Building an Epic Mystic Theurge

[Babale]

OK, so I'm gonna play a Mystic Theurge at level 27. 3 wizard, 3 cleric. 21 in Mystic Theurge.

Simple up to here, right? Well, the character concept is a Necromancer. And as an added bonus, I can sacrifice any spell slot in order to control undead HD equal to twice the caster level.

So, I'll be picking my own spells and such, but what recommendations do you guys have? For feats? Any non-core spells? Cleric domains? Familiars?

And which spell slots do I give up?

My goal is to have as many undead as I can in order to guard my fort, which I will be designing. There will be uncontrolled undead in there, but as an army, I need to control them all... Or have lackeys.

[SilverClawShift]

Technically you can't do that.

You're not allowed to take more than the listed amount of levels in a prestige class pre-epic.

Meaning you can't be a wiz3/cler3/MS14. You need to find another theurge class, or take more in your base classes to round that out. Of course, it's not an unreasonable houserule for a DM to let you take a prestige class for your entire career.

[Babale]

For now, pretend I can do that. I'll find out for sure in a minute.

[Wings of Peace]

How about True Necromancer from Libris Mortis? It's an Arcane/Divine Theurge class too and coincidentally seems to fit well here.

[Babale]

Sounds good... tell me more.

[JoshuaZ]

How about True Necromancer from Libris Mortis? It's an Arcane/Divine Theurge class too and coincidentally seems to fit well here.

Yes. In fact just after taking the levels in mystic theurge just continue with True Necromancer all the way. The epic version of theurge http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/prest...cMysticTheurge is even more miserable than the normal theurge. But if you take levels in True Necromancer then after you've burnt the two unfortunate early levels (where you get only +1 to spellcasting in a single class) you will be happy.

[ZeroNumerous]

Dread Necromancer 8/Whatever else you want. There, that's as many undead as you can possibly get under your control. Dread Necromancer 8 increases your undead HD cap to 4+CHA*Level and by proxy utterly blows away every other undead-focused class out there. At ECL 27 you could go Dread Necromancer 4/Wizard 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Dread Necromancer +4/Full Casting PrC(Wizard) 8. Focus on INT/CHA and be an overall wizardy-type while having stupid amounts of Undead under your control.

[Wings of Peace]

Sounds good... tell me more.

It's exactly what it sounds like. It's from the book Libris Mortis and is basically Mystic Theurge with a different theme. I think it has some feat and spells known pre-reqs but nothing horrendously out of the way. I'm away from book so I can't look up if it gives you any special abilities (I think it gives some just can't remember what) but if your dm doesnt let you do 14 Mystic Theurge then see if you can pick up the book or a pdf of it and convince him to let you take levels of True Necromancer to make up for it.

[Wings of Peace]

Dread Necromancer 8/Whatever else you want. There, that's as many undead as you can possibly get under your control. Dread Necromancer 8 increases your undead HD cap to 4+CHA*Level and by proxy utterly blows away every other undead-focused class out there. At ECL 27 you could go Dread Necromancer 4/Wizard 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Dread Necromancer +4/Full Casting PrC(Wizard) 8. Focus on INT/CHA and be an overall wizardy-type while having stupid amounts of Undead under your control.

Is Dread Necromancer the one that has the aoe harm spell? Because you're right that would be the perfect arcane class thematically for what it sounds like Babale is trying to do.

[ZeroNumerous]

Is Dread Necromancer the one that has the aoe harm spell? Because you're right that would be the perfect arcane class thematically for what it sounds like Babale is trying to do.

It doesn't really matter? All he wants from Dread Necromancer is the Undead Mastery class feature at level 8. Anything else he needs/wants is provided by his 18 spell levels of Wizard.

[Eldariel]

I'll help you with feats:
Pick Epic Spellcasting - rest doesn't really matter. At level 27, you can have all 3 prerequisites met and Knowledges in 30, which means you get a total of 9 epic spells per day.

Of course, if you wanna be slightly more fair, the obvious feats you shouldn't be without:
Quicken Spell
Extend Spell
Practiced Spellcaster: Both (you really want that caster level on Epic)

Those three-four are the only real "musts", and even Extend Spell is only so important on these levels. You have three-four epic feats (depending on what exact class you take on Epic) outside Epic Spellcasting, which you could spend on:
Improved Spell Capacity (for metamagicking higher level spells)
Multispell (to be more efficient in combat; probably the single most important feat here if he's to face a party)
Spell Stowaway: Time Stop (if you don't want to die to some Time Stop-manufactured death trap of doom, although being immune to said death trap, or countering the Time Stop work too)
Undead Mastery (more Undead is always handy if you plan on being a Necromancer)
Improved Metamagic (an alternative approach to metamagicking higher level spells; you can only take this on your 27th level, mind)

[Babale]

About Mystic Theruege vs. Dread Necromancer:

Because I can sacrifice spell slots to control undead, having a ton of spells is a good idea. And I don't want to be JUST an undead-controller; blasting is fun, too.

[Wings of Peace]

Depending on how much your dm makes you play out the flavor of prcs you might also consider the Rainbow Servant prc. It lets you learn divine spells as an arcane caster.

[Babale]

OK, DM says no epic levels in anything until level 20.

So, pure wizard/sorcerer? Epic spells will probably allow me to do what I want anyways, and I'll have higher level spell slots (multiple 10th level) if of a lesser quantity...

Tips on sorc vs wizard?

[Wings of Peace]

OK, DM says no epic levels in anything until level 20.

