Prestige Classes, or the PrC for short, are becoming a larger and larger part of the Dungeons and Dragons 3e experience. But what are they? Where did the idea for PrC come from, and where is it going? The easiest answers are for what they essentially are and where they came from, while the issues of what they are for and what they will become is a topic open to debate, with some heavy hitters choosing sides.
But first, the basics for those that do not know or understand what a PrC is. A Prestige Class in D&D 3e is similar to the Core Classes, or the basic player character class choices as presented in the Player's Handbook. The Fighter, the Cleric, the Rogue, and the Wizard, among others, represent the Core Classes. They are meant to be taken at level 1, and should theoretically be perfectly valid choices for player characters to take all through their 20 level non-Epic careers. Prestige Classes are similar to these, differing only in that they have certain prerequisites that must be met before a character may take the class. These often include a certain number of skills, a certain Base Attack Bonus, or more intangible aspects such as your character having met extra planar beings or survived some sort of disaster. These PrC are often more powerful than the Core Classes and often last for only 5 or 10 levels, reflecting their specialized nature.
As for where they came from, many people will point to other gaming systems where they have "Advanced Classes" that are often similar to the way PrC are obtained. Other systems, would have a character start out as a thief for so many levels, then they would have the option of becoming a rogue, then a master thief, each being more powerful than the last. Some of the more recent games to use this approach are the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Ragnarok Online, and the console video game Final Fantasy Tactics. However, this is not the origin of the PrC, although they may or may not have influenced them. From the best I can determine, the Bard was the original Prestige Class, dating back from the Original D&D, which required the character to have a certain number of levels in the "base" classes before they could become a bard. Now that we know something more of what a PrC is mechanically, and some idea of where it came from, we shall move on to the more "interpretive" portion of this article, what PrC are meant to do, and what they will become in the future.
What are Prestige Classes supposed to be? Well, let us take a look at some of the newer PrC. For wizards and sorcerers, Tome & Blood offers PrC such as the Elemental Savant, the Alienist, and the Blood Mage. Sword and Fist gives us PrC such as the Weapon Master, Masters of Wild gives the Shifter, while Song and Silence gives the Virtuoso and the Dungeon Delver. Looking at these, the first thing that springs to mind is that they are specialists. They choose one facet of a core class, and focus in on it. Some PrC, like the Duelist from Sword and Fist or the Dread Pirate from Song and Silence, or even the Mystic Theurge from the new Dungeon Master's Guide all focus on doing things that aren't normally easy to do with the given core classes, like being a finesse fighter, or a generic magic user that can cast more than just stereotypical arcane or divine magic. From these, it would appear that PrC are very much like the "Advanced Classes" from other games and systems. Start out generic, then focus in on what you wanted to be in the first place. PrC are therefore options players get when planning out their characters to specify what kind of character they have so they won't have to play "vanilla" cookie cutter classes.
What do the game designers have to say on this topic? Well, obviously since they keep printing PrC after PrC along these lines, that must be what they want PrC to be. However, lets take a step back and see what the original D&D 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide has to say on PrC, shall we?
From the 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide, page 27:
...Prestige classes allow DMs to create campaign-specific, exclusive roles and positions as classes. These special roles offer abilities and powers otherwise inaccessible to PCs and focus them in specific, interesting directions. A character with a prestige class is more specialized yet perhaps slightly better than one without one.
...
Allowing PCs access to prestige classes is purely optional and always under the purview of the DM. Even though a few examples can be found below, prestige classes are idiosyncratic to each campaign, and DMs may choose to not allow them or to use them only for NPCs.
Dungeon Masters should use prestige classes as a tool for world-building as well as a reward for achieving high level. They set characters in the milieu and put them in the context of the world.
1. The pendulum will swing back. This is fairly self-explanatory. People will tire of planning from level one to be a FTR 5/Deepwood Sniper 7/Wiz 1/Arcane Archer4/Peerless Archer 2/Order of the Bow Initiate 1, and will start to set goals like, "I want to become a great archer" for the character, though the player's goal is to seek out Ewart Halfelven, Lord of the Hills, who is a high-level arcane archer.
2. Something unforeseen will happen. I don't think anyone would have guessed that bard would have gone from being an uber-class in first edition (guessing from the opinions of players who were around back then) to being the favored punching bag of power gamers today. WotC certainly didn't see the reaction to the 3.0 ranger coming. Something unforeseen could easily happen. The wonderful thing about our hobby is that it is a living one. It's constantly evolving, constantly changing. While I think you make an excellent effort at predicting the short-term implications of the PrC, I'd give that prediction about six months' credibility. Well, maybe nine since we share a home town and we could share a gaming table at some point. (Gotta suck up however I can, lol)
Well, those are my opinions. Great article all in all, though. On a side note, I usually provide players with a list of allowed PrCs before the game begins, then am willing to listen if they want to add others, assuming they have an excellent reason.
Originally posted by Edymnion
Prestige Classes, What Are They, What Were They, and What Will They Become?
However, there are still some new PrC that still require membership, such as the Order of the Bow Initiate or the Archemage.
Just a little side note: I disagree the Archmage has to be in an order or guild. The high arcanas can easily be justified as something discovered by the character on it's own by trial and error.
As for the PrCs, I personally always take a PrC. As you said, it's a specialization that makes you fit in the world better. I consider it like taking a job in real life. We all have pre-school and high school and stuff (core classes) but then we specialize to become mechanics, lawyers, doctors etc. (PrCs)
When I think up a character concept, I always base it around one or more PrCs. The PrC is what I want my character to become. I envision it as my end goal. A game without PrCs turns the PrCs into 'just another fighter' or 'just another wizard'. Here comes the normal fighter wielding a spiked chain. All we have to do is disarm him and be done with it. Now here comes the Master of Chains who suddenly animates his chain and slaps you with it anyway. It is these kind of things that keeps the game interesting. And although people with 3 or 4 PrCs stretch the boundaries of realism, if they can make up a good story and play the character well according to that story, let them do it.
On a sidenote, many ppl claim that taking multiple PrCs, or taking PrCs at all, is powergaming, min-maxing, or whateveryouwannacallit, but may I remind you that in game, there is no such thing as levels or classes. To the first level commoner, the 20th level fighter with all the archery feats in existence is just as much an archer as a Ftr 5/Deepwood Sniper3/OOTB3/PeerlessArcher1/ArcaneArcher8. Both fire a bow, and both do different tricks with it. The commoner really doesn’t care how they do it, let alone how much PrCs either has.
It's quite some days I’m lurking at the board looking about a point of view about PrC that satisfy me.
I must say that i agree with everything you said, and that, if it counts, I’m for the DM-tools and not for the advanced class.
So i think that IMC PrC (so far we hadn't yet the problem couse i like running a low level campaign) will be something "rare", and will be only the group membership based.
They will surely add some spice and interest to the whole world ("Ehi Rajid, look at that tall man with the gray mantle with the air of an instant killer ..." "Shhh Elmain.... - said Rajid in a whisper - Don't look at him this way....he is supposed to be a member of the Gray Guild ... Better not to get his attention, believe me") but will be more for NPCs than for PCs.
Anyway, as a result of some good roleplay i think i could allow a PC to join one such organization (better think to PrCs as an organization membership, that gives some advantages for hard and dedicated training), but only if the will go trough the proper quest, not just the book prerequisites.
Just for that i think a PC should be allowed to develop only ONE PrC, no matter how hard he push for more...can u imagine a Archmage-Assasin-GrayGuild-...- Character? definitely he's no more worst to be roleplayed....
Anyway thx again for the enlightening article.
The DM may throw in an Arcane Devotee of Vecna because a particularly zealous NPC mage describes an Arcane Devotee. The player on the other hand often becomes an Arcane Devotee so that he can enhance his spell slinging abilities. Everyone, no matter what you say, is a min-maxer. There is no exception to this rule. In the DMG it says it’s perfectly fine to "fudge" the dice rolls (for the DM), but the players need more assurances than their DM fudging things. Therefore, they have to min-max in order to have any sense of control over the game.
PrCs are steadily becoming a tool of control. The DM says no, the player demands a recount of the votes, and the DM counts, "One in favor of no. I win." In the end, this battle won't be decided by either the DM or the players, it will be decided by the non-continuation of the 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons series. Books can only go so far before falling to pieces, and soon this will be a moot point.
