What is the lamest prestige class concept (to you)

[ranagrande]

The Knight of the Raven, from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, is a class focused on fighting undead that does not require Turn Undead. It grants it at third level too. It does require divine casting though

[Blackhawk748]

The Knight of the Raven, from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, is a class focused on fighting undead that does not require Turn Undead. It grants it at third level too. It does require divine casting though

Ya, still no Fighter entry, but the Ranger can get in on this one which is nice.

[Extra Anchovies]

Ya, still no Fighter entry, but the Ranger can get in on this one which is nice.

You could also do Soldier of Light entry, if you really wanted, but you wouldn't get nearly as much out of the casting advancement.

[Blackhawk748]

You could also do Soldier of Light entry, if you really wanted, but you wouldn't get nearly as much out of the casting advancement.

Yes you could, but you get some more fun class features.

[Fax Celestis]

Ya, still no Fighter entry, but the Ranger can get in on this one which is nice.

Or a Barbarian/Runescarred Berserker, lol.

[Blackhawk748]

Or a Barbarian/Runescarred Berserker, lol.

By the gods, those undead are so screwed lol

[Sam K]

I can kinda see it as a "you're set apart from the rest" bit. Clerics are more the standard magically imbued dudes, low-rung followers. Anyone can become a cleric if they have enough faith. Your RSoPs are the ones who go above and beyond, though. To use a non-religious comparison (because otherwise I'm getting into real-world stuff), anyone can become a computer techie, take a few classes and spend a few bucks and you can get some low level certificates, know your way around computers. But if you meet someone with, say, a CCAr certification? They're at the -top-, basically the best at what they do. Within their realm, they can do anything a low level techie can do and then some.

At least, that's how I'd see it. It depend on how the clergy is structured in your setting, though.

To me, the problem with this kind of reasoning is that channeling divine power directly from your god is "low-rung". Once you get past the first few levels (which is usually when you can start entering PRCs), you're able to pull people from deaths door with a wave of your hand and a brief prayer.

If "anyone" could be a cleric, most commoners would go that route (profession skills are based on wisdom anyway), and suddenly injuries would be far less of a problem in the world. Ofcourse, crunch-wise this is how it would be, but fluff-wise PC-classes should be rare and spellcasters even more so.

I suppose that if you view clerics and dietys as weakly linked, as in clerics can easily change diety and channel someone elses power, specialized PRCs makes more sense, with the cleric giving up/restricting their ability to switch gods in exchange for more power. Sounds like material for another thread!

[Petrocorus]

My own 2 copper are the BladeSinger from CW. It try to be too much at once. The Elf warrior/dancer concept from AD&D 2 and WarHammer but also the Elf Fighter-Wizard (explicitly). And it's poorly executed, the entry requirements are big and don't combine well with the "most obvious" entry class (Feat-heavy and cross class skill) and it makes you lose 5 caster levels. The actual better entry to meet the prerequisites is Bard with a fighter dip, but you lose too much and the class feature don't combine with bard.

3) They are too good, especially some of the ones for elves.

Which Elf PrC is too good for your taste? Of all the PrC usually considered as "too good" and overpowered, none that i can think of is reserved to elves.

I know, I was enjoying the thread much more before it became pages of debating the definition of fluff vs. crunch; and "Mindrape: evil or just misunderstood?".

Thank you. I second this.

For my 2 cents, one of the most annoying things is how many PrCs dedicated to giving melee types magical or pseudo magical powers (particularly classes about imbuing your weapon with powers) are medium BAB. I know full BAB isn't the be all and end all, but it kind of is a thing for melee types. Elemental Warrior, Dragon Samurai and Shadowblade all come to mind as offenders.

Vigilante, Suel Arcanamach, Divine Crusader... All requiring a rather good BAB but giving a medium one.

Oh, and another of my major PrC gripes: there is (AFAIK) no Undead-slaying PrC that doesn't require Turn Undead. Oh, you wanted to play a Fighter or Ranger who really hates undead and has a PrC to back it up? Sorry, you need a Cleric dip - i.........I keep meaning to homebrew one myself...

That bites me too. One of the strong contender IMHO is the Silver Pyromancer, it's an arcane PrC, not even specialised against undead but require TU for basically no reason.

Dare I ask how many classes require dipping into one of the Master Classes to fight undead?

Aforementioned Knight of the Raven and Soldier of Light (from Deities & Demi-God, IDK but i think it's 3.0). But there are some PrC with alternate casting that are not specialised against undead but can be good at it, like Suel Arcanamach.

A cleric dip isn't the end of the world - just trade out the domains for devotion feats. Travel Devotion is great, as is Knowledge Devotion. You can even dip Cloistered Cleric to keep your skills up on a skillmonkey or knowledgemonkey, and getting Know Religion as a class skill is helpful for classes like Rogue.

The prooblem with ditching Knowledge Granted Power for Knowledge Devotion is that you need the former to fuel the later.

However Deities and Demigods has the Soldier of Light class which doesn't require any of that, so our Fighter can actually enter it - to get the spells and TU he was missing to enter the other classes ;)

I like that class. And it combine well with Divine Crusader, also. You can build a neutral-good paladin with 9th lvl spells casting keyed on Charisma thanks to it.