Early-peaking Ur-Priest?

[Malimar]

I've been thinking and researching a fair bit about Ur-Priests lately. Most of the Ur-Priest builds I've seen are focused on getting things like multiple 9s by level 20, but this is useless to me; I've never been involved with a campaign that even hit level 10, and I don't foresee the probability that I ever will being particularly high.

So I guess the question is this: are there any decent builds that enter Ur-Priest at level 6 and hit a peak somewhere in the vicinity of the 8-12 range?

[Alienist]

I've been thinking and researching a fair bit about Ur-Priests lately. Most of the Ur-Priest builds I've seen are focused on getting things like multiple 9s by level 20, but this is useless to me; I've never been involved with a campaign that even hit level 10, and I don't foresee the probability that I ever will being particularly high.

So I guess the question is this: are there any decent builds that enter Ur-Priest at level 6 and hit a peak somewhere in the vicinity of the 8-12 range?

Look at the skill requirement. It is probably your biggest hurdle. So whatever build you pick will likely have something odd, like human paragon or generic expert (not npc expert, it doesn't have the right saves, and generic's two bonus feats is hard to pass up) just before you UP.

5 levels of UP gets you 5th level spells at 10.

Whatever you do at levels 1-2 or 1-3 likely depends on what role you want your UP to fulfill.

[Malimar]

Look at the skill requirement. It is probably your biggest hurdle. So whatever build you pick will likely have something odd, like human paragon or generic expert (not npc expert, it doesn't have the right saves, and generic's two bonus feats is hard to pass up) just before you UP.

Aye, there's the rub. So far, I've thought of Savage Bard 5, Dragonfire Adept 5, Factotum (with Able Learner)1/[anything with a good Fort and Will save] 1/[anything] 3, or something involving Human or Gnome Paragon.

Savage Bard 5 seems to be the standard entry into a Sublime Chord build, which peaks way too late for me (plus Savage Bard requires Any Chaotic, Ur-Priest requires Any Evil, and Chaotic Evil may be the dumbest alignment known to man). Is bard casting good enough that Savage Bard 5/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge X would be worth it?

Would Eldritch Theurge advance most of what DFA gets (does DFA even let you qualify for Eldritch Theurge)? If so, DFA5/Ur-Priest 2/Eldritch Theurge X seems like it could be decent at all levels, but I don't know enough about DFA to know for sure.

I guess I'm asking if there are (m)any good, if wackier, combinations along these lines.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Barring Inspire Greatness+Psychic Reformation, X 5/Ur-Priest 1 is the earliest.

With it, something like Cleric 2/Ur-Priest 1 is possible.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Aye, there's the rub. So far, I've thought of Savage Bard 5, Dragonfire Adept 5, Factotum (with Able Learner)1/[anything with a good Fort and Will save] 1/[anything] 3, or something involving Human or Gnome Paragon.

Savage Bard 5 seems to be the standard entry into a Sublime Chord build, which peaks way too late for me (plus Savage Bard requires Any Chaotic, Ur-Priest requires Any Evil, and Chaotic Evil may be the dumbest alignment known to man). Is bard casting good enough that Savage Bard 5/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge X would be worth it?

Would Eldritch Theurge advance most of what DFA gets (does DFA even let you qualify for Eldritch Theurge)? If so, DFA5/Ur-Priest 2/Eldritch Theurge X seems like it could be decent at all levels, but I don't know enough about DFA to know for sure.

I guess I'm asking if there are (m)any good, if wackier, combinations along these lines.

Bardic casting by itself isn't good enough, but bard class abilities + Ur Priest casting most certainly is. However, it generally goes Sublime Chord before going into Theurge so it can get double-9's.



DFA does not, by itself, qualify for Eldritch Theurge. It's a shame, but there ya go. However, Warlock/UrPriest/Eldritch Theurge is perfectly viable.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A character who takes Ur-Priest is behind single-classed prepared casters all the way through level 10. At level 11 he's equal to a single-classed prepared casters. It's not until level 12 that he actually gets ahead of the curve, but until level 12 you would have been better off with a single-classed caster.


Consider instead something like a Spellhoarding, Venerable, Dragonwrought, Desert Kobold, Loredrake, with the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage. Go Wizard 1/ Stalwart Battle Sorcerer 4/ Incantatrix 10/ Abjurant Champion 5. At 1st-5th level your Wizard casting will be two levels higher than your character level. At level 6+ your Wizard casting will be three levels higher than your character level. As always, use the Otyugh Hole to get Iron Will to qualify for Incantatrix.

With Spellhoarding you can pay an NPC caster to cast a spell that you normally wouldn't have access to, and you can counterspell it and add it to your spellhoard to be able to cast it yourself. There's never any risk of losing a spellbook, and you can copy the same spells into your spellhoard multiple times to fuel your other spellhoarding abilities. I'd add Snowsight to your spellhoard, and cast it (Lesser Rod of Extended) on your whole party along with (Extended) Obscuring Snow; both are in Frostburn.

I'd probably go with some sort of Arcane Thesis: Cloud of Knives build, with Persistent Spell, Fell Drain, Repeat Spell, Twin Spell, and Invisible Spell, and plenty of either Easy Metamagic (which itself is a metamagic feat and will contribute toward Arcane Thesis' reduction) and/or Practical Metamagic. Get a Familiar via Sorcerer and share your Cloud of Knives spells with it so you'll have twice as many.

[Urpriest]

Some stuff:

Basically most Theurge builds will only delay your Ur-Priest casting by one or two levels at most. Some are worse though, depending on what you want to do.

Warlock 4/Binder 1 can enter Ur-Priest, from which one can (arguably given the deity requirements) get Eldritch Disciple. Generally it's fun to also go for Hellfire Warlock, but if you want to go as fast as possible in your Ur-Priest casting you can leave this out.

A Sacrilegious Fist build can be entered lots of ways, including Monk2/Duskblade3 or various things with Warlock and Human Paragon depending on how many class skills you're willing to get through feats. Prestiging out into Sacred Fist won't lose you any caster levels if you use text vs. table.

Finally, Ur-Priest itself is not all that bad. You do get to steal things' SLAs, potentially including an Efreet's Wish-granting.

[Hirax]

I'm fond of human paragon1/wizard2/human paragon+2 for entry for a theurge type build that gets in as soon as anything else that's not using shenanigans. I'll second sacrilegious fist builds as a possibility too, monk2/fighter2/paragon1, or monk2/paragon3 if you're tight on skill points. Rebuke attempts give you fuel for travel devotion, so you can be very mobile.

[Rejusu]

As others have noted Ur-priest doesn't really get good til the later levels. The only build I've used it in (albeit not in a character I've actually played) is Human Paragon 1 (with Able Learner), Paladin of Tyranny 4 (with the Holy Warrior ACF that gives you a bonus feat instead of spell casting) then Ur-priest 1 followed by PrCing right out of it into Bone Knight.