Wow, I've been trying to make this "prestige" class work, and I have to say, it doesn't.

My experiment was with a Bard switched over to a Pale Master. Now, before you shoot me down, my thinking was the following:

A sorcerer or a wizard does not benefit at all from dual-classing. It only makes them fall behind in the number/level/DC of spells they have.

Since the PMs only requisite for taking it are 3 levels of a spell casting class, clerics and druids are another possibility, but I think they suffer the same way wizards and sorcerers do.

So that basically leaves the bard, which seems like a good possibility. The bards main strength is his song, not really his spells. His song strengthens him, but more importantly, any of his allies. The pale masters strength appears to be summoning undead. Also they get some added melee tricks, like better AC (bone skin) and some nifty touch attacks, and bards fare better in melee than wizards and sorcerers (not clerics or druids though...).

It *seemed* to be a perfect match. I even liked the idea of an evil bard that sang to his dead minions - cooool.

So off I go into SoU to test this turkey out. Wow, he's *awful*

At character level 8, I still have 1 attack per round, I can summon a total of 1 Tyrantfog Zombie per day, or a *Ghoul* twice per day. By level 8, of course, these guys last about 1 swing against most opponents. The tyrantfog zombie does ok against lots of weak opponents because it has damage reduction, but against regular ones, watch him fall right over!

My 4th level bard song helps a little, well ok, not really.

According to the class layout, a PM level 6 I can summon shadows instead of ghouls... of course a shadowdancer can do that 2 or 3 levels earlier I think. And seriously, by the time you get to shadows... they're pretty much not an issue in a fight, the same goes with the rest of the undead. I do wonder what undead get summoned at the level 9 skill: Summon Greater Undead... what could it be?

Now if I'd gone pure bard (this is such a joke) I'd be casting decent spells like confusion and summon creature 3, which of course, summons a dire wolf, that would eat any of the Pale Masters pets (at that level) for lunch, followed by the pale master himself. In addition the bard song would be full strength, and he'd be up to 2 attacks per round.

The touch attacks I find amusing. Any spell casting class (besides bard) by the same parallel level has one or more spells of each, that they can probably cast at a distance, along with any other spells that level.

I can't think of anything good about this class. Does anyone have any different experiences to justify this mess?

Aw. And I was hoping this would be cool. It's still cool, roleplaying wise, the concept is cool, if it sucks in real playing.

The Pale Master absolutely sucks. I can find no redeeming feature of this PRC. You might as well be a straight cleric with the Death and Evil domains or a Wizard specializing in necromancy with the appropriate spell focus feats.

An Animate Dead spell is so much more powerful than the Pale Master's create undead ability. The death touch arm sucks since you have a lousy BAB and low HPs which means you're going to get pounded into dust if you run up and try to 'touch' people. And the DC for resisting the effects of the touch is very difficult to fail.

You get half the amount of spell slot progression but only the levels of your previous class are taken into consideration when computing caster levels.

A terrible waste of time.

I completely agree, and I was sooo looking forward to playing that too! As for the question of what do they get with greater undead: I DM'ed my own module, and had my other computer join it, then proceeded to give my character 20+ lvls. I can't remember, because I did this when I first got the game, but I believe you get to someone a wraith. But it was still pretty weak if you ask me. It seems that the Pale Master class was like some after thought that never got completed. ugh! back to being a full fledged Wizard: timestop/meteor storm/Bigsby's Clentched fist, here I come!

It's not really Bioware's fault that Palemasters suck as they're taken straight from PnP DnD. It's just Bioware's fault that they picked this. Come on, there are dozens of Prestige Classes that have been made, would it have killed them to give us a cool arcane spellcaster Prestige class like Red Wizard of Thay or Archmage?

I played with the following idea for the Pale Master. Don't know if it will work.
This is with an Elven character. First I'd take 20 levels of Monk followed by 3 levels of Wizard and then I'd go Pale Master till the end (except for one Monk level at character level 37 to get Tumble skill to 40).
Now for the reasoning behind it: if you go pure Monk your only advantages after level 20 are: +20 spell resistance, +4 AC, +10 DC to Quivering Palm and 4 feats from epic Monk list. (I don't count the extra movement speed as an advantage) Now the only thing that hurts when you replace those levels with levels from PM is the loss of the +20 spell resistance. In return you get +10 AC, some immunities you didn't already have and more HP (although not sure about HP since not tested yet). You also get two feats of energy resistance (the others aren't worth taking IMHO). You also get a couple of Arcane spells.

