The Most Busted: Prestige Class Edition

[Fox Box Socks]

So.

What is, in your opinion, the single most broken prestige class in 3.5?

I recognize this is going to end up with basically Tainted Scholar vs Planar Shepard vs Incantatrix, but since it's been over half a decade since I've played 3.5, I'm interested in hearing what's regarded as simply too good.

[Eldan]

I'd also put Dweomerkeeper on here, but it's hard to argue with the others.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Beholder Mage is pretty busted too; and it is not as hard to qualify as one would think so..

Ur-Priest, Shadow Templar (from the Dark Sun project) give you 9th level spells extremely fast (10 levels) and can become quite broken

[kardar233]

Ur-Priest only (IMO) gets really mean when you start adding full divine spellcasting PrCs to it.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Even a straight Ur-Priest is quite stronge, as with the earliest entry you can get 9 divine spells by ECL 15 or 16 (can't recall exactly).

I think Ur-priest is best used with half casting classes

[Seerow]

Ur Priest on its own isn't too bad. It's Ur-Priest with Theurge and potentially Sublime Chord or one of the other quick 9th level casting classes that it gets broken.

[Fox Box Socks]

Incidentally, my money is on Planar Shepard.

A friend of mine informed his DM that he wanted to play a Planar Shepard for an upcoming campaing. Of course, the DM allowed it and of course, he chose Dal Quor so that he got 10 rounds to everyone else's 1. He was then informed that not only was he barred from playing Planar Shepard ever again, he was barred from playing Druids in that playgroup ever again.

As far as DM bannings go, it was less like a decree and more like Rome sacking Carthage, then burning the city to the ground, then salting the earth to ensure that nothing ever grew there again.

[Greenish]

Planar Shepherd. Others can be excused: they didn't think about taint stacking, didn't realize the power of metamagic (scattered around as it is), thought PCs wouldn't be Evil… Poor excuses, but still.

But Planar Shepherd. It came so late in the cycle they must've known druids are plenty powerful, and then they went and made it. It defies comprehension.

[Devmaar]

Beholder Mage. Schrödinger's wizard, with 10 spells a round.

Insane.

[Rhaegar14]

I'm going to make a minor mention of Mage of the Arcane Order (not that it should win, but it should be mentioned), because it doesn't require much cheese to be that powerful. Sure, an optimizer is going to have no problems getting every useful spell in the game in their Wizard's spell list, but MotAO pretty much hands it to newer players with minimal thought/optimization investment.

[FMArthur]

Yeah, Beholder Mage is totally broken in its every aspect. 9th level spells in 9 levels, easy to meet entry requirements on what was assumedly an NPC-only class, knowing every Wizard/Sorcerer spell and casting them spontanously as 1 free action per spell level... what the hell. Even in its intended usage as an NPC, a Beholder Mage would be so grossly overpowering as an encounter that it's roughly equivalent to "rocks fall, you all die".

Planar Shepherd has a very similar, superior action advantage, but at least restricts the rest of one's character build on account of it requiring Wild Shape and doesn't give you fully-spontaneous access to the most powerful spell list in the game.

[Gardener]

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil needs a mention, too. Four times a day, you can force someone attacking you to eat a flesh to stone and a plane shift in retaliation as an immediate action. And you retain this protection for seven minutes. Oh, you also get a 1/day greater dispel magic that imposes the effects of a prismatic wall, with one colour per effect dispelled.

Did I mention that it's full casting progression? Or that two of the three prerequisite feats are given by three levels of Master Specialist as an abjurer, while the third is the requirement for MS? Or even that qualifying for Iot7V means you can get into Archmage with three additional ranks in two skills and one feat?

Yeah, it's not a flowing-time Planar Sheperd, but I'd say it's up there with the Incantatrix.

[Ozreth]

Sometimes I feel like I'm at a Magic: The Gathering tourney when I read 3.x forums :smalltongue:

[Amphetryon]

It's marginally less busted than some of the others on the list, but Halruuan Elder got a lot of interest back in the day for its easy metamagic.

