Epic Prestige Classes?

[Dross Swordra]

Hey guys. My gaming group has decided to convert our long running characters from 2e into 3.5. My character in 2e was a 36 level thief. This will be our first foray into epic characters. I am pretty familiar with the rules, but I have not actually seen them in action yet. My first thought was to convert this character straight up as a Rogue 20 / Epic Rogue 16. This would give him tons of skill points and feats. It would also give him a ton of epic bonus feats. But i have been toying with the idea of customizing him a bit.
My idea : Rogue 15 / Master Thrower 5 / Shadow Dancer 1 / Epic Rogue 5 / Perfect Wight 10

I threw in 1 level of shadow dancer strictly for the Hide in plain sight class abiility. What do you guys think I should do with this build?

-thanks in advance for your ideas.

Dross

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I would recommend against doing what you're doing - the number of options available to even fairly low-level characters (like, 5th-8th) in 3E can be pretty complex.

Jumping in at Epic levels to start with may cause more problems than it's worth. I recommend starting a new, low-level campaign first, so you can see the rules in action, before attempting Epic stuff.

As an aside, your 5 levels of "Epic Rogue" aren't really - they're actually levels 16 - 20 of the non-Epic rogue class. You don't get Epic Rogue benefits until you hit level 21 as a Rogue. In short, you won't get any epic bonus feats from those levels.

 

[Dross Swordra]

I have actually been playing 3.5 for some time now....we just haven't hit epic levels. I was just asking for some build advise. I stand corrected on the epic rogue levels, indeed, my character would be Rogue 20 / Master Thrower 5 / Shadow Dancer 1 / Perfect Wight 10.
My real question is with the epic prestige classes. Are they worth investing in?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Ah - when you said, "I have not actually seen them in action yet," I thought you meant 3.X rules in general.

You may safely ignore all the comments I made regarding that, then!

As far as Epic PrCs go, there's a couple of issues:

1. Only 10+ level PrCs can be taken Epic
2. Of those that are possible, a large number of them don't even have Epic progressions statted out.

As far as non-Epic PrCs taken in Epic levels, what the real analysis is going to be is the trade-off between bonus Epic feats and non-Epic class abilities. Some Epic feats are pretty hefty in terms of power. Others, however, are not so much. For instance, the shadowdancer's HiPS ability pretty much kicks the butt of most Epic feats. Go for it.

Are the abilities you get across 10 levels of Perfect Wight worth the 2 Rogue bonus feats you're giving up? Looking at it, I'd say absolutely.

Master Thrower, though, might not "make the cut." I don't know the class very well, though.

One suggestion I might make is to not do a straight level conversion, however. 36th-level AD&D characters aren't nearly as ... diverse / powerful ... as 36th-level 3.X characters. It might be a more faithful conversion to convert at a lower Epic (or just pre-Epic) level.

 

[andargor]

As far as Epic PrCs go, there's a couple of issues:

1. Only 10+ level PrCs can be taken Epic
2. Of those that are possible, a large number of them don't even have Epic progressions statted out.

Just to be clear, I assume you are talking about non-Epic PrCs which can be extended past 10th level once the character becomes Epic. Eg. Loremaster 11th OK, Archmage 6th not OK. As opposed to the Perfect Wight which is a "pure" Epic PrC.

Andargor

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Just to be clear, I assume you are talking about non-Epic PrCs which can be extended past 10th level once the character becomes Epic. Eg. Loremaster 11th OK, Archmage 6th not OK. As opposed to the Perfect Wight which is a "pure" Epic PrC.

Andargor

Yes - by "taken Epic" I mean "have an Epic progression of their own."

Exactly correct, Andargor, and thanks for clearing that up.

 

[ruleslawyer]

One suggestion I might make is to not do a straight level conversion, however. 36th-level AD&D characters aren't nearly as ... diverse / powerful ... as 36th-level 3.X characters. It might be a more faithful conversion to convert at a lower Epic (or just pre-Epic) level.

Well, in terms of *rarity*, I'd say that 36th-level 2e AD&D characters are easily comparable to 36th-level 3e characters, but that rogue, specifically, is a bit of a cheap shot, given that a 36th-level AD&D rogue has fewer XP (5.72 million) than a 26th-level AD&D wizard, and that all the classes are equally balanced in 3e. I converted all the characters in my 2e epic campaign using straight XP rather than class levels, and recalibrating levels to the 2e wizard XP table. Thus, IMC, that 36th-level rogue would be a Rog26.

That said, if you want a properly scary build, I'd recommend skipping Perfect Wight entirely and going instead with the Void Incarnate:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20030418a

Scroll down to the second PrC on the page. A good build is Rog20/Shd1/Void Incarnate 10/[anything] 5. You can hide anywhere, are undetectable and immune (or highly resistant) to practically every effect in the book, and can sneak attack practically anyone.

 

[Deaths_Fist]

Master Thrower, though, might not "make the cut." I don't know the class very well, though.

Actually, this class is really worth it for one (borderline broken) ability alone: Weak Spot, I believe it's called, and you can't take it until the fifth level (as if that were some sort of balancing factor ). Anyway, point is it lets you make all your ranged thrown attacks as ranged touch attacks, and all of a sudden any challenge to your character's skill level with his weapon is gone. It combines to great effect with Sneak Attack.

 

[Dross Swordra]

Void incarnate looks really cool....my old 2e campaign was run slightly differently. We weren't too caught up with power gaming....so too make things easier on the DM we decided that when the DM felt the time was right, every character leveled up at the same time. This made my rogue considerably less powerful than the Wizard of the group, but that didn't really matter to us, since we were all having fun.