Author Topic: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds  (Read 5445 times)

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OblivionSmurf83

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Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« on: December 18, 2009, 07:02:29 AM »
Hi Guys,

I'm interested in exploring the concept of a Chameleon as a primary spellcaster. These sorts of builds generally utilise Catalogues of Enlightenment + Extra Spell (Credit goes to DavidWL), or a similar trick to grab 9th level spells for the Chameleon. As a 9th level spellcaster, a Chameleon is utterly fantastic, due to possessing the ability to cast every single Divine and Arcane spell in the game. More, he casts Divine spells as a Cleric, meaning he automatically knows every single Divine spell in existence. When you consider things like Alternative Spell Source or Customize Domain, this essentially means a Chameleon simply knows every single spell in the game.

I'm hoping on creating a handbook dealing with the Chameleon in this capacity, and I'd like any builds people can come up with that focus on this incredible flexibility. Some builds I have quickly come up with are as follows:


The Shadowcraft Chameleon
Cloistered Cleric 5/Chameleon 10/Shadowcraft Mage 5

The Shadowcraft Chameleon builds on the Chameleon's already impressive flexibility by adding the Shadowcraft Mage's ability to cast any Sor/Wiz Conjuration(Creation), Conjuration(Teleportation), or Evocation spell. It also serves as a good party skill-monkey. This build requires the Shadowcraft Mage prestige class to be open to non-Gnomes.

The build relies on Divine Metamagic to buff itself, and heighten spells for Shadowcraft Mage. It can also grab Initiate of Mystra, in order to take advantage of being able to cast in an Antimagic Field. Where a typical Cleric needs the Shadow domain to be able to cast Shadow spells, the Shadowcraft Chameleon can simply use his Chameleon spells. It requires high Wisdom and Intelligence, but this can be reduced to Intelligence alone through use of Academic Priest. The character cannot spontaneously cast Silent Image, however this can be overcome using Customize Domain(Magic or Trickery).

Skill-wise, this Character is quite good, with an average of 4.5+Int skill points per level.

This character can receive a high number of spells per day, thanks to the fact that bonus spells are applied to both the Arcane and Divine streams of the Chameleon separately, allowing the character to 'double up' on spells. A high level Chameleon could have an intelligence of 18(Base) + 5 (Levels) + 5 (Tome) + 6 (Item) + 6 (Ability Boon) = 40. When you apply this to his spells per day, you get:


CLERIC                       6/8+1/8+1/7+1/6+1/5+1
CHAMELEON (ARCANE)  4/8/8/8/4/6/4/4/3/3
CHAMELEON (DIVINE)   4/8/8/8/4/6/4/4/3/3
TOTAL                      14/24+1/24+1/23+1/14+1/17+1/8/8/6/6

This compares favourably to an equivalent Wizard, who would have an Int of 20(Base) + 5 (Levels) + 5 (Tome) + 6 (Item) = 36, and the following spells per day: 4/8/7/7/7/7/6/6/6/6. The Wizard may have more spells due to specialisation, but the Chameleon still retains the edge through being able to cast every single spell in existence, usually at a lower level than the Wizard is capable of. Moreover, a Chameleon can use Aptitude Focus up to 3 times per day at 10th level, meaning their Chameleon spells per day are essentially tripled. They also have a ton of lower level spell slots that could be used to fuel Arcane Strike for a Gish Chameleon. Indeed, a Chameleon who (stupidly) decided to go nova using Arcane Strike could do an extra 503d4 damage with one Melee strike, averaging about +1257.5 damage on their attack. What's more, they could then simply use Aptitude Focus to refresh their Chameleon spells anyway.

The Dweomer-Chameleon
Cloistered Cleric 5/Chameleon 10/Dweomerkeeper 5

This build simply substitutes Shadowcraft Mage for Dweomerkeeper, sacrificing Shadowcraft Mage goodies for Mantle of Spells 3/day and Supernatural Spell 1/day. Some ideas for this include picking three save-or-die or save-or-suck spells for Mantle of Spells, targetting a different saving throw with each. This will allow your Chameleon to always target a weak save on any enemy he encounters. Alternatively, blaster-minded Chameleons could pick Wings of Flurry in place of, say, a Fortitude save-or-suck spell, allowing them to blast to their heart's content if they so desire. Since most creatures with a weak Fortitude save also have low hitpoints, Wings of Flurry isn't a bad replacement for a save-or-suck spell.

