Ultimate Magus PRC

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I was looking through the Complete Mage a couple days ago and found the Ultimate Magus, and I started thinking. To take it, you essentially end up with a max spell level one level lower than you would if you were a pure class, you get quite a bit of MAD, and in exchange you get the ability to go nova every encounter. Am I missing something, or is this more broken than the Initiate of the Sevenfold Cheese?

[Lyinginbedmon]

Powerful, but not really broken. I'll admit to it being one of my more preferred spellcasting prestige classes, but largely because it gives both spontaneous and prepared spellcasting capacity without the suckiness of plain ol' multiclassing.

[CthulhuM]

You actually can avoid going MAD - wizard/beguiler is an excellent Ultimate Magus combination for just that reason.

[Draz74]

You actually can avoid going MAD - wizard/beguiler is an excellent Ultimate Magus combination for just that reason.

Plus the way it can be a decent skill monkey even with no magic by taking a Beguiler level first.

[Jade_Tarem]

Ultimate Magus: Somewhat better than Mystic Theurge!

That said, it doesn't hold a candle to Initiate of the Sevenfold Fatality. It's good, yes, because of the diversity of spellcasting ablitiy and extra boost-power it gives, but it isn't retardedly broken. In fact, plain ol' wizard or sorcerer can be seen as a better choice, due to the loss of a spell level.

[puppyavenger]

I was looking through the Complete Mage a couple days ago and found the Ultimate Magus, and I started thinking. To take it, you essentially end up with a max spell level one level lower than you would if you were a pure class, you get quite a bit of MAD, and in exchange you get the ability to go nova every encounter. Am I missing something, or is this more broken than the Initiate of the Sevenfold Cheese?

um 9th level spells are preetty powerful

[Cybren]

Did they errata it, because I'm pretty sure with some Caster Level juggling you could still reach 9th level spells as an UM (my favorite build winds up with spells per day as a 17th level wizard and 10th level sorcerer. broken? not even close. But it'll still be playable.)

[Idea Man]

The old quantity over quality issue. Ultimate magus has the advantage of metamagic extra-cheese, versus straight spell progression plus potent extra ability of the Initiate. I've never had the pleasure of seeing sevenfold-cheese in action, but I know the Magus is pretty darn effective. My player's only regret is falling two spell levels behind the straight caster (Yes, I have two wizards in my campaign, Gods help me.).

My Magus went wizard/sorcerer, and he did have to bite the bullet on his attributes, but he's still very powerful. His metamagic-ed spells come in very handy in a pinch, plus, since he has a plethora of sorcerer slots, burning the extra power hardly hurts his spellcasting ability.

I'd say a straight caster is more potent, due to higher level spells being available, but any twin caster class has volume, which allows the caster to contribute in every fight without worrying about his resources.

[Kaelik]

um 9th level spells are preetty powerful

Yes, but you can still have 9th level spells with the right build.

Beguiler 1(with Practiced Spellcaster on it, Second time later)/Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 10/Wizard (or PrC for Wizard) 6.

This gives you Wizard 19 (9th level spells easy) and Beguiler 8. This is pretty useful because you can just use all the Beguiler spells to free Metamagic your Wizard ones. Or for utility. But when push comes to shove you can actually cast with you Beguiler at Caster level equal to you Character Level until it caps at CL 16.

[SadisticFishing]

You can't take Practiced Spellcaster for the same class more than once.

[bugsysservant]

Yes, but you can still have 9th level spells with the right build.

Beguiler 1(with Practiced Spellcaster on it, Second time later)/Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 10/Wizard (or PrC for Wizard) 6.

This gives you Wizard 19 (9th level spells easy) and Beguiler 8. This is pretty useful because you can just use all the Beguiler spells to free Metamagic your Wizard ones. Or for utility. But when push comes to shove you can actually cast with you Beguiler at Caster level equal to you Character Level until it caps at CL 16.

That build doesn't work. For one thing, it doesn't meet the skill requirements. For another, their are four levels in Ultimate Magus which you have to use to bump nothing but the lowest: it doesn't gain a full double progression like Mystic Theurge. There may be some form of cheese with Precocioius Apprentice, but I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the most you can get from Ultimate Magus is Level 16 spellcasting.

