Prestige class balanced by level?

[Quasqueton]

Say a prestige class is designed (balanced?) so that a character can get into on his 6th character level.

Is the prestige class underpowered for someone getting into it at 8th character level? How about 11th? 15th?

If a character managed to finaggle a way to meet the prerequisites by 4th level, would it be overpowered?

Is prestige class balance reliant on the level a character gets into it?

Quasqueton

 

[MerricB]

It can be. It depends greatly on the powers it grants.

Prestige classes that grant spell-like abilities (to a class that is otherwise a spellcaster) or a dedicated spell progression generally fade in usefulness as characters gain levels and move past those abilities.

Prestige classes that add to the capabilities of existing tricks, whether fighting, skill or magic-use, keep their value.

Cheers!

 

[Crothian]

Normally it doesn't matter that much.

 

[Psion]

It can matter. But it's usually not as bad as multiclassing into another base class if properply designed, since you are buying into 6th+ level powers instead of 1st level powers.

I like the way they did expert (prestige) classes in Spycraft 2.0. They had named abilities similar to those of base classes, followed by a roman numeral. If you had a class with an early ability in the chain and got the same ability in an expert class, you got the next one in the chain. (Frex, getting uncanny dodge twice gives you uncanny dodge I and II.)

 

[Wolv0rine]

It all depends on how you design PrCs, really. I, for example, am fond of designing PrCs with scaling abilities. I tend to do a lot of "This ability basically does X effect per Y character levels" kind of thing. So that no matter what level you were when you took the PrC it's still relevent, as well as no matter what level you are at any given time it's still relevent.

I hate powers & abilities that become moot once you've passed a certain level 'cap' where it's just too weak to even notice you have it.