Author Topic: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?  (Read 3970 times)

Offline Endarire

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Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« on: April 04, 2020, 04:40:35 AM »
Intro
Greetings, all!


A friend encouraged me to seriously consider respeccing from a Human Druid11 into a Human Druid2/Wizard1 (Conjurer)/Druid+4/Arcane HierophantX.  (The feats Practiced Spellcaster: Wizard and Alternative Source Spell are assumed for this build.)  After Arcane Hierophant10, the plan is likely to finish with Mystic Theurge.  (IF we go epic, expect me to continue with Mystic Theurge or some sort of homebrew Epic Arcane Hierophant.)

We have access to all 3.5 official source material by default, as well as Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might from Pathfinder.  No stacking of partial BAB/saves, and limit 1 flaw and 1 trait per person.  Leadership feats are banned or generally discouraged to be taken by player characters.

I've seriously considered the cons and pros of each method, as well as various Arcane Hierophant builds.  I am well aware that theurges are best off leveraging their breadth of abilities and their casting stamina.

Our party composition is TBA, and this is a long-running Undead-heavy campaign where we find and stop vampires.

What I Ask of You
What is your experience playing theurges, especially Arcane Hierophants?  More specifically, include these details:

-Campaign level range.  When did you start and when did you end?

-Notable features of your campaign.  Was it a module?  An Undead-heavy game?  A planar traveling campaign?  And so on.

-What theurgic classes you used and how you entered them.

-When did you feel gimped compared to a full caster?  When did you feel glad you theurged?

-Could you use Leadership or another ability to get a cohort or other character to act as the other half of your theurge?  If you could, why didn't you?  (For example, if you're a Druid with Leadership, you could take a Wizard cohort to sorta act like the other half of your theurge.)

-For Arcane Hierophants specifically, how did you notably benefit from this class?  What spells (especially arcane spells) did you use on your animal companion/companion familiar that were notable?

-Your party's general composition.  (Mention races, classes, builds, number of party members, and anything else that seems important.)

-How powerful were you (or did you seem) compared to the rest of your party?  Why?

-What did your fellow players and GMs think of your character?

-Anything else of note that's relevant.

Thankee!
« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 04:44:35 AM by Endarire »

Offline Nifft

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2020, 08:47:44 PM »
Why not dip into Mystic Theurge before Arcane Hierophant?

IIRC with Alternate Spell Source and fractional BAB you can get away with Wizard 1 / Druid 3 -> MT 3 -> AH

Offline Endarire

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2020, 03:14:22 AM »
The point is to avoid losing levels progressing Wild Shape and Animal Companion.  I know various people have said those aren't important, but, from my experience with this GM, they are!

Also, no fractional BAB stacking.

Furthermore, Druid4 gives the ACF to gain immunity to Nauseated, becoming Sickened instead.  This has saved our party once in a major fight!

Offline Nifft

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2020, 07:23:34 PM »
That reasoning is legit.

-- -- --

Regarding theurge performance, IMXP it's all about the sorts of solutions your DM allows.

Theurges are not great at direct combat, and they're not great if you need a specific level-appropriate spell to solve an encounter, but they can be very good at utility & problem-avoiding.

That said, you're only going to be one level behind a single-class Druid in casting and such, and Druids are ahead of the game for most of the game. So it seems like you're optimizing for combat as a Druid, and then adding some exceptional utility from the Wizard list. You won't have the sorts of performance issues which would plague a core MT.

You'll be quite self-sufficient with spells like mage armor on your pet, too.

-- -- --

Your total build prefix would be Druid 6 / Wizard 1, then Arcane Hierophant 10, for a total of 17 levels you actually want.

Consider taking Uncanny Trickster 3 for your last levels (and advancing the class features of AH). Compared to MT 3 you'd lose one level of spellcasting, but you'd advance all your AH class features -- including wild shape, your companion, and so on. You'd end up casting as a Druid 18 / Wizard 13, so you wouldn't lose a Wizard spell level.

Offline Endarire

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2020, 04:10:05 AM »
@Nifft
Throughout this campaign, mage armor has largely eluded my companion and me.  We had a Beguiler early game, and a Warmage later, but no reliable source of that spell.  Luminous armor I self-cast, but used it less after how our GM ruled ability damage.

Once we reach level 18+, I intended to continue Arcane Hierophant if the GM permits or Mystic Theurge otherwise.  Level 9 spells are too good to ignore, and progressing Wizard casting - at least until Epic AH or level 20ish Wizard casting - seems wise.

Wizard spell wise, what things are best for a Conjurer1 with Abrupt Jaunt?  (I'm familiar with TreantMonk's Wizard guide, but I wanted your advice as well.)
« Last Edit: April 17, 2020, 04:56:36 AM by Endarire »

Offline Nifft

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2020, 05:18:02 PM »
Abrupt Jaunt is great and usually well worth the cost, but for your build it may be expensive in an inconvenient way.

I expect your DM will require you to have a Familiar in order to partake of the Familiar Companion class feature of AH, and IMHO that's a superior benefit. You can somewhat replace Abrupt Jaunt with an Anklet of Translocation.

