[3.5] - Should I play a mysthical theurge?/How to optimize one?

[gordomac]

So, hey everybody, i'm entering a game now where EVERYTHING is allowed, any oficial book at least, and the DM said that OP characters would bring the chalenge rate up. My plan was to make a really bad but cool class, so i could make it decent with all the stuff my DM is allowing. But then i saw what the other players were making. At the last session in another caimpaign, two of those guys where talking about how powerful a monk is in a "everything allowed" game(better than wizard in their opinion) , and now our group has 3 out of the 4 characters already made as monks (with the fourth being me, with my cool but bad mystical theurge).

Now, i don't know if the stuff about the monk being stronger than wizards is true or not, he was talking about having 40 AC and i don't know how much damage and stuff like that.

So what i would like to know is... will my theurge be weak? I know he is weak when matched with a full caster, and if what they're saying about monk is truth, against monks too.
Can i make this theurge work? Maybe a well optimized theurge will be good enough? Should i change classes?
If i keep the theurge what build should i do?If not what class and build should i do?

Any tips and opinions are well come, looking foward to the wisdom of these boards.

(not a native speaker, sorry for bad grammar, just in case...)

edit: oh, and flaws seem to be allowed too.

[ComaVision]

An unoptimized Mystic Theurge (Cleric 3/Wizard 3 entry) would be substantially better than a monk. You should be fine. You should also have no trouble looking up early entry Mystic Theurge tricks, as it's a popular topic.

[gordomac]

An unoptimized Mystic Theurge (Cleric 3/Wizard 3 entry) would be substantially better than a monk. You should be fine. You should also have no trouble looking up early entry Mystic Theurge tricks, as it's a popular topic.

Oh, i see, that's great then. Even with them optimizing? They where just misinformed about the monks>wizards thing then? I'm looking into some handbooks and thenks for the early entry tip.


I'm still all ears to building tips. :smallbiggrin:

[J-H]

I'm sure there are 10d100 threads on why monks look better than they are.

That said, if I ever make a mystic theurge, it'll be a sorceror//favored soul, shugenja//spirit shaman, or something like that. There are far too many splatbooks to dig through for cleric spells and I don't like keeping track of 30d4 wizard spells, only 12 of which I can prepare at any given time.

[ComaVision]

Oh, i see, that's great then. Even with them optimizing? They where just misinformed about the monks>wizards thing then? I'm looking into some handbooks and thenks for the early entry tip.


Yeah, they're misinformed about monks>wizards. A wizard does not care about 40 AC. Rule #1 for making a good monk character is "don't take more than two levels of monk" :smallbiggrin:

[ATHATH]

The "Why Each Class is In Its Tier" thread should explain it nicely?

AC isn't everything. Even a simple Forcecage will probably shut those monks down, unless they've been investing in UMD. Due to the MAD of Monks, Lahm's Finger Darts will also probably shut them down hard.

[Rebel7284]

Monks are typically laughed at as being the weakest class in the Player's Handbook, while casters, especially the Wizards, are obviously the strongest. To be fair, for the first TWO levels of the game a Monk very well MAY be more useful depending on several factors.

Mystic Theurge is a fairly weak class as compared to just getting higher level wizard or cleric casting, but it will certainly beat a monk. :)

If you want to avoid early entry, I will suggest Wizard 5/Mind Bender 1/Ur Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 8

[vasilidor]

to my understanding ur priest requires one to be evil. depending on the game, you may wish to avoid that.

[Da Beast]

A solid mystic theurge build is wizard 3/druid 3/mystic theurge 2/arcane hierophant 10/mystic theurge 2. Druid spellcasting is weaker than cleric but with this build you get 9th level spells on both sides along with some semi useful class features from arcane hierophant that mystic theurge lacks.

And yes, it would be fair to say that this is more of an arcane hierophant build than a mystic theurge build but the general idea is the same. Arcane Hierophant is in Races of the Wild btw.

[AvatarVecna]

If what you're looking for is "mystic theurge", there's lots of interesting builds you could go for, whether the Arcane Heirophant build previously mentioned, or some variation of Wizard/Ur-Priest/Monk that takes off early (maybe Monk 2/Wizard 3/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 10?). If what you're looking for is "dual-caster", my first suggestion would be Wizard 4/Beguiler 1/Ultimate Magus 10: even without early entry, it's a very solid build.

