Prestige classes are funny things; they were meant from their inception in the Third Edition Dungeon Master's Guide to be a means to reflect game flavor with specialized game mechanics. In the explosion of prestige classes that have followed, a proliferation that bears more than a little resemblance to the viral outbreak in the film 28 Days Later, that original purpose has been lost. It seems the first goal of many designers has been to make prestige classes that are “kewler” than any others out there. Genuine flavor took a back seat to the prestige class arms race.

These prestige classes for Redline are a refreshing change of pace because, while they remain attractive from a rules/power standpoint, they serve primarily enhance the feel of a Redline game. Take the Brewer: here’s a character who’s worth his or her weight it gold because he or she can make the fuel that runs those high-octane speedsters of the post-apocalyptic future. The Brewer prestige class only runs five levels and doesn’t have any slam-bang features attached. A character who takes some or all the available levels in Brewer isn’t going to rival Mad Max in the hero stakes, but that character will become a vital member of any group, as well as a target for bad guys who want their hands on that juice, the precious juice.

By constrast, the Highway Hero prestige class takes the Redliner class from Redline and dynotunes it. If Redline is really all about restaging the action exploits of Max Rockatansky, then the additional vehicle skills granted by this five-level prestige class serves that purpose well. There’s even a touch of metagaming ability attached to the Highway Hero; once the character reaches fifth level in this class, he or she can twist probability and do things like survive an impossible head-on collision such as that which Mad Max crawls away from at the end of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

For those who want to increase the Old West feel of a Redline game, the Lawman (a ten-level prestige class) provides enhanced tracking abilities, dead aim and increased proficiency with a signature weapon such as a pearl-handled revolver. Unlike the other two prestige classes, the Lawman even gets an illustration akin to those in the main Redline book, another indicator that this web-released material was probably included in some pre-release version of the product.

Three prestige classes might not seem like much in a gaming environment where whole books of such classes are released on a regular basis, but Redline is a modest game with the modest goal of replicating a specific kind of movie with certain types of characters. These prestige classes serve that goal well.