Prestige Class

Features and weaknesses?^note Later versions of this card state that you could also play it as one-class-with-no-weaknesses What a rip off!

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 specialized 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 & Dragons,^note where they were initially introduced as a tool for the DM for customizing NPCs 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. The Fochlucan Lyrist class itself is an updated version of the original way you became a Bard in the first edition of Dungeons & 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.

Compare and contrast Class Change Level Reset, where changing classes lets you keep some or all of the benefits of a previous class, but requires some leveling to return to your previous power level. The two occasionally overlap.

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Game Examples:

Adventure Game

• Quest for Glory:
  • In the third to fifth games, 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 harder if you had done any of the thieving side quests, which were often the most fun.
  • You can earn Paladinhood during gameplay in Quest for Glory II or Quest for Glory III. Changing your class while importing to the next game was a backup plan by Sierra in case the previous game's character save wasn't being read correctly, which is what happened when importing the first game's character to the second game...everybody became a fighter unless one got the patch to fix it.

Fighting Game

• Soulcalibur 3 allowed you to create your own character by picking jobs. Certain jobs were unlocked by winning battles as characters that possessed the basic jobs. For example, playing as a Barbarian unlocked the Gladiator job.
  • Which meant that your character in Chronicles of the Sword mode is going to be a terrible starting class since you can't change jobs once you make a character.

First-Person Shooter

• The Borderlands series: The hot-swappable class mod kits count. Each of the playable classes can use six different kinds of mods that each specialize the character in a different direction:
  • The first game, Borderlands: Some of Roland's:
    • Heavy Gunner with skill bonuses and notable increases in magazine sizes, firerates, and damage outputs with all weapons.
    • Support Gunners grant slow ammo regeneration with skill bonuses focused on improving Roland's turret into a health/ammunition dispenser.
    • Leaders grant extra experience for the entire party along with better Combat Medic skills.
    • Tacticians improve the party's survivability,
    • Commandos are resilient shotgun specialists.

Interactive Fiction

• In The Lost Heir, these are unlocked in the middle of the second game. Essentially, a Prestige Class is a class that's unlocked at or after your victory at Ludd, and normally is built on a particular feature.

