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prestige classes
claxton
ClubPA regular
ClubPA regular
In my first DnD gathering, I found out about prestige classes. After going home and looking them up, if found out there are a fuckload of them. And so I decided we needed a thread to talk about fun ones. Of the ones I looked at, frenzied berserker sounds awesome. Unable to die while in a frenzy? Unable to stop attacking while in a frezy? awesome. So, anyone know of any fun prestige classes they've played as?
Its not enough to win. You want nothing left of your enemy but a skull nailed to a fence post so everybody understands the cost of crossing you. -Durga
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In terms of sheer number crunching fun, I like giving a scout or rogue Invisible Blade. I think a few fighter levels also go a long way on top of that.
Very fun, but don't get too attached to the character; it probably won't last very long.
Wild Mages would be awesome if they weren't a glorified Rod of Wonder in 3.5. They were so amusing in BG2, though.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/mysticTheurge.htm
Yep, that one there was a prestige class I ran on my old DM and jacked his shit up completely; the only one that was more broken was the Geomancer from Masters of the Wild 3.0.
That class could knock some shit DOWN.
The BBEG my players had most trouble with was an Arcane Trickster, mostly because the combo of sneak attack+Buff Spells+Improved Invisibility on a smart character who enjoys traps and ambushes is pretty nasty. On low levels those combo classes are annoying though, since you are 3 levels behind on the rest of the party at one point, with little to nothing to show for it. (High int, rogue/wizard mentality, neutral evil, has a few giants as henchmen)
Oh, and on the DM nightmare list you could add the Thrallherd, who for the loss of 1 manifester level has an infinite supply of lackeys, "bomb squad", ends up with 2 cohorts at level-1 and level-2 at level 15. I still want to play one though, if i ever get an evil campaign going.
Prestige classes can be very fun, but not every class benefits equally. Not many caster PrC's have full spell progression (Mage of the Arcane Order (Complete Arcane) is a notable exception, and a favorite among sorcerors (who should always PrC, since their class has 0 abilities apart from familiar and spell progression).
For Fighters / Barbarians it's probably the most interesting, since they get next to no abilities at high levels beyond bonus feats or improvements on the abilities they already have.
You destroy magical items in exchange for power. You can't have any magical items at all, but you get bonuses for that. And you have a valid reason for trying to take/destroy everyone else's items, and killing wizards and such. I think if you combine it with some flaw/feat "Vow of Poverty" you then become far too powerful.
My DM made special prestige classes for all of our characters, in the game where we were medeivil super-heroes. I quite liked that!
Its actualy underpowered compared to a straight caster if you run the recommended number of encounters per day.
Its handy if your party doesnt have a healer/divine spellcaster, but other than that its nothing too spectacular.
Not like the Initiate of the Seven Fold Veil, or the Fate Spinner
Apparently my Elven Duskblade has convinced my current GM to never allow that class again. He does, however, love the Knight class.
The girl playing one of the jedi pretty much just said no, and I was really mad for about four hours.
The artificer is probably the most broken class in the game...
Duskblades are awesome, but not overpowered.
Knights are also awesome.
Beguilers are probably a smidge overpowered.
I'm not a fan of prestige classes.
It's also just the ultimate 'lone wolf' kind of class - you can't carry any magic items, and also have to make a save against any kind of spell cast on you - even your own cleric's heals.
In exchange for this, you get spell resistance, damage resistance, huge saving throws, and an ability score increase each level.
WHY: Your GM was probably missing the fact that the Arcane Channelling thing, at 13th level, only lets the spell affect a given target once. For example, if you used Touch of Idiocy on someone, you would not be able to hit them with it more than once.
I am currently playing one in a campaign with people who are moderate power gamers, and I am about par for the course in terms of damage dealing with our Scout/Dervish/Tempest and our Blackguard Mounty-chap.
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
Eldrich Knight I think still serves a purpose, even with the duskblades existance. You can get alot bigger spell pool, alot higher level spells and more spells per day with an Eldrich Knight.