[erikun]

Tainted Scholar is a base class, from what I remember. And if we're talking about base classes, then Spell-to-Power Erudite (know every spell) and Psionic Artificer (make every item) get mentions as well.

Beholder Mage is mind-numbingly broken. Planar Shepard is too, assuming you allow attuning to planes with the fast time trait. Incantatrix's main abuse is allowing you to stack metamagic reducers, and thus a lot of metamagic on a lot of spells for (effectively) free. Dweomerkeeper can give you Wish/Miracle as a SLA, meaning no XP cost.

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil given you a free quickened Prismatic Wall each day.

Ur-Priest, Sublime Chord, and similar prestige classes are only "broken" in the sense that you get 9th level spells in 10 levels, which can be a problem through early entry tricks. I'd say that Wizard/Ur-Priest is one of the better Theurge builds, and an Ur-Priest/Sublime Chord Theurge requires 12th level before entering MT. (I would argue the old Wizard 3/Druid 4/Arcane Heirophant is better.) They do tend to produce unusually powerful gishes, though.

Green Star Adept is all kinds of broken as well, but in the Truenamer sense.

[Big Fau]

In no particular order:


Shadowcraft Mage
Planar Shepherd
Dweomerkeeper
Tainted Scholar
Incanatrix

[Dusk Eclipse]

It's marginally less busted than some of the others on the list, but Halruuan Elder got a lot of interest back in the day for its easy metamagic.

Is that the class that essentially becomes spontaneous inside Halruuan (or was it Thay?) and got some free metamagic? If so combine with Acorn of Far Travel for Ultimate Power (TM)

[Rejakor]

IotSV is good cause it lets you wander about in a antimagic field and be immune, just like Cleric of Mystra.


Personally, my vote is for Arcane Trickster. That goddamn class lets you pick locks from 30' away. 30 feet! That's insane!

[Claudius Maximus]

Is that the class that essentially becomes spontaneous inside Halruuan (or was it Thay?) and got some free metamagic? If so combine with Acorn of Far Travel for Ultimate Power (TM)

You're thinking of Hathran.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Oh right, well then my vote goes to Hathran Elder then.

[Saintheart]

Ur-Priest only (IMO) gets really mean when you start adding full divine spellcasting PrCs to it.

Given the RAI on that whole class, its author's corpse just hit 3,000 rpm.

Not a criticism, just an observation. :smallbiggrin:

[Malimar]

All of the above are pretty broken.

I would say Ur-Priest or Thrallherd is the most broken that a DM might actually let you play.

For pure unmitigated cheese potential, I don't know for sure how it compares to the others (particularly Beholder Mage), but Illithid Savant should certainly be pretty high up there.

[Dusk Eclipse]

As busted as it is; I really want to try a Gish using Shadow Templar....

[Godskook]

I would say Ur-Priest or Thrallherd is the most broken that a DM might actually let you play.


Thrallherd isn't that broken compared to the others, especially if:
-Your thralls' equipment comes out of your WBL
-Your thralls are not allowed to be fully-customized by the Player.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Thrallherd isn't that broken compared to the others, especially if:
-Your thralls' equipment comes out of your WBL
-Your thralls are not allowed to be fully-customized by the Player.

Isn't (at least in part) the Oberoni Fallacy? I am not that familiar with the rules on thralls/cohorts; but by my understanding they come with their own WBL.

[Flickerdart]

Isn't (at least in part) the Oberoni Fallacy? I am not that familiar with the rules on thralls/cohorts; but by my understanding they come with their own WBL.
Wealth is not mentioned anywhere. It's fair to assume that the thrall comes with NPC wealth (since he was an NPC before) but then he's not getting more money if he's adventuring with you. Unless you buy him new gear, he won't have any new gear.