So, pure wizard/sorcerer? Epic spells will probably allow me to do what I want anyways, and I'll have higher level spell slots (multiple 10th level) if of a lesser quantity...

Tips on sorc vs wizard?

Does that mean he said no-go to the True Necromancer prc? Cause that's not taking anything to epic before lvl 20 it's just adding another prc.

[Babale]

Wait... so 3 wizard/3cleric/10 MT/11 TN?

[Oblivious]

If you take six levels of TN, you've lost all the caster levels you're going to lose so it might as well be TN 14.

[Eldariel]

If you take six levels of TN, you've lost all the caster levels you're going to lose so it might as well be TN 14.

Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 4/True Necromancer 17 seems optimal here, if that's what you want. I'm not a fan of True Necro myself, but meh, I'm not a fan of Mystic Theurge either.

[ZeroNumerous]

Because I can sacrifice spell slots to control undead, having a ton of spells is a good idea. And I don't want to be JUST an undead-controller; blasting is fun, too.

Thats why I suggested DN 4/Wizard 1/UM 10/DN +4/Full Casting PRC 8. DN by itself is just Necromancy spells and undead controlling, but with casting as a Wizard 18 it becomes more viable. Either way it's certainly a better option than bothering with Mystic Theurge if you want undead and blasting.

Further, even burning spell slots does nothing to stop the hardcap of HD=CL*2.

[Babale]

OK, I have a new idea. I'm gonna go pure Sorcerer to level 19, then Dread Necromancer to level 8. Next time I level up, I'll go for 1 more Sorcerer level.

1) Their casting is based on charisma, too, so no need for 2 great stats.
2) They have more spells, and spontaneous casting.

Opinions?

[Zore]

Levels of sorcerer literally give you nothing, they have absolutely no class features at all. Get a PrC or just go full Dread Necro.

[quick_comment]

You could go Sorcerer(with arcane preparation)/Dread Necro/Ultimate Magus

[Wings of Peace]

If you're dm allows it and you're willing to give a little in terms of your spell list warmage with ten levels in the Rainbow Servant prc will give you the ability to spontaneously cast any spell off the cleric list in addition to their own list.(This is debated somewhat but personally I side with this reading of it.) The benefit here is everything is tied to one stat and one class so you're free to add more prc's as well. But this might be straying from being a necromancer a bit much I'm somewhat uncertain whether you just want to use lots of necromatic spells or if you want to focus on necromancy but still have variety.

[lsfreak]

If you do want sorcerer in there, at least prestige into something that's actually useful. No reason to ever take a sorcerer beyond level 5; to into IotSV, incantatrix (broken or non-broken version), something that gives you features rather than just spells.

Wizard3/Dread Necro8/Ultimate Magus10 seems good to me, but off the top of my head I don't think there's any other dual-progression classes at that point, so you'd have to homebrew up a continuation of Ultimate Magus or just progress one side at that point.

[BobVosh]

If you do want sorcerer in there, at least prestige into something that's actually useful. No reason to ever take a sorcerer beyond level 5; to into IotSV, incantatrix (broken or non-broken version), something that gives you features rather than just spells.

Wizard3/Dread Necro8/Ultimate Magus10 seems good to me, but off the top of my head I don't think there's any other dual-progression classes at that point, so you'd have to homebrew up a continuation of Ultimate Magus or just progress one side at that point.

It actually isn't homebrew. The Epic Level Handbook gives rules on extending prcs. It is fairly simple: any bonus you get based on numerical bonus (ie +1 CL every 3 levels, etc) you continue to gain at that rate.

Depending on your cheese love I would go argue with wizard 1/Dread Necro 8/Ult Mage 10/Archmage 1/Ult Mage 7
This requires the precocious apprentice feat. I would use archmage to get the AoE control power, whatever it is called. Your choice, you have 9th level spells at this point so you can sac a level 7 slot to get 9th level SLA.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Do not, under any circumstances, take TN. It is horrid. Take MT long before it(and MT is pretty bad).

About Mystic Theruege vs. Dread Necromancer:

Because I can sacrifice spell slots to control undead, having a ton of spells is a good idea. And I don't want to be JUST an undead-controller; blasting is fun, too.

You can blast as a DN(blasting is bad, but you can). Heck, you get an AoE Neg Energy class feature. And a Cha-focused caster with full rebuking is about the best method of controlling undead out there.

And which method are you using to burn slots to control undead?

[Babale]

First off, to clear up the whole HD spell slot thing:

As for undead, I'll let you use pure Arcane energy (as in using a spell slot that has no spells in it) to make an undead that has a HD of double the spell level slot used

I don't want too much cheese. This is because the character sheets are a pain to write.

Why are MTs so bad? A huge number of lower-end spells is pretty good, no?

What is the simplest build that will get me, in order of importance:

1) Lots of Undead Control
2) Lots of spells, especially to raise Undead Control
3) Enough decent blasting power to take out (or weaken enough for my minions to finish off) a semi-optimized level 20 party
4) Enough flexibility to outwit attackers

[quick_comment]

Why are MTs so bad? A huge number of lower-end spells is pretty good, no?

Not really. Spell power increases more than linearly. Two 4th level spells is nowhere near as powerful as a single 8th level spell. Three 3rds(say, 3 fireballs) is worse than a 9th (say, meteor swarm) by a good margin.

[Babale]

Oh.

And why is a full sorcerer useless? Don't I get a high number of spells, and if I take a feat that gives higher level slots (10, 11, etc.) a sorcerer would make the best use of them, no?

[Babale]

And how about Necromancer/Master Specialist/Archmage? Is that a good build?