Walker in the Waste

[Biggus]

(Sandstorm p.89)

According to this (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1573.0) list, WitW is one of the most powerful prestige classes out there, despite it losing two levels of casting. It gets some nice abilities but nothing that seems THAT good. What am I missing?

[Condé]

I guess it might be the free lich template.

There is argument if you get the LA or not. If you don't, it's pretty good.

[Silva Stormrage]

I would disagree with that list but I can try to give some arguments for it.

1) The PRC can be entered at 2nd level which is rather early. You can grab quite a few really good class features much earlier than expected.
2) There is debate on how two class features work that. The create sand golem and create salt mummy class features. Both don't really specify what it costs or any limits and some people take it to mean those class features are utterly free. Meaning you can have nigh infinite salt mummies obeying you. This is a rather silly interpretation of the rules but I honestly am not sure how exactly it is SUPPOSED to work? Sand Golem seems straight forward, you can craft a golem using the standard processes but you don't need the feat or pre reqs. The salt mummies though? Completely unknown.
3) Dry Lich gives a very good feature of charisma to hp per HD meaning a 10th level walker in the waste could easily have 250+ HP. Which is rather a lot.


Mostly I would guess the tier list goes with a rather loose definition of how the Salt Mummy class feature functions rather than anything directly with the PRC.

[Zanos]

Walker in the Waste is not good and definitely does not raise you a tier. None of the abilities, including the capstone template, are good enough to warrant being a full spell level down. There are other ways to do everything the template does, especially with cleric casting.

[Biggus]

OK, so it sounds like it's "amazing if you interpret ambiguous rules in its favor, unremarkable otherwise". Thanks for the replies all.