The Worst Prestige Class Awards

[Al]

Well, I've seen a few threads concerning what the most powerful/original/exciting/fun prestige classes in the whole game are, but I don't think that this has been done.

Ideally, it could have been a poll, but there are too many. Perhaps if a few keep coming up here, we can run a poll based on the findings.

Here's three to start...note that they do not have to be necessarily the least powerful, but can be simply unoriginal, utterly drab, ridiculous, inapplicable to most campaigns or even utterly overpowered.

LEAST USEFUL: The Candle Caster (T&B). Yes, he can make magic candles, but is anyone ever going to take this prestige class? You can engineer a scenario especially to put this in, but it's never going to be the first choice for...well...anything.

LEAST ORIGINAL: The Master of the Shrouds (DotF). Highlights of the prestige class are: Summon Undead I, Summon Undead II, Summon Undead III and Summon Undead IV. Oh, and Extra Turning. And that's it...hardly inspiring.

MOST UNDERPOWERED: The 'True' Necromancer (T&B). The prerequisites take a weak prestige class and make it useless! When you've taken your first level of true necromancer, your single-classed friends are pumping out Harm or Circle of Death, you're stuck with Vampiric Touch. In fact, your colleagues are casting Wish, Time Stop and Miracle before you can even muster Finger of Death. You never get 9th level spells, half the point of spellcasters, except your 'ultimate' power: Energy Drain. Which your single-classed buddies got three levels earlier.

 

[hong]

I think the cavalier would be a contender for least original PrC. Class abilities at 1st level: ride +1, attack +1. Class abilities at 5th level: ride +3, attack +3. Class abilities at 10th level: ride +5, attack +5. They clearly racked their brains thinking up the powerups for that one.

Worst-named class ability: Warmaster, for "Die for your country". The first time I saw it, I was thinking "cool, this guy can die for his country 3 times per day!" Then I looked a bit more closely and it was actually the ability to make _other_ people die for their country. Oh well. Honorable mention: Gladiator, for "The crowd goes wild". I don't think I can add anything to that.

Most notorious stuffup: Halfling outrider. Who can forget the hoo-ha over leaving out the BAB progression? Honorable mention goes to the ninja of the crescent moon (pre-errata), aka "superman".

Worst flavour text: Shiba protector (OA), One with All and Nothing -- "A Shiba protector of 10th level has recognized the deep truth that all her ability scores spring from the same essence. In a moment of perfect clarity, ..." Honorable mention: Order of the bow initiate.

I seem to notice a preponderance of S&F PrCs here. Hmmm.

 

[Crothian]

Least Useful: I've yet to see a PrCl that is really not that useful. Each has their place, no matter my person opinion on it.

Least original: Weapon Master, its so generic. To think you can havea single class that is speicialized in any one melee weapon is absurd.

Most Underpowered: Mystic, it was a good idea but in practice it just does not live up to the level of power of the other classes.

 

[RogueJK]

:Note:: This one can be seen as a problem on the part of the base class, or the prestige class, depending on how you look at it. I'd say that it's a fault in the base class, since the PrCs were published first.)

Biggest Oversight: The fact that both of the Ninja PrCs (Ninja of the Crescent Moon and Ninja Spy) require the Evasion class ability, which the Ninja class doesn't get.

They're trying to tell me that a Rogue or Monk can become a better Ninja than a true Ninja?

IMO, most of the prestige classes that people consider "useless" (such as the Hexer, Candle Caster, Watch Detective, and Dread Pirate, to name a few) are meant more for NPCs. They might be useless to a player, but each has its own place.

 

[gfunk]

I'd say the Dragon Disciple (version 3.0 -- after the Sage flip-flopped twice) kind of sucks. Giving up ten spellcasting levels for a clerical BAB and a half-dragon template seems pretty weak.

