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A form of Power Up in Role Playing Games with a Class And Level System, whereupon a character can choose to advance from a basic starting class to a more powerful, but more specialised class. What distinguishes a Prestige Class from a regular one is that you must have experience in another class before you can gain access to the Prestige Class, thus creating a natural progression of power.
The trope namer is 3rd Edition Dungeons And Dragons, where Prestige Classes would become available after fulfilling certain class-specific prerequisites. The degree of specialisation required would vary from class to class; one Prestige Class — the Fochlucan Lyrist — requires taking levels in three separate base classes. Which in turn was an updated version of the original way you became a Bard in 1st edition Dungeons And Dragons, which involved a maddening process so convoluted and subject to chance that it handily explains why most Bards these days are Chaotic.
A more recent progression (in games with single-class characters) has been to unlock Prestige Classes when the player raises at least one character to the prerequisite level. The player can then create a new character with the Prestige Class.
Examples:
- Final Fantasy is a frequent user of this:
- Final Fantasy I had each class advance to a more powerful version after a "class change".
- Final Fantasy XI had "Advanced Classes", which required you to reach Lv.30 in any of the six basic classes before you could undertake the Side Quests to unlock them.
- Final Fantasy Tactics had all of its classes unlocked by gaining levels in weaker classes, so every mighty Summoner, Lancer or Calculator had to start as a humble Squire or Chemist. Its various spinoffs had classes that could only be accessed by acquiring "A-skills" in other classes. The most powerful Viera class in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance could only be unlocked with a significant amount of training in every other Viera class.
- Ogre Battle has nearly EVERY human class be a prestige class. Ogre Battle 64 has every human class EXCEPT Soldier as a prestige class.
- Wild ARMs XF also opened up new classes in a similar manner to Final Fantasy III.
- Advanced Dungeons And Dragons 1st Edition had the Bard class (which became a normal jack of all trades in 2nd Edition), then 3rd Edition D&D introduced Prestige Classes. In 4th Edition, they've been replaced with Paragon Paths, which are specific to one class or race.
- 4th Edition also includes the "Epic Destinies", which are less class-specific, much broader in scope, and have some form of Immortality: literal, Legacy, Shrouded In Myth, fame...
- The difference between Prestige Classes and the Paths is that anyone who met the prereqs for Prestige Classes could take them, at any level where they met those requirements, almost never required "X lvs in Y class" (though some included requirements only 1 class had - this, though, could be screwed with by Class Variants, like a Druid variant which let it Rage like a Barbarian, thus opening it up to "Barbarian-only" Prestige Classes), and you could take as many Prestige Classes as you wanted to make the exact character you wanted without incurring Multiclassing Penalties. In 4E, you can only take 1 Paragon path, at CL 10, you must take it until you're CL 20, and the same with Epic Paths at CL 20 until CL 30. Lets just say that, while not as straight-forwardly simple as the 4E Paths, Prestige Classes are a lot more versatile in who can take them & what they get out of them.
- While it may offer less options, there is a reason why they make you stick to a single path. Unfortunately, the ability to mix and match as many prestige classes as you so desired opened up Game Breaker potential. While multi-classing generally would result in less-powerful characters, by mixing and matching just the first level or two of various classes which were not made with multi-classing in mind, you could potentially reap unexpectedly powerful benefits. A single level in Mindbender, for example, gives an arcane caster an at-will telepathy ability without any loss in spellcasting progress, and with only the relatively minor penalty of delaying the gain of a bonus feat for another level if the character was a wizard. Having to buy the whole cow rather than leaving the player the chance of sampling the best of all of them without paying for the worst of them at least makes the choices more easily compared.
- The Versatility thing is simply because there's more 3rd edition books. As the number of 4th ed books grows, so does the number and complexity of paragon paths. Also, Players can pick another base class to be their paragon path, a process called Paragon Multiclassing.
- That may be, but in the end you can take only ONE paragon path, while in 3E you could take as many Prestige classes as you had levels to and fulfilled the requisites (Eldritch knight/assassin/guild mage/etc...).
- d20 Modern (and its various relatives) have Advanced Classes.
