Mystic Theurge

[J-H]

What are the best options in 5e for simulating a mage/cleric multiclass from 2e, or a mystic theurge from 3.5?

So far I have:
Arcana Cleric - gets bonus arcane spells as domain spells at high level; gets some arcane-themed spells at low level. Lacks most of the iconic wizard spells like Fireball.
Celestial Sorcerer - Has both spell lists. No spellbook, limited spells known.
Actual multiclass - Gets 9th level slots, but on, say, a 11/9 split, you end up with only 6th & 5th level spells respectively.

[Theodoxus]

Depends on what you're trying to emulate.

if it's strictly the 3rd Edition Prestige Class that required a minimum of 3rd level Divine/3rd level Arcane casters (barring mental gymnastics that granted early access through various metagamey means), and that provided +1 level to both classes as you leveled up? There isn't a way to emulate that in 5E.

If you're just looking to combine "Divine and Arcane" casting into a single class that provides the most bang for your spell casting buck? Lore Bard wins hands down.

If Bard has too much 'icky' flavor for what you're looking for, again, it's important to know what exactly you're wanting to accomplish.

An arcanist that can heal a little and throw fireballs? Divine Soul works great. Celestial Warlock as noted, works mostly.

If you're wanting someone who can do most of everything? Yeah, you're probably looking at a multiclass; If you're wanting more powerful blasts, I'd suggest taking the divine side to 5, perhaps 6 (based on the domain bonus), and the rest as an arcanist of whatever flavor. (5/15 means 8th level arcane spells, with nice divine things like Revivify and Lesser Restoration, along with the good combat spells like Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon.)

But really, the closest way to actually emulate a classic Mystic Theurge is with Lore Bard. Bard gets most of the good cleric spells you'd want. You can use some of your Magical Secrets to bolster whatever you think is missing from the divine side, and the rest for the arcane side (fireball, for instance). With Lore, that's 8 additional spells known - which should cover just about any iconic spells you'd want that Bard doesn't get natively.

[LumenPlacidum]

I agree with the 5/15 split on cleric / arcane class to emulate this. A lot of the higher level cleric spells feel less sexy than the lower level ones, and you get most of what cleric offers with the lower level spells cast in higher level slots.

[P. G. Macer]

Since you didn’t specify published options only, there’s also the UA Theurgy Wizard, in which the wizard gains cleric subclass features, Domain Spells, and possibly other cleric spells. It has a well-deserved reputation for being brokenly good, however.

[Theodoxus]

Since you didn’t specify published options only, there’s also the UA Theurgy Wizard, in which the wizard gains cleric subclass features, Domain Spells, and possibly other cleric spells. It has a well-deserved reputation for being brokenly good, however.

True... and with the last couple of official published books since then, I wonder if WotC is still working on a toned down version. I mean, given the boost to Bladedancer and the creation of Twilight Domain, the Theurgy wizard as presented in the UA is only marginally more powerful.

[ftafp]

clerics in 5e tend to be excellent 1-2 level dips for wizard (and sorcerer, though you want sorcerer to be your 1st level). twilight and peace domains are all around good options, order is great for a graviturgist in particular, and tempest mixed with a scribe wizard (or any sorcerer) can do some insane nova damage

[P. G. Macer]

True... and with the last couple of official published books since then, I wonder if WotC is still working on a toned down version. I mean, given the boost to Bladedancer and the creation of Twilight Domain, the Theurgy wizard as presented in the UA is only marginally more powerful.

I see your point, but shortly before Tasha’s Cauldron came out, Jeremy Crawford mentioned that the only active Unearthed Arcana were those created in 2019 or earlier, essentially stating that anything that hadn’t made it to official publication from before then was dead.

[Kane0]

Celestial Tomelock is also an alternative.

[MrStabby]

Since you didn’t specify published options only, there’s also the UA Theurgy Wizard, in which the wizard gains cleric subclass features, Domain Spells, and possibly other cleric spells. It has a well-deserved reputation for being brokenly good, however.

Hmm. The theurgy wizard is a bit of a funny one. It is both weak and Broken powerful.

It really depends on what you do with it. If you take tempest cleric you can build an over the top blaster, if you take a knowledge cleric domain you can have superb Int skills, if you take a life cleric you can get healing on a wizard and do pretty much the one thing you were struggling to do before.

The thing is, that for most of these, new content has kind of rendered a lot of the benefits irrelevant. Knowledge cleric is less special now there is feat to give expertise, life cleric is less good now Eberron has provided house Jorasco for healing wizards and so on.

