Re: Oracle / Sorcerer / Mystic Theurge Can it work?

[ElyasRavenwood]

I know that mechanic wise the Oracle/ Sorcerer/ Mystic Theurge would be well awfull.

Fluff wise, i think it would be a very fun character concept. who has his arcane might through a blood line, and was Burdned/cursed by the gods with the powers of the oracle.

So i am wondering is there any ways to make it work?

Thanks

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Flavor wise, yes. Mechanically you're going to suck at just about everything.

[Kydeem de'Morcaine]

Kinda depends on how the rest of the group for how useful it could be.

If you have a kinda large group with no other caster, it could be fairly useful. Your group will have to understand that they need to cover for your lack of take-down magics so that you have a larger variety of spell types. Also, your usefulness will be higher if the group does not have easy access to purchasing magic items. You will be restriced to large numbers of a few low and mid level spells. But many of those can still be useful for helping the group. Difficult to find a replacement for restoration and detect thoughts. You will be able to spam a few low level buffs like crazy. Mage armor, pro evil, haste, etc... seem to always be useful.

Focus on utility and buff.
Take a few no-save spells for attacks.
Magical knack to up your caster levels (I think there was something similar for divine casters)
Craft wand might be good if a few others have UMD.
Craft potion if they don't.

You will find getting through the mid level after you multi-class until you get a few into the PrC very difficult. It will be easier in a campaign that starts at higher levels.

[meabolex]

Sure, it'll work. Will it be easy to be effective? Not really.

You need to focus entirely on spells that have the following properties:

* minimal reliance on caster level
* not affected by SR
* no saving throw

There's a few ways to approach this. One way is a party buffer. Buffs don't have a strong reliance on caster level (mainly for duration) and they don't typically care about SR/saves. The downside is that you will be weak versus dispel -- but dispel situations aren't going to happen every combat at most levels.

Another variation on the "buff bot" is the self-buffing tank. This approach was fine in 3.X, but with the changes to PF polymorphing, it's a bit more difficult to pull off. You're probably going to have to have great stats to do this well. You're even weaker to dispel than the previous build.

I'm not sure a summon-focused strategy would work, but it might be doable. The idea is to focus on swarming the battlefield with weaker summons every combat. If you have another party buffer (like a bard), this strategy might work well. . .

One thing to remember: if you don't really care about saving throws or spell slots, you don't need a very high Charisma score. You probably need just enough to cast your spells. Starting with a 15 in Charisma should be plenty. You also don't need a Charisma stat booster (just level boosts every 4 levels).

[BigNorseWolf]

It increases the amount of time of the really sucky levels of the mystic theurge.

They need to make a spontaneously casting version that you can enter at 6th instead of 9th.

[Andy Ferguson]

Once you get Shadow Projection you will be pretty cool, before that you will be kinda uncool.

[John Woodford]

You'll have the very minor advantage of only a single casting stat, but you'll have to pick your bloodline and mystery carefully to maximize your useful bonus spells.

[mplindustries]

I don't really understand why this would be so bad--or rather why it would be especially worse than a traditional Mystic Theurge.

You have to wait two levels later than a Wizard/Cleric and you get a single casting stat to make up for it. Yeah, you can't use Combined spells, but did anyone actually use that anyway?

I don't know, I mean, I guess it makes a difference at level 8 or something, but there's only 10 levels of Mystic Theurge, and both versions can get all 10.

This will be the issue:

Wizard/Cleric MT
3rd level spells at Level 8
4th level spells at level 10
5th level spells at level 12
6th level spells at level 14
7th level spells at level 16
Then you have 4 more levels to screw around with. You won't get 8th level spells with both classes until level 20th.

Oracle/Sorcerer MT
3rd level spells at level 10
4th level spells at level 12
5th level spells at level 14
6th level spells at level 16
7th level spells at level 18
Then you have two more levels to screw around with. You can get 8th level spells with one of your classes at 8th.

So, I think by the end, it's pretty equal.

The "best" MT might be a Celestial Sorcerer/Cleric, though, since they can actually share a casting stat and make use of Combined spells, if that's even a remotely useful thing to do.

[Kydeem de'Morcaine]

mplindustries wrote:

... Yeah, you can't use Combined spells, but did anyone actually use that anyway?...

Actually I never noticed that prohibition before. But your right.

mplindustries wrote:

... The "best" MT might be a Celestial Sorcerer/Cleric, though, since they can actually share a casting stat and make use of Combined spells, if that's even a remotely useful thing to do.

Actually I believe you mean the empyreal sorc / cleric

[mplindustries]

Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:

Actually I believe you mean the empyreal sorc / cleric

Yeah, Empyreal is a wildblooded archetype for the Celestial bloodline. Sorry, I did not make that clear.

[ElyasRavenwood]

Thank you all for your posts, they have been most helpful.

thanks for the sugestion on spell selection ( minimum reliance on caster level, no spell resistance no saving throw)

THe buffing suggestion is a good one too.

