Mysthic theurge...then?

[Melnir]

I'm playing a cloistered cleric 1/wizard 2/mysthic theurge 7 PC (early entry via krau sigil, I'm not here to discuss thiss) and I'm going to complete my path into MT soon, since we are slaying a lot of enemies. My question is: what am I going to do next? I'd like to take a dual progression PrC, but I can't find anything that I can seriously consider (Fochlucan Lyrist has got too heavy requirements). If I need to drop one side, it'll be the cleric one, but I'd like to keep progressing both, if possible. Any idea?

[Doc_Maynot]

Dweomerkeeper?
It won't advance both at the same time, but you can alternate advancement and gain some nice abilities in the meantime.

[sideswipe]

true necromancer proceeds in both (after first level which is arcane only and second is divine only)
its in libris mortis

[Craft (Cheese)]

Arcane Hierophant is the standard, though you need to get Trackless Step somehow. I don't know any way to get it without losing caster levels, but maybe someone else here will.

[Karnith]

true necromancer proceeds in both (after first level which is arcane only)
i believe its in libris mortis or heros of horror. i always mix up that with the dread necromancer between books
It's in Libris Mortis, but it's not a good class at all. It requires you to have a crappy domain, and it loses casting on one side at levels 1, 2, 6, and 7. Might be worth considering here if the character qualifies, but it'd generally just be a better idea to pick one casting side and progress that.

I suppose I should ask if Uncanny Trickster/Legacy Champion are on the table? Those are both relatively easy to get into.

[Donox]

Depending on your cheese tolerance you could polymorph any object yourself into a bamboo spirit folk for trackless step. This would let you get into Arcane Hierophant using Cleric for the divine side.

[Karnith]

Depending on your cheese tolerance you could polymorph any object yourself into a bamboo spirit folk for trackless step.
Strictly speaking that doesn't work, because Arcane Hierophant requires Trackless Step as a class feature. Also, I don't think PaO would normally grant Trackless Step, though because it's 3.0 and therefore strange I'm not sure (would a Bamboo Spirit Folk's Trackless Step, which is untyped, count as a physical quality? Probably not, but who knows!).

Another option to get into Arcane Hierophant would be a one-level dip in Wildrunner (Races of the Wild), though the latter's prereqs are unfortunate and it doesn't progress casting.

[ArqArturo]

Geomancer, for crazy shenanigans.

[Captnq]

I'm gonna let you in on a secret: Even if you dual progress from 3rd level, mystic theurge sucks.

Why? Action economy.

You can only cast so many spells. While having a million spells you can cast SOUNDS nice, in practice, it makes you only useful out of combat. A focused Wizard/Sorcerer/ultimate magus/incantrix is far more intimidating. Why? Because speed kills. Getting cheap quicken makes it possible to cast two spells, then three spells, then four.

One of the players that I run for did the cleric/wizard. And I allowed early entry. And at one point he fought the old cleric from the previous campaign. I think it was 14th level cleric vrs his total Wiz/cleric/MT. It was one of those, Hey, what if... things.

And the cleric wiped the floor with him.

A cleric. Not even a wizard. A cleric. No multiclassing. Just. Cleric.

I was floored, and it lead to a serious rebuild. He eventually turned into a Cleric/Wizard/Sorcerer/MT/Ultimate Magus something. He focused on Metamagic reduction and speed, so eventually he improved. But he basically was a wizard with some cleric and sorcerer to help out. He gave up the dream of dual advancement to 20th in exchange for focus and effectiveness.

Sorry. It sounds nice, "I can cast every spell!" but can you cast every spell effectively?

Still, if you feel comfortable, Check out the big list of all the spellcasting classes in an excel spreadsheet HERE (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5044.msg73050#msg73050).

I'm sure you'll find a dual progression class that is useful to your goals

[Chronos]

Before you go delving into cheesy tricks, try the simple path first: Ask your DM if he'll allow you to take more levels of Mystic Theurge beyond 10. If he says yes, then hey, it's that simple. If he says no, nothing lost.

[Eldonauran]

***snip***.

Suck is a strong word. They are nowhere near the optimal choice but in a 'standard game' (standard being where the optimization level is low to middle), you can get a lot of mileage out of a Mystic Theurge.

Comparing a full cleric to a mystic theurge in one-on-one combat is misleading. First, its a tier 1 caster vs a maybe tier two character. Rocket tag usually dictates the cleric is going to win. Second, a mystic theurge is a support character (or fills that role best).

[Fates]

Suck is a strong word. They are nowhere near the optimal choice but in a 'standard game' (standard being where the optimization level is low to middle), you can get a lot of mileage out of a Mystic Theurge.

Comparing a full cleric to a mystic theurge in one-on-one combat is misleading. First, its a tier 1 caster vs a maybe tier two character. Rocket tag usually dictates the cleric is going to win. Second, a mystic theurge is a support character (or fills that role best).

Eh, I'll be frank, I've never seen a mystic theurge-esque character excel in any game. It's often worse in low op games than it is in high op- in one of the first campaigns I was in, the mystic theurge/geomancer was probably the weakest character in the group. And this group included a 50-50 ranger/druid and a half-orc barbarian who used TWF and never raged or power attacked. In a campaign wherein combat isn't the main focus, it can be great from a utility standpoint, but in the typical campaign it's strictly inferior to most any pure caster.

