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Our current campaign will be drawing to a close soon, so I'm brainstorming lots of character concepts for next game. One of the ones I'm looking at is:
Half-Elf
Alt Racial Ability: Drow Magic
Cleric (of Nethys) 3/___ 1/Mystic Theurge
But the question comes up, what would be the best 1 level arcane class to dip if I still want to cast in light armor (shooting for mithral breastplate eventually)?
Bard: Gives a nice little boost to skill points. Bardic Performances will be very lackluster.
Summoner: Considered to have a broken spell list. Eidolon will be largely useless but could at least be set up as a skill monkey.
Magus: Int focus helps with skill points throughout whole career, spell combat with 'bad touch' cleric spells could be fun. Only 1 level means no spellstrike though. Also may or may not get additional spells for free with Theurge levels.
I don't really want to do wizard, witch, or sorcerer because I don't want to have to still spell or deal with spell failure all the time. Arcanist is also off the table until the ACG gets printed.
Books allowed are CRB, APG, ARG and all the Ultimate X books.
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How much Armor do you really need? Silken Ceremonial Armor/Harikami is only a +1 bonus, but it has 0% ASF chance. Same for Mithral Buckler. Mage Armor will give you as much protection as a chain shirt anyway. Empereal Sorcerer is really good for a MT, because of the WIS synergy, It would suck to be stuck with a half casting class just for Armored casting. If you really wanted to boost your AC, you could dip a level of monk.
Or just get Arcane Armor Training. Ignore 10% of failure as a swift action.
How much Armor do you really need? Silken Ceremonial Armor/Harikami is only a +1 bonus, but it has 0% ASF chance. Same for Mithral Buckler. Mage Armor will give you as much protection as a chain shirt anyway. Empereal Sorcerer is really good for a MT, because of the WIS synergy, It would suck to be stuck with a half casting class just for Armored casting. If you really wanted to boost your AC, you could dip a level of monk.
Well I'm going to be spending the first part of my career as a cleric, so the answer to that would be 'Enough to be able to stand on the front line' or about 10+(level*2). I don't mind going with a 2/3 casting class, that's why I posted them as the options I'm looking at. And I don't want to multiclass any more than I already am, so no monk.
Or just get Arcane Armor Training. Ignore 10% of failure as a swift action.
Still won't fully eliminate the spell failure for a mithral breastplate.
personally, i'd go with an archaeologist bard...
bard casting has better stat synergy than magus and you can improve the luck ability with the fate's favored trait and/or lingering performance.
or, depending on your plans for domains, a bard/evangelist clerc? levels would stack for performance, which doesn't really make much difference until after you finish MT but could be useful at high levels.
Have you considered Magus? 6 levels and you can be spell combating with Harm(assuming you can cast it).
personally, i'd go with an archaeologist bard...
bard casting has better stat synergy than magus and you can improve the luck ability with the fate's favored trait and/or lingering performance.or, depending on your plans for domains, a bard/evangelist clerc? levels would stack for performance, which doesn't really make much difference until after you finish MT but could be useful at high levels.
Archeologist does look very good.
Domains I'm looking at are Defense (Protection), Rune for the free Scribe Scroll, and Arcane or Divine (Magic)Have you considered Magus? 6 levels and you can be spell combating with Harm(assuming you can cast it).
I have looked at Magus, but I'm only doing a 1-level dip into the arcane class before going MT.
Wouldn't you need at least 4 levels of Magus to qualify for the "Able to cast 2nd-level arcane spells" requirement? I don't think you can legally do a Mystic Theurge with only a 1-level dip in the arcane class.
Wouldn't you need at least 4 levels of Magus to qualify for the "Able to cast 2nd-level arcane spells" requirement? I don't think you can legally do a Mystic Theurge with only a 1-level dip in the arcane class.
Drow Magic alt racial gives me Darkness as a spell-like, which thanks to this faq satisfies the requirement of 2nd-level arcane spells. So I can take 1 level of any arcane casting class (just to have something to boost with MT's level-ups).