MMORPG

• Ragnarok Online
  • The game gives you the option of advancing into second, alternate second, and third stage classes, depending on what your first stage class was.
  • After reaching level 99, you have the option of rebirthing back to level 1 instead of jumping directly to your third class. This second run of grinding to 99 is more difficult, but choosing the same class you had before results in a "Transcendant" character, giving you access to even more abilities in that class. For example, a Knight will become a Lord Knight, with more powerful attacking skills and a powerful buff that turns them into a nigh-unstoppable killing machine. It is then possible to take the third class as usual after reaching 99, but you KEEP those new skills, meaning your character is effectively stunted if you don't feel like rebirthing.
• MapleStory, but only for Explorers/Adventurers, who start out with five different paths and can branch out into twelve in second job (fourteen including the two special Explorers).
  • More recently, MapleStory has toyed with the second variation of this trope. Leveling a Cygnus Knight to the level cap would allow you to create an Ultimate Adventurer (which wasn't all that different than a normal Adventurer, save a few minor perks).
• World of Warcraft has 3 talent trees for each class that basically acts like this, although it's 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.
  • Starting in the third expansion, Cataclysm, talents follow this trope more explicitly. Previously, talent points could be spent in any amount in any tree. While in practice, specs usually favored one tree, it wasn't required. In Cataclysm, players will have to explicitly choose one tree to specialize in before they are allowed to spend talent points. A specialization grants extra abilities from the start, but restricts the player from spending points in other trees until high levels.
    • In Mists of Pandaria, after Level 10, you choose a talent tree, getting the core skills that come with it, as well as various other ones (that may or may not be shared with the other two specs) as you go along.
  • The second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, 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 (55, the same level that the Death Knight starts), but it's a new character that doesn't override any of your existing ones.
  • The sixth expansion, Legion, features Demon Hunters. They are the first class to have only two specializations (tank and melee DPS), and just like the Death Knights, they start at a higher level and have their own starting zone with an accompanying story.
• 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 NPCs 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.
    • The game now includes the ability to select between multiple builds, allowing a player to have one build as their primary but the option to switch at will (well, at a trainer every fifteen minutes) to the other as their secondary.
  • 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 20 (originally level 50). 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).
    • A Kheldian can be built to either be a specialist or a jack-of-all-trades, but going the jack route can leave you mediocre in everything if you spread your enhancement slots too thinly.
  • Issue 19 introduced the Incarnate System, which gives level 50 characters of any class new ways to expand their capabilities.
• 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.
• 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.
  • Also, When mercenaries reach a certain level, you can upgrade them with crystals at lower levels and jewels at higher levels. This gives them higher stats and a new appearance.
• Nexus War uses something like this for its class system. Every character starts out in the Mortal class and has access to the basic skills. At level 10 one can take a 2nd-tier class depending on where you are on the Karma Meter (good, neutral, evil), and at level 20 can take one of three 3rd-tier classes depending on which 2nd-tier class was chosen.
• Final Fantasy XI has "Advanced Jobs", which require you to reach Lv.30 in any of the six basic jobs before you can undertake the Side Quests to unlock them. Although the Advanced Jobs offer more variability in terms of play-style, it's worth noting that the original Advanced Jobs were much more specialized than the basic jobs (Paladin was a strongly defense-focused version of the warrior, while Dark Knight was a strongly-offensive version of the warrior, for example). Expansions added Jobs that were just plain different (Bards and Dancer, while primarily buffing or debuffing focused, didn't really offshoot from the Red Mage, the primary buff/debuff class, for example).
