Neverwinter Night Tactics: Prestige Classes Not Worth It?

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[@Funkin_Disher]

Just a touch into Shadowdancer is basically a requirement for a character that actually relies on stealth
5 or 7 levels into weapon master is by far the best way to focus on critical hits (kukri, scimitar, scythe, etc), but only if you can afford the feats
Champion of Torm is basically fighter but better.
Pale Master and RDD are very important methods for casters to get respectable melee capability, the former especially if you're building a death armor/fire shield/acid sheathe thorns character and the latter is required to get the highest strength in the game
Dwarven Defender stacks with the epic damage reduction and epic energy resistance feats to reduce incoming damage taken by insane amounts
You have to know what youre doing, PrCs are for specific niches

[@mountainjew1474]

Never fully understood shape-shifter. Was it supposed to be combined with monk or fighter, barbarian? Cos I ended up with weaker druid.

[@Xagroth]

I disagree on three details: 1) If you have Hordes of the Underdark, you get very little to stay in your class longer than 20 levels. 2) Some spellcasting classes will ALWAYS get more from Prestige Classes in exchange of *some* spellcasting levels... which is not a great issue with HotU installed (for example, Cleric losing only more Channel Energy positive or negative, or the Wizard losing the wizard feats past level 5); heck, with that, you could go cleric 5, wizard 5, and then grab Mysthic Theurge levels until you had both full spellcasting progression.
3) and most important of all, the PRC (Player's Resource Consortium) added A TON of really good prestige classes! Not only that, some spells would be outright broken, because the game never intended their presence and as such was not ready (Mordenkainen's Magnificient Mansion becoming a "let's reset the party's powers while the rest of the world remains as is"). My favourite wizard killing machine was with Thrall of Graaz'zt and Archmage (because of shaping the spells to disable friendly fire, switching elements, etc...).
Now, I grant that the prestige classes the game gave in Fall of Undrentide were lackluster, or that several in HotU were quire gimmicky (the shapeshifter one is much more prone to abuse in the 3.5 P&P ruleset, for example), however it is no surprise that mods always bring a game one step up at the very least, and I'm quite excited waiting for BG3's ones!

[@kurnhurin4118]

It's not a simple answer of yes, or no. Some prestige classes are more viable than others. I finished the Shadows of Undrentide campaign with a level 9 Monk, 5 Assassin, and easily too.
Assassin is one of the better prestige classes though, the only requirements are, Hide and move silently rank 8. The sneak attack really does improve my DPS significantly.

[@douglasdarling7606]

I think there's one exception here and that's the arcane Archer not even Lord Soth can toss a 22 die fireball three times a day with the highest b a b in the game😂 play I reckon it the arcane Archer is the class I take every single feat level as a fighter for 14 levels total I save 18 for the arcane Archer minimum usually although sometimes I just stopped at 9 because at that point you're a + 5 weapon and the arrow of slang is much like quivering Palm it's there for lols by the time you get it so sometimes I don't bother you don't really need it with 14 levels of fighter 10 levels of arcane Archer you can go ahead and give yourself 16 bard which is the optimal level to stop at if you're not going to try and fully progress and one time I did an experiment just to see if it was possible but it is it's a very complex bill but it can be pulled off where you have seven levels of weapon Master 10 of arcane Archer or more put all the rest of your levels that don't go into those classes go into bard 7/ 10/ 23 with different ways of a portioning those levels I'm well aware of the fact that it wouldn't stand up in PvP but it absolutely smashes almost every module I've used it in in fact every module I've actually used it in but I don't know how it would fare in sword flight because I haven't played that one

[@Zibit21]

Prestige classes in D&D 3.5 were a mess.
Thank God for 5e.

[@babyyoda2219]

Champion of Torm is good for the quick buff