The skald from the ACG playtest is arcane and can cast in medium armor with the bard spell list if you wanted a bit more armor and were willing to go with the bard list.
The skald from the ACG playtest is arcane and can cast in medium armor with the bard spell list if you wanted a bit more armor and were willing to go with the bard list.
ACG playtest is not on the list of usable sources.
Is +2 AC (breastplate vs. chain shirt) worth the hit to spellcasting by going with a half-caster? Mithral + Arcane Armor Training is 0% failure. It eats up your swift action, but what are you going to be using that on before you acquire Quicken? At that point, there should be some other options.
If this were a home game, I'd try to convince your GM to either allow Arcane Armor Training to work without the swift action, or to include a second feat that upgrades the ability to not requiring an action.
Is there an armor enchantment that reduces ASF like the Twilight property from 3.5?
How about bard (Chelish Diva) / cleric (Evangelist)?
You'll have, at bard 5, arcane spells in medium armour, and you will have bardic performance that stacks between the classes, too. I'd be tempted to go, in fact, bard 7 and cleric 1 for this combo, since starting performance as a swift is very nice (and you get the second versatile performance at 6, too).
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Magus and archeologist bard both have advantages and disadvantages, here, and it is up to you which you prefer. In the end they are both viable, but all depend on your character concept. I'll list a few of these pros and cons below for you...
Archeologist Bard:
Pros:
-Cha as casting stat has better synergy with cleric and makes RP more fun.
-Gets a spell list with some powerful spells, quite a bit of which are exclusive to the bard list. Many of these spells are battle field control, debuff and save-or suck spells that you'd otherwise lack. The bard build, with the right stats, can be a superior "God caster" then the magus one.
-Gets 6+ Int skills, which while you will only have it for one level it can be useful.
-Luck is a nice buff.
Cons:
-Low spells per-day without significant cha investment.
-Spell List has some overlap with the Cleric List
-Many(but not all) of the good bard spells that clerics don't get are either buffs(which can be a bit redundant with the cleric list) or tend to offer saves, which means you'll need significant ch-investment if you want them to be good.
-Having limited Spells known can be a major pain to deal with.
Magus:
Pros:
-Int as casting stat means you'll have good skills.
-Is a prepared spellcaster, which is generally better then having spells known/spontinous casting. You can (potentially) know your entire spell list!
-Spell Combat is an excellent class feature that you get right at 1st level.
-Spell list has less overlap with the cleric list then the bard one does, and has some very good blast-y spells the bard list lacks if you're into that kind of thing.
Cons:
- MADer then a hatter. If you're going with a Magus, chances are you want some melee ability to make use of spell combat. This will mean you need at least three stealer stats(Int, wis and your melee stat of choice.)
- You'll be dumping cha entirely, which can be bad for RP
- Like the bard, has low spells per-day without significant int investment.
- Spell List is heavily focused on blasts.(Though you still get some ok battlefield control and and debuff options.) Many(but not all) of the good non-blast spells you get the bard also gets. Thus, if you're not into blasts this could be bad for you.
Anyway, that's my two cents. In the end I think both balance each other out and are valid choices. It just depends on which concept you prefer for RP.(Having that 7 cha can REALLY hurt you in RP or make RP really fun, depending on what kind of characters you like to play..)
If you take the seperatist archetype and take trickery as a domain you can go cleric 2 - 1 mystic thurge.
If you take a mythral chain shirt (chain shirt now has 20% arcane spell failiure instead of 25%) it has 10% arcane spell faliure chance, arcane armor training eliminates that, and you are still wearing the best light armor money can buy (barring celestial which has 15% spell failure). If you want Medium armor take mastery and eliminate 20%, you could take Any Mythral medium armor at 0% chance (with a swift). At this point you could choose any full casting class. Wizard is good for swift access to spells and scribe scroll, prepared spells. You already have scribe scroll though, so perhaps you would like to be less mad? Take the empyrial bloodline wis/wis is good.
