Prestige Class

Prestige classes are a set of player options from the Dungeons & Dragons 3e DMG and other supplements. They are character classes with specific requirements that a typical first-level character will not qualify for. Thus, they are typically taken as a multi-class at a later time, and can be anywhere between three and fifteen levels big, most being around 10.

They are widely considered the best, most interesting, and most well-developed part of 3e, surpassing even the d20 itself.

The original intent of prestige classes was something like creating a specialty profession for a particular DM's game, with a unique set of abilities not found in the core rules, yet relevant to the setting. In practice, they are just another way for Powergamers to optimize their character sheets to have as many kewl powurz as possible. Another downside is that classes with many class features will have these features gimped because of their new features.

They do, however serve one useful function: they make it easy to spot munchkins in Dungeons & Dragons 3e. All you have to do is read a player's character sheet. If his list of classes reads like a reject Yu-Gi-Oh monster ("I SUMMON DWARF MONK PSYCHIC WARRIOR!"), then he is a weeaboo munchkin who thinks Katanas are Underpowered in d20.

While they exist in Pathfinder, Paizo's official "twenty-levels in a class" policy has made them rarer as time goes by, and the addition of archetypes that change out class features for different ones has largely come to fulfill the same role. The only prestige classes that see any remotely common use are "dual advancement" classes (like Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster) and the curious standout of Exalted. Some other prestige classes see use, but when they do, the build focuses on them, not as a way to kick a base class up a notch.

4th edition D&D replaced these with the concept of "Paragon Paths" and "Epic Destinies". In essence, at level 11 - remember, the idea in 4e was that you'd play from level 1 to 30, rather than level 1 to 20 - you get a Paragon Path. Over the next ten levels, you get a couple of new class traits and some new powers. The Epic Destiny worked under the same concept, except with much beefier class traits, including cheating death in various (generally along the lines of "once per day, you get to auto-rez yourself if you get killed") and only one new power.

Abjurant Champion

A completely mandatory five-level class for all gishes. Advances Base Attack Bonus and casting at every level, which is already great, but also provides some nifty abilities including burning spells for buffs. Probably has one of the most frustratingly misread abilities in the game at fifth level, allowing the Champion to use their Base Attack Bonus in place of their Caster Level for a chosen class. Contrary to popular belief, it does NOT allow a Champion to use their Caster Level in place of their Base Attack Bonus or allow a Champion to learn higher-level spells.

Chameleon

Can change between being a fighter, an arcane caster, divine caster or sneaky dude daily. It was a little weird to qualify for, needing to be Human, Doppelganger or Changeling with Able Learner and 8 ranks in disguise and bluff plus 4 in Sense Motive and Spellcraft. This basically required at least one level in Rogue (or similar class) if you didn't want to wait till really late to enter or be stuck with aborted class features, since that was the only non-caster with the needed skills in class. It advanced casting at a fairly quick rate, could pick spells from any arcane caster class (Yes, even haste as a level 1 spell from Trapsmith) and had a bonus feat and bonus attribute scores they could change daily, but had a cap on spell progression of 6th level spells. It was largely a novelty (though certainly better than straight rogue) and remained so until Factotum was printed 3 years later. Factotum was not only easy to enter Chameleon with, it synergized extremely well since Factotum could gain extra actions and had all skills as class skills (which Chameleon effectively keeps thanks to Able Learner). Outside of Factotum, Chameleon can also abuse Extra Spell to create scrolls of any spell in existence. Released for free as a book preview.

Out of all 3.5 classes, it's the most difficult port to Pathfinder thanks to how the skill system changed. Able Learner's entire reason for existence is gone so it needs either a different feat requirement or be even easier to qualify for. Since having a class skill only determines if you get a +3 bonus to that skill any class can enter it. Since a boost to intelligence lasting 24 hours or longer now gives skill points and there is a feat that gives you skill points equal to your character level, a Chameleon could get any skill they wanted with prep time without a specific exclusion.

Eye of Gruumsh

A ten-level class for Orcs and Half-Orcs who worship Gruumsh. It makes you rage harder than a Barbarian, give some bonuses to (half) Orcs fighting at your side, grants you a neat AC bonus and lets you spit acid at the faces of your foes. Given its requirements (being aligned to Gruumsh, taking out your own eye) are not often what a player character does, they are more often seen as high-level enemies. The most notorious thing about them is that if an Eye of Gruumsh regains the ability to see with its eye it took it loses all of its class features, so if you face one cast Regenerate or other potent restorative magic on it to make it lose all of its abilities.

