Strange optimization concept.

[Egneil]

A strange class combination crossed my mind and it seemed rather silly. Basically it was an attempt to have a Mystic Theurge Bard, while keeping it close to the 'jack of all trades' archetype. I was just wondering if it's possible to make it (and other silly builds) over-powered. I don't plan to use it, but the build might be fun to play in a more role-play focused game.

The build itself was a Bard/Paladin/Mystic Theurge, with a variant of either Bard or Paladin to let you multiclass to the other. Other than that the rest of the details weren't decided, but I would prefer to not use other variant classes or homebrew material. Also be aware that the only source books I have are the first three core books (PHB, DMG, and MM), the Tome of Magic, and the Races of Ebberon. If you want to use other books that's fine, but just be aware that I can't look up the information in them.

[Oscredwin]

What's the goal of the build? 6 level bard spells and 4th level paladin spells?

[moritheil]

A strange class combination crossed my mind and it seemed rather silly. Basically it was an attempt to have a Mystic Theurge Bard, while keeping it close to the 'jack of all trades' archetype. I was just wondering if it's possible to make it (and other silly builds) over-powered. I don't plan to use it, but the build might be fun to play in a more role-play focused game.

The build itself was a Bard/Paladin/Mystic Theurge, with a variant of either Bard or Paladin to let you multiclass to the other. Other than that the rest of the details weren't decided, but I would prefer to not use other variant classes or homebrew material. Also be aware that the only source books I have are the first three core books (PHB, DMG, and MM), the Tome of Magic, and the Races of Ebberon. If you want to use other books that's fine, but just be aware that I can't look up the information in them.

As written? No, you can't make it overpowered.

If you're willing to use the bard in conjunction with Sublime Chord and use something like Divine Crusader (for fast spell progression) into Sacred Exorcist (for turning) to go into Prestige Paladin, and then get Mystic Theurge to extend beyond 10 levels via Legacy Champion, I can maybe see some potential to be "overpowered" relative to base classes.

Just be aware that the Mystic Theurge is generally considered very underpowered without some heavy trickery involved - both because it does terrible things to your spell access (pure mages or clerics are always an entire spell level above you, if not more) and because it only has 10 levels pre-epic.

[Zaq]

Wait, you're actually suggesting that? For real? My group had a running joke about a Bard/Paladin/Mystic Theurge for a long time. Like, a really long time. There wasn't much to it, pretty much just the face-value absurdity of it (giving up so much for so little, with incompatible alignment to boot), but . . . weird.

[nedz]

Its an uncommon combination because:
Paladin: Lawful Good
Bard: Non-Lawful

How are you resolving this ?

[hex0]

and because it only has 10 levels pre-epic.

You forgot the awesome Mystic Theurge and True Necromancer, then? :smallsigh:

Probable have to be some kind of weird Battle Sorcerer/Cleric/Prestige Paladin (of Freedom)/Prestige Bard/Sublime Chord/Mystic Theurge. Which I would NOT want to play under around 15th level so you can pull all that crap off...Of course you could just sprinkle Prestige Ranger on top and take devoted tracker and take Arcane Hierophant so you'd have a combo mount/familiar/animal companion to make up for your weak spell selection. :smallbiggrin:

Its a tough one...

[moritheil]

Its an uncommon combination because:
Paladin: Lawful Good
Bard: Non-Lawful

How are you resolving this ?

Traditionally handled by being a NG bard early, then as the character progresses, "getting serious" and shifting to LG. If you take Sublime Chord, which the fluff says involves a bard getting into more serious metaphysics, math, etc., this makes a great deal of sense.


You forgot the awesome Mystic Theurge and True Necromancer, then? :smallsigh:

Not so awesome for a Paladin, of course. :smallwink:

But yeah, I think the main thing with MT is that people want fast entry to mitigate the casting suck, and then that gets upended when there's only 10 levels of it anyway (without Legacy Champ.)

[Greyfeld85]

Traditionally handled by being a NG bard early, then as the character progresses, "getting serious" and shifting to LG. If you take Sublime Chord, which the fluff says involves a bard getting into more serious metaphysics, math, etc., this makes a great deal of sense.

Or you can just do it the easy way. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofFreedomClassF eatures)

[nedz]

OK - those solutions work.

But the Paladin/True Necromancer/Mystic Theurge ?

[Egneil]

As written? No, you can't make it overpowered.

If you're willing to use the bard in conjunction with Sublime Chord and use something like Divine Crusader (for fast spell progression) into Sacred Exorcist (for turning) to go into Prestige Paladin, and then get Mystic Theurge to extend beyond 10 levels via Legacy Champion, I can maybe see some potential to be "overpowered" relative to base classes.