However if you are dead set against spell faliure (perhaps you want full plate? or easier quickened spells?) Magus all the way. Summoner is hax, but not without the eidolon the spell selection is good, but magus is better all on it's own, as. Bard has a lot of spell overlap with cleric so in my opinion don't bother. Don't get your hopes up with spell combat though. Your attacks will be terrible as you will have one of the worst babs possible. Your physical stats are probably lackluster too.
With spell faliure and quickened spells, remember only your arcane side has arcane spell failiure, you can cast quickened cast with your divine half as much as you'd like.
@yeti1069-Even if just going with a chain shirt, I still need to be able to cast in light armor
@Makarion-Chellish Diva is not in the list of available books
@Takhisis-Thank you for the breakdown, this is good food for thought
@Victor Zajic-Darkness is on the sorcerer/wizard spell list, so it counts as arcane when it's a spell-like ability. See faq.
@Hogeyhead-I am not interested in the full casting classes as they are not capable of casting in armor. Thank you for the analysis of the choices though.
@yeti1069-Even if just going with a chain shirt, I still need to be able to cast in light armor
Right. A mithral chain shirt has +4 AC and a 10% ASF, so with AAT and a swift action that's 0%, which means you can cast without chance of failure.
A mithral breastplate has +6 AC and a 15% ASF, to with AAT and a swift action that's 5%, which isn't terrible, but still has a possibility of failure.
Nothing stops you from casting in any armor on a wizard or sorcerer, you just suffer a chance of failing to cast any spells with somatic components. If you drop the ASF to 0% you can cast spells regardless of your class. All the bard, magus, and summoner do is wave the ASF for certain classes of armors.
Still Spell is a great way to get around that restriction, as well. You only prepare Still versions of the spells that you absolutely must make successful, and just accept the failure chance otherwise.
you know... i know you specifically said that you don't want to look at full casters, but that might be worth reconsidering... the empyreal sorcerer really might be your best bet- it uses the same casting stat as cleric so you can have awesome save DCs for both classes, it gives a ranged heal at 1st (very little health restored but can stabilize someone or end a bleed effect without having to run to them) which is pretty handy if you're primarily a cleric, and with only 11 levels ever you get 5th level spells instead of only 4th (and if you went sorc 2/cl 8/MT 10 to minimize BAB loss and maximize magical knack you'd be up to 6th level spells where a 2/3 caster would still only have 4th).
I know ASF% is not something you want to deal with, but you have some options:
emphasize utility spells- spells that are cast out of combat can just be cast a 2nd time if you fail your ASF check, or you can take the time to remove armor before casting. (you could even take arcane armor training to use in these situations when you literally have nothing you could do with a swift action, and then you'd have it if you needed to use it in combat)
pick spells with no somatic components- you can find lists on these forums of spells with no somatic components; these spells are not subject to ASF so your sorc could freely cast them in armor.
still spell- for those arcane spells you just have to get off successfully during combat (but have somatic components) take the still spell feat (or rod); yes the feat raises it a spell level but you have 1 extra spell level compared to a 2/3 caster. take this and arcane armor training and when you want to quicken a spell and cast an arcane spell you can use still, when you want to move and cast an arcane spell you can use AAT.
combined spells- a valuable but often overlooked class feature... you can prepare your sorc spells as cleric spells! they eat up cleric slots but you cast them as cleric spells (meaning no ASF).
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Yeah, Darigaaz the Igniter just one thing I forgot to mention in the cons section of the magus. Unlike 3.5e, spellbook using classes will not recieve bonus spells from leveling up when taking levels in mystic theurge but spontainous casters will still get their spells known. This is the one MASSIVE advantage the bard(and spells known casters in general) have over prepared ones for the purpose of Theurge builds. If you go Magus(or wizard or arcanist, for that matter) you will have to spend gold to get any magus(or wizard or arcanist) spells as you level up in mystic theurge. If your GM is generous with gold, spellbooks and scrolls then this is not really a big issue but if you have a miserly DM or otherwise have limited resources(such as if you where playing this character in Pathfinder Society) then be warned you may find yourself having to choose between getting spells or getting better equipment.
