Transmuter...advice needed

[Kafkonia]

Multiclassing Wizard and Archivist gives you access, in theory, to every spell -- Wizards can scribe non-Wizard arcane spells into their spellbook, and Archivist's can scribe non-Cleric divine spells into their prayer book.

Three levels of each and you qualify for Mystic Theurge, so by 16th level you can (theoretically) cast any spell available to a 13th level divine or arcane caster. You're a little behind those who have taken only one or the other, but your versatility can't be beat. That's the best way to get what you're looking for, although it will take some doing and cooperation from the DM.

 

[James McMurray]

Multiclassing Wizard and Archivist gives you access, in theory, to every spell -- Wizards can scribe non-Wizard arcane spells into their spellbook, and Archivist's can scribe non-Cleric divine spells into their prayer book.

Is this a class ability of the Archivist, or a loophole in the scribing rules?

 

[joela]

Archivist

Is this a class ability of the Archivist, or a loophole in the scribing rules?

Part of the class. I currently play a multi-classed wizard (specialty: conjurer) / archivist / mystic theurge. Basically, if a cleric spell's written down, my archivist can scribe it into his prayer books. (Using it, of course, depends on level.) And because both spell lists have to be maintained separately, I can have same summoning spell twice--one on each list--if both classes can cast it (e.g., Summon Monster I, etc.) AND I found/purchased it from the two sources (arcane/divine).

 

[Kafkonia]

Is this a class ability of the Archivist, or a loophole in the scribing rules?

A class ability. From a spellcasting perspective, the Archivist functions identically to a Wizard.

This means, of course, that just like a wizard you have to find a scroll or prayerbook with the spell in question alredy written down. But as long as you and your DM work together that's not unreasonable.

It's perhaps my favourite class that I've never had the chance to play...

 

[Sound of Azure]

At the same time, you could always try to create a new Transmuter class that uses Warmage, Beguiler and Dread Necromancer as a base. Though these classes are Arcane, they do have spells that come from the Divine lists. You could give him strange boosts to himself and bonuses for the spells that he casts and then give him all of the Transmutation spells. You'd probably want to throw a couple of other spells, too, just because all of the classes seem to do that.

That sounds like a great project to start up. Hmmm.... *Opens up Word*

 

[questbreaker]

what if i used a gestalt 'wizardruid'? i could gain access to almost all transmutation spells. the only ones i still couldnt touch arent even that desirable, since they would have to be ranger only or cleric only spells for the most part.

plus i could heal and wild shape and all that.

my question for this is, what are the cons to a gestalt wizardruid?

 

[Kafkonia]

Well, the biggest con is that if you aren't playing a gestalt game you can't do it.

Other than that, they'll be better than single-classed wizards or druids in every way I can think of except one: armoured druids don't face spell failure, but a wizardruid would face it for her arcane spells -- and the easiest way around spell failure (mithral) is prevented by the druidic inability to wear metal.

 

[questbreaker]

"Well, the biggest con is that if you aren't playing a gestalt game you can't do it."

is that left to DM discretion or is that a hardcore rule? because our main DM (we rotate it between campaigns) pretty much gives us free reign to be any race or class that we qualify for and have any item we can afford, so long as we can show it to him in some book so he knows whats going on and gets a good idea of how to put it in the campaign and give it a good challenge. and all of our DMs frequently throw CR10s and CR12s in our (currently lv7) campaign.

 

[Masquerade]

"Well, the biggest con is that if you aren't playing a gestalt game you can't do it."

is that left to DM discretion or is that a hardcore rule? because our main DM (we rotate it between campaigns) pretty much gives us free reign to be any race or class that we qualify for and have any item we can afford, so long as we can show it to him in some book so he knows whats going on and gets a good idea of how to put it in the campaign and give it a good challenge. and all of our DMs frequently throw CR10s and CR12s in our (currently lv7) campaign.

Gestalt brings in a lot of balance concerns. Unless all the PCs are gestalt (the way the system was intended), your DM would probably be better off avoiding the scenario.