Most broken prestige classes?

[Slaved]

Outhealing is part of outliving certainly. They both have medium BAB progression. How can the cleric possibly out tank the radiant when they both have the same armor proficiencies but the radiant has better weapon proficiencies?

 

[Alpha Polaris]

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.

Well, for one thing, Cleric do not have a better bab, unless you count a one point differential for not starting exactly at level eight. Since melee clerics tend to rely heavily on Divine Power for BAB, this is kind of moot, since weapon focus is the only difference there. As for tanking and outliving, the mean hp differential for 10 levels of RSoP amounts to a whopping 10 hp, not exactly overwhelming, especially when you consider the boost in staying power coming from enhanced healing spells.

I'm not saying you're flat-out wrong, I even tend to agree with you. But making sweeping statements will not help balance the issues one way or another. The RSoP does two things well, blasting undead, and healing (which is a nice way of blasting undead, too), at a little cost in combat proficiency and out of combat flexibility. Seems just right to me.

 

[Seeten]

Perhaps I am at work and dont have my books here, but isnt RSoP 1/2 bab? If it isnt, it sure is in my campaign.

 

[Alpha Polaris]

Perhaps I am at work and dont have my books here, but isnt RSoP 1/2 bab? If it isnt, it sure is in my campaign.

Okay, so if we take into account your weak BAB house rule (the RSoP has median BAB, just like the cleric), the cleric takes the edge in melee combat when not using divine power. But nerfing a class and then stating that it's far weaker than people think isn't exactly fair game, especially on the rules forum.

 

[Seeten]

I dont always remember what rules are house rules. I'm old.

LOL.

 

[Christian]

Perhaps I am at work and dont have my books here, but isnt RSoP 1/2 bab? If it isnt, it sure is in my campaign.

Book has 3/4 BAB, same as a cleric.

 

[Felon]

And Tempests give up nothing compared to a fighter. They gain everything a Fighter gets, and more. They become the ultimate two weapon fighters. If you have Improved two weapon fighting and spring attack, there's no reason not to take the Tempest class.

The big flaw in this analogy is that the Tempest does not in fact gain access to fighter feats as it progresses, whereas the RSoP continues to gain cleric spell progression. The tempest loses access to the fighter's primary class feature, while the RSoP doesn't.

This is a problem that PrC's oriented towards clerics and sorcerers have. They have no class features to surrender other than spellcasting progression. Give the PrC full spellcasting progression, and it gets the full benefit of the base class. All you can do to compensate is either lower BAB & HD, or stiffen up the requirements so the class has to sacrifice feats (sacrificing skill points is a minor consideration for clerics & wizards).

On a side note, the tempest is not even a particularly powerful two-weapon fighter build. It's just an interesting variant. Spring Attack and Mobility do not synergize with two-weapon fighting until the tempest hits 5th-level and gets the capstone ability, and even that is rather mild. If one has access to PHBII, Complete Warrior, and Complete Adventurer feats, then taking fighter levels is probably a better power-play.

 

[Felon]

I'm surprised the Sacred Fist rates any outcry. Its full BAB progression is just a patch for having to multi-class between to classes with medium BAB. If it had to suck up another a +0 BAB upon entry, it'd be pretty well hamstrung.

 

[Felon]

As for candidates that actually ought to be on this list, it almost goes without saying that the majority of PrC's from Book of Exalted Deeds should be here. Do I need to get into specifics?

Then there's the Ruathar from Races of the Wild. which is a walk-in for anyone who makes light work of the "great service" requirement (the author provided a loophole with the "save an elf's life" criterion). d6 hit dice, 4 skill points, a smattering of other class features, and full spellcasting progression on top of it. Pretty generous.

 

[Felix]

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."

Which only serves to make my point stronger. Thanks. I was throwing the "RSoP = Cleric+" a bone, but if you don't want to do that, that's fine too.