Prestige classes, which of them are still good?

Champion of Balance is a really interesting one. A channel-focused cleric can start channelling positive and negative simultaneously by level 9.

I really like Divine Scion.

1 Level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer (Orc/Draconic), blaster-based Oracle, then 10 Levels of Divine Scion.

Using your Draconic element, against evil creatures (or whichever alignment you choose; just, evil is common for enemies), you're doing +4 damage per die on spells. That's more powerful than if you Maximized the spell, doesn't raise the spell levels, and it stacks with Empower/Maximize.

Dual-Cursed Oracle is better, too, as you can make the enemy reroll failed saves if they're close enough.

20d6 plus the per-die bonuses, plus empowered and maximized....doing an average of 235 points of damage to many evil enemies with one spell.

I had to look this up, as it sounded like a fun trick to work with a blaster Oracle. Unfortunately, I don't think the bonus damage you get from Divine Scion works the way you have suggested.

Rather than applying to all evil enemies (or whatever has been selected as the opposed alignment), it only seems to work on creatures with that alignment SUBTYPE. That excludes a large number of enemies, I think, and from my experience would largely be useful againt outsiders.

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Divine Wrath (Su): At 4th level, a divine scion’s damaging spells deal +1 point of damage per die against creatures with an alignment subtype that matches the divine scion’s opposition alignment.

Mystic Thuerge in concept is pretty cool. On paper it sucks have seen it played by two separate players a few times and it falls short of what is supposed to be a great idea. Losing the extra feat going up as a straight wizard isn't a huge loss. Sorcerer loses a bit but nothing truly painful. However the Cleric's channeling is where is hurts the most. To make matters worse was the supposed versatility offered by the Prestige class really isn't there like some people would think.

I like the concept of alternative entry prestige classes, while admittedly it doesn't always work out mechanically.

Like oracle/ sorcerer mystic theurge sounds cool and both use the same casting stat allowing you to be less MAD, but you're way behind on spell casting then.

Or the Eldritch Knight in the NPC codex (I think) who is a barbarian/ sorcerer and he's a half orc wearing a polar bear pelt, and it just screams flavor to me, but you lose out on the bloodline and rage powers.

As for prestige classes that actually work, I love the mammoth rider for flavor and mechanics, particularly from the barbarian entry.

Mechanical Pear wrote:

I really like Divine Scion.

1 Level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer (Orc/Draconic), blaster-based Oracle, then 10 Levels of Divine Scion.

Using your Draconic element, against evil creatures (or whichever alignment you choose; just, evil is common for enemies), you're doing +4 damage per die on spells. That's more powerful than if you Maximized the spell, doesn't raise the spell levels, and it stacks with Empower/Maximize.

Dual-Cursed Oracle is better, too, as you can make the enemy reroll failed saves if they're close enough.

20d6 plus the per-die bonuses, plus empowered and maximized....doing an average of 235 points of damage to many evil enemies with one spell.

I had to look this up, as it sounded like a fun trick to work with a blaster Oracle. Unfortunately, I don't think the bonus damage you get from Divine Scion works the way you have suggested.

Rather than applying to all evil enemies (or whatever has been selected as the opposed alignment), it only seems to work on creatures with that alignment SUBTYPE. That excludes a large number of enemies, I think, and from my experience would largely be useful againt outsiders.

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Divine Wrath (Su): At 4th level, a divine scion’s damaging spells deal +1 point of damage per die against creatures with an alignment subtype that matches the divine scion’s opposition alignment.

No idea how I missed that :\ Well, there goes that character.

I suggested Mammoth Rider to my girlfriend for her Viking themed PC (perhaps thinking of the frost giant riding a mammoth D&D mini, something which I might customize for her PC). Unfortunately the DM has very rarely allowed her animal companion to come along on adventures.

I think maybe the mammoth annoyed people by being effective in combat a few times, but either way it seems like there’s always some reason why he can’t come along:
-the rickety wooden floor would break
-the mammoth would sink into the muddy marsh
-he wouldn’t fit in the narrow underground tunnels (despite the fact he has Narrow Frame and the PC can cast Reduce Animal so that the mammoth could basically fit through the same space as a human if he had to)
-we’re too far underground for somebody to Teleport the mammoth to us now (at 100 miles per level for Teleport that’s kind of odd)
-etc

It feels almost like I tricked her into a trap option, especially since it is a Mythic game and she took the Guardian path to help enhance the animal companion rather than the seemingly much more powerful Hierophant path to boost her Druidic spell casting.

