Is Mystic Theurge a balanced P. class?

[kenobi65]

I can see the MT being a PrC available only to characters with the Magic domain or some such, which is what I did in the homebrew game that I used it in, adding a little more flavor, if only by osmosis from the religion.

In our Forgotten Realms campaign, the Mystic Theurge in the party is a cleric of Mystra, goddess of magic. Said PC is also the daughter of a wizard and a cleric of Mystra, so at least there's some level of legitimization of the character concept there.

 

[Particle_Man]

As a number of PrC the MT was made to help convert those old previous editions biclassed cleric/magicuser who became really underpowered, I know that I had at least 5 of them.
The MT saved me to convert one of my oldest character, even if I was not following the official conversion, I was cleric 9/wizard 17, officialy it's 20 levels = cl 3/wi 17.
I made it cleric 3/wizard 11/MT 6 = 20 levels, my friends say that it's the equivalent of a 22 lvl character.
I have lost only the feat of the 15 lvl of wizard by comparison with a cl 3/wiz 17....and the familiar powers but I haven't one.

I would strongly recommend that you instead have a cleric 3/wizard 10/MT 7. (You don't even lose a feat that way). In fact, you could profit (at the cost of one more feat) from having a cleric 3/wizard 7/MT 10. In both cases, you would have more cleric spells and would not lose wizard spells.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Using the basic cleric, wizard and a W7/C3/MT10 you get the following totals - this ignores any extra spells for high wisdom and intelligence.

You have two immediate flaws in your approach. The first and most important is that you are ignoring that a huge downside to multiclassing (such as required for a MT) is that you have to support two caster abilities. The second is that you should compare the specialist wizard, not the wizard. Another issue is that you are ignoring 0th level spells. These can't logically be ignored.

Personally I think MT's are significantly less powerful than clerics or wizards, that 3 level differece translates to a loss of a significant ammount of top level spells

You came to the 'right' conclusion (which most people agree to), but imagine the disparity if you take the above issues into account.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You have two immediate flaws in your approach.

Well, there's one more flaw I can see, actually--when adding up the spells, they should be converted to their equivalent spell point cost and not their spell level (so 1 for 1st level, 3 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, etc).

 

[Scion]

I'd have to say that veril did a good job.

While it is important to take into account ability scores that would be a seperate additional factor, but it is good to have the basis down.

Also, comparing nonspecialist to nonspecialist makes sense. Comparing a specialist to a generalist makes the numbers meaningless. Although for an overal study that assumes you will make up for the specialty through the theurge levels it could show some interesting trends, it would involve a much more involved proof.

Finally, using 1 to 9 instead of 1 to 17 is more of a taste issue. Either give basically the same result multiplied by a scalar (2x-1 where x is the spell level is the equation to convert the first to the second) and since it is the same scalar the ratios will stay mostly the same.

The theurge is a tricky beast. One gives up a lot of little things and some big things for a bunch of other little things. Its relative power level varies incredibly depending on which level you evaluate it at, what feats are options, what class you are comparing to and a number of other things. Although generally even with all of that he comes in under par in most comparisons.. I think that is a good sign of a weak class, but that is where synergies step in to help out. Does the theurge have a huge amount of hidden synergy in spells? Somehow that seems doubtful, except that you could try to pick and choose the most overpowered spells out there in hopes of making up for other loses.. which is a valid strategy.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Also, comparing nonspecialist to nonspecialist makes sense. Comparing a specialist to a generalist makes the numbers meaningless.

Not in his comment comparing the generalist to a cleric. And, I was by no means suggesting biasing it against the MT either. Make them both specialists.

Does the theurge have a huge amount of hidden synergy in spells? Somehow that seems doubtful, except that you could try to pick and choose the most overpowered spells out there in hopes of making up for other loses.. which is a valid strategy.

The real answer to this question is highly campaign dependent, however. Adding in a lot of supplements or home-created spells and stuff may in fact bias the analysis in favor of the MT.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Finally, using 1 to 9 instead of 1 to 17 is more of a taste issue. Either give basically the same result multiplied by a scalar (2x-1 where x is the spell level is the equation to convert the first to the second) and since it is the same scalar the ratios will stay mostly the same.

You are wrong, and the root of your mistake lies in the fact that although you got the 2x-1 equation right, you forgot that this makes it not a simple multiplication due to the subtraction. For instance, using the spell point method (the correct method to use if we wanted to convert the two characters to a system where we can add all the spells together), let's say I had a character with 17 1st levels spell slots and a different one with 1 9th level spell slot. They would be equivalent. Under the other method, the guy with 17 1st-level spells would be considered to have nearly twice as many spells (17 vs 9).

 

[green slime]

The real answer to this question is highly campaign dependent, however. Adding in a lot of supplements or home-created spells and stuff may in fact bias the analysis in favor of the MT.

.... or not. It may just bias the analysis in favour of the straight wizard, or the straight cleric.... (arcane disciple, disciple of the sun, ...)

It is also a variable which is completely uninteresting in the comparisson, because of its complete arbitrariness. We can only compare what is known, not what is unkown.

The fact of the matter is, that this comparisson has been done over and over and over again. The fact remains. MT is not nearly as overpowered as its detractors would claim. Yes, it lacks flavour. Which IMO, is a good thing. I have no problem adding flavour to a PrC. Yes it is reasonably powerful at high levels, yet is still suffering from the loss of 1½ spell levels. At its very pinnacle, at 16th level, it only has a caster level of 13, and has trouble dispelling, penetrating spell resistance, and has lower save DC's. Iow, is a much less efficient spell caster.

 

[Scion]

You are wrong, and the root of your mistake lies in the fact that although you got the 2x-1 equation right, you forgot that this makes it not a simple multiplication due to the subtraction. For instance, using the spell point method (the correct method to use if we wanted to convert the two characters to a system where we can add all the spells together), let's say I had a character with 17 1st levels spell slots and a different one with 1 9th level spell slot. They would be equivalent. Under the other method, the guy with 17 1st-level spells would be considered to have nearly twice as many spells (17 vs 9).

Umm.. it is only the 'correct' method if you choose for it to be so. Using 1 - 9 is just as valid as useing 1-9 *2 -1, it merely scales how you view each individual spell.

We could just as easily square each of the numbers and use those values. You would just wind up with each spell level being placed in a certain pecking order again.

Relative to the whole process the values, for this sort of example, will be effectively the same, just that the weightings are different.

the relative ratios are equivalent, which to my mind is the best way to go anyway.


Besides, I was just pointing out that it isnt a flaw, it is merely one of the ways to do it. One could argue that they like one more than the other, but if done properly all of them will give exactly the same final answer.

(as an example, if you took away the -1 it would simply be x vs 2x. When you take the ratios you will get x/y vs 2x/2y which is the same, the -1 throws it off a little, but it will still be similar).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Umm.. it is only the 'correct' method if you choose for it to be so. Using

It is incorrect to take the values from 1 to 9, and then add them together and expect the comparison to objectively determine the casting capacity of the two casters when the value of the spell slots is balanced on the 1 3 5...17 scale. The -1 makes a big difference (in favour of the theurge being stronger than it is). And it is quite possible to come up with the wrong answer due to this scheme.

One option for the 1-9 scheme that does preserve the ratio of slot values is to subtract 1/2 per slot, going from .5 to 8.5.