[Godskook]

Isn't (at least in part) the Oberoni Fallacy? I am not that familiar with the rules on thralls/cohorts; but by my understanding they come with their own WBL.

1.There's no rules that I'm aware of that control a cohort's(thrall) or followers'(herd) WBL or build.

2.This has nothing to do with the Oberoni

[sonofzeal]

I'd like to nominate Void Disciple. Its power is highly dependent on DM interpretation, but in a world where Scry-and-Die Wizards are the benchmark, the Void Disciple can potentially demolish them at their own game. "If do right, no can defence" indeed....

[Malimar]

Isn't (at least in part) the Oberoni Fallacy? I am not that familiar with the rules on thralls/cohorts; but by my understanding they come with their own WBL.


Wealth is not mentioned anywhere. It's fair to assume that the thrall comes with NPC wealth (since he was an NPC before) but then he's not getting more money if he's adventuring with you. Unless you buy him new gear, he won't have any new gear.


1.There's no rules that I'm aware of that control a cohort's(thrall) or followers'(herd) WBL or build.

The RAW has clear rules for this: DMG page 105-106. A thrall/cohort takes half a share of the treasure (so it comes out of the whole party's WBL, not the thrallherd's). Followers/believers "don't demand a share of the treasure, although they depend on the PC they follow to equip them and keep them fed."

The RAW is also clear on whether thralls/cohorts and followers/believers are fully customizable by the player. "A character can try to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment" but "The DM determines the details of the cohort." So the PC can try to pick a thrall that's broken no matter how you build it, because if they simply pick a thrall that's potentially broken, the DM can just refrain from building it broken-like.

All of that said, though, the brokenness of thrallherd isn't entirely in the "you have two or three PCs". It's also in things like "you get an endless supply of willing human sacrifices".

[Dusk Eclipse]

1.There's no rules that I'm aware of that control a cohort's(thrall) or followers'(herd) WBL or build.

2.This has nothing to do with the Oberoni

I said it seems Oberoni, cause it is on the edge of "it is not (that) broken if I can fix it"; and what I meant with the second part my previous comment is that at least at the start the thrall/cohort comes with it's own wealth.

Now if the player is in total control of the cohort/thrall (as many people tend to assume/cite when discussing the broken-ess of it) then it is quite broken; but in the end it is too DM-dependant IMO, not that I am denying it is definitely one of the mos powerful prg. classes ever printed.

[Greenish]

Tainted Scholar is a base class, from what I remember.You might be thinking of Tainted Sorcerer (UA). Tainted Scholar (HoH) is a PrC.

[Ernir]

Beholder Mage, Tainted Scholar, Dweomerkeeper, and Illithid Savant are probably the classes that turn the game into freeform the fastest.

Then there's stuff like Planar Shepherds, Incantatrixes and Hulking Hurlers (and many more) who are just way too good at killing things.

[Greenish]

Then there's stuff like Planar Shepherds, Incantatrixes and Hulking Hurlers (and many more) who are just way too good at killing things.Well, Planar Shepherds (in addition to the "ten rounds in one round" trick) can turn into outsiders and get access to their SLAs and SUs. That should help to push them to the former category.

At the very least, it should prevent them from being mentioned in a same sentence as a mere Hulking Hurler.

[Ernir]

Well, Planar Shepherds (in addition to the "ten rounds in one round" trick) can turn into outsiders and get access to their SLAs and SUs. That should help to push them to the former category.

At the very least, it should prevent them from being mentioned in a same sentence as a mere Hulking Hurler.

Forgot about the Sus and Sps. :smallsigh:
Getting that as a class feature definitely counts for something, even if it's possible to get the same as a straight Sorcerer/Wizard/Cleric/Archivist with the right horribly wrong feats.

*Kicks Planar Shepherds up*

[sreservoir]

You might be thinking of Tainted Sorcerer (UA). Tainted Scholar (HoH) is a PrC.

also a prc.

