Caster Level and the Mass Confusion spell: a case study about Master of Music

[Frantik]

Hi all, if I do make mistakes here, I'll edit/correct.

The idea of Caster Level can be confusing. Utility of Epic Feats such as Master of Music doesn't help for clarity.

My main assumption is that the Caster Level <> Character Level. Except maybe for levelling during heroics!

CASTER LEVEL (CL)
For a pure caster, for example a Bard, the character's Caster Level is the same as their character level from levels 1 thru 20.
For a split build such as FvS 12 / Bard 6 / Artificer 2, and at character level 20, the caster level for an FvS spell would be 12 (etc).

MAXIMUM CASTER LEVEL (MCL)
A lot of spells (damaging ones) have a MCL. If we take the level 1 spell Sonic Blast, it damages a target for 1d6+1 per CL up to a MCL of 8. So a level 6 bard would see 6d6+6 and a level 12 bard 8d6+8.

Let's just consider a pure Bard spellsinger (not Stormsinger). Starting at level 22, the character level is raised by +1 Caster Level and +1 Maxium Caster Level for every +2 epic/legendary levels they earn, so at cap level 34, CL/MCL for a pure Spellsinger (with no items, filigrees) would be 27.

I chose non-Stormsinger version in order to keep things as simple as possible as StS gets +1CL/+1MCL from cores 5 and 6.

MASTER OF MUSIC
Sounds great, yeah? "Your Shout, Greater Shout, Sonic Blast, and Reverberate spells gain +10 to their maximum caster level. Grants +140 maximum Spell Points."

Sonic Blast (normally MCL 8) would become a MCL 18 spell so a large impact, but for a level 1 single target spell doing only 1d6+1.

Greater Shout already has a MCL of 20, so this feat makes that 30. BUT, our problem now is how do we go about obtaining 10 more Caster Levels? The simple answer is that we don't [1].

Shout (normally MCL 15) now becomes MCL 25, so again how to fill in those 5 CL (levels 21-25)?

Reverberate (normally MCL 18) now becomes MCL 28 (adds +2 damage per tick by taking the feat).

Remember, all these spells are going to see +7 CL and +7 MCL added during levels 22-34

In my eyes, the main "winner" of taking Master of Music would be the Shout spell by adding an effective +5 MCL to make it at best an OK spell if you haven't got anything else on CD to throw at mobs.

[1] the more detailed answer is that you can add Caster Levels to your toon via items and filigrees.

So my case study on whether Master of Music is worth it pushes me to the conlusion of NO. Not really overall; sure Sonic Blast can be an OK single target spell if you buff it from Fatesinger and the extra 5 effective caster levels for Shout increases its damage by 33%. But for Reverberate and Great Shout, there are basically zero incentives to take this feat without reliable sources to extra Caster Levels.

 

[Kalibano]

Hi all, if I do make mistakes here, I'll edit/correct.

The idea of Caster Level can be confusing. Utility of Epic Feats such as Master of Music doesn't help for clarity.

My main assumption is that the Caster Level <> Character Level. Except maybe for levelling during heroics!

CASTER LEVEL (CL)
For a pure caster, for example a Bard, the character's Caster Level is the same as their character level from levels 1 thru 20.
For a split build such as FvS 12 / Bard 6 / Artificer 2, and at character level 20, the caster level for an FvS spell would be 12 (etc).

MAXIMUM CASTER LEVEL (MCL)
A lot of spells (damaging ones) have a MCL. If we take the level 1 spell Sonic Blast, it damages a target for 1d6+1 per CL up to a MCL of 8. So a level 6 bard would see 6d6+6 and a level 12 bard 8d6+8.

Let's just consider a pure Bard spellsinger (not Stormsinger). Starting at level 22, the character level is raised by +1 Caster Level and +1 Maxium Caster Level for every +2 epic/legendary levels they earn, so at cap level 34, CL/MCL for a pure Spellsinger (with no items, filigrees) would be 27.

I chose non-Stormsinger version in order to keep things as simple as possible as StS gets +1CL/+1MCL from cores 5 and 6.

MASTER OF MUSIC
Sounds great, yeah? "Your Shout, Greater Shout, Sonic Blast, and Reverberate spells gain +10 to their maximum caster level. Grants +140 maximum Spell Points."

