I hope I'm getting this right. Lurker made a rant about the Erudite being a poor class. His arguments supporting this range from 'ban some cheese', 'Erudite's don't have shapechange (aka cheese when you get down to it)', and 'you already know all the good powers
and spells by playing... Umm... a cerebrumancer! So power
and spell swapping per day is dumb'.
To that I'll point hereFor example, a sorcerer can solo an entire campaign is on the same teir as a psion for the same reasons. The wizard is considered to be on a higher teir due to the versatility in having all arcane spells, following the same exact lines of thought with the same points the Erudite is teired in higher than the psion due to having all psionic powers, and also all arcane spells. If you really wish to argue either the Erudite/Wizard being higher teired than the Sorcerer/Psion classes you should take your opinions to JaronK's thread.
If you wish to argue an Erudite's capabilities are not close to a Wizards', Clerics', Druids', Archivists', or Artificers' capabilities then this thread has some purpose after all. Which I'll take the time to address some of those things now.
1. Cheese.
You're quick to say an Erudite learning devine spells from a character with levels any of the vast number of PrCs that grant divine spells is cheese. And try to ignore it. On the same token, casting gate to summon a CR 40 monster to fight for you, granting your self extra surprise rounds via Shapechange Dire turtle, shapechanging into a Solar for divine spells, casting genesis and creating a fast time plane to hide in, slapping 4 metamagic effects together to nuke the planet, and many many other examples are all worse. You cannot use DM fait to block an Erudite from contacting one person in game with levels one of dozen or so PrCs yet uphold an anything goes for another class. Even trying to do so is to fail before you even click on post.
If all cheese is allowed, then the Erudite wins by default theoretically since they can repeat any given day multiple times giving them the exact knowledge of every action his opponent wizard
will do. There is always a way to beat something, and the Erudite can always find it.
Also, I think I'll have to dig for Body Outside A Body's text. If the clones still have PP an Erudite can simply use Fusion for yet another option for unlimited PP. Differently worth looking into.
2. PrCs.
Erudite 5 / PrCone 4 / PRCtwo 4 / PrCthree 4 / PrCfour 1 / PrCone +2 is perfectly fine with no theoretical loss at all and you can also use retraining on a Erudite 17 build to take ten PrC levels as well. So what if the abilities granted by the Incantratix and Shadowcraft Mage PrCs are better than the few psionic PrCs printed. 99% of the comments spoken of those two classes falls directly into game breaking material.
It's like trying to say the 9mm Glock carried by law enforcement is a piss poor weapon because we have invented a tank.3. Powers per round.
You explicitly mention a wizard burning two of three daily uses of a 170,000gp rod to quicken two spells (can only be done once per day) and shapechange from a 3.0 monster to cast four spells in a single given turn. However, with Overchannel and Schism the Erudite can take about 22 damage to manifest two 9th level powers in a round as often as they want and they still can add quicken power for more. This of course means the Erudite can pump out up six 9th level powers by taking about a quarter of his HP in damage by round two and the wizard casts his 7th using his last daily charge but quickly falls behind in the following rounds after that. Assuming of course the wizard actually has enough 9th level slots to try and keep up with the nova effects psionics has. Add in one of the many ways to net unlimited PP and an Erudite easily holds his own in the second tier while still maintaining the massive versatility trait only found in first teir.
One argument you may have against this is the low HP nature of using overchannel, but at the 20th level PC vs PC having 170 or 126 HP won't make a difference and psionics also comes with fast healing powers. Even novaing like that for three rounds per day puts you ahead of a wizard. And to seal the coffin, the psionic version of Time Stop can be accessed five levels earlier than the spell version letting you have even more actions in a standard round. The Erudite having Arcane Fusion and Linked Power can also kick in if you stop looking at the highest level you have access to.
Laughably, a Kobold can use Draconic Rite of Passage to take Obtain Familiar as a feat (or any other race with a scaling caster level as a racial feature) and under the magic/power transparency rules the Erudite could use Imbue Familiar to a greater extent than a wizard could.
4. Arcane Fusion.
Yes a wizard recaster could learn Greater Arcane Fusion for example. It requires a certain race, being the 17th level, taking two levels in a certain PrC. The benefit is the wizard can cast any wizard spell.
The Erudite can learn Greater Arcane Fusion from any sorcerer (who's dumb enough not to learn it?) a level earlier with no small print in costs. The benefit is being able to cast any arcane spell (wizard, sorcerer, assassin, bard, etc.), any psionic power, and any divine spell (cleric, druid, ranger) at it's full potential. Arcane Fusion is just that good when used by an Erudite.
5. Clerics can cast 9th level powers?
I didn't know that. You should try raising awareness of that kernel of knowledge, and naming the class and the book it's in so I can read about it would be a great start I think. I only know the Arcane>Divine thing. I'm pretty sure (Arcane+Powers)>(Divine+Powers) but the whole 9th level power access to any discipline (they get that right?) thing may alter things abit.
Yes the Erudite don't make a better spellcaster than a real spellcaster. Ironically, I expected that... But that don't mean the Erudite isn't a strong class.