What are the most powerful prestige classes?

Best PrC in game:

Templar
Hospitaler
Sacred Exorcist
Soul Knife
Arcane Trickster
Archmage
Heirophant
Red Wizard of Thay
Incantrix
Guild Thief
Radiant Servant of Pelor
Blessed of Grumsh
Iajutsu master
Sihng Rager
Frenzied Beserker
Forsaker
Virtuoso
Weapon Master
Shadow Dancer (at least the first two levels anyway)
Geomancer
Shifter
 

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I'm surprised no one is mentioning the blade dancer, which is pretty powerful although maybe the least so in terms of what it requires. In other words, it might have the worst bang for your buck, so to speak.
 

Not so uber:

Radiant Servant of Pelor is only great at destroying undead and worse than a regular cleric at just about everything else.

Blessed of Grumsh is powerful for 1 round per day. Big whoop.

Soul Knife is a just a psionic rogue with good anti-psion attacks.

Hospitaler is a cleric that gets 4 fighter feats and takes on the paladin code or you are fighter that gets clerical abilities and give up one feat. The only requirement is that you have 2 mounted feats and some mounted skills. Its nice but nothing spectacular. Cleric gives up a few points of will saves for better HP and BAB.

Templar is like the hospitaler except with less spells and trades some fighter feats for DR. Nets 2 feats instead of 4 but gets 3 DR instead. Casts as a 10th level bard instead of a 10th level cleric. 2 smites thrown in.

Forsaker is good but at mostly equal to someone with standard equipment for their level. Ends up getting lots of spells cast on him against his will.

Arcane Archer: Anyone with Greater Magic Weapon spells totally steals all the abilities of an Arcane Archer.

Uber:

Singh Rager is all 20 levels of barbarian in 10 levels plus a few extra bonuses. This leaves the hospitaler in the dust.

Archmage: +6 DC to your spell = uber. That's -30% chance to save for all your opponents. You don't sacrifice much for this power.

Arcane Tricker: 10 levels of rogue for free, more or less.

Tattooed Monk: Good DR, haste, reroll critical rolls

Shintao Monk: 5 bonus feats, no prereqs

Bladesinger: I thought this class was pretty uber but no one else mentions it. At a minimum as good as the hospitaler. You can cast spells as a free action, add your int to AC like a duelist. Full BAB, better saves. 3 bonus feats and essentially TWF and Ambidexterity for free at level 10.

The most uber class:

Windrider: Don't tell me you wouldn't want a horse with 275 hp, 80' move, AC 25 before armor and other enhancement, +26 to hit and +10 dam at just 11th level. Throw in 2 feats for the horse as well. One more level and your mount gets another +3 to hit, +1 dam, +2 AC and 25 hp. (300 hp, AC 27, +29 to hit, +11 dam) That's worth easily as much as a front line fighter. Oh yeah, you can heal your mount to max hp 2x per day if you have 16 wis.

At level 13 you can have a dire elephant which is slow but has reach and does 4d6 + 25 to anyone in its path (20' wide, charge 60' before enhancement 48 squares total effect! Kiss a small army of 4th level fighters goodbye.) unless they make a reflex save vs DC 35 (impossible for all but 20th level rogues) and then gets another attack (377 hp, AC 18, +36 to hit, +17 dam) 30,000 lbs is a light load, 450,000 lbs drag capacity (225 tons). I think you could pull a small city in a big enough wagon or a modern battleship or whatever you can think of. Alternatively you could have the horse but with 525 hp and +42 to hit with everything else staying the same. I think I'd give the horse power attack as one of its two feats, wouldn't you?

Ok, as another example of uberness, here's your elephant when you are 15th level: 825 hp, AC 25, +50 to hit, +21 dam, 4d8+31 trample, DC 56 to avoid, power attack, imp crit, power crit. Against an AC 30 target the elephant can power crit for 8d8+106 damage 95% of the time. You can completely heal your elephant 3x per day (3300 hp equivalent, more or less.) Most characters in the smackdown thread would be obliterated by a mere 15th level windrider. 90 tons light load, 1330 tons drag. You could tow a white dwarf star.

The final example is at 17th level when you have a young adult gold dragon as your mount. 345 hp, 8 feats, 37 AC, +37 to hit, 10d10 breath weapon, fear DC 29, SR 21, 7 attacks per round at at +12 damage base. The uber elephant wouldn't stand a chance against the dragon.
 
