Another vote for Master of Many Forms. It's what I think a good prestige class should be -- it's got great flavour, it allows you to do something that no base class can do, the abilities are mostly level-appropriate, and there are no (or almost no) dead levels.
+1 to this.
With the changes to Polymorph and wildshape, it would be tricky to adjust to Pathfinder, but not impossible.
Mindbender
THIS!
"... And also... I can kill you with my brain."
With the changes to Polymorph and wildshape, it would be tricky to adjust to Pathfinder, but not impossible.
Why? Paizo made the Synthesist, so they clearly don't mind adding stuff that replaces your physical stats completely, like the 3E polymorphs did. Actually better, since Synth's new con score boosts your hp; 3E polymorphs you kept your same hp despite any con changes. Oh, and in 3E you didn't get wild shape till 5th level or polymorph till level 7 or 8, so you had to suck it up and deal with cruddy physical stats until then if trying to min-max. Synth gets his phys stat replacements right at level 1, no pain.
If it were a class or prestige class whose focus was specifically on shape shifting and like the MoMF got extraordinary abilities but not Su or Sp ones, I think it'd be quite easy to include without it being unbalanced.
Again, Synthesist gets to switch his phys stats, combine two hit dice pools into one big stat of health, choose powerful bonus abilities from a large "evolutions" list, AND retains spellcasting that's practically as good as 9th level casting despite having bard progression, when you look at all the massive spell level reductions they get on a ton of great spells.
And that archetype's actually weaker than normal summoner.
A dedicated shapeshifting class would fit in just fine in PF.
Definitely mindbender.
I miss the Elocator the most, but that is just a whole other can of worms of missing Psychic warrior and psionics in general. Even without the homebrewed wildmind version of psychic warrior, basically a psionic ranger or psychic warrior with ranger skills I still liked psionics for versatility.
Asta
PSY
With the changes to Polymorph and wildshape, it would be tricky to adjust to Pathfinder, but not impossible.Why? Paizo made the Synthesist, so they clearly don't mind adding stuff that replaces your physical stats completely, like the 3E polymorphs did. Actually better, since Synth's new con score boosts your hp; 3E polymorphs you kept your same hp despite any con changes. Oh, and in 3E you didn't get wild shape till 5th level or polymorph till level 7 or 8, so you had to suck it up and deal with cruddy physical stats until then if trying to min-max. Synth gets his phys stat replacements right at level 1, no pain.
If it were a class or prestige class whose focus was specifically on shape shifting and like the MoMF got extraordinary abilities but not Su or Sp ones, I think it'd be quite easy to include without it being unbalanced.
Again, Synthesist gets to switch his phys stats, combine two hit dice pools into one big stat of health, choose powerful bonus abilities from a large "evolutions" list, AND retains spellcasting that's practically as good as 9th level casting despite having bard progression, when you look at all the massive spell level reductions they get on a ton of great spells.
And that archetype's actually weaker than normal summoner.
A dedicated shapeshifting class would fit in just fine in PF.
By the by, they've changed the "replaces your physical stats" part. Now you add all of the eidolon's ability score modifiers to your own instead.
Edit: After reading a thread in the site feedback forum, this may have been a glitch, and the rules may not have been changed. Bummer.
Why was this moved to conversions?! What the hell was being converted to PF here?
O_O
Why was this moved to conversions?! What the hell was being converted to PF here?
O_O
I agree. Sometimes I think the thread movers don't read carefully (understandable since there are so many) and miss the mark.
Flagged so someone will move it to a more appropriate forum.
I wouldn't mind an upgrade or archetype for them would be Green Star Adept, Acolyte of the Skin, and Osteomancer.
Why was this moved to conversions?! What the hell was being converted to PF here?
Presumably 3.5 prestige classes, in theory.
Master Thrower definately. My Rogue was breaking the game, and he never even got the Prestige's end-power to resolve ranged thrown attacks as touch attacks, which given the gunslinger these days isn't even that great anymore.
Archmage
Incantrix
Then again, its very easy to add them back in since 3.5 is compatible with PF
Abjurant Champion (yes, it's overpowered and needs to be reined in, but having done so it should be useful for the boost to the Shield spell and the Quickened abjuration spells)
Alienist (mainly the flavour; I agree that the mechanics need work)
Archmage (mainly for the mastery of elements and shaping)
Dark Hunter (another way to obtain darkvision)
Deepwood Stalker (another way to obtain darkvision, plus intensify racial hatred)
Divine Agent (although the mechanics do need work; in my home games I broke it up into two classes: Divine Voice and Divine Hand)
Fochlucan Lyrist (1e bards live again!)
Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil (fun prismatic effects/attacks)
Malconvoker (let's challenge our ethics!)
Planar Champion (gives Fighters help vs. ethereal foes and planar travel options)
Shadowbane Stalker (the rare Cleric/Rogue combination)
those which mimicked 1e/2e multi-class combinations without giving everything that the two classes offered
those which were situationally useful in a particular type of campaign, such as the ones in Lords of Madness when fighting Aberrations
FR-based prestige classes (for an FR-based game)