Originally posted by Shadowchaser84
The PrCs may well have been initially designed to be DM tools, but as soon as a player realized that he could be a PrC he took the opportunity. There is a great divide between the playing style of DMs and Players, the DMs wanting a fair game that everyone can enjoy while the Players are completely out for themselves. The PrCs are little more than a tool, and depending on the user is their use.
No, I don't think it’s that bad yet. New players may think along those lines, but experienced players are going to realize that the overall good of the game is more important than their own individual characters. You are supposed to be playing as part of a group, as a team. Its not a bunch of self serving individuals stuck together on some ridiculous premise of having a party, or just because you need the Rogue to pick locks, its a group experience. GOOD players will realize this, and play accordingly. Power-gamers, munchkins, newbies, whatever you want to call them, they are the ones that are going to be out more for themselves than anyone else.
PrCs are steadily becoming a tool of control. The DM says no, the player demands a recount of the votes, and the DM counts, "One in favor of no. I win." In the end, this battle won't be decided by either the DM or the players, it will be decided by the non-continuation of the 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons series. Books can only go so far before falling to pieces, and soon this will be a moot point.
Last time I checked, the 3.5 PrC rules are still in the DMG, and it still says that you should severely restrict the number of them you put into your game.
I will admit though, that they completely removed everything referencing using them as worldbuilding tools, and that’s a shame. But, as I said in my original post, that’s the way PrC are heading it seems. They are ceasing to be DM tools to make a better, more interesting game, and are becoming nothing more than some sort of advanced class. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see them in the PHB come 4e.
Feats allow for character specialization, and it seems to me that if you can't do what you want using feats, maybe the answer is to develop a new feat, rather than a new class. The core classes represent the archetypal fantasy heroes; those classes should be all that we need.
Originally posted by Brom Blackforge
I think players ought to be able to make the kind of character they want using only the core classes.
Feats allow for character specialization, and it seems to me that if you can't do what you want using feats, maybe the answer is to develop a new feat, rather than a new class. The core classes represent the archetypal fantasy heroes; those classes should be all that we need.
In theory, yes.
In practise, most players choose the easy way out - they select the PrC because then they have their future abilities laid out before them and don't have to think too much about building the character they want through skill/feat selection.
It's just one of those things, you know. We all love the 3E skill/feat approach opposed to the 2E class-driven one, but sooner or later, the "casual player" will want to simplify things by choosing a predefined 10-level path.
And this isn't bad, in itself.
What's bad is the fact that even those who would be happy to build their character through core classes using only the skill/feat selection are encouraged (read: forced) to choose the class-driven approach in order to keep up with the other PCs and opponents, power-wise.
Solution: make more Loremasters and less Mystic Theurges; let us choose PrCs because they suit our character concepts and not just because they are the powerful option.
In the case of prestige classes, a single well-written supplement providing the guidelines for creating balanced prestige classes and a handful of choice examples would have been sufficient. Instead we were inundated with a landslide self-masturbatory power-gaming templates and mental handholding. The process always starts with good intentions (and the desire for greater profits I’m sure), but the good ideas become a mire of creative indulgences that eventually inhibit the process of imagination inherent in the game. Players cease to think about the trajectory of their PCs in the campaign world, and start micro-engineering every steep of their PCs development to meet the needs of their end goal. To be cliché, the destination becomes more important than the journey.
I’ve been playing for twenty years now, and it’s like a recurring nightmare. I don’t care much for myself or my group of friends, but I feel it is ultimately a disservice to the younger players out there, who haven’t yet had the chance to develop their own ideas. Well, best to end it here before I get all preachy.
Have fun all,
Ashen Grey
Originally posted by Ashen Gery
Instead we were inundated with a landslide self-masturbatory power-gaming templates and mental handholding.
Exactly. There is absolutely no fantasy concept you can imagine that can't be built with multiclassing the four base classes (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue) with a tweak or two and some good roleplaying, but I constantly see people on the boards that seem to think they just can't play their concept unless they've got special mechanics made up just for that purpose. "Oh, but I'm playing an Assassin, so I gotta have the Assassin PrC!" No you don't. You need a Fighter/Rogue that focuses on stealth, poison, and killing single targets as quickly and quietly as possible. The Assassin PrC gives you some nifty abilities to pull this off with, but you don't need it. "Oh, I'm a big powerful dragon slayer!" Okay, then be a Fighter or a Fighter/Ranger with favored enemy of Dragon, and do some roleplaying. You don't need some special supernatural dragon slaying powers to do it with.
And the exact same thing is happening with races.
It’s no longer enough to be an Elf and actually roleplay living in the woods or being all secretive and mystic, you gotta have entirely new subraces to play. With even half-way decent roleplaying skills, you can EASILY take the standard PHB races and classes, and be ANYTHING you want to be. You don't need some glorified 2e kit to do it. You don't need some special race that you're one of 5 in the world of.
If anything, the proliferation of PrC and Subraces and the like are damaging the game, not helping it. New players are getting so wrapped up in classes and races that they are losing perspective on the actual roleplaying aspect, which is at the heart of the game. Being a Half-Drow Lizardman Shaman Shapeshifter isn't roleplaying something special, its a mental crutch. Okay, you're the brutal, outcast, ritualistic monster. You tear things up with your teeth and claws, and throw ritualistic magic around and turn into even bigger monsters when you need to. Thats nothing special, its just playing a stereotype, albeit a strange one. Playing a tricked out Half-Ogre Weapon Master War Hulk Gladiator killing machine isn't roleplaying. A Human Fighter 20 that is unique and memorable, THAT is roleplaying.
I agree though. It would have been much better for the game as a whole if WotC had simply put the PrC in the DMG like it did (and actually kept the worldbuilding references), and then ONE expansion book with ideas and the mechanics needed to build balanced PrC so we could actually make customized PrC for our gaming world (which is what they were originally intended for), it would have been a lot better in the long run. But one book doesn't make money. Telling players how to build their own things doesn't make money. Churning out a new PrC/Feat/Race/Whatever of the month and slapping a $20 pricetag on it. That makes money.
- World customization
- Multiclassing support
- PC power
- Sell books
World customization is the best, but it requires work to design ones to fit your own world. It is easier to use pre-exisitng ones even if they do not fit exactly.
Some multiclassing options are weaker than others. Players should not be discouraged from multiclassing to create the character they want by the resulting character being much weaker than other PCs of the same level.
Many player's like their PCs to be powerful. PrC's can be a path to greater power. Ideally characters with PrC's should not be more powerful than core classes, but ...
Players like PrCs. Put a PrC in a book that is more powerful that any other option for a similar character and you will attract players of that type of character. They may be powergamers, but their money is as good as anyone else's.
I don't really mind the use of PrCs in PCs that much.
I see them split in a few ways:
Organizational: Great! These guys really flesh out a campaign world.
The non-organizational ones split into a few groups:
Hunters: Dragonslayer, Knight of the Chalice, etc. Players like these because they give favored enemy-like abilities without having to become a Ranger.
Weapon/Spell Specialists: Weapon Master, Elemental Savant, Lasher, etc. Players like these for 2 reasons: some provide neat flavorful abilities (Lasher's third-hand) while others simply give players more power.
Hybrids: Specifically, Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge, Hospitalter, etc. Some people may include other fighter/mage classes, such as the Bladesinger and spellsword. Players like these because they make for effective multiclassing.
Style specialists: Shifter, Duelist, Invisible Blade, Assassin, Arcane Archer, Frenzied Berserker, Virtuoso maybe some other fighter/mages. These guys take a specific class feature -- wildshape, sneak attack, rage, bardic music -- and expand upon it. Others, like the fighter/mages or AA, have a specific style of combat that they use that isn't so much an expansion of others as it is an...offshoot? I'm basically trying to classify the duelist in this. Players like these because they either offer cool abilities focusing on what they feel is the best part of a class or because they are not offered in another class.
So basically, to remedy PC want for PrCs, a number of things need to be done:
1) Favored enemy needs to be acquirable beyond the ranger. It's a fantastic ability that makes a dragon-hunting fighter better than the general fighter when they go up against a dragon without introducing the nature/sneaky element of the Ranger.