The Mystic Chameleon-Shepherd
Mystic Ranger (Wild Shape variant) 5/Chameleon 1/Planar Shepherd 10/Chameleon 4

This build is a bit more radical than the others. You only end up with 5 levels of Chameleon, so you can't double up on Arcane and Divine focus. Mind you, you can still change your aptitude focus 2 times per day. This will take an hour, so it's not something to be attempted during a combat, but it can at least improve your stamina over the course of an average day. In exchange for this reduced spellcasting capability, you get the excellence that is Planar Shepherd, with all the ridiculous Wild Shaping and Planar Bubble fun this entails. Free wishes or 10:1 time traits are a very nice alternative to Arcane and Divine spellcasting. In this particular situation, you should focus on Divine Chameleon spells, due to their greater flexibility. Pick up Sword of the Arcane Order, and this will further increase your flexibility. One flaw this build has is an inability to buff itself all day, due to lacking Divine Metamagic, or a similar ability.

The Chameleontatrix
Wizard 5/Chameleon 7/Incantatrix 8

This build cuts short the Chameleon's run at level 7, treating double aptitude as the capstone ability for the Chameleon. It then takes 8 levels of Incantatrix, netting the always-awesome metamagic effect ability, and 3 bonus metamagic feats. This is the only build that isn't epic ready, but it's close, requiring only 2 more levels of Incanatrix. 5 levels of Incantatrix could be sacrificed for Shadowcraft Mage. Just be sure to grab Signature Spell (Silent Image) if you're going to go down that road.

The Completely Common Chameleon
Commoner 13/Chameleon 7

Ok, so you never, ever would, but a Commoner could grab 8 ranks of Bluff and Disguise by level 13. This still leaves 7 levels of Chameleon, which means our friendly Commoner will end up with Double Aptitude at 20th level. He's only got 5th level spells, so he'll need to grab Extra Spell 4 times, rather than 3. He can use Shun/Embrace the Dark Chaos for this, if need be. Since he needs ranks in Bluff, Sense Motive and Spellcraft, he also needs an Intelligence score of 14. But really, that's all he needs. An epic level game could conceivably have a Commoner-Chameleon surviving on a point buy of six. He'll have an Intelligence score of 14(Base) + 5 (Levels) + 5 (Tome) + 6 (Item) + 4 (Ability Boon) = 34. This is the same intelligence as a Human Wizard who started with 18 Int. The character would be weak, uncoordinated, fragile, foolish and ugly, but he'd still be a force to be reckoned with, if played intelligently. This build is merely to illustrate that the classes that go around a Chameleon are really simply the gravy to the Chameleon itself - the class itself can let anyone be a force in the multiverse, whatever their background.



Brainpiercing

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2009, 09:37:12 AM »
Hmm, some things seem off:
Chameleon uses Int for Arcane and Wiz for Divine spells, so you don't get bonus spells for both foci with Int. However, double aptitude also means a second +6, which can go to Wiz.

Are you sure you have all the requirements straight? Remember, you can't qualify for ANYTHING by virtue of a chameleon class ability (except skill ranks). Even the floating feat. You need to get your prerequisites for every build outside of chameleon. I'm mostly concerned with the Planar Shepherd, which gets no casting outside of Chameleon. But then I don't know the prereqs for that class, anyway. And Dweomerkeeper also needs to be able to cast Arcane Spells, but there is that nifty regional feat, Magical Training or something like that, which you can use to fulfill that prereq.
However, you CAN advance chameleon casting, etc. with PrCs, which might look a bit iffy, but there is no rule to say you can't.

Are you sure you can refresh all spell slots by changing your aptitude focus? That would be pretty nifty, then.

OblivionSmurf83

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2009, 10:04:28 AM »
Actually, the floating feat can be used to qualify for prereqs - 'You can't use any abilities gained from your aptitude focus, ability boon, or mimic class feature abilities to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other option. You can use your bonus feat to qualify for such options, but if you change the feat, you suffer the normal drawbacks for no longer meeting a prerequisite or requirement.'

