So some of the local players here in Boise have decided to come up with "lust" domain characters. It's led to some interesting gameplay and I got "challenged" to make one of my own. Now a separate person asked what the mystic theurge was for since it took so long to get into and I couldn't give them a adequate answer so I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone, but think that I'll need some help refining the implementation...
Race: Human
2 Sorcerer (1)
3 Oracle (2)
4 Sorcerer (2)
5 Oracle (3)
6 Sorcerer (3)
7 Oracle (4)
8 Sorcerer (4)
9 Mystic Theurge (1), Sorcerer Spellcasting, Oracle Spellcasting
10 Mystic Theurge (2)
11 Mystic Theurge (3)
12 Mystic Theurge (4)
2 Sorcerer Bloodlines: Possessed.
3 Extra Revelation: Lore Keeper.
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5 Revelation 2: Think On It.
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7
8
9
10
11 Select Mage's Tattoo School: Enchantment.
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2
3 Extra Revelation
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5 Arcane Armor Training
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7 Spell Focus: Enchantment
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9 Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment
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11 Mage's Tattoo
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Kitsune Magical Tail Build...?
4 levels of Nine-Tailed Heir Sorcerer, take the FCB for +1 enchantment DC (and our Kitsune Magic gives us +1 DC too; we got our spell focuses back!)
4 Levels of Oracle with Wrecking Mysticism Curse.
Mythic Theurge after those.
These give us 3 Magical Tails. Noble Scion of War is so good it is probably worth taking but then you could keep taking magical tail feats until you collect them all.
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Being 4 levels behind on BOTH spellcasting progressions because you used 2 spontaneous casting classes for entry is going to REALLY hurt until you get to very high levels. Magical Knack can help a bit with the caster level delay on just one of them, and only 2 levels worth (and still doesn't fix the actual spellcasting progression delay). Being a Half-Elf with the Multidisciplined alternate racial trait will mitigate 1 level of caster loss on each (but still doesn't fix the delay in spellcasting progression, and has the cost of shooting itself in the foot by trading out Multitalented, so that you don't get Favored Class Bonus except on 1 of your classes, unlike a normal Half-Elf).
If you change one of your classes to a prepared caster, you can mitigate a level of actual spellcasting progression. Normally, this will make you MAD, but a few archetypes give you workarounds for this.
Combinations that come to mind that do the above (1 class prepared and 1 class spontaneous casting, except as noted, on the same casting stat):
- The classic Cleric (or Druid) + Empyreal Sorcerer (dual Wisdom-based casting) -- Empyreal Sorcerer isn't so great by itself, but for Mystic Theurge you don't care much about its non-spellcasting class features that aren't going to get progressed, so this is a good combination.
- Oracle + Seducer Witch (dual Charisma-based casting) -- this doesn't make very good use of Witch spellcasting, though, and doesn't progress your Hexes (so unlike the combinations above and below, this combination isn't very good).
- Sorcerer + Feyspeaker Druid (dual Charisma-based casting) -- this does replace Medium Armor proficiency with an ability (Wild Mischief) that scales with your Druid level (which will get truncated at 3rd level until you finish out Mystic Theurge), but you probably won't want to use armor anyway.
- Wizard + Living Grimoire Inquisitor (dual Intelligence-based prepared casting) -- while the Inquisitor is 6/9 casting, which would normally be bad for Mystic Theurge, if you go Wizard-focused and get the Faith Magic Arcane Discovery at 7th level (use a normal feat to get it), it only costs you the feat for this discovery and 1 level of delay in your Wizard progression, so it could still be worth it even though you will be very late entry on the divine side -- you get the least, but by far you lose the least relative to a single-classed Wizard.
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^Oops, missed that this is for PFS. In that case, also probably SHOULDN'T use the Equipment Trick (Sunrod) trick, since even though it works Rules As Written, it is cheesy enough that you might have to expect table variation anyway.
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Wizard + Living Grimoire Inquisitor (dual Intelligence-based prepared casting) -- while the Inquisitor is 6/9 casting, which would normally be bad for Mystic Theurge, if you go Wizard-focused and get the Faith Magic Arcane Discovery at 7th level (use a normal feat to get it), it only costs you the feat for this discovery and 1 level of delay in your Wizard progression, so it could still be worth it even though you will be very late entry on the divine side -- you get the least, but by far you lose the least relative to a single-classed Wizard.
Oh, that is brilliant! Now I want to make one of those for PFS. A devotee of Nethys perhaps? Or a Pharasman Hallowed Necromancer? Sounds like fun!
