Prestige Classes for RPG. What do you think?

[Wade12345]

Instead of having characters start as their class, I've decided to have classes unlocked only by a ~Level 20 quest. Thus characters advance "classless" for the first ~20 character levels, then progress through Prestige Class levels after they manage to complete the secret quests (There will be hints of course).

Some Prestige Classes include:
Paladin
Elementalist Superior (Limited to Robes)
Shadow Assassin
Cleric (Limited to Robes and Leather armor)
Archer
Monk
Bard

[UniquelyBasic]

I prefer no classes and being able to mix and match skills from different classes rather than being limited to only one set of skills and abilities.

[Wade12345]

That's the way this works. You get to choose quest reward feats in addition to normal character feats, and what your alignment is and how you complete quests changes what rewards you get.

Every character has access to all of the core skills and feats for the entire game.

[Passion_Devil]

Oh what game is this?

[Wade12345]

It's a game I'm making from scratch. Right now I call it "BattleMax" because I haven't thought of a better name for the game yet.

It's set in Medieval times, like most RPGS, BUT it's easy for a Game Master to write in Steam Punk elements or futuristic elements if they want to. For example, you could balance fo rshotguns and laser weapons if you wanted to do so.

I am fleshing out monsters of levels 1 through 50 for the packaged campaign, and players can be creative and make new monsters and new campaigns of their own later.

[Passion_Devil]

Whenever I heard of prestige, I thought of the elite of the elite, the level after expert, and so on.

League of legends has rare prestige skins. It is a rare bling bling skin that can only be obtained through grinding during events. A skin to show passion for the character you're playing.
PayDay has a prestige system that resets your level from 100 back to zero but with the gear you unlocked in your first run.
Dead by Daylight allows you to prestige too which resets your character but unlocks a prestige cosmetic that can only be unlocked through grinding. The full set costs several prestiges/resets on that character.

So going by that, I would call your lvl 20 prestige quest just a 'job quest', but maybe after that you could call it prestige when players can specialize it further