The builds using Int off both assume Academic Priest will be used, without it you've definitely lost some spells on one side.

Regarding the prerequisites, yes, all the builds should work just fine. The Shadowcraft Chameleon needs 4 4th level Illusion spells - a Cleric 5, with Earth Spell antics, can meet this requirement. The Dweomerkeeper, likewise, can be entered after Cleric 5 (We're just inserting Chameleon in between that). The Mystic Ranger qualifies for Planar Shepherd, though he needs a Spontaneous Summoning feat to be able to qualify for the prerequisite Initiate feat. The Incanatatrix build works fine, since Wizard 5 qualifies for Incantatrix. Three of the Incantatrix levels add towards Chameleon, the rest go into Wizard (Such that you end up with Chameleon 10/Wizard 10 spellcasting). A similar trick is used for the Mystic Ranger build. Obviously the Commoner build works, since there's nothing in there besides Commoner and Chameleon.

Mystic Ranger gets spellcasting, full Sorcerer-style spellcasting in fact until 10th level (As in, staggered progression). It then caps off at 5th level spells, but does so at 10th level, rather than 17th or somesuch. Incidentally, you realise that Planar Shepherd doesn't actually have a spellcasting requirement? It advances it, but all it needs is Knowledge(Nature), and Knowledge(The Planes), along with Greensinger Initiate. Now, that practically amounts to a Spellcasting requirement, since Greensinger Initiate requires you to be able to spontenaously cast Summon Nature's Ally, but there is no 'cast level X spells' requirement. If I wanted to, I could use a Wild Shaping Ranger 6 to qualify for it, even though it can only cast Osirons. It's just that Mystic Ranger is a much nicer class, I think.

Dweomerkeeper is relying on Magical Training, yep, like all the Cleric 5 builds that lead into it.

Some of the builds do advance Chameleon spellcasting, to get it up to 10th level. It is, however, beneficial to stick around in Chameleon until 7th level at least, just so you can grab dual aptitudes.

Regarding refreshing the spell slots, I don't see why it shouldn't work. I mean, the class reads:

'Once per day, you can select one of five areas upon which to focus your ever-shifting talents. After meditating for 1 hour, you gain the chosen abilities for 24 hours or until you change your aptitude focus. An aptitude focus ability is usable once per day at 1st level, twice per day at 5th level, and three times per day at 10th level.'

That's distinct from changing the Aptitude focus, by the way, because the next paragraph deals with that. Thus, at 10th level, you can use an Aptitude focus ability (Ie, Arcane Focus), 3 times per day. Since each time you use the Arcane ability you 'gain the ability to prepare and cast arcane spells', it will allow you to refresh your spells per day.

This makes sense, really, since each time you use Aptitude Focus, it lasts 24 hours. What would be the point of using it multiple times per day (Distinct from changing it, remember), if it didn't refresh spells?

Brainpiercing

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2009, 10:09:22 AM »
Damn I didn't read that you used Mystic Ranger, sorry.

The Aptitude thing certainly does read that way. I guess some DMs will still argue that the table reads "spells per day", and not spells per aptitude focus. However, this could easily be copy-pasting issue and text should trump it.

edit: Actually there is a hitch: It says "If you change to the Arcane or Divine focus ability, you must still obey the normal rules for preparing spells, including rest required." So you DO need 8 hours of rest before you can regain your slots.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2009, 10:12:47 AM by Brainpiercing »

OblivionSmurf83

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2009, 10:25:19 AM »
Hmm, depends, really. I mean, you need 8 hours of rest the night before, sure, but I'm treating it as an entirely new set of slots. Let's assume our hypothetical Chameleon goes to bed at midnight, gets up at 8. He's had 8 hours rest. He chooses Arcane focus, prepares his spells, and wanders off to throw spells at Commoners. He runs out of spells at some point, and is chased out of town by an angry mob. While resting in a cave, he reselects Arcane focus. He still had 8 hours of rest the night before, he's just now got a new set of empty slots he can fill.