Ugg 3rd level spells at 10 level

It looks like maybe the Gestalt rules might be best for an Oracle/ Sorcerer combination.

Again, thank you for all of your suggestions

[Istarial]

I'm probably a little late to this discussion.

I have an elemental(fire) sorcerer (lvl4). At our last lvl up I took an oracle lvl (Blackened/waves, because we are playing skulls and shackles, my dm and i worked out a spell swap for the double up between blackened and sorc bloodline spells). My dm also let me take the feat "Improved Caster Level", hence my caster level for both classes is the same as my character level. This was done as we ended up without a tank or healer in our group, our tank quit after 2 sessions and the replacement wanted to play a wizard (my friends and I strongly support playing what you want), our cleric/barbarian basically became our tank after that because his AC and HP were highest and his range kinda protects the casters.

I have a very high charisma (18) and choose the Cure option for my oracle so I get up to level 4 healing spells from my oracle. I haven't checked with my DM but this should satisfy the able to cast level 2 divine spells. If it doesn't I would take extra oracle levels so I can cast more healing spells anyway. Improved caster level means my caster level would still equal my character level (yes i know caster level doesn't determine spells known/per day). Assuming this does satisfy the divine requirement i would be able to take my 6th level as a MT

As far as I understand with the mystic theurge I would be able to gain new spells (know and per day) for both classes with a single theurge level. The tradeoff being I wouldn't receive bloodline powers/mysteries/revelations, however my curse would still increase based on the 1 lvl for every 2 lvls of non oracle class thing.
"an oracle’s curse is based on her oracle level plus one for every two levels"

I'm assuming the use of AND not OR here means both increase. Is this correct or do you have to pick which one to increase?
"This essentially means that he adds the level of mystic theurge to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class and divine spell casting class the character has, then determines spells per day, spells known, and caster level accordingly."

Sorry for the long rambly post I figured the background information might be useful

The character development of this combination is interesting but a lot of people are saying it is a bad combination, i'm assuming that is just because of the issues with multiclassing casters (a moot point in this situation)? Or am I missing some other drawback?

[Stome]

Honestly if I wanted spontaneous divine/arcane mix I would go Ancient Lorekeeper. Though there might be something more to MT that I am unaware of. i tend to stay away from PreCs most of the time.

[Istarial]

From what I understand loremaster you have to choose what caster class to add the level too.

From what I understand of theurge you can increase both an arcane AND divine class. If you have multiple divine(or arcane) then you choose which one to increase.

I have no clue if i am reading something wrong though

[Stome]

Loremaster is an archetype that adds the arcane spells straight to their list. At one lvl lower admittedly but seems to me that would have far less of a hit then multitasking.

I suppose where it falls short is not gaining the arcane class abilities and features beyond the spells and the number of arcane spells they can get is limited. Though combine it with a mystery that gives a couple arcane spells you want and the number of them is alright.

[Istarial]

Potentially yes, the problem is that I was originally a sorcerer. SO I am already multiclassed, in this case TM would allow me to increase both classes spells known and spells per day. My dm is leaning towards cure moderate wounds satisfying the prereq so I could take it from next level.

I'm fairly sure it works that you gets spells from both classes but do not get the specialised stuff (bloodline powers/feats and mystery/revelation). Hence I can get my higher level sorc spells while still gaining the oracle lvls needed to eventually get mass cure wounds. Rather than having to focus on oracle levels and being stuck with lvl 2 sorc spells.

[Stome]

Ohhhh. If you are already knee deep in multiclassing then by all means I would go MT. Its kind of an awkward spot to be in and is by no means great but its certainly better then continuing to multiclass the two.

And yes you are correct about how it works. It progresses both.

[SunsetPsychosis]

Oracle/Sorcerer Theurge just got much, MUCH more feasible, with the new ruling on SLA's qualifying you for prestige classes.

The trick is to play an Aasimar or a Tiefling, or any other race that gives you a 2nd level SLA, because it will let you qualify early. A Peri-blooded Aasimar Flame Oracle/Elemental Fire Sorcerer would be thematically appropriate and mechanically viable for sure.

[Istarial]

Sorry, you do raise good points, it is just the situation i have is very specific, we hada tank and barbarian, the barbarian took a lvl as a cleric because there were some buffs thats worked really well with his abilities, and it gave him the ability to heal a little. then the tank left so be basically became the tank as myself (sorc) and the other player(rouge) are fairly squishy. the replacement player wanted to be a wizard and as is his first foray into non computer games we told him to make a char he would enjoy not one we needed because being stuck in a char/class you don't like makes for a very bad first experience.

It's become the barbarian and rouge taking the hits to keeps things off myself and the wiz (we have no AC or HP). most of the time this works fine as we have enough firepower to kill things before they hit us more than once. When we get to boss fights or fights with a heck lot of opponents though things get a little dicey and we really need the heals. So I found a cha based divine caster and decided to multi class (i thought it might be fun to try and it balances fairly well due to traits, stats and feats). The wizard is still learning how the game works. He is still a bit of a newbie as he bases his entire understanding of the spell on the one sentence from the spell list. Myself or the DM look up a whichever spell he uses to make sure it does what he wants it to, suggesting that he multiclass would be more of a headache for everyone involved, (I'm not trying to bash on him or anything, it is his first game, where as the rest of us have been playing dnd or other tabletop games for 3 or 4 years).

