[Tome of Virtue] Mystic Theurge

[Grek]

MYSTIC THEURGE
"Thou shalt not sacrifice caster levels."

Hit Die: d4.
Requirements
To qualify to become a mystic theurge, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 6 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 6 ranks.
Spells: Able to cast 2nd-level divine spells and 2nd-level arcane spells.

Class Skills
The mystic theurge’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (arcana/religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points per Level: 2 + Int modifier.
Base Attack Bonus: 1/2
Saving Throws: Good Will, Poor Reflex and Fort
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Mystic theurges gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Sacred Thaumaturgy: For the purposes of spells per day and spells known in his arcane spellcasting class, the mystic theurge adds their divine spellcasting class levels and mystic theurge levels to his arcane spellcasting class levels. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained unless otherwise specified. For the purposes of spells per day in his divine spellcasting class, the mystic theurge adds their arcane spellcasting class levels and mystic theurge levels to his divine spellcasting class levels. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained unless otherwise specified.

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class or more than one divine spellcasting class before he became a mystic theurge, he must decide to which divine spellcasting class and which arcane spellcasting he adds his levels of mystic theurge for the purpose of determining spells per day.

Sacred Spellbook: If the mystic theurge prepares his spells from a spellbook, that spellbook counts as a holy (or unholy) symbol when held by the mystic theurge.

Familar Companion: If the mystic theurge has both the ability to summon a familiar, an animal companion or special mount from both their divine and arcane spellcasting classes, they may instead choose a single creature off of any of the companion lists he qualifies for and treat it as both the mystic theurge's animal companion/special mount and his familiar. This creature gains bonus abilities, such as scrying and evasion, from both the animal companion/special mount granting and familiar granting classes as well as a 1d8 hit dice for each of it's master's levels in mystic theurge. Levels in mystic theurge do not count towards gaining bonus abilities, however.

Divine Arcana: A mystic theurge who is capable of turning or rebuking undead, using bardic performances or of wildshaping can spend one rebuking, bardic performance or wildshaping attempt to cast an arcane spell as if it were a divine spell or vise versa. Spells cast as divine spells use the spellcasting stat used for the spellcasting of the divine spellcasting class and spells cast as arcane spells use the spellcasting stat used for the spellcasting of the arcane spellcasting class. All spells cast this way ignore arcane spell failure.

Spontaneous Casting: A mystic theurge with the ability to spontaneously cast spells may use spell slots from any of their spellcasting classes to cast spells which they are able to cast spontaneously. Thus, a mystic theurge with good aligned cleric levels can cast any cure spell of the same spell level or lower using their arcane spell slots and mystic theurge with sorcerer levels can cast any of their known arcane spells using their divine spell slots. This ability can be used once per level in mystic theurge per day.

[Akula]

You still suck from 4-7, and then you get to be a double full caster.

[koz]

I would suggest qualification for 'doubly' classes should be split 2/1 between the two classes. That way, you are never more than 2 levels behind in either type of casting, which helps.

[Akula]

Once you take one level in this you are only one level behind in each. See the overly verbose first ability. I just feel that it solves nothing while then just saying, "Okay, you've suffered enough; you can win DnD now."

[Quantumboost]

As written, it actually makes your arcane and divine caster levels both equal to your character level, not one behind. So it's pretty much strictly better for pure casting classes (like the Wizard and Cleric) than going to 20 in that class, and possibly better than most prestige classes. You get the full casting ability of two classes.

[Emerald]

Yeah, I'm not seeing a downside to this, given that you're essentially a gestalt arcane//divine caster with it. Adding half of the existing levels would probably be a better idea, so you'll at least be a level or two behind in each.

[Kaelik]

Also, because of the way the wording is listed, You could be a Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Druid 1/Sorcerer 1/Warmage 1

And as a level 10 character you would have 10th level casting in five different classes.

And of course, then the game if finding as many full caster classes as you can think of and taking 1 level dips into all of them.

This class is only one level long, and that ability needs to be changed.

