Any official example of rapid progression PrC being advanced by dual progression PrC?

[redking]

Are there any examples in any official products, including Dragon and Dungeon magazines, of Ur-Priests, Sublime Chords, Nar Demonbinders, or other rapid progression PrCs being advanced by dual progression PrCs or even any other PrCs that advance spellcasting?

Any examples at all except Legacy Champion.

[RandomPeasant]

What argument do you think the presence or absence of such examples would support?

[redking]

What argument do you think the presence or absence of such examples would support?

I want to get a feel for whether this kind of build was taboo at WotC, even at Dragon Magazine.

[RandomPeasant]

I want to get a feel for whether this kind of build was taboo at WotC, even at Dragon Magazine.

That would be a highly suspect inference to draw from the absence of this type of build. Consider the types of published NPCs that exist.

Probably the most common is "example character with a PrC", and those almost always have one PrC. That's not because it was "taboo" to build a character with multiple PrCs, it's because if you want to show how your Rage Mage PrC is cool, presenting a character who is also a Ghost Faced Killer is at best giving yourself more work and at worst undermines the "Rage Mages are cool" message.

The other contender is "example villain", often in the context of a published adventure path. And while it's not directly contradictory to have a character like that combine fast-progression and dual-progression PrCs, there are a pretty limited set of fast-progression PrCs, most of which have very specific themes. Being an Ur-Priest is a pretty specific thematic element ("steals power from the gods"). Only a limited number of villains are going to have that as a component of their character, and for only a limited number of those will a secondary shtick even be appropriate. And for some of those, the PrC that theurges their secondary shtick with Ur-Priest may be incompatible for flavor reasons. If there is, for instance, a published Crusader/Ur-Priest, they aren't necessarily not taking the dual-progression maneuvers + divine casting PrC because it was "taboo" to combine that with Ur-Priest, but because that PrC (Ruby Knight Vindicator) has flavor requirements that directly contradict those of Ur-Priest before mechanical questions even come up.

[redking]

Still, I am not looking for specific builds, but rather any build of this type in existence from an official source. Sometimes what is left unsaid speaks the loudest.

[RandomPeasant]

Still, I am not looking for specific builds, but rather any build of this type in existence from an official source. Sometimes what is left unsaid speaks the loudest.

The overwhelming majority of builds are "left unsaid". In Core (ignoring alignment or progression requirements for mathematical simplicity), there are more possible builds than there are people in the world by 10th level. By 11th level that number rises past the number of people that have ever lived. Are we to take the absence of a Barbarian 4/Wizard 3/Rogue 1/Druid 1/Fighter 2 in published sources as powerful evidence of an unspoken taboo against that sort of character?

If you want, as I suspect, to argue that these sorts of builds are overpowered or abusive, argue that. I, at least, would have far more respect for that sort of argument than an attempt to draw an implication from an unspoken absence and empower that implication with any kind of persuasive weight.

[pabelfly]

Are we to take the absence of a Barbarian 4/Wizard 3/Rogue 1/Druid 1/Fighter 2 in published sources as powerful evidence of an unspoken taboo against that sort of character?

Yes, this is too OP. Please nerf.

[Rleonardh]

It is nerfed already
Sorcerer4 paladin2 fighter2 rogue3 cleric 3 is where the power is 🤣

Honestly I think duel casters casters scared wotc.
A full divine and arcane character with all that possiblity...

Druid wizard with arcane Hierophant and mystic theurge is closest it gets without debatable ways
It's a 17/17 caster, 13 druid companion and wild shape abilities.

Cleric wizard at best can be 17/13 or 15/15 with only mystic theurge

Prc that does duel caster fast like ur priest and co would be to much.

However you can always make one yourself and house rule it.

[redking]

Are we to take the absence of a Barbarian 4/Wizard 3/Rogue 1/Druid 1/Fighter 2 in published sources as powerful evidence of an unspoken taboo against that sort of character?


No, because we can use commonsense to determine why these kinds of builds are uncommon (although Elminster was a bit like that).

[EndlessKng]

To my knowledge, there never was such a build officially in a book. This doesn't speak to it necessarily being taboo, of course, but rather to the fact that almost none of those cases intersected in the same book.

WotC generally tried to avoid crossing streams whenever possible in 3.5, and still does in 5e (consider how long AL went with a "core+1" rule for books), which is to say they try not to assume that you'll have another specific book when doing up the rules for a given book. Obviously there's some of that still - the second generation of Completes (Mage, Champion, Scoundrel) made references back to the first generation in feats and spelllists, but even then they usually explained any core rules or character-specific mechanics for NPCs that needed to be explained. You very rarely saw them port a whole prestige class over. And, to my knowledge, none of the "rapid progression" classes shared a book with a Theurge-esque option.

