3.5 tristalt prestige class

[kulosle]

so someone just presented to me a prestige class he wants to have in an upcoming tristalt game. this class would take up all three slots. i can't fine the paper he gave to me but it was essentially the omnitheurge. it had d8 for hit dice, 3/4 BAB, all good saves and fully progressed arcane, devine, psionic, invocation, incarnum (essential soulmelding class whatever they're called), a martial maneuver class, and all three of the ToM introduced subsystems. you basically need to have 2 levels in each of the classes to qualify for this class and it helps "blend" them together. like the geomancer who lets you choose the best of both worlds. so at 10th level he only needs 1 stat for all his stuff (he'll probably choose con), doesn't need to worry about spell failure, and choose if his spells go against spell resistance or power resistance. he gets spell blast essense for his invocations like the eldritch theurge does, but it works for any of his class progressions abilities that are a standard action. he won't be able to max out all of of them but he will get them all to a 16th level caster that doesn't have to worry about MAD
oh and i think that he gets to channel stuff through attacks as well. i try and find the sheet that has the class on it.

[Tyndmyr]

Sounds a touch ridiculous, tbh.

[ShiningStarling]

I hope you called your insurance agent, because he just broke your game.

Tristalt sounds like fun, and if he would like a tristalt PrC I would suggest he pick 3 of those elements, take the worst BAB, good Will save, worst hit points, full progression in the 3, and then a blender feature (this takes example from Mystic Theurge and Eldritch Theurge). As amusing as it might be to use all of the systems, it is nothing even remotely like fair.

Slightly beside the point, an enforced tier system (also a repost in this thread) might help reign in the abilities.

I would suggest to flip the tiers, Wizard in 6 and CW Samurai in 1, then say your tristalt can't add to more than 12 or so (you pick, but 18+ is pointless).
With 12, you can have 2 full casters, but nothing else.

Think about it.

[kulosle]

yeah i though so too. oh and he couldn't get to 16th level in the classes cause it requires 6 levels to get into and then its a 10 level class. so all his classes would be at level 12 and he'd have 4 levels to do something with. no 8 or 9 level spells or powers is a big draw back. especially considering he could easily have full progression in 4-5 classes without this.

well the thing was he said that i turned him down to quickly and said i should give him a chance so i decided to ask the playground.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Letting him progress 2 tier 1 castings (prepared arcane and divine), tier 2 manifesting (psion probably), and a load of tier 3 casting and manevuers and whatever ToM includes. Just no. I can see progressing 2 tier 1-2s or 1 tier 3 but nothing more.

[gkathellar]

There's a reason that dual-progression classes are forbidden in normal gestalt — having four power sets is too much. Having eight power sets is way too much for tristalt.

[Reluctance]

he onmitheurge strikes me as less broken than it sounds at first blush, for the same reason Mystic Theurge wasn't the gamebreaker it sounded like when first revealed, but that's a lot of systems overhead on the part of both you and the player. You'll have to either keep in mind how all those independent systems work, or crack a book every time he uses one of his more unusual powers.

The biggest mechanical worry I'd have is if it had the Geomancer's blending progression were applied to this class too, since the blend level goes up at a 1:1 pace while available spell level starts low and goes up at 2:1. Still, it catches up at 10th level, where topping out 3rd level spells isn't what I'd call optimized. The bigger worry is that he'll have to either take forever looking through his reams of powers to find just the right one, or he'll end up ignoring a good chunk of them due simply to not having the headspace to juggle it all.

[gkathellar]

You make a good point, reluctance. Let's see how this actually stacks up. Qualification only eats 16 of 30 class levels not devoted to this PrC. That means the default build would probably look like:

Illumian Wizard 8/Truenamer 2//Warblade 2/Psion 2/Warlock 2/Incarnate 2/Binder 2//Cleric 8/Shadowcaster 2 + Omnitheurge 10, which nets you:

• Keys everything off of Con
• 9th-level wizard spells
• 9th-level cleric spells
• 8th-level martial maneuvers
• 6th-level psionic powers
• 6th-level mysteries
• 6th-level vestiges, up to a maximum of 2
• 6 soulmelds, 12 essentia and 3 chakra binds
• Eldritch Blast 6d6, Invocations: 1 greater, 3 lesser, 3 least
• Truenaming, I guess.

Impressive, especially considering the buffs it gets from binding and incarnum, but it does nothing you couldn't do better with a Wizard 20//Cleric 10/Geomancer 10//Druid 20 build. So yeah, not really all that overpowered, and getting to its full power is going to be an incredibly tough ride.

[Tyndmyr]

It kind of negates the entire point of playing tristalt, tbh.

Just tell him to give it up, and resign himself to *only* having three class progressions...and if he wants to use his PRC progression slot on a theurge option, four.

That's not really a crippling lack of options.

[Reluctance]

Illumian Wizard 8/Truenamer 2//Warblade 2/Psion 2/Warlock 2/Incarnate 2/Binder 2//Cleric 8/Shadowcaster 2 + Omnitheurge 10...

It's worse than that. Gestalt kinda mentioned the idea of PRCs that fill both slots, only for the idea to never be mentioned again. The idea here would fill all three slots at level up.

I'm too lazy to figure out the optimal way of spreading those 18 required class levels amongst six tristalt levels, but once he hits seventh, it's Omnitheurge and nothing else. That's the class' saving grace, powerwise.

[gkathellar]

The idea here would fill all three slots at level up.

Yeah, the build I presented already accounts for that.

I'm too lazy to figure out the optimal way of spreading those 18 required class levels amongst six tristalt levels,

16.

but once he hits seventh, it's Omnitheurge and nothing else. That's the class' saving grace, powerwise.

Did the OP say the class gets more than 10 levels? Because that would make it significantly better, and I was working from the assumption that it only got 10.