Sonic Blast (normally MCL 8) would become a MCL 18 spell so a large impact, but for a level 1 single target spell doing only 1d6+1.

Greater Shout already has a MCL of 20, so this feat makes that 30. BUT, our problem now is how do we go about obtaining 10 more Caster Levels? The simple answer is that we don't [1].

Shout (normally MCL 15) now becomes MCL 25, so again how to fill in those 5 CL?

Reverberate (normally MCL 18) now becomes MCL 28 (adds +2 damage per tick by taking the feat).

Remember, all these spells are going to see +7 CL and +7 MCL added during levels 22-34

In my eyes, the main "winner" of taking Master of Music would be the Shout spell by adding an effective +5 MCL to make it at best an OK spell if you haven't got anything else on CD to throw at mobs.

[1] the more detailed answer is that you can add Caster Levels to your toon via items and filigrees.

So my case study on whether Master of Music is worth it pushes me to the conlusion of NO. Not really overall; sure Sonic Blast can be an OK single target spell if you buff it from Fatesinger and the extra 5 effective caster levels for Shout increases its damage by 33%. But for Reverberate and Great Shout, there are basically zero incentives to take this feat without reliable sources to extra Caster Levels.

Hi Frantik,

I agree the 'Master of xxx' feats are not great as they currently are, and could use a revamp.
The entire caster level system could benefit from a revamp to be honest: using character level might be a way forward, with the potential to make multiclass spellcasting more interesting as well.

---

I could be getting this wrong too, but the way I understand the current system is:

Let's just consider a pure Bard spellsinger (not Stormsinger). Starting at level 22, the character level is raised by +1 Caster Level and +1 Maxium Caster Level for every +2 epic/legendary levels they earn, so at cap level 34, CL/MCL for a pure Spellsinger (with no items, filigrees) would be 27.

As you pointed out, at level 34 , you have 27 caster levels (20 CLs from the pure class +7 CLs from the Epic/Leg Knowledge auto-granted feats).
Your ability to benefit from 27 caster levels is, however, limited by the MCL cap that each individual spell has.

---

At level 34, all your spells gain an extra +7 maximum caster level from the Epic/Leg Knowledge auto-granted feats).
Based on spell descriptions in game:

• Sonic Blast [MCL 10]:
  • +7= MCL 17
    • so here, though you have 27 caster levels, you are still limited to benefit from only 17 by the MCL cap
• Shout [MCL 15]:
  • +7= MCL 22
    • here, once again, you still can't fully benefit from your 27 caster levels
• Reverberate [MCL 18]:
  • +7= MCL 25
    • here you are just shy of benefiting from your full 27 caster levels
• Greater Shout [MCL 20]:
  • +7 = MCL 27
    • here you take full benefit of your 27 caster levels

---

As you pointed out, Master of Music adds +10 MCL to the spells above, so:

• Sonic Blast [MCL 10]:
  • +7= MCL 17
  • +10= MCL 27
    • now you benefit fully from your 27 caster levels
• Shout [MCL 15]:
  • +7= MCL 22
  • +10= MCL 32
    • here you don't have enough caster levels (27) to fully benefit from the extra MCL that you acquired (need 4 more CLs)
• Reverberate [MCL 18]:
  • +7= MCL 25
  • +10= MCL 35
    • once again, you don't have enough caster levels (27) to fully benefit from the extra MCL that you acquired (need 8 more CLs)
• Greater Shout [MCL 20]:
  • +7 = MCL 27
  • +10 = MCL 37
    • finally, one again, you don't have enough caster levels (27) to fully benefit from the extra MCL that you acquired (need 10 more CLs)

---

• Spellsingers are able to upgrade their Bardic Inspiration with 'Inspiration Melody: Song of Arcane Might', to grant (both self + others) a +1 morale bonus to caster level for all spells. This starts filling up the CLs gaps listed above, created by the Master of Music feat.

• As you mentioned, spell augmentation items (wiki) are another way to add caster levels. I am not personally aware that any of those work on these specific bard spells, but I am not fully certain if Arcane Augmentation works on them or not.