- d20 Modern is actually fairly ridiculous. The vanilla game has basic classes and Advanced classes, which are synonymous with D&D classes and Prestige classes. Then, in the expansions (such as Urban Arcana), there are Prestige classes, which require levels in Advanced classes and quickly spiral out of power control.
- Not really. Advanced classes are mechanically similar to yet distinct from Prestige classes. It's...hard to explain without going into great detail. Read D20 Modern's fluff.
- In short: base classes are very broad, and very widely useful. Advanced classes are narrower, but not extremely so, and offer some special abilities through specialization. Prestige classes are at the top, narrowest focus of all, usually building on an aspect of an advanced class at the cost of broad utility. It's fastest to get to many prestige classes through an advanced class, but rarely required (usually for the magic users). Think of the narrowing of expertise in any field through advanced education: high school diplomas are for general education, 4-year college degrees focus on a specific field, and post-graduate degrees (master's or doctorates) will be much more tightly focused within a field.
- Another way to look at this is like this: Base class = Smart Guy, Advanced class = Doctor, Prestige class = Cybernetics expert.
- The Rules Cyclopedia, the final version of "basic" D&D, had a few of these. Neutral Clerics could become Druids at level 9, Lawful Fighters could become Paladins, Chaotic Fighters could become Avengers, and Neutral Fighters, for lack of any better ideas, could become Knights.
- Star Wars RP Gs tend to have them. Clearly seen in Knights Of The Old Republic 2. They were very very good..
- Most of White Wolf's World Of Darkness RPGs offer a similar option for characters, usually restricted either by their innate type or by their sociopolitical group. Vampire characters, for example, can join (or create, if they're more powerful) a Bloodline - an offshoot of their original Clan with an extra weakness, but with access to another Discipline. Werewolf characters can join Lodges with various requirements and benefits, Mage characters can attune their souls to different Legacies (usually based on the innate Path of the wizard in question, although many will also allow members of a specific Order to join), Promethean characters can develop an Athanor based on their Lineage, and Changelings can join an Entitlement.
- Wizardry had four: Bishop, Samurai, Lord and Ninja. At least, until the final games, when they became base classes.
- Many, many Korean RPGs, particularly of the free to play kind, have the characters start out as classless, go through a lengthy and boring tutorial phase with few skills, before allowing them to progress to a generalized speciality (like Warrior, Wizard etc.) before letting them progress further into specialized classes (such as Fire Wizard, or Spear Warrior). Examples include:
- World Of Warcraft has 3 talent trees for each class that basically acts like this, although its not as restrictive. Still, most of the popular "specs" focuses on one tree and the respective aspect of the class it represents. For example, a Warlock can spec into Affliction for powerful curses, Demonology for stronger pets or Destruction for stronger direct damage. Each type still has all basic skills available, but they aren't used to the same degree. Those that are tend to be boosted by different means for each.
- It has also introduced the Death Knight
Prestige Hero Class, which doesn't in fact fit these tropes - you have to have reached a certain level to create one, but its a new character that doesn't override any of your existing ones.
- Dragon
Warrior Quest III offered the Sage class, which requires a special quest to unlock; or a leveled up Fool.
- Starting with Dragon Quest VI, and sadly ending with Dragon Quest VII, the player could choose to train in classes at Dharma Temple after a certain plot point. Sufficient training in a sufficient number of classes unlocks better classes, and sufficient training in a sufficient number of those classes unlocks the best classes. And then, with the notable exception of the protagonist, sufficient training in all of the best classes unlocks the super class, Hero.
- City Of Villains uses this for its Epic Archetypes - a player begins as a Wolf Spider or Blood Widow, then promotes into Crab Spider/Bane Spider or Fortunata/Night Widow respectively. They get access to new powers from their chosen path as well as having access to all of the basic powers.
- In fact, you are expected to pick a path at level 24 as you will soon run out of basic powers to choose. Not that it hasn't stopped some players from making high-level Wolf Spiders by taking every Wolf Spider power, taking the Bane Spider path and just a few of its powers, and then filling in the remaining power slots with generic pool powers available to all archetypes. This is often called the Huntsman build (non-derogatory), as Huntsman NP Cs are basically super Wolf Spiders.
