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Arcane Armor feats are OK if you feel like frontlining, but you could instead wear haramaki armor which is 3gp for +1 armor bonus to AC, with no penalties. Ever. Or darkleaf studded leather which has just a 5% ASF, so you can just roll 1d20 and not roll a 1. Theurgy is a nice feat IMO, because you can raise the DC of some of the Save-or-Suck spells, or make things like fireball function like flame strike. Metamagic Feats are great because if you focus on spells with a save, you can raise it, if you focus on touch spells, you can make them reach, and you can, with quicken spell, cast as a swift action, if you don't take the Arcane Armor feats.
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Toughness, Improved Initiative, Combat Casting
Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning
Quicken Spell
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Also, do note the recent FAQ that allows spell-like abilities to qualify you for prestige classes. So if you take the Trickery domain, the Copycat ability can lock down the "able to cast 2nd level arcane spells" prerequisite (because it's based on Mirror Image; that this qualifies was subsequently clarified), so you can get into Theurge after Cleric 3 / Diviner 1. I think that's the quickest entry with Core Rulebook only.
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Also, do note the recent FAQ that allows spell-like abilities to qualify you for prestige classes. So if you take the Trickery domain, the Copycat ability can lock down the "able to cast 2nd level arcane spells" prerequisite, so you can get into Theurge after Cleric 3 / Diviner 1.
I believe if it is a Cleric Class Feature, it counts as divine. Because if Cleric spells/abilities were arcane, you would have to take off your armor to cast fireball with the fire domain. I really hope I am wrong about that though. (because then My Mystic Theurge can enter earlier too).
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I believe if it is a Cleric Class Feature, it counts as divine. Because if Cleric spells/abilities were arcane, you would have to take off your armor to cast fireball with the fire domain. I really hope I am wrong about that though. (because then My Mystic Theurge can enter earlier too).
I don't want to turn this into yet another Theurge debate thread, so I'll just note that even if the Copycat ability does count as divine (by the rules or by GM fiat), the OP can still get access to Theurge at lvl 5 instead of lvl 7: it would just be Diviner 3 / Cleric 1 instead of vice versa.
Note especially that the language that originally supported the "if it comes from Cleric it's divine" thought was completely dropped. (That came from this bit of the old FAQ text: "Most spell-like abilities should be considered arcane, unless [...] something about the creature strongly indicates its spell-like abilities should be considered divine (such as a solar's spell-like abilities, as a solar usually directly serves a deity)." – Folks looked at that and said, well, if its source is Cleric that "strongly indicates" that the SLA "should be considered divine".)
The new FAQ makes no such distinction: whether an FAQ is arcane or divine is completely determined by which spell lists it's on, as laid out in the Universal Monster Rules on SLAs:
Some spell-like abilities duplicate spells that work differently when cast by characters of different classes. A monster's spell-like abilities are presumed to be the sorcerer/wizard versions. If the spell in question is not a sorcerer/wizard spell, then default to cleric, druid, bard, paladin, and ranger, in that order.
Alright, that's my piece. Let's not derail the thread, so take it or leave it as you see fit. :-)
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The fireball point is moot. Cleric spells are always divine, even if the spell in question is usually arcane, as in the case of fireball in the fireball domain. But if you have a case (as with copycat) of an arcane SLA, spell failure doesn't enter into it: because SLAs don't have somatic components and therefore don't suffer from spell failure chance.
Spell Penetration if you're targeting enemies -- you take a hit on caster level, so you need to overcome that at higher levels.
Improved Initiative is never a bad feat. Sometimes other feats are better, but you always want to ask yourself "are they better than II?".
Saving throw bonus feats. Keep yourself alive, unpoisoned, and undominated.
Varisian Tattoo-Conjuration would be great. The arcane Discovery Forest's Blessing could also come in handy.
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Thanks for the replies guys. So far I'm thinking.
1: Improved Initiative
B: Scribe Scroll
3: Arcane Armor training
5: Combat Casting
7: Spell PenetrationWith high Dex and Improved Initiative I should be able to go early in the surprise around. I plan on making my Arcane Bond a ring of invisibility, so this should give me plenty of time to activate it. I'll spend any crafting time scribing scrolls. There is a cleric, druid, and ranger in the party so they could use some of the extra divine ones.
I'm going with AA training and combat casting because I'll be up in the thick of it sometimes for heals and buffs that require touch. I won't have to use up a slot on Mage Armor either.
Spell Penetration so I don't have to worry about SR as much.
A few recommendations:
(1) Get Toughness early, like lvl 1 or 3. It makes a difference.
(2) You can push of Spell Penetration to lvl 9, I think.
(3) Go Mage Armor, not Arcane Armor Training. For a few reasons. (i) The best armor you can get with Arcane Armor Training is a Mithral Chain Shirt–same armor bonus as Mage Armor. (ii) It takes a swift action to activate the feat, and you'll have better things to do with your swift actions (e.g. cast a quickened spell). (iii) You'll have more spell slots than you know what to do with as a Mystic Theurge. You can afford to drop one on Mage Armor. (iv) You only have so many feat slots, however, and you can get better things. (v) A lesser rod of extend spell can get you through the lower levels.
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A question: why oh why do you plan to be "up in the thick of it sometimes"? That sounds both unnecessary and suicidal. You say that there's already a Cleric and a Druid in the party, so they'll be covering healing and touch-range buffs, in all likelihood. And you can't help your party if you're dead or if you fail a concentration check to cast defensively. If there are any touch-range spells that you absolutely *have* to cast in the middle of combat, get a lesser rod of reach spell.
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Here is the deal with MT. It is best as a healer/buffer and nothing else. Even then you have to be a Sorcerer / Cleric. Reason being is that going MT will have you behind on spell levels, DC checks, and class abilities. Heals and buffs dont care about dc checks and there are no high level buffs. Also the sorcerer gets the most spell slots of arcane casters and that means more slots to use for cleric heal spells and having both arcane and divine buffs are amazing. If you want to do in combat damage the best thing you could do is work with wands.