A Divine focus may have some more issues, since you can only prepare new spells at sunrise, according to the text. So, it'd only be refreshing your Arcane focus (I guess you'd switch the Divine one to Combat or something if you ran out of spells). Alternatively, take Wizard beforehand, and Uncanny Forethought, and just use that to cast your Cleric spells.

DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2009, 01:57:01 AM »
Hi Obliovion.  I think I did a sketch somewhere ... (looks around at notes) ... ah, here:
  • with 3 levels of any class with access to cleric spells you can take initiate of mystra (favored soul, generic spellcaster, cleric)
  • Reserves of Strength is still an awesome feat, with no extra cost
  • Things like Hier of Syberis or Human Paragon or Generic classes can give bonus feats
  • Spell Mastery and Uncanny Foresight are still awesome
  • Taking a few levels of Hierophant (perhaps 3) would be very good topper to a feat granting class.  Grap a metamagic feat, give up 2 divine slots to be able to cast miracle as a spell-like ability 4 times per day, and/or grab divine reach.
  •  If you have a cleric level you can also use DMM.


From a practical optimization perspective, you want your bonus feats as close to ~14th level early as possible.  If you don't get bonus feats allowing you to take extra spell, then you only have 2 available feats at high level (15th level and 18th level), meaning you either have to tie up your floating feat or only get 8th level spells (not so hot).

The combinations with the the paragons of power (Shadowcraft Mage, Circle Magic from Hathran or Halruaan Elder, Dweomerkeeper, Incantatrix, etc.) go well with everything, and are interesting, but suffer from the problem that they don't grant general bonus feats, so you have to choose between your floating feat and 9th level spells.

Hierophant is more interesting because it goes really well with classes that can afford to give up CL (Ur-Priest, Chameleon, etc.).  I suspect there are a few more prestige classes in this grouping which we don't often think about which would be quite interesting.  

A few random thoughts

Best,
David
« Last Edit: December 19, 2009, 01:59:44 AM by DavidWL »
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive

OblivionSmurf83

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2009, 10:16:01 AM »
Hey DavidWL,

Yeah, Initiate of Mystra is a great one to nab. I'd generally just stick with Cleric, mainly since Turn Undead is really useful to any build. I agree about Reserves of Strength, that feat is simply fantastic. Uncanny Forethought is also awesome, it annoys me that Spell Mastery is required, since that essentially requires our Chameleon to take a level of Wizard, potentially wrecking some of the Cleric lead-in builds.

Regarding the bonus feats as close to 14th level as possible, I presume this is to grab Extra spell a good amount of times? Most of my exercises with this have simply assumed a Dark Chaos shuffle will occur, though it's beneficial to have bonus feats to do this with I suppose.

Hierophant is a great class I hadn't considered, I'm tempted to chuck it into a build, the only problem is it requires 7th level Divine spells. I'm fairly sure that will be impossible to meet with most Chameleon builds, since you can't use Chameleon itself to qualify.

I was also toying around with topping off with something like Master Spellthief at the end, so that an example build might go Cleric 1/Wizard 4/Chameleon 10/Spellthief 1/Wizard 4. This'd pretty easily boost up your caster level to around 30 by level 20, without really trying. Play style wise, I'd imagine you'd be a slightly crippled Wizard for the first 5 levels, who'd Gish it up for the first few levels of Chameleon (until you got back on track in terms of spell level per character level), and then primary spellcaster from the upper echelons of Chameleon onwards, with Spellthief being used for caster level goodness at the end of it all.

My biggest concern with all these builds is that they're quite feat intensive. The Chameleon needs to take Extra Slot 3 times to really shine, which bites into an average character's feats quite heavily. I don't imagine I'd play many Chameleon builds in a game where flaws were banned, for example.

On the topic of silly caster levels, a Wizard 5/Bard 1/Chameleon 10/Sublime Chord 1/Spellthief 1/Wizard 2 could get a caster level of 38. I'm sure there's better combinations than this, will have to read the True Arcane Dilettante thread at some point.