• You mentioned filigrees. The ones I am aware of are:
  • Coalesced Magic [4 Pieces]: +1 Caster Level with Arcane Spells (I don't know for sure if they affect the spells above, but I believe they do not)
  • Embraced by Light [5 Pieces]: +2 caster levels with healing spells
  • Soulweaver [3 Pieces]: +1 Caster Level with Positive Spells

---

All in all, Master of Music does create more room to potentially benefit from more caster levels.

• one certain source for these is likely to be the auto-granted Legendary Knowledge feats, granted at 32, 34, 36, 38, and 40. So there are 3 further caster levels to be gained between 36-40, but MCL will also increase by +3, creating even more room
• Spell augmentation items could be made for bard spells (or perhaps Arcane augmentation could be tweaked to affect bard spells?). This would secure a +2 bonus to CLs
• filigrees could be added/tweaked to work with bard spells
• the 'Master of xxx' feats could perhaps additionally grant some Caster levels (perhaps 5?)

Still likely that your caster levels would still not fill up the MCL of the best spells (e.g. Greater Shout), which makes the feat seem indeed like a poor choice overall.

---

Hope I got this right and that this was helpful!

 

[Archest]

caster level = caster class level (caster DC)
Max caster level is the limit on damage regardless of the use of heighten meta-magic.
you can increase the chance to hit ( for the monster to fail a saving throw by failing to reach the caster's DC score (fortitude, reflex and or will save)) by using heighten but the damage done is limited to max caster level for the spell.

dc = 10 + Spell Level with Heighten + Modifier (intelligence for wizards) + any items which may increase caster level + any feats which increase caster level.

Spell level being the spells base level 1 to 9.

 

[Archest]

with sonic blast it more for the dazes effect not necessarily the sonic damage at higher levels.
they save from the daze effect but still get hit for the sonic damage but the damage is limited to max caster level 8 regardless of heighten meta-magic's

heighten meta-magic is used to overcome the Saving Throws of enemies but doesn't effect the damage done by the spell.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

heighten meta-magic is used to overcome the Saving Throws of enemies but doesn't effect the damage done by the spell.

Of course it effect damage done by spell, lol, usual it mean half-damage on save vs. full damage on fail save.

 

[Vish]

i take master of music on my bard

i play spellsinger, dont need stormsinger at all
all those spells are in rotation
so any add to them is a bonus to damage
i think it really affects 2 spells
dont use reverberate, it sucks

and besides, now youre a master of music
cute

the trade off for feat is not really needed,
i fit everything in it seems

 

[Frantik]

Thank you all for your replies!

Kalibano: I purposefully obmitted mentioning Song of Arcane Might (+1 CL) for simplification. I didn't know that Coalesced Magic (probably) doesn't work with Bard spells, and I thought from memory there was another filigree too?! I also expected Arcane Augmentation items to work on Bard spells... hmmm? I believe MCL for Sonic Blast is 8 and not 10, so for this example, Master of Magic and epic/legendary levels would increase Sonic Blasts MCL to 25 (albeit for 1d6+1 per CL) while Fatesinger T3 Master of Acoustics further increases this spells damage by 50%; as I stated above, I'm not going to be using a low damage level 1 spell in epics.

The case for Master and Music and the Shout spell is perhaps more compelling. Shout (MCL 15) would gain an effective 5 MCL with Master of Music and with the epic/legendary extra CL/MCL this would become a CL 27 AoE spell which combined with Spellsinger's T4 Very, Very Vocal, further boosts the damage by 50%. Now that is something I could get on board with though tbh I'm currently thinking of taking 5 Epic feats on my first life Cormyr "cold" Bard which doesn't include BoGW let alone MoM.

Archest: agreed, FYI somebody (and I'm struggling to remember their name - sorry) advised me earlier this year that Heighten does not increase a spell's effective level with regards to Globe of Invulnerability. Well I found that interesting!

Fisto MK I: agreed even more!

My conclusion: I will not take Master of Music on my current build. As a min-max approach, there are ofc reasons to take it, but realistically my bard will be about mainly group support and cc, and dealing much more damage via Fatesinger's double damage Greater Shout (which basically gains nothing from the Master of Music feat) and Horn of Thunder than than Sonic Blast or Shout. The only reserve I currently have is for Reverberate; I think coupled with Arcane Pulse and the T4 Magus ability, I could spam 10 stacks of fully meta'd tick spells (see note below) on a boss.

