Mystic Theurge PrC - They've got to be kidding!

[Mark Chance]

Check out:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rs/20030402a

Question: Why play any other sort of spellcaster? Full spell progression in two classes!

 

[Corinth]

The time/date stamp is today (4/2/2003) so it's not an April Fool's joke.

It's about bloody time that WotC posted something like this and officially incorporated it into the D&D game. Now multiclased spell-casters need not suck, but the price is that do little else but cast spells. (Skill points, Hit Die and Save progression of a wizard w/ the class skill list that only a sorcerer could love. But they do get Decipher Script.) I'd love to play this class.

 

[aurin777]

My jaw is still sitting in my lap, to tell you the truth. I always thought multiclassed spellcasters were under powered, but this is rediculous the way they delt with that. Who needs a wizard or a cleric? I can do both

I thought the true necromancer dealt with this the right way. They were able to add their levels together to get spells, rather than all of both.
~~Brandon

 

[Krug]

Man I really don't know about this one. But I guess they do lose out in other areas...
Perhaps someone should create a sample NPC with this Prestige Class in mind and see how it looks.

Also I don't quite understand why they say this:
While a mystic theurge doesn't have the uninterrupted spell advancement that a cleric, wizard, or sorcerer has, he makes up for this with versatility.

But he HAS uninterrupted spell advancement!

 

[Drake_DM]

Don't worry, this class is very balanced.
There reason it is uninterupted is because you are always three levels behind in one class. We have been using a variation like this, and you can also get a similar effect with the Eldritch Master (Dragon mag) prestige class.
Being 3 levels behind in your caster level is pretty harsh, especially for purposes of spell penetration etc - and your archmage or heirophant levels etc only apply to half your spells.
This is great!
Plus you sacrifice all your cleric abilities and good stats.

Note no knowledge (nature) skill - no wonder druids don't like this class

 

[Crothian]

I don't have a problem with the abilities, but it is way to easy to get into.

 

[Dark Eternal]

I'm already working on building this guy for play-test.

On the surface: to me, this looks like a very bad idea. However, I'm going to spend some time crunching the numbers before I judge one way or another.

Unless I'm very surprised, however, I'll probably have to say that this one just won't work. I can already see every wizard or cleric player I know jumping to multiclass so that they can take this PrC - after all, why not? With the prereqs that this asks for, a 20th level char with 10 levels in the PrC can still cast 9th level spells of one kind, and 7th level spells of the other.... and who wouldn't want to have that kind of power?!?

 

[Quixon]

Krug, I think what they mean about his spell progression is you have to be a 3rd divine/3rd arcane caster. So at 16th level a single caster has a caster level of 16, this guy has 13th/13th, so has 3 less caster levels than a single class caster(in one class).

Not that I wouldn't trade a 16th single caster level for a 13th Divine/13th Arcane caster level LOL.

I admit I am surprised to see this from WotC, for it seems really overpowered, like some thing we would see from certain Third Party D20 companies, not WotC.

 

[Krug]

Note no knowledge (nature) skill - no wonder druids don't like this class

Well it's easy to create variations of this class for the Druid. Just find the right name.

 

[Drake_DM]

The question is will it work in epic levels?
Remember now that you can only cast 1 spell a round, having tonnes of lower level spells isn't as useful (sorry sorcerors!) You will never be able to use half your spells in one day.
We are playing an epic campaign right now and we have a rogue/wizard character who is 2 or 3 caster levels behind and he has great trouble penetrating SR or dispelling effects.
Having said that we had an eldritch master PC who was 3 or 4 levels behind but it seemed balanced by around level 21.
The scarcity of epic feats mean that this character will have trouble getting both his spellcaster classes to level 10 magic and beyond, but I admit having 2 lots of level 9 spells is great.