• Final Fantasy XIV allows players the option of unlocking "jobs" once they level base classes high enough (for example, leveling Thaumaturge allows you to unlock Black Mage), which grant new skills and different stats. These can be toggled on and off at will by equipping or putting away the job's Soul Crystal, though there is no reason to ever toggle it off. This is averted for jobs introduced in various expansions which do not require another class to use. They do, however, have other requirements — the Heavensward jobs require the player to fully complete A Realm Reborn and have Ishgard accessible, the Stormblood jobs require the player to reach level 50 with another class, the Shadowbringers Jobs only require level 60 and the Endwalker jobs require you to be at level 70. There's also the Blue Mage job, which officially is classified as a "Limited Job" due to its unique properties (reduced level cap, learns skills via monsters and is intended for solo play so cannot be used in random dungeon groups). It doesn't require any expansion, just be at level 50 and clearing the Praetorium, as it's not meant to be used for serious play. The Rogue class and its Job, Ninja, also has unusual unlock requirements, as while it's exactly the same as any base class, it cannot be selected on character creation (since it was only added in patch 2.4, over a year after the launch of A Realm Reborn). As such, it requires a level 10 combat class and access to the Guild Hall in Limsa Lominsa (which technically increases the requirement to a level 15 class if you didn't start in Limsa Lominsa, since you can't get there until level 15 otherwise).
• In Granblue Fantasy, you only get a handful of classes at the start, and need to level the ones you have to get access to later ones (who are usually a straight upgrade to one of the two classes needed to unlock them). Row IV and Extra classes have even more requirements.
• Phantasy Star Online 2
  • Episode 2 introduced the Fighter, Gunner, and Techer classes, which are advanced forms of the base Hunter, Ranger, and Force classes: Fighters specialize in smaller weapons that can attack more quickly, Gunners specialize in fighting evasively, and Techers specialize in using debilitating techniques with an emphasis on Wind, Light, and Dark elements. They originally required reaching level 30 in their respective base classes, but the requirement was later removed.
  • Episode 5 saw the introduction of "Successor" classes, powerful hybrid classes that use existing weapons in new ways. Unlocking them requires reaching level 75 in two other classes^note at release unlocking the Hero required reaching level 75 with a melee, ranged, and technique-focused class, but the requirements were subsequently lowered, and unlike normal classes, they cannot use a subclass^note Phantom can be used as a subclass, but Hero cannot.
    • The first Successor class introduced to the game is the Hero. They can swing the Hunter's Swords more quickly, fire the Gunner's Twin Machineguns continuously, and use Photon Arts with the Force's Talises. Their Photon Arts also allow them to transition seamlessly to other weapons, making them very versatile.
    • The second Successor class, introduced in Episode 6, is the Phantom. They can fight evasively with the Braver's Katana, set up automated turrets when wielding the Ranger's Assault Rifles, and brandish the Force's Rods as scythes. In addition, they can use alternate "Shift" Photon Arts and set up markers that can be detonated on enemies.
• Every class in Star Wars: The Old Republic has two advanced classes, acquired at level 10, that open up new abilities and equipment options.
  • The Sith Warrior/Jedi Knight can become a Marauder/Sentinel to gain the ability to dual-wield lightsabers and specialize more in dishing out damage, or they can become a Juggernaut/Guardian to gain access to personal shield generators and become really, really tough.
  • The Sith Inquisitor/Jedi Consular can become an Assassin/Shadow to gain double-bladed lightsabers and powers of stealth, or they can become a Sorcerer/Sage to get more healing and direct-attack Force powers.
  • The Bounty Hunter can become a Powertech and focus on shields and flamethrowers, or he can become a Mercenary and gain the ability to dual-wield blaster pistols and more healing powers.
  • The Trooper can become a Vanguard to focus on defensive tactics and shields, or a Commando to focus on heavy weapons and healing.
  • The Imperial Agent can become a Sniper for better range and ranged attacks, or an Operative for stealth, backstabs, and healing.
  • The Smuggler can become a Gunslinger to dual-wield blaster pistols and become more effective at using them, or a Scoundrel to focus more on shotguns and healing.
• Firefall: Your reward for mastering one of your battleframes (different classes, each with their own experience level) is to unlock a more advanced battleframe. Advanced battleframes are slightly stronger than their basic counterparts and can use weapons/abilities that the basic battleframes can not.
• Guild Wars 2 takes a slightly unusual tack with its Elite Specializations. A character must be maximum level to select an Elite Specialization, and it requires a large number of Hero Points in excess of those gained by leveling (30 to open the Specialization, 10-15 per skill after that). In exchange, the character gains access to new skills and can equip a type of item that was previously off limits to their class. The unusual but is that an Elite Specialization must be equipped to one of the character's three Specialization slots, meaning a regular Specialization must be unequipped first. In true Guild Wars tradition, this makes the character more flexible, rather than more powerful.
• Kingdom of Loathing has special classes that only come during New Game Plus. These are referred to as "challenge paths", an Artifact of when these were pure restrictions. Then they introduced the Kung-Fu Monk inspired "Way of the Surprising Fist" path that added a new skillset to balance the restrictions, and half of the paths afterwards has been a prestige class of some kind, including the archetypes of the game's Splats, an Elite Zombie, a boss character with Resurrective Immortality, a cowboy, a Captain Ersatz of Neo, a slime person, an MI6 00 agent, a vampire, a magic plumber, a modular robot, and a radiation-guzzling mutant.

