Ultimate Magus adaptions?

[redking]

The Ultimate Magus has an adaption section, suggesting other types of Ultimate Magus that could exist, such as a dual spontaneous caster.


Adaptation
The ultimate magus requires little adaptation, since the prestige class fits into any setting with both wizards and sorcerers, or any similar classes. That said, it would not be inappropriate to make the magi members of an elite order, rather than lone individuals. Perhaps only a select few have learned these techniques, and these masters are highly selective about whom they teach. Alternatively, in a setting in which either sorcerers or wizards are persecuted, the arts of the magi might have been developed to allow one such class to masquerade as the other.

Another variant might be one that melds two spontaneous casting arcane characters, such as a sorcerer and a warmage, allowing the two to blend their spell lists in a manner similar to the benefit of the expanded spell knowledge class feature.

Has anyone taken these ideas and posted adaptions somewhere? I'd appreciate some help.

[lylsyly]

We never wrote anything up for it fluffwise but we have allowed it at our table before. I've seen sorcerer/warmage and bard/warmage played and myself played a bard/sorcerer a few times. It is in no way game breaking. If anything the spontaneous caster's difficulty with metamagic makes it a good bit less powerful than the prepared/spontaneous combo.

Fluffwise quicky: The Warmage Institute recognizes REAL talent and power for magic in some students and encourages them to take a elite path. Likewise students with real musical talents are often encouraged to take dual path studies.

[Seward]

Edit: Never mind if you read the original post, didn't read the early posts correctly.

I think another approach might be to make a divine version of this. Maybe using druid as a base, since clerics have the whole divine metamagic thing "able to prepare and cast 2nd level divine spells and trackless step" similar to arcane hierophant but requiring a spont casting divine class as the second leg that explicitly excludes cleric spont casting "1st level divine casting that can only cast spells spontanteously" or something similar. Favored Soul is the obvious pairing, but there might be some other partial casting variants out there that use spells known instead of prep casting.

Or if it allows clerical casting requires empty spell slots to fuel the metamagic....so you have the choice of prepping spells and spont casting them normally or not prepping spells and having the slots available to fuel druid metamagic. Or something.

A backward arcane hierophant might work too, using wizard+favored soul as the engine.

[StSword]

I'm not really seeing much that needs adapting- The only issue I see is the Expanded Knowledge.

Since warmages know all their spells if memory serves the UM equivalent for a warmage/sorcerer isn't anywhere as useful.

Maybe let Armored Mage apply to sorcerer spells instead? That'd be useful.

And works for Bard and Dread Necromancer alternative UMs too.

[RSGA]

It's useful for Sorc/Warmage because it lets you put a Sorcerer non-Evocation spell on the Warmage list (and thus get those extra uses) at level instead of raised as by Advanced Learning. So probably a buff or defense spell. You can also do the opposite and put a Warmage blast spell on the Sorc list to get more uses without taking up a choice.

[Analytica]

If the prepared class can convert spells (like cures for clerics) I would perhaps allow conversion into known spells for the spontaneous side as a feature?

[RandomPeasant]

It's useful for Sorc/Warmage because it lets you put a Sorcerer non-Evocation spell on the Warmage list (and thus get those extra uses) at level instead of raised as by Advanced Learning. So probably a buff or defense spell. You can also do the opposite and put a Warmage blast spell on the Sorc list to get more uses without taking up a choice.

That's a pretty marginal use though. The benefit of the transfer for the base Ultimate Magus is that it lets you have a given spell as an always-on option instead of having to prepare it, not just cast a spell you already had more often. I would just make it "you can learn a spell from the other class, or the other class's Advanced Learning", which is closer in power to what you get normally. Spontaneous casters already take it in the ear, no reason to make them suffer here too.

[redking]

I would just make it "you can learn a spell from the other class, or the other class's Advanced Learning", which is closer in power to what you get normally. Spontaneous casters already take it in the ear, no reason to make them suffer here too.

Sounds alright. Would you just put the advanced learning class feature in the prestige class abilities?

[StSword]

Sounds alright. Would you just put the advanced learning class feature in the prestige class abilities?

Why? It's nowhere near as good.

For a normal Ultimate Magus, it allows one to add learned prepared spells to the spontaneous spells known list, which gives the benefit of allowing one to cast chosen spells basically all they want, which further means that they don't have to prepare those spells so they can prepare different spells, allowing for more "prepared for anything" spells in their pocket.

That's a great benefit that makes them more versatile casters twice over.

For a character that only has spontaneous casting and hence can already cast every spell they know basically all they want....So what?

If I saw that in an official book I'd be pointing that out as further proof that WotC acts like spontaneous casters stole their lunch money and ran over their dog.