Mystic Theurge needs to be less than full casting. Something like one level behind in one class.

[Akula]

I, personally let people qualify if they have arcane and divine spontaneous casting. Makes being one level behind have more impact. I also expand the class to 18 levels if someone really wants to take it.

[Emerald]

Also, because of the way the wording is listed, You could be a Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Druid 1/Sorcerer 1/Warmage 1

And as a level 10 character you would have 10th level casting in five different classes.

Actually, you only get one of each:

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class or more than one divine spellcasting class before he became a mystic theurge, he must decide to which divine spellcasting class and which arcane spellcasting he adds his levels of mystic theurge for the purpose of determining spells per day.

[Orion]

Mystic Theurge should really just be a short, 3 or 5 level class that puts all the cleric spells on your arcane caster's list.

Or maybe a feat that does same.

[Kaelik]

Also, because of the way the wording is listed, You could be a Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Druid 1/Sorcerer 1/Warmage 1

And as a level 10 character you would have 10th level casting in five different classes.

Actually, you only get one of each:

AS I typed up days ago concurrent with the great crash:

It's still a one level long class. Just find a class with class features and take a 1 level dip in Mystic Theurge.

Warmage 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Warmage 13
Summoner 4/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Summoner 12
Any Arcane 3/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 1/Druid 13.

Mystic Theurges need to be consistently behind, not, suck for 3 levels then better than everyone for 14. As frank explained many times, pay now for awesome later is a terrible system, because everyone staring at level 7 will be a Mystic Theurge. Everyone.

Mystic Theurge should have some okay class features at levels, but be something like this:

requirements: Level 1 casting of some class, level 3 spells of another class. It needs to not be spell based, because people can finagle that, and it needs to not be CL based for the same reason. Maybe you need X levels in one arcane casting class, and Y levels in Divine. But let them focus in either direction.

Then, they should take levels in Mystic Theurge, which advances both at full rate, is 16 levels long, and has class features that make it look okay, but not as good as single casting classes.

Examples:

Familiar/AC stuff that makes sense
Your base CL for spells is equal to the higher CL class.
+1 to base CL for spells (now casting at level appropriate CL with other characters)
You can sacrifice spells from side X to do Y to side Z.
All your spells are divine or arcane at your choice, and the arcane ones ignore Spell Failure from armor at all times.

Shit like that.

Being one level behind in spell progression in your good class and 3 behind in your bad is fine. You still have CL appropriate and you get class features.

[Crissa]

If you only have one set of spells-per-day, does it matter how many spell lists you have?

-Crissa

[ubernoob]

If you only have one set of spells-per-day, does it matter how many spell lists you have?

-Crissa

If you take some penalty to pay for it (arcane spellfailure + paying levels to get access to the other list for example), it's more or less fine. But the costs should be about what the benefits are. A full CL PrC that added one spell level of a divine caster class's list (0 to 9 for a ten level PrC) would actually be an ok PrC as long as it had no other features.

[Kaelik]

If you only have one set of spells-per-day, does it matter how many spell lists you have?

-Crissa

Yes and no.

New spells known are worth something. There are a couple problems:

1) If you add the new spell list to the class list of the caster taking it, you basically have to write in "No Beguilers/ect."

2) If you add them as spells known, then you have the same problem, but it's Beguilers and Sorcerers.

So bottom line, the way to do it so make a thematic class that has a reason to be gaining new spells, like Sandshaper, but without losing CLs.

And make on like that for what you want.

[Aktariel]

Mystic Theurge is not generally a workable idea, because the balancing line is so fine it's probably almost invisible.

Remember, anything more than one level behind in spellcasting is unacceptable (you're casting as well as your own cohort and need to die in a fire), but being no levels behind in two classes is also not ok - then you're not quite twice as powerful as everyone else (since you still only have one person's worth of actions per round).

Iaimeki made a mystic theurge that was 18 levels long, required 1 level each of an arcane and divine casting class, and took you all the way to 19th in both of those. That is the only thing that is even remotely workable, because everything else can fuck right off in terms of power level.

