Arkhandus said:
The Master of Chains. A PrC from Sword & Fist, a 3.0 book; I dunno if the Master of Chains was reprinted in Complete Warrior or anything else. Requires nongood alignment though, for reference. Can be entered at 6th-level, by a fighter 4/rogue 1 or similar (it requires Weapon Specialization and a handful of other feats, plus some ranks in Open Lock, Escape Artist, and Intimidate, so a pure fighter couldn't qualify until several levels later).
I greatly advise AGAINST taking that prestige class. It's horrible. Most of its abilities are never going to be used (such as the Chain Armor- honestly, it's no better than the armor you'll be wearing, so why give it out as a class ability?) and even the ones that you MIGHT be using are incredibly lackluster (the level 9 ability, if I'm not mistaken, is an ability that lets you swing across rooms by grapping onto something on the ceiling with a chain, doing a sort of "swing-kick" thing that does some extra damage- sure, I guess it sounds cool, but for a 15th-level ability, I don't want another combat option I'm probably never going to use). A couple of the abilities are too poorly worded to make sense (such as the Extra Lash ability), and others make use of mechanics that are purposely left out of 3.x D&D (such as the ability that lets you clock attacks coming from one direction). And the barbed whip thing would be cool if it was something supernatural or innate to the character- but all it is is the ability to have a blacksmith attack barbs to your chain, which then break off every time you use it (having to then get them reattached). Again, if I'm taking several levels of a prestige class, I want an ability that at least sounds cool thematically. I don't want to just say, "Oh, I finally learned how to pay a blacksmith to give me another weapon. It takes years of training for that."
If you absolutely must use this prestige class, I'd suggest quite a few changes- make the Chain Armor not suck, make the one-directional Deflection trick act more like 3.5 Shield (that is, give you a smaller AC bonus, but apply to all directions), make the barbed chain thing cooler (I'd suggest making it a supernatural ability, and whenever the Master of Chains picks up a whip, it sprouts these cruel barbs that deal lasting damage, and the bars disappear if the chain leaves his hands), and scrap the swing-across-the-room ability for something that you'll actually use. I re-vamped this PrC a few years ago (as I was playing a chain master) with the help of our DM, and I might still have it somewhere if someone wants it (though, as I recall, it ended up a bit TOO powerful).
