Normally, multi-classing sorcerer/wizard doesn't make any sense at all and, is, in fact, completely pointless. But, based on flavor and concept alone, I think this would be really cool (AND it would add a reason to multi-class sorcerer/wizard!). Think about it.
Sorcerers are inherently magical people; magic runs in their blood. Through their own personal force of will and command of their bodies, they are able to conjure magical effects.
Wizards, on the other hand, have nothing magical about them. They're really just ordinary people. But, they're incredibly intelligent and know a lot about magic, and through their knowledge of the arcane arts are able to conjure magical effects.
Flavor wise, I don't think you can deny it's a really cool concept; a person who is innately gifted with the power of magic, who also is incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable about the arcane arts, who can combine his natural affinity and incredible intellect to devastating levels; a true master of magic.
Thoughts?
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Ultimate Magus prestige class from Complete Mage. 3.5, should work with PF.
Can be accessed for free here.
Hey, that's pretty cool! Didn't know it was a thing.
However, I'd love to see Paizo's answer to the same idea ;)
Ultimate Magus is what i was working to be.
(ooc) it is and will always be my fav glass cannon.
Use the wildblooded sage bloodline from Ultimate Magic. It makes it much stronger and fits the flavour nicely.
Best of luck!
Not a bad idea!
Are there any rebalance suggestions anyone could offer for making it more on-scale with the rest of Pathfinder?
... annnnd, yeah, an official Pathfinder alternate take on the same character concept would be pretty neat.
Well, that's not exaaactly what I was getting at.
A wizard/sorcerer is pointless mechanically on its own, but that's only because their abilities can't work together at all towards any meaningful end.
The creation of a prestige class that grants a meaningful result of playing wizard/sorcerer 1) would NOT be pointless mechanically *AND* 2) would be cool in flavor.
Right now, wizard/sorcerer cross classes are cool in flavor only, with no useful result. I'm saying it'd be neat if there WERE a useful result, via a new prestige class.
... but in the mean time, the Ultimate Magus looks pretty cool so I guess I'll use that.
Uhm...
... other than adjusting HD/skills/standard stuff, are there any buffs or modifications anyone would want to suggest for converting the Ultimate Magus to Pathfinder?
(and for the record I'd still love to see a different Paizo approach to the same concept/idea! <_< it is pretty perfect, let's be honest.)
Not off the top of my head, no. I've never played it, but it seems like it should be ok pretty much as it is.
Hey, that's pretty cool! Didn't know it was a thing.
However, I'd love to see Paizo's answer to the same idea ;)
I would too, simply because it would be OGL.
If this is really the way that multiclassing has to work, I'd love for Paizo to relax their attitude toward Prestige Classes a little to a produce one supplement that is nothing more than various Prestige Classes designed to make all of the other multiclass combinations-- besides Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, Mystic Theurge, and Holy Vindicator-- work.
As far as actually using it, though, Ultimate Magus is late 3.5 and thus balanced more or less appropriately for Pathfinder already-- except for the fact that losing caster levels to be able to cast more spells from the same spell list is an even worse tradeoff than Mystic Theurge.
Gignere: It's not just about the spontaneous casting, imo. The big draw of the Ultimate Magus is the ability to burn your sorcerer spells to feed (metamagic) your wizard spells, and vice versa. It's much, much more than just "a class with both spontaneous and prepared spells."
@Viktyr: Couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for the insight on balance, although I'm not sure what you mean about the bad tradeoff!
What I really want is a sorcerer who can pick like half his "spells known" from each spell level to be prepared slots instead. So the spells he casts all the time, he'd "know," but the other ones he'd need to prepare in order to cast.
What I really want is a sorcerer who can pick like half his "spells known" from each spell level to be prepared slots instead. So the spells he casts all the time, he'd "know," but the other ones he'd need to prepare in order to cast.
Or you could play a wizard and take the Preferred Spell feat.
Seriously, a friend of mine made an evoker who used this and picked fireball. Between his just-in-case prepared spells, the admixture school, and various metamagic feats he could apply on the fly, he was surprisingly versatile and slung flaming balls o' doom like he was a sorcerer.
I always thought blasters couldn't come close to a high BAB damage-per-round class (like the archery focused ranger in the same party) but he kept his damage up consistently all the way to 18th level or so when the campaign ended (Kingmaker).
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@Viktyr: Couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for the insight on balance, although I'm not sure what you mean about the bad tradeoff!
It's the 'bad tradeoff' inherent in all PF multiclassing, but it's at its worst in dealing with spellcasters-- if you're a level X Wizard and you multiclass, you're trading the benefits of being a level X+1 Wizard for the benefits of being a level 1 something else.
