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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9821969" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/6e663ad07c71.jpeg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 7: Prestige ClassesImage is the Knights of Solamnia from 3.5 Dragonlance Campaign SettingThe next-longest chapter in the book, Prestige Classes are separated into 4 categories: Spellcasting (of which there are 29), Martial (21), Racial (3), and Paragon (3). And much like the Base Classes, <a href="https://radthemad4.github.io/gamingdenbookmarks/Prestige_Classes.html" target="_blank">there are entries which were written by non-Frank/K posters.</a> Due to the sheer number, it would be impractical for me to cover them all, so instead I'm going to highlight the ones which stand out to me while also being a bit rapid-fire in combining the paraphrasing of the class with my thoughts.One thing to note is that while not that frequent, some of these PrCs were made before the innovation of scaling feats, so you'll still see references to ones that don't exist in the Tomes such as Power Attack.Spellcasters in 3rd Edition have things weighed in their advantage when it comes to Prestige Classes, in that most primary casting classes didn't have much if any class features outside of their spells. Thus they were heavily incentivized to pick up Prestige Classes which granted consistent spellcasting progression. The Tomes don't really fix or course-correct this; for example, there's still little incentive to be a pure 20th-level Wizard unless you really need 2 more bonus feats or something.Starting with the magical options, Arcane Archer is a remake of the 3.5 one to be a proper ranged gish. They gain both the Base Attack progression and Spellcasting progression (except at 1st level) of a warrior and primary mage respectively, along with being able to apply special magical powers to their arrows along with thematic abilities such as particular ranged combat feats. A very strong class that does well at what it says.Arcane Strategist is meant to be an expert planner who uses spells to make alterations to the battlefield. It gets an incredibly overpowered ability at 3rd level known as Signal that is basically an at-will (but one at a time) Contingency when they cast a specific spell, and all allies who can hear them can perform a Standard/Move/Full-Round action determined beforehand during the "planning phase" as an Immediate action instead. It gets some other good features like being able to turn spells into triggered traps. Much like Fighter's Foil Action, Signal is going to be spammed all the time. Too powerful IMO.Bondeblade Reaper is a gish who uses necromancy to supplement their death-dealing. They get enhanced effects when wielding melee weapons made out of boneblade (ignore DR of undead creatures and can hit incorporeal ones), get really fast bonuses to Speed as they increase in level, can cast cast necromancy spells through their Bondeblades, are healed by negative energy, and so on. It's a powerful and thematic PrC, and I do like the high Speed bonus as it helps close the gap with enemies.Corpselight Whisperer is someone who bonded with will-o-wisps in order to gain mastery over the death-stricken bogs of the Bane Mires. They are a druidic PrC with full casting progression, letting the character wild-shape into plants and a will-o-wisp albeit starting out with limited traits, and granting several necromancy and illusion-based abilities. It feels decently-balanced from what I can tell, and I like its flavor.Eldritch Knight is a reworked version of the 3.5 class, going into design discussion on how the original is wildly underpowered and says that getting a wizard to drop 1 level in casting must grant them better options than the Barbarian/Fighter class features. The Knight is a straight improvement across the board, including most notably being able to ignore arcane spell failure with proficient armor. As this penalty made playing warrior-mages in 3.5 a chore, and the other class features really deliver the "mage-warrior" vibe, this looks good to me.Lurker in the Swarm is a mage who cultivates swarms of undead bees. What more needs to be said? It centers around swarm-summoning features and generating nectar from the harvested blood of creatures they kill for healing and anti-aging. The Bag of Rats trick is partially obviated by the harvesting having CR and Intelligent minimums for the victims, which is good to see.Master of the Seven Necromantic Mysteries represents someone who delved ever further into the secrets of undeath, elevating them over two-bit dark mages and small-time cultists. The class is full progression and much of the features supplement existing abilities and spells but have some distinct features. What's most notable is that at 6th level they gain the ability to cast Magic Jar at will and treat any body they possess as a receptable, which is…uh, I got to say, empowering martial characters across the board can only do so much when you hand stuff like this out to mages!Master of Snake Mountain is fundamentally a stereotypical Evil Overlord who is in control of a dungeon, and their class features revolve around stereotypical Evil Overlord stuff: swapping out Leadership cohorts between adventures, can produce Bardic Music, can speak to a wide variety of creature types, etc. Fun and flavorful, although a bit hard to justify for a PC thematically speaking.Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions is not wizard-only despite the name, and can reflect any arcane caster who believes that the spells of ancient times are better than those of today. They are pretty much a "mega-mage," gaining stuff like being able to reflect line-shaped AoEs off surfaces, all their spells lose maximum level-dependent effects such as damage die caps, can harvest body parts of certain monster types to count as floating GP and XP for magic item crafting, doubling range and AoE on spells while outdoors, etc. Overall a straight improvement to arcane casters in every shape and form, and the monster harvesting has no minimum CR so it can be subject to potential Bag of Rats shenanigans.Speaker for the Dead is a more "ethical" kind of necromancer who seeks to preserve the memories of the fallen and grant them unlife to achieve unfulfilled purposes. They can Speak with Dead at will, are immune to magic that would modify their memories, can summon and animate more undead than normal but they aren't fully controlled and have a strong desire to find the people who killed them, etc. Speak with Dead being at-will is a spell I'm perfectly fine with, and I like the mechanics and flavor.Stranger with the Burning Eyes is a necromancer who abandoned their original body and learned to take control of the bodies of others like an immaterial magical parasite. Right off the bat they gain magic jar at will at 1st level and treat any body they inhabit as a receptacle (although if exorcised they can't ever possess that same body again), so uh…yay caster supremacy? Their other features include various dark magic stuff like being able to avoid being exorcised by Antimagic Fields, can spend spell slots to use a Wisdom-draining touch attack, and the ability to make use of a possessed creature's feats. Uh no, I wouldn't allow this one in a million years.Uttercold Assault Necromancer is a necromancer imagined as a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain. They treat their own undead and Leadership allies as "cohorts," granting them additional boons such as Cold Resistance, undead get the Dark Minded subtype (lose immunity to mind-affecting effects and can age but can heal normally, resistant to social skill checks, and immune to morale and fear), and so on. The PrC references rules from Heroes of Battle for 2 of its class features, so it's not workable right out of the box. Given how borked Leadership is in Tomes, this is best for an NPC rather than a PC.Thoughts: It's quite obvious that there's a running theme of necromancy and dark magic stuff among the magical Prestige Classes, which is to be expected as two of the Tomes concern Necromancy and Fiends. Most of them are worthwhile options for magical characters to take, although as mentioned before several are a little too powerful.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/04fcc551c7c7.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 576px" /><a href="https://mtgazone.com/many-faces-of-monastery-mentor-with-march-of-the-machine/" target="_blank">Image is Monastery Mentor from Magic the Gathering</a>Moving on to the martial prestige classes, Boatman of Styx is a staff-wielding roguish type who makes their living ferrying passengers across the eponymous river of the Lower Planes. They can effectively planeshift naval vessels they're on to other planes provided they remain on the River Styx, gain immunity to mind-affecting effects, can erase memories with their tears and kisses, etc. They're a thematic class, although a lot of their abilities are very situational so they are overall quite weak.Defender of the Woods has no flavor text besides a Yakov Smirnoff joke, but it's pretty straightforward. You can Dimension Door between trees like a dryad at will, get a magical beast mount, can speak with animals and cast Entangle at will which can also auto-damage enemies at higher levels, etc. A pretty cool nature-themed martial character in my opinion. Quite a few class features are contingent on certain biomes, but as forests of all kinds are very common in D&D adventures this is not as situational in comparison to other regions.Disciple of the Spirit Wave uses the power of their own spirit to achieve supernatural feats. They gain access to a unique resource known as Spirit Energy which they can spend on shooting damaging beams and cones as well as for enhancing their unarmed strikes and natural weapons. It is pretty straightforward in being a damaging blaster, but doesn't have much if anything in the way of utility like most straight martials.Dragon Lancer is self-explanatory, where you get a Dragon who levels up with you and gets improved buffs as part of your class features. The Rider can fashion free Dragonscale equipment from the scales of their mount, deal additional damage against dragons, and Energy Resistance against their dragon mount's breath weapon type among other things. The class is notably incomplete as mentioned in the text, instead providing a sample 9th level dragon referencing monster classes that have since never seen the light of day.Dungeon Veteran is someone who is all about dungeon crawls and how to best navigate them. Most of their abilities are utility in nature, such as ignoring hardness of unattended objects, a Dodge bonus to AC against traps, and Anti-Magic Field once per day. But the one that most parties will like is their ability to detect treasure, sensing them from a greater distance the higher the value that they have. The Dramatic Attack, which lets them perform a free Bull Rush when they deal 10+ damage with a weapon, is pretty cool, and several of their class features, such as Darkvision 120 feet and all thrown weapons gaining Returning, are useful for a lot of builds. One of my fave noncaster PrCs in the book.Elothar Warrior of Bladereach is a parody prestige class, effectively being a protagonist from a precrafted epic fantasy novel complete with name and backstory. Their class features revolve around achieving specific story-related goals and NPCs, and they gain named NPC cohorts with specific roles and backstories as they level up. The class is very unbalanced, intentionally so, such as gaining free drinks and food far later than gaining the ability to summon a Roc once per day. I don't know if this is based off a specific IP or is just a meta-joke, but would be interested to know.Gentle Monk is all about striking key pressure points for debilitating debuffs, and has a