-priest. I don't see that flying past many DMs, either.
#8 loganic1 Apr 27, 2008 10:47:45	Any casting class would Why would that not fly? Those rules mean that the best CL a UR priest can have at level 20 is 15. A UR priest is Cl challenged anyways. I'm not sure if Mystic theurge stacks, but for the moment I'm going to assume it doesn't. 90% of caster PrCs don't gain spells themselves, so they don't count towards Ur priest caster. Even if Mystic theurge works, a ur priest 10, druid 1, wiz 1, Mystic theurge 8, would be Ur priest 10, CL 19 Druid 9 Wiz 9 That's still only about as powerful as Cleric 8/Wiz 2/Mystic theurge 10 Cleric 18 Wiz 12
#9 callen Apr 27, 2008 15:11:17	Levels means class levels. Caster levels and character levels are always specified in rules when applied. If not defined, it defaults to class levels. It's very clear cut. Of course, by RAW your caster level is your class level for purposes of casting spells. (Yes, it does say this, and I referenced it somewhere in another thread.) So, technically it doesn't matter which way it's written because your caster level replaces your class level. This does help a lot for matters of consistency such as the half progression mentioned above, but it also opens up a lot of room for abuse. Chris
#10 loganic1 Apr 28, 2008 0:45:56	That the default, but it's much less reliable because some classes like the former three have specified rules for their class levels. On top of that there's a number of items, spells, and feats to buff CL. Unless otherwise stated, CL is derived from class level, but otherwise stated includes those three items you found in that dungeon, masochism feat, greater consumptive field, metamagic vigor, whatever else you want to throw at it.
#11 ChristopherGroves Apr 28, 2008 7:22:20	It is definitely class levels; this is why Hexblade is often used in Ur Priest builds ...
#12 zorgling25 Apr 28, 2008 15:53:27	Ur-Priests are amazing. This isn't anything surprising. Quite frankly, this isn't doing anything that you can't do by abusing Greater Consumptive Field (which IMO is more likely to fly with a DM than this is, and THAT'S saying something).