[PF] Are Any Prestige Classes Worth the Sacrifice?

[OverdrivePrime]

So, I've been running a very successful, very fun Pathfinder game for about 18 months now, every other week. My players have gone from level 4 to level 10 (intentionally slow advancement), and we're all having a blast.

All of my players have single-classed characters, and we've got a: Wizard, Ranger, Archivist (imported from 3.5 and tweaked) and Duskblade (imported from 3.5, spell list tweaked). We started this campaign at first level in 3.5, and around level 4 switched over to Pathfinder.

About now, a couple of my players are hungry for a little more variety, and the Ranger is now looking like a pale shadow in combat compared to pretty much everyone else (except last game when he landed 3 crits in a row). In 3.5, I would be nudging him toward a prestige class. In Pathfinder... I'm hoping for the best?

The Pathfinder system design heavily encourages players to stay in a single class, and to me there seem to be some pretty hard sacrifices one has to make in order to take on a prestige class.
I'm interested in the whole system, but particularly for a ranger - are there any prestige classes in Pathfinder that are clearly worth the sacrifice?

[Drelua]

Your Ranger doesn't happen to be an archer, does he? If so, the Lantern Bearer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/i-m/lantern-bearer) looks like it could be interesting and fairly easy to qualify for if he's an elf or half-elf. Of course, you could always tweak the entry requirements if you want, being the DM. My main problem with PF prestige classes is most of them seem to be pretty focused on casters, but here are a few more melee-ish ones I found interesting: Umbral (Court) Agent (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/umbral-court-agent), the Crimson Assassin/Red Mantis Assassin (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/red-mantis-assassin), the Student of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/student-of-war), and the completely-irrelevant-to-your-party-but-still-kinda-cool Champion of Irori(or the Enlightened) (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/champion-of-irori). If you're not playing in Golarion, d20pfsrd has setting neutral versions for your convenience!

Disclaimer: some or all of the aforementioned prestige classes may, from a mechanical perspective, be considered utterly useless. In this case, I deny all responsibility for loss one the grounds that I haven't really looked at them that closely.

[Person_Man]

I'm only a very casual Pathfinder player, but having read through the very extensive SRD material, I have yet to find a prestige class that is really worth it. In particular, Pathfinder does a fairly decent job of handing out stronger high level abilities, and everyone gets a capstone. So if you think your game is going to go to levels 16-20, you should never enter a prestige class.

Some of the Archtypes are fairly good though. You could let the players swap out abilities for Archtype abilities, even if they haven't followed the full path. And Pathfinder is theoretically supposed to be fully backwards compatible with 3.X. So if you could find a 3.X Ranger-ish Prestige class that you like, you could use that.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Arcane archer is interesting with a Bard entry. Horizon walker is interesting with a Ranger entry.

Quite a few of the wizard prestige classes are interesting.
- Agent of the Grave
- Loremaster
- Mage of the Third Eye/Arclord of Nex

[OverdrivePrime]

Thanks guys!

The ranger in question is indeed an elf, but he hasn't really focused much. He has the archery combat style, but spends half of his time in melee, and half of his feats are for melee.

One of my very favorite things about Pathfinder is the archetypes, and I do like the idea of giving my players (particularly this ranger) the freedom to pick and choose between archetype abilities. He has made all of 3 tracking checks in the past 50 games, and rarely hides. Swapping out some of the default Ranger's hidey-tracky abilities for more useful archetype abilities would be good for him.

Good call on Arcane Archer, Squirrel_Dude - it's one of the few prestige classes that is clearly better and obviously fixed from the hot mess of sorrow that it was in 3.5.

[Drelua]

You know, I can't quite remember why I thought the Lantern Bearer was only good for archers. It must be the bonus feat giving you the choice between useless, could-be-vaguely-useful-for-an-archer, and oh-dear-god-why-does-a-feat-this-bad-even-exist. I mean really, it's like skill focus but it's a smaller bonus that doesn't scale and you have to have a certain racial feature to take it. :smallannoyed:

Anyway, it seems to give some cool options in the form of SLAs, although the capstone is kind of weak since your archivist could be doing the same thing a few levels earlier to the whole party, but hey, that's good news if your Ranger doesn't already have the entry reqs; it just means he won't be missing out!

[JusticeZero]

The ranger in question is indeed an elf, but he hasn't really focused much. He has the archery combat style, but spends half of his time in melee, and half of his feats are for melee.
Y'know, that might be why he's performing a bit meh, and maybe what he needs isn't "a nifty prestige class" so much as "Get him to read some good guides on how to optimize his build and play his character to his strengths best". If you can't play a basic character effectively, you aren't going to be able to play a nifty PRCed out build effectively.

[CTrees]

-Shadowdancer is still Shadowdancer - a quick dip PrC.
-Two levels of Master Spy aren't a terrible dip in a fairly social campaign.
-On a UMD-build, a one-level dip in Pathfinder Savant for "you can always take ten on UMD" is helpful particularly if you're playing with skill-fumbles or a lot of wands.
-The Winter Witch PrC is in "why not?" territory if you're already playing a winter witch archetype witch
-Depending on DM, Halfling Opportunist ranges from pretty awesome to so-so. There's a fairamount of room for interpretation, but if your game runs on rule-of-cool, it's great
-I like Mammoth Rider. Not sure it's mechanically worthwhile, but it doesn't matter. I'd take it.