2) I guess more feats are needed for the specialization of spells and weapons. I don't see the need for a class like the weapon master. With feats like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, Fighters are likely to stay with a single weapon anyway.
3) Multiclassing needs to be reevaluated. This is a huge can of worms that I don't want to open, mainly because I doubt I'd be able to come to any sort of solution. Personally, I think the strict hybrids, such as the EK, are absolutely devoid of flavor.
4) More feats relating to class abilities. A lot of these are in class books already.
D&D has such a strong element of combat in it that flavorful abilities -- the shifter's never ending set of forms, the Bladesinger's song, the assassin's death attack -- can really add a lot to a game.
I'm not sure if you agree with that, but if you do, is the problem with the prestige classes and the player's attitude towards them, the over proliferation causing a huge pile of substandard PrCs, or the abilities the good ones offer?
Again, great stuff.
Originally posted by pjackson
Players like PrCs. Put a PrC in a book that is more powerful that any other option for a similar character and you will attract players of that type of character. They may be powergamers, but their money is as good as anyone else's.
Which does lead back to the DM just saying no
Hopefully Unearthed Arcana will have more reliable guidelines on how to tweak with core classes.
According to Ham's old class calc, giving a fighter two more skill points a level and a couple of extra skills was worth dumping the shield, medium and heavy armor feats.
Also I agree with the above poster, a set of guidelines for 'build your own' prestige classes seems to be a must. Maybe as part of a '3.5 world builder's guidebook'.
I know in my last game, we had a battle maiden, and I had plans to use the group, both as plot hooks and as background. A TPK ended that game
Now in my '40 years of evil game' they'll still be a factor. Well the fact that they were wiped out because their prophesied leader never showed will be a factor.
I think what is needed more than PrC's are simply more feats for customization. I think that if they simply create feats that mimic's the level dependant abilities of various classes then they would have a much better game for it.
However, PrC's are a strong source of income for Wizards so it’s not going to change.
-EE
I got into 3e fairly late, but was blown away by its new system especially after AD&D. Kind of like seeing color television for the first time after watching a black and white set. The flexibility in character customization was just one of the things that got my group excited about the game again. It seemed like there was no character concept that couldn't be addressed. The old straightjacket classes had been ripped open and all kinds of possibilities existed. It put excitement back in our game. For a while. You see, I had an uncomfortable realization: my name is Mogl, and I'm a min/maxer.
When I saw the first PrC's I thought, "Loremaster! Pffff - She can't fight. Dwarven Defender is cool but can't move. Shadow Dancer, mmm no. Ooo Arcane Archer! Shoots magic arrows, Imbue arrow. That'd be pretty cool. I could come up with all kinds of ways to take out an enemy with this. Would have been better though if they had given her a way to transform her bow into a melee weapon - short sword maybe - for close up encounters.
In short, as a player, I had completely ignored the whole point of PrC's, that of world building tool. For me they weren't ways to flesh out some roleplaying aspects of the character or put them within context of the campaign. I was looking at them purely within the context of combat and mechanics. Multi-classed spellcaster ineffective against high level monsters' SR? No problem - PrC! Fighter needs to do more damage or take more punishment? No problem - PrC. The power gaming lure is very seductive.
But if you go far enough, you can get back to where you started. We've grown tired of killing everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. The original appeal of the game, the role playing, has become attractive again. Now that I've gone behind the screen. I'm finding them desirable for entirely new reasons. Those for which PrC's were originally intended.
So maybe where their headed depends on what point your at in the game. They're world breakers in the beginning. World builders as you move on.
I do, however, support the current flood of PrCs in every supplement and to satisfy every powergaming urge.
It keeps WotC in business, and none of my players are dedicated enough or smart enough to pick them up.
Some people like to occasionally joke about how in the original D&D, elves were a “class,” but for the most part, in AD&D, a person’s class and race were determined at creation. While there was one exception for humans known as “Dual classing,” the class or multi-class combination selected for the character remained with that character forever. Class was an unalterable as race.
In this environment, customization came about in two separate methods. The first method, common in the 1E era, was through the creation of a plethora of classes. Many of these classes came from Dragon magazine, including the very infamous anti-paladin.
In the 2E environment, the notion of “kits” where base classes were altered, at the time of creation, for customized variations of the basic classes.
This brings us back to the 3E environment. Under the 3E model a player is not frozen into a class progression. Each level brings the possibility of advancement in any class, although some situations may impose an experience penalty. This brings us with an interesting problem, because it means that classes must not only be balanced horizontally (that is among the classes) but vertically as well. (In other words they must be balanced among the levels.)
Let’s look at a simple example. Let’s take a fifth level fighter (ftr 5) who by definition is a CR 5 character. If she gains a level she can take another level of fighter (ftr 6) or instead take a level of wizard (ftr5 / wiz 1) but in either case she becomes a CR 6 character. This is important, because as we will see, a PrC is a deliberate attempt to make an exception to this rule, but only a slight exception.
There are three major elements of a PrC that I want to write about. The first is the notion that the PrC does not count as a base class for purposes of the multi-class penalty. The second is the notion of class features. Even though both base classes and PrCs both have class features, the notion of class features becomes more important because of the number of PrCs that are available, more so than with the base core classes. Finally there is the notion of requirements.
It has been argued that any class concept can be obtained through a combination of the base classes. This is somewhat true, although one can argue that they cannot always be obtained optimally, or without an experience penalty. The ability of the PrC to ignore the penalties of diverse difference of multiple class levels is a driving feature of many PrC. A good example of this is the “Exotic Weapon Master” in “Complete Warrior” which has a requirement of a BAB of +6 (meaning you have to be at least a 6th level fighter to qualify) yet only has 3 levels.
The second element of a PrC is the class feature. While it is true that you can create your own feat, the only requirements of a feat are ability scores and other feats. Restricting a feat to a certain class is not an element of 3.5. Class feats allow specific classes to have custom feats that no other class can have, and at specific levels. With the base classes, class feats can often be seen as a straight jacket which imposes penalties if not followed precisely. Paladins, for example, get warhorses. You can play a paladin without a horse, but you get nothing in return for doing so. Playing a fighter who does not use armor is likewise throwing away the free ability of heavy armor proficiency. Most PrCs come down to the selection of class features.
Finally there is the obvious difference that the PrC has base requirements in order to be met. There is the implication because the PrC has requirements and the base class does not, then the PrC should be more powerful than the base class for the given level. I’m not sure I completely follow the argument. Shouldn’t the same argument apply to feats as well? Shouldn’t having a greater requirement mean having more power?
Let’s look at the Two Handed weapon feat progression. The two weapon fighting feat requires a dexterity of 15, and gives you an off hand weapon attack without penalty. The improved two weapon fighting requires a dexterity of 17 and gives you an additional off hand weapon attack (with a penalty for that attack only). The greater two weapon fighting requires a dexterity of 19 but still gives you the same as improved two weapon fighting, an additional off hand weapon attack. Even though the latter has a higher requirement, it does not grant a greater difference in power.
Unfortunately, many PrCs, even official ones, are not designed with this in mind. A level of PrC is not only more optimized for a specific class design than a core class, it is also built to be either slightly or significantly more powerful than a core class. People expect and demand superior class features in a PrC. Such classes are nothing more than attempts to sneak in additional power without improving the CR of the character.
The notion of vertical and horizontal balance is so significant to 3E that most of the biggest problems are due to a lack of understanding this important principle. Balance is at the heart of almost all debates about ECL, for example. It is also at the heart of all PrC arguments. In the end, the balance issue boils down to the notion that all levels are equivalent. All level deltas must be roughly the same in terms of additional power, because, barring NPC classes, a character’s CR is the sum of his or her levels. Taking a level N+1 of a class results in the same CR shift as taking level M+1 of another class or a PrC and as a result demands that while a PrC can be a more optimal set of features, it should not be a more powerful one.
I'm not sure what it will be like to return to the DM chair. 3.0/3.5 seems to have taken power-gaming to a whole new level. With all the feats and PrCs, I'm not sure how our current DM ever has time to come up with plot lines.
One good thing about the prodigious amount of PrCs is that in absence of a book or more DMG guidance on creating them, I can take the many ideas to make my own unique (and rare) PrCs for my own campaign world.
