Eldritch Knight doesn't sound evil and doesn't have niche flavor like PrCs should avoid.
Foresight is like rolling twice for Spell Resistance or a touch attack roll, and picking the higher result. Or if you're not using those spells, save a good Foresight roll for a saving throw you might have to make. Use it on skill rolls you don't want to fail.
The Supernatural Dimension Door goes a fair distance at mid to high levels as a swift action. From first level it's a great ability to escape grapples and travel through barred windows, cracked walls, or what have you. Take Dimensional Agility and you don't lose the rest of your turn. If your DM is generous he'll let you take the feat at first level, but it'll still be worth it at seventh.
And I don't think I've ever heard or read anyone say "I keep missing these touch attack rolls. I really wish Wizards had better BAB." If something looks like it has a high touch AC, use spells that don't require an attack roll. You have lots.
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Dimension Door is nice, but a few extra uses of it compared to what I can get in a good PrC its not going to hold up?
Exactly what has been avoided in prestige classes actually.
The whole "why would I not take a prestige class after this point, because my class offers so littler at that point"
For most classes that had many features it was easy enough to make prestige classes that didn't do this.
Wizard has, aside from it's school powers and feats, not alot specialy after lvl 6/8 and 10.
At any rate, many of the powers depend on levels both in rounds of use, potency of effect, and number of uses etc.
IE universalists school lets you spontaneously metamagic an additional time per 2 lvls...
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You have to really want the flavor of the PrC to go into it now, instead of it just being "What you do after level 5." It's now actually a choice where you give something up either way.That's how I think of them. You really have to want the flavor options they offer over mechanics. And even then, not all of them do flavor substantially better than the base classes that gain access to them.
For instance, the Assassin prestiege class. It gets poison use and a death attack (that improves as he levels). Now poison use can be a flavorful thing, but there are rogue archetypes that get poison use and plenty of rogue talents that make it more useful than the ability the Assassin gets. The dark clothing and stelath and other flavorful things you would imagine as an assassin aren't really built into the class significantly except for his death attack. So you have to really want that imagery of the death attack to pick up the class, in my opinion. And even without it is still very possible for a rogue to be every bit as much an assassin as the prestiege class is.
Remember when Assassin got arcane spells in 3.5? Those were the good old days...
Dimension Door is nice, but a few extra uses of it compared to what I can get in a good PrC its not going to hold up?Exactly what has been avoided in prestige classes actually.
The whole "why would I not take a prestige class after this point, because my class offers so littler at that point"
For most classes that had many features it was easy enough to make prestige classes that didn't do this.
Wizard has, aside from it's school powers and feats, not alot specialy after lvl 6/8 and 10.
At any rate, many of the powers depend on levels both in rounds of use, potency of effect, and number of uses etc.
IE universalists school lets you spontaneously metamagic an additional time per 2 lvls...
Right. . . but that's almost nothing? A few extra uses of low level school powers, familiar advancement (assuming you even have a familiar) and a feat at 10, 15, and (lol) 20-- that's not a lot.
That's my whole point-- Paizo went a lot of effort with most classes to give them something at every single level so that they would feel good not taking PrCs-- except Wizards who still have very little incentive to not take one as soon as possible.
If you excuse me, I'm going to go write a prestige class that gives you favored class bonuses as a class feature :)
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I think a lot of posters on this thread think the main point of a prestige class is to give your character more power than your base class would.
That is exactly what was wrong with prestige classes in 3.5, and I am quite happy that this is not the case in Pathfinder.
I find that Paths of Prestige proves that Paizo hates PrC's.
Please elaborate.
APG did have some PrC's in it and on whole they were terrible too.
Are we reading the same book? Holy Vindicator is the lynchpin of the Oradin build, Master Chemist turns the alchemist into a natural weapon blending machine without sacrificing bomb damage. Battle Herald builds the most powerful aid another / combat buffing character in the game. Horizon Walker is an easy way to gain access to dimension door as a spell-like ability, allowing you to qualify for the Dimensional Agility feats.
Basically all of those Prestige Classes have very potent builds that a savvy player can construct.