- By using a character respec, a player can drop all of the powers from one path and move to the other if they decided that they wanted to, say, be a Bane Spider instead of a Crab or a Night Widow instead of a Fortunata.
- For that matter, those Epic Archetypes and their earlier City Of Heroes counterparts, Kheldians, are unlocked by getting a villain or hero (respectively) to level 50 (usually). Both differ from the standard Archetypes by having full in-story concepts (most of the time) and a more focused power selection, but with more variety (if that makes any sense).
- Seiken Densetsu 3 featured a class upgrade system in which each of the six playable characters could eventually upgrade to a "light" or "dark" version of their starting class, and then near the end of the game could upgrade to a "light" or "dark" version of that.
- Tabula Rasa uses this - players begin as the Recruit, giving them lightning bolts and basic firearms and armor training, and promote at level 5 into either Specialist (support) or Soldier (front line combat), and promote twice more from those two classes.
- Mass Effect, at level 20, expects the player to do a specific quest to unlock advanced training in their given class - they are given two options, which represent the two aspects of their class they may choose to focus on.
- Dungeon Siege II has two in the expansion, Fist of Stone and Blood Assassin, which requires certain amount of skills in 2 classes to be able to unlock the skills in these classes.
- In Order Of The Stick, Spoony Bard Elan takes a level in the Dashing Swordsman prestige class (which happens to synergise extremely well with his stats), after saying he thought prestige classes were just for munchkins and clerics.
- Dashing Swordsman is now frequently homebrewed as a result, to different results.
- Every humanoid class in Disgaea has several improved versions that are unlocked when a previous version of the class hits a certain level. There are also about a dozen "hidden" classes that become available when several other classes reach the appropriate threshold.
- In any of the Quest For Glory sequels, one can upgrade to the Paladin class after importing a character from a previous game, if they've gained enough honor points. All classes can do this, but you can't have done any of the thieving side quests. And really, they're the most fun.
- Nah, the idea actually is to earn Paladinhood during gameplay, which you can do in games 2 or 3. Changing your class while importing to the next game was just a backup plan by Sierra in case the previous game's character save wasn't being read correctly. Also, Your Mileage May Vary on what's most fun.
- Call Of Duty 4, an FPS with RPG elements in online multiplayer, allows you to enter Prestige Mode when you level up one level past the cap (level 55). While it doesn't necessarily enable your character to get more advanced weapons or perks (in fact, it brings you back to level 1), it gives you a special rank badge meant to tell other players, "this guy is awesome". You can do this each time you pass level 55, getting a new badge each time indicating how many times you've "prestiged".
- Same in World At War except this time using prestige will give you an extra weapon slot, up to five of them, making it not a total waste of time.
- "Promotion classes" in Fire Emblem can be reached after a character levels up enough.
- In the Bard's Tale trilogy, spellcasters start as a Conjurer or Magician. About halfway through gaining the class's spells, they can choose to switch to the other class or become a Sorcerer (or continue and switch classes later on, which is better as they can't switch back). With enough experience in two classes, they can switch to Wizard. With enough experience in all four, they can become an Archmage (an official class starting with the second game). Under the right circumstances, an Archmage can become a Destiny Knight (should be "the", but you can make multiples). In the third game, an Archmage can become a Chronomancer (and one will have to, as you need their planar transport spells). Also, the various non-spellcasters gain a way to become Geomancers. These last two specialties are the only ones which require giving up any attributes from the previous class.
- Golden Sun's classes upgraded according to the number and type of Djinn attributed to any character. Thus, you would go Squire->Knight->Gallant->Lord->Slayer(?) with all Venus Djinn on a Venus character, or Brute->Ruffian->Savage->Barbarian->Berserker->Chaos Lord, with Mars and Venus djinn on the same character. And then there are the Ninja, Samurai, and equipped-item classes...
- GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy has "lenses" designed to emulate this by mixing the powers of different professions.
- Atlantica Online, an MMO, has a similar concept: When a player brings a character of a base class to Level 100, they may roll a second character as the Chainsaw Maniac class, a very powerful class with no obvious weaknesses.
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