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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kilroy" data-source="post: 1949393" data-attributes="member: 5299">What makes a prestige class special is what it can do that sets it apart from what a character without the class can do.  Why create a prestige class that has a main power like Control Winds when the character you're creating the class for would be able to cast Control Weather at that point anyway?Concentrate on making a class that's different from what a character could do without it, but not drastically different in power.  The 'written suggestion' ability sounds neat, and it's different enough from existing abilities to give the class a unique low level flavor.  Improved Leadership is an excellent ability, expand on it through several levels to allow the character to lead armies at high levels.  Make them masters of army magic.Consider making a Wizard/Bard hybrid, along the lines of the existing Wizard/Cleric and Wizard/Rog hybrids, that allows the Wizard (at the cost of a few feats) to continue with more or less full spellcasting progression and Bardic people influencing powers.The most important thing to keep in mind when creating a spellcasting prestige class is that trading off spell caster levels is a huge hit in power and flexibility that becomes more and more pronounced at higher levels.  A low level ability that gives a constant effect similar to bless seems neat at low levels, but if you trade a caster level for it, it means that at some higher level you have bless instead of Wish.Since the character you are creating the class for is already 9th level, keep in mind that trading even a single caster level means that the abilities that you are getting that level should be a match for the 5th-6th level spells they would be getting instead, plus the flexibility of the extra lower level spells they're missing out on.  If possible, it should also scale a bit to match the really high level abilities they've given up for it 9 levels from now when they don't get 9th level spells because they have this ability instead.  That's only for a single caster level loss.Since they are army specialists, let them buff entire armies with low powered effects to compensate for the high power effects they're missing.  If you're feeling brave, let them do the same thing to enemy armies with low power debuffs.If you're trading 5 caster levels over the next 10 for prestige class abilities, and the character doesn't enter the class until 10th level, make sure that the highest level class abilities are more powerful than the 8th and 9th level spells they're trading for them because of the flexibility that they lose.   Consider giving the following, possibly based on school affinity, for the final powers of a 10 level caster prestige class that costs 5 caster levels, with maybe an x/day usage limit. - animate ancestral armies of terra cotta soldiers - summon swarms of elemental spirits - cause whole armies to become blured, invisible, or mirror imaged - cause the dead of the enemy to all rise against them - True Strike, Magic Weapon or Align Weapon on the entire army - grant a d6 elemental damage to every attack of every soldier - Protect your entire army from Evil/Chaos/Law/Good - Charm your enemies entire armyAs a possible simpler version, at 6th level, let them cast any 1st level spell they know on up to 10*class level^2 people.  At 8th level, 2nd level spells.  At 10th level, 3rd.  The powers they're given up for this could probably kill major chunks of the enemy army.Trading away caster levels is a big, big price to pay.  There are 9th level spells that do things like blind all evil creatures within 100'/caster level, no save, no SR, and your character gets something else instead.</blockquote>

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