Role Playing Game

• Final Fantasy is a frequent user of this^note XI and XIV are already mentioned at the above section:
  • Final Fantasy has each class advance to a more powerful version after a "class change". Rather than becoming more specialized, the upgrades offer many characters a wider array of options than their original class; the Knight advances from the Fighter/Warrior and can use more weapons and armor, as well as limited white magic, for example.
  • Final Fantasy III has four tiers of classes. Each tier opens up after acquiring the next Crystal.
  • Final Fantasy V is similar to III with new classes unlocked by each Crystal, but these classes have more variety in signature abilities instead of being clear upgrades of early classes. Instead, the game introduces Ability Points (AP) that allow characters to permanently learn skills from one class and use them like any other class.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics has all of its classes unlocked by gaining levels in weaker classes, so every mighty Summoner, Lancer or Calculator has to start as a humble Squire or Chemist. Its various spinoffs have classes accessed by acquiring "A-skills" in other classes. The most powerful Viera class in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Assassin, requires a significant amount of training in two other prestige classes, which collectively require skills from all three basic classes.
• Beyond the Beyond works the same as the "class change" of the first Final Fantasy.
• Wizardry had four: Bishop, Samurai, Lord, and Ninja. At least, until the final games, when they became base classes.
  • Even in the first game, it was technically possible to start a character off as any of those but Ninja, though it required very good rolls.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest III offered the Sage class, which requires a special quest to unlock; or a leveled up Fool.
  • The remakes of III also have an interesting use of this, though it doesn't affect the character's abilities. Once you finish the game, The Hero's class title is changed from "Hero" to " Hero Loto/Erdrick".
  • In Dragon Quest VI and Dragon Quest VII, the player could choose to train in classes at Dharma Temple/Alltrades Abbey after a certain plot point. Sufficient training in a sufficient number of classes unlocks better classes, and in VII sufficient training in a sufficient number of those classes unlocks even better classes. And in both games, sufficient training in all of the best classes unlocks the superclass, Hero (except for the protagonist, who only needs one of the best classes).
  • Dragon Quest IX featured six classes that could be unlocked by completing certain sidequests. Unusually, the unlockable classes are merely different from the default ones, not necessarily better. The Paladin (prestige class) has awesome defense and can take hits for other party members while the default Martial Artist (normal class) has excellent Speed and can build Tension to boost their attacks. The Sage (prestige class) has both the Mage's attack spells and the Priest's healing (both normal classes), but the latter two respectively specialize in each skill and can get better spells. The exception to this is the Luminary class (prestige class), which is explicitly known as Minstrel+.
• Trials of Mana 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.
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect offers the player a mission on Luna when they reach level 20. Completing the mission lets you specialize in advanced versions of your current class.
  • This is present, but handled differently in Mass Effect 2. Characters can level up every skill in the game as high as four, at which point they select one of two options for the "evolved" version of that skill. This means that the advanced classes from the first game (such as Shock Trooper, Commando, etc.) are still available, as are several other options.
  • In the third game, each skill has six upgrade levels, and each of the latter three levels has two variants each.
• Dungeon Siege II has two in the expansion, Fist of Stone and Blood Assassin, which requires a certain amount of skills in 2 classes to be able to unlock the skills in these classes.
• 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 that 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...
• Dragon Age:
  • Dragon Age: Origins has a choice of four (six with the Awakening expansion) specializations available for each basic class (Warrior, Rogue, Mage) which only have to be unlocked once to be available on all subsequent playthroughs. Specializations offer a minor stat bonus and make a few extra talents available. The Grey Warden is free to pick two of his/her choice at levels 7 and 14 but most of your other party members already have one set and can only pick one more at level 14. Sten kinda gets screwed since he can only pick one specialization.
  • Dragon Age II handles it differently: all three class-specific specializations are unlocked from the start... for Hawke, who can only learn two at levels 7 and 14. None of the companions gets them, although each one (except Bethany and Carver Hawke originally) gets an additional skill tree unique to them (such as Anders' healing-based powers, Aveline's bodyguard talents, and Merrill's blood/nature magic-oriented spells). A patch gives Bethany and Carver the Force Mage and Templar specializations that are available to Hawke in the corresponding base class if they survive the first act and return in the third.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Specializations are unlocked once you gain access to Skyhold and get the quest to seek specialized training. You can only unlock one specialization and doing so requires you to go on a side quest. The companions each have a specialization that is unlocked after the first act and they will actually comment on your choice of specialization.
• The spin-off Ragnarok DS has Shaman and Dark Knight prestige classes. Shaman focuses on heal and summon, while Dark Knight has a lot of Cast from Hit Points abilities.
• Valkyria Chronicles' five character classes (excluding tanks) each advance to "Elite" rank after hitting a certain level of combat training. All Elites realize new battle potentials; a few classes earn extra bonuses. For example, the Elite Scout can now hurl grenades with a special launcher instead of by hand, sending them much farther.
  • VCII took this to further extremes with four prestige classes for each base class. As an example, the base Scout can upgrade to either a Scout Veteran (better stats than Scout) or Sniper (worse stats, but gets a sniper rifle). From there, a Scout Veteran can upgrade to a Scout Elite (even better stats) or a Heavy Scout (stronger weapon, grenade launcher, but less movement), while a Sniper can upgrade to either a Sniper Elite (multi-shot sniper rifle, slightly better stats than Sniper) or an Anti-Tank sniper (gets anti-tank sniper rifle). Every class level has a unique ability that the character can learn and use while in a different class level (however, you can only equip one learned ability), and typically the best-learned abilities come from the top-tier specializations.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X heavily features prestige classes. Players start off with the basic "Drifter" class, before changing to one of three specialized classes: the tanky Striker, the evasive-yet-hard-hitting Commando, and the supportive Enforcer. These three classes also have two different branches that allow players to expand their skillsets further:
  • Strikers can become a Samurai Gunner, which further enhances their offensive capabilities and can be further enhanced into the Duelist; or a Shield Trooper, which focuses more on tanking and can be enhanced into the Bastion Warrior.