Exalted

The lone Pathfinder prestige class to see significant use and not be a way to merge two base classes. Exalted gives full divine casting and is easy to qualify for: 3rd level spells, 5 ranks in Diplomacy and Knowledge: Religion, the good Deific Obedience feat, and Skill Focus in Knowledge (Religion). Of those, the skill focus is the only thing unusual to see on a Cleric, but Half-Elf gets it free and Oracle wants it to take the Eldritch Heritage.

What makes this class desirable? The first is that Cleric doesn't actually have any non-spell class features beyond Channel Energy, which is not that useful if you don't focus on it (and Cleric is not a good class to do that in) and aren't in a haunt heavy campaign, and Domains (many of which stop advancing at 8th level) but Exalted does. While Exalted's class features start underwhelming, at level 3 they gain the first boon of Divine Obedience early (ECL 7 instead of ECL12), at level 5 they gain an extra domain and the spells from it as spell-like abilities. Yes, many domains do have spells with expensive components or long casting time as domain spells. No, there isn't a clause saying an Exalted must spend the material component or extra casting time. They also get a free once-per-day Limited Wish as their capstone, which is good its own right.

Theoretically, the Exalted is supposed to be balanced by making the Exalted perform their obedience daily or revert to a very underleveled cleric till they can do it. The thing is, most daily obedience for non-evil deities are really easy to do, encompassing things like "play with a scale", "kneel to your deity", or "pound a stone with a hammer" and only a small handful (slay a proven wrongdoer) require much beyond common items and flavouring your hour of spell prep.

Exemplar

A 10-level class that is about being a skill monkey. Notable for its role in the Arseplomancer build.

Frenzied Berserker

A 10 level class for Barbarians to either be a motherfucking rampaging god of slaughter, or to have a "DO NOT WAAANT!" moment after finally passing the mandatory DC20 Will save to stop being PCP-bugnuts-insane while surrounded by the corpses of his or her party. It adds Frenzy which stacks with Rage for truly ridiculous Strength bonuses but requires a DC 20 Will save to stop or you'll keep killing anything you see, makes it pretty much impossible to stop the Barbarian when they're "emotional" and allows the character to make his allies also go so batshit nuts for blood that they need to pass that DC20 test to stop. Infamous for two reasons: it functionally changes the party's strategy from "Kill the scary one" to "Point the Barbarian at them and try to bring him under mind control when they're dead", and the possibility a party TPKs itself because everyone is acting like they're on the mother of all Bath Salts rampages. Calm Emotions is a low level CORE spell that is fairly good for putting down the frenzy after the enemy is dead. Hopefully your DM will let the Beserker to voluntarily fail the Calm Emotions Will save.

Grey Guard

A ten-level class meant for Paladins who do not like being Lawful Stupid. If you want to play your Paladin as Jack Bauer, breaking faces and choking bitches to protect the innocent, this is where you should be at. Rare amongst prestige classes is that some of the features you get with the Grey Guard stack with your normal Paladin classes, making you suck less at your main job than you would normally. Features include being able to receive the Atonement spell without XP cost, allowing you to fall and get up again like a Necron in a Tubthumping video; being able to use Lay On Hands to hurt people (Lay On FISTS), smiting Chaos and eventually Good and Law as well, with the final bonus being unable to fall as long as you act for the forces of good.

Hulking Hurler

Originally intended as a refinement for the rock-throwing abilities of Giants, the Hurler received notoriety for having an ability that allowed them to throw anything as long as it was within their equip load limit, scaling damage up based on weight. Since it's not normally linked to combat ability carrying capacity scales exponentially and is very easy to raise, so with even modest minmaxing the Hurler can become one of the biggest damage sources in the game, capable of hurling small moons and dealing enough damage to destroy whole planets.