So given the fact that I am multi-classing a sorcerer and oracle, most of my character is focused of the sorcerer but i really want to get to the mass healing spells from the oracle. I want to know if I am missing drawbacks that aren't rooted in multi-classing. and if I am correct in understanding that both my sorc and oracle spells known would increase with each MT level i take.

(Big background I know but hopefully it helps in understanding why this is specifically what I want to know)

Sunset: I'm a gnome(pyromaniac!) fire elemental sorc, with the blackened curse and waves mystery. I didn't choose flame because i like blackened more than the other curses and it would have been too much overlap with the bonus spells, Also we're playing skulls and shackles so waves makes a bit more sense and there are some useful revelations (I didn't know this when I made the char, our dm didn't tell us much to make the whole kidnapping and not voluntarily choosing a life at sea more realistic). I'm not sure what you are talking about with the SLA's ruling on early entry.

Stome haha ty :D I didn't noticed you had replied by the time i finished typing this. cool I was really hoping I wasn't being obsessive with english and it didn't actually progress both (the slash in the table(d20pfsrd) confused me as slash normally means or)

[Stome]

Istarial if your GM would allow it look up "glorious heat" feat on the SRD. (would hunt down the link for you but am at work.) Its not what most would call great but in a sub optimal party it could be a great deal of help. that and I really love the flavor of it and that flavor would fit a pyro-gnome so well!

-Edit- Also do you think the option to retain your Sorc lvl's would be something your Gm might allow? As of ultimate campaign there are now rules for it. I can not think of a better time to use those rules then thing. When someone leaves and throws off the party balance.

[Istarial]

OOOO pretty :)

unfortunatly my fire spells are nearly all from my arcane caster :(

[Stome]

You have blackened right? That alone is enough fire spells to make it useful.

To be honest if it was me I would push for retaining given the corner you have been backed into here. But if that does not fly yeah MT is your best bet. In any case good luck and most importantly I hope you have fun no matter the outcome :)

[Istarial]

I could, I really like being a sorc though and so far I haven't had any major limits from the multiclassing. Between my high cha, which means i have a lvl 4 spells per day slot for both the classes. and improved spell caster means my caster level and character level are also the same for both classes. So my sorc is playing at a 1 lvl disadvantage which atm basically means a couple less spells per day and a bloodline feat. Again due to the high cha I get all the single target Cure spells and can cast the lower level of these a fair few times.

At least this far through the campaign we have very rarely needed healing, generally the cleric has been able to handle it after everything has been defeated. He has healed us twice in combat and we have used a couple of potions. But the last boss fight we only just scraped past (icky one with towers and skeletons and poison clouds). So really the idea of being able to heal is secondary to damage.

The bonus spells I wouldn't be learning by taking MT levels is really countered by the fact oracle and sorc learn spells at the same rate. I would be effectively learning twice as many spells each level rather than one bonus spell every two levels. Additionally I would get twice as many spells per day each level (When i multi-classed my DM ruled on having a divine spells per day and arcane spells per day rather than one spells per day list). So really the only draw back is i don't get my bloodline feats and my curse progresses at half the speed.

I know multi-classing has the drawback of knowing a lot of low level spells, but as far as i can tell MT compensates for that rather nicely (and improved caster level bridges the gap, while i may be one lvl behind on spells know the spells i do know still act as if i wasn't). As I can take MT at lvl 6 as opposed to lvl 9 like previously mentioned, I'm not missing out on 4 levels worth of sorc spells. I'm having a hard time seeing the origin of the resounding negativity towards this option so i am sure i am missing something.....

blackened:
Hmm, that is a good point, I forgot about that... hehe pretty healing fire (yes i actually giggled/cackled). Would it stack with heighten spell? ie: cast burning hands as a 4th lvl spell and heal 4 points rather than 1? Now that I think about it it would work for any energy based damage spell as i can change the subtype to [fire]. it didn't occur to me as so far my divine spells have been buff based.

[strayshift]

One point not raised yet (and I hate dump stats but will point this out) is that your Will save will be massive from taking the Sorcerer Oracle levels whilst your other saves will be pretty poor. If you are playing a point buy system then I would look at a relatively decent Dex and Con for a number of reasons here (saves, h.p. a small boost to a.c., etc) You can afford to take a slight hit to your wisdom here.

Goes to wash his mouth out after uttering such blasphemy...

[Istarial]

Hmm true, so far this hasn't been too much of an issue as I have resistance as a cantrip and cast it fairly constantly, dex is my equal second highest stat, my con is only 10 though.

I guess that would be the other draw back, you get a penalty to BAB, Fort and Reflex. I had completely forgotten about them. I'm pretty good at not getting hit and we only just hit lvl 5 so it hasn't really been an issue yet.