Prestige me please!

[MirthTheBard]

Hi everybody! As a disclaimer I'm relatively new to the game.

That out of the way, in my time playing I have looked into many prestige classes...but none of them seem all that interesting or good. Most of them seem to have big things to say in the flavor text department but offer little else.

I was wondering if people could post their favorite prestige classes here (and write down why/what's good about the prestige class.)

I'm not[necessarily] looking for OP prestige classes, I just want to read about some that don't seem like a waste to aim for.

[Barsoom]

Abjurant Champion (for Duskblades and other gishes)
Church Inquisitor (for LG clerics)
Beastmaster (if you like animal companions)
Assassin (if you like being Evil)

[RFLS]

Gamebreaking:

Incantatrix, Planar Shepherd, Ur-Priest, Shadowcraft Mage. A few others.

Entertaining:

Runescarred Berserker, Warshaper, Master of Many Forms (this one may be gamebreaking, as well), Unseen Seer, Jade Phoenix Mage, Shadow Sun Ninja, Master of Nine, Abjurant Champion. Lots of others; those are just some of my personal favorites.

[ArcturusV]

Ones I've found interesting, no promises of Power:

Anointed Knight (Book of Exalted Deeds)
Bear Warrior (Complete Warrior)
Thrall of Jubilex (Book of Vile Darkness)
Iajutsu Master (Oriental Adventures)
Leviathan Hunter (Stormwrack)
Disciple of Aalarun (Book of Erotic Fantasy)
Rimefire Witch (Frostburn)

[Saintheart]

Hi everybody! As a disclaimer I'm relatively new to the game.

That out of the way, in my time playing I have looked into many prestige classes...but none of them seem all that interesting or good. Most of them seem to have big things to say in the flavor text department but offer little else.

I was wondering if people could post their favorite prestige classes here (and write down why/what's good about the prestige class.)

I'm not[necessarily] looking for OP prestige classes, I just want to read about some that don't seem like a waste to aim for.

This really depends, entirely, on what characters you're interested in and what you like to play. And typically the power of a PrC is not found in its flavour text, but in its mathematics,and typically in how those mathematics sometimes unintetionally expand the power of a character at a geometric rate. Knowing the mathematical guts of the game is usually a much better way to rate different PrCs, or so it seems to me.

In terms of interesting PrCs: Dread Witch, from Heroes of Horror. I have always wanted to build a fear-focused caster, and the Dread Witch is lovely with only 5 levels to "waste" on the PrC, and a lot of useful abilities towards optimising fear -- including the gem of being able to burn through fear immunity, which isn't given (AFAIK) by any other PrC or class in the game.

[Stea1k]

Spellwarp Sniper is fun.
-Complete Scoundrel

Noctumancer can be fun if the campaign has a lot of spellcasters to fight.
-Tome of Magic

Ordained champion (coming off of cleric build)
-Complete Champion

I have seen a ridiculous Master Transmogrifist.
-Complete Arcane

[Invader]

I've always wanted to play a spell fire channeler but they're just soooo bad I could never being myself to do it.

[Master_Rahl22]

Malconvoker is awesome. It's all about summoning evil creatures, Bluffing them into thinking you're evil too, and then getting bonuses for doing that. You get to play a sneaky good guy caster constantly summoning demons and devils and forcing them to do Good deeds. Plus, you end up with the equivalent of like +5 metamagic on your summon spells for free from the class bonuses.

[Chronos]

Don't decide that you want a prestige class, and then try to figure out which one you want. Instead, decide what kind of character you want, and what you want it to do, and from there figure out what class or combination of classes (prestige or otherwise) will make that work.

By way of example, Archmage is a decent prestige class for a wizard. But it's lousy for a barbarian. If you want to play a spellslinger, you might consider Archmage (or any number of other full-casting-progression classes), but if you want to play a dude that just gets angry and smashes face, you're looking in the wrong place.

[Grayson01]

Well as far as PRCs, Assassin is one of my favorites. The spells and the added class features can really add to a Rouge. It can add flavor and some nice buffs.
For a divine caster Storm Lord pg 79 (I think) from complete Divine. It can add some fun flavor traits (running around with a spear in a thunder storm trying to get struck). It also adds some nice weapon damage to spears and javelins. Add in storm Bolt as a reserve feat makes a nice touch.
I have been really really wanna make a Halfling Ranger/master Thrower who throws Halfling skip rocks!!!