Ultimate Magus

[Darth Stabber]

So I heard about the Ultimate Magus from a friend of mine, I'm not sure exactly what the class gives you other than gishing together Sorc and Wizard. What is this class, how do I use it, and is it even worth using. What I'm seeing is a way to get some batman and some blaster.

[Tempest Fennac]

Your best bet is to take Beguiller levels instead of Sorcerer levels while barring Illusion and Enchantment on the Wizard side. This means you don't need Cha, and you'd get more skill points if you took the Beguiller level first. I can't remember what the PrC does apart from give you a ton of spells, but I think it has other effects as well.

[Keld Denar]

Like most other combo caster classes, in general, its really bad when used as it was intended. However, unlike weaker classes like the Mystic Theurge, UM has a loophole that is exploitable to make it suck a lot less.

Its intended to boost both your prepared and spontaneous caster levels together, with emphasis on the weaker so that by the end, you are even leveled with both. This is bad, because then you are spell levels behind.

Because of the wording though, the fact that its based on Caster Level, and not Spellcaster Level, you can use Practiced Spellcaster to shananananananananananaginize it. A build would look like this:

Wizard1
Sorc1
Wizard2 Practiced Spellcaster (Sorc)
Wizard3
Wizard4
UM1
UM2
UM3

Etc. Since when you take your first level of UM, your Wiz CL is 3, and your Sorc CL is 4, Wizard is your lower CL of the 2, so on the levels where you would normally add sorc to bring it up in power, you actually bring up wizard. End result is that you get 19/20 Spellcaster Levels of Wizard, and for the price of that one level, you get 7 Spellcaster Levels of Sorcerer. That gives you quite a few 1-3 level spells in addition to all of your wizarding. You can use them to fuel the UM's Metamagic feature to apply MM to your wizard spells for free, which is great.

Also note that you don't need to use Sorc. Beguiler and Warmage are also viable options.

Fax and I also did some playing around with UM and the Master Spellthief feat a while back, which does something similar to Practiced Spellcaster and allows you to get 9th level wizard spells and like, 3 level spellthief spells as well. Was pretty interesting, I'd have to do quite a bit of digging to find the thread though, unless Fax remembers it and can find it before me.

[nightwyrm]

It lets you sack a spell from one class to fuel metamagic for a spell from the other class. That's basically the best thing about it.

Make sure you use the practiced spellcaster "trick" that lets you get more advancement in the wizard spell casting rather than spreading the advancement evenly between the spontaneous and prepare class.

Ninja'ed, but btw, you can't get into UM till lv 6 coz of skill prereqs, so the basic entry is sorc1/wiz4 (or whatever spontaneous class you choose, just remember to take practiced spellcaster and apply it to that class).

Have fun. It's a pretty cool class that doesn't kill your casting too much.

[UserClone]

You can also cheese it up with an Illumian and Improved Sigil- Krau, and it works better than does Practiced Spellcaster.

Hm...let's see...

Illumian (NaenKrau)

enhanced Power Sigils feat

effectively has Practiced Spellcaster (except only three caster levels instead of four) in every spellcasting class he posesses. Woot!

So a Wiz3/Sor2 has a CL of Wiz5/Sor5.

Then he takes Ultimate Magus.

(Ok, so increasing your Wizard Casting here is cheesy, because the class ability is poorly worded to say Caster Level instead of Class Level, we all know they meant "effective level of spellcasting", so good luck getting that by your DM, I know it wouldn't fly in any game I'd played in)

Your Sor3/Wiz3 now has the spell slots of a Wiz3/Sor3, but a caster level of 6 for both. Pretty neat.

The next level bumps him up to Wiz4/Sor4, with a CL of 8 for both. Pretty cool for a level 7 character. Granted, not the most powerful (and therefore not the most optimized), but still an interesting quirk.

[Paul H]

Hi

UM allows you to use spell slots to use metamagic feats to power spells from the other class at no cost. It also allows you to add spells from your spell book to your spont class spell list. Your effective CL in both classes also increases. Oh, and you gain two free metamagic feats.

Downside is you lose 2 actual caster levels (spells/day, known etc) from your highest level class.

Here's my 14th lvl character for Living Planar campaign;

Grey Elf Beguiler 2/Wizard 3/UM 9

St 10 De 18 Co 10 In 21 Wi 10 Ch 10 (32 pt buy)

Actual spell levels;
Beguiler 10 (Effective 13)
Wizard 11 (Effective 14)

Feats: Sudden Extend, Imp Toughness, SF Enchant, Unsettling Enchant.
Bonus UM Feats: Sudden Empower, Chain Spell

Spells added to Beguiler list:
1) Lssr Acid Orb
2) Scorching Ray
3) Fireball
4) Heart of Earth
(Note: in LP campaign enhancement bonuses are nerfed without special documentation. Spell choices may change).