Pathfinder does make the first dip into another class painful (subsequent dips are much easier, as you've already lost your capstone), but (nearly?) all prestige classes have their own capstones, some of which are nearly to the point of being a 20th level capstone at level 16-ish. It's the same practice of discouraging mutliclassing through rewarding dedication to a class. Unfortunately... most of the PrC capstones are jn the interesting/flavorful realm, rather than just being powerful.

[OverdrivePrime]

Yeah, I'm finding that as well - the Capstones are just too delicious to give up. However, it's pretty likely that I'll be running this game past 20th level, as long as we have the time the campaign has the legs, so maybe a dip will prove to be worthwhile.

It's funny - I really have been finding the archetypes to do most of the things I wanted the 3.5 prestige classes to do, without all the mess of alternate class features.

Still, I prefer to make a real gish instead of playing a gish-in-a-can like Magus or Duskblade. My Jade Phoenix Mage was just *so* much fun.

[Corlindale]

I don't there are many PRCs that would give a straight upgrade on power from a pure ranger.
PFs design philosophy was to do away with the whole trend of "base class, but BETTER" philosophy that tended to plague a lot of PRCs in 3.5 (especially many of the caster-focused ones), but they might have gone a little too far in the other direction with some PRCs.

Sounds more like a problem with a substandard build, as has been said. Ranger is a pretty solid class. Has he been using the Instant Enemy spell? He should get that at level 10 and it's one of the most potent tools in a ranger's arsenal. That spell alone arguably makes it worthwhile to carry a few Pearls of Power III around.

[nyarlathotep]

Mammoth rider is amazing.

[Saidoro]

Collegiat Arcanist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/magaambyan-arcanist) is amazing, Mage of the Third Eye (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/a-b/arclord-of-nex) is good because it lets you get the teleportation and foresight school abilities even if you for some reason didn't specialize in one of them, two levels in souldrinker (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/souldrinker) let you completely break WBL when used with crafting feats, Living Monolith (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/i-m/living-monolith) makes a fighter into a bad cleric.(Which is to say, better.)

Can't say I know of anything really good for a ranger, though.

[Psyren]

Most of the psionic ones (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-prestige-classes) are pretty good, and certainly better in most cases than their 3.5 versions for the SRD ones. In particular, PF War Mind can make staying in Psywar to 20 a very hard choice. Metamind goes great on a Kineticist as well.

[OverdrivePrime]

Wow. Collegiate Arcanist is amazing! I'm surprised my wizard player hasn't sussed that out yet, since that's *exactly* the kind of wizard he plays already.

Living monolith looks outstanding for an NPC group of royal guards in my game. Thanks!

Also, holy flying carp, the Mammoth Rider class looks like absurd amounts of fun in a campaign that takes place outside of dungeons or on ships.

Thanks for the recommendations!

[avr]

The Battle Herald gets you abilities to command your minions; not always a good way to go, but if that's what you want to do it helps.

The Chevalier is a paladin dip for the non-lawful good. You can still make a melee type out of dips in Pathfinder BTW, it's just no longer automatically better than single-classing.

Veiled Illusionist can make a wizard out of a cleric.

Edit; also, remember that many 10-level PF PrC's have capstones too, and sometimes it's more useful to get your capstone at ~level 16 than at level 20.

[AfroDyyd]

All i'm gonna say is Mammoth Rider

[Joshinthemosh]

I'm really REALLY fond of Sun Seeker for all your Ranger needs. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/skyseeker

Big boost in Touch AC, 6/10 Spellcasting, Ranger weapon style feats in heavy armor, Darkvision, Mettle, lots of bonus damage against Goblins and Orcs. All good things.

[Ravens_cry]

I'm really REALLY fond of Sun Seeker for all your Ranger needs. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/skyseeker

Big boost in Touch AC, 6/10 Spellcasting, Ranger weapon style feats in heavy armor, Darkvision, Mettle, lots of bonus damage against Goblins and Orcs. All good things.
The last is VERY campaign dependent, as even many campaigns that feature such opponents tend to use them much, much less at higher levels. The giant one has the potential to be useful at more levels of play, but still is campaign specific.

[Psyren]

Cyphermage looks really good, paticularly the ability to use scrolls at your CL and draw them while moving. The full casting doesn't hurt either.

[Karoht]

Cyphermage looks really good, paticularly the ability to use scrolls at your CL and draw them while moving. The full casting doesn't hurt either.
Your caster level +1 because the Cypher Magic feat (required for the class) stacks.
And you can apply your feats x/times per day.
And double your int bonus.

It worked rather well for a build I was doing.
Arcane Sage Sorcerer False Priest (all Archetypes so far) to level 9, then right into Cypher Mage for 10 Levels, then 1 level of the build was open for whatever.
I could cast 9th level Sorc/Wizard spells at character level as CL, and using lots and lots of Divine Scrolls I "cast" 8th level Divine Spells at character level +1 for CL.
Toss in Paragon Surge for access to whatever Arcane spells I wanted and I was pretty much a walking talking Deus Ex Machina.

But it was Cypher Mage that made it all worth it.
It made me look very very hard at Mystic Theurge.
Arcane Savant would be excellent for an Abjuration focused Sorcerer, or at least it looks like it on paper. For 7 levels it isn't terrible, but that loss of a caster level sucks. For a 3 level dip it is pretty cool.

For a Rogue/Ninja who wants to focus on Poisons, Guild Poisoner is awesome. Take the feat Master Alchemist, ta-da, you can make some of the most expensive poisons in a single day, and you make more than one dose at a time. When you sneak attack, you can sack sneak attack dice for bonuses to the DC's of your poisons. My Gunslinger Ninja is very very tempted to take this PrC. But even there, I probably only want a 5 level dip.