Most broken prestige classes?

[Deset Gled]

I would put Mystic Theurge right up there. Strategically, there is no reason for a Sorcerer not to take the class, and only a minor dis-incentive for a Wizard (loss of the meta magic feats).

My experience would be the exact opposit. Sorcerers suck as an MT, or at any PrC that requires multiclassing to enter. They start out being one spell level behind a wizard. Multiclassing to meet a PrC requirement pushes their progression back even further.

Sorcerers are also in trouble with PrCs that have feat requirements, as they have a very limited number of feats available, so they are very precious. Spending any feat that doesn't specifically advance your character concept is a major cost.

Sorcerers are also worse off than wizards at PrCs that have skill requirements. 2+int skills per level is very painful when you don't have a ridiculously high INT (like all wizards have). They don't have very many class skills, either.

In short, sorcerers are screwed when it comes to PrCs. On paper, it may not look like they give anything up (except a familiar), but the opportunity cost of entering one is often much higher than you think.

 

[Cactot]

There are very few prestige classes I think are outright broken. These are some of the ones I think are pretty powerful.

Frenzied Berzerker
Initiate of the Seven Fold Veil
Abjurant Champion
Master Specialist
Incantatrix
Planar Shepard
Dweomerkeeper
Shadowcraft Mage
Teflemar (sp?) Shadowlord (combined with other teleportation effects)
Walker in the Wastes
Hulking Hurler (Generally unplayable)
UR Priest
​

Others that I dislike single level dips into but I would probably still allow (either to easy to get into, or you get to much out of it in the first couple levels):

Runesmith
Mindbender
Spellsword
Deepwarden
​

Hulking hurler is the only one out of your list that I think is inherently broken. Perhaps frenzied beserker is too, for no other reason than the friend killing.

Maybe its just me, but I very rarely see a class that i think is inherently broken. Most of the exceptionally powerful ones have very harsh entry requirements or very harsh roleplay restrictions. And even with their terrible power, if there is any modicum of player-dm respect going on, they will not use it to disrupt the campaign. Frankly a Wizard, Artificer, CoDzilla or whatever in the hands of a powergamer is going to be far more of a threat than an average player using one of these PrC's.

Walker in the wastes has lots of potential, but some of the harshest roleplaying of any class i have run into. (How does one interact in everyday society as a lich with a mummy following you around?)

Shadowcraft mage is pretty awesome, but not really a game braker. Though it really is a no-brainer for a gnomish mage.

Planar shepard has the potential to be very very broken (infinite wishes, planar bubble timestop), but do people really try things like that in a real game (outside of the char-op boards)? Other than those things, which i would be embarassed to even try on a dm, its actually a decent class.

Abjurant champion is decent but not gamebreaking at all (a few extra hp and ac is really all they get)

Initiate of the sevenfold veil is awesome, but has very very steep entry requirements. Waste 3 feats, and lots of skill ranks (some of which may be cross class). The feats are a killer, as any arcane caster is typically very short on feats. The only way for this to be close to "overpowered" is to allow flaws also.

Incantrix is very nice, with specialization with only a one school loss, as well as reduced cost metamagic, definitely a wizard +

I love the deepwarden, equally good as a 2 level dip or a full progression PrC, one of the few that is very nice without being crazy powerful.

I am not terribly familiar with the rest on the list, but i would be interested to hear how exactly they would break a game.

 

[DarkJester]

I don't believe any of them break the game. I prefaced my post a little vaguely, there are no prestige classes which I think are inherently broken. Of all the prestige classes, that list contains the ones I feel are the strongest.

 

[Cactot]

I don't believe any of them break the game. I prefaced my post a little vaguely, there are no prestige classes which I think are inherently broken. Of all the prestige classes, that list contains the ones I feel are the strongest.

ah, then in that case, i agree entirely

 

[Quartz]

A prestige class that's most definitely broken as a one level dip is Divine Crusader with its rapid spell advancement. Purely for the rapid spell advancement.