Hierophant Abilities - Divine Spells only?

[gavagai]

Hi, a PC of mine is a Mystic Theurge and wants to move on to Divine Hierophant.

He is eyeing two abilities:

1 - Spell Power: This special ability increases a hierophant’s effective caster level by 1 for purposes of determining level-dependent spell variables and for caster level checks. This ability can be selected more than once, and changes to effective caster level are cumulative.

2 - Divine Reach (Su): A hierophant with this ability can use touch spells on targets up to 30 feet away. If the spell requires a melee touch attack, the hierophant must make a ranged touch attack instead. Divine reach can be selected a second time as a special ability, in which case the range increases to 60 feet.

Quoted from the SRD (sorry, dont know how to make those quotey-boxes)

He argues they apply to divine as well as arcane spells, as they - by the letter - do not specify divine spells.

What do you think?

 

[kreynolds]

I would assume these only apply to Divine spells, based on the hierophant prestige class's requirements...

Spells: Able to cast 7th-level divine spells.

 

[Cameron]

I would assume these only apply to Divine spells, based on the hierophant prestige class's requirements...

It would generally be the case simply because you already have 7th level divine spells, but there is nothing saying that it doesn't apply to arcane spells. I can think of only 2 ways of getting the pre-requisites and still have a viable arcane spellcasting, though: dual caster or Rainbow Servant prc.

 

[Deset Gled]

He argues they apply to divine as well as arcane spells, as they - by the letter - do not specify divine spells.

What do you think?

A vast majority of casting classes and PrCs are written with the assumption that the character will only have spells from one source. This assumption implies that the special abilities should only apply to spells from one source, but the rules do not say so explicitly.

My recommendation is to make the decision once, and be completely consistent. Here are some other examples you might want to consider:

In the cleric class description, it states "The cleric can “lose” any prepared spell that is not a domain spell in order to cast any cure spell of the same spell level or lower." Does this mean that your Mystic Theurge can spontaneously convert his arcane spells into cure spells? How about a multiclass Cleric 1/Wizard X?

At the same time, however, the cleric class description states "To prepare or cast a spell, a cleric must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level". Does this mean that your Cleric 1/Wizard 19 must have a 19 Wis to cast 9th level arcane spells?

Then there's the actual preparation of spells. Clerics need to pray for an hour at the same time each day to get new spells. Wizards need to rest 8 hours. If your MT is kept up all night, are they still forbidden from getting new divine spells? If they rest 8 hour in the middle of the day after staying up all night, are they forbidden from getting new arcane spells even if its not the right time of day?

Are MT divine spells affected by ASF? Does the MT have to scribe their divine spells in a spellbook? Is a Wiz/Cleric who is a specialist Wizard forbidden from casting divine spells from his barred school?

If you'er going to be consistent, you're going to have to say "yes" to all these questions, or "no" to all. I'll bet your player really wants you to say yes when he hears the first question, but will quickly change his mind once he realizes the full implications.

 

[gavagai]

Great answer, Deset! Thanks.