  • Commandos can become a Winged Viper, which enhances evasiveness and can be enhanced into the Full Metal Jaguar; or a Partisan Eagle, which focuses on ranged combat and can be enhanced into the Astral Crusader.
  • Enforcers can become a Psycorruptor, which enhances supportive capabilities and can be enhanced into the Mastermind; or a Blast Fencer, which focuses on raw damage output and can be enhanced into the Galactic Knight.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • In the original, the first-tier Jedi classes were basically early-game prestige classes, as they stacked on top of your original Soldier/Scout/Scoundrel class from when you first made your character.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the Player Character can enter a prestige class upon reaching 15th level. Depending on whether they have been playing as a Light Side character or a Dark Side character up to that point, they will be offered a choice of three Jedi classes or three Sith classes. The Jedi Weaponmaster and Sith Marauder can deal extra damage in combat and enjoy damage reduction, the Jedi Watchman and Sith Assassin can turn invisible and use a sneak attack, and the Jedi Master and Sith Lord have enhanced Force powers and can either buff their allies or penalize their opponents, respectively.
• Being based on 3rd and 3.5 edition D&D respectively, Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 included a number of prestige classes, some drawn from the Dungeon Master's Guide or other supplements, some from Forgotten Realms sourcebooks, and at least one (Neverwinter Nine) completely homemade. With the two expansion packs installed, NWN2 has 23 in all. Due to code limitations, the NWN prestige classes sometimes differ slightly from their pen-and-paper counterparts: for instance, the Blackguard has two spell-like abilities rather than an entire spell list.
• Might and Magic IX modified the class promotion system of the previous three games (which lacked the 'more specialized' part of the trope, and it was never a bad idea to upgrade if you could since it did not lock you out of any choice) so that one had to make a choice of becoming one thing or the other, and then made the base classes into a choice between Might and Magic, with the old classes (and therefore the old specializations on specific parts of Might or Magic) brought in at the first or second promotion.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: You unlock the ability to subclass about halfway into the game. This lets you diversify or specialize your party members by giving them a secondary class, combining their skills to improve performance. This feature returns in Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan and Etrian Odyssey Nexus, and the latter even lets you name your party member's new class combination to make it look like a custom prestige class.
  • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth features a more straightforward example of the trope by giving your characters Master Titles after they reach level 20. This unlocks additional skills that complement the base class' skills, usually specializing them into one of two roles. For example, Warlocks (the Squishy Wizard of the party) can opt to diversify their attack options outside of the standard Fire, Ice, Lightning spells, or further specialize in their base repertoire to increase its damage. Executing a Skill Point Reset on the character removes their title, allowing you to set it to the other title available if you change your mind.
• In Dragon's Dogma, once you reach level 10, you can choose six different Vocations. Three of them (Warrior, Sorcerer, Ranger) are specialized versions of the initial Fighter, Mage and Strider Vocations while the other three (Mystic Knight, Magick Archer, Assassin) are hybrid versions of the classes and only available to The Arisen.
• In Alpha Protocol, after completing the Saudi Arabia hub, you get to assign Mike his new Specialization. This determines which three skills you get to level all the way to 15, while the rest are stuck at 10 max.
• AdventureQuest has several. The only prerequisite is that you must be at least level five in some other class, e.g. Necromancer requires training Wizard to at least level 5.
• The Ascendancy expansion for Path of Exile added Ascendancy sub-classes for each existing class. Each class gets three classes (or just one huge one for the Scion), each of them focusing on specialties that can significantly change gameplay, such as Necromancers for Witches that rely on minions, but each comes with enough subset of skills to diversify within the Ascendancy class (For examples, Gladiators have skills based on blocking, bleed effects, and dual-wielding, and even the aforementioned Necromancers have skills based on corpse spells and party support.) Characters have to pass through the Trials of Ascendancy, navigate the Lord's Labyrinth, and defeat the ghost of Emperor Izaro on Normal difficulty to spec into an Ascendancy class. Defeating Izaro on higher difficulty levels grants more Ascendancy skill points.
• Parodied in South Park: The Fractured but Whole where every so often Cartman will interpret the protagonist's silence as wanting a "better" class, let him choose another class and pool of abilities to add to the one he is already using, and berate him for "cheating" for "demanding to bend the rules".
• In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, each class now has a number of Subclasses that offer some unique benefits along with some drawbacks. There is also the ability to multiclass, which will create a new Class name depending on the combination (a Fighter/Mage is a Battlemage while a Cipher/Rogue is a Mindstalker).
• Octopath Traveler: There are four secret jobs that can be obtained by completing Brutal Bonus Levels and defeating their corresponding Bonus Bosses. They are the Starseeker, Sorcerer, Runelord, and the Warmaster.
• Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader: These are actually required with the Rogue Trader rule set. The four initial archetypes have three possible second tier archetypes to spec into after filling out the initial one at level 15 (from a pool of six total archetypes), and everyone will go into Exemplar at level 36 and above, letting you grab anything you may have missed from the first two archetypes you picked.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons had several variations on this right from the start:
  • 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.
  • 1st Edition AD&D had the Bard class, which required levels as a fighter and a thief before even beginning your bardic career. Note that switching classes like this was otherwise not allowed (or at least far more limited). The Bard would become a standard class in later editions.
  • The Unearthed Arcana supplement to 1st Edition introduces the thief-acrobat class, to which thieves can move after 5th level. It is almost a pure example of a later-edition prestige class, exchanging away a few class abilities in return for some new ones, the only difference being that it lasts for the remainder of the thief's career and can't be changed out of afterwards.
  • Another 1st Edition supplement, Oriental Adventures, added the Ninja class, whose mechanics were almost identical to the Prestige Classes that eventually appeared in 3rd Edition, except that you chose another character class at 1st level (to serve as your "public" identity). You could "take a level in ninja" instead of gaining an experience level in your main class, and then go back to levelling-up your main class again, as many times as you liked until you reached the maximum ninja level.
