Please tell me there's something I'm missing here

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The Mystical Theurge

Am I missing some sort of huge error in this prestige class that balances out to a non-broken level? Or will 3.5 players be able to be 16th level, and be able to cast both 7th-level arcane and divine spells?

For some reason, I think that the phrase "munchkin" may someday be replaced with "theurge".

[ April 03, 2003, 12:56: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Well if there is a major drawback I am not seeing it... from the looks of things it allows a multi-classed cleric/wizards ( or equivalent to Double their rate of spell advancement for no major penalties. they still have arcane spell failure if they wear armor but hey had to deal with that before.... The only thing they louse is the bonus wizard feats they don't increase the turn undead ability and their familiar doesn't get better.
But yep I agree Munchkin.

 

As a player of spellcasters, this class makes me drool. In my current home game, I play a Bard/Cleric and I would LOVE to take this class.

But as a DM there is absolutely no way in HECK I would allow it. Maybe if it forced you to give up your familiar (or require you to have never had one), lose your turning ability AND bonus spells for high ability score, I might allow it. But I still doubt it.

 

you're not missing anything C'Jakob, it's a munchkin thing

 

Don't be so quick to label it a munchkin thing, personally I think it is a shame that while they decided to make all sorts of stuff stack in 3E, casters got left in the cold. I mean, a fighter who decides to take a few levels of rogue get the sum of the BAB, and saves from both, while multiclass casters kind of get butchered if you know what I mean.

I'd rather they fixed the core classes instead of making a prestige class for it though.

The class has its drawbacks:
You can't wear armor anymore, unless you are planning on only casting clerical spells, which is unlikely.
You have two primary spellcasting stats, Int and Wis, which means less for the lifesavers Dex and Con.
You get a d4 every level, as opposed to d4 and d8 alternating if you were to multiclass Cleric and Wizard.
You lose access to 8th and 9th level spells in one of the classes or 9th in both, depending on your choices above level 16.
You lose wizard bonus feats, familiar progression and turn undead.
You lose the better fort save progression of the cleric.
You lose your domain spell progression as far as I can see.

For this you gain/keep:
Divine and arcane spellprogression at every level.
Wizard will progression.

In other words, there are a lot of drawbacks still to a character going this route, and there still seems to be reason for one to go the vanilla cleric/wizard combo to get the things you otherwise would lose as outlined above.

That being said, it might benefit from just a little bit steeper demands, levelwise, perhaps 3rd level spells, or higher skill prereqs.

 

But arcane spellcasters can cast spells in armor, there is just a chance for it to fail. Unless the Still Spell feat is taken.

This class does seem off-balance, but I think I am going to hold off making an opinion until I see it in play. My DM is going to let me try it.

 

While it is true that the theurge can wear armor, I have yet to witness an armor wearing arcane spellcaster in any of my games, with the exception of bards, because of the inherent risk of a critical spell going wrong. Neither have I seen any spellcaster using the still spell feat on every spell they might need in combat.