On another note, I love learning more about the development of the game and articles like yours can help all of us decide the direction in which we'd like to seem the game grow. Thanks.
Certain PrCs fill niches that cannot be filled with multiclassing, especially between the four "basic" classes. Heck, most of the core class concepts can't be fulfilled by multiclassing between the "basic" classes. How can one be a raging barbarian when one can only choose from fighter, mage, thief, and cleric? How can one be a sorcerer. Thus, core classes. How can one be an effective finesse fighter when the game focuses mostly on strength for combat, and you don't want all the roguish trappings? Are you to multiclass, hurting your HP and BAB totals while at the same time underutilizing your abilities (ignoring your trap abilities, as well as your medium and heavy armor profs)? Is that fair to the person who wants to play a swashbuckling hero? Not really. Could that player be better served by playing a swashbuckler core class and/or taking levels of the Duelist PrC? Most certainly. Would he really need to belong to a special organization just to focus more on something he was already doing anyway? Not likely.
If I have a concept for a character, it may be possible that I can play a generic class that kind of fits the bill and claim that I'm something specific, but if I find that I lack certain traits one would expect in that concept (such as, for example, the ability to right unarmored without being hit constantly, or the ability to summon creatures from the Far Realms or shape how our fireball explodes), then shouldn't there be some way to do this? Is it so wrong to expect that if one has an idea for a character, he should be able to, within the rules themselves, do what that character should be able to do, rather than just pretending he can when there is no difference between him and the next character? Feats do a decent amount of specializing, but many viable concepts cannot be represented with the current feats, nor should they be, because not only are feats rare unless you're a fighter, but often times the feats in conjunction with special class abilities are what you want to create the character you envision. Until there are no longer classes but simply point bought characters (bordering on World of Darkness or Hero), I'll stick to taking PrCs that fit my concept, and to being inspired by newer PrCs that give me ideas that I might never have thought of before because I knew they couldn't be accomplished. Once the point buy D&D comes out, expect me to stop calling it D&D, though I might keep playing it.
But, then again, I think I might be a munchkin n00b, though I do remember my 2nd Edition AD&D books with some amount of dislike because of their lack of flexibility.
Now I’m not against PrCs at all, I just don’t think that sourcebooks should be encouraging them or handing out hundreds of pre-made ones. D&D is a game where one uses imagination to transcend a simple rule-set; it is ultimately not a game of pre-made statistics. If you want that, play one of those card games. Of course, I always feel bad saying that, as everyone is entitled to play the way they want. If you enjoy power-gaming, I have no right to say you can’t play that way. Heck, the character I mentioned above was quite devastating. I do, however, feel that for D&D to remain true to its origins, the rules should encourage imagination on the part of the players. Yet that seems to be a secondary concern in the corporate ear of D&D. Unfortunately there is just too much money to be made by churning out an endless supply of rule-breaking supplements. Anyway, I should be working on my group’s next adventure, so I’m going to resist the urge to prattle on (or refine this fairly inarticulate post).
Have fun all,
Ashen Grey
PS: I’ve got this great idea for a new Monopoly piece, it’s the Indy Car. It moves double the amount shown on the dice, but it has to pay 1.5 times normal payout for landing on houses or hotels. Stupid, yah I know, but the point is play the game, not the rules.
Let me rephrase that. I like PrC. As in no more than (1) PrC per character.
A Fighter 7, Dwarven Defender 10 is a memorable character.
A Ranger 3, Fighter 5, Order of the Bow Init 2, Sorcerer 1, Arcane Archer 9 is a min/maxed piece of crunchie munch. The stacking of PrCs is by nature a broken instruments since PrCs are not balanced with this in mind.
Thus, these are the solutions I have heard:
(1) Go back to four base classes, and let everything else be resolved into feats and clever multiclassing.
The problem with this, is that it just opens up the stacking PrC ability nightmare all over again. Either the ability is lost forever, put out as a feat for evil stacking, or else put at the end of a long feat chain that just becomes a "ghost PrC" that you never see but still controls your character like a vice.
(2) Cut out PrCs all together.
This can be done, and I would suggest it for at least the first campaign that and DM runs, as well as the first 3 characters a player ever runs. Beyond that, however, not having them is just missing out on extra flavor.
(3) Give guidelines for PrC construction.
At this point the min/maxing simple shifts from the rules of the PrC to the rules of PrC construction. The PrCs will loose flavor from being "maxed out".
(4) My suggestion: let character concept drive the class selection of the player.
You will notice that on this board I already have a thread for "Turning 10 LV PrCs into 20 LV Base Classes." Why did I do that? Because, if I have a player who wants to play an Arcane Archer, I see no reason not to let them play one from level 1 to 20.
Of course, powers are limited and delayed appropriately. I have found, however, that most PrCs are easily adapted into acceptable 20 level base classes.
Once you do this, all you have to do is to eliminate multiclassing all together. Want a multiclass Cleric/Wizard of Boccob? Then pick a 20 level Mystic Theurge.
The only problem with the proliferation of base classes (other than the ban on multiclassing) is that they take more work and page space in books.
I hope, however, that we will see PrCs disappear in 4th edition and be replaced, either by a more "fluid" system that allows total customization or by the inclusion of new base classes.
I agree with many people in this thread. PrCs do seem to be getting out of hand to me, especially since I have been DMing in my own world since the first time I rolled a d20. PrCs come out with every supplement, I can't think of a book other than the PHB, MM, and MM2 that doesn't have one now.
Now, I don't feel as drastically as some here do. I like PrCs. I use them for several functions:
Racial PrCs: I am designing or reworking a PrC for each of my non-human races in my campaign setting. These function as the elites of their respective races, epitomizing the very nature of their combat styles and natures.
Multiclass PrCs: Currently, the only MC PrC that I like is the Arcane Trickster; reworking or recreating the others has been my work for quite some time now. I like the Arcane Trickster because unlike the Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge, and Hospitalier, it has great flavor. My Eldritch Knight makes their familiar into their specialized weapon, my Mystic Theurge is able to scribe divine spells into their spellbook and use positive/negative energy to empower/alter their spells, and the hospitalier is unnecessary with the changes I'm making to the paladin/templar/blackguard trio.
Organizational PrCs: Though I haven't put much effort into these, I will definitely have these within my world. The Racial PrCs will fall into this partly, and partly into the specialist PrCs below.
Specialist PrCs: This group is growing fewer and fewer in number as time goes on for me. I have spent much time converting many of these into feats or other options. I do recognize their potential, and I will utilize them when everything else is said and done, but I'd rather the core classes had more say in things.
Now, I do understand that character's feats are few and far between, and giving up class abilities for other feat type skills seems to be the purpose of a well made specialist PrC. I think that players need to sit down with their DM and really figure out what the group's views on PrCs are, then go from there.
“Over-reliance on mechanical abilities to replace roleplaying ability are rather bothersome, and just seem to be on the rise with each new PrC to come out.”
He also wrote:
“New players are getting so wrapped up in classes and races that they are losing perspective on the actual roleplaying aspect, which is at the heart of the game.”
After re-reading this thread, I'd say these two quotes encapsulate the root issue. You know, the first time I played D&D, my friends and I used the Basic boxed set, and we had a blast. We quickly moved on to AD&D, and we had a blast. Then everyone said D&D was evil, and 2nd Ed was born. Now those rules really sucked, but you know what? We had a blast anyway. 3.x came out, and guess what? We are still having a blast. My point is one doesn’t ultimately derive enjoyment of the game from the rules. No rule-set alone, no matter how fantastically balanced and all encompassing can make the game fun.
That of course begs the question: why care where PrCs are going; why care how many there are; why care if they are balanced; and so on? I care because the proliferation of official and quasi-official rule tweaks, rule supplements, and rule revisions puts too much ‘official’ focus on the rule-set. It transforms a game about imagination and creativity into a game about charts. That in no way means I think the game would be better off without charts, or dice, or feats, or prestige classes for that matter. I simply believe that the official rules should be presented as concisely as possible: brevity is the soul of wit. The creation of custom classes, new PrCs, custom feats, sweet magic items, and whatnot should be in the hands of the people playing the game. If people want to share their ideas, that’s great. Do it at the game shop; do it in electronic forums, but most of all do it at the game table.
