Mystic Theurge too good or not?

[JPL]

I went to law school with three people who were also med students. One was also getting an MBA. And all were jerks.

I'm not sure if doctor/lawyer is a valid analogy. In a world like the Forgotten Realms, the Weave is the conduit of both divine and arcane magic. One can easily envision a mage-mystic for whom any act of spellcasting --- arcane or divine --- is both a disiplined art and an act of prayer.

I suggest a musician as a different analogy. Take a guy like Van Morrison. It's not that he's the best musician in the world. The remarkable thing about him is that he doesn't really draw distinctions between jazz, Delta blues, Irish folk, country, classical...it's all music to him. Give him a guitar, a harmonica, or an alto sax, and he'll play it. Same thing with Bela Fleck --- bluesgrass, jazz, and funk are just words to him...he plays MUSIC.

The mystic theurge doesn't have the raw power of more single-minded magic-users, but he has broken down the false distinctions between different kinds of magic. He sees logic in the divine and divinity in the logical.

 

[Mistwell]

And it seemed like a good idea at the time, huh?

Aww, I still consider it a great idea! And now that I am starting to represent RP Gaming and Comic Book people, it's even more fun!

 

[LokiDR]

Now, I agree with the "modern times are irrelevant" point of view - IMO this doctor/lawyer analogy is not meaningful when discussing the MT. Real life "levels" depend as much on training and education - which is largely complete for professions early on - as experience.

Real life levels are measured in skill and accomplishment. In many cases, those accomplishments come in the form of completed education, but as the mutiple examples of states not requiring law degrees for lawers, this isn't always the case.

The analagy stands on a central point of "people in highly technical fields don't specialize and cross fields". No lawer surgens.

That said:

At least get the analogies right.

Doctors are not surgeons.

but all surgeons are doctors.

Surgeons require a lot of time-consuming techncial training many doctors never learn. I don't know of any surgeon/lawyers - you'd be in your later 30's probably before you even finished school. You'd be collecting social security before you'd established a practice in either. A surgeon would be like a red wizard, or archmage, who then took some MT levels.

So, a surgeon is a doctor who chooses to continue his training? A person who goes beyond the basics of practicing medicine to perform "high level" medicine. Sounds like a high level caster. By 20th level, you are looking at a person who has 7th spells of one type and 9th level of the other. That would be a like being a partner at a firm and a practicing surgeon.

As for practicing dr/lawyers - you won't find many, if any.

Hmm, it looks like it is a weak choice so not many people choose it. Sounds like multiclassing.

The practicing lawyer, however, is generally every bit as good a doctor as a practicing doctor. The practicing lawyer who is also an MD generally has kept up in studies, and techniques, and is almost as good, if not as good, a GP as the practicing Dr. IF the lawyer wanted to docter, she easily could step right in.

That is an awfully big leap in logic. Do you know how many different treatments are developed each year? How many law journals are there? A few court decisions and a whole defense might be invalid. Does the doctor have the time/resources/inclination to keep up on all of those? With enough effort, anything is possible, but that impliese a higher level.

I'll say a two-level multiclass penalty probably just about covers it. Just like the MT.

Ya, it sounds like you have spend all your time working on each separately. Just like multiclassing.

 

[LokiDR]

I suggest a musician as a different analogy. Take a guy like Van Morrison. It's not that he's the best musician in the world. The remarkable thing about him is that he doesn't really draw distinctions between jazz, Delta blues, Irish folk, country, classical...it's all music to him. Give him a guitar, a harmonica, or an alto sax, and he'll play it. Same thing with Bela Fleck --- bluesgrass, jazz, and funk are just words to him...he plays MUSIC.

Are divine and arcane spells based on the same stat?
Are the sources of power for each the same?
Is wizard:cleric as jazz:delta blues?
Is this a good analogy?

 

[BenBrown]

but all surgeons are doctors.

these days, but it's a fairly recent phenomenon.

for most of the 19th century and before, they were two different professions.

(sorry, off-topic, but I dig trivia like this)

 

[Snipehunt]

That is an awfully big leap in logic. Do you know how many different treatments are developed each year? How many law journals are there? A few court decisions and a whole defense might be invalid. Does the doctor have the time/resources/inclination to keep up on all of those? With enough effort, anything is possible, but that impliese a higher level.

Not a leap in logic, an application of experience.