Incantatrix

Gives full casting advancement with easy qualifications (Iron Will as a feat tax aside, it's automatic for any 5th level wizard) while giving one of the most unbalanced things in the system: Free Metamagic. While the other abilities are kinda underwhelming and it requires prohibiting an extra school (while allowing you to keep using any spells you already knew), it's notorious for being a very early example of an easily broken feature, being printed a mere 13 months after the 3E DMG. Though surpassed by future prestige classes (like the ones directly above and under it here), it's still one of the best options for Wizards.

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil

A seven-level class meant for Wizards who want to become even more crazy powerful. While the class has notable requirements (12 ranks on two skills, meaning you have to be around level 9 before you can take this prestige class). It does not interfere with how the caster gains its levels, and makes them even more powerful. An Initiate gets to cast Wardings: shields they use as personal shields, area shields or walls. These wards can be infused with veils, much like the dreaded Prismatic spells: from fire, acid and lightning damage to constitution damage, petrification, insanity and disintegration. At higher levels the Initiate can use these abilities more often, as reaction to being charged, have her Abjurations become more difficult to dispel, impart two veils on a warding and even cast Greater Dispel Magic infused with the power of the veils once per day, becoming more powerful the more magic effects the target has on it. Work together with your Cleric or Bard to make this more potent.

Master of Many Forms

A ten-level class meant to crank the Wild Shape ability to the max. With its simple requirements (Alertness, Endurance and Wild Shape) a Totem Druid can enter the class at a level as low as 2, or a character with the Divine Minion template can do so at level 3 (because of the +1 LA). Otherwise, you can get in at level 6 by obtaining Wild Shape the natural way as either a Druid or a Wild Shape Ranger at level 5.

The main feature of a Master of Many Forms is that you get many different sizes and shapes you can turn into, with many of them being unique to the Prestige Class. These are as follows:

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Shape	Humanoid	Giant	Monstrous Humanoid	Fey	Vermin	Aberration	Plant	Ooze	Elemental	Dragon
Size		Large		Tiny		Huge		Diminutive		Gargantuan

In addition to a 3/4 BAB and good Fort and Ref saves, the prestige class also grants a few other options. At level 1 you can talk normally in your shape, in addition to being able to communicate with creatures of the same kind. A third-level Wild Shape becomes a move action rather than a standard action, at level 7 you get all the Extraordinary abilities the creature has (often including at-will powers), and at level 10 you get Shapechanger as a subtype. In addition to all of this, the Master of Many Forms also gets one additional use of Wild Shape per level, meaning a total of 16 uses at level 20, or 19 with Totem Druid.

The obvious use to this is that the Master of Many Forms has a tremendous variety of creatures to choose from, not just those formally restricted by type but also by size. Turning into a T. rex and devouring dudes or a Roc and ferrying around your party has a lot of potential, but can leave a player overwhelmed with all the options. The best practice is to make a shopping list in advance, so you have what you can turn into on hand.

The problem with this class is the same as the normal Druid: the Familiarity Question. Some DMs demand that you have seen a creature before you can turn into it. While this is not a problem to some DMs, others will not allow you to shapechange into them because of reasons. The best piece of advice for this is to talk with your DM about this before you play a Master of Many Forms, and don't be a dick and try to break the DM's game by turning yourself into Pun-Pun.

Master of Masks

This prestige class looks damn cool but underpowered at first glance, but it can be an excellent way to suprise a DM with its versatile power-set. Particularly the Gladiator mask which grants weapon-proficiency *EVERYTHING*. It's not unheard of for a DM to trick the party into buying a weapon nobody can use, and then the master of masks slips that mask on and wipes the floor with the challenge ahead. Still, while this is sometimes a good one-level dip class in some builds, it sadly tends to be overshadowed by other far superior versatile classes like the Chameleon, Factotum, or even Use Magic Device build Truenamer!

Mystic Theurge

A ten-level class designed to combine arcane and divine casters into a single package. Infamous for being a trap despite sounding good on paper: the Mystic Theurge requires you to take levels in both an Arcane (Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard and so on) and a Divine (Cleric, Druid, Paladin and so on), then the Mystic Theurge allows you to keep gaining levels in BOTH classes. The downside to this is you are required to be able to cast Level 2 Arcane and Divine spells alongside 6 ranks in Arcana and Religion knowledge spells, putting you at level 6 while only being able to cast as a level 3 class. This means that you'll always lag behind when it comes to casting levels, AND you do not get the delicious class bonuses/feats you normally would receive for levelling up. This puts you at a supreme disadvantage when compared to other classes: your caster level will always be low, you'll struggle with SR, and for most of the game, you'll still be stuck casting Glitterdust while everyone else is getting Polymorph or Evard's Black Tentacles. You also suffer a bit from MAD, generally needing to heavily devote to two mental stats to very little benefit.

