[3.5] 15 level prestige classes - any pitfalls?

[Particle_Man]

I was thinking of extending some 10 level prestige classes to a full 15 levels (or in some cases less, but in any case enough that someone, should they so wish, could enter the prestige class and stay in that class for the rest of their pre-epic career).

Is there anything I should watch out for? Does the Assassin Death Attack or Mystic Theurge dual-spellcasting actually get too powerful?

[Devronq]

At a glance I'd say it might be a case by case situation, the two you mentioned will probably have no issues some might like if you extended incantrix to have another Meta magic reducer that might cause an issue, (although if your even allowing a class like that I'm sure you going for a high op level.)

Also I believe the DMG prc were extended to have 20 levels in the epic players handbook, so having more than 10 levels in a 10level prc count as epic levels. Are they deserving of epic levels? Probably not but the rules are there for extending them.

[bekeleven]

Also I believe the DMG prc were extended to have 20 levels in the epic players handbook, so having more than 10 levels in a 10level prc count as epic levels. Are they deserving of epic levels? Probably not but the rules are there for extending them.

Moonspeaker is 12 levels, and I think there might be an 11-level PrC floating around somewhere as well.

[Venger]

there's a list of prcs with a number of levels othr than 3,5, or 10here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226460) there are a handful of prcs longer than 10 levels

the thing to watch out for would be not to have dead levels, something the 3.5 design team moved closer to in the later part of 3.5. it's no fun when there's a 10 lvl prc and a bunch of its levels just don't do anything. from a design pov, it should've just been pared down so it can have new abilities every level.

since you're homebrewing, this is within your power to control, so take advantage of it.

[Coidzor]

I was thinking of extending some 10 level prestige classes to a full 15 levels (or in some cases less, but in any case enough that someone, should they so wish, could enter the prestige class and stay in that class for the rest of their pre-epic career).

Is there anything I should watch out for? Does the Assassin Death Attack or Mystic Theurge dual-spellcasting actually get too powerful?

The main concern, as I understand it, is actually for characters such as favored souls and sorcerers who won't be able to take 15 levels in the PrC due to their limitations, but they could take 10, so they'd be unable to actually gain the capstone of their chosen PrC pre-epic.

[Psyren]

Moonspeaker is 12 levels, and I think there might be an 11-level PrC floating around somewhere as well.

Necrocarnate is 13 levels IIRC. This may have been to emphasize its EVULZ but it also opened up design space, by ensuring you could get into it early but still not open all your chakras early.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Is there anything I should watch out for? Does the Assassin Death Attack or Mystic Theurge dual-spellcasting actually get too powerful?

Whether lengthening a dual-progression PrC like the mystic theurge could be a problem depends on the optimization level of your games. Extending mystic theurge to 15 levels means you can be a wizard 3/cleric 3/mystic theurge 14, which ends up with 17th level casting (and thus 9th level spells) on both sides.

If your games are fairly low-powered, this could be a problematic power-up for them at very high levels; if your games are fairly high-powered, there are plenty of ways to get double 9ths with normal PrCs, so you haven't really changed the power levels, just increased the number of builds that let you do that.

[Venger]

Necrocarnate is 13 levels IIRC. This may have been to emphasize its EVULZ but it also opened up design space, by ensuring you could get into it early but still not open all your chakras early.

it was, due to the whole association of the number with black magic. it's nice since with totemist, it can get you access to all the melds in the game less the 5 unique soulborn melds, but you aren't exactly missing much.

[Devronq]

Whether lengthening a dual-progression PrC like the mystic theurge could be a problem depends on the optimization level of your games. Extending mystic theurge to 15 levels means you can be a wizard 3/cleric 3/mystic theurge 14, which ends up with 17th level casting (and thus 9th level spells) on both sides.

If your games are fairly low-powered, this could be a problematic power-up for them at very high levels; if your games are fairly high-powered, there are plenty of ways to get double 9ths with normal PrCs, so you haven't really changed the power levels, just increased the number of builds that let you do that.

If I'm not mistaken isn't there 2 or 3 classes that do the same thing as theurge anyways? So you can always take enough of mystic theirge to qualify foe the others and have the same effect? I think one might require being a druid or bard or some such thing that wouldn't let you I can't remember.

[JoshuaZ]

True Necromancer from Libris Mortis is 15 levels. Unfortunately, it sort of sucks.

The primary PrCs where there might be an issue if you do this are going to be the theurge classes. Mystic Theurge for example is slightly weaker than a general wizard or cleric (assuming wizard/cleric entry). However, that will be slightly less the case if they can keep taking more levels. And others could do worse stuff. Anima mage and the noctumamcer would both be much nicer if you could do this. In these two cases, presumably one would extend the class features that scale in the obvious way. For the anima mage, that means extending vestige metamagic, and for the noctumancer they'd get innate counterspell twice more daily. Both of those would be quite strong.

There are other PrCs other than the theurges which would benefit a lot. I don't know how you'd extend Ur-Priest, but almost anything would result in something like "more insanity" and similar remarks apply to the Beholder Mage.