 

[Omegium]

Least original: Hospitaler.
The idea might be nice, but the execution is worthless. Overpowered (All good points from a fighter, from a cleric and a couple of things from a pally), There is NO reason not to become this as a cleric, and except when you thing a d10 is more improtant than 10 spellcaster lvls, not for a fighter either. The prequisits are bad, some ride things, and worst of all: NO HEAL. A hospitaler without heal, yeah, right. The class is boring, doesn't get a single ability another class can't get. So, that's the rant for today.

Least powerful: Dwarven defender. His best ability is the defensive stand, and everyone who is right in his mind will do a 5 foot stap backwards when it is used, and use ranged weapons of spells. And since the DD can't walk, he can't do anything about it.
Also the true necromancer, the dragon disiple, the diplomancer, and quite some of the S&S classes (pirate boy for example, how often are you on ships?) are quite weak.

 

[hong]

Least original: Weapon Master, its so generic. To think you can havea single class that is speicialized in any one melee weapon is absurd.

Along the same lines is the foe hunter from MotW. The idea of a class specialising in hunting down a hated foe is good, but using one class to handle every possible hated foe is not. That's especially so, when you consider how many "hunter" type PrCs have already been published:

- hunter of the dead (undead)
- sacred exorcist (ghosts)
- knight of the chalice (demons)
- ancestral avenger (Dragon, drow)
- phantom hunter (Magic of Rokugan, spirits)
- witch hunter (OA, evil spellcasters)

I'm sure there was one specialising in hunting mind flayers as well, in one of the Dragon issues.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Least powerful: Dwarven defender. His best ability is the defensive stand, and everyone who is right in his mind will do a 5 foot stap backwards when it is used, and use ranged weapons of spells. And since the DD can't walk, he can't do anything about it.
Also the true necromancer, the dragon disiple, the diplomancer, and quite some of the S&S classes (pirate boy for example, how often are you on ships?) are quite weak.

This only works if the enemies know the DD is a DD and know about the defensive stand... if they don't, thy'll likely just stay in melee. Don't forget that the class also has d12 HD, fighter BAB, uncanny dodge, the best DR in the game, and AC bonuses.

 

[Killer Shrike]

Well, I've seen a few threads concerning what the most powerful/original/exciting/fun prestige classes in the whole game are, but I don't think that this has been done.

Ideally, it could have been a poll, but there are too many. Perhaps if a few keep coming up here, we can run a poll based on the findings.

Here's three to start...note that they do not have to be necessarily the least powerful, but can be simply unoriginal, utterly drab, ridiculous, inapplicable to most campaigns or even utterly overpowered.

LEAST USEFUL: The Candle Caster (T&B). Yes, he can make magic candles, but is anyone ever going to take this prestige class? You can engineer a scenario especially to put this in, but it's never going to be the first choice for...well...anything.

LEAST ORIGINAL: The Master of the Shrouds (DotF). Highlights of the prestige class are: Summon Undead I, Summon Undead II, Summon Undead III and Summon Undead IV. Oh, and Extra Turning. And that's it...hardly inspiring.

MOST UNDERPOWERED: The 'True' Necromancer (T&B). The prerequisites take a weak prestige class and make it useless! When you've taken your first level of true necromancer, your single-classed friends are pumping out Harm or Circle of Death, you're stuck with Vampiric Touch. In fact, your colleagues are casting Wish, Time Stop and Miracle before you can even muster Finger of Death. You never get 9th level spells, half the point of spellcasters, except your 'ultimate' power: Energy Drain. Which your single-classed buddies got three levels earlier.

I agree with you otherwise, but the Candle Caster is a powerful class. They essentially get a partially limited metamagic feat almost every level and spellcasting every level. Not as useful for an actively adventuring PC due to item creation overhead, but very powerful for an occasional adventurer or even a cohort. Also, using the Candle Caster as a model, it is possible to adapt the pClass to other outlets than Candles, just changing references to Candles to whatever item type you are swapping out.

 

[Al]

I never said that the Candle Caster wasn't a powerful prestige class. What I would say, though, it that it is very limited in scope: I don't believe nearly any PC whom would take it, and I (as a perenniel DM) would be unable to put it into a campaign without specifically going out of my way to engineer the scenario. It just seems too obscure.