Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana - Arcane Tradition: Theurge

[Amatiel]

Anyone else come across the Arcane Tradion: Theurge from the Faithful UA? One of my players asked if they could pick it up. I said yes, seemed like someting different, and the group doesn't have a cleric so what the heck..
He chose the Life Domain. WOW, seriously, why the hell have a cleric when you can have a Wizard - Theurge (Life). He is a wizard, but now he can cast all the best healing/restoration spells from the Life domain, plus get the domains archetype powers. Pretty damn impressive!
Comparing it to any other tradtion it seems hands down the best of the lot. Maybe not a damage focused tradition, but versatility wise I don't see how you could beat it.

 

[CapnZapp]

The Theurge is playtest material.

Only allow your players to choose playtest material if you trust your player to not abuse any loopholes he or she finds (and in the case of Theurge they WILL be found); alternatively if you feel confident you know the game better than the player.

An inexperienced DM can easily find that playtest material in the hands of an experienced minmaxer becomes a very unwelcome surprise indeed. While it is probably okay in the hands of a player that isn't optimizing.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

As I recall (and it has been a while, so I might be wrong), but AT doesn't increase the number of spells that the wizard knows or can cast. I am not sure, given the wizard's large spell list, that even the "cherry picked" cleric spells will be that valuable except for the healing spells and the summoning spells. I suspect that, if the theurge is the party's only healer, being a healbot will lose its luster pretty quickly. The summoning I will admit is pretty sweet, particularly since planar ally doesn't require concentration.

 

[Quartz]

I posted a feat in the database a while back which gave access to one domain and +1 to a stat. The domain power was deliberately not given.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

I took a look at thus UA. I love the archetype cpnceptually, as it helps a player have that Mystic Thurge feel from older editions without multiclassing. In practice I do feel as though it is at little too powerful. Yes, they don't get all the weapon/armor proficiencies or the health of a cleric, though for many domains I feel this is not a big enough opportunity cost compared to playing a cleric and missing out on wizard spells entirely.

My suggestion if you allow the archetype at your table is to make it so they only get one use of Channel Divinity per short rest instead of multiple uses. This is similar to the Paladin in that it makes them feel sort of like a "diet cleric" with other fun bits, but still gives clerics their reason to exist. Keep in mind as well, the wizard doesn't know their whole list, but is still at your mercy with learning spells from scrolls. The way their learning is phrase is a tad unclear if they have to learn EVERY domain spell first before any cleric spells at all can be learned, or if just rhe ones for each level. I.e. a non-linear cleric can't learn cure wounds until they learn the spells from the domain that are 5th level (something that can't happen until 9th level). I rule they can take the cleric spells after each domain spells are learn for each individual level, but another DM may rule differently.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've seen it and agree that it is probably overpowered as written, a wizard who has the time and money to copy spells from enemy spellbooks and scrolls will get the best of both worlds, however, if it is harder to learn spells they may be kept in check, and simply learn a smattering from the cleric list while mainly being a wizard.