Thanks again Edymnion, you really sparked off a lively and insightful discussion. Thanks also to all who have posted; there have been a lot of great points made. I’m simply a reader from here on out (especially since I’ve managed to repeat myself three times).
Have fun,
Ashen Grey
PS I’m not against supplements in general, but the best ones are campaign specific and not ‘generic’ rule supplements. The old City of Greyhawk boxed set is a great example of a really good supplement. Problem is they are much more labor intensive and people don’t feel ‘compelled’ to buy scenario specific stuff, so it’s not as profitable to put them out.
Feats and clever multiclassing would be a better way to handle many of the PrCs that I have seen. Better in being more flexible, allowing a player to make the character more his own. That flexibility makes that method harder to balance, and does not help players seeking inspiration for their character. There are also some abilities that are better handled as class abilities, and some weaknesses in multiclassing that PrCs can help with.
How memorable a character is has nothing to do with what classes he has. A character with many PrCs may be one that is highly optimized for a particular goal, or one whose player has no goal in mind and just takes what seems right at the time. In the game I am playing at the moment once character has 6 classes (at 13th level): Barabarian, fighter, ranger, rogue, foe hunter and a barbarian PrC. All were chosen to fit his character - a barbarian, who hates orcs, is good with a 2 handed sword and fairly skilled. The other two PCs are a Sorcerer/ranger/spellsword and a rogue/illusionist/fighter/mindbender (mine).
To emphasize the nature of other races and the differences between their culture and that of humans I like to create NPC classes for those races, since members of PrCs are rare. E.g.
Traditional Dwarves
However, if you're dead-set on having prestige classes, then there should be some consistency in their construction and their power levels. For this, it is necessary to have clearly-established guidelines on the construction of prestige classes, and it is necessary for all prestige classes to comply with them. If a prestige class is a world-building tool and a vehicle for offering class options that are difficult to build through other means, then it should be no more powerful than the core classes. By the same token, no one prestige class should be more powerful than any other prestige class. However, that does not seem to be the case. (As an example, I know there is another thread in Regdar's Repository dedicated to the faults of one prestige class in particular; I'm sure other examples abound on these boards.)
Originally posted by Mercurius
As world building tools, the PrC becomes little more than something an NPC gets, unless you tell the player what PrCs are available, what their requirements are, and then let them get them. Otherwise, once they stumble upon, say, the Arcane Order and the Mage PrC therein, they find that they've got at least three or four more levels to go before they can qualify, even if they have joined, while their peers within the organization, built by the DM, already have several levels of the class.
And what is wrong with that? You don't have to be able to take something the instant you meet the absolute bare minimums for it. If you have been roleplaying your character well, and it is clear what sort of thing they want to become, the DM should be dropping hints as to requirements. The Archer PrC in some game is renowned for their prowess with the bow, and are rumored to make their own out of the rarest of materials. That would be a hint that you need to be taking ranks in Craft (bowyer). You don't need to know exactly how many ranks as a player, because your character doesn't know how good he/she has to be to get in. You don't have to metagame requirements, just do it in game.
Certain PrCs fill niches that cannot be filled with multiclassing, especially between the four "basic" classes. Heck, most of the core class concepts can't be fulfilled by multiclassing between the "basic" classes. How can one be a raging barbarian when one can only choose from fighter, mage, thief, and cleric? How can one be a sorcerer.
I believe the key word there is "fully" realized. A Barbarian is nothing more than a specialized Fighter. The Sorcerer is nothing more than an alternate power point using Wizard. Just because you can do a concept better with PrC doesn't mean that it is the only way to do it.
If you want to be a raging barbarian, you can easily play a fighter with anger management issues. You don't HAVE to have hardcoded mechanics for alterations to your strength and con. You don't need damage reduction to show that you shrug off attacks, you just need hitpoints. With only a little bit of effort, you can roleplaying a pure fighter as a barbarian, and be successful while doing it. Sure, you don't use all of the abilities of the Fighter class, but you could.
Sorcerer? It can be replicated with a pure Wizard with minor houserule changes in memorization, or by using power points.
Ranger? Fighter x/Rogue 2x.
Paladin? Fighter 2x/Cleric x.
Bard? Rogue 2x/Wizard x.
Druid? Cleric 3x/Wizard 1x/Fighter 2x
Monk? Pure Fighter with Unarmed feats
Assassin? Fighter x/Rogue 3x.
Arcane Archer? Fighter 2x/Wizard x.
Dwarven Defender? Pure Fighter.
Blackguard? Evil Fighter 2x/Cleric x.
Duelist? Pure Dex Fighter.
Are these the most "Optimal" ways to implement these classes and PrC? No, they're not. The stuff written up for them is stronger, because it was specifically made for it. But, are the combinations above playable with a little roleplaying skill? You bet they are.
You don't need rules and mechanics to play a character. They merely help you to play it better. What it takes to play a character is roleplaying. It is quite easy to build two characters with exactly the same skills, feats, and levels, and have two totally different people represented. You don't need a "Hotheaded and Moody" class to play someone with those traits, you just do it.
That’s the way any character should be. You shouldn't be worrying about how fast they can kill things, or, gods forbid, that they will have to wait until level 7 to get into a PrC instead of level 6. Just play your character well, and it doesn't matter if you never get a PrC, as you will already have a fun and memorable character that isn't defined by his or her classes and feats, but by the hours of play you put into them.
My own opinion is that PrCs should remain DM world-building tools and should be awarded to PCs for good role-playing which indicates that they are already well suited for the roll that PrC fills. In my campaign world no player may take a PrC without being invited into it by an existing member or someone with the authority to determine membership (such as a fiend inviting someone to be a blackguard). These invitations are entirely under my control.
The only WotC PrCs that have appeared in my campaign so far have been Arcane Archer, Assassin, and Blackguard and those only as NPCs. The only two PCs with prestige classes are both using homebrew PrCs of my design that flesh out the world. Those two PCs earned invitations to join these elite groups by deeds done in game which were seen as a service to those groups or being aligned with the purposes and goals of those groups.
Personally I abhor the "advanced class" idea because it reduces the prestige of the core classes. They are by implication less advanced and therefore less desirable.
I'm also of the opinion that it should be virtually impossible to be a member of two PrCs because they should generally have pretty specific goals, membership requirements, and/or practices which would preclude splitting your loyalties, training, and/or specializations in such a manner.
So great article. I hope it stirs up some thought on this subject and that DMs in general re-take their control over PrC availability.
An example to this would be the elemental savant PrC from Tome and Blood. A player decides he wants to play a sorcerer specialized on Lightning and Air spells, so he dedicates his spell list to this theme he takes spells like chain lightning, lightning bolt, levitate, wall of air, etc. While this already represents a very strong specialization it does not really provide any kind of bonus to the character nor does it impose stronger penalties on his character. Now imagine he finds the elemental savant and is fascinated by it, not because of his powers or because it has such a great min-maxing power. He does not care too much about something like that. He likes the PrC because its stylish and it lets him give something away for his specialization (no spells of opposed energy) and gives him a nice little bonus on his saves. But that’s only of secondary importance to him. The main point to him is that he transform into an elemental creature--a manifestation of his chosen element. And immunity to crits is a nice little bonus too
The point I wanted to make it that PrCs offer a great potential for roleplaying if used right (with a few exceptions like the Warhulk which I will never allow in my games) and that they are perhaps the most flexible way for character creation. I don’t want to say that it is good to make all these 2 level dips in different prestige classes, but if the player has a reasonable explanation (it is possible) let him. Or create a customized PrC for him. I do this very often as DM and most players love it.
Originally posted by Edymnion
Exactly. There is absolutely no fantasy concept you can imagine that can't be built with multiclassing the four base classes (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue) with a tweak or two and some good roleplaying, but I constantly see people on the boards that seem to think they just can't play their concept unless they've got special mechanics made up just for that purpose.
Yes and no. Here's an example. One concept that I had been toying with was based on old old staple of not merely fantasy literature, but Norse mythology. That being the Dwarven Artificer. (Mind you this was before I even heard about Eberron.) In the old myths, dwarves weren't known for their fighting prowess, but for their talents in making objects of great power. So to accomplish this in D&D I would multiclass Rogue (for the skill points and some of the class abilities) and Wizard (for the broad rage of effects for objects, and for the bonus feats.)