As others have previously mentioned, Monks are a culmination of what results from making bad assumptions while designing a game. If you're familiar with LotR lore, you know that Gandalf and the other wizards are part of some angelic race of great power, and they only hold back all that power during the events in the books/movies because of what happened the last time they collectively went full power in a fight (I've seen it described as "makes the collateral damage in Man Of Steel and Avengers look law-abiding by comparison"). Wizard 20 is like a LotR Wizard who isn't holding back, if you build and play them optimally, while an optimized monk is just a much better version of a regular IRL person. Here's one of my favorite examples for highlighting the issue:

Let's take a Monk 20, just generally optimized for "being monk-ish"; they probably have Jump and Tumble maxed out, the Agile Athlete feat, and Dex 30 (let's be generous here). With all of that, and nothing else, their Jump check is +59, giving them a guaranteed result of 60 or better; this gives them a running high jump of 15 ft, nearly double the IRL world record. But you know what, that's not all that impressive for D&D, let's kick it up a notch: let's get an item familiar for Jump ranks, increase that Dex to 40, get an item of +30 competence bonus, give them the Run, Athletic, and Skill Focus: Jump feats, and the Quick Trait from UA. There, now that Jump check is an astonishing +126, giving that monk a running high jump of at least 31 ft. Wow that's impressive!

...but that's not really even close to anything we've seen in kung-fu movies: in Kung Fu Panda alone, we've got this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEFjMOjyQEs&feature=youtu.be&t=1m14s), this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEFjMOjyQEs&feature=youtu.be&t=2m20s), these ones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEFjMOjyQEs&feature=youtu.be&t=3m2s) (where he's climbing and jumping so quickly, he clears at least a couple hundred feet while climbing on/jumping to falling rocks), this one (https://youtu.be/hjjJhtR4Phw?t=2m25s), this one (https://youtu.be/hjjJhtR4Phw?t=4m) (which is so high and fast you can't even see it happen), this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltbzLZHIK4I&feature=youtu.be&t=37s), this one (https://youtu.be/ltbzLZHIK4I?t=2m22s), and this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i846rmYryjs&feature=youtu.be&t=3m2s). And the movie has lots of other awesome monk moments besides just jumping, from reflecting giant projectiles, to a single monk plowing throw a thousand powerful guards, to the tactical nuke technique (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i846rmYryjs&feature=youtu.be&t=5m41s). It's ridiculous when a children's movie does a better job of making monks look awesome than the game does.

But really, what could a wizard possibly do that could match such a display of athletic ability? Surely it would take a great deal of investment for a wizard to have more maneuverability than a monk does. Oh wait, literally any method of gaining flight will make Jump checks pale in comparison, because you can always just fly higher. That's not the whole problem, but it's a sign of the issue: monks can be really good, even phenomenal at mundane stuff; they will be, across the board, easily better than IRL world record holders. But Wizards get magic. At the highest levels, a Monk has a 30 ft high jump, is virtually untouchable by normal methods, and is literally a magical creature; at the highest levels, a Wizard is granting his own wishes, pressing the pause button on reality, opening a hole in the space between dimensions, giving themselves continuous precognitive abilities, raining meteors down from the sky, crushing the will of anything that stands in his way, and turning into basically any creature he wants (including a mother****ing dragon). Monks look neat...but they're not, not by comparison.

[gordomac]

Thank you all for the replies! =D

Really wierd to find out that they're not really going to be OP like they predicted, i found it weird when they said, but trusted them. Now they changed classes because they tought it would be to OP...and may end up stronger than the monk '-'

But then with all that out of the way, the DM aproved the illumian early entry, i made a back story already, so i don't need to be a theurge, but i need to cope with my story. I'm not getting in details about the background, but the character is basically an illumian who strives to acquire knowledge and develop his "change the reality" abilities. Seeking arcane mastery he thought that the best teachers would be the gods, the architects of reality itself.

So, any class that have dual casting and is "scholarly" will be fine. My idea was to make a wizard/archivist/dual casting class, só i could focus on the knowledge thing and seeing the gods as examples to be followed, not as my lord and savior, respect and study over idolatry. So I think most arcane/dual casters match the background, everything goes while the divine spell caster may get a bit limited. I would love any tips on what class to chose at any point in character development. We also get to take 2 flaws that i already got, so more feats.

Edit: The party consists now of: me, scout (monk that changed his mind) , bard (another monk that changed his mind) , monk, barbarian.