[Hicks]

Hozabout this:

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Mystic Theurge

Requirements: at least 1 or more levels of an arcane spell casting class and 1 or more levels of a divine spell casting class

Class Skills:

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Thaumaturgy:: At first level, when a Mystic Theurge level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in all spellcasting classes she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that she adds the level of Mystic Theurge to the level of whatever other spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly.

Additionally, anytime a Mystic Theurge gains the ability of +1 level of existing arcane or divine spellcasting class, she instead increases her effective Mystic Theurge level.

• A Wizard 1 / Cleric 1 takes a level of Mystic Theurge, and now casts spells as a Wizard 2 / Cleric 2. That character then decides to enter any full casting PRC for 10 levels, and now casts spells as a Wizard 12 / Cleric 12 and has 13 total character levels.

[Kaelik]

Needs to be limited to "any two casting classes he/she already has."

Otherwise you get shit like:

Wizard 1/Bard 1/Suel Arcanamach 1/Warmage 1/Ect 1/ Ur Priest 1/Mystic Theurge 1/PrC X/Sublime Chord 1/PrC Y.

[Hicks]

You have just argued that casting as a cohort of a cohort is overpowered*.

There is nothing I can do about Ur Priest but ban it like a Beholder Mage. But seriously: Action Economy. It doesn't matter how many things you can do, because there is only 1 thing you will do. You are limited by your actions to what single action will actually happen on a round by round basis.

Way I see it is that every even level needs to have some sort of of cool bonus ability to justify writing this out past 1st level, and I just don't want to put that much effort into something I do not nor ever will want to play.

*EDIT: either that or you are arguing that that combination is shit and underpowered and that it should be hard coded to that you can't shoot yourself in the foot like that. Either way, that is for someone else to take up he torch, as I don't care about Mystic Theurges at all.

[Kaelik]

1) If you don't care, then why are you writing classes that make the game worse?

2) Having 4 classes one spell level behind is in fact more powerful than having one class at that level. Yes. It really is.

3) Why not just not write things that make Ur-Priests more powerful?

[Hicks]

(1. Loaded question. I wrote out an idea that could be built upon to help others design a class because I thought I could contribute a simple solution that i had not seen expressed before.

(2. No it really isn't. Hell, it breaks the 1st and 6th commandments of power gaming, "Thou shalt not sacrifice caster levels". Versatility is not Power, otherwise the Mystic Theurge would have dominated the game from day 1. Synergy can grant power, but there is no "great" synergy between spell lists that cannot be had with a single spell list, with one exception: having a Druid cast divine power, and even that could also be achieved with a cohort and a ring of spell storing, or having a freaking scroll and 1 cleric level, or with a scroll and snagging UMD as a class skill, or cross classing UMD and getting a magic item to boost UMD.

You believe differently. I know. I don't care what you think, and no amount of words in this post will convince you of how wrong you are. However, you are not actually factually wrong, and our difference is one of opinion. I can and will respect your opinion, even if I do not share it.

(3. Despite the double negative, why should I give a damn about a badly designed PRC I will never play? It's not my job to design a class on command. It takes me over an hour to post this crappy little rebuttal post, and days to get out something half as coherent as my Dread Necromancer. You want a well designed Mystic Theurge so bad? Ask Frank. I am so the wrong tree to bark up.

[Kaelik]

You want a well designed Mystic Theurge so bad? Ask Frank. I am so the wrong tree to bark up.

I don't. They already exist just fine. It's when you go all "HEY GUYS HERES A SOLUTION THAT SOMEONE ELSE ALREADY SUGGESTED, BUT WITH BAD WORDING!"

That's the problem.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I've got to say that I like Grek's original idea. So long as you're making a prestige class rather than a feat, you might as well create the synergy that makes having multiple spell casting progressions worthwhile. Mind mage wasn't an especially well balanced PrC, but at least it had the right idea.

[Crissa]

Why not limit them to a number of spells per day, like the Wizard or Cleric is already limited?

-Crissa