Unfortunately without some PrC such a character will be doomed to be a mediocre Rogue and a mediocre Wizard, because neither is the Favored class of the Dwarf. He'll be casting more than would be appropriate for someone that concentrates on making things. The things he makes won't be that impressive, with his Wizard levels advancing every other level. And when he engages in his profession he will be stunting his advancement in it due to the horrible xp costs.
Unfortunately, multiclass combos, while appropriate in the beginning, can be disastrous in the long term. Sometimes a PrC is needed to help a valid concept be viable option.
Another example is the priest of a god of magic. I think it's natural to assume that such a god would want its clergy to be proficient in the arcane. People scoff at the Mystic Theurge as the PrC for power gamers (although I've seen at least one argument such a character is vastly disadvantaged.) But the idea behind it is still a valid concept that would be horribly underpowered without a prestige class, or a variant core class.
While I agree that the abundance of PrC is excessive; far too many seem to be simple exercises of k3w1 133t p0w3rz. However, they should still be a good way to make a particular multiclass combo, or specialization viable when used to fill niches that need to be filled.
Originally posted by narfi78
While I agree that the abundance of PrC is excessive; far too many seem to be simple exercises of k3w1 133t p0w3rz. However, they should still be a good way to make a particular multiclass combo, or specialization viable when used to fill niches that need to be filled.
Never said they weren't. A dwarven PrC Artificer is a worldbuilding PrC if I ever saw one. It is introducing an entire group of powerful worldbuilders. They're going to need their own cities, their own wonderous architecture, hidden coves, etc., and some explaining why there are loose magic items floating around in the game.
My main objection is how PrC are becoming Advanced Classes that players think they are entitled to take, regardless of what is going on in the rest of the world. If that were true, PrC would be in the Player's Handbook. They aren't, they're in the DMG, meaning the players don't have to ever even see one if the DM doesn't want them to. Just like how the PCs never have to see a Holy Avenger or a suit of Demon Armor unless the DM specifically puts it in there.
I think Prestige Classes are an interesting part of the game. They can add a great deal of world flavour to a campaign if used well. You can certainly achieve a great deal of flexibility simply through multi-classing but a good prestige class offers a unique mix of abilities that are hard to simulate. The Dwarven defender is an example of this; this PrC has several interesting little ability tweaks that cannot easily be simulated through the conventional classes. It also defines the character's place in the game and adds a few role-playing elements.
Does it take the place of good role-playing? No.
Does it discourage role-playing? No.
Bad prestige classes can throw off the balance of your game, but so can bad feats. I find the Arcane strike feat can make a mage a much more effective melee combatant than a fighter, especially when used in conjuction with defensive spells and say.... Mordankainens sword. I choose not to use this feat in my campaign, but I can see how others might find it appropriate to their stories. So I can agree with Endymion that bad prestige classes throw off game balance.
What I do not see is how prestige classes encourage bad role-playing. Mechanics can influence Role-Playing, but can never dictate how a player chooses to play his or her character. If a player chooses a series of classes/prestige classes to define a character's abilities and then role-plays that character poorly then I would bet that the same person would role-play a regular character poorly as well.
Role-Playing is an art. A few blessed souls are naturally good at assuming the role of a character in an imaginary world; most people have to be taught. I feel very strongly that new players have to learn this craft, and in some cases prestige classes and other rules based glitter can distract a novice player. But in the end it is mostly in the hands of the DM and more experienced players to show this person the ropes.
The idea of a prestige class, IMO, is to make your character more interesting, and/or, do what you want your character to do (concept). There are alot of concepts that just can't be done with normal classes (i.e. cast arcane spells while wearing armor, wielding 2 weapons without any annoying penalties, or having some other unique set of abilities no one else has, at the cost of your generalization and diversity. Yes prestige class characters do tend to be slightly more powerful than non, but a spellcasting prestige class’ familiar will suck, a foe hunting ranger will have crappy spells and animal companions, a duelist’s intelligence ability is offset by the lack of armor, etc. Yes "guild" membership is good for a prestige class, but it shouldn't be required. A lot of character concepts have nothing to do with membership--especially those on the more chaotic side of the spectrum, like rogue prestige classes. The assassin was an original prestige class, and it didn't require membership.
I believe character specialization is what makes prestige classes so useful, and the game would be dry and boring without them. Prestige classes make the game more enjoyable, and make both PCs and NPCs not just cookie cutter characters that have no substance.
However, a prestige class becomes an easy substitute for roleplaying. A character could play a monk who becomes drunk often, but that character would be weaker than the average monk because of the penalties gained while inebriated. Rather than accept a challenge, they adopt the drunken master prestige class, and turn their weakness into a strength. The title "Drunken Master" suddenly creates in the mind of the DM and the other players the concept that the creator envisioned, and without the struggle to roleplay.
On the other hand, sometimes the prestige class forces a character to roleplay heavily. A Knight of the Chalice is not a run of the mill Paladin, he/she is a demon hunting paladin. They no longer have the broad scope of the core classes. Suddenly they are focused by their choice of class. The PC takes pride in the character, and transforms the Knight into a Dwarf driven by tortured memories of horned devils torturing his family. They give no quarter in battle against the denizens of the lower planes, and brazenly assault any who summon or ally themselves with demons. The wizard in the party is hesitant to cast certain spells for fear the Knight of the chalice may condemn her and kill her. The DM uses a Demon Prince as the instigator of a series of events leading to a climactic battle in which the Knight gives his life to slay his foe.
The Prestige class is now a tool used more by the players than the DM, and that is because the DM allowed them to. Rather than condemn the players or bemoan the loss, move with the flow. Perhaps requiring your players to acquire a prestige class will make your players a better role player. It would be interesting to see how players reacted to a DM that assigned them a custom prestige class that loosely fit their role-playing style. All in all, the shift in use indicates a devotion to the concept of individuality offered by the Prestige class. It still adds flavor into a world, though it does so through the player rather than the dungeon master
I have long been of the opinion that prestige classes, in their current, widespread, nearly-core state, bog down gameplay in yet more mechanics. This article, and the ensuing discussion, both enlightened the "why" of the situation, and gave me some good ideas as well.
Currently, as a house rule, I have allowed PrCs from the DMG with few or no questions asked. I believe in my next campaign, I will encourage players to stay away from PrCs, and slowly try to tone them down (Mainly because trying to simply take them away would likely result in an argument I would rather avoid).
The reason I say this is that the DM is the one in charge. If he or she says no PrCs for the PCs , then the answer is no. However, most DMs like the PCs having PrCs. It helps the DM progress his story by giving him more ides. How many players were asked from the beginning of the game, by the DM, which PrC each was going to take? This question is asked to help him build the story around the players. It is the DM's job to make the players want to play their game. There are only so many routes that one can take with a certain class. I feel that PrC's should be available for both the DM and the PC. In giving the player the opportunity to have a prestige class, it gets them thinking about their character and how that character should act, which route to take, etc.
I think that it can be taken to the extreme at times. However, those extremes are what make the game interesting. If a character has so many classes that he cannot roleplay them effectively, then the DM has to deduct roleplaying XP for the lack of roleplaying based on the class. One of the posts used school as an example. I will go further with that.
College is a prestige class, as is joining the workforce. However, in both aspects, you can further specialize. The college graduate attends postgraduate studies to get a Master's degree, and the mechanic learns another aspect of the trade. The postgraduate graduate, again, specializes even further to get a PhD. The mechanic becomes ASE certified.
I think that a player can have more than one PrC, as long as it has something to do with what he was doing prior. For example, I chose to be a Divine Warrior. I had a half-celestial/elf paladin. I later acquired the Knight of the Left Hand PrC. it is only a five-level PrC. I cannot go back to paladin. So, I chose the cleric. Two levels later, and after I met the prerequisites, I chose the Divine Hammer PrC, which is another five-level PrC. Guess what, through it all, I stayed a Divine Warrior, my original character concept. Now that I am a DM, I will be using this character as "The Guardian of the Gates." So, if the DM allows it, and you do not go overboard, I do not think that there is anything wrong with PCs having PrCs. It can help you to establish a character for a later campaign that you will run.
