Most broken prestige classes?

[satori01]

Having your Domain Spell be a Healing spell in order to use the principle power of the class is a huge cost of opportunity.

Augment Healing, Extra Turning, Divine Metamagic and Sudden Metamagic spells can mimic this class feature. Sure a RSoP can take these feats as well...but you then have a character maximized for healing...a character that is trying to min/max the # of hp healed....which is fine. Technically under the "strict interpretation" of RSoP...a OA Shaman dedicated to Pelor would almost be better...as the OA Shaman gets 2 Domain Spells per day at some levels.

Now if you are going to ignore all Rigor and Logic and decide the power of the RSoP applies to all spells on the Healing Domain list...the best healer is still not a cleric with the class...but instead a Favoured Soul with the Temporary HP alternative class ability from PHB II and a 3 levels of the Knight of the Raven PrC class from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

The Knight of the Raven PrC is btw a class that gives you:
1) Full BAB
2) D8 HP
3) Near Full Spell Casting ( you lose out on 1 spell casting level @ 1st level)
4) Raven Companion...that has the Celestial template...HP = to half your total...and is able to distract opponents as a free action causing them to lose actions, AoO etc and is rather hard to kill.
5) Feats that enable you to ignore or remove Negative Levels + ability damage...class grants feats from Liber Mortis
6) Class Gives you the Sun Domain for Free @ 3rd Level
7) Class Gives you a power to hurt Undead similar to the 10th level ability of the RsoP.

The only downside is you lose 2, of Turning Caster Levels...as similar to a Paladin it does not give you Turn Undead to 3rd level.
Of course the Turning Rules being what they are this is not that big of a deal.

Me thinks a Melee Cleric, with Divine Might, Righteous Might, Divine Power, with Power Attack and 10 levels of a FULL BAB class is scarier than a cleric casting a Maximize/Empowered Cure Light Wounds spell from his Domain Slot for 17 HPs of healing once per day.

 

[Votan]

But to go to my listing of initiate.

Initiate has a lot of wasted feats to get into it. I mean SF abjuration? If Spell Focus added to Caster Level it would rule, but how many abjurations have save DCs? Other than banishment and such?

The thing that bothers me about the class is the reactive warding, especially when they get to all seven veils. That is virtual (or total) immunity to any attack in the game. Add onthe seven levels of spellcasting, and it is a pretty good class, and should be watched, though it is nowhere near the level of Incantrix brokeness. Man, that class jsut gets more and more broken as the new books come out.

One problem with the Initiate is that it has a lot of up front costs (when casters are weak) to have amazing pwoers later on (when casters are strong).

However, between reactive warding and Kaleidoscopic Doom, the Initiate has too many options to dominate certain kinds of encounters. For example, imagine a high level wizard or cleric without spells up? One Kaleidoscopic doom is pretty fatal to anything with non-trivial buffs (and once a day isn't okay if the character has this many other cool abilities with the class). Add Unanswerable strike to make sure that the Dispel works (Yikes!) and double reactive warding if anything tries to go into melee. At this point the character is rather robust to attacks.

Now add the class level bonus to resist dispelling a list of protective spells and you have a class that can be pushed into brutal focus. It's not broken out of the box but it is like Divine Metamagic -- if you push on the strengths hard enough it gets insanely good.

 

[Slaved]

There is no reason why the burden of proof falls on me rather than you

Except that I have already given proof while you have not?

Oh, and mistwell, I disagree with your assessment given your lack of proof.


Not that it really matters though, the radiant is still better at being a cleric than the cleric even if you remove the extra healing ability entirely.

 

[Slaved]

And Tempests give up nothing compared to a fighter.

While I would not agree entirely it is not like moving up from a fighter is a big power move.

 

[pawsplay]

And the answer is, "Every cleric of Pelor probably would take this class".

Um, no. Only ones who want to highly specialize in two things. As already pointed out, Healing is not a commonly taken domain. The costs to get in, while not odious, are not insignificant. I would agree with, "Every Cleric of Pelor, who has the Sun domain, who plans to specialize in healing, but who would rather have divine feats than Augmented Healing at lower levels, and has a decent Int score or is human... probably would take this class."

 

[NilesB]

Except that I have already given proof while you have not?

You have given logically faulty assertions unbacked by evidence. That you have said it does not make a statement a proof.

 

[Someone]

While I would not agree entirely it is not like moving up from a fighter is a big power move.

So what? I was addressing the faulty logic that is a PrC is better at doing something than the base class, then it's either broken or "better X than X". Of course Tempest are better two weapon fighters than single classed fighters: is what the frigging class is made to do, it'd be a stupid class if not. That doesn't mean that Tempests are better fighters than fighters: they are better two weapon fighters, but if they pick a spiked chain or a longbow chances are that the staright fighter is better. Tmepest would be absolutely better if Fighters couldn't learn anything but two weapn fighting feats or lacked the option to do anything but two weapon fighting.

To say it clearer, that logic is the same than asserting that paladins are better at Detecting and Smiting Evil than clerics, therefore Paladins are better clerics than clerics. Radiant servants would be better clerics than clerics if clerics could do nothing but turn undead and heal, two things strongly belonging to the cleric shtick but absolutely not the only thing they can do. If you want proof of that look for any thread discussing the "best 4 members party", there's always someone who posts a party of 4 pure clerics. And no, they are not all radiant servants, though it's true that ther's always one.

 

[DreadArchon]

Radiant servants would be better clerics than clerics if clerics could do nothing but turn undead and heal, two things strongly belonging to the cleric shtick but absolutely not the only thing they can do.

Yeah, Radiant Servant of Pelor really offends my own concept of the Cleric (I usually build them as tankmage blasters, which RSoP is bad for).

 

[Slaved]

...

If you have something which actually goes against the wording that has been provided from the books so far I'd be happy to see it.

So what?

My comment was along the lines of if a prestige class out clerics the cleric there is a problem because the cleric is already pretty much at the top of the food chain. If a prestige class out fighters the fighter then it is not really even noticeable because pretty much everyone can do that. In fact, it is likely a good thing.

 

[Seeten]

It doesnt out cleric the cleric. It out heals and out turns the cleric. It doesnt outfight the cleric. It doesnt outblast the cleric. It doesnt outlive the cleric.

Clerics have better hit die. Clerics have better BAB. Clerics thus fight much better, and tank much better than RSoP. Clerics Blast just as well. Clerics of Luck make saves better. Clerics of Destruction smite better.

I think people wildly overstate how good the RSoP is. Wildly.