The one potential exception is that Mystic Theurge, as a core book PrC, COULD be assumed in all cases. However, them not using it doesn't mean it was a "taboo," but just them not wanting to highlight that for a given example. And that makes sense because Rapid Progs have other features as well, and MT wouldn't get those. It would just be about boosting the spellcasting at that point, which arguably isn't the goal of the sample characters - they existed to show off one particular prestige class each.



Prc that does duel caster fast like ur priest and co would be to much.

However you can always make one yourself and house rule it.

In regards to using an MT to accelerate one of those classes? Probably less a problem than you'd think.

Let's consider the list of alt progs (that go beyond fifth level spells). I could be missing some, but the ones I know about are:

Ur-Priest
Apostle of Peace
Nar Demonbinder
Divine Crusader
Sublime Chord
Beholder Mage


Already, some of those are suboptimal or incompatible; I mostly included Beholder Mage just for completeness, but it would be hardpressed to take ANYTHING else. DivCru doesn't work with Ur-priest or Apostle of Peace (in theory it COULD, but the flavors get in each other's way in a few ways), and Ur-priest similarly won't work with AoP. Sublime Chord requires third level arcane spells AND tenth level skills; it's workable with some of these with feats but rather annoying to do that way, plus one level of something that gives Bardic Music already. Nar Demonbinder is one of the easier ones to get into, but suffers from capping at 8th-level spells after seven levels of PrC.

Barring early access via faking skill ranks somehow (you'd need two rank 8's, so Primary Contact wouldn't work), Ur-priest is accessible by a fifth level character going up to level 6 with the right skills and saves, the ABSOLUTE earliest of the bunch. Four levels after that (so minimum 9), you have fourth level spells and probably the skills to take Nar Demonbinder at level 10. Using some shenanigans (or earlier casting ability) to meet the 2nd level arcane casting requirement if the DM requires it (since Nar can technically not cast 2nd level spells, just 4th+, and Mystic requires 2nd, though I'd personally handwave it), you could potentially take Mystic theurge at level 10 for six more levels (total 16), getting all levels of remaining casting for both PrCs. That's pretty impressive... but only marginally more so than a straight ur-priest, since Nar Demonbinder has a very limited spells known list and doesn't get 9th level arcane spells.

Even a regular caster and rapid prog combo wouldn't be any worse than the Druid/Wizard combo mentioned. Wiz 9/Brd 1/Sublime 1/Ultimate Magus 9 would only hit Wiz 15. I suppose you could go Wizard 9/Ur-Priest 2/MT 8 and get 9th level in both pools, but that's just doubling the spell pool size without doing anything about the action economy - a weird pseudo-gestalt in most ways.

[RandomPeasant]

No, because we can use commonsense to determine why these kinds of builds are uncommon (although Elminster was a bit like that).

And why does the commonsense argument not apply to an absence of Bard/Warblade/Sublime Chord/Jade Phoenix Mages? Surely if the designers would refuse to combine five classes for benign reasons, it is entirely plausible that their refusal to combine four classes is equally benign. Tell you what: how many NPCs (other than the sample ones for each fast-progression PrC) use fast-progression PrCs at all? How do we know that wasn't the taboo?

[AsuraKyoko]

And why does the commonsense argument not apply to an absence of Bard/Warblade/Sublime Chord/Jade Phoenix Mages? Surely if the designers would refuse to combine five classes for benign reasons, it is entirely plausible that their refusal to combine four classes is equally benign. Tell you what: how many NPCs (other than the sample ones for each fast-progression PrC) use fast-progression PrCs at all? How do we know that wasn't the taboo?

There's an NPC in Elder Evils that's a Bard 5/Rogue 5/Ur-Priest 10

[Dimers]

Let's consider the list of alt progs (that go beyond fifth level spells). I could be missing some, but the ones I know about are:

Ur-Priest
Apostle of Peace
Nar Demonbinder
Divine Crusader
Sublime Chord
Beholder Mage


Knight of the Weave (Champions of Valor) gets 6ths, starting at level eight of its ten levels. Must be non-evil (so no Ur-Priest) but pretty easy to qualify -- the only meaningful requirement can be met with either BAB 5 or 3rd-level arcane spells.

@OP: I've never seen an official example, no.