This class can be very good, but only if you use some sort of cheese to qualify early like the Precocious Spellcaster feat or the Alternative Spell Source feat (from Dragon Magazine) and get their first Mystic Theuge level at lv5. Then with the proper feats to increase your caster level and beat SR, you can make a spellcaster who's only missing one level of say, Wizard spells, but can also cast spells like a Cloistered Cleric of his level-3! In general, it performs best either very early (where any low-level spell can make a difference) or very late (once it's off the ground). Alternatively, it can be broken by using it to advance a prestige class or two that progresses faster than normal, like Ur-Priest or Sublime Chord: A Wizard 5/Ur-Priest 3/Mystic Theurge 6 can cast spells like an 11th level Wizard and 17th level Cleric at level 14. If magic being overpowered is due to always having the right spell to solve a problem, though, this class can get very overpowered.

Arcane Hierophant

Best put here to compare the differences between the two classes. This is a class from Races of the Wild that also combines Arcane & Divine functionality for ten levels, but this one is SIGNIFICANTLY improved over the Mystic Theurge. You still require the ability to cast level 2 Arcane and Divine spells, however you also need the Trackless step ability, which practically dictates that you have to have taken your divine levels in Druid (though funny combinations of other classes can bypass this). Compared to the Theurge, you still get normal progression with each spellcasting class, meaning you will still lag behind a few levels at top level spellcasting, however you do not sacrifice as many class features as a Hierophant. Your Druid animal companion becomes your familiar and gains the benefits of both, and you still continue improving your wild shape as if you were a druid. Additionally, your arcane spellcasting now ignores spell failure while wearing druidic armour. Finally, as you progress you gain the ability to Channel Animals or Plants... all in all a much better choice than Mystic Theurge if you were already a druid caster.

Also, you can take levels in both Mystic Theurge and Arcane Hierophant at the same time, which with the right build allows you to get 9th level Druid spells AND Wizard spells - Wizard 3/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 4/Arcane Hierophant 10. Maybe not as strong as a straight build, but you have more spell slots than the party Rogue has daggers. Use them.

Cerebremancer

Also, put here for comparison's sake, this is basically the same concept: using Psionics instead of divine magic. However, unlike the Mystic Theurge this class actually kicks 20 kinds of ass. What's the difference? Well, you don't have any MAD problems since Wizard and Psion use the same attributes. Psionics is way more suited for raw damage powers due to the rules for enhancing powers, meaning you can save your spell slots for the less explosive but still game-breaking spells. And finally, if you're playing with the full or even half transparency rules (Psionics is not effected by anti-magic/dispel magic and vice versa) you can bypass them and set up the proper defenses. If there's a downside, it's the fact that this class takes a lot of time to build up power, but it's well worth the wait.

Pale Master

AKA "Mr. Don't Shake His Hand." Are you an Arcane caster who is an aspiring necromancer, but don't want to have to take Cleric levels to effectively command undead like Evil Clerics can? Are you tired of being debuffed or otherwise taken out of action during combat due to being stunned, or paralyzed, or poisoned, or what-have-you because of your poor Fortitude save as an Arcane caster? Do you want to get so powerful you will eventually be known as One Punch Man One-Touch Zombification man? Then step right up, the Pale Master prestige class is here! As one of the bones (pun intended) thrown to necromancy-inclined players in the Libris Mortis necromancy-themed splatbook, the Pale Master PrC delivers all that and then some, all for the low, low cost of one level of caster progression and a knowledge-focussed feat as the price of admission.