A less cheeserific examples would be Loremaster (which in core is already almost natural for wizards to fall into), which now gets additional secrets. But that would still likely be weaker than wizard 5/loremaster 10/archmage 5. At high levels the languages don't matter, but the other abilities and the increase in effective bard level for knowledge is nice.

Mage of the Arcane Order is another one where the benefits would be nice but not absolutely insane.

I've restricted here to examples where most class features extend in obvious ways. For classes where the extension is less obvious, the decisions could impact greatly the effective power level.

[Psyren]

it was, due to the whole association of the number with black magic. it's nice since with totemist, it can get you access to all the melds in the game less the 5 unique soulborn melds, but you aren't exactly missing much.

You can always grab those too (via feat) if you really want them as well.

[Karnith]

I think one might require being a druid or bard or some such thing that wouldn't let you I can't remember.
Arcane Hierophant (from Races of the Wild) is an arcane/divine theurge intended for druids, and Fochlucan Lyrist (Complete Adventurer) is an arcane/divine theurge intended for bards.

True Necromancer from Libris Mortis is 15 levels. Unfortunately, it sort of sucks.It's 14 levels, actually. Still terrible, though.

Anima mage and the noctumamcer would both be much nicer if you could do this.
While you can't normally take more than 10 levels of Noctumancer pre-epic (which does mean no additional uses of Innate Counterspell), it bears mentioning that you can continue progressing as an arcane/shadowcasting theurge using Mystic Theurge, as laid out in the Tome of Magic, p. 117.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If I'm not mistaken isn't there 2 or 3 classes that do the same thing as theurge anyways? So you can always take enough of mystic theirge to qualify foe the others and have the same effect? I think one might require being a druid or bard or some such thing that wouldn't let you I can't remember.

There are, but they aren't nearly as easy to use as an extended Mystic Theurge. The Arcane Heirophant, for instance, requires being a nonlawful 3rd level druid to get in (and Races of the Wild isn't exactly a splatbook people tend to look into for PrCs) and the Fochlucan Lyrist is so complex to enter that there's an entire optimization handbook dedicated to it.

Like I said before, if your group is already fairly high-optimization these PrCs are well known and getting double 9ths isn't hard, but for low-op groups an extended mystic theurge opens up routes that weren't really doable for them before.

[Kuulvheysoon]

While you can't normally take more than 10 levels of Noctumancer pre-epic (which does mean no additional uses of Innate Counterspell), it bears mentioning that you can continue progressing as an arcane/shadowcasting theurge using Mystic Theurge, as laid out in the Tome of Magic, p. 117.

Reasons why Noctumancer is one of my favorite theurge-classes ever? if you wish to advance into Mystic Theurge afterwards, Shadowcasting can count as either side of the Arcane/Divine.

[Coidzor]

There are other PrCs other than the theurges which would benefit a lot. I don't know how you'd extend Ur-Priest, but almost anything would result in something like "more insanity" and similar remarks apply to the Beholder Mage.

Once you've got 9ths, that's about it, unless they'd be getting epic spell slots, but that's iffy. :smallconfused:

Neither Ur-Priest, nor Beholder Mage have much going for them in their class features. Beholder Mage has 2 class features, one of which is just allowing them to cast spells despite lacking hands, and the other is their level 10 capstone which only scales based upon HD anyway so having 5 more levels of Beholder Mage instead of any Arcane PrC makes no difference. Ur-Priest at least has some more class features, but Divine Spell Resistance 25 isn't that much better than Divine Spell Resistance 20.

[JoshuaZ]

Once you've got 9ths, that's about it, unless they'd be getting epic spell slots, but that's iffy. :smallconfused:

Neither Ur-Priest, nor Beholder Mage have much going for them in their class features. Beholder Mage has 2 class features, one of which is just allowing them to cast spells despite lacking hands, and the other is their level 10 capstone which only scales based upon HD anyway so having 5 more levels of Beholder Mage instead of any Arcane PrC makes no difference. Ur-Priest at least has some more class features, but Divine Spell Resistance 25 isn't that much better than Divine Spell Resistance 20.

Yeah, that's a good point. So those two don't really matter much at all- they aren't more broken than they'd start to be. It does look like the the biggest offenders then really will be the theurges with class features.

[Scow2]

My problem is running into the Arcane Heirophant level 10 before hitting level 20. That class is a cool one.

[avr]

& in response to the OP - no, Death Attack doesn't become broken. There's at least one 5 level PrC which gives Death Attack which stacks with Assassin's, and there are not reports of it seeming overpowered.

[Venger]

& in response to the OP - no, Death Attack doesn't become broken. There's at least one 5 level PrC which gives Death Attack which stacks with Assassin's, and there are not reports of it seeming overpowered.

death attack is the least of your worries at that level. a lot is immune to precision damage, much less fort saves or death effects.

here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8273.0;msg=131157) is a list of death attack classes and uses to boost the DC/effectiveness.