Note: A tricky one this - the original post in the thread was by Mort. In order to preserve the thread, I'm preserving this OP...
So, wizards come up with a new prestige class.
Looks like they'll start with the super munchkin classes a bit earlier than I expected.
This surely has to be the most bs prestige class ever? Even though most people at rpg.net seems to disagree. But those people are total muppets anyway, so it doesn't mean much.
So what if you sacrifice your highest level spells, fifth level wizard spells are totally poo anyway. I'd happily settle without ninth level spells, I've got more healing than I can shake a stick at with this class.
Not to mention the utterly horrible combat munchkin you could create with the cleric buffs together with the wizard protection spells.
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteI saw this class yesterday, and emailed the link to Roger. His comment was "so broken it scares even me." That should tell you all you really need to know about the class.
In my (not at all humble opinion), any Prestige Class that gives the "+1 spell-caster level" thing is almost certainly unbalanced. The only thing a Wizard taking one of these classes gives up is familiar advancement and some bonus feats. The sorcerer gives up even less - they don't get bonus feats to lose. Since prestige classes typically give extra powers at each level as well as the spell-casting level, they over-compensate to the extent that no sensible PC would ever NOT take a prestige class.
The Mystic Theurge gives up early access to higher levels of spells, but in return gets access to all the Cleric spells (if you want a mostly-Cleric with bits of Wizard, this is a poor class, by the way. Think of it as a mostly-Wizard with bits of Cleric). Thus, all the Wizard slots that might have gone on things like Bull's Strength (and Hold Person), are freed up, as the Wizard gets easy access to all of these are Cleric spells. And, your group's major Cleric has all of his slots freed up as well - let the Mystic Theurge be the support caster, and let the Cleric use his spells for kicking ass, and the group becomes a lot more powerful very easily.
Incidentally, if you use this class, by 20th level you can still be a Wiz 7/Clr 3/MT 10, which has the spell-casting of a 17th level Wizard. So, you still get 9th level spells.
So, yes, this class is utterly broken and will never ever be part of a game I run. (Oh, and I can't believe they destroyed Haste for being to powerful, and added this class at the same time.)
That said, multi-class spell-casters are generally quite weak anyway. This probably would benefit from being altered, but this class is not the way to go.
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteAnd another thing...
Most of the defences of the class revolve around the idea that you're giving up spell-casting at the most potent levels. This, in turn, assumes that you have a high enough key stat to cast the highest level spells. Consider, however, the Wizard with an Intelligence of 15 and Wisdom of 14. Such a caster will never have access to the highest level spells, and so benefits more from this class than a Wizard with an Int of 19. Having a lower stat should never be of benefit to a character.
(Of course, with the ubiquity of magic in D&D, it's almost unfathomable that any Wizard would have an Int less than 50 by the time they reach the level to cast 9th level spells. So, really, this munchkin class exists only to make sure that those of us who aren't munchkins become them in short order.)
Never mind me. Stephen is just pissed off that he was looking forward to 3.5 edition, and has since heard very little about it that he actually likes.