How to make an metamagic focused epic caster interesting?

[Jay R]

There are some basic rules for casters:

Don't take a race with a positive level adjustment -- certainly not one as high as +4.
Don't use any theurge build.
If you must have a theurge build, only use one that always advances your primary caster's spellcasting level.

All of these are based on the fact that if you don't have as high a spellcasting level as possible, you have fewer spells, and don't have the highest spells you can have.

But that is only true through level 20. Levels after that don't give you more spells per level, or higher levels.

And suddenly, the pixie Ultimate Magus becomes viable.

Yes, you lose a few spellcaster levels, but your CL is higher than it would have been. And the metamagic advantages are incredible.

A pixie has +6 INT and +6 CHA, and those do give you more spells per level, at 6 or 7 levels.

We extended the Ultimate Magus class according to the rules in the Epic Level Handbook.

I started one at the equivalent of 26th level(325,000 XPs). Buying off the Level Allowance costs 72,000 XPs total, and is complete at level 21. From then on, you're 72,000 XPs behind.

So he could have been a straight Wizard 26 with CL 26.

But instead, he could be a Sorcerer 1/ Wizard 5/ Incantator 4 / Ultimate Magus 13 -- with Practiced Spellcaster (Sorcerer)
So he could cast as a Wizard 20 with CL 25, and as a Sorcerer 13 with CL 23.

He had +6 INT and +6 CHA, but he also could use a sixth level slot in each class to cast chasing perfection as a Persistent Spell for an additional +4 to INT and CHA. So that gives him at least one additional spell at each level for each class.

[I had a couple more shenanigans, so this isn't exactly what I did, but it's one way to make it work.]

This is a wizard with benefits -- most particularly, the ability to use the sorcerer slots to pay for metamagic.

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Depending on how your DM feels about experience point penalties for multi-classing, you might be able to go Beguiler / Wizard instead of Sorcerer /Wizard, so both classes use INT. My DM enforces the penalty, so I used Sorcerer, which is the pixie's favored class.