Since a Chameleon's spellcasting is done after the class is finished, I wonder if it's worth backloading the class with one level dips that you'd ordinarily never bother with in a normal build, rather than non spellcasting prestige classes such as Hierophant. Examples of this might be Cleric 1 for Turn Undead, or Wizard 1 for Spell Mastery/Uncanny Forethought, or even Fighter 4 for some bonus feats to be Dark Chaos shuffled.

DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2009, 01:38:05 PM »
The whole point of the sanctum spell + planar touchstone(catalogues of enlightenment) shuffle is that it allows you to qualify as if you cast spells of (character level-1 / 2).

An example Build (assuming either flaws or generic classes):
Cleric 3/Wizard 1/Human Paragon 1/Chameleon 10/Human Paragon 2-3/Heirophant 3

H  Academic Priest
F1 Sanctum Spell
F2 Planar Touchstone
1  Reserves of Strength
3  Initiate of Mystra
6  Spell Mastery
9   Uncanny Foresight
12  Anything -> Supernatural Transformation (Miracle) at 18th via Psychic Reformation
15 Extra Slot
B16 Extra Slot
18 Extra Slot

EDIT:  I realize I've forgotten Able Learner ... need to dump something.

Heirophant -> loses 2 9th level slots for 4 spell like abilities of Miracle & 1 bonus feat (Extend)

Tricks:
- lots of spells (int for spells for divine)
- cast miracle as a supernatural ability 4 times per day
- spontaneously cast any spell known from uncanny foresight many times per day
- Cast in dead magic zone or antimagic field from initiate of mystra
- can break spell caps by at least +3

Note:
I actually don't worry too much about boosting CL, because, at least for buffs, you can do things like consumptive field + Transfer Essesnse ->
The above build goes from CL 24 -> ((24) *1.5)*1.5 = 54.  While the duration isn't that long, you'd do it before medium to long-term buffing.  A 10min/lvl spell, extended, would last ~13 hours.

Best,
David

P.S.  I will reply to your above post at greater length later today.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2009, 02:23:07 PM by DavidWL »
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive

DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2009, 08:14:39 PM »
Yeah, Initiate of Mystra is a great one to nab. I'd generally just stick with Cleric, mainly since Turn Undead is really useful to any build. I agree about Reserves of Strength, that feat is simply fantastic. Uncanny Forethought is also awesome, it annoys me that Spell Mastery is required, since that essentially requires our Chameleon to take a level of Wizard, potentially wrecking some of the Cleric lead-in builds.

+1 to everything you've said.  

Quote
Regarding the bonus feats as close to 14th level as possible, I presume this is to grab Extra spell a good amount of times? Most of my exercises with this have simply assumed a Dark Chaos shuffle will occur, though it's beneficial to have bonus feats to do this with I suppose.

Yes, that was why.  If you want to do a feat shuffle, I like psychic reformation (which is in the SRD, and which was explicitly designed for this purpose).

That said, the trick requires 5 feat slots (planar touchstone, sanctum spell, 3 * extra slot), which really is quite a lot.  And you need able learner for chameleon.  Leaves only 1 more (Academic Priest).

Quote
Hierophant is a great class I hadn't considered, I'm tempted to chuck it into a build, the only problem is it requires 7th level Divine spells. I'm fairly sure that will be impossible to meet with most Chameleon builds, since you can't use Chameleon itself to qualify.

No, you use the planar touchstone to qualify.  "Cast a spell of the domain, as if you had prepared it normally" - this is the 7th level spell slot from the "Catalogues of Enlightenment" p166 of the planar handbook.

Quote
I was also toying around with topping off with something like Master Spellthief at the end, so that an example build might go Cleric 1/Wizard 4/Chameleon 10/Spellthief 1/Wizard 4. This'd pretty easily boost up your caster level to around 30 by level 20, without really trying. Play style wise, I'd imagine you'd be a slightly crippled Wizard for the first 5 levels, who'd Gish it up for the first few levels of Chameleon (until you got back on track in terms of spell level per character level), and then primary spellcaster from the upper echelons of Chameleon onwards, with Spellthief being used for caster level goodness at the end of it all.

For CL, it's hard to be circle magic.  Otherwise, I'm content with consumptive field + Transfer Essense.