I don't get the point of this build. I mean, the main draw of the theurge is being a master of casting. Why you would want to take an half-assed caster as your better half (arcane) of your main reason to live?
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Actually, it doesn't stop the trickery domain from being able to qualify you. All MT requires is the ability to cast 2nd level arcane and 2nd level divine. Not 2nd level divine from the cleric list and 2nd level arcane from the wizard list. Thus, to be technical, if the OP could qualify as a wizard 3/Cleric(Trickery domain) 1 using the mirror image to count as his divine spell as appose to his arcane one.
I was trying to be thematic by going cleric of god of magic into theurge with as little downtime as possible.
So... what? Level 1, play an aasimar cleric with the Trickery domain. Level 2, hey look, I'm a Mystic Theurge?
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Actually, it doesn't stop the trickery domain from being able to qualify you. All MT requires is the ability to cast 2nd level arcane and 2nd level divine. Not 2nd level divine from the cleric list and 2nd level arcane from the wizard list. Thus, to be technical, if the OP could qualify as a wizard 3/Cleric(Trickery domain) 1 using the mirror image to count as his divine spell as appose to his arcane one.I meant you couldn't just be a cleric(trickery) 3 and qualify for both divine and arcane.
You can qualify, but you wouldn't be able to actually advance arcane spells without having a level in an arcane class.
So is the general consensus that I'd be better off going Cleric 3/Empyrial Sorcerer1/MT and just using haramaki/silken ceremonial?
IMO, go empyreal sorc and just wear armor like you were planning on. (see my previous post for tips on successfully handling ASF)
So... what? Level 1, play an aasimar cleric with the Trickery domain. Level 2, hey look, I'm a Mystic Theurge?
You still need 3 ranks in Arcana and Religion, so the earliest you can become a Mystic Theurge is 4th level.
Well, it's a matter of what abilities you want. Most people would not be satisifed with a master casting class like mystic theurge and then taking a half caster class.
I have played armored casters, but it is kinda tough and does tend to hurt your capabilities as a caster.
1) Haramaki and or mage armor will get you a little boost to AC
2) Other than mooks, most serious enemies will hit you almost all the time once you get to mid levels unless you really push hard to keep your AC as high as possible. It's just numbers. Their BaB keeps going up for free. You have to do something for every point of AC.
3) To really push for high AC caster you only have a few choices magus, cleric/inquisitor with heavy armor proficiency, still spell, light armor (with arcane armor training and sky high dex). Any of those choices is not the mega caster that people associate with the mystic theurge.
Having said that, what you proposed and/or the suggestions given are all workable. The armored mage is kind of a staple concept that many people like to play.
Is your group heavy optimizers? Does you GM like theives stealthing in behind the front line to sneak attack the casters? Does you group not do a good job of protecting the squishies? Is the whole group squishies? Are you wanting to get close to specialize in touch spells?
These are all questions only you can answer.
I'm probably the heaviest optimizer, but the rest aren't too bad.
Our gm doesn't usually sneak things in. She uses mostly modules though so there's some inflexibility there.
We usually do pretty good protecting the squishies, I'm just paranoid.
This is for next campaign, so noone's sure what they're playing yet. That being said I have over a dozen builds on stand by.
I don't plan on specializing on touch spells.
So... what? Level 1, play an aasimar cleric with the Trickery domain. Level 2, hey look, I'm a Mystic Theurge?You still need 3 ranks in Arcana and Religion, so the earliest you can become a Mystic Theurge is 4th level.
All right, how about...
Level 1: LG Aasimar cleric of Chaldira Zuzaristan with Good and Trickery domains
Level 2: Empyreal Sorcerer
Level 3: Paladin, strictly for the protections and stuff
Level 4: Mystic Theurge!