Can use Class Ability to use metamaigic feat to power spell by burning spell slot of at least 'spell level add', (Empower is 2nd lvl slot or higher) from other class. This case since 'Sudden' feats don't increase spell level, they only require spell slot of '0' or higher!

Wizard spells known:

1) Magic Missile, Tensers Disk, Lssr Acid Orb, Hail of Stone, Bklades of Fire, Shocking Grasp, Endure Elements, Fthr Fall
2) Scorching Ray, Quick Potion, Shadow Spray, Whirling Blade
3) Fireball, Fly, Leomunds Hut, Circle vs Evil
4) Heart of Earth, Evards Tentacles, Phantasm Killer, Orb of Force
5) Mass Fly, Wall of Force, Cloudkill, Break Enchant
6) Disintegrate, Gtr Dispel Magic

Try chaining a Disintegrate to 14 secondary targets by burning a 3rd lvl Beguiler slot! (And the Disintegrate iteslf).

This is a work in progress, but I hope it helped.
Cheers
Paul H

[Fax Celestis]

Fax and I also did some playing around with UM and the Master Spellthief feat a while back, which does something similar to Practiced Spellcaster and allows you to get 9th level wizard spells and like, 3 level spellthief spells as well. Was pretty interesting, I'd have to do quite a bit of digging to find the thread though, unless Fax remembers it and can find it before me.

I have no idea where that is anymore, but yeah, that build was hilarious.

[Eldariel]

I personally love Wizard 6/Ultimate Magus 1/Nar Demonbinder 1/Ultimate Magus +9/Generic Wizard PrC 3. How to make it work? Spontaneous Divination: That gives you access to qualify for Ultimate Magus on level 6 without the Nar Demonbinder level (and the lone level that advances your casting will be applied to Wizard). Then enter Demonbinder [Unapproachable East].

At this point, you have Demonbinder which has CL=Wizard+Demonbinder so it's always 1 higher than Wizard (this is the conservative reading, but also the more rational one). That means that all the "half"-levels will be applied to Wizard. Therefore, you end up with level 19 Wizard casting and level 7 (the length of the class) Demonbinder casting. The only drawback is that Demonbinder is Cha-based while Wizard is Int-based, but that's easily fixed by focusing Demonbinder on providing you with metamagic fuel and no-save spells (you get Blasphemy-line for your überhigh CL, btw). You also get an improved familiar as a bonus.

So given sufficiently high stats to have 18 Int and 16 Cha (with decent Con), this is a great way to go about it. You'll end up with 26 Cha (just enough for a bonus 8th level slot) and 34 Int.

[Project_Mayhem]

Because of the wording though, the fact that its based on Caster Level, and not Spellcaster Level, you can use Practiced Spellcaster to shananananananananananaginize it. A build would look like this:

would any dm ever allow that? really?

[Eldariel]

would any dm ever allow that? really?

Why not? You're still many levels behind on both sides, in exchance for the ultimate magus shenanigans. Seems like a fair trade to me.

[monty]

I personally love Wizard 6/Ultimate Magus 1/Nar Demonbinder 1/Ultimate Magus +9/Generic Wizard PrC 3. How to make it work? Spontaneous Divination: That gives you access to qualify for Ultimate Magus on level 6 without the Nar Demonbinder level (and the lone level that advances your casting will be applied to Wizard). Then enter Demonbinder [Unapproachable East].

Does that really work? Maybe it's just me, but that seems far cheesier than the Practiced Spellcaster trick.

[Inyssius Tor]

Does that really work? Maybe it's just me, but that seems far cheesier than the Practiced Spellcaster trick.

The Spontaneous Divination trick works just fine, but if you're going to abuse it to get into Ultimate Magus you could cut down on all those extra PrCs and go straight Magus all the way--gaining not just full caster progression, but half again caster progression. Every time it says "gain one level of existing prepared spellcasting class and one level of existing spontaneous spellcasting class", you get two levels of wizard.

[Eldariel]

Does that really work? Maybe it's just me, but that seems far cheesier than the Practiced Spellcaster trick.

