[3.5] Dragon Compendium PrCs

[Thurbane]

So...the PrCs in Dragon Compendium are generally considered to be hot garbage.

All of the casting PrCs are 5/10 casting (with the sole exception of Force Missile Mage, which is 4/5).

All the the martial/mundane PrCs seem to be a hodge-podge of subpar abilities, and/or have hideous reqs.

If you HAD to use all levels of one PrC from DC in a build what would it be? Force Missile Mage seems like the least-worst option?

Cheers - T

[RaiKirah]

Probably Force Missile Mage. I almost put together a FMM and Dread Witch build for the Junkyard Wars using Saint and Vow of Peace, applying Nonlethal Substitution and Fell Frighten among other metamagics (VoPe says nothing about being scary AF). I think there might actually be a build in there somewhere, but I can't recall why I didn't finish that build so maybe not.

That said, there were some pretty fantastic builds that came out of the Osteomancer and Fleetrunner of Ehlonna ICOC rounds, and I think it would be fun to try something along those lines.

[Silvercrys]

Cloistered Cleric of Ehlonna 2/Full BAB Class(es) 3/Swift Runner of Ehlonna 10 wouldn't be too terrible for starting at 13+ when you get Pounce. If you cap it with a full casting-1 class you can squeeze out 6th level spells and be a pretty good charger on top.

Raptoran Scout 5/Aerial Avenger 10 is probably okay?

But yeah most of them awful other than Force Missile Mage.

[Zaq]

I will say that flux adept was one of the most painful Iron Chef rounds I ever judged. Everything about that class is done wrong.

I want to like the arcanopath monk, but it’s really not at all practical. Amusing, but not practical.

I do have a perverse interest in shaper of form.

[RaiKirah]

I do have a perverse interest in shaper of form.

Shaper of Form is super interesting with a lot of potential. I used it (admittedly a single level...) in the Dragonwrought Kobold Gamewarper competition to become an Ancient Silver Dragon without the RHD (rules interpretation is still out on that one to be honest), and I imagine there's a lot of potential through race hopping for weird prereq/PrC combinations.

[Thurbane]

You know, on an 9/10 or 8/10 progression, Cerebrex would be an interesting PrC. But not interesting enough to lose 5 casting levels. :smallyuk:

[EndlessKng]

There are several that I like the flavor of, but I can see the issue with the mechanics. Osteomancer is one of my favorites (the Paizo pre/proto-Pathfinder art really helped that one out a lot).

I was trying to make an antimagic, Monk x/Arcanopath 4/Forsaker 10 build get off the ground, and with a variant fighting style it is barely doable (along with two fighter levels), but agree that it isn't practical.

The base classes are more interesting. The mountebank isn't powerful, but it IS flavorful and interesting. The battle dancer also could be fun to work with.

[Troacctid]

Force Missile Mage is the only one I've made an actual build for (for my WIP warmage handbook), so I guess that one.

Silverbrow Human Warmage 6/Force Missile Mage 5/Spellguard of Silverymoon 5

1: Combat Casting, Fell Weaken
F: Deceptive Spell
F: Practiced Spellcaster
3: Fell Drain, Advanced Learning (Sonic Snap)
6: Arcane Thesis (Magic Missile), Eclectic Learning (Alter Self)
9: Obtain Familiar
12: Celestial Familiar (Musteval Guardinal)
13: Silent Spell
15: Rapid Metamagic, Quicken Spell

[PoeticallyPsyco]

It's worth sinking a few levels into Aerial Avenger if you want to be really good at mobility. Maybe even up to 6 (Swoop is a genuinely nice feature, as an effective alternative to Pounce).

I once saw Aerial Avenger described as a good, if niche, five level class, cruelly stretched into a full 10 levels.