Over the course of this ten-level class, a Pale Master gains minor benefits such as inherent darkvision, a boost to Fortitude saves against almost any source, and a reduction in Arcane Spell Failure chance when using a restricted set of armours, plus proficiency in light and medium armours. However, the real kickers here are the ability to magically create Zombies and Skeletons from corpses without any need to pay for expensive material components like other users of that spell need to (limited to once per day), an ability to briefly control an undead creature with no saving throw on the part of the creature allowed(!), eventual immunity to most disabling or debilitating conditions that would normally take Arcane casters out of the fight, and a free undead replacement arm that lets the Pale Master use a variety of necromancy-themed touch attacks up to three times a day (the save DC being partly dependent on Charisma, which could induce MAD if you're playing the Intelligence-focussed Wizard class), the most fearsome of which can instantly turn a living victim into a zombie under the Pale Master's control, that doesn't even count towards the normal Hit Dice limit of undead that a Pale Master can normally control! Coupling this class with some of the undead-boosting feats from Libris Mortis allows you to eventually make a tidy little undead army, free of cost, that is both tougher and deadlier in combat, and harder to turn or rebuke than normal.

Rainbow Servant

A ten-level class that can give an Arcane caster access to the Cleric spell list. Based on the fake Cree and/or Hopi myth about the Warriors of the Rainbow, who will defend all life (which was written by an evangelist, and said rainbow warriors are actually Jesus), the Rainbow Servant fights evil and inspire hope and mercy wherever they go. Like a paladin but dressed in bright colours and doesn't act like an ass. In-universe, the Rainbow Servants are the agents of the Couatl, Lawful Good feathered serpents who fight evil, despair and Lovecraftian horror all over the planes.

On the surface, this class isn't too impressive. Its only really useful feature is granting access to the entire Cleric spell list at level 10, but since most arcane casters would need to continue taking levels in their base class to actually learn these spells, this is too little, too late. The Rainbow Servant's fame is due to its interaction with the Warmage, Beguiler and Dread Necromancer. Since these classes know every spell that they have access to, reaching the final level of Rainbow Servant causes the entire Cleric spell list to be immediately dumped directly into the characters' brains and made available for spontaneous casting.

The class is also subject to a prominent editing error that makes it more powerful than intended: The text describing the class says the Rainbow Servant gets new casting levels at every level, but the table only shows it advanced at 6/10 levels. The FAQ says that text always takes precedence over tables, which means you do get advanced casting at every level. Fun times! The Portuguese translation even makes the table match the text, though other foreign language versions do not.

Reaping Mauler

A five-level class that improves your grappling capabilities. It also allows you to cast a Sleep-like effect with your bare hands at level 3 and have a chance at outright killing a target by pinning it for three turns at level 5. The downside to this is that the saves for those effects are rather easy to make (Fort on DC10 + Reaper Mauler level + wis modifier). This means that for a good Reaping Mauler you'll need STR, DEX and WIS, meaning that you'll have to be a MAD Fighter, a Cleric or a Monk in order to use this class well. Still, with a bit of minmaxing you might end up pinning dragons to death. Pathfinder adds additional feats, if your DM allows the systems to mix, that allow you to break jaws and such, as well.

Risen Martyr

A ten-level class from the Book of Exalted Deeds that turns you into Jesus. Well, more or less. You have to martyr yourself and, if you have the requirements (spread over saves, skills and feats) you rise from the dead as a Deathless, aka an undead who does not run on negative energy. They get all kinds of personal defense bonuses and can cast shields. This goes on until level 10: if you gain enough XP to level up after that point you'll leave the world and go to the Upper Planes. No, you can't advance other classes to avoid that. Oh, and if you commit as much as 1 act of Evil (Exalted guidelines), your ass is grass and you get pulled to the Upper Planes for a paddlin'. Most often seen on Monks with the Vow of Poverty, giving them nearly unbeatable touch AC.

Sublime Chord

A ten-level class from Complete Arcane that lets you gish the fuck out on a bard. A properly min-maxed Sublime Chord build will only actually have like one level of the fairly worthless class itself, but the class opens the entire spellbook (all the way to ninth level spells) with only nine levels, which means you can use other PrCs to make full casters with base attack bonuses that don't look like full casters. GMs won't like it because the class doesn't actually look overpowered on its own, and it's only when you start getting other crap involved that it turns everyday bards into flawless casters capable of doing literally everything. So if your GM is new, they probably won't notice that anything is weird with your build until you cast max level buffs on yourself and charge into a mob of demons slaughtering them all with a bastard sword.