[Greenish]

also a prc.Oh, right, should've checked. :smallredface:

[Zaq]

Yeah, pretty much anything where WotC's rationale appears to be something like "it's OK, PCs won't be playing it" is very high on the list. Tainted Scholar, Illithid Savant, Beholder Mage . . . yeah. Nothing good can come of that. On a second tier in that category is stuff like Ur-Priest and Soul Eater, neither of which can even hold a CANDLE to the craziness that is the stuff I already mentioned, but which I believe to be way more powerful that the designers had any idea they were doing.

Naturally, Planar Shepherd, Incantatrix, and Dweomerkeeper are the Unholy Trinity of PC-intended PrCs, but of those three, I'd only put Planar Shepherd anywhere near Illithid Savant and Beholder Mage. An Incantatrix is still doing fundamentally the same things they were before, just exponentially better. (And since they were a Wizard, that's saying a lot.) That said, a Planar Shepherd is doing things no normal Druid could even DREAM of doing, and if they make a few good choices, there's basically nothing that they can't handle, even if they only found out about it a minute ago.

Shadowcraft Mage is pretty damn powerful, and I'd even say that a Shadowcraft Mage pulling out all the stops would not feel at all overshadowed by an Incantatrix pulling out all the stops. I forget how easy it is to combine the two, but since one's a 5-level and one's a 10-level, it seems like it could be possible. I don't know what kind of DCFS shenanigans you need to get the proper feats, though.

[Fax Celestis]

DREAM

i c wut u did thar

[Grendus]

One thing worth mentioning is that most the PrC's that are ridiculously broken are for T1/T2 classes. There are a few exceptions (Shadowcraft Mage with Beguiler entry, while not as broken as Incantatrix, etc, is still too powerful in the hands of a halfway creative player), but for the most part the deal breakers are either intended for T1/T2 or they make a character into T1/T2.

Generally speaking, the ones that are the the furthest beyond broken are the ones that obliterate the action economy. Beholder Mage and Planar Shepherd are by far the most powerful classes. A party vs a Tainted Scholar, while a tough fight, would still hold the action advantage and could probably win (if they knew what they were up against and were prepared, and if he wasn't playing the paranoia game, they might get through without losing anybody even), but vs a Planar Shepherd casting 10 Druid spells per round or a Beholder Mage with 7 Wizard spells per round the party would be dead, fast.

[Greenish]

Question: Planar Bubble lasts for Concentration+1d10 rounds. If you made a planar bubble of plane of dreams, would those 1d10 rounds be in material plane time or plane of dreams time?

[Fax Celestis]

Question: Planar Bubble lasts for Concentration+1d10 rounds. If you made a planar bubble of plane of dreams, would those 1d10 rounds be in material plane time or plane of dreams time?

Your time, just like with time stop.

[Fox Box Socks]

a Planar Shepherd casting 10 Druid spells per round...the party would be dead, fast.
Well, fast for the party. For the Druid he would be picking them off in slow motion.

[Douglas]

Illithid Savant, played to its full theoretical potential, almost certainly tops the list simply because it can acquire all the broken class features of the other classes and then combine then - anything that tries to compete with it just ends up making it even more powerful.

[FMArthur]

Yeah, Illithid Savant certainly has the highest potential when you chain Acquire Class Feature with other Illithid Savants. If a pair of Illithid Savant reach 7th level without using Acquire Class Feature, the ability can be chained repeatedly between the two, to the limit of how many revivals you can afford, to gain more uses of Acquire Class Feature. If you could find a way to do this without incurring a cost, you would be able to gain nearly every class feature, feat, special quality and special attack in the game. Leadership cohorts or simple party cooperation could get you the trickier stuff that you wouldn't be able to find.

