Alienist

[Crothian]

Just one, actually: Augmented Summoning. It ain't that bad. And a sorcerer that takes this later gets two free metamagic feats.

ahh, but to get that you need spell focus Conjuration.

and sorcers have a hard time getting Knowldge planes to 8 ranks since it is a cross class skill for them

 

[Rackhir]

You have to blow two feats on the class, and they aren't great feats by any means.

Spell focus Conjuration and Augment summoning are actually suprisingly useful feats. Conjuration covers some very nice spells like Cloudkill iirc and augment summoning is nice if you are planning on making a summoning focused character.

But even this aside, Alienists get their metamagics earlier, they get Perfect Self and Timeless body, and an extra spell slot. In other words, why would anyone take straight Wizard or straight Sorcerer over this?

Alienist actually has some liabilities. First off you loose a significant amount of wisdom, over the course of the class, 4 or 6 points total iirc. Your summoning list gets restricted, without any increase in power since the non-epic pseudonatural template is no more powerful than fiendish or celestial. In addition you pick up some reaction penalties. You also loose any familiar advancement (not a big penalty admittedly, but it is one) or other level dependent class abilities. There are some other minor penalties like these that I can't recall at the moment. All timeless body does is make you immune to further physical aging penalties. Any you've accumulated stay in effect and how often does aging really figure into a D&D campaign?

The wisdom penalty alone is reason to avoid the class if you don't want to do a summoning focused character. In other words, if you wanted to do a summoning focused character, then yes you would probably want to take this class. It does what a prestige class ought to do, it makes you better at a specialized field. However, it is at best a minor boost in power over a regular wizard.

 

[Rkhet]

Wisdom doesn't matter all that much to an arcane caster - especially since Alienist gains the most important part of it - will save +1, along with +1 to the other saves - back.

Also, it's only two points, and only happens once at level two.

Familiar actually improves at the same rate - it's one of the Arcanist's class abilities. Better, in fact: it gets the Pseudonatural template too.

A wizard or sorcerer doesn't have any class features other than these, so you won't need to worry about anything else.

You do get some reaction penalties, though. And it's a shame for the Sorcerer. But you can just hide behind the Paladin when he goes shopping.

Lacking the knowledge as a class skill is a problem too. Hmmm... but you could still take it at level 13, and squeeze in seven levels - just enough for two bonus feats.

That means you essentially get Focus (Conj) and Aug Summon for free.

Aha. You even get to avoid the worst of the reaction penalties this way (only -4).

 

[Seeten]

Not seeing this as anything close to broken. Incantatrix, Sevenfold Inititiate, both are much better. Chosen of Mystra? Better. Alienist, doesnt seem thrilling. I mean, better than straight Sorceror, yes. But what isnt?

 

[Rkhet]

Some things are obviously broken, so there's really no need to talk about them. It's only those PrCs that have a chance of being allowed that needs to be debated.

 

[Crothian]

Some things are obviously broken, so there's really no need to talk about them. It's only those PrCs that have a chance of being allowed that needs to be debated.

Not really, even what some people might consider "obviously broken" can and will work with players that are not out to abuse the system. Being "broken" is by itself worthless, it needs a player that use and abuse it for it to truely be "broken".

 

[Rkhet]

Ah, but allowing broken things into the game restricts player freedom. How so? If they abuse it, they get frowned on, by the DM who 'trusted them not to'. If they don't, they get the feeling that some things are off limits, even when they worked hard for it and there is no RP reason it should be.

Besides, how are you going to trust players to 'not break' something like Sevenfold Veil, anyway? It has abilities. Powerful abilities. If the players take that PrC, they're gonna be wanting to use it as hard and as often as they can. Can you blame them?

 

[Crothian]

Ah, but allowing broken things into the game restricts player freedom. How so? If they abuse it, they get frowned on, by the DM who 'trusted them not to'. If they don't, they get the feeling that some things are off limits, even when they worked hard for it and there is no RP reason it should be.

Besides, how are you going to trust players to 'not break' something like Sevenfold Veil, anyway? It has abilities. Powerful abilities. If the players take that PrC, they're gonna be wanting to use it as hard and as often as they can. Can you blame them?

Its all about the players. I don't know the Sevenfold Viel class, but I trust my players not to abuse anything. Our style of play though is different from most D&D games, so that might add to it. At any rate, the trust in my players has never been put to question. They don't abuse things, that's just how it is and frankly it makes the game run a lot better becasue I don't have to worry about it. As DM I can conecentrate on the important things.

 

[Seeten]

If you think Alienist is broken, there is no possibility for a PrC for Wizards in your campaign that is allowable, IMO. That isnt to say it isnt more powerful than Wizard 20, it is, but not astonishly so, IMO. All the other PrC's are either even better than Alienist, or, so awful no one would take them. Generally, the Fighter PRC's are simply better than Fighter 20 also. Are they also given the same treatment?

Edit: Thats not to say I dont get your point. I do. And I dont see blocking all the PrC's that concern you as a bad thing, either, just that I think its the road your on. Whats prestigious about being in a class worse than your base class? Prestige, to some extent means "Still within the same general power class, while being maybe slightly better" IMO, and IMC

 

[Rkhet]

'The road I'm on'? Oh dear. Next thing we know I'll be passin' out the pink pills, eh?

I like my games resistant to min-maxing. Which is to say, a level 20 arcane caster should have roughly similiar amounts of power so long as it is built reasonably well, regardless of what prestige classes were taken. A prestige class means they can do something well, better than Sorc-20, perhaps - but always at a cost of doing other things less well. There shouldn't be something-for-nothing, or else nobody'd take sorc- or wiz-20.