What are your thought on the Mystic Theurge?

[Tharen the Damned]

As a sidenote: In his Book of Hallowed Might I, Monte Cook presented the Hallowd Mage Prestige Class.
A Prestige Class that combine arcane and divine Spellcaster.
This Prestige Class had a Spell list, staring with 4th lvl. Spells that combined Spells from Cleric and Sorc./Wiz. Spellists.
He got some special abilities too, like casting arcane Spells in armor and such.
Never played one, but found it far more flavorfull than the MT.

 

[der_kluge]

I think an interesting combination would be Bard/Cloistered Cleric/ MT.

You'd have a ridiculous number of skills, especially if you had a decent int. If you have a sufficient number of meat shields in the party, you could sacrifice con, str, and even dex to a lesser degree for int/wis/cha. It's even more awesome if the GM allows you to stack the "lore" abilities of the two classes.

 

[Halivar]

IMXP, the MT is quite underpowered unless you get both divine and arcane Practiced Spellcaster feats and a couple Spell Focus feats. Otherwise you're dealing out consistently low-damage, low-save-DC spells for your level.

Mystic Theurge is also not very fun for levels 1-6, where you're actually having to multiclass your wizard/cleric levels. Mystic Theurge is funner if you're starting at, say, level 8, which is when you finally get fireball (three levels behind the party primary evoker, which is not you!).

IMHO, it's a good roleplay class for players who don't mind playing second fiddle in combat (but with more utility than, say, a bard).

 

[amethal]

Mystic Theurge is a class where you have to add your own flavour. Personally that's the way I like my prestige classes.

We have one in our party who has taken 3 levels of Elf paragon and 1 level of wizard. It slows down the spell progression even more, but allows him to have ridiculous spot, listen and search scores (wisdom and intelligence, unsurprisingly, being his highest ability scores).

 

[pawsplay]

It's a fun class, and like chicken or potatoes, tends to take its flavor from the spices you put into it. For instance, I think it would be difficult to argue that a necromancer/Cleric (Death, Evil) lacks flavor, or a sorcerer/cleric (knowledge, protection), or a bard/druid.

Mystic Theurge is the "red mage" of 3.5... sounds sweet, but no real punch in any particular area. Can do double duty in some respects, but you'll need to account for your deficits.

 

[babomb]

At first, I thought it was overpowered.

Then I played in a game where one of the other PCs played one.

It was fine for a while. Then until he won initiative and used an save-or-die spell to kill a powerful bad guy in the first round of combat. He convinced the DM that since he was the only one who actually did anything in the fight, he should get all the XP. He ended up several levels higher than the rest of us. I was rather miffed that he was a wizard on top of being a better cleric than my Barbarian 1/Cleric 10, but that's not a fault of the Mystic Theurge class per se. I think it would probably be okay under normal circumstances.

 

[wingsandsword]

It looks overpowered on the surface, but in practice it's actually not that broken.

You're always behind a dedicated caster on getting highest level spells, you can't cast any more spells than you could otherwise, just a lot broader selection and total number per day, and if one of your two classes is Cleric, you're going to miss out on a lot of your domain benefits and turning. Also, remember it stops at 10 levels too, so around 16th level you stop getting that gravy train of double progression.

It can be broken if you combine it with classes that have accellerated casting progressions like Ur-Priest, or other dual-progression classes, or find some other way to break the intent. It works as designed when you get at least 3 levels in a Divine casting class with normal progression, 3 levels in an Arcane class with normal progression, and then go Mystic Theurge for 10 levels of dual progression.

Mystic Theurge is a great "5th man" character for support, or good if you've got a character concept that really works for it and the game and party isn't going to be built around powerful & "efficient" characters all going for the exact 4 core niches.

 

[jollyninja]

I have found that in smaller groups, this class is sweet. particularly if nobody wants to play a cleric or bard and you do not have a wizard either. I actually was considering making it manditory as the only way to get spells higher then level two in a homebrew i was dreaming up. the main advantage to it is the ease with which you can pump out magic items for the group and yourself. you can make almost anything with a single character. I played it mostly as a cleric with fireball wands and the like. made the items, wore the armor didn't focus so much on the artillery spells in every day preperation. it's true you never get the higher level spells, but my capability as both healer and nuker of the group was never questioned. and the sheer number of wonderous items i was pumping out for the others was appreciated. being able to augment both hide and move silently for the group is great.

the mystic theurge is essentially a support character in a big group and a utility character in a small one and i have never had anyone else want to play one in any game i've been involved in. If your DM actually looks at a level 12 character that has taken that class compared to any class without "prestige" for 12 levels, or god forbid a gestalt *shudder* he'll see that yes, it sounds scary but in effect, it kinda sucks.

 

[Terwox]

I had one in my game, we played level 1-8. He was a tiny bit weak in combat compared to the barbarian and the ranger, as being a wizard3/cleric3 is not great, but, yes. If your DM has outruled this, he hasn't really thought it through. I had the same gut reaction when I read it.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Balanced and logical in theory, unbalanced and ridiculous in practice.

That's what I've found. I know that most people here disagree (nowadays) but that's what I have found, and that's one of the reasons it's absolutely disallowed in any game I GM, and something I will never select as a player.