Do you find the Mystic Theurge overpowered?

[Piratecat]

Note that with the change in duration for buff spells, the theurge seems somewhat more balanced to me.

 

[Elric]

I kind of agree with Piratecat. With the current buff spells and durations, a 10th level Mystic Theurge is just insane. Divine Power, Divine Favor, Haste, Fly, Mage Armor, Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Polymorph...

A mystic theurge also makes a very, very good utility spellcaster. This debate reminds me of the debate over the Arcane Trickster.

There is no real "wizard-cleric class," but try comparing a mystic theurge to a bard...

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Well, our regular DM wanted to take a break, so one of the other players stepped up to run a mini-adventure. He allowed us to be 8th level characters. <snip>...and my character, wizard 3/cleric of Mystra 3/mystic theurge 2. I will admit, having lots of smaller spells was nice. However, I only had a 1 3rd level spell for wizard and cleric, and no access to 4th level spells. My character was definately a support character. Turning ability was weak and lack of more higher level spells was definatley a damper in my book...

It's really clear that this class is weaker at lower ("prestige") levels; The issue generally involves looking at the full range (i.e., the same character at 20th Level).

Were you using 3.0 spells, or did you incorporate the (confirmed) 3.5 changes?

Note that with the change in duration for buff spells, the theurge seems somewhat more balanced to me.

Actually, yeah, now that these other changes are becoming more available for consideration, this class is looking more and more livable and agreeable. I still think that it has the potential for uber-power, but that would usually require knowing what you're going to encounter and having just the right combination of spells pre-planned. Not nearly as over-cooked as before.

 

[kingpaul]

Were you using 3.0 spells, or did you incorporate the (confirmed) 3.5 changes?

The 3.0 spells...however, we had already house-ruled that the buff spells were 1 min/level a while back. Nice to see that we can throw out a house rule now.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I know we all beat this horse to death long ago, but I figure I'll take another stab at it.

Two observations made about the class as written is that it's too weak at lower levels and two powerful at higher ones. Most of those who feel it's too powerful do so because it's still possible for a spellcaster to reach 9th level spells in one class (usually Wizard) and have 7th level in the other. One fix I'm considering is allowing spellcasters to begin this PrC earlier, but limit how many levels they can take to their Arcane/Divine levels. So...

MT
Prereq: Must be able to cast 1st-level arcane and divine spells
Class ability: +1 spellcasting level to one arcane and one divine class
Limitation: A character cannot have a higher level in MT than twice his arcane or divine class (whichever is LOWER).

Some example builds:
4th level (Clr1/Wiz1/MT2)
6th level (Clr2/Wiz2/MT2)
8th level (Clr2/Wiz2/MT4) Note - the spellcaster has a max of 3rd level spells at this point
10th level (Clr3/Wiz3/MT4) Max 4th level spells
12th level (Clr3/Wiz3/MT6) Max 5th level
14th level (Clr4/Wiz4/MT6) Still max 5th level
16th level (Clr4/Wiz4/MT8) Max 6th level
18th level (Clr5/Wiz5/MT8) Max 7th level
20th level (Clr5/Wiz5/MT10) Max 8th level in both classes

Of course a character can always stop adding levels in both classes at some point, in order to eventually reach 9th-level spells, but then the second class will be much weaker than the current version of MT, e.g., Clr3/Wiz11/MT6.

The advantage I see to this system is that the character is more viable at lower levels, but slowly begins to fall further and further behind a dedicated spellcaster (Cleric or Wizard), in terms of spell level available. Just my two cents'...