Yea. Remember though that you only need Spontaneous Divination to qualify. You'll have actual spont. casting by the time you'll be taking those levels (the reason you need Spont. Div is because Nar doesn't get level 1 Spont-slots which is UM's prerequisite. Therefore you need 'em from another source).

So not abusing it for anything but to qualify with a class that qualifies in spirit, not letter. And to start one level early I guess.

[Kurald Galain]

Duskblade is also a possible option. Just, whatever you do, don't take sorcerer/wizard.

[Saph]

Does that really work? Maybe it's just me, but that seems far cheesier than the Practiced Spellcaster trick.

The Practiced Spellcaster/Ultimate Magus routine isn't actually all that unbalanced. Remember that by shunting all your lost caster levels onto your lower caster class, you end up with a terrible spell progression for your secondary class.

So a Beguiler 1/Wiz 4/Ultimate Magus 4 using the Practiced Spellcaster trick casts as an 8th-level wizard, but only casts as a 3rd-level beguiler. On your beguiler side, you haven't even got second-level spells! Admittedly your caster level is excellent and you get various cool side benefits, but you're still giving up a lot. (And you're going to lose another wizard level later on.)

Spontaneous Divination, on the other hand, is ridiculously cheesy and broken and one of the reasons that Complete Champion is generally considered the worst of the Completes. I have no idea why Eldariel keeps bringing it up as an option. :P

- Saph

[RagnaroksChosen]

You can also cheese it up with an Illumian and Improved Sigil- Krau, and it works better than does Practiced Spellcaster.

Hm...let's see...

Illumian (NaenKrau)

enhanced Power Sigils feat

effectively has Practiced Spellcaster (except only three caster levels instead of four) in every spellcasting class he posesses. Woot!

So a Wiz3/Sor2 has a CL of Wiz5/Sor5.

Then he takes Ultimate Magus.

(Ok, so increasing your Wizard Casting here is cheesy, because the class ability is poorly worded to say Caster Level instead of Class Level, we all know they meant "effective level of spellcasting", so good luck getting that by your DM, I know it wouldn't fly in any game I'd played in)

Your Sor3/Wiz3 now has the spell slots of a Wiz3/Sor3, but a caster level of 6 for both. Pretty neat.

The next level bumps him up to Wiz4/Sor4, with a CL of 8 for both. Pretty cool for a level 7 character. Granted, not the most powerful (and therefore not the most optimized), but still an interesting quirk.

I agree you can add to that shananagins buy taking a single level of spellthief and then taking master spell thief to make each of them

Illumian and Improved Sigil- Krau Wiz4/sor4/spellthief with practiced spellcaster and master spell theif making caster elvel for both 17CL... woot...
at level 9.

[Eldariel]

Spontaneous Divination, on the other hand, is ridiculously cheesy and broken and one of the reasons that Complete Champion is generally considered the worst of the Completes. I have no idea why Eldariel keeps bringing it up as an option. :P

- Saph

Well, in my experience it's useful, yes, but doesn't really break games. More so though, the reason I bring it up in this particular build is the fact that the build I suggested should work; you have a fast progression side and a prepared casting side. To make it work by the rules though (I've heard of many DMs that are rather rigid about the letter of the rules rather than the intent), you need something that gives you spontaneous level 1 slots, and really, Spontaneous Divination is pretty much the only way to do it without losing more levels.

Really, I think all the "Complete Champion is broken"-stuff is overblown. It's got poorly written stuff, yes, and some stuff that's busted, but it's got lots of very usable material (the PrCs; Fist of the Forests is the only one I'd be vary of, and even that only in combination with Wis to AC, Deepwarden or other sources to superstack stats - that or Polymorph of course; the Devotions - some of them might be a tad powerful, but they're interesting regardless, and a bunch of the feats are handy).

[Kurald Galain]

Really, I think all the "Complete Champion is broken"-stuff is overblown. It's got poorly written stuff,

While I'm sure there's some useful material in CC, spontaneous divination remains very cheesy. If it is allowed, it is so obviously the best option for every wizard that there's no reason not to take it - and if that doesn't spell "overpowered", I don't know what does.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

First and foremost, you never ever want to take more than one level of your spontaneous class for any reason at all. Starting out Spontaneous 2/ Wizard 3 is just a horrible choice when you could instead start out Spontaneous 1/ Wizard 4.