Reverberate SLA stacks 3 times
Arcane Pulse feat spell stacks 5 times but 7 times with Magus of the Eclipse
I read last night that if you use two shortcuts for Arcane Pulse, the first without meta-magics and the second with meta-magics, and you use 4 (or 6 with Magus) non meta-magic versions first then use the fully meta'd version as the final stack, then all stacks count as meta'd. Again, can't remember name of player who posted this, but thank you!

And finally, as a share and an explanation why I struggle to remember names... I have a thing called Nominal Aphasia, which means I don't access names from memory well. Numbers are fine which is absolutely brilliant for an Engineering geek like myself. I used to forget the term Nominal Aphasia and kept having to google it pretty regularly until one night, after googling it again, I repeated the term out loudly a few hundred times and since then it's much better.

EDIT: I checked the Filigrees and Kalibano was 100% correct; only Coalesced Magic provides +1 CL (4 slots) for arcane spells, and this filigree isn't included in the Gen 2 Raid sets either.

 

[Kalibano]

I believe MCL for Sonic Blast is 8 and not 10

The wiki is indeed giving conflicting information:

Because of that, prior to my first response, I logged my spellsinger and double-checked in game, and it definitely states Max damage 10d6+10.
I just did not think to take a screenshot, and the game is currently down.

Quite possible there is a typo in the quickbar icon (which is where I looked), but when in doubt, I personally tend to go with what is displayed in game. I am fairly certain it is MCL 10.

 

[Archest]

Of course it effect damage done by spell, lol, usual it mean half-damage on save vs. full damage on fail save.

well ya for the save vs 1/2 or not I think that applies to damage but the spell for instance sonic blast would daze, but I think its still limited to Maximum sonic damage 8d6+8. in this case there is no 1/2 for the save.. its daze and damage or just sonic damage without the save. so its a waste of sp to add 8 heightened x 5 or 40 sp to a spell that the only benefit is to daze or not to daze that's the question....

 

[Kalibano]

Thank you all for your replies!

Kalibano: I purposefully obmitted mentioning Song of Arcane Might (+1 CL) for simplification. I didn't know that Coalesced Magic (probably) doesn't work with Bard spells, and I thought from memory there was another filigree too?! I also expected Arcane Augmentation items to work on Bard spells... hmmm? I believe MCL for Sonic Blast is 8 and not 10, so for this example, Master of Magic and epic/legendary levels would increase Sonic Blasts MCL to 25 (albeit for 1d6+1 per CL) while Fatesinger T3 Master of Acoustics further increases this spells damage by 50%; as I stated above, I'm not going to be using a low damage level 1 spell in epics.

The case for Master and Music and the Shout spell is perhaps more compelling. Shout (MCL 15) would gain an effective 5 MCL with Master of Music and with the epic/legendary extra CL/MCL this would become a CL 27 AoE spell which combined with Spellsinger's T4 Very, Very Vocal, further boosts the damage by 50%. Now that is something I could get on board with though tbh I'm currently thinking of taking 5 Epic feats on my first life Cormyr "cold" Bard which doesn't include BoGW let alone MoM.

My conclusion: I will not take Master of Music on my current build. As a min-max approach, there are ofc reasons to take it, but realistically my bard will be about mainly group support and cc, and dealing much more damage via Fatesinger's double damage Greater Shout (which basically gains nothing from the Master of Music feat) and Horn of Thunder than than Sonic Blast or Shout. The only reserve I currently have is for Reverberate; I think coupled with Arcane Pulse and the T4 Magus ability, I could spam 10 stacks of fully meta'd tick spells (see note below) on a boss.

Reverberate SLA stacks 3 times

Some further thoughts ref the 'Master of xxx' feats:

• they tend to improve MCL for spells that are generally given as SLAs in several heroic class trees (in the case of Greater Shout, also in an Epic Destiny)
• perhaps the reasoning for their creation was to help some players with mana management, since these SLAs can take all metamagics without increasing their cost?
• because many of these spells affected by 'Master of xx' feats tend to be low level, the boost to MCL would perhaps help justify including them in people's spell rotations, bringing them a bit closer to the dmg output of higher level spells (again, mana management)?
• As you pointed out, some spells get a nice boost in Epic Destinies: perhaps a partial aim for the boosts granted by Fatesinger's T3 Master of Acoustics, T4 Very Very Vocal, and C4 Hear My Voice Friend, was to provide further incentive to use those spells in endgame rotations, which then potentially further incentivises people to want to get the Mater feat to make the most of them?