Just be aware that the Mystic Theurge is generally considered very underpowered without some heavy trickery involved - both because it does terrible things to your spell access (pure mages or clerics are always an entire spell level above you, if not more) and because it only has 10 levels pre-epic.

I'm not seeing how Mystic Theurge is considered underpowered. Sure pure mages will have a higher spell level, but you have both more spells and a wider selection of spells. However there might be things I'm not thinking about.


Its an uncommon combination because:
Paladin: Lawful Good
Bard: Non-Lawful

How are you resolving this ?

My initial thoughts to resolve it was to use the variant, Paladin of Freedom, which I think is a Chaotic Good Paladin. I'm also aware that there's a Lawful Bard variant somewhere, but it might have been homebrewed.

Also this was mostly just a passing thought, but it seemed like a fun combination. Although I suppose a Bard/Ranger/Mystic Theurge would be better.

[Waker]

The two ways to address the alignment incompatibility is to either use a Paladin of Freedom or take the feat Devoted Performer (CAdv) which allows multi-classing between Paladin and Bard.
The reason the combination could never be overpowered is because at best a paladin can get 4th level spells, whereas a bard is normally restricted to 6th level spells. The latter can be improved upon with Sublime Chord, but that doesn't become an option until lvl 10. Even utilizing PrCs like Prestige Paladin can't make the character overpowered by an metric, since you would still be a rather weak spellcaster.

[nedz]

Although I suppose a Bard/Ranger/Mystic Theurge would be better.

Bard/Mystic Ranger/Mystic Theurge/Bard is better.
Mystic Ranger pretty much tops out at level 10 anyway.
So Bard 4/Mystic Ranger 3/Mystic Theurge 7/Bard 6

Ed: MT works best when one of the classes only has around 10 levels of casting, classically Ur-Priest of course.

[Shadowknight12]

I'm not seeing how Mystic Theurge is considered underpowered. Sure pure mages will have a higher spell level, but you have both more spells and a wider selection of spells. However there might be things I'm not thinking about.

Being able to cast Gate is better than being able to cast, at best, Planar Ally. Shapeshifting is better than Polymorph. Need I go on?

[TuggyNE]

I'm not seeing how Mystic Theurge is considered underpowered. Sure pure mages will have a higher spell level, but you have both more spells and a wider selection of spells. However there might be things I'm not thinking about.

In short, the only things significantly more powerful than spells are higher-level spells.

More spells are somewhat better than fewer, of course, and wider variety in spells is handy, but both sor/wiz and clr/fvs lists already have more than enough ways to do whatever you want, if you dig deep enough. So while Theurging is tempting, it adds a lot less than you'd think, and takes away your ability to compete with level-appropriate spells.

MT is a more acceptable prestige class at low op, of course, but it's hard for it to become overpowered under most conditions.

[The Glyphstone]

As said, Spell levels increase exponentially in power - higher-level spells are almost always better than multiple lower-level spells.

[Roguenewb]

Hmm....should this be done? Probably not. Frankly, I can't imagine when you'd ever hit a point and think "Damn, I wish I had more paladin casting". I think go Bard/Paladin pick up one of the prestige classes for sneaky paladins/holy scoundrels and then at some point pick up a little Sublime Chord to rebuild casting.

[Greyfeld85]

In short, the only things significantly more powerful than spells are higher-level spells.

More spells are somewhat better than fewer, of course, and wider variety in spells is handy, but both sor/wiz and clr/fvs lists already have more than enough ways to do whatever you want, if you dig deep enough. So while Theurging is tempting, it adds a lot less than you'd think, and takes away your ability to compete with level-appropriate spells.

MT is a more acceptable prestige class at low op, of course, but it's hard for it to become overpowered under most conditions.

Not to mention, increasing the number of spells per day doesn't help all that much when you're still limited by the number of actions you can take per round. Action economy is the biggest concern when multiclassing.

[Aeryr]

I personally like Mystic Theurge, but you really need to know what you are doing, first you surely need early entrance tricks and someway of progressing it after the 10 levels, because you will like getting high level spells in both sides.

Personally I like them most as a transmuter / buffer going into battle with more buffs that I can even count is the only way of making something out of the action economy, to many spells per day.

[Tvtyrant]

Pretty sure you could get the Paladin spells to cast as swift actions for free, and then cast the bard spells with your standard actions, but that still wouldn't make it optimal.

But it could be fun as a player character in a lower level op group, since you can still tear the action economy up. I suppose you could use Revenance to bring yourself back from the dead at some point, but really Paladin casting is terrible.

[Voyager_I]

I don't think "underpowered" is the word we're really looking for when we describe a Mystic Theurge. Certainly, it's less powerful than a pure caster of a single class by virtue of having less high-level spells, but "not as strong as a Wizard: does not necessarily indicate a problem.

