so, i've never played with a GM who makes a big deal about the class 'tiers' before but earlier this evening i was talking to a friend about a potential campaign with no full casters (no 9:9 classes but 6:9 are ok, i think that means tier 3 or lower?). like the title says, this might be crazy, but do you think there's a viable MT build in a campaign like this?
here's what i was thinking:
musetouched aasimar
bard 2 -> inquisitor 1 (fate inquisition) -> MT 2 -> evangelist (Nethys)
i know there is debate about applying aligned class to MT (or at least how many total effective MT levels you can have), but (since this is just theorycraft at this point anyway) assume the GM approves. obviously this is much weaker than a double 9:9 MT but in a campaign with no 9:9 casters would that work? how could you fix/improve it?
2nd level bard spells at level 5, 2nd level inquisitor spells at level 6, +1 spell level in each per 3 character levels after. Spellcasting ability will be about the same as any other 2/3 caster, behind them a level or two but with more spell slots total.
You miss out on most of the class abilities of both classes so you definitely don't want to fight without spells.
You get the first versatile performance so you'll be pretty good with skills. Not quite as good as a pure bard ... Which about sums up the character IMO. Almost as good as a much simpler build.
Those 6th level casters get just as much from the other things they get besides spells. I do believe that 6 level casters are a trap for MT. Can you get it to work? I think you can, could you also grab 1 level of all full BAB class's/PRC's and get it to work? Probably be a mess but sure.
At 5th level a human bard w/18 CHA & a +2 CHA item might have 6 1st and 3 2nd level spells/day, and 6 1st/2 2nd known; your MT with 16 WIS, 16 CHA & the same item could have 8 1st & 2 2nd/day, and know 8 1st/2 2nd.
At 10th with a +4 CHA item the bard could cast 7/6/4/2 spells/day from 1st to 4th and know 8/8/5/2.
The MT with a +4 CHA/+2 WIS headband could cast 11/9/5 spells/day from 1st to 3rd and know 10/8/5.
At 15th with a +6 CHA headband & base CHA up to 20 the bard could cast 7/7/7/6/4 and know 9/9/8/7/4.
The MT with base CHA up to 18 & a +6 CHA/+4 WIS headband could cast 14/13/11/8/2 and know 12/10/9/8/2.
So just on spellcasting the MT is not going to have much more endurance unless you're casting a lot of really low level spells for your character level, even by 2/3 caster standards. On the other hand, if casting as a bard is enough, casting as this MT is probably enough.