Is the Dweomerkeeper unacceptably powerful thanks to Supernatural Spell?

Question

The Dweomerkeeper 3.5e prestige class (Complete Divine rulebook official web enhancement) provides multiple uses of "Supernatural Spell (Su)" per day as escalating benefits for class progression up to 10th. This ability converts normal spells into supernatural ones "not requiring any components".

Spell Components clearly appears to include material components and experience point costs (in SRD and PHB). Thus a high level arcane/divine PC with this prestige class could pretty much cast ANY first through eighth level spells using Wish (arcane spells up to 8th) and/or Miracle (divine spells up to 8th) in one standard action with no material component costs and no xp costs. Not to mention all of the other standard enumerated bullet itemed stuff from those two spells that are supposed to be straight-forward untwisted results(up to 25K wealth, magic items, etc).

Thus, if I understand correctly, this high level Dweomerkeeper PC can cast multiple supernatural Wishes, Miracles and even Epic Spells every day for FREE. The only RAW catch I can see is "You don't so much cast a miracle as request one.", which means granting Miracles is deity discretionary -- but not so for Wish or Epic spells, you just fire away at will.

Do I understand correctly that the Dweomerkeeper can really cast Wish and Miracle for free several times a day? Does this make the Dweomerkeeper unacceptably powerful and essentially unplayable in 3.5e campaigns, as I suspect it does?

Answer 1

Dweormerkeeper is one of the most powerful prestige classes in the game. Assuming you enter without losing spellcaster levels (using tricks to get around the dual-spellcasting requirement, which isn’t hard), very, very few things can keep up with it.

Is that unacceptable? In my games, yes. In yours? Probably. There are a few other classes that are similar in power to the dweomerkeeper; if everyone is playing one (and the DM can figure out how to challenge such a party) then there is no problem.

But that’s a very tall order. Out of the hundred or so base classes, only a handful are going to work in such a game. Out of several hundred prestige classes, maybe a dozen (and even that may be stretching it) can keep up. And then the DM has to figure out how to challenge such a party, when the overwhelming majority of monsters are going to be insignificant before them, and it takes extremely powerful (and complicated!) spells to stay on the same level.

These sorts of things are banned in my game because DMing is difficult enough without having to carefully design around all the myriad abilities such a party would have, when any one of dozens of spell can potentially solve an entire adventure (and a single spell solving a given encounter or problem is expected).

Answer 2

Do I understand correctly that the Dweomerkeeper can really cast Wish and Miracle for free several times a day?

Yes. Also works for lower level spells before you get Wish/Miracle, though most of those have cheaper costs. Plus the other benefits of a supernatural ability over a spell, including being able to use it in Silence and no AoO's.

Does this make the Dweomerkeeper unacceptably powerful and essentially unplayable in 3.5e campaigns, as I suspect it does?

Depends. Is your campaign going to get to that high level? The majority of campaigns in practice don't get to high enough level to have 9th level spells at all, or aren't there very long. If you never get Wish because the campaign ends at level 13, it's not a problem.

Is everyone else in the campaign optimizing as much as possible to try and achieve crazy power? If so, this may not be a problem, depending on just how cheesy everyone else is getting.

OTOH, are you playing a game with people who are playing tier 3 or lower classes that aren't well optimized? If that's the case, this is going to be a problem because you'll be able to easily outclass everyone else. That's not very fun for the rest of the group and a nightmare for the DM (as challenging you means using stuff that nobody else can handle).

If someone tried to use this class in my campaign, the first thing I'd do is houserule XP costs back in. That makes the problem go away, although it still lets you cast really cheap True Resurrection, that's just not as big of a problem.