Second, there are a few ways to add 10/10 UM spellcasting to Wizard, even starting out Spontaneous 1/ Wizard 4. Practiced Spellcaster: Spontaneous Class is absolutely necessary to accomplish this, and alone this allows 9/10 UM to go to Wizard. You could make an Illumian with the Krau sigil to get that last point for 10/10 into Wizard, or you could make a Kobold and use Sorcerer with the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage. Either is a good choice because you only miss out on a single level of Wizard spellcasting throughout the entire build. Also remember that UM's Arcane Spell Power bonus can be added after your Krau and Practiced Spellcaster bonuses, as can other bonuses such as a Ring of Arcane Might (CA) and an Orange Prism Ioun Stone.

Another great trick is to go Beguiler 1/ Wizard 1/ Master Specialist 3/ UM 10. You could take Versatile Spellcaster (RotD) at level 1 to get 2nd level Beguiler spells, thus qualifying for the spellcasting prerequisite of Master Specialist, plus the feat allows early access to the next level of Beguiler spells throughout the character's career. I would definitely ban Enchantment, but keep Illusion and instead ban Evocation, since (Greater) Shadow Evocation can be used to duplicate the only useful Evocation spells anyway. It's also not a bad idea to go with the Focused Specialist variant (CM) and ban Necromancy, as long as you're focused on a versatile school such as Conjuration or Transmutation. If specializing in Conjuration, be sure to get the PH2 variant.

If you're going to use Illumian with Beguiler, be sure to take Able Learner. Illumians are Humanoid (Human), so they definitely qualify for it. It may take flaws to do it, but then you'd be able to double as the party trapfinder thanks to a high Int score.

[Toliudar]

Another great trick is to go Beguiler 1/ Wizard 1/ Master Specialist 3/ UM 10. You could take Versatile Spellcaster (RotD) at level 1 to get 2nd level Beguiler spells, thus qualifying for the spellcasting prerequisite of Master Specialist, plus the feat allows early access to the next level of Beguiler spells throughout the character's career. I would definitely ban Enchantment, but keep Illusion and instead ban Evocation, since (Greater) Shadow Evocation can be used to duplicate the only useful Evocation spells anyway. It's also not a bad idea to go with the Focused Specialist variant (CM) and ban Necromancy, as long as you're focused on a versatile school such as Conjuration or Transmutation. If specializing in Conjuration, be sure to get the PH2 variant.

There's no way I'd allow Versatile Spellcaster to be used to cast spells higher than a caster can normally use. I think it's a very weird twisting of the "known spell" language.

[Temp.]

First and foremost, you never ever want to take more than one level of your spontaneous class for any reason at all. Starting out Spontaneous 2/ Wizard 3 is just a horrible choice when you could instead start out Spontaneous 1/ Wizard 4.

A Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/Ultimate Magus 7 casts like a 10th level Wizard and a 6th level Beguiler.
A Beguiler 2/Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 7 casts like a 10th level Wizard and a 6th level Beguiler and gets some extra low-level skill points to boot.

[Eldariel]

A Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/Ultimate Magus 7 casts like a 10th level Wizard and a 6th level Beguiler.
A Beguiler 2/Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 7 casts like a 10th level Wizard and a 6th level Beguiler and gets some extra low-level skill points to boot.

Except if you work the CL. When Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/UM 7 casts as a level 11 Wizard and a level 5 Beguiler.

[Temp.]

You lose a Wizard caster level at UM 7 unless there's a trick here beyond the standard Practiced Spellcaster:

Level 1 UM loses a Beguiler level
Level 4 pushes Wizard ahead
Level 7 loses a Wizard a level


What am I missing?

[Paul H]

Except if you work the CL. When Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/UM 7 casts as a level 11 Wizard and a level 5 Beguiler.

Hi

Just how exactly?

CM Pg 78, Table 3-9 states that:
Level 1 "+1 level of lower-level existing arcane casting class"
Same goes for levels 4 & 7.

Therefore in case quoted the Beguiler gains Seven full levels, whilst the Wizard only gains Four spellcasting levels. Spells of a Beguiler 8/Wizard 8. Both have effective CL 11.


Cheers
Paul H

[Eldariel]

Hi

Just how exactly?

CM Pg 78, Table 3-9 states that:
Level 1 "+1 level of lower-level existing arcane casting class"
Same goes for levels 4 & 7.

Therefore in case quoted the Beguiler gains Seven full levels, whilst the Wizard only gains Four spellcasting levels. Spells of a Beguiler 8/Wizard 8. Both have effective CL 11.


Cheers
Paul H

See Biffoniacus_Furiou's post. Basically, the spellcasting on those levels is assigned based on caster level so buff your caster level with Practiced Spellcaster, Illumian Krau Sigil or Greater Draconic Rite of Passage; this puts your spontaneous side higher and thus those levels are applied to your preparing side instead.