  • 2nd Edition introduced "Kits", appearing in the supplementary class guides called "The Complete X ^note (Bard/Cleric/Druid/Fighter/Thief/Ranger/Paladin/Necromancer/Wizard)'s Handbooks". These were taken either at character creation or when the rule books were introduced to the game session. Kits altered existing class features rather than being a distinct class, for example instead of being a straight Bard, one could opt to be a Blade or a Gypsy-Bard; or instead of being a Fighter one could be a Berserker or Cavalier. They also allowed class kits for races who would normally be barred from playing a certain class, for example, the Halfing "Whistler" - a Halfing Bard (illegal in Second Edition) who couldn't cast Wizard spells but could whistle to create spell effects.
  • 3rd Edition introduced Prestige Classes proper — actually called by that name, in fact — which were accessible to any character with the proper qualifications (attack bonus, casting levels, class features, specific experiences, etc.) and whose benefits ranged from combining classes to extreme specialization to sheer quirkiness. Thanks to 3rd's often weak and/or bland and vanilla base classes full of Empty Levels and penalties for multiclassing, which didn't apply to Prestige Classes, they were a highly popular means of character customization. The sheer number of Prestige Classes published (782 according to the official website), allowed many odd, and occasionally overpowered combinations. Kits were re-introduced a while into 3.5's run, first with class variants (which worked just like the old 2E kit system, or Pathfinder's archetypes), then with substitution levels (which replaced class features for a specific class at specific levels if you choose to take the substitution level).
  • 4th Edition streamlined things by allowing 11th level characters to take a single Paragon Path, meant to complement existing class or race abilities. You also have the option to instead become a "Multi-Class", which in 4th Edition means you gain a few abilities from one (1) other class while still being the same class you started playing as. 21st level characters can take an Epic Destiny, which are usually less class-specific, much broader in scope, and detail how the character attains Immortality: literal, Legacy, Shrouded in Myth, fame...
  • 5th Edition all but eliminated the Prestige class options, instead introducing "Subclasses" — multiple unique paths per class that players choose at 3rd level (except for druids and wizards, who choose at 2nd level and clerics, sorcerers, and warlocks who choose at 1st), some of which share names and flavour with Prestige classes from older editions. Supplementary materials have introduced additional subclasses, but Prestige classes seem to be out of the loop, despite some experimental play-testing to reintroduce them.
• Pathfinder 1^st Edition began as an adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and includes Prestige Classes, many of them nigh-identical to the D&D ones, though it also tried to improve the core classes and fill Empty Levels to reduce the need for them. Pathfinder moved further away from prestige classes with the later introduction of Archetypes, which replace specific class features, and Hybrid Classes, which combine elements from two core or base classes. Prestige classes retain a place in the game's base setting as members of special organizations or particularly devoted followers of deities.
• D20 Modern's core rules have 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. Each tier of classes is more tightly focused than the one below, granting extraordinary specialization at the cost of general utility.
• Considering they are based on the same rule-set, both Star Wars d20 and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords have a number of prestige classes. The Saga Edition has continued the trend.
• Most of White Wolf's New World of Darkness RPGs offer a similar option for characters, usually restricted either by their innate type or by their sociopolitical group.
  • Vampire: The Requiem: Vampires can join (or create, if they're more powerful) a Bloodline — an offshoot of their original Clan that suffers a unique vampiric weakness but gains a new Discipline, some of which are only accessible through the Bloodline.
  • Werewolf: The Forsaken: Werewolves can join Lodges — organizations within their parent Clan that are sponsored by their own patron Spirit. Membership also comes with mechanical benefits, like a magic item or a reduced experience point cost to gain certain abilities.
  • Mage: The Awakening: Mages can attune their souls to a Legacy (usually based on the innate Path of the wizard in question, although many will also allow members of a specific Order to join), allowing them to unlock new innate supernatural abilities as their magical power grows.
  • Promethean: The Created: Prometheans can develop an Athanor, a mystical furnace that fuels unique boons to the Promethean and confers permanent benefits if they succeed in becoming human.
  • Changeling: The Lost: Changelings can join an Entitlement, making a Pledge to join a group of like-minded Changelings for power, ideological support, or the like. This alters how Fate perceives the Changeling, granting them unique mechanical benefits.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Characters start with basic "careers" which are essentially classes. Once they meet certain prerequisites, they can then take advanced careers, which usually unlock fairly good abilities/powers. The advanced careers are more like basic classes in other games, appropriate as in WFRP the PC's are the protagonists of a Low Fantasy way towards the Cynical side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
  • As a side note, it might be interesting to note that the mechanic of advanced careers was there in WFRP 1st edition, published in 1986. If considered a member of this trope, WFRP predates the trope namer by fourteen years.
• Dark Heresy features a similar mechanic, up to and including having the player characters become an Inquisitor with virtually unlimited authority in that game. The characters who reach the ranks of Ascended characters have new rules applied to them, then pick up an extremely illustrious (for the setting) career. Sadly, this change happens "offscreen" and involves the player just adjusting their character sheet.
  • Dark Heresy and the other 40k RPGs also have Alternative Career Ranks, which can be taken in place of your normal rank (ie. level) after meeting certain prerequisites. They typically allow for greater specialization by focusing on a particular aspect of the career, or the ability to play specific variants of the career (such as a member of the biologis branch of Mechanicus instead of the traditional cybernetic-loving techpriest). The downside is that since they replace a normal rank, you might miss out on some skills and talents, although you can still get them if you're willing to pay double the normal XP.
    • While most of the Alternative Careers are only available after reaching a certain rank, there are a few that can be picked at rank 1, and even ones that are only available at character creation. In Black Crusade, all of the alternative ranks are only available at character creation.
• Fellowship has Destinies, special playbooks which characters can take at level 5 if they meet the requirements.
• Renegade Game Studios' Power Rangers Roleplaying Game has each Ranger color as a "Role", or character class. The Advanced Spectrum Roles are unique Roles a player can change their Ranger into with the Spectrum Shift Perk to gain a new color with its own set of enhanced skills and equipment. The Advanced Roles are modeled after the Sixth Rangers of the franchise, such as the White Ranger or the Quantum Ranger.