 

[Meteor]

I agree with reasoning presented. However I note this is an analysis of Master of Music for Bard.

Sorcerer Air savant gives 4 more CL than MCL on sonic. Combine with Arcane Augmentation IX (+2CL) and the case for that extra 10 MCL on greater shout is very strong if going down the fate singer path.

 

[Frantik]

i take master of music on my bard

i play spellsinger, dont need stormsinger at all
all those spells are in rotation
so any add to them is a bonus to damage
i think it really affects 2 spells
dont use reverberate, it sucks

and besides, now youre a master of music
cute

the trade off for feat is not really needed,
i fit everything in it seems

Finally got around to replying

I'm choosing the following Epic Feats which I think will all provide more utility than Master of Music: Arcane Insight (more DCs and temp spell points via Magus), Embolden and Intensify (most of my spells will be SLAs anyway), Wellspring of Power for 30 seconds of buffed Spell Power every 3 minutes and lastly but not least Inspiration Melody: Excellence providing +2 to all stats for the whole party via Bardic Inspiration, so +1 to all saves, all DCs, +1 to Hit/Dmg, and +34 base health at cap.

For epic spell rotation, cc in GCS, MHM and Disco Balls, single target Fatesinger epic strike (that's where my finger goes numb during a long ranged encounter) plus Comet SLA, Echoes, Shout SLA, Greater Shout and Thunderstrike SLA. The only spell that would profit from MoM, for me at least, would essentlially be Shout, and I'd prefer to generally buff DCs and spell power over prioritising a low level spell.

My new toon on Cormyr is also a normal Bard as I'm spending 16(+3) AP into racial tree, 41 into Spellsinger, 12(+1) into Feywild and 11 into Swash for Deflect Arrows, Movement speed and Uncanny Dodge.

 

[Tuxedomanwashere]

I wish they'd give back an AoE version of sonic blast, probably not as a lvl 1 spell, but as a lvl 5/6 spell. It sucks that the only long range sonic spells before epics are a single-target lvl 1 spell that requires a feat to scale into epics and a disc centered on target (both of which have problems being used positionally unlike DBF and Ball Lightning that can be used on the ground to hit monsters coming in), the latter of which can be accessed by 4 classes, 3 of which have little other synergy with it (clr, fvs, wlk) and 1 of which is can only access it with a build-defining feat purchase (looking at you celestial pact). Granted there are fewer things resistant/immune to sonic, but every other damage type seems to have at least one long-range AoE at a higher spell level before epics instead of being relegated to mid-range cones.

 

[Mokune]

I wish they'd give back an AoE version of sonic blast, probably not as a lvl 1 spell, but as a lvl 5/6 spell. It sucks that the only long range sonic spells before epics are a single-target lvl 1 spell that requires a feat to scale into epics and a disc centered on target (both of which have problems being used positionally unlike DBF and Ball Lightning that can be used on the ground to hit monsters coming in), the latter of which can be accessed by 4 classes, 3 of which have little other synergy with it (clr, fvs, wlk) and 1 of which is can only access it with a build-defining feat purchase (looking at you celestial pact). Granted there are fewer things resistant/immune to sonic, but every other damage type seems to have at least one long-range AoE at a higher spell level before epics instead of being relegated to mid-range cones.

I like to use Soundburst (which sort of fills the void left by the Sonic Blast change)

 

[Archest]

I use web.

 

[Frantik]

I like to use Soundburst (which sort of fills the void left by the Sonic Blast change)

Me too... i find that spamming Soundburst at lower levels wearing, say, a lvl 3 Salt Pearl Ring is all i need to deal with the majority of critters in terms of cc, and it hits fairly hard, stuns and has a short CD. I don't understand the reference to "web" in the above post.

 

[Mokune]

"I don't understand the reference to "web" in the above post."

Interchangeable with "I love lamp" I'd reckon.

 

[Dielzen]

Keep in mind that this feat also increases the healing effect when combined with Fatesinger on Shout/Gshout