Sort of.
Sorcerers are better at the specific Domain & Function of "Combat, Avoiding Combat, Getting to Combat, and Staying Alive in Combat" Erudites are more versatile in that even though they are worse at those four things, they are better at "Opening Doors, and Finding Shit out."
And if a Sorcerer really wants, he can take a dip in Divine Oracle.
Divine Oracle wastes spells known, something people have asserted since the beginning of the Character Tiers thread.
Erudites are naturally weaker than the Wizard due to Psionics having better balance, but that gap is marginal at most. While no Psion or Erudite is going to be manifesting Genesis with the intent of creating a plane that allows them to recharge their powers/day, I guarantee you that a Psionic Grease is no less powerful than it's Arcane brother.
So Rogue with UMD as a class skill is Tier 1? Because it has every spell in the game. When you get the spells, what you can do with them, and what you have to do to get those spells is all part of the Tier system.
Nope. That's an example of a broken ability that anyone can invest in. The ability also has some severe drawbacks:
1: Limited in use. While it is theoretically possible, and even RAW plausible, to create magic items that have no restrictions on uses/day, it isn't practical. The DM will likely never let it happen, no matter how restrictive you make the item (and heaven forbid you put a restriction on the item that the DM can take away), and the price tag prevents most classes from obtaining a practical amount of those items that do exist.
2: Price tag. Every item has one, and you only have so much to spend. While there are ways around the WBL, and even ways around the price, most of those options are only available to Tier 2 and up. UMD is capable of duplicating them, but even then, the DM is likely to intervene.
3: Failure chance. A limit on practicality is the odd chance that you do fail. I admit, UMD is the easiest skill to boost, but there's a level-limit on that too. It requires a good deal of resources to make it impossible to fail a check, and some of them may never get allowed.
All of this is a moot point if we assume the DM doesn't intervene, but then again, what good is a Rogue if the DM never stops the Paladin from ascending to Pun Pun status?
Contrast this to the costs an Erudite faces. 20 XP per Erudite Level (so multiclassing out early, while limiting Unique Powers, actually makes 9th level powers
cheaper), and you can pick any power you want. At the cost of an effective negative level, you can get 50 brand new powers. Assuming the Erudite does this when it is feasible, he can collect a massive number of spells and powers to choose from. This is as likely to fly with the DM as a Wizard or Archivist learning new spells using scrolls, except that the Erudite can simply render his "teacher" unconscious for one round to leech a power/spell. He needs to make a skill check to do this, but that's a low DC check (24 for a 9th level psionic power, 23 for 8th level spells). he can also learn these powers in massive quantities, provided he commits them all at the end of the day.
Erudites have fewer spells for 10 levels. Then they have fewer spells of the higher level spells in return for infinite versatility of spells no one actually uses.
Actually, it's more like fewer spells until they can afford 20 XP. They can expand their powers known as early as 1st level, and they even technically start play with more powers known than any Sorcerer of equal level.
Per day? True. I concede that they are limited in per day abilities due to Unique Powers. But this restriction also applies to the Generalist Wizard. Only the Focused Specialist gets as many spells/day as the Sorcerer does. But being a Focused Specialist cuts off 3 entire schools of magic (conversely , the Erudite only gives up 9th level discipline and arcane/divine powers; he can learn 8th level and lower powers almost freely).
The cost for all this is sucking in combat compared to real classes (IE half of Tier 3 at least manages to cast level appropriate effects, all of Tier 2).
Being able to suck is an ability that all classes have. Being able to suck diversely is not a qualifier for Tier 1.
As I proved on page 6's end, the Erudite may or may not be as limited as we once thought. If this is true, he may be considerably more powerful than the rest of the Big 6, if only due to spontaneous ability.
He can manifest level-appropriate abilities. He has free access to level appropriate Psion/Wilder psionic powers. He may lose out on some of the more broken ones (Greater Metamorphosis), but he does get the important ones (Temporal Accel, Plane Shift). In that respect, he is Tier 3.