Quote
My biggest concern with all these builds is that they're quite feat intensive. The Chameleon needs to take Extra Slot 3 times to really shine, which bites into an average character's feats quite heavily. I don't imagine I'd play many Chameleon builds in a game where flaws were banned, for example.

True that, although as long as you have some way.  I think it is best with one of:
- generic classes
- flaws
- being able to feat shuffle bonus feats from (for example) magical locations
- bonus feats from being dedicated to an elder evil or fiend
- etc.

However, even a Human Paragon / Heir of Syberis isn't bad.

Quote
Since a Chameleon's spellcasting is done after the class is finished, I wonder if it's worth backloading the class with one level dips that you'd ordinarily never bother with in a normal build, rather than non spellcasting prestige classes such as Hierophant. Examples of this might be Cleric 1 for Turn Undead, or Wizard 1 for Spell Mastery/Uncanny Forethought, or even Fighter 4 for some bonus feats to be Dark Chaos shuffled.

I think that is a very interesting idea, particularly because it takes advantage of the chameleons strengths.  For example, a chameleon makes a pretty mediocre shadowcraft mage, but it makes an outstanding use of Uncanny Foresight or Hierophant.

Best,
David
« Last Edit: December 20, 2009, 02:22:18 PM by DavidWL »
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive

sir_argenon

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #9 on: December 20, 2009, 11:43:52 AM »
These sorts of builds generally utilise Catalogues of Enlightenment + Extra Spell (Credit goes to DavidWL), or a similar trick to grab 9th level spells for the Chameleon.

hey.. im at a loss to how this trick works.. i read the catalogues over and over.. just dont get it... can you explain this.. and also any other tricks that you know of, give the chameleon 9th lvl spells? thanks...

OblivionSmurf83

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #10 on: December 20, 2009, 12:37:36 PM »
DavidWL, thanks for the detailed answer, a lot of those thoughts have been bouncing around in my head as well. I admit, I almost exclusively play spellcasters, so it's very hard to get myself in a mindset where I play a build that doesn't include one of the 'big' caster prestige classes, but they're really not as efficient for a Chameleon. Do you know of some way of casting


Hi Sir_Argenon. Since this trick is DavidWL's baby, he's best placed to give you an answer on this one, but I'll quickly explain it in the meantime. The Catalogues of Enlightenment's higher level ability gives you the chance to select a Cleric domain, and 'cast a spell from the cleric domain you have chosen, as though you had prepared the spell normally.' Since we like Miracle, let's pick the Luck domain for our Cleric, which gives him the chance to cast Miracle, as if he'd prepared it normally, once per day, for 3 times.

This has given us the ability to cast a 9th level spell.

Extra Slot gives you the chance to 'gain one extra spell slot in your daily allotment, at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast.' So, our hypothetical Chameleon can cast 9th level spells, so he could grab an 8th level slot, if he wanted. Nice, but not 9th level spells, is it?

Sanctum Spell gives a spell 'an effective spell level 1 higher than its normal level if cast in your sanctum.' Ie, Sanctum spell turns our Miracle into a 10th level spell.

Now, that means that Extra Slot lets us add up to 9th level spells, since we can cast a 10th level spell. So, our Chameleon takes Extra Slot 3 times. He chooses to add these slots to his Chameleon spellcasting. He's allowed to do this, because he's not using the Chameleon aptitudes as a prerequisite, he's just adding to them. Thus, taking extra slot 3 times will give him 9th level spellcasting, of any arcane or divine spell in the entire game. What's more, since he casts Divine spells like a Cleric, he knows all of them as well. Thus, he knows every single Divine spell in the game. As every Arcane spell in existence, thanks to various feats, has been a Divine spell at some point, he likely knows simply every spell in existence straight away - the Arcane side is merely gravy.

The only other method I can think of to getting dual 9s is to play a Dragonwrought Great Wyrm Kobold. This counts as a True Dragon, as Dragonwrought Kobolds have the Dragon type, and have age catagories like true dragons, which seems to be what makes a True Dragon. True Dragons qualify for epic feats if they are Great Wyrms. So, our Kobold qualifies for epic feats. Play a Mystic Ranger till 10th level. Congratulations, you've now topped off your spell list (You'll get some more spells per day, but you will never get higher level spells). Now, take Improved Spell Capacity, which requires the 'ability to cast spells of the normal maximum spell level in at least one spellcasting class.' Grab this three times, add the extra slot to Chameleon, and you're done. This saves some feats compared to DavidWL's method, but you'd have to somehow then allow entry into Chameleon for a Kobold, which I can't see happening.