Thrallherd

The Thrallherd takes the already broken Leadership feat and builds an entire Prestige Class around it for psions. The requirements are not too difficult: Knowledge (Psionics) 8, Diplomacy 4 (which is a class skill for Telepaths, but with normal skill point investments this is obtained at the same level as the previous skill), the Inquisitor feat (requires 13 Wisdom), Manifester Level 5 and the Mindlink power. This is an 8/10 advancement class, but what you get for those levels in return is staggering. First off, at level 1 you get yourself a Thrall. This is a cohort of one level lower than you, as long as this level is not higher than the one mandated by your Leadership Score (character level + Thrallherd level + Charisma modifier, maxes out at 25 so unless Charisma is your dump stat you hit it at Psion 5/Thrallherd 10) who is drawn to you through the psychic resonance that you radiate, making them want to serve you. In the same vein you get another Thrall at Thrallherd 10, who is 2 levels lower than you. On top of that you also get a whole horde of Believers: a bunch of low-level NPCs who more or less worship you. Their levels are in the 1-6 range, and at the highest level you can have 135/13/7/4/2/2 of them in order of lowest to highest. On top of that at the odd levels you get a mix of new psionic powers (Psionic Charm and Psionic Dominate if you didn't have them already) and have them be cheaper to cast.

Dreamscarred Press' Ultimate Psionics has a version of the Thrallherd as well, taking the same class and adding a number of features. At the even levels they gain a permanent +2 buff to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate or Sense Motive (bonuses can stack) and at level 10 they gain an upgrade to their Thralls and Believers, increasing the maximum levels of the first (17 to 19) and greatly increasing the number of Believers to 300/30/15/8/4/2.

Just like the Leadership feat, the Thrallherd is infamous because of its ability to attract large amounts of manpower for relatively little effort. As such, few DMs will allow you to play this, because even with just the Thralls this is a supremely potent class that's nigh impossible to keep track of. If you really want to piss off your DM you point out that it doesn't say that the Thralls can't be Psions with levels in Thrallherd themselves, which means that your class features have class features more powerful than entire classess. But if you do this you have to accept that your DM is going to force-feed you your psionics book.

Thrallherds are further hated due to their resemblance to the slut bard. In other words, players tendency to assemble and army of whores to collectively group fuck them.

Trapsmith

No, unfortunately not that kins of Trap, this is a strange class that gets better at making and disabling various traps and, for some reason, gets a bit of spellcasting. It has a tiny spell list of 9 1st level spells, 6 2nd level and 5 3rd level spells and can only learn 4/3/2 of them at most but each of those spells comes at massively discounted spell level. Thus Trapsmith is more often seen as a goodiebag for abilities that let you grab spells from any list (Like Chameleon) than it is actually played.

Ur-Priest

A ten-level class for Evil characters who want to steal Divine spells from the gods and use them against them. Being some kind of anti-cleric the Ur-Priest has a nice array of spells it can use (Cleric list) and cast (interestingly enough they're not bound by alignment). They also get to Rebuke Undead, get 20 Spell Resistance against Divine spells and spell-like abilities from Outsiders, can combine spell slots into higher level spell slots and at level 10 steal spell-like (no supernatural) abilities from any creature. While it is open to any class that meets it requirements, without some serious weight in Knowledge skills (and Bluff and Spell craft) you're not going to join the kewl kids klub. The real selling point though is that it gains 9th level spells in only 9 levels of class (instead of 17 class levels) and there's no rule stopping a prestige class from advancing another prestige class's spellcasting. RAW, it gains half non-Ur-Priest levels to caster level with no exception for if those non-Ur-Priest levels also advance its caster level, so you can actually reach a "natural" caster level of higher than your actual level.

Warshaper

A meh prestige class that gave a few more options when using shape shifting abilities... unless you had at will shapeshifting instead of the limited times per day the class was built for. While no player character friendly method for getting that existed at the time of printing, Eberron eventually added the Changeling. A Changeling in this class is hard to kill (+4 con and fast healing 2, 10 if they spend the round concentrating), can reach like Mr. Fantastic and grow any natural weapon they want potentially even as many as the GM will let them (though the limit on changing "body type" in the Changeling's shapeshifting should prevent growing extra limbs or enough tentacles to fill a hentai OVA).