Mystic Theurge - What do I need to know?

[Cyri'kazzen the Drow]

Hi everyone. Well my 9th level Cleric bit the dust last night in a Ravenloft game and of course I missed the Saving Throw to be Raised. So I am in the process of creating a new 9th level character with Divine magic. I potentially thought about the Mystic Theurge as something different and wondered if anyone had any experiences with this Prestige class? Underpowered? Overpowered? If I go this route, what Feats and Skills should I focus on?


Thanks in advance.

 

[MerakSpielman]

It's generally considered to be overpowered becuase it eliminates the primary penalty of being a high-level multiclassed caster. However, you also have to give up any of the bonus feats or additional abilities you might gain if you stuck with one class. I haven't seen it in actual play, but it seems that it would be a very powerful spellcaster, but limited skill points and bonus abilities make it much less useful in other respects.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well, the main thing you need to know, is how to pronounce "theurge."

You definitely don't want to introduce your new character and have your buddies all start laughing about how you have "The Urge."

 

[Darkness]

Note: This is not a negative review of the class. I just want to point out what to look out for; other people will certainly happily tell you how to best (ab)use the class' powers.


It's pretty well-balanced. You'll have to manage a large number of spells, so if that's easy for you, you'll get more out of the class than if the number of options is daunting.

You'll need two stats for spellcasting so if your character has low stats, it might be difficult to get decent save DCs for both types of spells.

Like a wizard or sorcerer, you have the lowest hp, BAB, skill points, Refl and Fort saves in the game. Wearing armor also imposes a spell failure chance. Except for what you have when entering the class, you get neither a wizard's/sorcerer's familiar, a wizard's bonus feats nor a cleric's turn undead. You don't get any class abilities, in fact. But, on the plus side, you get more spells per day than anyone else.
So you're almost as fragile as a typical arcane caster, except that you don't have the highest spell levels they would have at your level. Instead, you have a large number of not-quite-as-high-level spells.

If you specialize in buffing, you'll be a buffing machine. If you cure wounds all day long, you still have arcane spells for other purposes. (edit - On the minus side, you don't have as powerful buffs and cure spells as a single-class caster of your level.)
BTW, if you're a specialist wizard, you might want to take forbidden schools that your cleric (or druid) class can compensate for easily. Depending on how you do it, that could work pretty well IMO.

Well, just some thoughts.

 

[Shallown]

Mystic Theurges are fairly balanced despite appearacnes. I had one in a game a I ran who was upwards 7th Mystic thuerge. Since It was a 6 player party and he was a cohort it allowed him to do what a mystic thuerge excells at. Support. He access to two spell list that when focused on supporting/buffing and healing can keep the other party caster's free to do more things. I think they work well in large parties Or I would think in a 3 person party were they can fulfill both roles to some extent. Losing those caster levels does seriously hurt though. With the feat practiced spell caster it would make a serious difference. The One in my group spent all his feats making up for caster level so he had 6 feats to help with that and could have used practice caster twice and then freed up a lot unfortunatley it came out just as the campaign ended.

Later

 

[Thanee]

It's generally considered to be overpowered...

I think you are generally wrong there...

...becuase it eliminates the primary penalty of being a high-level multiclassed caster.

Yeah, that's the point... why? Because these penalties are far too high!

The loss of the highest 1-2 spell levels is the biggest hit a primary/pure spellcaster (the MT can't really do anything else) can take.

I have seen it in play... if you start at 9th level you will have skipped over the worst part... up until 8th level the Mystic Theurge is about the suckiest (reasonable) character concept in existance.

At this level the MT is ok, but only if you pick up Practised Spellcaster as well (at least once, better twice).

You will never be as powerful as any single-classed spellcaster offensively, simply because every new spell level basically doubles the overall power of the previous (there are exceptions, of course, and dice of damage isn't everything, so don't even start comparing those, please), but you have a very broad list of spells to choose from, which makes you a great universal spellcaster and party-buffer.

At very high levels, the MT becomes very powerful (that's why there is no epic progression like the regular one for this class), when the spell level cap (9th) is reached, the additional benefit of being able to cast spells from another class list is very good.

But it's a long and hard way to get there...

Bye
Thanee

 

[The Shaman]

One of the significant drawbacks to the mystic theurge is the reduced number of bonus feats and skill points - this means fewer metamagic feats (so fewer quickened spells, silent spells, and so on) and fewer item creation feats, while skill points get dumped into Concentration and Spellcraft at the expense of almost everything else. It's basically a spell-casting machine, but without a lot of enhancements.

For my 3.5 campaign I'm only permitting a small number (4-5) prestige classes, and this is one of them - I don't see a problem with it.

 

[rowport]

I have seen it in play... if you start at 9th level you will have skipped over the worst part... up until 8th level the Mystic Theurge is about the suckiest (reasonable) character concept in existance.

At this level the MT is ok, but only if you pick up Practised Spellcaster as well (at least once, better twice).

Thanee-

I know that you have mentioned the MT in other threads as well; you now have me intrigued! Could you give a quick outline of a build based on the parameters you set above? Say, for a Cleric 4/Sorcerer 4/MT 2? (I assume that Clr/Sor is better than Clr/Wiz because of the nice CHA synergy, right?)

 

[ruleslawyer]

It's generally considered to be overpowered becuase it eliminates the primary penalty of being a high-level multiclassed caster.

To be precise, what it does is to make that completely unworkable archetype somewhat more playable by bringing it nearly up to par with its single-classed equivalent.

I haven't seen it in actual play, but it seems that it would be a very powerful spellcaster, but limited skill points and bonus abilities make it much less useful in other respects.

IMX(extremely)HO, the MT is not a powerful caster; it is a versatile caster. An MT is not a spotlight hog or a game-breaking DM's nightmare; what having one in your party does is make encounters, especially the third or fourth daily encounter out, substantially easier for the party overall. In many ways, the player of an MT is likely to be quite bored (as the one IMG was); it's a better class concept for a cohort, really, since it spends the vast majority of its time and resources buffing, healing, and providing utility spell capability to the average PC party.

Essentially, Cyri', think of the MT as a wizard with the following benefits:

1) two domain powers (possibly useful, as long as they're not level-dependent)
2) +6 hp
3) cleric spellcasting (essentially, double the spell slots per day)

In turn, the MT loses the following:

1) 3 feats (including Practiced Spellcaster)
2) Access to other PrCs (an opportunity cost)
3) Access to the top 1-2 levels of spellcasting
4) Higher-level wizard spell slots

While this may SEEM like a good deal, IMHO it is not. A wizard typically lets fly with his highest-level spells in any vaguely-challenging battle, making his 4-5 best spells disproportionately important. In effect, the MT trades those spells for lots of utility and healing cleric spells, which is good for the party from a long-term resource perspective but does nothing to secure an immediate tactical advantage.

In short, the seriousness and uncertainty of the tradeoffs indicate that the MT is balanced. It is CERTAINLY not overpowered.

 

[Darkness]

(I assume that Clr/Sor is better than Clr/Wiz because of the nice CHA synergy, right?)

The synergy is nice, but... A MT doesn't get any more Turn Undead, so the Cha won't do you as much good as it would a full Clr.

On the downside, a Clr3/Sor4/MT also loses a level of Clr spellcasting progression over a Clr3/Wiz3/MT (since the additional Sor level you'll need only increases your arcane spellcasting, while a MT level would increase both). Better spell progression means higher-level spells and higher-level spells is the one thing a MT won't want to lose, as he's already quite a bit behind a single-class primary caster.