Say you're Wizard 6 and decide you want to take your next class level in Cleric. Right there, you just traded 4th level Wizard spells for 1st level Cleric spells. (Whereas in AD&D, a multiclass Cleric/Wizard would only run 1 or 2 levels behind the rest of the party in both classes.) Mystic Theurge was designed to make this easier: a Wizard 3/Cleric 3 (effectively trading 3rd level spells for 2nd) takes a level of Mystic Theurge and trades all of his other Wizard/Cleric class features for spellcasting advancement in both classes. He's a 7th level character who casts like a 4/4, which is trading 4ths for 2nds; next level, he's an 8 casting as a 5/5, trading 4ths for 3rds.
Best possible Theurge build is Cleric 3/Wizard 3/Mystic Theurge 10/PrC 4. That gives you the equivalent of 17th caster level on one side and 13th on the other. You get 9th level spells (three levels late) and 7th level spells in exchange for all of your other class features.
Maybe the versatility is worth it to you. I've never played a single-class character-- not since my very first AD&D character, a single-class Monk-- and I usually go for classes like Bard and Chameleon that trade off raw power for flexibility. Deliberately.
But Ultimate Magus is the worst possible version of that trade off, because you're not trading the highest level Wizard spells for lower level Cleric spells-- you're trading high-level Wizard spells for more low-level Wizard spells. There are ways to mitigate your losses so that it's almost worth it (Practiced Spellcaster for your Sorcerer level so you get 10/10 casting from Wizard) but you're still effectively trading the best spells from your class for more of the worst spells from your class.
What I really want is a sorcerer who can pick like half his "spells known" from each spell level to be prepared slots instead. So the spells he casts all the time, he'd "know," but the other ones he'd need to prepare in order to cast.
That's actually a thing I'm doing. Giving Wizards a reduced 'spells known' chart that they prepare from their spellbook each day, and then allowing them to cast spontaneously from their list of prepared spells. Then, instead of Spell Mastery, they can take Expanded Arcana like a Sorcerer to always have certain spells 'prepared'.
Doing something similar with Clerics, where they have 'spells known' like a crippled Oracle but always know their Domain spells. Makes Domain choice a much bigger deal for them and turns down their CoDzilla powers a notch or two.
Only problem I have now is that I've eliminated the design space for Sorcerer and Oracle and I don't know how to 'fix' them to make them distinct classes in their own right again. I always kinda considered them red-headed stepchildren anyway, but now I've gone and made them worse.
Viktyr: That's some interesting perspective there. It certainly makes the Ultimate Magus (and all multi-class spell casting options) seem significantly less appealing =/
Do you think it's possible to "fix" that system? ... what would you suggest? What would you change? What would you want to see?
Still has the problem of any double casting PrC in that the action economy works against your advantage of having a crapton of spells.
The fact that it is effectively easier to quicken spells make this a pretty attractive option actually.
What I really want is a sorcerer who can pick like half his "spells known" from each spell level to be prepared slots instead. So the spells he casts all the time, he'd "know," but the other ones he'd need to prepare in order to cast.That's actually a thing I'm doing. Giving Wizards a reduced 'spells known' chart that they prepare from their spellbook each day, and then allowing them to cast spontaneously from their list of prepared spells.
That's not quite what I meant -- casting spontaneously from a prepared list is what Monte Cook's Magister class does -- it's fine as far as it goes, but I find it to be far too generous for my taste. What I'm saying is that if (for example) you had 4 first-level slots, you would pick two spells (say magic missile and mage armor) as "spells known," and the other two slots would be prepared slots. Whenever you prepared a spell in a prepared slot, it would use up one "spell per day" of the appropriate level as well, but you couldn't just keep casting it with slots -- one slot, one prepared spell, used and gone.
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Only problem I have now is that I've eliminated the design space for Sorcerer and Oracle and I don't know how to 'fix' them to make them distinct classes in their own right again. I always kinda considered them red-headed stepchildren anyway, but now I've gone and made them worse.
I merged the sorcerer with the 3.5e Warlock, and made the oracle (or "incarnate" as we renamed it) more of a "I'm becoming a domain-based outsider" class. You're welcome to steal ideas as you like.
What I really want is a sorcerer who can pick like half his "spells known" from each spell level to be prepared slots instead. So the spells he casts all the time, he'd "know," but the other ones he'd need to prepare in order to cast.
The following feat can be found in the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book:
Arcane Preparation
You can prepare an arcane spell ahead of time, just as a wizard does.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells without preparation.
Benefit: Each day, you can use one or more of your spell slots to prepare spells you know, usually for the purpose of applying a metamagic feat to the spell-but without an increase in its casting time. Preparing a spell uses a spell slot of the appropriate level, and once prepared, that slot can't be used for anything else until the prepared spell is cast.
Normal: Spellcasters who cast arcane spells without preparation (such as sorcerers and bards) who apply a metamagic feat to a spell must cast it as a full-round action instead of a standard action.
