| Dana Black |
So, since no one (by which I mean everyone) has tried to re-balance the Mystic Theurge (and because I'm in a campaign where it actually makes sense to try to run one), I wanted to throw my hat into the ring and see who would rip apart my efforts.
Without further adieu, the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MIvzRUDeUOpHR5jCEsJ1kxGyCjsnyJ7ohoksMfV zGL8/edit#
Let me know what you think.
| Dasrak |
Does that make this revision broken?
Yes. Yes it does. I'm actually struggling to comprehend how you could think otherwise. Once you're done with this PRC you're literally better than a gestalt character. You have full casting progression in both arcane and divine, you have literally all your class features at your full character level in both your arcane and divine casting classes, and you can snag a couple of extra abilities on the side. The only downside is that you lost 10 levels of favored class bonus. This is objectively broken.
Looking at your powers:
Arcane/Divine Casting this just seems like a weird tax. The combined casting is why you took the PRC in the first place, of course you're going to pick these one up. I'd say just go with the standard chassis of the traditional Mystic Theurge and include fewer powers. Adding the base casting class progression together is also problematic, and unreasonably increases the PRC's power in a way that isn't necessary or desirable. The lower prerequisites are all that's needed to bring its casting progression into line, adding more will just make it overpowered.
Arcane/Divine Abilities way too much stacking here. Along with the Arcane/Divine Casting option, you're functionally a gestalt character once you're picked enough of these powers. You should add only the mystic theurge levels. Stacking the base class levels gives much too big a boost.
Focused Casting Ability this is one way to get around the MAD problem, but it's very much a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" solution. The diversity of casting stats is partially what makes the mystic theurge interesting, but does raise a significant balance issue of how to balance the class both for the MAD and SAD combo. Instead of tackling this problem, this ability instead ignores it, and instead institutes homogeneity. So I definitely dislike this approach.
Metamagic Study ridiculously weak compared to the other options here.
Metamagic Cogitation metamagic reduction is absurdly powerful, and should be used extremely sparingly and only on classes/archetypes that make severe tradeoffs to get such a power.
Overall, I'd say the entire package here comes across as both boring and objectively overpowered. The abilities offer way too much, and at the same time offer the Mystic Theurge nothing unique of its own that doesn't come from its base classes. There are also too few powers here, few enough that every Mystic Theurge build will have the same assortment of powers chosen (Arcane/Divine Casting, Arcane/Divine Abilities, and Metamagic Cogitation, all taken twice). Given how few powers there are here, there's no point in having them be selected and they should instead be distributed across the chassis.
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Speaking of the MAD problem in particular, I have been putting some thought into how to solve it more gracefully. The current mystic theurge keeps a balance between MAD and SAD class combinations since the MAD ones typically qualify earlier. However, with the qualifications reduced so they are no longer onerous the SAD class combos dominate. I think a graceful solution is to have some mystic theurge abilities based on the combination of your arcane and divine casting stat. So for a Wizard/Cleric it would be based on Int+Wis. However, if you were a Sorcerer/Oracle charisma wouldn't stack with itself, so you'd just get Cha. So the SAD combos would get more convenience with their casting, but would be less able to make use of Mystic Theurge class features than the MAD class combos.