All of the DMs that I have had required that a person have trained with a member of another class in order to multi-class. If a PC wants to train to become an Arcane Archer, then the PC needs to find an Arcane Archer. However, if the PrC is not guild related, then why would it not be possible for the character to have stumbled onto a fighting style or such, that eventually turns into the prestige class. That is the reason for prerequisites. If the PrCs had been TRULY designed for DMs as tools, then there would not have been prerequisites, and they would have named them NPC classes instead of Prestige Classes. I know what prestige means, and this is why they were named prestige classes, but saying that a character cannot have a prestige class is almost like saying that you will never amount to anything. In the end, it is up to the DM to decide which PrC is available, whether the XP penalty should be applied, and how many PrCs should be allowed. Always obey the DM. (Yes, I am a DM.)
It's certainly true that fighter types can "cherry pick" other fighter classes with impunity, but any spell caster who multi-classes sacrifices a great deal of power to do so. I'm not concerned by a loss of some power - you have to give up something to get something else - but generally speaking, a 5/5 multi-class spellcaster is not balanced with a 10th level character of either class.
The problem is that spell levels are not linear. The viability of a 10th level caster is more than double the effectiveness of a 5th level caster. Fighter classes are effectively linear, since weapon-combat is all about BAB and AC (both of which get bonuses from feats, magic STR, DEX about equally). However, the spell progressions for casters aren't linear with either the number of spells per day, or the power of those spells. A single 5th level spell is often more than twice as powerful as a single 3rd level spell - because you factor in the higher DC, the higher damage, and in some cases, a bigger area. So if my concept is a Fighter/Wizard type, then I'm more likely to attain it by going Eldritch Knight (or Spellsword, Bladesinger etc depending on the flavour I want) than I am Fighter/Wizard.
Originally posted by Remnant
I have long been of the opinion that prestige classes, in their current, widespread, nearly-core state, bog down gameplay in yet more mechanics.
Okay, I've seen this same statement in other places, and I think I need to address it here to keep things from going off on a tangent.
If something is Core, it simply means that it appears in the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, or the Monster Manual. If it is in one of those three books, then it is Core material. Being optional or a variant doesn't matter, its still core.
PrC first appeared in the 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide, namely the Arcane Archer, the Shadowdancer, the Dwarven Defender, the Blackguard, the Loremaster, and the Assassin. 3.5 added several more Core PrC.
The idea of PrC is Core. Several PrC themselves are Core. Some PrC are not Core. Just remember that Core means absolutely nothing more than that the article in question appears in the PHB, DMG, or MM. If it’s in those books, it’s Core. If not, then it’s not Core. If it isn't Core, then you get into the areas where you start defining the material as First Party (aka made by WotC) or Third Party (like AEG or Mongoose).
Originally posted by Edymnion
No, we just need to dump the 3.5 Advanced Class idea and go back to the 3.0 DM worldbuilding tool. Aka, PrC are NOT options for the player to take to customize their characters. PrC ARE tools the DM can use to add flavor to their world.
In many cases, however, if you remove the option of customization without supporting it through another vehicle, many players and DMs will be less than enthused by the idea. You are certainly correct in stating that many people look to PrCs to customize character classes to fit their desires, whether their desires are of their character concept or mechanical features, or something of the like. Currently this is one of the primary demands that makes PrCs so popular and alluring.
I suppose you can tell folk that you can get close enough to near any given concept using the base classes, and it's true - that's nary a thing that isn't at least playable using the customization options existing and some leeway in description/interpretation and roleplaying. (And particularly if you allow for the creation of some feats to supplant some features.)
However, PrCs provide something that is both more tailored to a given concept and allows for more unique defining abilities and characteristics. And they can help to keep a particular sort of character balanced. Though many of the concepts you can build with the base classes are playable, some do take a hit in power. It would be nice if a disparity in ability couldn't be so easily attained in either direction, mighty or meager, but seamless multiclassing isn't exactly here. Keeping characters matching their CR is something that a lot of both DMs and players value.
Though, honestly, I would like it better if multiclassing were more seemless, if it were harder to get a deviation in power just for trying to attain a particular concept or combination. Then again, I would probably like to see the core classes have more customizable sets of skills and abilities to fill this role, in place of a plethora of PrCs. However, I don't get warm fuzzies about phasing out that use of PrCs without another avenue of customization to take its place.
Anyways, PrCs certainly were originally intended to be world-specific and defining tools. What I would say that PrCs have become is a stopgap measure to help to cover various multiclassing issues and fill a desire for variation. More than likely they are somewhat improper in filling that role. However, before you see them returned to their original use (if that's going to happen), you'd do well to try to address those issues. Though some folk might cut it (that use of PrCs) out roughshod, others would want another solution in place.
Then again, I suppose my fondness of customization and variation can probably be seen from the system in my sig.
Originally posted by Edymnion
If it isn't Core, then you get into the areas where you start defining the material as First Party (aka made by WotC) or Third Party (like AEG or Mongoose).
So what is Second Party?
Anyway, Prestige Classes. I've played D&D since it came out, and I've yet to take a prestige class. They simply don't interest me as gaming material. I've been thinking about making a Prestige Class for my character concept (merchant), but then I though: what's the point?
As Edymnion points out, and it seems everyone agrees on, the Prestige Classes began as a world-building tool and has ended up as something quite different. Whether this different is bad or good seems to depend on your point of view, what game you want to play, and so on.
Are most Prestige Classes produced by the flood of material we are deluged with good, balanced and well-thought out? Certainly not. Most of them are 100% drek, either bad ideas from the beginning or very poor execution. To sift through this amount of hay to find the needles is very hard work, but it can be done, and it has to be done.
In the end, it comes down to the authority of the DM. The DMs of the world needs to know that they can ban }anything from the game, and that they will need to ban a lot of third-party and first-party material (and some core rules) if they want a sane and playable campaign. Banning material isn't just common, it's necessary for a campaign to have anything resembling cohesiveness.
Personally, I like the "generic classes" in Unearthed Arcana a lot. They tie in nicely with Edymnion's statement that you can play anything with the four base classes (in UA, they are Warrior, Expert, Divine Spellcaster and Arcane Spellcaster), and I think they prove his point. There are exceedingly few concepts that can't be played with these classes.
Are Prestige Classes necessary then? No, they're not. It is quite possible to have a full, satisfying DnD campaign without a trace of prestige classing in sight. Especially when you consider that it is actually core material to play around with the class skills of the base classes.
(1) As has been repeated here a lot, PrCs are being used as cherry trees to be picked for abilities.
(2) PrCs often carry the flavor for the entire character, leaving the character, after 10 levels of PrC going, "now what do I do without violating the kind of character I want to play?"
(3) PrCs often require metagame builds to get there. A player might have to take feats, skills, or other things that do not fit the kind of character they envision in order to qualify for the PrC.
(4) PrCs mistake job for class. A down-on-his-luck LV 1 commoner who is paid to stick a knife in your PC's gut is every bit as much of an Assassin as someone who has that PrC.
(5) PrCs jack up the average level of your campiagn world. Since most PrCs require organizations full of that PrC, and since PrCs usually require that the character be at least 6th level, you have to have a lot of mid to high level characters arround to have a world with lots of PrCs running about it.
(6) Many PrCs lack flavor. They are little more than means to put a game mechanic into play, or an excuse for a special ability. Most, in the name of balance, are bland.
The Solution? Make PrCs their own 20 LV classes (or in my campaigns, 40 LV classes, but that is a different issue all together).
What does this do?
(1) Cherry picking is no longer an issue, since now that they are normal classes, multiclassing penalties all apply.
(2) Now your character can be his favorite class from level one and never has to leave it. No longer do they spend 5 levels waiting and working to be the Assassin they always envision their character as, they can be an Assassin from their first to last level.
(3) No more metagaming to get to a PrC. While a class might still have racial or alignment restrictions, their feat choice is up to them. If there is a feat, ability, or skill that is critical to the function of the class (say, the Rage Ability for a Frenzied Berserker), then work it into the class as a class ability.
(4) The Job/Class issue will still be there, but, when their are LV 1 Assassins out there, your LV3 PCs will no longer freak out and run away when they hear that there are 5 Assassins trying to kill the king.
