Prestige classes for Mages

[thedarkcrash]

After looking through more books then I ever have, I ran into an issue. I am a power gamer, my friends know this and challenged me to make a fun character who ins't power gamed. What are "fun" or interesting prestige classes?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Wild Mage Complete Arcane 68(I hope I remember the page and the book).


You are a Rod of Wonder.

[thedarkcrash]

Wild Mage Complete Arcane 68(I hope I remember the page and the book).


You are a Rod of Wonder.

Wow I really like this, thank you and ya it is page 68.

[Blackhawk748]

Dragonheart Mage is a personal favorite of mine, Paragnostic Apostle is solid (especially if you're an Aasimar Sorc who can get in very, very fast) and finally Pact Bound Adept is another neat Sorc PRC.

Edit: Almost forgot Escalation Mage, which is from Eberron and is amazing.

[Falontani]

Blood Magus, find a way to combine it with vampire and play a theme character, even though it would be fairly weak. Bonded summoner/Elemental Scion of Zilargo combine them in some interesting way!
Honestly what I personally challenge you to do, is come up with an unoptimized theme, and make it good. Obviously this wont be as good as just doing TO, but it is still able to be powerful, and if you use a theme then you can still have fun with it ^_^


Editing due to Troacctid below me; Lovely combination! Sha'ir Geomancer! Gets one of the most powerful familiars, and gets some very awesome abilities. Nearly 0 opportunity cost.

[Troacctid]

I have a complete index in my signature of all prestige classes that advance spellcasting. You can give that a look if you want to filter by specific criteria.

Some personal favorites: Arachnomancer (spider mage), Ardent Dilettante (connoisseur of everything), Blood Magus (blood mage), Force Missile Mage (magic missile specialist), Geomancer (weirdo nature mage), Havoc Mage (attack and cast spells at the same time), Lord of Tides (desert-based water mage), Prestige Bard (bard but some other class), Soulcaster (meldshaping mage), Stormcaster (storm mage), Stormsinger (storm bard), Wild Soul (fey mage), Winterhaunt of Iborighu (creepy ice mage).

[Cosi]

Green Star Adept is kind of cool. You turn into a jade statue and get some super-durability abilities. But it's a half casting class, so taking it makes you suck. Ditto for Bonded Elemental Summoner (you get a giant elemental familiar). Honestly, a lot of half-caster classes are in this boat (which is why, IMHO, all casting PrCs should be full progression). Renegade Mastermaker is similar Green Star Adept and slightly less terrible.

War Weaver fits a fairly rare niche (it's a straight up buff-focused PrC), and is not-terrible. Master of Shrouds is cool if you can get in early. Chameleon is the dumpster-diving-est class ever to dumpster-dive. Geomancer could be neat if you can get in without throwing away caster levels multi-classing. Effigy Master could be neat if you can somehow figure out how to make Doombots.

Of course, there's always the possibility of using a class's abilities in an interesting way. For example, Persistent body outside body + non-casting abilities makes for a pretty cool (and very effective) character. Something like Wu Jen/Incantatrix/Jade Phoenix Mage or Wu Jen/Binder/Anima Mage (of course, you could also figure some way of getting body outside body as a Wizard or Sorcerer).

[Ramza00]

Urban Savant is a 9/9 or a 9/10 prestige class that is very knowledge focus and it allows you to bring your metagame knowledge to your actual characters inside the game, aka you get to break the 4th wall via making knowledge checks to allow you better tactical control of the battlefield.