How well do mystic theurges play?

[amills1]

I've been working towards the mystic theurge prestige class. I've got 3 levels of cleric so far and 1 level of wizard. My character thus far feels kind of underwhelming though since they have limited spells, cantrips do almost no damage (even assuming they hit) and their melee skills are pretty awful compared to my companions (understandable, but annoying). Will this combo start getting a lot better one I manage to start up my prestige class? Or should i consider respeccing my character?

[CHAO$$$]

Respec!

Mystic theurge is only good very late into the game.

[amills1]

OK. Thanks

[Blackdragon]

Mystic Theurge was always a trash PRC without early entry shenanigans. It made sense if you could enter with like 2/1 (or better yet 1/1) levels in the classes, but 3/3 is extremely punishing. What's even worse, the PRC only lasts for 10 levels, so at most you'll get 17/13 spellcasting (i.e. only 7th level spells for the shorter class even at endgame).

MT also doesn't offer anything of value in terms of improving your character's power besides getting more spells known/per day. Considering the action economy, it makes more sense to boost the effects of your actions rather than just give a hundred different options which are all equally mediocre.

So yeah, in this game, and other CRPGs where it made an appearance, MT isn't worth it generally. If you want to play a character with access to both arcane and divine spells, something like the Ecclesitheurge seems like a better option (though it was bugged in Kingmaker IIRC, and still doesn't hold a candle to actual optimised arcane or divine builds).

[Naked Granny]

Originally posted by Blackdragon:

Mystic Theurge was always a trash PRC without early entry shenanigans. It made sense if you could enter with like 2/1 (or better yet 1/1) levels in the classes, but 3/3 is extremely punishing. What's even worse, the PRC only lasts for 10 levels, so at most you'll get 17/13 spellcasting (i.e. only 7th level spells for the shorter class even at endgame).

MT also doesn't offer anything of value in terms of improving your character's power besides getting more spells known/per day. Considering the action economy, it makes more sense to boost the effects of your actions rather than just give a hundred different options which are all equally mediocre.

So yeah, in this game, and other CRPGs where it made an appearance, MT isn't worth it generally. If you want to play a character with access to both arcane and divine spells, something like the Ecclesitheurge seems like a better option (though it was bugged in Kingmaker IIRC, and still doesn't hold a candle to actual optimised arcane or divine builds).

This is mostly all true. MT is a terrible PrC for a main-caster. It's ... it's acceptable... if you just want someone on your team to be a buffbot and nothing else.

There is one caveat in this game though: you have the option of not choosing a Mythic Path. The alternative is that you get +4 to your ability scores and you can get 40 levels total (no class goes past level 20, but who cares since you can basically become a Gestalt character). That makes a Cleric / Wizard / MT ok at the end game, but you're gonna be miserable in the early and mid game.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Respec!

Mystic theurge is only good very late into the game.

Yes and No, yes it doesn't start to shine until 10+ but, i always found having one as an item crafter or, buffer pretty useful even early game. Having ONE guy that can throw all the buffs in the game out was useful. But it remains my favorite class in Pathfinder... but then again without the thurge feat it does hurt the class alot.

My advice if you want a spell slinging caster who can also buff play a flame oracle, it'll do just about what you want and then some.

[Naked Granny]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Respec!

Mystic theurge is only good very late into the game.

Yes and No, yes it doesn't start to shine until 10+ but, i always found having one as an item crafter or, buffer pretty useful even early game. Having ONE guy that can throw all the buffs in the game out was useful. But it remains my favorite class in Pathfinder... but then again without the thurge feat it does hurt the class alot.

My advice if you want a spell slinging caster who can also buff play a flame oracle, it'll do just about what you want and then some.

Alternatively, a witch with the Healing patron is close to being a cleric but with hexes. The main issue with witch is that they lack some extremely important spells: resist energy, displacement and slow.

[Black Hammer]

Mystic Theurge isn't a great class to begin with. Also, you shouldn't be using one in melee, since the bulk of their stats are presumably pumped into two of Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom for casting later.

The one use for MT here is to go Wiz 3/Cleric 3/MT 10 and then fill out the rest in Cleric while going the Lich Mythic path. That will theoretically get you access to 9th level spells for both Cleric and Wizard, which would normally not be possible.

Unless a mod adds the Ultimate Magus PrC, Mystic Theurge just isn't that good for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is action economy; sure, you have all these spells, but you don't have more actions to cast them with. More weaker spells aren't better than a handful of powerful ones. Second, you lose out on a lot of the value of being a cleric: no more armor, less HP, less progression for your channeling and domain. Finally, conjuration spells don't scale well, so being a few CLs behind really hurts for those.

Still, if you wanna do it anyway, I'd highly recommend going straight cleric or wizard until you hit level 8 or 9, then respec your character into MT then. Much easier.