Alternatively, enter a spontaneous PrC that has CL = entry class + PrC levels. That puts you always ahead of the entry class, or in this case Wizard, and thus the lower-level boosts are applied to Wizard. The two easiest options for that are Nar Demonbinder and Sublime Chord (although Chord requires that Bard-level, which messes things up).


Temp: The additional use of the Sigil. Of course, that's limited to Illumians, but they're a fine race either way.

[Temp.]

Temp: The additional use of the Sigil. Of course, that's limited to Illumians, but they're a fine race either way.

Got it. I was under the impression Improved Sigil buffed all caster levels.

[sonofzeal]

Really, I think all the "Complete Champion is broken"-stuff is overblown. It's got poorly written stuff, yes, and some stuff that's busted, but it's got lots of very usable material (the PrCs; Fist of the Forests is the only one I'd be vary of, and even that only in combination with Wis to AC, Deepwarden or other sources to superstack stats - that or Polymorph of course; the Devotions - some of them might be a tad powerful, but they're interesting regardless, and a bunch of the feats are handy).

Every single time I open that book, I find something new that offends my sensibilities. "Spontanious Divination", "Travel Devotion", and "Fist of the Forests" are merely the ones that come up the most; how about "Animal Devotion" for a +8 sacred bonus to strength? Does that sound like something that makes sense for a feat?

Or, as totally random example, take the Shadowspy PrC - not that it's broken, just that it's horribly ambiguous. Is the "divine bonus" of Aura of Anonymity the same as a "sacred bonus" or not; would it stack with other sacred bonuses or is it something else entirely that I've never seen used for anything else? Radiance of Pelor creates lights "that shine as brightly as the sun"; do they dust vampires then? Does Personal Eclipse mean you can actually hide better in light than in darkness, and is it a swift or free action? Why is Veil of Pelor and Truth of the Light (Sp), and Sun's Revelation and Vision of Pelor (Su)?



Anyway. I think Ultimate Magus is substantially better-designed than Mystic Theurge, seeing as how it actually has class features. As much as high-level spells are king, I think the flexibility it offers is worthwhile for most characters in actual games. It's not stupidly powerful without cheese, but it's far from useless at any level. The effective tiered penalty (Wizard CL is only lost gradually, not a lump sum at the beginning like MT) is a definite plus, and IMO makes this PrC entirely playable.

[Eldariel]

Every single time I open that book, I find something new that offends my sensibilities. "Spontanious Divination", "Travel Devotion", and "Fist of the Forests" are merely the ones that come up the most; how about "Animal Devotion" for a +8 sacred bonus to strength? Does that sound like something that makes sense for a feat?

Animal Devotion can only be used for 1 minute per day though, and it's a bonus applicable through other means; sounds like a limited Rage to me. Travel Devotion is pretty awesome, and I agree that it could've used better writing, but as it stands it's a welcome addition to Swift Hunters. Really, the Devotions are pretty powerful because they're so limited; one use per certain amount of turning attempts and each lasts 1 minute and is supernatural. And Fist of the Forests is perfectly fair if you remove Polymorph (really, something being broken with Polymorph says nothing 'cause Polymorph is broken in and of itself) and state that the Con-bonus is similar to Monk's/Swordsage's Wisdom bonus and doesn't stack with those. The Deepwarden-thing is pretty annoying (as it's specifically written so that it would work), but simply stating that you can't have one stat to anything twice pretty much deals with that.

But yea, it has a lot of poorly written parts, but also a lot of very usable ones. Should've spent few more weeks editing it, and it would've been a great supplement; as it stands, it's great for those willing to put the effort to read stupidity out of it.

[UserClone]

I have to object to the Animal Devotion hate. First of all, you can't get +8 until 18th level. Second of all, it only lasts 1 minute, once per day, unless you can turn undead. In which case you can do it again, at a cost of three TU uses per Animal Devotion use. Not overpowered by any stretch of the imagination, dude.

EDIT: Ninja'd!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

There's no way I'd allow Versatile Spellcaster to be used to cast spells higher than a caster can normally use. I think it's a very weird twisting of the "known spell" language.

WotC has officially said that this is exactly how they intended the feat to be used:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ask/20080603a
Since a Beguiler automatically knows all the spells on his class list of every spell level he has access to, and since Versatile Spellcaster gives him access to the next level of spells, he can spend two of his highest-level spell slots to cast any spell on his class list of one level higher than what he'd normally be able to cast.