[Kaelik]

That build doesn't work. For one thing, it doesn't meet the skill requirements. For another, their are four levels in Ultimate Magus which you have to use to bump nothing but the lowest: it doesn't gain a full double progression like Mystic Theurge. There may be some form of cheese with Precocioius Apprentice, but I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the most you can get from Ultimate Magus is Level 16 spellcasting.

I was doing it from memory, the skill ranks don't end up changing the balance of the classes. There are only three levels of +lower, and you can use the Practiced Spellcaster feat to juggle it over to Wizard.

Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/Ultimate Magus 10/Wizard 5. Unfortunately, I forgot that Practiced Spellcaster can only be applied once per class. As such the actual build is:

Casting as a level 17 Wizard
Casting as a level 10 Beguiler
Caster level of 24 for Wizard
Caster level of 18 for Beguiler

This does give you 9th level spells, not as many, but when you do have them you can apply Metamagic to them much better.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Remember the Complete Champion spontaneous diviner build, people ...

:shudder:

[Draz74]

Remember the Complete Champion spontaneous diviner build, people ...

:shudder:

If your DM allows you to use the CChamp Spontaneous Diviner feat to gain +17 levels of Wizard spellcasting in 10 levels ... then why not just play Pun-Pun instead? Your DM clearly is lenient to the point of insanity, and you clearly want to break the game anyway.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

This is definitely looking like what I like. Not overpowered enough to be game-breaking, but good enough to help me out when my character does something stupid. I'm probably going to go wiz/sorc, because unfortunately the beguiler doesn't fit the fluff I have, and I use fluff to keep my powergamer under control. Which is a double-suck, since I have wanted to play a beguiler for a long while.

[Kaelik]

This is definitely looking like what I like. Not overpowered enough to be game-breaking, but good enough to help me out when my character does something stupid. I'm probably going to go wiz/sorc, because unfortunately the beguiler doesn't fit the fluff I have, and I use fluff to keep my powergamer under control. Which is a double-suck, since I have wanted to play a beguiler for a long while.

Except that in a lot of ways this is worse then pure Wizard. So making yourself a little MAD isn't going to help things.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Wizard 3/Sorcerer 2/Ultimate Magus 10/Wizard 3/Archmage 2 can net you 7th and 6th level spells for Wizard and Sorcerer respectively.

If you really want to get a smoking spellcaster you need to go Gestalt, with the other side running out with Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 10/Dweomerkeeper 7, with the MT contributing 6 levels to Sorcerer and 4 to Wizard.

The end result is that, among other neat tricks, you have 9th level casting for both Wizard and Sorcerer with 6th level casting for Cleric, albeit with MAD across all your mental stats. Presently, I'm trying to figure out a way to get the last 3 levels of Dweomerkeeper...

[Kaelik]

Wizard 3/Sorcerer 2/Ultimate Magus 10/Wizard 3/Archmage 2 can net you 7th and 6th level spells for Wizard and Sorcerer respectively.

If you really want to get a smoking spellcaster you need to go Gestalt, with the other side running out with Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 10/Dweomerkeeper 7, with the MT contributing 6 levels to Sorcerer and 4 to Wizard.

The end result is that, among other neat tricks, you have 9th level casting for both Wizard and Sorcerer with 6th level casting for Cleric, albeit with MAD across all your mental stats. Presently, I'm trying to figure out a way to get the last 3 levels of Dweomerkeeper...

Except of course that in gestalt you can't take Ultimate Magus or Mystic Theurge.

And why would you want only 6th and 7th level spells?

I've revised my build now, and it comes out:

Beguiler 2/Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 10/Archmage 5

With Practiced Spellcaster for Beguiler all three "lower caster level" levels go to Wizard. This gives:

Wizard 18 Casting (9th level spells)
Beguiler 9 Casting (4th level spells)

Caster levels:
Wizard 29
Beguiler 22

Though it's probably better if you make that last lower caster level one (the one that you can choose either) go towards Beguiler, then you can power all your increased Caster levels with Beguiler slots, then use all your 4th and lowers to Metamagic Wizard spells.

Wizard 17 Caster level 29
Beguiler 10 Caster level 23

I like it.