KellKheraptis

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #11 on: December 20, 2009, 12:43:18 PM »
I'm also a big fan of David's dual 9's chameleon, and have been working on builds that capitalize on the remaining 10 levels to optimize extra abilities and BAB pre-epic.  Ultimately I'd like to get 16 BAB, evasion, and mettle.  Also, you guys might like the Red Mage PrC, which is updated to include ToB mechanics and a psionic option.  It would only add to the versatility of the Chameleon.  It was Jaerom Darkwind's baby from 339.
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DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #12 on: December 20, 2009, 11:38:33 PM »
DavidWL, thanks for the detailed answer, a lot of those thoughts have been bouncing around in my head as well. I admit, I almost exclusively play spellcasters, so it's very hard to get myself in a mindset where I play a build that doesn't include one of the 'big' caster prestige classes, but they're really not as efficient for a Chameleon.

Yes, exactly my point. 

Quote
Hi Sir_Argenon. Since this trick is DavidWL's baby, he's best placed to give you an answer on this one, but I'll quickly explain it in the meantime.

You did a great job - I don't need to elaborate!

Best,
David
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
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DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #13 on: December 20, 2009, 11:52:02 PM »
I'm also a big fan of David's dual 9's chameleon, and have been working on builds that capitalize on the remaining 10 levels to optimize extra abilities and BAB pre-epic.  Ultimately I'd like to get 16 BAB, evasion, and mettle.  Also, you guys might like the Red Mage PrC, which is updated to include ToB mechanics and a psionic option.  It would only add to the versatility of the Chameleon.  It was Jaerom Darkwind's baby from 339.

Yes, I love the red mage.
http://dicefreaks.superforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=606&sid=a02d113a213f56ba9f00ddd9e6e04290

About getting 16 BAB pre-epic.  You can't do it with 10 levels of chameleon since even if you were full bab on the rest, you would only get +15.

However, if we use Legacy Champion ...
Hexblade 5/Chameleon 2/Legacy Champion 10/Crusader 3
-> BAB = 5 + 1 + 7 +3 = 16
Mettle from Hexblade.  Evasion from a combination of a Ring of Evasion and the Chameleon's mimic class feature ability.

This is not that optimal, but the point is that it is very doable.  I'd probably get mettle from witch slayer instead of hexblade, move crusader up, etc.  You'd have to use a feat shuffle to get the casting to work out.

Better yet, use the generic fighter for bonus feats, evasion/mettle.

Best,
David


EDIT:  I'm totally wrong about the Chameleon's BAB - makes the whole post irrelevant.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2009, 01:53:19 AM by DavidWL »
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive

Havok4

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2009, 12:18:45 AM »
Chameleon is 3/4 BAB so you can quite easily get +16 BAB.

DavidWL

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2009, 01:52:04 AM »
Chameleon is 3/4 BAB so you can quite easily get +16 BAB.

Oh.  You're right.  I feel silly - his post made me think it was 1/2, which made me go into Legacy Champion silliness.

Oops.

Best,
David
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive

OblivionSmurf83

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Re: Flexible Chameleon Spellcaster Builds
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2009, 12:46:58 PM »
On the topic of spare feats to play around with, Swordsage 1 gives you Weapon Focus for weapons associated with your chosen discipline. Choosing Shadow Hand gives you Weapon Focus with a dagger, short sword, sai, siangham, unarmed strike, and spiked chain. That's 6 spare feats to Dark Chaos shuffle/Reformate.

I'd hate to play this from levels 1-5, but a Cleric 3/Swordsage 1/Wizard 1 would be a good little introduction to a Chameleon build, setting you up with 6 additional feats, Divine Metamagic, Uncanny Forethought, and Initiate of Mystra so that you can tell Antimagic where to go.