Prestige Class dead levels

[AOKost]

When playing Pathfinder, taking classes from D&D 3.X, could one skip the dead levels from prestige classes due to the fact that Pathfinder virtually did away with dead levels in classes?

[Chronos]

Well, ultimately the answer is "whatever your DM allows".

That said, though, if by "skip the dead levels" you mean just jumping ahead to the higher-level abilities immediately, that'd probably be pretty unbalanced. Abilities are put at the levels they are not because of some sense that you should have a total count of X many class features by level Y, but because the designer thought that that was the appropriate level to get them at. A better solution would be to create new abilities to fill in the dead levels.

[grarrrg]

When playing Pathfinder, taking classes from D&D 3.X, could one skip the dead levels from prestige classes due to the fact that Pathfinder virtually did away with dead levels in classes?

Pathfinder still has 'effectively' dead levels.
Just because they filled (most) classes with cruddy little "+1 to Will saves vs. Fear effects cast by someone wearing blue robes" does not mean there are no dead levels.

Martial Classes have a few levels where all they gain is a small boost to an "eh" ability. Fighter Bravery and Armor Training are nice to have to start with, but towards the end are kinda "eh".
There are also quite a few levels that are literally just 'more of the same'. Paladin's have quite a few levels where all they get is another Mercy or Smite/day.
The 9 level casters still have plenty of levels where all they gain is "+1 spell casting".

A fair number of Casting PrC's still have "only casting" dead levels (Eldritch Knight is a poster boy for this).
In the Cruddy Abilities section we have Arcane Archers gaining "arrows fired gain distance" property at level 5.
Noble Scion's level 1 "ability" is "you get some gold".

So port them over 'as-is', and if you really need to give them something minor to play with that fits the tone of the class.

[Kraken]

I agree that sprinkling prestige classes with marginal abilities would be a more appropriate way to 'Pathfinderize' them than skipping levels. Maybe roll a d20 for each new ability that you add, and on a roll of a 20, make that ability actually good instead of marginal.

[Zanos]

The 9 level casters still have plenty of levels where all they gain is "+1 spell casting".
+1 spellcasting is never a dead level.

[Zubrowka74]

Just because they filled (most) classes with cruddy little "+1 to Will saves vs. Fear effects cast by someone wearing blue robes" ...

Lol! As much as I like PF this is sooooo true. Lots of traits and feats are also like this.