Level 1: LG Aasimar cleric of Chaldira Zuzaristan with Good and Trickery domains
Level 2: Empyreal Sorcerer
Level 3: Paladin, strictly for the protections and stuff
Level 4: Mystic Theurge!
there's a couple problems with that... the base aasimar's daylight SLA is 3rd level, so it doesn't meet any of the MT requirements. also, the strength of early entry is that it minimizes the number of lost caster levels but a pally level counteracts that benefit. plus, you really don't gain much defensively from 1 level of pally (you really need at least 2 levels so you get divine grace).
there's a couple problems with that... the base aasimar's daylight SLA is 3rd level, so it doesn't meet any of the MT requirements. also, the strength of early entry is that it minimizes the number of lost caster levels but a pally level counteracts that benefit. plus, you really don't gain much defensively from 1 level of pally (you really need at least 2 levels so you get divine grace).Level 1: LG Aasimar cleric of Chaldira Zuzaristan with Good and Trickery domains
Level 2: Empyreal Sorcerer
Level 3: Paladin, strictly for the protections and stuff
Level 4: Mystic Theurge!
Agreed on the paladin part. Replace Aasimar with Half-elf with Drow Magic alt racial trait and the darkness sla satisfies the arcane side.
Gonna drop the armor bit and just focus on casting. What I'm wondering now is which would be better: Wiz 1/Clc 2/MT 10/Clc 7 or Clc 1/Wiz 2/MT 10/Wiz 7
Either way the Wizard half will have a slight difficulty with only being able to gain new spells from scrolls or captured spellbooks. But at least I'll be able to get to 6th level spells with the secondary class.
cleric 2/empyreal sorcerer 1/MT 10-> finish with cleric 5/sorc 1/cleric 1
all casting is Wis based and no need to horde scrolls for spells known
end up casting as cleric 18 (9th level spells) and sorc 12 (6th level spells)...
or you could reverse the levels to end up with Heal + 9th level arcane (if you do that though, go all 7 after MT in sorc)
That would be nice, but then I'm getting all my spells 2 levels late, as opposed to 1 late for one side (same as sorcerer/oracle), and 2 late for the secondary. Compared to 3 late on both sides for the traditional Wiz3/Clc3/MT.
Myself, I'm make a sorcerer/oracle, is for no other reason than they key off the same stat. It doesn't hurt that you can also add charisma to AC, REF saves and Initiative. Getting spells slightly later seems a small price to pay for that.
If I prep spells in my cleric slots that happen to be on the wizard spell list (not using combined spells) can I write them into my spellbook directly or would I have to scribe them into a scroll first and copy it from there?
EDIT: for example, I can get the shield spell from the defense subdomain.
bump
Anyone able to answer that one for me?
So this ended up being the build that got randomly chosen for the campaign.
Right now the build is looking as:
Half Elf, Drow Magic alt racial
Str 11, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 20, Wis 17, Cha 13
Traits: Magical Knack (Wizard), Chance savior
01 Clc of Nethys, Seperatist (trickery), False Focus
02 Wiz,
03 Wiz, Improved Initiative,
04 MT, +1 Int
05 MT, FEAT,
06 MT,
07 MT, FEAT,
08 MT, +1 Int
09 MT, FEAT,
10 MT,
11 MT, FEAT,
12 MT, +1 Int
13 MT, FEAT,
14 Wiz,
15 Wiz, FEAT,
16 Wiz, BONUS FEAT, +1 Int
17+ probably not going to make it this far
I need some help determining what feats to pick and when. And what school I should pick up when I get to wizard. Finally, I'd appreciate some advice for which spells to prepare in my 3 slots at 1st level.
Arcane Armor Training works as advertised, but who wants to spend a swift action to use it?
I think you should pick something and go with it for wizard school. If you want to blast then focus everything on blasting, if you want to charm focus on that, same for necromancy and conjuration. Transmutation is really good but the specialty powers are lackluster. I think the strongest are Conjuration (Teleportation), Divination (Foresight), Evocation (Admixture) and Necromancy (Gluttony).
What you specialize in will affect what feats and traits you want to go with. I wouldn't take Magical Knack, there are other ways to boost caster level that don't use traits and can go above your character level.