Some things remain - tempest is still good and the new cleric domains are still as stupidly powerful tagged onto a wizard, but most of the PHB domains are pretty fine. The wierd thing is that for most of them you spend your time not feeling like anything divine at all as most of the domain spells you can pick up in the first half of the game are not cleric spells.

[Pex]

Whatever you do, keep in mind you only have one spell slot progression. In 3E you had separate spell slots for arcane and divine spells. Even though you weren't casting the Big Boom Spells until much later in the campaign you were still casting lots of spells per day. In 5E you're still limited by the spell slots single class casters have. It's not bad for 5E, but you might feel stifled in spellcasting compared to what you had in 3E such that you won't get that fun feeling you're wanting. If this isn't a problem, great - go for it have fun, but I thought it worth mentioning.

[The_Jette]

What are the best options in 5e for simulating a mage/cleric multiclass from 2e, or a mystic theurge from 3.5?

So far I have:
Arcana Cleric - gets bonus arcane spells as domain spells at high level; gets some arcane-themed spells at low level. Lacks most of the iconic wizard spells like Fireball.
Celestial Sorcerer - Has both spell lists. No spellbook, limited spells known.
Actual multiclass - Gets 9th level slots, but on, say, a 11/9 split, you end up with only 6th & 5th level spells respectively.

Having played a Mystic Theurge in 3.5 and Pathfinder, I tried to build something similar in 5e. It doesn't work. You just can't get the feel of a Mystic Theurge, because of how 5e handles multiclassing as a spell caster. It just doesn't ever feel the same.

[LordShade]

I would go with Arcana cleric, with a Ravnica background that gives more wizard spells or a Dragonmark race that gives the same. Then take Ritual Caster: Wizard.

Alternately, Cleric 1-3/Wizard X, with the same backgrounds/races, but giving cleric spells instead. Then take Ritual Caster: Cleric. Theurgy subclass, if available. Cleric domains could be Knowledge, Arcana or whatever floats your boat.

[Kane0]

I would go with Arcana cleric, with a Ravnica background that gives more wizard spells or a Dragonmark race that gives the same. Then take Ritual Caster: Wizard.

Alternately, Cleric 1-3/Wizard X, with the same backgrounds/races, but giving cleric spells instead. Then take Ritual Caster: Cleric. Theurgy subclass, if available. Cleric domains could be Knowledge, Arcana or whatever floats your boat.

That made me think, how much of the wizard list can we possibly cram into a Cleric without multiclassing?

- Dragonmark Race (9 spells from Warding Dwarf, Scribing Gnome or Detection/Storm Half-Elf)
- Ravnica Background (10-12 spells from Rakdos, Izzet or Dimiar)
- Domain bonus spells (10 spells from Arcana, Knowledge or Trickery)
- Feat (Ritual Caster, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Magic Initiate)

That would get you quite a ways into the 'arcane' spell list without actually diluting your cleric progression at all. The reverse is also true of course, though you don't get bonus spells from Subclass using Wiz/Lock/Sorc/Bard like a Cleric/Druid does.

[MrStabby]

That made me think, how much of the wizard list can we possibly cram into a Cleric without multiclassing?

- Dragonmark Race (9 spells from Warding Dwarf, Scribing Gnome or Detection/Storm Half-Elf)
- Ravnica Background (10-12 spells from Rakdos, Izzet or Dimiar)
- Domain bonus spells (10 spells from Arcana, Knowledge or Trickery)
- Feat (Ritual Caster, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Magic Initiate)

That would get you quite a ways into the 'arcane' spell list without actually diluting your cleric progression at all. The reverse is also true of course, though you don't get bonus spells from Subclass using Wiz/Lock/Sorc/Bard like a Cleric/Druid does.

I would tend to want to put cleric spells on the wizard instead, simply because there are fewer stand out good ones. If you actually look at the cleric spells that see good use, then you have a narrower pool than for a wizard (especially if you exclude stuff like banishment already on both lists)

Bless, Command, Aid, Healing word, Spiritual weapon, Spirit guardians... maybe death ward or mass healing word.

Orzhov guild gives command and spirit guardians, bless can be picked up from fey touched. House Jorasco gives you all the healing you need. What cleric spells would you actually be missing? The only one I can think of is commune as a ritual (and there is the ritual caster feat - though it feels a bit of a waste with all the wizard rituals you have) and maybe guiding bolt for a couple of early levels.

[Kane0]

Very true and the Cleric list is also significantly smaller than the Wizard one so you miss fewer in total, however on the other hand with Cleric casting you prep from the whole list rather than having to learn them. Either way is perfectly justifiable.

