Following the Sacred Performer feat from Dragon 357 (p87) I created this feat for one of my PCs (an elven Cleric (Undying Court)\Mage). I'm thinking that it may be too powerful. Can you let me know your thoughts please.
Undying Arcana
Your knowledge of magic is transferrable to your understanding of the undead.
Prerequisites: Ability to turn or rebuke undead, ability to cast 1st level arcane spells
Benefits: Your cleric and arcane spellcaster levels stack for the purpose of determinining your turning check and turning damage. For example a 4th level mage\1st level cleric turns or rebukes undead as a 5th level cleric.
Your levels of Mystic Theurge count as single levels for the purpose of determining your turning check and turning damage. For example a 3rd level mage\3rd level cleric\3rd level Mystic Theurge turns or rebukes undead as a 9th level cleric.
Well, Dragon's published feats that combine class levels in two different classes to gain more functionality out of a class feature. Some feats in the Complete series do the same. On the other hand, when a cleric takes up another class he's balancing new class abilities with the loss of power to old abilities. As a result, few prestige classes grant the ability to turn undead. Ultimately it'll depend on your campaign. Perhaps add another prerequisite like Spell Focus (necromancy), or maybe treat it similarly to Practiced Spellcaster and permit the addition of up to 4 levels to the turning ability of the character, max turning power=HD. I'd be concerned about magic items, prestige classes, and whatnot that enhance arcane spellcasting (e.g. ring of arcane might). Then again, at higher levels turn undead tends to break down as you can only get one powerful undead per use, or eliminate a number of undead that are too weak to be really threatening.
Also, what about the abilities of clerics with various domains like Fire or Earth that permit turning/rebuking of things that aren't undead, or the planar cleric variant that permits turning of outsiders? Will this feat interact with those abilities as well?
As a final thought, you might limit the feats benefits to certain kinds of undead that are created through magic, e.g. skeletons, zombies, liches, etc. That might get complicated, though, as you'd have to know how various undead were spawned.
The idea of adding a prerequisite like Spell Focus (necromancy), or possibly limiting it to Clerics of the Undying Court or of orders that specifically oppose undead seem good. The Practiced Spellcaster route does limit it somewhat especially as Mystic Theurge has 10 levels.
Do feats really allow the ability to stack with magic items in so significant a way?
I wouldn't object to this feat being used to turn elementals or outsiders instead of undead but not in addition to.
Thanks for the ideas.
Maybe treat it similarly to Practiced Spellcaster and permit the addition of up to 4 levels to the turning ability of the character, max turning power=HD.
That's exactly the route I'd go; there's a lot of precedent there (Chaos Music is another such feat).
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...A character with this feat may use their cleric level +4, up to a limit of their charcter level...
would work if it was general, but being specifically arcane:
...A character with this feat may use the total of their cleric level and any class or presitige class which grants arcane or domain casting...
High level turning isn't easy to be good at, and this feat only bridges some of the gulf. The problem being that a normal character gets 7 feats by level 20, and for turning you want some or all of: empower turning, quicken turning, extra turning, disciple of the sun, etc. etc.
So this is just another way for a cleric, and specifically a multiclassing cleric to suck less at turning undead at high level.
Unfortunately, the 3.x edition motto is "multiclassing gets you screwed on everything except saving throws." In my homebrew campaign we allow a lot of regional feats, etc. to mitigate that, but in terms of consistency with the SRD, a multiclassed character should always be weaker overall than a single-classed one.
Maybe treat it similarly to Practiced Spellcaster and permit the addition of up to 4 levels to the turning ability of the character, max turning power=HD.
Seems a bit weak. Practiced Spellcaster increases the caster level for all spells cast in a day. This is a lot more than a cleric has turning attempts.
I agree that a cleric needs to take feats to keep his or her turning ability up to a reasonable level but what else does a cleric need feats for. Combat feats are pretty much wasted. Item creation feats are useful but a wizard can do it better and an artificer just embarrasses any other class. Metamagic feats aren't much use either, especially for multi classed characters.
You're right about getting screwed by multiclassing. Then again, I'm the one in our group who DOESN'T multiclass; I usually have one core class and then a prestige class sometimes. My group goes for versatility or multiclasses for a level or two to get a power-build going (like the fey'ri fighter/bard/bladesinger we had using the Realms bladesinger). The Undying Arcana feat might not be bad as is, if looked at from that perspective. I'd be concerned only if you have characters who are really good at building powerful characters. If this feat's combined with a mystic theurge, why stay single-classed? You lose some BAB and HP as well as a bit on Fort saves, but gain enough arcane power to more than compensate (stoneskin, bear's endurance, and Tenser's Transformation will do a decent job of negating those other weaknesses). That only leaves arcane spell failure-easily countered.
To be fair, though, turning at high levels gets one big critter or a few smaller ones. And it's a useful enough ability that boosting it isn't a bad idea, especially if there's a good in-game mechanical means like this feat.
Ultimately, playtesting's the best way to judge things. I'd be interested in the results.