Often a Conjurer will take Abrupt Jaunt and then Arcane Familiar at level 3, but you won't have level 3 Wizard casting until you're deep into AH levels. (I'm assuming your level 6 feat will be spent on Natural Spell, as all the gods intended, and your level 3 feat would have to be Alternative Spell Source -- but even if you take Practiced Spellcaster [Wizard] at level 6, you wouldn't have a slot for Arcane Familiar until 9, which is after you'd want to have started AH.)

If your DM will allow you to gain Companion Familiar without having a Familiar, then Abrupt Jaunt is fantastic.


Not sure I understand the difficulty with Mage Armor. I think you will get to pick a bunch of spells to learn at Wizard 1, and you can pick Mage Armor at that time. Presumably that would be allowed?


Also, not sure how you can continue AH progression until after you're level 20. You need to spend levels 18, 19, and 20 on something else, which is currently MT. That's fine -- for this purpose MT isn't terrible -- but take a look at Uncanny Trickster for those 3 levels, and see if you like how it gives you an absurd number of skill points and also progresses your AH class features (like Wild Shape) while giving you 2/3 the benefit of MT.

I totally agree that when you get to Epic levels you'll want Epic Arcane Hierophant.


In terms of spells, some of the usual suspects aren't as good for you when you get them. Grease is always nice and gets nicer when you start to fly, and Mage Armor is going to be extra good if you can't spam Luminous. Silent Image is surprisingly great if you have excellent stealth (which you could in some Wild Shape forms). Benign Transposition is amazing once you're a Wild Shape'd tank (level 6+), and quite decent before that if you have a fragile archer or sorcerer to protect, or if you don't find stellar armor and you need to hide behind your bear. Comprehend Languages never gets old, and has great synergy with sneaking into the enemy's camp as an animal, but some DMs won't put you in the situation of not knowing the target's language so yeah. Fist of Stone is pretty good for someone in Wild Shape (+6 Str for 1 minute), but not particularly great before.

Will you ever want to do Craft-type stuff? If so, Magecraft (Eberron) might be useful at those times. Good synergy with Fabricate at higher levels, too, and even has some applicability for high-level stuff like making golems. If you're going to be in a Seven Samurai situation ("protect a village") then being able to Craft fortifications and such might be solid.

Will you ever want to do Diplomamcy? If so, Alibi (Exemplars of Evil) and one of the social-helper spells like Friendly Face (Races of Destiny) can get you a lot of access, and since Diplomacy is on your Druid list you're better placed to leverage that access than the typical Wizard, so that pair of spells may be a stand-out (if you are a Face), and the bonus will remain relevant up through mid-levels.

If 3.0e material is allowed, consider Fetid Breath (Ghostwalk) which is basically Stinking Cloud except 2 levels early. The area of effect stinks but after level 6 you may prefer to be on the front-lines, so it's going to stay useful to you longer than it would to the average arcane caster.

Personally I like Parching Touch (Sandstorm) for the Instantaneous dehydration debuff (and the -1 Con, and the untyped damage), and it becomes even more interesting when you're in a Large form with significant reach (so you can delivery more touch attacks). Not the best spell, but it's interesting and it leverages one of your future strengths.

Offline Endarire

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Re: Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant: How well does it do IN PLAY?
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2020, 06:37:33 PM »
I made this respec document directed to the game's GM (Tobias) for Uriel, my Druid who was a Planar Shepherd of Lamannia then forcibly-by-the-GM-at-level-9 respecced into a pure Druid.  (This Google Doc is done in the style of some D&D guides and meant to be informative and entertaining.  This is the first time I've illustrated such a thing with Google Images.)  Uriel is now level 11, meaning he'd be a NG Illumian Druid1/Conjurer1/Druid+5/Arcane Hierophant4, finishing AH then going MT because level 9 Druid spells and level 7 Wizard spells pre-Epic are just that good.  (He's Human now but changing races would be allowed, and Illumian works for its Krau sigil and, by RAW and seemingly also by RAI, for its Aeshkrau rune word.)  For me, even losing one level of casting has been a major downside to me.  It's one reason I loathed Sorcerers being a level behind Wizards.

Uriel has been played from level 1, and the ability to buy gear or change his gear is TBA.  We were allowed 1 flaw for a feat and 1 trait.  His ability scores are a set array, placeable where we wanted, of 10 STR/12 DEX/14 CON/16 WIS (+2 item and +2 more levels)/18 INT/12 CHA.  (Pre-respec, he had 18 base WIS and 16 base INT.)

Companion Familiar says that if I have a familiar, I must dismiss it, never requiring one.  The point is to swap out a familiar for Abrupt Jaunt ASAP and never replace it since I don't need to.

We're in a world-spanning (likeliy planes-spanning) anti-Vampire "Masquerade" situation where something happened on Ravenloft and now Vampires took over much of reality.  We've also run multiple groups capping at or around level 8, with our main characters (of which Uriel this Arcane Hierophant is one) having no upper level limit.

Arcane Hierophant levels 11+ pre-epic would be homebrew, but easily extendable.  At least at present, Mystic Theurge means level Druid 9 spells at MT1, and shapechange is just that powerful.  It also progresses
« Last Edit: April 17, 2020, 06:43:27 PM by Endarire »