What does everyone think of this class? I personally love it.... it is versatile, has decent spell selection, and a nice guardian for your vulnerable caster.
I think it's a pretty cool class myself. I've currently allowed the druid/wizard in my game to qualify using the feat in Complete Arcane that gives a first level arcane caster a single 2nd level arcane spell. I'm aware that this could cause balance problems, but as I'm allowing the other players to use exalted feats, I figure it will work out. I've told the druid's player that if it gets to be unbalancing, he'll have to take two levels of wizard (or swap out two levels of Arcane Heirophant for them). Everything seems to be ok so far.
Its a very strong class when you take a look at it in the long run. Eventualy you run out of Heirophant levels and have to take somthing else.
The minor problem is that Arcane Heirphant is going to be a lot stronger at medium levels especially if you allow them to use the feat in CA to get into it.
They will only be 1 level off a regular driud and they will have almost ALL of the abilities of that druid + Arcane spellcasting. They get everything, including a better advancment of animal companion because they get familiar abilities with it.
YMMV but its more of a problem in the 8-14 range than the 14-20 range.
What's not to love with this PrC? It's over-powered. I wouldn't recommend it's use in it's current form for well-balanced games. I don't know what the designers/editors were thinking when they put this PrC together.
What's not to love with this PrC? It's over-powered. I wouldn't recommend it's use in it's current form for well-balanced games. I don't know what the designers/editors were thinking when they put this PrC together.
One of my players took the path of Arcane Hierophant (with the Prodigius Spellcaster "Loophole"). Insofar, there seems not to be a problem with that character. It's quite powerful but not too unbalanced. The only thing that still bothers me is the question about the familiar/companion familiar thing.
How do you handle the companion familiar? Is it a real familiar which can benefit from the familiar-enhancing spells or is it something else?
Races of the Wild. It is powerful, but I think that if you simply lose the Wildshape stuff, then it would be cool. I love the class, as I have stated, but then again I love versatile characters as opposed to super-specialized.