Edit2: oh and what class should i skip with the early entry? The divine have more class advantages, but the wizard has better spells . At the moment i'm thinking lvl 1 divine is better than the wizard, while lvl 2/3/4 wizard get me better spells. Am i rigth?

Edit3: oh and this is point buy with 28 points, any ideias on how to expend them? i thought about 8, 8, 14, 19, 12, 8 with the middle aged rules.

[Seward]

It's possible to build a decent monk, but optimizing for just AC is one of the traps you can get into. 40 AC with great saving throws and decent mobility is helpful at level 10 if you also have real offense. A lot of people just forget the "and you have to be a threat" for all those defenses to matter. If you go down the other road and focus on offense, you have to play very carefully to avoid getting shredded by enemy action.

If you have a monk in the party, one of your duties as a mystic theurge is to use some of your spell slots to make the monk effective. Basic buffs like greater magic weapon/fang, mage armor, possibly even bull strength/owl wisdom/cat grace in the mid levels before his gear catches up, fly or air walk when there are flying enemies, dimension door or TK or something to get the monk into full attack range, maybe something like Spikes on nunchucks to crank his damage. Essentially your spells will fill gaps in gear that is especially expensive for the monk, and sometimes your actions are better spent ensuring his (hopefully) potent full attack happens, instead of him standing around or running over and doing a single attack then facing a full attack in return. Other times what you'll be doing is interposing some kind of defense between your melee and the other guys, maybe using another action to dismiss it, just to get the timing of their full attacks as often as possible while the enemy wastes lots of actions working around your stuff.

All of the above is most important in the mid levels (5-15). In low levels, a melee with a decent amount of strength who didn't totally screw up feat selection is quite effective on their own, and after 15 they're well enough geared up to be much more self-sufficient.

As a mystic theurge, you have a lot of weak spell slots. (you don't really have many more than a wizard or cleric, because they have higher spell tier slots and you don't until very late in the game). This pretty much relegates you to spells that work without relying on high caster level and or high saving throws. The good news is that if you enjoy this style of play, there is a lot you can do.

You want to look at battlefield control and buffing spells that have a lot of impact but "just work". There is no saving throw, spell resistance or need for lots of caster levels to boost spell damage on a spell like solid fog or wall of force, nor on potent buff spells such as prayer or haste. Glitterdust will still make that invisible dude visible, and see invisibility will let you notice him even if he isn't blinded.

With any prepared caster your power is far less in your character build (unlike a monk) and far more in your spell selection. Which means that the monk will likely screw up only when he levels, where you can screw up daily - or you can shine daily. It depends on how well you know your spell lists and how effective you are at adapting whatever choices you made with the assumptions you had at the start of the day, vs what actually happens.

Keep in mind that you are not a cleric, druid or wizard. When the wizard is doing Forcecage or Power Word Stun, you are still working with wall of force and hold monster (and hold monster is facing significantly higher saving throws than the wizard had when he used it, plus your Int isn't as high as his because you also need wisdom). That's the price of diversity. So don't measure yourself against a true primary caster, if your party has one. Measure yourself against your contribution to the overall party effectiveness. Mystic theurges (like Monks) aren't a "power" option, but they're still plenty useful the way D&D is normally played.

[nedz]

Cloistered Cleric 1 / Wizard 1 / X 1 / MT 10 / Y 7

Where X can be anything, even Monk - though you probably want too choose Cloistered Cleric or Wizard.
Assuming one of the latter: which ever you choose will get higher level spells a level earlier - your choice.

Cloistered Cleric is in UA, and also here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric).

[gordomac]

Cloistered Cleric 1 / Wizard 1 / X 1 / MT 10 / Y 7

Where X can be anything, even Monk - though you probably want too choose Cloistered Cleric or Wizard.
Assuming one of the latter: which ever you choose will get higher level spells a level earlier - your choice.

Cloistered Cleric is in UA, and also here[/URL].

How does that lvl 4 entry works?

[nedz]

How does that lvl 4 entry works?

He said he was going for an Illumian so I assumed he was using the Improved Sigil (Krau)) feat.

[gordomac]

He said he was going for an Illumian so I assumed he was using the Improved Sigil (Krau)) feat.

Oh, i was under the impression that i could only do that for one class.

[Troacctid]

Oh, i was under the impression that i could only do that for one class.

Improved Sigil (Krau) lets you chose two spells for it to apply to, so you can choose a spell from each list, or, alternately, just choose one spell that appears on both lists, like Cause Fear.