Is the Occult Slayer PrC any good?

[Evoker]

Occult Slayer, from Complete Warrior, is a 5 level prestige class that seems to give some pretty strong abilities for helping a fighter-type survive against some big spells. The most significant things seem to be 2/day reflect any spell back at the caster, and immunity to mind-affecting effects. Is this PrC good enough to consider taking at high levels, or are these not enough?

[Psyren]

It's not very good, no.


The classes most likely to use the PrC (non-gish martials, since they don't care that it doesn't advance spellcasting) have the hardest time qualifying due to needing Arcana and Spellcraft.
The spell reflect is odd (it should probably be an immediate action so that you can use it on the enemy caster's turn) but even if your GM corrects that error, you're likely to have more than two hostile spells cast at you in a day, especially at higher levels.
Weapon Bond is a flat +1d6 damage, making it very weak.
Vicious Strike doesn't work on AoOs, which are far more useful than readied actions since you don't have to stand around doing nothing.
Auravision is laughable - even at-will, it's weaker than a cantrip! Count of auras alone tells nothing.
Nondetection Cloak is a joke, because its CL is equal to your OS level, i.e. DC 12-16 at most, and doesn't protect your party so they can still be found.
Blank Thoughts is of course good, but by then you've set 4 levels on fire (more if you dipped so you could get the required skills) getting the rest.

[Nifft]

It's got a few decent features but overall it needs help.

I've had one in a game and it was better than a Fighter, but that's a low bar, and after seeing it perform I house-ruled some extra perks in which made it viable.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

EDIT: In its current state the Occult Slayer isn't even worth taking. I would fix it by making it work similarly to Legacy Champion: Give it "+1 level of existing class features" at 3/5 or 4/5 levels (2nd-5th or 2nd, 4th, and 5th), with verbiage excluding any spellcasting abilities or similar from being improved by those levels.


It's extremely lackluster, you're spending five levels on a class that gets full BAB, only one good save, a d8 hp, and two base skill points, without advancing any of your current class features.

The +3 to saves against spells isn't bad, but it's not amazing in 3.5 edition considering Dwarves get a +2 right off the bat.

Weapon Bond is a lot of words to say you add 1d6 damage to attacks against spellcasters. Get Mage Bane (CM) on your weapon and call it a day.

Mind over Magic is nice but not worth the investment IMO, considering you can get a reflecting shield in the later levels.

Vicious Strike will probably never even come into play, the game designers seriously overvalue readying an action to disrupt a spellcaster, and you can generally only reliably do so with ranged attacks.

Auravision is cool but it's not like it gives you any kind of information you can do anything with.

Nondetection and Mind Blank are actually good, but it's a lot of levels to invest for a pile of class features you can get from items like a Hat of Anonymity and one of the many items that grants Mind Blank.


The Slayer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) gets similar nondetection and mind blank abilities in nine levels, and advances manifesting at all but one level with a full BAB and four base skill points. The chassis alone is worth taking for many characters, the class features it grants are just icing on the cake. The Sanctified Mind (LoM) is a thematically appropriate fit to complete a build, with abilities similar to the Occult Slayer's offensive abilities. A (fast movement) Ranger 1/ Ardent 4/ Slayer 9/ Sanctified Mind 6 gets a +19 BAB and 17th level manifesting.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm gonna go ahead and be the voice of dissent and say it's actually pretty decent.

On the prerequisite skills; it's 4 ranks of one and 3 ranks of the other. You can knock out one on CC ranks at level 3 and the other at 5 and you've only used 14 skill points. If you're not human, have int 10, and only get 2 per level from class, that's -still- not all of your skill points at level 5. If all of that was true, you didn't care about skills anyway.

On the prerequisite feats: improved initiative is a solid feat anyway. There's really no reason to complain on that one. Weapon Focus, on the other hand, is a bit rough if you weren't going down that road anyway -but- it's also probably the single easiest feat in the game to nab as a bonus feat.

There's not much to say about the HD and related benefits. It's a pretty standard combat type set.

Then there's the features.

Magical defense is solid. Saves are one of the slowest growing figures in the game and +3 untyped bonus is substantial. It's not flashy at all but it gets the job done.

Weapon bond I have to acknowledge isn't really much. At least it stacks with magebane.

Mind over magic though; now that's a freakin' feature. Spell turning at CL = OS level 2/day, as a free action SU ability? Heck yeah. To fortify my interpretation of this feature, I'll point out that the feature gives you a CL for the effect. SU abilitis can't be dispelled so it's not needed for that and the spell effect itself doesn't reference caster level to determine how much magic it can turn. The only thing CL could be needed for then, is to determine duration; 10 minutes/ level. Further, it's not at all uncommon for SU abilities that reference spells to change their activation cost and/or duration; the magic circle effect common to archons for example. That you're getting the effect 6 levels earlier than a spellcaster doesn't exactly hurt either.

Vicious Strike is kind of middling as what amounts to an auto-crit on a readied action. People poo-poo the readied action but I can't even tell you how many times it's been more useful to ready an action than to attempt make a normal attack, particularly as regards disrupting spellcasting. Note also, it's not limited to melee attacks. Even your little emergency plinker crossbow or shortbow can force a respectable concentration check when it's doing double damage.

Auravision is situational, at best. As a free action, there's no reason to ever leave it down unless you're trying to conceal your own magical ability from others. Most of the time, the only auras you should be expecting are those of you and your party's gear and buffs. Whenever there are extras, you know that -something- noteworthy has entered the scene. Could be any of a number of magical traps, could be another adventurer, etc. In any case, it gives you the "heads up" that there's something afoot.

Nondetection cloak is middling at best. It's solid for crystal balls and other magic items and at least produces -some- failure chance for divinations directly cast.

Blank thoughts... I don't think I need to explain why this one's good, nevermind it coming online -way- earlier than the spell equivalent.

So yeah, if I'm building something for a campaign where I expect a lot of castery enemies, I'd give Occult Slayer some serious thought.