Without that, and without being able to get the other monstrously overpowered PrC abilities in the game world, it's not actually too bad. Well, no, it is still really overpowered and can get you Wish SLAs and such, but if you just used it on people you fight in a campaign instead of summoning Outsiders to extract their brains, you would only be getting some class features and spell sets that wouldn't improve and should be approximately what is accessible to someone near your ECL by the way CR works.

[sreservoir]

If you could find a way to do this without incurring a cost, you would be able to gain nearly every class feature, feat, special quality and special attack in the game.

eat clerical spells out of a solar's brain, break WBL with it, and then use a bunch of true resurrections?

[Morph Bark]

Incidentally, my money is on Planar Shepard.

A friend of mine informed his DM that he wanted to play a Planar Shepard for an upcoming campaing. Of course, the DM allowed it and of course, he chose Dal Quor so that he got 10 rounds to everyone else's 1. He was then informed that not only was he barred from playing Planar Shepard ever again, he was barred from playing Druids in that playgroup ever again.

As far as DM bannings go, it was less like a decree and more like Rome sacking Carthage, then burning the city to the ground, then salting the earth to ensure that nothing ever grew there again.

Note that, in the case of Dal Quor, using the 10-to-1 rounds thing makes it so you do not gain experience for the encounters it is used in.

[Lateral]

Note that, in the case of Dal Quor, using the 10-to-1 rounds thing makes it so you do not gain experience for the encounters it is used in.

You have ten actions for every one of your enemy's. Who needs levels? :smalltongue:

[Greenish]

Note that, in the case of Dal Quor, using the 10-to-1 rounds thing makes it so you do not gain experience for the encounters it is used in.Source for this, please? Since it's not mentioned in ECS.

[Lateral]

You might be thinking of Tainted Sorcerer (UA). Tainted Scholar (HoH) is a PrC.

Tainted Sorcerer is also a PrC, isn't it?

Also, I can't figure out why one is considered broken and the other isn't. The broken ability of them both is Tainted Spellcasting which they both get, isn't it?

[Arbane]

Dweomerkeeper

I don't know this one - what makes it so uber, aside from the fact most people will mispronounce it?

[Analytica]

Dweomerkeeper

I don't know this one - what makes it so uber, aside from the fact most people will mispronounce it?

It can turn spells of any level into a SLA. Since FR books say the Simbul uses Wish to change her spell repertoire despite being a sorcerer, this can be interpreted as stating that Wish allows this, so a Dweomerkeeper sorcerer can swap spells daily. This also means casting some spells with expensive material or XP components without having to expend those. It also reduces metamagic costs.

I was going to say that it requires that you worship Mystra and is an FR character, meaning that any abuse means you lose your power due to the Mary Sue goddess disapproving, but since it is also published outside of FR material, then...

[Metahuman1]

I've heard of a PrC called Rainbow Servant (Or was it serpent?), that's suppose to be horrendously busted. Not sure it's 3.5 and not 3.0 though.

[MeeposFire]

I've heard of a PrC called Rainbow Servant (Or was it serpent?), that's suppose to be horrendously busted. Not sure it's 3.5 and not 3.0 though.

3.5 and it really is not that busted. All it really does is enable classes like warmage to become effectively tier 1 classes as it allows them to cast cleric spells spontaneously. Still that is only slightly better than the stock cleric and has a while for the payoff so it really is not that bad.

[Analytica]

I've heard of a PrC called Rainbow Servant (Or was it serpent?), that's suppose to be horrendously busted. Not sure it's 3.5 and not 3.0 though.

It is really only powerful if you are a fixed-list caster. Even then, it loses four caster levels. Some argue it is full-casting, due to the text not matching the table, but most probably that is a copy-paste error. It also has alignment restrictions and requires you to work for the couatls.

[MeeposFire]

It is really only powerful if you are a fixed-list caster. Even then, it loses four caster levels. Some argue it is full-casting, due to the text not matching the table, but most probably that is a copy-paste error. It also has alignment restrictions and requires you to work for the couatls.