^Sounds like this might be a GM problem, not a prestige class problem. If you had convinced your girlfriend to pick something else cool, it would probably still end up being mysteriously mostly unusable. Is anybody else in the group getting hosed that way?

The big problem with prestige classes is that as far as I know, none of them have enough levels available. For mystic theurge, for example, there need to be 14 levels, not just 10. You should be able to take the prereqs and then stay with your prestige class until level 20.

...Frog God Games' Archwizard is in the interesting position of arguably having too many levels. XD It's a 10-level class, but you can't enter until Level 16 - you literally have to be an epic character in order to finish it.

Edit due to being semi-Ninja'd.

The big problem with prestige classes is that as far as I know, none of them have enough levels available. For mystic theurge, for example, there need to be 14 levels, not just 10. You should be able to take the prereqs and then stay with your prestige class until level 20.

D&D 3.5 Unearthed Arcana Prestige Paladin (and Prestige some other things) were 15 level prestige classes, and somebody reported somewhere else on these messageboards that the playtest Hellknight was 15 level, but the concept never seems to have caught on in non-3rd-party material (and the only 3rd party implementation I can think of off the top of my head is Kirthfinder's Prestige Paladin). Not sure why. Also, D&D 3.5 Epic Rules added 10 more levels for each of several prestige classes (and base classes). For that rule set, it is more clear why it didn't catch on. :-)

Edit: Of course, level 20 is a rather artificial target anyway -- I would prefer moveable capstone levels, and the option to stop short of 20 or keep going smoothly beyond level 20.

...

No idea how I missed that :\ Well, there goes that character.

Happens to the best of us. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Am I really the first one to list Red Mantis Assassin as a great PrC? It is awesome fun. I wish it would get an update and have more Red Mantis various other prestige classes to help flesh out the organization.

I think the Holy Vindicator works well with a Paladin, the Stigmata synergizes well with Smite and the bleed can be handled with Lay on Hands.

Mystic Thuerge in concept is pretty cool. On paper it sucks have seen it played by two separate players a few times and it falls short of what is supposed to be a great idea. Losing the extra feat going up as a straight wizard isn't a huge loss. Sorcerer loses a bit but nothing truly painful. However the Cleric's channeling is where is hurts the most. To make matters worse was the supposed versatility offered by the Prestige class really isn't there like some people would think.

It was good for a year or so when spell-like abilities counted as pre-reqs, but then only for a few races.

I had fun putting 3 levels of Shadowdancer on a caster who mostly hid in the shadows allowing his pets to do the work but a few times per day would come out and make a big impact with a metamagic rod. I'd be willing to try it again on a different sort of PC though I wish the punishment for losing the shadow weren't a month long - it is a great pet but tough to use confidently...

When I saw a Mystic Theurge join a 3.5 game at 18th level he seemed pretty cool. When somebody played one from 1st level in a more recent Pathfinder game it seemed like a tough path to be on during the mid levels though. I think metamagic rods could probably help a lot though (as they did for my PC above)

@UnArcaneElection - Regarding the PrC vs GM problem, I guess the problem with a PrC (or mythic path) which relies heavily on an animal companion is that animal companion is one of the class features which many GMs frequently abridge access to. I guess I thought that with “by the rules” ways to fit the animal into dungeons it would be allowed to come on most adventures, but I was wrong. As for people "getting hosed", there are a few people who took cohorts but no longer bring them on adventures since some new players joined the group and the DM felt the party was getting too big. I guess that some of those folks might consider it unfair if the Druid got to bring her pet along when their cohorts have to stay behind. Honestly the mammoth already was already getting barred from coming on many adventure even when the cohorts were still active though (perhaps due to the idea of a mammoth coming along just clashing with the GM's imagination?)

I still love the mystic theurge and the eldritch knight. I actually prefer the eldritch knight to the magus. Classes don't go "bad" just because new ones come out.
I have a 5 level one I designed called the metamage. I need to put it in a pdf form and post it here.