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Laslo Tremaine said:
The Radiant Servant of Pelor (from Dragon Magazine) has always seemed pretty grotesque to me...
Might I inquire as to why? A friend of mine is using it right now, and we haven't seen the problems that everyone else had mentioned before. Just wondering..

Anyway, back on topic, a lot of being overpowered is mainly if you come into the prestige class in an optimal way, say a sorcerer taking archmage, sacrificing spell slots is nothing for him, conversely the loremaster requirment of 7 divinations is nothing for a wizard, who can learn any amount of spells given time and money.

Anyways..

My votes..

Magic Prestige Classes: Archmage, Red Wizard, Shadow Adept
Fighting Prestige Classes: Frenzied Berserker, Tempest( Just think if you could design a character using the Blessed of Gruumsh ability Thunderous Roar)
Misc Prestige Classes: Temple Raider of Olidammara
 


Mithril Man said:
The reason I have such "nasty requirements" is that I originally based it off the blade dancer (which I feel is a pretty near comp). Furthermore, most of those feats are there because they lead up to Whirlwind attack--which is necessary for the blade storm mystic weave, which is basically ki whirlwind attack.

Originally I had arcane or divine spellcasting necessary, but changed that the knowledge (arcana).

But yeah, I feel it SHOULD be a 7th level+ prestige class.

Actually it worse than you think. You left out Expertise on your feat list. Its also a prereq for WWA.
 

Mithril Man said:
I'm surprised no one is mentioning the blade dancer, which is pretty powerful although maybe the least so in terms of what it requires. In other words, it might have the worst bang for your buck, so to speak.

I played one, and it's pretty good for doing flashy, show-off stunts. Jumping all over the place with Spring Attack, chasing down fleeing opponents, etc. I'm not sure it's really that great for doing the smackdown, though. Also, by the time you get it, the other party members will probably also have access to fly spells, so it's not like you're the only one flying around.

And you _do_ take a long time to get there. By the time I qualified for the class, I had to leave the game anyway so I didn't exactly get to do much blade dancing. Something to keep in mind if your campaigns tend to be short.
 

Archer said:

Arcane Archer: Anyone with Greater Magic Weapon spells totally steals all the abilities of an Arcane Archer.

And generally speaking, will have it sooner. We're running around a 13th level party at the moment. The Greater Magic Weapon coming from the wizard or the cleric both trump the enhancement bonus I get from being an AA, and they will continue to do so for several levels, and they have always done so.

Is it good? Yes, the best part of the class. It is useful? Yes. Is it overpowered? No. It only looks that way at first, until you get used to greater magic weapon being thrown around on a regular basis.


Wolff96 said

My 10 wizard/1 fighter/9 Arcane Archer would like to respectfully disagree with you on the viability of the class

Oh I'm not saying it's not viable - I enjoy mine greatly. But I am saying it's far from overpowered. It's balanced, or a tad underpowered, depending on what you compare it to.

Also, despite the cost of Chain Lightning scrolls, I think that's got to be the most fun spell I ever imbued into an arrow

Setting aside the idea of doing from a scroll for a moment

1. Why bother imubing it? The thing has a range of 400 feet plus 40 feet per level. You could just cast the spell directly.

2. The SRD says "At 2nd level, an arcane archer gains this spell-like ability, allowing her to place an area spell upon an arrow." Chain lightning is not an area spell, it specifies a target plus a number of additional targets. If the DM allows it, that's great and no problem. But as written I don't believe this is legal.
 

I concur that blade dancer doesn't belong in the uber class.

I concur that Windrider now does...wow.

I think those who've downplayed the Templar have never played/DM'd one. What's powerful about it? Mettle, mettle, mettle, mettle, and mettle. By the way, here's access to free specialization, DR, and the best combat buff spells in the game. Particularly for it's requirements, it's hand's down the top (IMHO). It's made even more powerful if you really only take one or two levels of it, because that's all you need.

How would you take your prestige class to a "4." Drop your requirements significantly. If the "whirlwind attack" is the big thing you're going after, great, get rid of the skill req's, and eliminate any feat requirement that isn't directly tied to WWA. The other point one of my players brought up is that one shot spells are fun, but not really that great. Permanent abilities are where the really money is at, so yes, I'd drop the rest of your "1/day" abilities and add it one or two 1st - 3rd level utility abilities that complement the class well.
 

Name 3 times in a normal campaign that mettle had any effect. I'm interested to hear some real examples of how that ability was ever useful.

Specialization is only an average power feat and you had to take 2 feats to get it as a templar and its only for your diety's favored weapon. No diety has a min/max weapon as a favored weapon.
 
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