dolorof wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:42 amThis is just poor, AM is one of the few PRCs that don't require someone to take such drastic measure, perhaps the only one for DC casters.
One man's poor role-play is high class in the eyes of another. Always has been, always will be. And having a character with secrets is not a drastic measure, because followers of Shar are supposed to spread Shar's corruption, and preaching on the street corner rarely gets the job done right. As for Red Wizards, well, once in server history the Red Wizards waged war against the city, etc, etc, so if one wishes to play one that is not on the leash of the guild, once again, there are better ways to live by than proudly declaring that you are a rogue Red Wizard.
As for Archmage, unless one is seeking apprentices, being a secret Arch Mage does have its perks too. After all, if you are just a campfire peddler of cheap trinkets and tricks, none will come dragging you to fight off balors and red dragons, allowing you to focus on things that truly matter, such as brewing that leaf soup around the fire and adjusting your spell book selection to have a spell for every situation.
dolorof wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:42 amIn any case the reduction of a 10 lvl prc to 5 is undeniably a buff, that is for sure. But we are talking about one extra epic feat compared to what you can already get with the way things are. My point is that nothing insane will come out of this. The things mages are doing today won't change, perhaps in pvp since a more bulkier mage can be built but if pvp was the main balance for the server then all is lost anyway lol
If you want the highest DC possible, you often have to give up something in order to acquire it, and sometimes that something could be an Epic Spell. After the the suggested change: you either get to keep your current DC as it were in addition to the Epic Spell you did not have before, or you might be able to boost your spell DCs even higher.
And speaking of things, how nothing inside will come out of it, Spirit Shaman 9 gives you access to
Blood Magic feat. You might not need the levels in the Spirit Shaman class if you can convince the DMs to give you the 'Magical Discovery' feat for free, but the odds of that happening can be either lower or higher. Thus, best we focus on taking those nine levels of Spirit Shaman as the default standard. Thus, let us imagine the following build: Wizard 6/Spirit Shaman 9/Shadow Adept 10/Archmage 5. You should be a caster level 21 Wizard, but Practiced Spell Caster is +4 caster levels, and then you turn on your Blood Magic for another +4 (in both spell books), and you sit at caster level of 29. Then you factor in the +3 from Archmage, and the total of +7 from Shadow Adept, which totals at the caster level of 39 in your offensive schools of spells. Add in any Spell Penetration from an item and you can easily disregard enemy Spell Resistance. But, when it comes to Epic Caster level bonus, your caster level only amounts to 31, thus a mere +3 bonus, however, you still got the +4 DCs from Blood Magic itself, and the +2 from being a Shadow Weave user to a grand total of +9. Not to mention that it is a situation where you could go for Spirit Shaman 10 without actually dropping your spell DCs and gaining access to Restoration on Demand, etc. And now that I think of it, you would only need Archmage 3...
And frankly speaking, with Free RCR periods and what not, I must ask if people still level up their characters from scratch, because the most obvious and glaring change brought by the suggested Archmage change is to hasten the class ability progression of every other class. Going Archmage 8 tends to push things into the late epics, where as Archmage 4 would allow not only faster build progression, but also the acquisition of additional class abilities. It just simply means that character builds that would have bloomed in the late Epics, might already bloom in low or mid epics. And it will make far stronger Gish builds. After all, why wouldn't someone make a Swashbuckler 6/Wizard 10/Eldritch Knight 10/Archmage 4, with 10+ Intelligence modifier and caster level of 30? Dual wield a pair of daggers with that Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, while getting that +20 and +15 Intelligence modifier to damage, and double Daze per hit on both +5 Daggers in addition to whatever extra properties those might posses? Spell Focus in Transmutation Augment Form and Shapechange, and your Intelligence Modifier can beat the strength modifier of many forms. Spell Focus Conjuration boosts up your summons, and just having a summon around makes things easier. And as for Archmage High Arcana Feats, you get to pick a useful Spell Like Ability, which you would not have gotten before. You sit at 23 BAB, which becomes 26 with Augment Form, and you still get the extra feat.
Every single build with Archmage will simply become objectively better.
And finally, if this change goes in, anyone with Archmage PRC needs a free RCR token. And some players will be unhappy simply because they will have to re-acquire their entire spellbooks, as there are players who desire to posses every single spell out there.