Prestigious Base Classes

[Waker]

Have you ever read a prestige class and said to yourself "Man, that looks really cool. I wish I could just play that instead of having to muck around with the basic classes."? Specifically if you could turn any prestige class into a standard 20 level progression class, what would you choose?
There are a lot of the quirky classes or partial spell progression classes that I wouldn't mind playing, but would otherwise be hesitant about normally. Mindspy, Flux Adept and Visionary Seeker are a few examples.

[The Fallen Hero]

If we wanna talk about Prcs that should be classes I always thought Stonelord would be cool maybe even just insert elemental type here Lord because being essentially part elemental always strikes me as awesome!

Also have you ever used a base class as a prestige class? I made a whole build where at level 5 I "prestige" into knight after being knighted or a later level so you feel like you've progressed to something awesome even if it is just another class.

[Gildedragon]

Chamaleon
Thunder Guide (so flavorful... so terrible though)
Runescarred Berserker
Fortune's Friend (half caster swashbuckly self-oriented bard sort?)

[heavyfuel]

Mysthic Theurge. It just sucks being so bad from lvs 4 to 7. Thats a big part of most camapaigns, and Id just love to have a straight up 20 levels base class that ends up with 7th or 8th level spells from both Wizard and Cleric list.

Swiftblade (and all other Gish PrCs) make it so youre not playing the charater as its meant to be played for at least 7 levels

[Remuko]

Mystic Theurge

Archmage

Any of the monk hybrid prestige classes.

[Lizard Monarch]

Mysthic Theurge. It just sucks being so bad from lvs 4 to 7. Thats a big part of most camapaigns, and Id just love to have a straight up 20 levels base class that ends up with 7th or 8th level spells from both Wizard and Cleric list.

Swiftblade (and all other Gish PrCs) make it so youre not playing the charater as its meant to be played for at least 7 levels

I can't agree much harder with this. Hybrid PrCs are lovely (at least in concept), and tend to leave me wishing for a base class version, if for no other reason than being able to play the concept over more levels.

Also add: every prestige class in Tome of Battle. Most are theurges, but a ranged initiator and a "Dwarven Defender 2.0" base class would also be appreciated.

[SirNibbles]

Any of the monk hybrid prestige classes.


Any of the Master of the (Cardinal Direction) Wind classes from Dragon Magazine #314 would be fun (compared to the normal Monk) if they were 20 level long base classes.

Master of the North Wind (Dragon Magazine #314, page 34)

You get
Monk AC, Unarmed Damage, and Speed
Wild Shape (Druid level treated as 1/2 of your Master of the North Wind level)
Full Divine Spellcasting advancement
Gaseous Forms for Wild Shape
Air Domain

Master of the South Wind (Dragon Magazine #314, page 35)

You get
Monk AC, Unarmed Damage, and Speed
Sneak attack +1d6 every even level
Arcane Spellcasting (Spontaneous, charisma-based); the class has its own spell list and gets 4th level spells by 7th level; spells include Freedom of Movement, Greater Invisibility, Cyclonic Blast, Dimension Door
Air Domain

Master of the East Wind (Dragon Magazine #314, page 36)

You get
Monk AC, Unarmed Damage, and Speed
Full Arcane Spellcasting advancement
Sorcerer/Wizard Familiar
Air Domain

Master of the West Wind (Dragon Magazine #314, page 37)

You get
Monk AC, Unarmed Damage, and Speed
Full Divine Spellcasting advancement
Turn Undead
Air Domain

__

And, as you said, pretty much any Monk hybrid PrC would be great.

[Troacctid]

Beast Master.

[Manyasone]

Purple duck games has a book called prestige archetypes. This changes the core pathfinder prestige classes into 20 level base classes. Good thing about is is that they took multiple outcomes into consideration. For instance there is a theurge class for Oracle sorcerers and for wizard cleric. Both work a bit different but are in spirit the same

[Celestia]

Master of Many Forms. In fact, I did just that and homebrewed a 20 level base class out of it called Beastblood Shifter.

