Arcane Prestige Class Selection

[prufock]

I'm thinking about taking my wizard into one of two prestige classes. What do you guys think about the Master Specialist (Complete Mage) as compared to the Loremaster? Which is better?

I'm using a conjurer, level 8 right now. The Master Specialist is easier to meet the requirements for, but I should be able to meet either without too much trouble.

[Kaelik]

I'm thinking about taking my wizard into one of two prestige classes. What do you guys think about the Master Specialist (Complete Mage) as compared to the Loremaster? Which is better?

I'm using a conjurer, level 8 right now. The Master Specialist is easier to meet the requirements for, but I should be able to meet either without too much trouble.

Does the DM have some houserule about only getting into one?

Does he offer retraining?

Wizard 3/Master Specialist 7-10/Loremaster 10-7

is fine. Though honestly, there are better PrCs then either. If you have Complete Mage, do you have Complete Arcane? That's got many good PrCs.

[Reel On, Love]

Master Conjurer is more powerful and leaves you more levels to play with. However, it doesn't get that good until level 7 or so, and 10 is the big one; Loremaster is less good, but more consistently good.

You could try Wizard 3/MS 4/Loremaster 10/etc, but I don't recommend it: the Minor Esoterica for conjuration is pretty lame.

Basically, go with whichever you like.

[Xefas]

Master Specialist is more powerful, so if you're looking to optimize a bit, then it's the way to go.

If you're a communist hippie baby-stabber, then I guess the unoptimized route of Loremaster might be good too.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Don't underestimate the Loremaster! It gets a lot of useful minor abilities which add up fast, and its later-level abilities aren't bad either.

[Kaelik]

I don't know what you people are talking about. The whole point of Loremaster versus MS is that Loremaster is front heavy on goodness and MS is back heavy. Prime reason to pick up a few levels of Loremaster to go with your 10 of MS.

[Keld Denar]

I agree with Kaelik. Loremaster is ok, but not for more than 3-5 levels. Once you grab all the good secrets, jump out. The best secrets are the feat, the +2 fort saves, and possibly the +1 attack if you use ranged touches a lot. I'd go with much more Master Specialist than loremaster.

Other tasty pclasses are:
Divine Oracle (CD)
Sacred Exorcist (CD)
Initiate of the Sevenfold Veils (CA)
Fatespinner (CA)
Incantrix (something faerun I think)
Archmage (DMG)

Mix, match, and win!

[prufock]

Hm, so no real clear consensus, except that MS is back-heavy and Loremaster is front-heavy. That makes the decision easier. I wasn't looking for a long-term build, because I'm frankly not sure how long-term this campaign is going to be. So I think I'm going to go into Loremaster for now, and maybe into Archmage if the campaign goes on longer.

Thanks folks.

[Saph]

I agree with Kaelik. Loremaster is ok, but not for more than 3-5 levels. Once you grab all the good secrets, jump out. The best secrets are the feat, the +2 fort saves, and possibly the +1 attack if you use ranged touches a lot. I'd go with much more Master Specialist than loremaster.

There's no sense in stopping at level 5 of Loremaster - if you've gone that far, you should at least go to level 6. The more secrets, the better; you can easily find 5 good ones. It's also one of the only full-caster PrCs which gives you 4 skill points per level instead of 2 (and the skill list is great - UMD for the win).

Master Specialist is much easier to qualify for, but as Reel says, the minor and moderate conjuration abilities are thoroughly 'meh'. The major conjuration esoterica is absolutely awesome, but you don't get it until level 10, which may well mean 'never'. You'll probably get more use out of the Greater Spell Focus and CL increase abilities.

So if you're confident of getting all 10 levels of Master Specialist, go for that, but otherwise I'd pick Loremaster.

Hm, so no real clear consensus, except that MS is back-heavy and Loremaster is front-heavy. That makes the decision easier.

The MS is back heavy, but I wouldn't say the Loremaster's front-heavy. There are plenty of good secrets, and the level 6 and level 10 abilities are both very nice. The Loremaster is actually a very well-rounded class, with good stuff in the beginning (UMD and your pick of the secrets) and good stuff at the end (more secrets for more save boosts, and Analyse Dweomer/Legend Lore 1/day as an Ex ability).

- Saph

[Frosty]

Also don't forget Abjurant champion!

[nerulean]

Mainly posting to echo the above. We recently had a MS conjurer in one of our campaigns, and he was more or less a god, but that was mostly because he was a caster rather than his choice of prestige class. We made it to 11th level. If we'd hit 13th, where his MS levels would have maxed out, his average damage output with the orbs would have trebled, his fogs would have been inescapable and his flying sparkling unicorn pony phantom steed would have been flying at about 70mph all day long.

Essentially, you are playing a wizard, and thus with good spell choices it is nigh on impossible to be underpowered. MS doesn't offer maximum bang for your buck as a conjurer until you hit top level, but it's low level abilities aren't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Go with whatever you think would be most fun.

[Telonius]

Well, the thing about the Feat secret for Loremaster is that it's basically a wash. You're likely to take three metamagics or creation feats anyway, but Skill Focus isn't one that you're usually going to have. So that Secret just gives you back the feat you used to get into the PrC.

I don't have the books with me so I can't compare that to the Master Specialist's requirements and benefits.

[Keld Denar]

Well, the thing about the Feat secret for Loremaster is that it's basically a wash. You're likely to take three metamagics or creation feats anyway, but Skill Focus isn't one that you're usually going to have. So that Secret just gives you back the feat you used to get into the PrC.

I don't have the books with me so I can't compare that to the Master Specialist's requirements and benefits.

Kind of. One advantage of it is that it delays the feat you want until later. Some feats (such as item creation) require a certain CL or other variable. Being able to delay taking your 3rd level feat or so until 6th+ level is a pretty neat advantage.

Another bonus to it is that you can double dip on the skill focus. Loremaster requires ANY skill focus knowledge. IF you take that as Skill Focus: Knowledge (Religion), you can use it to meet the prereqs for Divine Oracle, a VERY frontloaded pclass. The net gain is a whole feat, since you cover the prereqs for both classes with a single feat, recovered by the Secret feat. I'm sure there are other pclasses with a Skill Focus: Knowledge(X) requirement that you could alternately double dip for.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm surprised no one has suggested Incantatrix or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil yet...

Mage of the Arcane Order is an early-entry PrC for wizards (harder, but possible, for sorcerers), and can really save your bacon if you didn't memorise the exact spell for the situation you're in. You can literally pull any spell out of the book that you need at that time, as long as you pay it back with an equal number of spell levels. Rogue can't pick that lock? Pull a Knock out of your Spellpool and keep on truckin'. Later on in the day, when camp is set, pay your two spell levels back with whatever spells you didn't use that day. It's a quietly powerful PrC, easily equal to Loremaster in ease of entry and prerequsites.

[UserClone]

I'm surprised no one has suggested Incantatrix or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil yet...

I'm surprised you didn't notice that they had...