Challenge: "Mr Over-Qualified" aka. how many PrCs can one character qualify for

[Jowgen]

Lots of PrCs have certain prerequisites in common (e.g. feat tax), and I'm just curious how many a singular creature could qualify for. There is absolutely no point to this, I just thought it would be a fun idea to play with.

Da rules:
- Yes to flaws
- Yes to Elder Evil worship
- Yes to Dragon cheese (minus Pun-pun)
- No to Bloodlines
- No to custom Heroics or other feat items
- No to Chaos shuffle
- No to Faustian Pacts
- Meeting a prerequisite counts as a "benefit" of any given feat
- No Dragonlance or 3rd party
- Prestige base/generic classes don't count
- No Epic
- Max ECL for Mr Over-Qualified is 19

Final count is determined by how many PrCs Mr Over-Qualified could legally choose to enter upon attaining his next level.

[Chronos]

So, to be clear, he doesn't actually need to have any PrCs yet, he just needs to qualify for them, right? What about PrCs he already has, do they count? What if he's already taken all of the levels of a PrC he already has, and thus can't take any more, does that count?

To start us off, by RAW, a dragonwrought kobold will automatically qualify for anything that requires the dragonblood subtype, no matter what the other prerequisites are. Yes, this is cheesy, but you explicitly said that dragon cheese is allowed.

And I assume that we can meet all roleplaying and fluff requirements, which means there are some PrCs it's almost impossible to not qualify for: Ruathar and Stoneblessed come to mind.

[Flickerdart]

The character in question will probably want to be some sort of gish theurge - BAB, arcane spells, and divine spells are all very popular prerequisites. So are skills though, and ranks can be tricky to get. I'm thinking something like Wizard 1/Cleric 1/Mystic Theurge 4 (with your favourite choice of early entry) to get 3rd level arcane and divine spells, then a bunch of Rogue and Factotum levels to score 8 ranks in as many skills as you can. Sprinkle on the usual feat suspects (Dodge chain, Weapon Focus chain, Alertness from your familiar, Iron Will from the Otyugh Hole) and you should be able to qualify for the lion's share of the game's PrCs. Oddball classes that require specific class features like Wild Shape or Slow Fall are probably not worth your while to pursue.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Using fractional base attack, base attack requirements are likely irrelevant. I don't think there are non-epic prestige classes with requirements higher than 10 base attack.
The ability to cast at least third-level arcane and divine spells would be rather practical. You can do that with 5 levels in Sha'ir.
Skill ranks mean you probably want a high int score, and lots of skill points besides. That's going to be a tough requirement. Spellcraft, K(religion) and K(arcana) are probably good - loads of caster prestige classes require those.
Quite a lot of melee classes require annoying feats like weapon focus, dodge/mobility, toughness, combat expertise and so on. If you can pick those up cheaply, that'd be good. Spell focus requirements are probably hard to get, though a single metamagic feat is good. Vampires get a lot of bonus feats, but the LA is killing. The gheden template gets endurance, diehard and toughness for +1 LA (which can be bought off, perhaps), but the int penalty is annoying.

Before we get deeper into that... How many prestige classes exist, anyway?

[Chronos]

I don't think we need to gish it up at all. By level 19, even a straight wizard is going to be able to meet almost all BAB requirements. Besides, martial classes will probably be bottlenecked by feats, anyway, so even if there are one or two we don't have the BAB for, we probably wouldn't have room for them.

A one-level dip, or maybe the Militia feat, might be worthwhile for proficiency in all martial weapons, though. That's another popular choice of prereq.

[ben-zayb]

some sort of Magic Mantle Ardent / Illithid Savant / Void Disciple 4 / Archpsion 1 / Contemplative 1 with Chirurgied spells like Body Outside Body, Substitute Domain, Shadow Evocation/Conjuration, and Divine Power from a Spell-to-Power Erudite, and utilizing one of many infinite PP tricks with Temporal Reiteration. For added fun, get Reality Revision as a PLA.

For Qualifying:
1. You gain any feat and any amount of skill ranks, which last indefinitely via Temporal Reiteration + infinite PP. Just imagine what you could qualify for if you have ALL (non-ancestral) feats, including epic feats and some feats that also allow you to gain maneuvers, soulmelds, utterances, divine-arcane conversion casting, vestige access, etc.
2. You can qualify for abilities using IS.
3. You can meet BAB prereqs using Divine Power
4. You can qualify for any domain with Substitute Domain and Contemplative

[General Sajaru]

Before we get deeper into that... How many prestige classes exist, anyway?

In 3.5, there's about 400. If you throw in 3.0, there's around another 100. Forgotten Realms adds even more to those numbers.

[ezkajii]

Not including magazine content, somewhere between 700 and 800.

ALSO: Bonus points if you can get Mr Overqualified to also qualify for Survivor (SvgSp)