Joint MD/JD's are pretty rare, but they tend to specialize in patent law, PI, and malpractice (and some insurance, probably, although I don't know of any). As such, they keep on top of all of the new treatments that come out each year, as they have to know if their cases meet the standard of care that would rise to negligence or know if any patentable original ideas come from an applied discovery. They go to many of the same seminars and classes that practicing doctors go to, and read the same literature practicing doctors do. It's their job. They know as much as a GP doctor does. Sometimes more. They lack application of some (a very small portion) of their knowledge to patients, which probably translates to a small loss of overall skill.

Also, you do not appear to grasp that surgeons are not just "doctors with more training," they are doctors with incredibly difficult, often precise and narrow training in surgery, and often in specific aspects of surgery. They are different than a GP, an OBGYN, a dermatologist, an oncologist etc. I don't happen to know any surgeons who practice law. I know many from other sub-specialties, who have just as much training as surgeons. Surgeons are fine doctors, but I wouldn't go to a surgeon to find out if I had pneumonia or skin cancer.

I know many lawyers, have practiced law, most of my family are doctors or nurses (my father in law is a cardiac surgeon). I also know several distinguished lawyers who were practicing doctors. It is far from impossible to do both.

You can argue it isn't logical. Unfortunately, it is an empirical fact. The "real-life" doctor/lawyer exists. The inference you wish to draw from the analogy isn't there.

Look, you're the one who chose the doctor/lawyer analogy to show that the MT multiclassing isn't realistic. My experience is that analogy, if anything, shows that the MT is appropriate. It is entirely possible to gain a high degree of proficiency in two fields requiring heavy training - such as doctor and lawyer.

 

[Mistwell]

There are plenty of people who are both surgeons and lawyers. Usually, they are expert witnesses for medical malpractice cases.

Look, here is one:

http://www.danaise.com/

 

[drnuncheon]

Are divine and arcane spells based on the same stat?
Are the sources of power for each the same?
Is wizard:cleric as jazz:delta blues?
Is this a good analogy?

On the other hand, there's clearly some overlap:

Spellcraft lets you identify both arcane and divine spells.
Spell Focus affects both arcane and divine spells.
Metamagic feats do likewise.
You can counter arcane spells with divine spells and vice versa.

So, until you show that most feats that improve your lawyering abilities also improve your doctoring abilities, maybe your analogy isn't the best either? After all, we only have someone's off-the-cuff example to say that doctor = cleric and lawyer = wizard.

How do we know that it's not Physicist = cleric and mathematician = wizard? In fact, that would likely be a much closer example, because you can see that they would be affected by many of the same feats and skills...

...and I suspect there are a great many people with degrees in both fields.

J

 

[Pax]

Are divine and arcane spells based on the same stat?

For a Sorceror/Shugenja ... yes, yes they are.

Are the sources of power for each the same?

In the Forgotten Realms ... yes, yes they are.

Note, you can have both teh above "yes" answers at once (just be from Kara-Tur, or possibly the Thesk / Shou Expatriate regions).

 

[LokiDR]

Not a leap in logic, an application of experience.

Joint MD/JD's are pretty rare, but they tend to specialize in patent law, PI, and malpractice (and some insurance, probably, although I don't know of any). As such, they keep on top of all of the new treatments that come out each year, as they have to know if their cases meet the standard of care that would rise to negligence or know if any patentable original ideas come from an applied discovery. They go to many of the same seminars and classes that practicing doctors go to, and read the same literature practicing doctors do. It's their job. They know as much as a GP doctor does. Sometimes more. They lack application of some (a very small portion) of their knowledge to patients, which probably translates to a small loss of overall skill.

Is a GP a "high level" doctor? Lets remember that by the time a character is 20th level, he has 9th level spells of one type and 7th of the other. On a scale of 1-9, are those lawer/GPs really at least a 7, in terms of mastering medicine by the end of their careers?

You can argue it isn't logical. Unfortunately, it is an empirical fact. The "real-life" doctor/lawyer exists. The inference you wish to draw from the analogy isn't there.

From everything you have posted, it sounds like the doctor/lawers are rare, difficult, and require a lot of time maintain. That translates to bad multiclassing pretty clearly.

Look, you're the one who chose the doctor/lawyer analogy to show that the MT multiclassing isn't realistic. My experience is that analogy, if anything, shows that the MT is appropriate. It is entirely possible to gain a high degree of proficiency in two fields requiring heavy training - such as doctor and lawyer.

Heavy training. Heavy training like gaining more levels? The sheer difficulty of such a task should demonstrate that it shouldn't be easy for a person to do. I don't think any of those lawer/doctors got both degrees at the same time in the average amount of time for either. Which is why a "fast track" like MT does NOT makes sense.