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Wizard + Living Grimoire Inquisitor (dual Intelligence-based prepared casting) -- while the Inquisitor is 6/9 casting, which would normally be bad for Mystic Theurge, if you go Wizard-focused and get the Faith Magic Arcane Discovery at 7th level (use a normal feat to get it), it only costs you the feat for this discovery and 1 level of delay in your Wizard progression, so it could still be worth it even though you will be very late entry on the divine side -- you get the least, but by far you lose the least relative to a single-classed Wizard.Oh, that is brilliant! Now I want to make one of those for PFS. A devotee of Nethys perhaps? Or a Pharasman Hallowed Necromancer? Sounds like fun!
UnArcane didn’t realize this was for PFS. Faith Magic is not PFS-legal.
^Oops, forgot that Faith Magic isn't PFS-legal. I think the developers and PFS team must really hate Mystic Theurge . . . .
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I wouldn’t say it’s a hatred of Mystic Theurge, more a dislike for early entry to Mystic Theurge. Having GMed for a couple of Oracle/sorcerer combos under the old SLA qualifications, I don’t disagree.
But Faith Magic has a lot of other potential “exploits,” including possibly opening access to a number of Prestige Classes that are intended to be divine-only.
In most cases, using Faith Magic to get into a prestige class intended to be divine-only won't help much, because they only progress divine spellcasting, and a Wizard with Faith Magic only has divine spellcasting of the spell gained with Faith Magic, so it would be useful only if the prestige class had some benefit in its 1st 2 levels that would be worth dipping it for.
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As a related example Arcane Trickster can advance any spellcasting class, so when early entry to it was legal I had designed an Oracle 1, Ninja 3, Arcane Trickster using an Aasimar SLA to get entry into Arcane Trickster
So looking into the options, few as they are, it seems that to do the mystic I'm coming up with:
Race: Half-Elf
2 Mesmerist (1), Dreamstalker
3 Sorcerer (1)
4 Oracle (2)
5 Sorcerer (2)
6 Oracle (3)
7 Sorcerer (3)
8 Oracle (4)
9 Sorcerer (4)
10 Mystic Theurge (1), Sorcerer Spellcasting, Oracle Spellcasting
11 Mystic Theurge (2)
12 Mystic Theurge (3)
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3 Sorcerer Bloodlines: Possessed.
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5
6 Revelation 2: Lore Keeper.
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8
9
10
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12
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3 Combat Casting
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5 Spell Focus: Illusion
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7 Spell Focus: Enchantment
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9 Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment
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11 Greater Spell Focus: Illusion
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As a related example Arcane Trickster can advance any spellcasting class, so when early entry to it was legal I had designed an Oracle 1, Ninja 3, Arcane Trickster using an Aasimar SLA to get entry into Arcane Trickster
Looks like an oversight in the Arcane Trickster entry requirements -- I guess Rules As Written, you can make a Divine Trickster, although after the SLA FAQ nerf, it won't be very good.
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In my mind, the PrC's for Pathfinder (Including the ones that were not adjusted for the Pathfinder changes in the Core Rulebook) needed to have entry points at about 4th or 5th level. As it is, most are at around 6th to 10th level and not worth going into at those higher levels.
Another adjustment they needed was to extend level adjustments to the complement class that the PrC would likely come from (Rogue for the Assassin for example) for certain class abilities. (Much like additional caster levels)
The overall adjustments for the 3.5 classes that Pathfinder made and the stronger (most of the time) classes (and Archtypes) that came afterward has combined with the basic PrC's that have not changed much to make them as viable as they were in the previous incarnation. Archtypes have taken over here and later ones have blurred some classes into being weird versions of other classes, borrowing abilities/class features from them with some basic base class structure still left over for good measure.
The main problem with the Mystic Theurge is that to effectively get to use the PrC, one likely will be Vancian casters using spellbooks/Familiars and prayer to memorized slotted spells. Spontaneous casters will get into the PrC late, and have lower spell levels to cast with in later levels.
I spent some time on crafting a 'soracle' and there seem to be ways to partially compensate the temporary shortcoming at casting:
1) Start with oracle for a more stable start, and bring it to level 4 first.
2) Consider cross-blooded sorcerer: Usually one less spell known is a problem (especially at level 4), but you can cast oracle spells via your sorcerer slots just one level later. And -2 to Will saves matters less when you get a base +8 at level 8 - instead of the usual +6 of a singleclass caster.
3) The Theurgy feat helps, especially if you get more spells per day than you can actually use.
4) Eldritch Heritage is easily accessible with that Charisma, but pick the bloodline wisely, if you do it. Since you are pushing into skill monkey territory somewhat, the actual skill for Skill Focus / Exotic Heritage (mutated bloodline!) matters.
5) Select a mystery and a bloodline (or two) that are strong at low levels: Useful class skills, helpful spells known and powers that don't need to scale urgently.
So I made up a top 5 of mysteries for this purpose:
Lore
Nature
Waves
Metal
And a top 5 of bloodlines to complement them:
Fey
Aquatic
Harrow
Impossible