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From the core rulebook entry:
"Spells per Day: At the indicated levels, an eldritch
knight gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a
level in an arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before
adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any
other benefit a character of that class would have gained,
except for additional spells per day, spells known (if he
is a spontaneous spellcaster), and an increased effective
level of spellcasting."So if that is no longer the case it is a SERIOUS nerf to PrCs and pretty much proof that Paizo hates them.
They get their spells known off the Spells Known table, they just don't progress their bloodline so they don't get those bonus spells known.
Which is actually how it always was.
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If you're playing the most powerful class in the game, you can't expect to get a power-up from taking levels in a prestige class. Whining about prestige classes being bad from an optimization standpoint as a wizard is like bringing a jet plane to a car race and complaining there's no nice paint jobs that can be seen when it's a mile in the air.
And don't come saying that it's not about optimization and gaining power, 'cause if that's not the issue, there's a boatload of prestige classes wizards can take. They're just not going to get you any power over a vanilla wizard. Arcane Archer. Loremaster. Pathfinder Chronicler. Shadowdancer.
Paizo has yet to publish a single worthwhile Wizard PrC. . . and that's the class that needs it the most since they did very little if anything to make staying straight Wizard appealing unlike some other classes that used to dive into PrCs ASAP. . .
Wow!
Don't mix "I don't like the wizard" with "the wizard isn't appealing", please.
Ilja got this, wizard is powerful enough, and doesn't need any other bonus. There are PrC class for wizards, but those ones are specifics.
I would play a straight wizard all day, no problem. You've got all you need, and I feel a dip is just losing the spirit and the power of that class.
The usual flavor a PrC add to a character, you got it straight from the start thank to the specialized school.
Paizo has yet to publish a single worthwhile Wizard PrC. . . and that's the class that needs it the most since they did very little if anything to make staying straight Wizard appealing unlike some other classes that used to dive into PrCs ASAP. . .Wow!
Don't mix "I don't like the wizard" with "the wizard isn't appealing", please.
Ilja got this, wizard is powerful enough, and doesn't need any other bonus. There are PrC class for wizards, but those ones are specifics.
I would play a straight wizard all day, no problem. You've got all you need, and I feel a dip is just losing the spirit and the power of that class.
The usual flavor a PrC add to a character, you got it straight from the start thank to the specialized school.
I disagree. I don't find the School specialization to do that much for flavor-- they give you a couple of SLAs that kind of advance and are vaguely useful, but they do little else to make your character flavored like whatever you may want--
That's like saying all a Cleric needs is to pick his domains and he has all the flavor he could ever need.
Have you played a straight wizard in this game? Just curious, because its essentially the exact same as it was playing a straight wizard in 3.5, 3.0, and to be perfectly honest AD&D 2nd edition-- the spells have changed that little over the years-- fireball is exactly the same, ditto magic missile, all the illusion spells are essentially the same, charm person-- basically regardless of what type of wizard you choose the core spells have had only very minor changes over the last 20 years through four different editions.
I don't think asking for a few interesting abilities on the chart is really asking that much?
I'd like a way to distinguish different wizards from each other without simply choosing to give one of them worse spells (i.e. ignoring the good ones which have been the same good ones for 20 years).
I agree that wizards tend to be similar, but thats not due to a lack of interesting features - heck, they get to know more spells from the most powerful list than anyone else, thats a massive feature. What makes them seem alike is that they get ALL ZE POWERS. Sorcerers dont suffer from this. So when the issue is that a class gets all the power and isnt varied enough, is the solution to just throw more powers at it? No, of course not. The solution is to restrict power, in a similar way as is done with the sorcerer. If wizards had, say, two more spells per level per day be speciality only slots like the bonus slots, wizards would be a lot more different from each other.
My favorite character is a straight wizard.
The fav' school (+ opposite schools) really gives you the flavor.
You're not a "wizard", you are an "enchanter", a "conjurer", etc... IMO, it's the kind of flavor a PrC usually gives you, when you have a martial class for example.
Even more true for a clerics, with the "god choice". Except the full casters, I don't see a lot of class that gain so much flavor following your starting choice.
Note: I don't see flavor = features.