[Melnir]

Actually I don't get at all why it should suck, since I trade one level in wizard with 11 in cleric. I don't have MAD problems since I got 3 18 (lucky dices), cleric spells are mostly for ooc cures and some good non wizard buffs and as said I care more about the wizard side because I'm aware that I should focus on one side more than the other. I'm also aware of the action economy problem, but no one tries to break it in this game, not even the psion.

Since I'm the only caster of the group (psion uses only direct damage power and the other PC are a warblade, a crusader and a daring outlaw), what wizard prc would you take?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

War Weaver could be a good choice, though it would cost you an extra level of Wizard casting.

Master Specialist depending on your Wizard specialization can be helpful.

Paragnostic Apostle has a lot to offer both of your classes, even though it will only advance the casting of one of them.

Dweomerkeeper (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040522a) has already been mentioned, and it's extremely powerful.

Abjurant Champion is actually a great choice for later levels, especially if you're casting (Greater) Luminous Armor on your allies.

[Pex]

The Mystic Theurge player in my group is quite happy about it. He tends to use his arcane spells for offense and divine spells for defense. He does not regret not having higher level spells. He does not resent only casting 1 spell a round despite having lots. Not being a worthy prestige class for some people doesn't make it unworthy for all people.

It might just be best to lump it and advance one spellcasting class when you're done with Mystic Theurge. Another prestige class would do better since you might as well get some class ability stuff along with another spell level. You paid in delayed gratification of higher level spells. You need compensation. Archmage is nice for some spell flexibility. You might even be able to afford a level or two increasing your cleric side.

[Psyren]

I'm with Capt on this one - having a bazillion spells sounds great on paper but you'll almost never have the actions or the sheer number of encounters to make use of them all.

Good theurges are like good gestalts - active+passive - that's why I like Cerebremancer/Psychic Theurge, and Soulcaster/Sapphire Hierarch etc.

[lsfreak]

Good theurges are like good gestalts - active+passive

Yea, but clerics and wizards both get huge amounts of out-of-combat spells. You could easily reserve most of your spell slots for long-duration, pre-combat, or out-of-combat stuff like Death Ward, Restoration, and GMW and still have plenty to do in-combat, without wasting your class features like a blaster//swordsage or something would. That's especially true when you've got things like DMM:Quicken and a second turning pool from sacred exorcist to negate part of the action limitation, Spontaneous Divination to burn off your unused wizard spells, or turning yourself into a one-man incantatrix persisting abomination.

My recommendation to the OP is, once you finish MT, just advance your wizard side, and as your cleric spells slowly get outclassed relegate them to support (if they're not already). Sacred exorcist gives you a second turning pool if you ACF'ed TU away while still advancing your wizard side, if you've got DMM or something else useful to burn your TU attempts on. Otherwise you've got standard PrC options (incantatrix, archmage, master specialist, fatespinner, paragnostic apostle). Also consider dweomerkeeper if it's available to you, grabbing another 3 levels of wizard for Spontaneous Divination, and/or retraining into Spontaneous Domain, simply to give you options for turning unused slots into something useful at the end of the day.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

There are a lot of hours/level buffs out there that wouldn't be nearly as useful unless you had a ton of spell slots. More for Archivist/Wizard though.

Anyway I second Dweomerkeeper. It doesn't keep alive the dream of advancing both classes, but it does get ridiculous things.

[prufock]

I haven't seen any mention of Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion yet, but they should be included for the sake of completeness. Use either to progress your MT levels and you continue to gain both arcane and divine. The downside is that you'll lose a few caster levels. Legacy Champ is strictly better in this case, because you can take up to 6 levels of it, progressing spellcasting by 5 levels. UT has only 3 levels, and only 2 progress spellcasting.

This will still leave you with 1 level to gain, though. You can take one level of cleric (or a divine-progressing class) and still get double-nines, though. Clr 2/Wiz 2/MT 10/LC 6 gives you level 17 casting for both.

[ddude987]

Agreed with the uncanny trickster or legacy champion. If your DM allowed early entry, he shouldn't have a problem with either of these.

Another option, why not ask your DM to create epic progression of mystic theruge. Extending progression of prestige classes isn't that game breaking, as people have said you are still limited by action economy.

[Karnith]

I haven't seen any mention of Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion yet
Actually, I did mention them earlier in the thread. You probably missed it because TRUE NECROMANCER HATE HATE

Another option, why not ask your DM to create epic progression of mystic theruge. Extending progression of prestige classes isn't that game breaking, as people have said you are still limited by action economy.
Just as a note, there's already an epic progression for the Mystic Theurge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/prestigeClassProgressions.htm#epicMysticTheurge). And it's awful. So make sure that your DM doesn't see/heed that.

[Chronos]

What you actually want isn't quite an epic progression, since you're not epic. What you want is an extension of the non-epic progression. Which I personally think is a reasonable thing to ask for, given that every line of the class's level progression table is identical. If ten levels of MT are balanced and fair, then so are fifteen.

[Psyren]

Yea, but clerics and wizards both get huge amounts of out-of-combat spells.

That's what scrolls are for, especially for clerics (who don't even have to track them down.)

[Melnir]

That's what scrolls are for, especially for clerics (who don't even have to track them down.)

Totale agree, but we have no time to scribe scrolls and we have a very little wbl, mostly used to unlock cool upgrades for our lair (like infinite cures and regeration of lost body parts, runes that let us regain spells in 10 minutes and so on). That's why I find pretty useful to have a lot of spell slots to use for long duration buffs.