Prestige class?

[Mike R]

Does anyone ever play a prestige class?  I was considering an arcane archer.

[Edward McGee]

I never have but it does happen. Fairly often in Core.
I played with an Arcane Archer in Greyhawk. As he got higher in levels and could cast better spells he stopped using the bow and was just a weaker Wizard.

Looking at the Pathfinder version I suspect the same thing will happen. Once you get Haste or good ray spells the bow will be something you do to conserve spells.

[Abraham Z]

I've got one character who will be adding Hellknight Signifier next level and one who plans to be an Arcane Trickster eventually and another who is plans to become a Dragon Disciple. I enjoy the ways that prestige classes offer new possibilities for characters to become even more peculiar and unique, even though most of the time prestige classes are weaker than the base classes. Not always though: I played alongside Sterling's Arcane Trickster one time and he pretty much solo'ed the adventure after everyone else was dead or dying.

[pgfrix]

Ranger (Guide) => Horizon Walker was my only foray. Nowadays, I suspect you'd accomplish something similar with a combo of ranger / scout levels or basically whatever shenanigans it takes to optimize number of favored terrains.

[TimD]

I have a Maagambayan Arcanist and a Living Monolith. In addition, I have characters I am building towards Hellknight, Lantern Bearer, Shadowdancer, and Ulfen Guard as well.

I've seen very effective Bloat Mages, Pathfinder Savants, and Veiled Illusionists in PFS. When early entry was an option, I saw Arcane Archers and Mystic Theurges several times as well.

When it comes to Prestige Classes, if you are building for a specific concept it generally works out far better than random dips, so figure out what you want to do with your Arcane Archer and then build for it and you'll find it much better.

[Mike R]

My original idea was to be a sniper--debuffing and caster targeting.  I was going to take some levels in Witch class, but they have few area effect spells required for my arrows to work.  What arcane class would be suggested?

[Barbaris]

AA is an amazing class if you can get ten lvls in it. Also Dragon Disciple.