Spellcaster Prestige Class Adjustments

[Random_White_Guy]

Palemaster and Red Dragon Disciple are two PRCS which were always touted as a means to spice up an existing pursuits of magical study of a more esoteric and potentially dangerous nature. I was wondering if it would be possible or even feasible to embrace the new situation of EFU PRCS (Ascetic, Bloodmage, Ritualist) and move for an adjustment to these two PRCS.

I feel like Wizard/Palemaster should be highly viable or even Sorcerer/RDD but time and again people just rail against how mechanically crippling these things are in favor of Bards or other types of PCs. With all the new Sorcerer flavor perks Palemaster could be glorious to spice up things even further if the RP is done well and pursued heavily except then you are left with the unfavorable notion of at maximum 4 or 5 levels of sorcerer, etc. which would be obliterated against a pure class of the same.

Palemaster and RDD I feel should be on par with Bloodmage in terms of Ritual Magic with chance of demise after rigorous pursuits and research.

Then the character can gamble if they dare or are ambitious to tap into the darkest arts of highest Necromancy or awaken in them the horrifyingly dangerous Blood of the Dragon.

[Kinslayer988]

I would not say for PM and RDD to be ln par with Bloodmage in terms of ritual magic and chance, as I believe that Bloodmage is special due to the chaotic magic of sorcerers. I do believe in some degree of chance/research to be done. If it was based on skill checks and some chance it would allow for a PC's research into dragon or necromatic powers to actually benefit the ritual and make it safer.

And I do approve of having them add on like Ascetic and Bloodmage.

[WellRespectedMan]

The problem is, at the low levels of EfU, these classes can only really be dipped into very slightly if you want to keep any kind of spell progression; having once tried hilariously to play a wizard 3 / pale Master x, even with the changes to ensure necromancy spells had pale master included in the spell level, i had barely any spells, very low circle even at 8, and very few spells per day.

That being said, pale Master has been adjusted to give them very powerful bonuses on EfU, albeit bonuses that almost certainly favour some kind of bard or bard/fighter build, while RDD naturally swings towards that kind of build anyway, which I would say is not necessarily a bad thing. Sorcerors get various perks which allow them to be a necromancer without really needing the pale Master class, alongside ones that help the more combat-oriented nature of RDD.

Rather than change those two PrCs entirely, I'd suggest adding a secondary pale Master level progression, similar to how I assume Ascetic or Ritualist works which gives less bonuses but allows a wizard to keep their spell levels, or add new, more spellcaster-focused PrCs that allow a Wizard to keep their spell levels while giving them bonuses in certain areas; a PrC to focus more heavily on one spell school at the cost of others, a PrC to make a compact with some outsider or aberrant that, though giving them more power, slowly turns them into monsters that most PCs would despise, etc.

Although I don't really see this as a massive problem, both sorc and wizard are pretty good as it stands without PrCs.

[xXCrystal_Rose]

I think it would be great is all the standard prestige classes were scrapped and replaced with efu classes like ascetic, bloodmage and ritualist. Not just rdd and palemaster :) Of course those which need some love most would be priority.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

Remove all the PRCs and just apply the bonuses gained through a script/hide maybe?

[Ebok]

It would finally make them presitigious if they were turned into scripted / skinned overlays. You wouldnt lose those fought and bled for abilities even after you died. Additionally they could be balanced specifically for efu rather then some half/considered grab NwN did from the various DnD resources.

[Charnelist]

This is an extremely excellent idea.

[Pandip]

I definitely agree with the sentiment that it'd be great to see prestige classes become a scripted feature rather than actual PRC's that are taken through levels. There are a myriad of mechanical issues that come with the EIG nature of NWN's prestige classes on the server -- classes that were originally balanced to be implemented in builds that went to much higher levels than EFU while being entirely accessible so long as their prerequisites were followed. While EFU's solved this by removing mechanical requirements for PRC's, there's a problem in that most of the PRC's aren't particularly prestigious by EFU's standards. I'd love to see prestige classes implemented more fluidly as perks or similarly to bloodmage, ascetic, etc. in order to give all the appropriately prestigious benefits without some of the mechanical awkwardness.

[Pentaxius]

I think the idea has a lot of merit.

Implementation wise - you can use the Level 8 rogue perk system, copy past the script structure, and come up with various bonuses to characterize EFU's PRCs.