Viktyr: That's some interesting perspective there. It certainly makes the Ultimate Magus (and all multi-class spell casting options) seem significantly less appealing =/
I don't think they were deliberately included as trap options-- they were designed to make such characters viable. They just didn't go far enough, because the game's designers simply never quite seemed to grasp just how much more powerful each level of spell is compared to the level before it. (Just look at how many Prestige Classes give you +1 caster level on every other level.)
And Paizo did a wonderful job with making single-classing a better option, such that base class 20 is usually a better option than base 10/PRC 10, and even improving the 'multige' classes so that they were less sub-optimal than they were in 3.5-- as long as you were playing the exact combination of classes they were designed for-- but they also gave all of the base classes higher-level class features that were worth keeping, that all of the 'multige' classes lose.
So, finally... no more ridiculous builds with levels in five base classes and two prestige classes, but your classic Fighter/Cleric or Wizard/Rogue is weaker than ever.
Do you think it's possible to "fix" that system? ... what would you suggest? What would you change? What would you want to see?
Sure. It's just a matter of improving the trade-off.
In my House Rules, there's a feat called 'Additional Class', and you have to take it to multiclass-- either before you take the additional class, or with the next available feat slot after taking the class.
With Additional Class, you gain 'virtual class levels' in each base class equal to one-half of your class levels in other classes, to a maximum of twice your actual class level. These virtual class levels give you class features (like spellcasting), but not things like HD, BAB, or saving throw progression.
This means that your Wizard 2 contemplating a Cleric level isn't trading Wizard 3 for Cleric 1, he's trading it for Cleric 2. A Wizard 2/Cleric 2 (fourth level character) has his normal BAB and Hit Dice, but the class features of a 3rd level Wizard and a 3rd level Cleric. (Compare the Mystic Theurge, who has to be a 6th level Wiz3/Clr3 before taking his first level in the Prestige Class.) He's still trading his highest-level abilities for lower-level abilities in another class... but not that much lower.
By comparison? Wiz3/Clr3/MT10 is a 16th level character that casts as a 13th level Wizard and a 13th level Cleric but has none of the other class features. Under my system, a Wizard 8/Cleric 8 would cast as a Wizard 12/Cleric 12 but have the school benefits and Channel Energy of a Wizard/Cleric of that level as well. At 20th, it's 15/15, with both classes just gaining their first 8th level spells (five levels late) compared to a Wizard 5/Cleric 5/Mystic Theurge 10.
Of course, you could opt for Cleric 3/Wizard 7/Mystic Theurge 10 and still get your 9th level spells by 20th (three levels late) in exchange for getting 7th level spells as a Cleric. Using my rules, to get 9th level spells by 20th, a character would have to be 6/14... only getting 6th level spells in his other class.
It still doesn't work for high-level characters. There's no class in the game for which the first two class levels is the equivalent of putting Wizard 17 off for a level. And I'm still fleshing it out for things like the class features that those Prestige Classes do get, and for allowing more things to stack-- like Lay on Hands and Channel Energy for a Paladin/Cleric-- but I'm ironing out the kinks.
But Ultimate Magus is the worst possible version of that trade off, because you're not trading the highest level Wizard spells for lower level Cleric spells-- you're trading high-level Wizard spells for more low-level Wizard spells. There are ways to mitigate your losses so that it's almost worth it (Practiced Spellcaster for your Sorcerer level so you get 10/10 casting from Wizard) but...
Note that the Practiced Spellcaster hack and the Ultimate Magus's Arcane Spell Power (Ex) ability not having a character level cap combine, as written, to let you wind up casting your wizard spells at a higher caster level than a single-classed wizard, starting at the 4th level of UM to a total +3 above character level at UM 10.
So, at 14th level (1 sor/3 wiz/10 UM), you're down one 7th- and one 6th-level wizard spell each, which isn't great. But you're casting wizard spells as if you were 17th level, which is nice for all those level-dependent variables and any penetrating of SR you might have to do. Plus you get the full spell compliment of an 8th-level sorcerer (6/6/5/3), cast at 14th level, which you can alternatively burn in Augmented Casting to enhance your up-to-5th-level wizard spells without using higher-level slots.
Kirth, have you seen Intuitive Wizardry and/or Learned Sorcery from Strategists & Tacticians? Sounds similar to what you want.
Hitdice, I was unfamiliar with those. Cool.
There was a way in 3.5., a feat called Precocious Apprentice.
It allowed a first lvl arcane caster to pull a single 2nd level spell that could be cast with a concentration check. If allowed, it let you in to the Ultimate Magus PrC at clvl 5. I personally found that to be a little much.
It was nice for games where spells per day vanished quickly but otherwise this was a PrC that really skewed the power curve in a bad way for us.
i want to see something for an inquisitor/rogue
That would be sweet.