Jack of All Magic, Master of...

[Morof Stonehands]

I have been working on a new character for the campaign I am playing in, since my first person died, and chances are good that my second one will as well.

An idea I first had was a classic Illumian Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge. Since the first guy was a cleric of Tarmuid (Creator of Illumians), I thought maybe this guy will be a higher ranking cleric in the clergy, maybe his mentor, who heard of the passing of his student, and is now going out to find the killers.

Since the god is one of magic and knowledge, and likes clerics who go in search of new magic, it makes sense that he may be a multiclass caster.

This got me thinking...

How good can a character be if they take all sorts of different casting classes? Is there any way of doing this well, or will it be a guy who can't hit anything, has an astronomically high will save, and can only cast a bunch of little 0/1 level spells?

I thinking something like cleric/wizard/bard/favored soul/wu jen/spirit shaman/prc/prc/prc yadda yadda yadda.

So is there any way to turn a Jack of all Magic, master of none, into a master of all?

Every source is fair game.

[ddude987]

Sell to power erudite can learn every arcane and divine spell, as well as every power, IIRC.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Rather than a Spell-to-Power Erudite, you could go Archivist 3/Wizard 1/MT X and somehow cheat your way into Archane Heirophant for dual, INT-based 9s.

[Jeff the Green]

Archivist/wu jen/mystic theurge (with early entry). Archivist can get pretty much any spell (bard from divine bard, sorcerer/wizard from divine magician and favored soul of bahamut acfs), so only wu jen is needed for its unique spells.

[Fouredged Sword]

If you want all kinds of casting, as in ALL CASTING LISTS, your best bet is chameleon (you count as human as a Illumian).

It grants casting 1-6th level spells from any spell list, and by the capstone you get a lot of spells, half arcane, half divine.

You also get another 10 levels to play with, so you can slap on a level of cleric for turn undead (and DMM fun) or maybe you can squeeze enough Incantrix to get free metamagic (persist again)

[(Un)Inspired]

I agree thata cahameleon is probably the best super simple way to do want.

If you want to be more powerful I'd suggest cloistered cleric/bard/sublime chord/mystic theurge

[Thurbane]

I think maybe everyone is sidestepping the OP a little.

If you literally had a character who dipped in every casting class, it would be pretty awful, specially at higher levels. You'd need minimum 11 in INT, WIS and CHA, and you'd be throwing around around a whole bunch of 0 and 1st level spells, with CL1 (CL5 if you want to spend feats on Practiced Spellcaster).

[Morof Stonehands]

I think maybe everyone is sidestepping the OP a little.

If you literally had a character who dipped in every casting class, it would be pretty awful, specially at higher levels. You'd need minimum 11 in INT, WIS and CHA, and you'd be throwing around around a whole bunch of 0 and 1st level spells, with CL1 (CL5 if you want to spend feats on Practiced Spellcaster).

That's what I thought. So it seems like there is really no way to turn all those dips of a dabbling magician into relevant levels.

Bummer. I was hoping there would be some theurge class or something that increased all your classes.

[Fouredged Sword]

Honestly, that wouldn't be too broken.

Master of magic - 10 level PRC
Pre reqs
Cast 2nd level prepared arcane spells
Cast 2nd level spontaneous arcane spells
Cast 2nd level Prepared Divine Spells
Cast 2nd level Spontaneous Divine Spells

Each level advances all levels in all casting classes you predviously have taken levels in by 1.

You loose so many levels to dips that at best, you end up a 12th level caster in 5 different classes. You would be better off taking chameleon for 10 levels, and still getting 6th level spells, but with class features, and not having to dip like crazy to get in.

[Temji]

greetings...

...is gestalt on the table?...

have a great day...

[Bloodgruve]

I thought I saw a build that gave good casting by dipping a bunch of different classes a while ago. Didn't pay a lot of attention to it though.

Chameleon is a good one to look at. Plus that bonus feet that you can switch up daily.

Blood~

[ddude987]

That's true, factotum 10/chameleon 10 will give you some pretty good casting

[Zetapup]

There's a build that gets triple 9s for spellcasting here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16939250&postcount=23) . Not really the sort of thing that's playable at most tables, but it is possible to get 9th level casting in 3 different disciplines.

Dipping a few levels in a variety of classes prolly won't work very well. You'll end up with a bunch of 1st level spells in a bunch of different disciplines. I'd suggest just concentrating on 2 or 3 disciplines (arcane and divine, arcane and psionic, that sort of thing) and you should be reasonably powerful by using the various theurges to advance casting.

Factotum/Chameleon is also an excellent option. It's only up to 6th level spells, but it seems to fit the flavor of being able to cast from lots of different disciplines.

[Skevvix]

That's true, factotum 10/chameleon 10 will give you some pretty good casting

Go factotum11/chameleon 9 for good casting. You lose one 5th and 6th but you ignore one target's SR and DR for one round. So even if your enemy has Spell immunity up, you slap down the hurt.

[bekeleven]

Go factotum11/chameleon 9 for good casting. You lose one 5th and 6th but you ignore one target's SR and DR for one round. So even if your enemy has Spell immunity up, you slap down the hurt.

Also, use one of many fun tricks for 9th level chameleon casting.

[Jeff the Green]

I think maybe everyone is sidestepping the OP a little.

If you literally had a character who dipped in every casting class, it would be pretty awful, specially at higher levels. You'd need minimum 11 in INT, WIS and CHA, and you'd be throwing around around a whole bunch of 0 and 1st level spells, with CL1 (CL5 if you want to spend feats on Practiced Spellcaster).

Well, yes, but that was kind of covered by the OP.


I thought I saw a build that gave good casting by dipping a bunch of different classes a while ago. Didn't pay a lot of attention to it though.

Chameleon is a good one to look at. Plus that bonus feet that you can switch up daily.

Blood~

It's come up a few times. There are enough front loaded classes to make a viable character, and it gets easier if you allow fractional BAB.

[Thurbane]

That's what I thought. So it seems like there is really no way to turn all those dips of a dabbling magician into relevant levels.

Bummer. I was hoping there would be some theurge class or something that increased all your classes.
On the plus side, you'll be able to use all wands with no UMD.

[Chronos]

On the plus side, you'll be able to use all wands with no UMD.
That's not a big deal... A fourth-level warlock with a 16 Cha can use any wand with no roll, too.

Personally, I'd just go for Archivist 2/Wizard 1/Mystic Theurge (or vice-versa on the wiz and arch levels). Even without cheese (restricting to cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, adept, and domains), Archivist can still get a huge variety of spells, and then add all the wizard spells on top of that. And with Illumian allowing early entry on both sides, you're much less behind than an ordinary MT.