[Saph]

It's an interesting PrC, but not an especially strong one. Its main drawback is that at low levels, you're going to have a truckload of 1st-level spells and not much else. 1st-level spells are fine at level 1, but by level 5 you need some bigger guns.

At mid- to high-levels you become useful, but you're always going to be at least one full level of spells behind a single-classed character. This raises the question of whether it's worth gaining a bunch of low-level spells in exchange for losing your higher-level spells. In general the answer is no.

That said, the class isn't terrible by any means, and it can be a hell of a lot of fun. The main irritation is that the class' primary ability, Augmented Casting, has very heavy restrictions on it (limited times per day, can only do it on low-level spells, doesn't work on a metamagiced spell).

I'd say it'd make for a good character as long as you're playing at level 7-8 or higher. I wouldn't recommend it for a low-level game, though.

- Saph

[Kurald Galain]

It gets better when you go e.g. Wizard 3 / Master Specialist 6 / Nar Demonbinder 1 / Ultimate Magus 10.

Or Wizard 3 / Master Specialist 6 / Warrior Skald 1 / Sublime Chord 1 / Ultimate Magus 9.

You can even try being a kobold with Rite of Passage for your spontaneous side...

[Chronos]

The basic problem with Ultimate Magus, as compared to the other dual-progression PrCs, is that it doesn't really give you much that you didn't already have. You still cast one spell per round (or two, if you quicken one), and the spells you're choosing from are basically the same as if you went pure wizard. With a Mystic Theurge, say, you can, in any given situation, choose to use your wizard spells or your cleric spells, whichever works better. But with UM, you're choosing between wizard spells and wizard spells.

[Draz74]

The basic problem with Ultimate Magus, as compared to the other dual-progression PrCs, is that it doesn't really give you much that you didn't already have. You still cast one spell per round (or two, if you quicken one), and the spells you're choosing from are basically the same as if you went pure wizard. With a Mystic Theurge, say, you can, in any given situation, choose to use your wizard spells or your cleric spells, whichever works better. But with UM, you're choosing between wizard spells and wizard spells.

Well, you can specialize, and then use your spontaneous class to cover your banned schools.

[Kurald Galain]

But with UM, you're choosing between wizard spells and wizard spells.

That depends, actually. There are a few arcane casting classes that get spells that the wizard doesn't - for instance, bards have healing, and archivists have everything. Also, you can be a specialist wizard (which is a nice benefit) and use the spontaneous class to grab spells from your forbidden schools.

[Kaelik]

That depends, actually. There are a few arcane casting classes that get spells that the wizard doesn't - for instance, bards have healing, and archivists have everything. Also, you can be a specialist wizard (which is a nice benefit) and use the spontaneous class to grab spells from your forbidden schools.

Except Archivists are Divine, so that doesn't help.

[Chronos]

That depends, actually. There are a few arcane casting classes that get spells that the wizard doesn't - for instance, bards have healing, and archivists have everything.

Bards spell progression is mediocre, though. And archivists are divine prepared casters-- Were you thinking of something else?

Specializing would work well with Ultimate Magus, but that's just increasing your number of spells per day even further. Really, you're not going to run out, anyway.

To be fair, of course, saying that something is weaker than straight wizard is praising with faint damnation. It's still pretty darned good; it's just not as good as something that's very similar to it, so it stands out.

[Kurald Galain]

Bards spell progression is mediocre, though. And archivists are divine prepared casters-- Were you thinking of something else?

They are? Oh, my bad. Well, I'm pretty sure Nar Demonbinder has a few spells that the wiz does not - and isn't a True Necromancer also arcane?

(edit) oh, and I'm suggesting specializing not so much because of the extra spell slots (although they're nice in the early levels before you get UM going) but because of some alternative class features (PHB2) and/or Master Specialist.

[Frosty]

Well, you can specialize, and then use your spontaneous class to cover your banned schools.

For example, you can ban Enchantment and Illusions.

[Kaelik]

and isn't a True Necromancer also arcane?

True Necromancer is a dual advancement class for Divine/Arcane, but with a worse progression then Theurge and a few extra abilities. You can't use it in combination with Magus at all. Where is Demonbinder?