So to summarize, you get better AC, more immunities and some spellcasting (and possibly more HP) in exchange of 20 spell resistance and much harder starting stats (also need INT with this build).

What do you think? Any responses welcome.

Oh, yeah. One question. Do your spell slots continue to increase when your PM goes epic?

I often play around with characters, just to figure how to advance them when the time comes that I build them. One thing I've discovered about the Pale Master is that, after you have your three levels of Mage, if alternate by taking a PM level, then back to mage, rinse and repeat, you'll end up casting level 9 spells only about 4 or 5 levels beyond when you normally would've. Because the Pale Master still allows Mage spells to be learned, then by going every other level you get to a point where almost every time you take a Mage level, you're actually geting the next level of spells. IE, if I remember correctly, with a 13th level mage, and a PM of something like 9th level, I recevied my 9th level spells. THen never had to put another level into Mage. Could go straight PM, gain all of it's additional HP and AC, and still cast as well high level spells, and as many times per day, as a straight mage.

Now, I've yet to PLAY with this, so this may not make the PM suck any less than you guys say they do. But, just wanted to throw it out there.

If I remember correctly, the Pale Master only counts for how many spells you can cast of the level of spells you are already allowed. For instance, if your wizard can cast up to 6th lvl spells, and you then put a bunch into PM, then the number of spells you can cast increase but it will not let you cast 7th lvl. Your build of the wizard/PM mostly works like you say, but the number of spells you get are off. The spell slots gained from being a PM are half that of being a regular wizard. Meaning, you have to get 2 lvls in PM to get the same number of spell increases per spell level as if you were to just go up 1 lvl in regular wizard. Anyways, I still find the minimal benefits from become a PM are outweighted by the less spells. and the fact that the undead arm is just retarded. Just give me Hellball, and everything will be alright. :evil:

It's not really Bioware's fault that Palemasters suck as they're taken straight from PnP DnD.Actually, they didn't implement it as WotC spec'd it out:

6th level undead graft: Yeah Bioware put this one in, but ignored the +4 boost to strength that the PM is supposed to get along with it.

5 (FIVE!!) different types of touch attack! Paralyzing (they did this one), withering, destructive, weakening AND *commanding touch* (yes... when they touch undead enemies, they control them... why O why did they leave this out?)

The graft upgrade gets them an automatic +2 to hit...

Level 10 Deathless Mastery should have 4 attacks per day, it should have a PERMANENT undead vassal(like a familiar) which does not count against his summoning count. EDIT: forgot to mention: victims of the death touch are supposed to rise as undead slaves of the pale master.
While, don't get me wrong, I think this would sort of still suck, not nearly as bad... I especially like the undead commanding touch.

I did some testing on my failed experiment character, and levelled him way up into the epic levels.

Just in case anyone wants to know:

At level 9 (take into consideration that this is lower than the actual character level), with summon greater undead, they summon - a mummy...

level 10: a spectre

level 11: a vampire rogue... (this one boggled me... it only has +2d6 sneak attack.)

Then finally at level 12 or 13ish he summoned a Greater Bodak, with a BIG ole' +7 to hit. Consider that the last couple of summons you can't get until the epic levels. The stuff you face at epic levels turn a level 9 "vampire rogue" into mush in about 2 seconds.

[ January 05, 2004, 05:08: Message edited by: ArtEChoke ]

I just went through and rebuilt what I had played with before. A PURE Wizard receives spells a bit quicker than an alternating Wizard/PM. However, the Wizard/PM is casting 9th level spells at 21st level (Wiz 12/PM 9), which isn't too bad. By the time you've finished levling up, the Wizard(12)/PM(28) ends up with EXACTLY the same number of spells castable per day, and is fully capable of casting the various Epic Spells. Plus it has a higher Base AC (Boneskin at level PM28 gives +16 AC) and more Hit Points (D6 instead of D4 for 28PM levels). Feats are a bit different, certainly. And the Pure Wizard could get away with writing almost NO scrolls by the end, because he continues to get 2 free spells every single level through 40. But, if you're willing to develop your spell casting a bit more slowly, you will ultimately have a spellcaster with several benefits from the PM class.

Again, whether this makes the class worth playing is subject to opinion. To each their own. :)