[Rashagar]

The way I would want to do this would be 1 level of cleric or bard (to get a nice selection of upcastable/twinnable 1st level spells) with the rest as divine soul sorcerer (limited spells known but you get to use more of them for higher level spells when you've got a 1 level dip in a different caster class). While you can't get a lot of spell slots in 5e, the reason I liked Mystic Theurge in previous editions was for fun with metamagic and giving divine spells an arcane twist, so I like Twin spell for providing a similar feeling to casting a lot of spells per day, and for mixing divine with arcane.

It should be said that the wizard class's arcane recovery option also does a good job of making you feel like you've a lot of low level spell slots to use throughout the day though, so going wizard instead of sorcerer makes a lot of sense from that perspective, plus gives you ritual casting for wizard without needing to take a feat for it, but then you lose out on some of the iconic higher level cleric spells like spiritual weapon/spirit guardians.

[MrStabby]

Very true and the Cleric list is also significantly smaller than the Wizard one so you miss fewer in total, however on the other hand with Cleric casting you prep from the whole list rather than having to learn them. Either way is perfectly justifiable.

Also, you can take Artificer Initiate for guidance/cure wounds on a wizard.

So for functionally getting the good stuff on the cleric list (levels are character levels not spell levels - hence misty step at level 1 from fey touched; cleric spells in blue):


Level 1
Orzhov Background, V.Human, Fey Touched
Command, bless, protection from evil and good, Toll the dead, guidance, light, mage armor, Shield, absorb elements, misty step, Identify

Level 2
Alarm, False Life

Level 3
Hold Person, Enhance Ability

Level 4
Artificer Initiate
Blindness/Deafness, Zone of Truth, cure wounds, spare the dying, mending

Level 5
Spirit Guardians, Bestow Curse

Level 6
Dispel Magic, Protection from energy

Level 7
Banishment, Death Ward

Level 8
Ritual Caster - Cleric
detect magic, ceremony, Divination, animate dead

Level 9
Planar Binding, Dawn

Level 10
Geas, Wall of light

Level 11
Sunbeam, True Seeing

Level 12
Create Undead, Wall of force

Level 13
Planeshift, Crown of Stars

Level 14
Reverse Gravity, Etherialness

Level 15
Antimagic Field, Sunburst

Level 16
Mind Blank, Control Weather

Level 17
Wish, Foresight

Level 18
Astral Projection, Gate


So not an optimized character, but perfectly viable with a bit of a cleric flavour - lots of radient damage, defensive spells, wards and protective walls. There are potentially a bunch more cleric spells available through ritual caster, but these are DM dependant.

[RogueJK]

Arcana Cleric (if you want a more Divine casting slant) or Lore Bard (if you want a more Arcane casting slant), with the Ritual Caster: Wizard feat for additional Wizardly Spellbook flavor.

[Doug Lampert]

Whatever you do, keep in mind you only have one spell slot progression. In 3E you had separate spell slots for arcane and divine spells. Even though you weren't casting the Big Boom Spells until much later in the campaign you were still casting lots of spells per day. In 5E you're still limited by the spell slots single class casters have. It's not bad for 5E, but you might feel stifled in spellcasting compared to what you had in 3E such that you won't get that fun feeling you're wanting. If this isn't a problem, great - go for it have fun, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Eh? I don't think you are losing anything via the change in multiclassing. It's just that 5th gives everyone a lot fewer slots.

Lets look at a 3.5 MT vs. a 3.5 single class at a level you're actually likely to reach in play.

Level 9 cleric with starting Wis 18, all boosts in Wis, and a +6 item (wisdom 26), spells: (16 ability purchase points, and 36,000 GP.)

6 6+1 6+1 5+1 4+1 2+1

Level 9 MT with starting wis 16, int 16, a +6 and +4 items, specialist wizard, both scores 22 (casts as 6/6): (20 ability purchase points, and 52,000 GP, so noticeably more resources spent.)

5 5+1 5+1 3+1
4 6 6 4

Total spells are:
6 7 7 6 5 3
vs.
9 12 12 8

You have 41 spells to 34, so 7 more. But 8 of your 7 "extra" spells are level 0 or 1, and the 5th ed cleric/wizard will have more cantrips than the single class, and his cantrips are actually combat usable. So if the "goal" is more low level spells then 5th edition does that fine.

3.5, equalize the resources, say by giving the single class an eternal wand or a dozen eternal wands, and the MT is behind on total slots too.

Unless you started play at level 10+, a 3.5 MT is grossly outclassed by a single class character EVEN AT HIS STRONG POINT of having lots of spells; while in 5th edition casting both ways works rather well.

I'll admit, if I'd done the comparison at an even level, the MT looks a lot better, but he's just not getting all that many more spells in actual 3.5 play.