supernatural understanding of the life energy of living creatures. They gain features such as a touch attack that can exhaust or nauseate a target, send out ki as a sphere of damaging energy, can ready an action where they auto-counter any opponent who strikes them in melee with some of their class features, and so on. It's a pretty straightforward class and looks decently balanced.Legendary Strategist is a martial genius when it comes to the art of large-scale warfare, and sees battles from the big picture. They get typical "fantasy army leader" style abilities such as proficiency with siege weapons, can spend an immediate action to let an ally to reroll one die roll, cast Sending at will, negate Fear-based effects on allies within an AoE radius, and eventually cast Heroes' Feast at will. I really like this class, and can be useful even for smaller-scale adventuring parties.Lunar Knight is basically a Magical Girl. They must be good-aligned and get various "holy magic" and light-based abilities. It has a transformation sequence that grants various buffs such as Fast Healing and Deflection bonus to Armor Class, and beyond the transformation power they also have a permanent fly speed, a selective AoE healing burst, an AoE charm-based effect when transforming, and can inflict a special Silver Smite that can save-or-die shapechangers or banish extraplanar creatures. A pretty flavorful class, albeit the AoE Charm is capable of bypassing entire encounters, although charm immunity is reasonably common among monsters at higher levels IIRC.Thoughts: While martial characters get a good bit of stuff for Prestige Classes, the playing field between them and primary casters is still wonky on account that the latter category got some powerful upgrades as well. The spellcasting classes have more out-of-combat utility, and barring a few exceptions the martial classes are more limited in overall scope. There's a more even thematic mix of character archetypes than the "dark magic" of the caster category, which I like.There are three Racial classes and all require an appropriate heritage: the Half-Dragon, which has a short three levels but a lot of stuff packed into them ranging from Spell Resistance to flight, to Natural Armor, and a breath weapon; Progenitor of the Gith, a human who escaped from a mind flayer settlement and gains various psychic-flavored spell-like abilities and getter resistances against Will-targeting saves; and the Monitor, a Kuo-Toan martial artist who gets Fighting Styles as per the Tome Monk along with nihilistic class features such as casting despair-related spell-like abilities and gaining immunity to mind-affecting effects.Thoughts: None of these are actual caster classes, but they all have a decent set of abilities that make them worth taking.Finally, we end this chapter with Paragon Classes for 3 modified undead races introduced in the Tomes: the Ghoul, Swordwraith, and Vampire Paragon. We're going to skip ahead a little to Chapter 14: Monsters to describe the undead races first. They are all LA +0 templates, and thus are balanced around being "PC races." They are all still undead but lose some of the more powerful effects of that type and the original inspired monsters. Ghouls are dexterous and get a bite attack that carries Ghoul Fever; Swordwraith gets bonuses to Hide and Move Silently; the Vampire has a blood drain attack that can nourish them; and Revenants (who have no paragon class) are outright immune to being turned and rebuked (other 3 gain bonuses on rolls), and can heal fully during sunset, barring being nailed to the ground or they die in a tomb or hallowed area.The Paragon Classes seek to enhance their original races' iconic features: the ghoul gets a paralytic effect on their unarmed strikes and natural weapons (1d4+1 rounds), Sneak attack, an AoE stench, and can incubate diseases they "catch" to later spread them and to which the ghoul is also immune. The swordwraith can inflict Strength damage with melee strikes, gets several bonus feats, and Damage Reduction/Magic. Finally, the Vampire paragon gets a Blood Pool they can use to self-heal and be used on metamagic feats to substitute for increased spell levels, Gaseous Form and Hypnotism at will, and regeneration, but in exchange they get various vampire weaknesses and flaws.Thoughts: Of the undead paragons, the Vampire is the most broadly useful in spite of their weaknesses, and the Blood Pool is a great one-level dip for casters that make use of metamagic feats. Gaseous Form at will makes them excellent scouts as well. The Swordwraith's Damage Reduction against magic is decent for most martial builds, and the bonus feats they get are pretty good if using the scaling variants. The Ghoul leaves me cold, as its stench aura cannot be turned off and can thus impair allies, and an at-will paralyzing claw attack is really powerful and practically encourages a 1-level dip as it's the first ability that they get.Thoughts So Far: Prestige Classes are a great concept in theory, but in practice are mixed in execution. Much like feats, the sheer number plus balance being all over the place was to 3rd Edition's detriment. The Tomes realized this, and sought to aim for a higher playing field across the board. Their Prestige Classes aren't wholesale fixes to the system, as I mentioned for reasons above and particularly in regards to the still-existing caster/noncaster divide. The martial classes are a clear grade above most 3.5 martial/noncaster classes, which are high points in the Tomes' favor but sadly also a low bar to clear. Most of the Prestige Classes have few prerequisites, so you don't have to preplan out entire aspects of your character in order to take them, which is good as it helps avoid cookie-cutter concepts and encourages customization.Join us next time as we see the Tomes' take on a plausible fantasy feudal economy in Chapter 8: Money & Equipment!</blockquote>

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