Even with full casting it still isn't any more game breaking in any significant way than a well played wizard or cleric.

[Coidzor]

It is really only powerful if you are a fixed-list caster. Even then, it loses four caster levels. Some argue it is full-casting, due to the text not matching the table, but most probably that is a copy-paste error. It also has alignment restrictions and requires you to work for the couatls.

I've yet to see a justification for this particular line thinking parading as having divined the will of the designers despite the lack of errata. I've read over the book & saw nothing that would suggest it was copypasta compared to any other PrCs' entry.

Text trumps table and tables more often have errors in them after all.


3.5 and it really is not that busted. All it really does is enable classes like warmage to become effectively tier 1 classes as it allows them to cast cleric spells spontaneously. Still that is only slightly better than the stock cleric and has a while for the payoff so it really is not that bad.

Warmage is worse than cleric, IIRC, even with cleric casting due to having the spontaneous casting handicap if nothing else, but I think it has worse HD & it's not like the cleric's spell list doesn't have blasting ability. Beguiler might be competitive with Cleric despite its own handicaps/duplication of the cleric's lists/domains, but the Beguiler could probably do better by going with Shadowcraft Mage anyway. Don't think it could do both anyway.

Analysis: Yeah, I've never understood how someone could continue to view roleplaying restrictions as a good way to rein in characters mechanically after learning about even a hundredth of the paladin arguments that broke out within the first week of 3.0's release... :smallsigh:

[Grendus]

I've yet to see a justification for this particular line thinking parading as having divined the will of the designers despite the lack of errata. I've read over the book & saw nothing that would suggest it was copypasta compared to any other PrCs' entry.

Text trumps table and tables more often have errors in them after all.

The main reason this keeps getting brought up is that it's different in the different translations, and the last printed translation had text that matched the table. Certainly as a full casting PrC it's broken. Still not as bad as Planar Shepherd or Beholder Mage, but pretty broken. Spontaneous access to the entire cleric spell list and full caster level is a little too much. Compared to other T1's though, spontaneous access to 8th level and lower spells is fairly balanced (since 9th level spells are world shatteringly powerful, while 8th level spells are just game breaking).

[Greenish]

I've read over the book & saw nothing that would suggest it was copypasta compared to any other PrCs' entry.Aside from the fact that the same discrepancy creeps up in several of the other entries, and the well-documented case where WotC massively overestimates the value of some class features in relation to casting and caster levels, you mean? :smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

Aside from the fact that the same discrepancy creeps up in several of the other entries, and the well-documented case where WotC massively overestimates the value of some class features in relation to casting and caster levels, you mean? :smalltongue:

Serves me right for not reading more than one or two of the absolute **** classes in there, I guess. :smallconfused:

[Claudius Maximus]

Well the Complete Divine errata opens by telling us that text trumps table when we are not explicitly told otherwise, and then goes on to not explicitly tell us otherwise, while fixing several other errors. Take what you will from that concerning RAI.

[dextercorvia]

Tainted Sorcerer is also a PrC, isn't it?

Also, I can't figure out why one is considered broken and the other isn't. The broken ability of them both is Tainted Spellcasting which they both get, isn't it?

The Taint mechanism for Tainted Sorcerer is pretty restrictive. You can play a Tainted Scholar without being Undead or [Evil] at least at first.


It can turn spells of any level into a SLA. Since FR books say the Simbul uses Wish to change her spell repertoire despite being a sorcerer, this can be interpreted as stating that Wish allows this, so a Dweomerkeeper sorcerer can swap spells daily. This also means casting some spells with expensive material or XP components without having to expend those. It also reduces metamagic costs.

I was going to say that it requires that you worship Mystra and is an FR character, meaning that any abuse means you lose your power due to the Mary Sue goddess disapproving, but since it is also published outside of FR material, then...

It actually casts them as Su abilities. The 3.0 version was setting specific, but the one that appears in the CDiv WE is 3.5, and much stronger.