Turn Based Strategy

• Ogre Battle has nearly EVERY human class be a prestige class. Ogre Battle 64 has every human class EXCEPT Soldier as a prestige class.
  • Although this changes in the Tactics Ogre series. Wherein you have base classes and advanced classes that are prestige classes. They were segregated by gender, but less so in the Gaiden Game Knight of Lodis, in which you could have male and female archers (Limited to females in Let us Cling together), male and female soldiers (Replacing the "Amazon" class), male and female knights (Which were limited to males in let us Cling Together). While Knight of Lodis still does have gender-only classes (Valkyries, Witches, and Sirens are female only, whereas Dragoon, Swordmaster, and Warlock are male only)
    • Tactics Ogre added more tiers to the system. There were also the transmigrated classes, such as Angel Knight and Lich, which were a one-way path. And some, like Knights, were actually more accessible early game, making some like Dragoons and Sirens more prestige classes.
• Wild ARMs XF also opened up new classes in a similar manner to Final Fantasy III.
• 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.
• "Promotion classes" in Fire Emblem can be reached after characters level up enough, though some require a character to have a special item. Certain games even allow the character to choose between multiple classes, depending on which class they started in. As an example, this chart shows off the various promotions for Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.
• In the Final Fantasy Tactics series, advanced jobs are unlocked by meeting prerequisite numbers of learned skills in other jobs. These can at first be a significant downgrade from the character's already trained classes until they grind through the long process of unlocking their new, potentially better, class's skills, but the results are often worth hobbling a strong character for a while.
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV has basic hero classes which have one specialised skill each (Scouting, Tactics, Nobility, Combat, and five schools of magic), and advanced hero classes which have 2 (or more) specialised skills and get a bonus ability on top. For example, if your hero masters both Scouting and Tactics, they'll become a Field Commander and give a damage bonus to any creature that fights alongside them, or if they master Death and Nature magic, they become a Demonologist and gain unique demon-summoning spells. A hero who masters three or more different schools of magic becomes an Archmage, which is the only class that requires three specialties.
• In Might and Magic: Heroes VI a hero earns a prestige class by devoting themselves to a philosophy using the Blood and Tears mechanic; Tears prestige classes give abilities that focus on defence and keeping your army alive, while Blood prestige classes are geared towards offence and destroying the enemy as quickly as possible.
• Common throughout the Shining Series, as they allow you to promote your characters upon attaining a certain level.
  • In the case of the first Shining Force, the character's stats actually dropped when you promoted your character, but this was quickly overshadowed by the fact that stat growth for promoted characters is much faster.
  • In Shining Force II, you could occasionally find items which, if in the possession of a compatible troop being promoted, offered them an alternate promotion. Archers to Brass Gunners, Clerics to Master Monks, Mages to Sorcerers, Knights to Pegasus Knights, and Warriors to Barons.
• Vandal Hearts let each character choose a career path once they reached a certain level, then upgrade to a stronger version of that path at a second level milestone - bowmen can choose to focus on archery or aerial combat, magic users can become stronger mages or agile monks, soldiers can focus on all-round melee or slow but devastating DPS and healers can choose to become clerics or (again) monks. As upgrading not only unlocks new spells but gives a MASSIVE boost to all stats, forgetting to choose a class before certain levels can make them all but unwinnable as your underpowered character gets cut down in one hit.
  • The overlap of the monk class is an interesting example, in that spellcasters keep all the spells they've learned so far when they change class - so monks from the healer characters have basic healing and curative magics, whereas mage monks have (pretty weak) attack magic. As the monk is strictly a supporting character, upgrading all of your spellcasters to them is a very bad idea - but the game gives you two mages and two healers, so having a dedicated DPS caster, dedicated healer, and two different monks who can run across half of the board where needed is viable.
  • The main character, Ash, only gets one path to travel on, but he still gets a secret prestige class - the Vandalier - by completing all of a series of sidequests. He looks very silly indeed◊, but this is offset by the fact that he not only has godlike stats, but can cast every spell and effect in the game, from every character, item and enemy, even the bosses.
• The Langrisser games allow your heroes to promote to more powerful classes after reaching certain levels, increasing their stats and in some cases granting access to new spells and/or troop types.

Non-video game examples:

Anime and Manga

• Tokubetsu jonin and ANBU ninja can be considered as Prestige Classes in Naruto. Chunin (mid-class ninja) who have jonin-level ability in a specific area or skill (interrogation, poisons, combat with weapons, etc.) on top of chunin-required leadership ability and tactical progress, is promoted to tokubetsu jonin (roughly translated as: specialized high-level ninja). ANBU ninja, on the other hand, is a Prestige Class technically available for ninja of even Academy-level but, in practice, hand-picked by the resident Kage. ANBU ninjas are in charge of the Black Ops of a ninja village and exist out of the regular forces, hence the lack of regard for the regular ranking. Being a prodigy or in possession of a rare ability is, usually, all what is needed to be a potential candidate. Once selected, ANBU ninjas are trained in assassination and receive a mask to conceal their identities. It's not clear whether ANBU ninjas are stronger than jonin, so the general consensus is that ANBU can range from chunin-level to jonin-level. The Hidden Mist village has an extra Prestige Class in the form of the ANBU Hunter Ninja, whose function is to track down and eliminate missing ninja from the village.
• Digimon has a class progression of Baby < In-Training < Rookie < Champion < Ultimate < Mega. Wild Digimon will naturally progress over time or with training. Partner Digimon progress with the emotional state of their human. Champion usually happens when the characters get into a fight or die situation and rise to the challenge. Ultimate when they have character specific development and overcome a personal inadequacy or fear. Mega is typically the result of some sort of divine intervention, happening to usually only The Hero and The Lancer.^note Less so by the Japanese naming conventions where rather than fighting ranks they represent stages in aging/growth: Baby < Baby 2 < Child < Adult < Perfect < Ultimate.
• In Sword Art Online the titular game operates on a skill point system rather than a class system, but some of the advanced skills are unlocked this way. The one mentioned is that the katana skill unlocks by gaining enough points in the 'curved swords' skill.
• Overlord (2012) is set in an RPG Mechanics 'Verse with a Class and Level System that normally regards Level 30 as the peak of mortal achievement. The Dreaded Sorcerous Overlord Ainz Ooal Gown is Level 100 with a large and unspecified variety of Prestige Classes, including Elder Lich, Overlord, Master of Death, and Eclipse, which elevate him to the level of Wrong Context Magic from the perspective of lesser beings.
• In Gundam Build Divers, Divers are given various rankings via their skill and victories. The rankings go from F > D > C > B > A > S > SS > SSS. D Rank is the bare minimum to be able to join Forces, something Koichi learned the hard way.

Gamebooks

• In Michael J. Ward's Destinyquest series, your protagonist starts off from a choice of Warrior, Rogue and Mage. During a book, your character could find rare artifacts that allow them to change to a unique powerful class or undergo a story event that does the same thing.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick:
  • Quirky Bard Elan takes a level in the Dashing Swordsman prestige class (which happens to synergize extremely well with his stats), after saying he thought prestige classes were just for munchkins and clerics. It allows him to add his Charisma stat (which Elan has maxed out) to an attack roll, as long as he makes a cheesy one-liner. The drawback is Elan can't repeat himself and the monster in question must get the joke.^note It also grants him immunity to broken glass
  • Dashing Swordsman is now frequently homebrewed as a consequence, to different results. It is also fairly well replicated in the Swashbuckler line of enhancements in DDO.
• In 8-bit Theater, the Light Warriors undergo a class change/upgrade as per Final Fantasy. However, rather than becoming more generalized as in the game, they gain specific powers (Red Mage can mimic allies, Fighter further specializes in defense plus sword fights faster, Thief can throw virtually anything as an attack plus gains all sorts of ninjutsu, and Black Mage can learn any enemy attack he survives).
  • Which makes Black Mage a Black & Blue Mage...
  • However, Sarda depowers them near the end, and Thief's Ninja class gets stolen by his past self.

Western Animation

• Apparently this is how being promoted to royalty works in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, as we saw with Twilight Sparkle who was "promoted" from Unicorn to Alicorn, which has the abilities of all three pony races. Being born or married into royalty doesn't mean promotion as we've seen with Prince Blueblood or Prince Shining Armor, though having an Alicorn parent can mean inheriting the race naturally as we saw with Princess Flurry Heart.
• Winx Club: All of the fairy transformations above Enchantix are Prestige classes in both the sense they are usually obtained by a side quest and that a fairy needs to have the Enchantix beforehand.
  • For instance, Stella only had the basic fairy transformation when she completed the side quest to unlock the Believix (making a human, Bloom's parents in this case, believe in magic). Naturally, she didn't gain the Believix nor any other transformation. Roxy is a remarkable case since she gained her basic fairy transformation the normal way (through an intense emotion) but also got typical Believix wings. She did not, however, get any of the Believix special powers. It may be argued that the uniqueness of her wings is because she's from Earth and all Earth fairies have either a different progression of transformations or have more complex wings even in the pre-Enchantix transformations.
  • Some Higher Fairy Transformations are stated to be merely specialized forms of the Enchantix (the Harmonix and Sirenix are meant to be used underwater, the Crystal Sirenix is for cold waters, and the Cosmix is for the outer space) that aren't necessarily more powerful. Others, such as the Believix, stand in muddy waters. The canon is not clear on whether it was a power boost for the Enchantix or an Earth-specialized transformation. What with the Earth being in another dimension and, thus, the magic working differently which would explain why the Enchantix was ineffective against Earth magical opponents.
    • Interestingly enough, the Believix has its own set of Prestige classes. Partially with the alternate wings sets: the standard, the Speedix for velocity, the Tracix to briefly glance past events, and Zoomix for teleportation. And played straight with the transformations granted by the Gifts of Destiny (it's implied a fairy needs to have the Believix to even meet the Ethereal Fairies): the Sophix for wisdom and for better resonance with nature and the Lovix for a better perception of one's and other's emotions and for cold climates.

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