A properly built Mystic Theurge still gets Gate/Wish/Miracle/Shapechange/etc and breaks the game over its knee; the fact that there are better options for destroying your DM's campaign setting does not drop it to Monk-Tier.

[eggs]

Something like a rearranged Divine Bard 7/Knight of the Raven 7/Prestige Paladin 3/Ordained Champion 3 wouldn't be bad at all.

[OracleofSilence]

I don't think "underpowered" is the word we're really looking for when we describe a Mystic Theurge. Certainly, it's less powerful than a pure caster of a single class by virtue of having less high-level spells, but "not as strong as a Wizard: does not necessarily indicate a problem.

A properly built Mystic Theurge still gets Gate/Wish/Miracle/Shapechange/etc and breaks the game over its knee; the fact that there are better options for destroying your DM's campaign setting does not drop it to Monk-Tier.


I do agree, but to be frank, that is only late game, and I would really rather have taken another PrC (and not lost the 3 caster levels).

Early entry (by varieties of cheese) can make a Theurge much better (although most people will view this as unfair), but ultimately your issues is that AT BEST (at least the way it was built), you will be using a CL 17 cleric, and a CL 17 wizard (meaning you only get ninth level spells at lv 20). These classes have good spell list, but at base cannot really use either of those lists to the greates effect (and the player will be miserable for quite a while, due to the lag in picking up new spell levels).

[dspeyer]

If you like cheese...

Bard 1 (precocious apprentice) / Cleric 3 / Geomancer 4 (advances cleric) / Prestige Paladin 2 / Sublime Chord 1 / Mystic Theurge 9

gets you 9th level arcane and divine spells, and most of the classic paladin features. Assuming Spell Versatility qualifies for Sublime Chord.

You could swap out 6 of those MT levels for Geomancer (advances SC). It would limit you to 11th level cleric casting, but there aren't that many high-level cleric spells without arcane equivalents and instead you could apply divine metamagic to all your arcane spells.

Back to sanity...

Bard 7 / Holy Liberator 3 / Sublime Chord 3 / Mystic Theurge 7

gets full arcane + paladin casting and some of the paladin features. But not divine grace, which you probably really wanted.

Dipping just slightly into the cheese gets us

Bard 1 / Wizard 5 / Holy Liberator 4 / Sublime Chord 4 / Mystic Theurge 6

Feel free to replace the non-first levels of SC with any arcane-advancing prc. Geomancer might be a good choice here too, but not cheese this time.

[Spuddles]

Being able to cast Gate is better than being able to cast, at best, Planar Ally. Shapeshifting is better than Polymorph. Need I go on?

That doesn't make it underpowered, just sub-optimal if you're optimizing for high level spells. If casters had half caster progression (5th level spells at 17th), they'd still be more powerful than close to half the classes in the game.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Divine Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantDivineBard) 8/ Sacred Exorcist 1/ Prestige Paladin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigePaladin).. . of Freedom (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinVariantsFreedom SlaughterAndTyranny) 3/ (full casting PrCs) 8
Required Feats: Magical Training (PGtF, spellbook version), Versatile Spellcaster (RotD), Mounted Combat.

Perks: 19/20 Divine Bard casting with Paladin-exclusive spells, can optimize Inspire Courage (DFI optional), can optimize for nearly any party role, Divine feats including DMM available.

You can finish the build with a mix of Divine Oracle (4), Paragnostic Apostle (1-3), Seeker of the Misty Isle (1), Contemplative (1, 2, or 6), and/or more Sacred Exorcist.

Alternate Method: Divine Bard + PrCs 10/ Contemplative 1/ Sacred Exorcist 1/ Prestige Paladin of Freedom 3/ PrCs 5, gain the Balance or Exorcism domain to learn Dismissal, drop Magical Training and Versatile Spellcaster from the required feats.

[Greyfeld85]

I don't think "underpowered" is the word we're really looking for when we describe a Mystic Theurge. Certainly, it's less powerful than a pure caster of a single class by virtue of having less high-level spells, but "not as strong as a Wizard: does not necessarily indicate a problem.

A properly built Mystic Theurge still gets Gate/Wish/Miracle/Shapechange/etc and breaks the game over its knee; the fact that there are better options for destroying your DM's campaign setting does not drop it to Monk-Tier.

The problem is that, unless you're going for a specific character concept or flavor, it's strictly worse than just taking any spellcasting class to level 20. Between losing spells, losing casting levels, and having no class features, you end up 2-3 spellcasting levels behind any other equal level character.

This isn't just a matter of "not being able to break the game as badly as tier 1," it's that if you assume all players in your game are equally optimized, the MT character will always be lagging several levels behind in utility and potency.