Ultimate Magus Commentary

[Everynone]

I'm considering making an Ultimate Magus and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I've only heard of this PrC once or twice, mostly in handbooks, and I'd like to know what you guys think of it, what it's strengths and weakness are, and link to any useful reading. Thanks!

[Talya]

It's one of the better theurge classes in the game.

There are some excellent ways to use it. All involve ensuring that all the missed spellcasting levels stay on one side.

Combining it with Nar Demonbinder for spontaneous casting seems like the best use I've seen.

Another option is to pick classes that share a casting stat (Beguiler and wizard, for example.)

Practiced Spellcaster is the preferred way of controlling caster level on one side so the dead levels all apply to it.

[CockroachTeaParty]

UM is a really entertaining prestige class, the primary draw being all of the metamagic shenanigans you can get up to.

I played a wizard/warmage UM through Red Hand of Doom and had a blast (pun intended). I highly recommend it!

[Dalebert]

Practiced Spellcaster by itself isn't sufficient to continue full advancement on one side. There is some other thing you have to do as well that I don't recall. The route I went was Beguiler 1 / Spell Thief 1 / Wizard 3 to qualify and then the Master Spellthief feat which equals out all of your caster levels. It's one more level dip but the bennies are tremendous. You end up being able to wear light armor with no ACF and having a really high caster level for all spells as well as the ability to steal spells with a sneak attack. I also took Versatile Spellcaster. RAI, it's probably just supposed to apply to your spontaneous caster side, but RAW, it applies to prepared spell slots as well so it's perfect for an UM.

Oh, and you may want to consider specializing since you get a lot of ench and illusion spells from beguiler. I started off thinking I would go focused specialist transmuter and give up ench, illusion, and evocation. I ended up going just specialist and giving up ench and evocation. I realized I wouldn't get higher than 4th level spells as a beguiler and I wanted access to higher level illusions. I realized I didn't need the extra spells from being a focused transmuter and didn't want quite so many of my spells to have to be trans. Abjuration is another one to consider giving up since beguilers get a few of the crucial abj spells to fill in the gaps. Of course, the same strategy applies if you go with something like a warmage; just pick different schools to give up.

[Talya]

With Nar Demonbinder you don't even need practiced spellcaster, as their NDB caster level is equal to their wizard caster level plus their NDB caster level.


Nar Demonbinder casting is only 7 levels long.

Technically, to qualify, you need something like the spontaneous divination trick on the wizard side, as the demonbinder doesn't get 1st level spells so doesn't qualify on the spontaneous side of Ultimate magus.

You go wizard 7, NDB 1, ultimate magus 10, then finish out with whatever PrC you'd like. Nar Demonbinder spellcasting is already finished by Ultimate Magus 9, and you're a level 18 character with wizard casting at 17.

[Faily]

UM is a really entertaining prestige class, the primary draw being all of the metamagic shenanigans you can get up to.

I played a wizard/warmage UM through Red Hand of Doom and had a blast (pun intended). I highly recommend it!

Likewise, I played Ultimate Magus through the Red Hand of Doom adventure, and indeed it was a blast. :smallbiggrin: I think the DM got upset sometimes how I always seemed to have spells, and always seemed to have the right spell for the occassion.

But TBH, I went the unoptimized way around it with Wizard/Sorcerer, but it was still great fun. :smallsmile: Ultimate Magus is one of those Theurge-PrCs that are fun to play, even when not optimizing, but that might just be my opinion. My definition of "fun to play" does not nescessarily mean "optimized". :smallwink:

[Piggy Knowles]

With Nar Demonbinder you don't even need practiced spellcaster, as their NDB caster level is equal to their wizard caster level plus their NDB caster level.


Nar Demonbinder casting is only 7 levels long.

Technically, to qualify, you need something like the spontaneous divination trick on the wizard side, as the demonbinder doesn't get 1st level spells so doesn't qualify on the spontaneous side of Ultimate magus.

You go wizard 7, NDB 1, ultimate magus 10, then finish out with whatever PrC you'd like. Nar Demonbinder spellcasting is already finished by Ultimate Magus 9, and you're a level 18 character with wizard casting at 17.


You can also qualify with feats that add spells to your spell list, such as Mother Cyst or the bloodline feats from DMC, since those will add first level spells to your Nar Demonbinder spell list.

My favorite Ultimate Magus build is one I once built for an archer:

Wizard 5/Ruathar 1/Unseen Seer 2/Nar Demonbinder 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Unseen Seer +1

Ruathar gives you the skills necessary to enter Unseen Seer. Unseen Seer in turn gives you access to Hunter's Eye, which you can then persist using your Nar Demonbinder spells.

Note that in this instance, you WILL need to use Practiced Spellcaster or some other way of boosting CL, as your Nar Demonbinder caster level will only be 6 when you enter Ultimate Magus. (You'll eventually need it anyhow, since Nar Demonbinder only stacks CL for actual wizard class levels.)

[Talya]

(You'll eventually need it anyhow, since Nar Demonbinder only stacks CL for actual wizard class levels.)

Not really.

You always apply effects of abilities in the order most beneficial to the player.

Initially, yes, NDB levels only stack with wizard levels. So with wizard 7/NBD 1, your NBD caster level is 8.


The wording of Ultimate Magus is to your advantage here:


you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in both a prepared arcane casting class and a spontaneous arcane casting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level.

That wording is key: "As if you had also gained a level in a ... casting class." If you had gained a level in wizard, it would stack with NDB...and that's what UM lets you do: treat your character level as if you had also taken a level in both Wizard and NDB. If you had taken those levels, they'd have stacked together. This means not only is your NDB level stacking with ultimate magus, but you're doubledipping. Your NDB caster level gains the full benefit of your wizard caster level and your NDB caster level, not just class level, because of the wording of the ultimate magus ability. Yes, that means with Wiz7/NDB1/UM10 your NDB caster level is 25.

[Piggy Knowles]

Eh, I can see the argument, but I think it's dubious to double dip like that. Nar Demonbinder is pretty clear that it bases its caster level off of levels in another class. That's like claiming a Wizard 3/Master Specialist 4/Nar Demonbinder 1 has a CL of 8, because Master Specialist says that caster level increases as if you'd gained a level of wizard without specifying that only your wizard caster level increases in that manner. Even if you can make the argument by RAW, NDB is pretty clear in specifying levels in a spellcasting class, rather than caster level.

[Irk]

Also, I don' think using spontaneous divination yet has been mentioned. Essentially, spontaneous divination from complete champion allows wizard to cast some spells spontaneously, so the ultimate magus just advances wizard casting really quickly.

[Chronos]

Personally, I don't think of UM as a "theurge class", since those usually broaden your options, giving you access to two different spell lists, while UM usually doesn't, but just gives you more of what you already have.

[questionmark693]

So this might be ignorant, but where does one find nar demonbinder at?

[Dalebert]

So this might be ignorant, but where does one find nar demonbinder at?

http://dndtools.eu/classes/nar-demonbinder/

[questionmark693]

So, from what I can see...using NDB in conjunction with Wizard increases MAD, because you need CHA to cast those spells you're getting from NDB. I don't get how that's more helpful than Wizard/Beguiler.

[Piggy Knowles]

It gives you 8th level spells in seven levels. That means that in the end, you'll only need a single level of NDB, allowing you to focus on your wizard casting. It's just the most efficient way to gain as many high level slots in as few levels as possible. There are workarounds to the Charisma issue - in my above posted build, I used uurkrau illumian to base my bonus spells off Dex, which also fueled my archery. Saves were a nonissue because I used NDB solely for utility spells, and mostly fueled the spell slots into metamagic.