I think Arcane Archer would also work well as a base class. Though, I haven't had the inspiration to make one yet.

Beyond that, I can't currently think of any others that haven't already been mentioned.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Elocater! plus text

[Sayt]

Abjurant Champion, personally, and Battlesmith

[A.A.King]

Black Blood Hunter. This generally goes to the fact that I think that the Lycanthrope was poorly handed from a player perspective. A 20 level Base class that allows you to solely on 'being a werewolf' (with some special rules on how to combine it with the Animal HD) would be much better than a prestige class you can't enter until you've picked up a rather worthless feat at level 6 (or even later if you play as a were-animal with more than 4 Animal HD because of BAB requirements..)

[noob]

That dwarf only prc that gives full casting and good fort saves as well as some dwarf singing or something like that.
I mean being a dwarf only bard with good fort and will instead of good reflexes and will would be astonishing.
Currently the best way to qualify is wizard,spellsinger and then that prc.(no not ollam I meant the better dwarven bard)
I found the name it was Dwarven Chanter.

[Celestia]

Abjurant Champion, personally, and Battlesmith
I'm fine with Abjurant Champion as is. A full gish class would be nice, but expanding Eldritch Knight would be better, in my opinion.

[Morphic tide]

Dragon Disciple. I'd make it get a proper Breath Weapon, eligible for Metabreath feats if desired, with Natural Armor that scales at a pace which makes it properly replace actual armor, offsetting a lack of any armor proficiencies, and use the Claw and Bite setup to replace Monk Unarmed Strike, qualifying as Natural Attacks and not Unarmed Strikes or Manufactured Weapons. Basically, Dragon Monk that replaces a bunch of Monk stuff with Dragon stuff that tends to be better, especially with Monster feats.

Shadowdancer. I'd basically completely rework it into having Shadow Jump be a Rounds/Day trip to the Plane of Shadows, with abilities focusing on single-action trips through it that don't cut into your budged of Rounds normally, but can be augmented by spending those rounds. Shadow Illusion would be made into a secondary set of features, acting like PF Summoner by having your Shadow Illusion be usable only when your Shadow summon isn't out, but you'd have Rouge stuff rather than casting stuff.

Edited in:

Frenzied Berzerker. I'd have the class be an almost purely offence oriented version of Barbarian, with Frenzy becoming an alteration to basic Rage rather than a variation of it. Essentially, it would have Barbarian Rage, abandon all of the defensive stuff Barbarian has, including a downgrade to d8 HD, and Frenzy would be a thing you decide on round-to-round, with the Will save being proportionate to the scale of the added bonus over the basic Rage. This is so that the benefit of the Rage feats applies to Frenzy and the class has a non-Frenzy option in having the basic Barbarian Rage. Also, pile of bonus feats for Rage stuff and class features to keep Raging with certain costs attached.

Hellfire Warlock. I'd build it to be a class utterly devoted to self-destructive power gain, with the option to sacrifice anything they have to fuel their Hellfire. Con, Wis, Str, Int, Dex, Cha, XP and GP all could be spent, at different levels and rates. To lower the stuff that needs to be carried, you get a reserve. During downtime, you can recharge the reserve by sacrificing your Con and Str, with other scores being sacrificed depending on relevance. Essentially, you sacrifice **** for power. Lots of it. Invocations would focus on this idea, giving you mass destruction ability and stuff to cause lots of ability damage to fuel further damage. Probably t4 due to being so heavy on combat stuff with so few non-combat skills, although being able to pull 20d6 damage at level 5 can probably burn some bridges and break some walls.

[Inevitability]

Blighter, dirgesinger, yathrinshee...

[Zaq]

Dread Pirate wouldn't be OP as a base class with basically no modification already. (Might even be a bit on the underpowered side.)