Duskblade does kinda make the Spell Sword seem pointless though. Then again, warmage + whatever feat lets you cast in heavier armor + mithril armor + eldrich knght always seemed better then Spell Sword to me...
I guess the channel two spells at once into your sword thing is pretty nifty...
Edit: Duskblade is a class from the Players Handbook 2. It has full BAB progression, decent HP and gets spells. At 20th level it has acess to 5th level spells. It has some other cool features, like quicken spell X number of times per day at will, and during full attacks being able to expend a touch spell to add the affects of the touch spell to each swing of the attack (although it can only affect a single enemy once in a turn).
Actually, of all things, his main problem with the class is the quick-cast ability and the swift spells on the list.
The fact that I can one-hit-kill things with a good hit is just icing.
Have you considered the possiblity that your GM has no idea what he's talking about?
I have.
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
Swift spells are pretty awesome actualy, even then though it shouldnt be enough to matter.
A lot of them are a little overpowered, as far as I'm concerned. Some of them are just, well, lame. I basically look over the Prestige Classes and decide which ones actually make sense and which ones are just some sweaty gamer's wet dream he came up with while jerking off over his 1983 copy of The Compleat Adventurer or the copy of Dragon with the fucking "Duelist" class in it.
As far as I'm concerned, you can't be without the Assassin and the Blackguard. Those are just mainstays of D&D. A lot of the Prestige Classes look like good NPC classes for things like antagonists and major villains (i.e. I would never ever allow a PC to play a fucking Pale Master, but I would use one for a major villain).
That and I have a group of people that I play with who have mostly been playing since 1st edition AD&D, and we've seen classes like a lot of these be abused and overused. I also have really strict rules for doing things like multi-classing that most people would whine about. But then again, none of you ever had to play with a Fighter/Thief/Duelist who could backstab with a two-handed sword, never miss and block all other attacks--even missile attacks--with a dagger in his off-hand.
I am intrigued. Show ussss thisss build, Preciousss.
One thing you have to realize was that the Duelist class was one of those cheezy classes that came out in Dragon that sounded like a good idea, but it ended up fucking the game up. The Prestige Class one they have in...oh, I don't remember which book it is off-hand, well, it is much improved.
The original Duellist could only use a Rapier, but the damage depended on his level, plus he got his Strength AND Dex bonuses to hit and to damage. On top of that, he could block an attack, one attack per level plus Dex bonus. So a 14th level Duellist with an 18 Dex could block something like 19 attacks per round. He also could block the same way if he had a dagger, buckler or another rapier in his off-hand. Plus, if he had a dagger or rapier in the off-hand, he could also attack with it. There are tales of Duellists taking on dragons alone while the rest of the party went to pick up the pizza. It was a travesty.
Fortunately, I never allowed those characters in my games, but I was in a few that did allow them. Usually, if anyone said, "It's this new class out of Dragon that I read about last month..." it meant the rest of the party was going to be in for a good nap.
If the duskblade was outshining the fighter and the barbarian, the fighter and the barbarian werent doing their job, which is battlefield control.
The duskblade is not the frontline fighter that a fighter or barb is, something was going wrong with your group.
Another thing to keep in mind is that duskblades "peak" at 5th level (in realative power) due to shocking grasps 5d6 damage cap.
That being said, you shouldnt have been outshining your team mates.
Heard a bit about it, but don't have any of the books that spell out the class. It sounds like it might be a fun direction to take a ranger or rogue character.
omniscificer is unneeded to alert a deity to a Pun pun ascention, the base DnD god of magic, senses all magical happenings[of any kind] some seven weeks before and after they happen. Just for the record.
Tome of Battle is awesome, it "casterizes" melee fighters, giving them scaleable abilities. Its a good step for melee types.
Re:Bloodhound
I have never played or DM'd a bloodhound, they seem a decently solid class for a specific instance. Unless your game involves a lot of tracking, it isnt very usefull. This means that bloodhounds are typical builds.
Other than that, i dont know how it performs.