(5) The Average level of your campaign can be whatever you want it to be, as you are not forced to have a character be a certain level just to be a certain class.
(6) Any PrC that lacks flavor or well thought out abilities will not work over 20 levels, and thus, gets the scrapping it so richly deserves.
As for flavor and choices, I have found that the best role players I have ever had have been the ones who needed the fewest choices when it comes to mechanics. Players with 30 different base classes to choose from have all the variety they need, and start looking for ways to make those classes interesting and unique. (Since most PrCs are Cookie Cutters when used in the current system).
Furthermore, since there are PrCs that can be turned into full classes for just about any idea the Player might want, I impose a full 10% XP penalty on ALL multiclassing to remove any remaining cherry picking (you can still do it, but you pay for it).
Originally posted by Asta Kask
So what is Second Party?
Second Party doesn't factor into this sort of material. Second Party is when something is made by a smaller company owned by the main company, and is released by the main company.
For the video game fans, Rare used to be a Second Party publisher for Nintendo. Nintendo owned Rare, and all Rare games came out on Nintendo consoles. Later on, Rare got sold to Microsoft, and they became an Xbox Second Party publisher.
For D&D terms, a Second Party would be if WotC/Hasbro bought AEG, and then let AEG publish more or less whatever it wanted as official material.
Actually, I guess in a way, Dragon Magazine is a Second Party publisher for D&D. It’s not owned by WotC anymore, but gets to put out exclusive D&D only material that is considered official. So yeah, Dragon magazine would be a Second Party publisher.
First, there's the character I DM for. I'm a bit of a newbie, due to my peers. My school isn't such a good DnD environment. So I said, sure, Leandra Reavalee, if you turn down being proficient with (insert whatever weapon we agreed on here) as a paladin, I'll let you have exotic weapon proficiency: greatsword for free!
While this makes sense mathematically (you gain as much as you loose), that isn't important here. For Cade, if I'd found a class devoted to roguery, being dashingly attractive in your mind's eye but not being very strong, with free feats concerning firing crossbows while riding sheepdogs... he'd be a whole lot more powerful.
And you could make that class, too. If I traded in some of the rogue's class abilities... maybe some weapon proficiencies... I'd have something with an equal amount of power statistically. But it would be perfect for Cade, who would become Cade the Magnificent quicker than I planned. He'd also probably never dabble in divine spellcasting through being a Temple Raider of Olidammara, miss out on his epiphany of religion and never reconcile with his family.
The point of this all is that classes loose power through being vague. Nobody uses all of the abilities of a certain class. How many of you have looked at a class skill and realized you've used it twice, and once you rolled a critical failure anyways?
Back to Cade for a second. I realize that I want a class that gives him more independence, lets him adventure alone a bit more efficiently. Temple Raider of Olidammara (TRO) gives this to him. Of course, I could go online and find the PrC Highland Sheepriders of Crossbow Fury (HSCF) which some hallucinating player created long ago. I'd beg my DM to use it and have a character who got the most power down a straight line.
But life isn't like that. PrC reflect how higher-power players have a chance to focus their learning. At lower levels, we have to accept general training. Like how I have to fill up my English and history credits despite having fulfilled my math and science credits freshman year. At higher levels, we can find different venues, having picked up those logical rounded skills.
It's as if the rules saw Timmy, Powergamer looking to make a fighter-based template that had the power of Regdar at first level but had no skill points. The rules didn't like this, so they told Timmy that, if he waited a few levels and picked up the necessary skill points to pick his nose without taking lethal damage, he could have the specific things he wanted without nagging his DM.
And this is where the requirements come in. PrCs curry favour with me through their coming about only at a higher level. It's university for characters.
That said, there are some things to look out for.
First, it shouldn't get too specific. You should be able to have a pair of PCs with the exact same classes (PrC and non) who are completely different. There is still variation within a PrC, just less variation.
Second, it should have clear definitions. It should be based on a fighting/spellcasting/etc. style, a religious order, something that defines it. This means you can have a logical set of requirements that assure whoever's going into it has the appropriate backstory. We don't want Mialee being able to take the Dread Pirate prestige class under most circumstances.
Third, it shouldn't be too powerful. This is basic. A lv10Fighter/lv10Clubthunker is more powerful than a lv20 fighter not by numbers but by the fact that his PrC lets him specialize on hitting objects with blunt objects. Where he looses numbers, it's where he doesn't use them.
There's my ten cents.
-B.
Generic PrC's have a place. But ultimately, if used as tools, the players feel the accomplishment more if they have to approach a Prince to be an Elven Aephasian.
I might not have stated that as well as I could have, but let me expound a bit. When I come up with a character concept, I do it the preferred "role-player" way: I think of the character's background, philosophical and psychological leanings, and, of course, his "combat concept" - what makes him cool in a combat or action-oriented situation.
As an example, let's say I want to make a cynical, urban noble. I know how he feels about the world - fashionably jaded and metropolitan, but essentially naive about much of life. I know his personality - eternally bored, arrogant but with a "rich liberal" patina of egalitarianism to him, et cetera. I can think of easy ways to make him cool in combat, as well - "fencer/mage" comes to mind.
After I've got all that, I move on to Phase 2: filling in the spaces in the character sheet. In doing so, I try to make my guy as powerful as possible within the limits of his concept. Class selection and level is *completely invisible* in-game, after all. Everyone else sees a Ftr3/Wiz4/Duelist5 and a Ftr11/Wiz1 and probably even a Brd12 pretty much in the same way, combat-wise.
My character could fill use any of these builds (ignoring the Bard's song, if he chose that path) without any real changes to his personality or role-playing style. That being the case, a character that stays alive is a lot more fun for the whole group than a character that's re-created twice a session, so I should do my best to make my character as powerful as possible.
PrCs are a lifesaver at times, particularly ones like Duelist that make certain characters more feasible. How many character concepts have been aborted because the player realized that they wouldn't last five seconds in a firefight, and would only detract from the group experience? I honestly wouldn't play an armored Fighter/Wizard without classes like Spellsword available, because my the time the group was at high levels, my weakness would affect my ability to roleplay as the "hero" I'd become.
So yeah.
The core classes are not generic enough.
Most core classes have a bunch of class abilities that are very specific in flavor. The druid, for example. I've seen PrCs and new base classes to make an 'urban druid', and things like that.
Why can't all the base classes be more like the fighter? A set BAB, saves, skill points per level, and a couple other things, and then just gives bonus feats.
Expand the selection of feats and make more feat chains. Replace all the class abilities with feats.
Then, the character building specialization of a PrC wouldn't be as necessary.
You want to make an urban druid? Right now, you have to make a PrC for it. With a more generic Druid class, you could simply make up and take feats that give you abilities appropriate to an urban druid.
Of course, this concept would remove a lot of the "D&Dism" from the classes, and that's probably why it wasn't originally done.
And so we're stuck with PrCs. Is using them as a character-building tool bad?
No, it isn't -- it's necessary because the core classes don't support enough customization .
Originally posted by Sancus
it's necessary because the core classes don't support enough customization .
I'm sorry, but I find this to be amusing. No offense, but you've only played third edition D&D, haven't you? The 3e classes are by far the most generic and most customizable of any edition to date.
But in responce to all of this, I find myself having to say "If you don't want to use part of a class, just don't use that part, you don't have to make up a whole new one." Take archers for example. The classic Archer does not use shields. They do not wear heavy armor. They are known for their reflexes, not their fortitude and stamina. This does not mean you need a new base class, or a PrC just to make an Archer. You can easily use the Fighter, and simply ignore the heavy armor prof, ignore the shields, ignore a lot of stuff. Spend a few of your massive numbers of feats to boost your Reflex save.
Let me say this again. There is more than enough customization in the current classes to make almost anything you want. It may not be the most mechanically perfect thing, and actually require the player to ROLEPLAY something instead of just having stats for it, but it does work. I have yet to see a single character concept that could not be made with a Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard, and a little multiclassing with the right feats. Is it going to be ideal? No, but it doesn't have to be.
If you want an Urban Druid, then be a Druid/Rogue. There is no reason to take a PrC or make up a new base class for something the system can already do. Not if you're willing to do some basic roleplaying instead of just rollplaying your character sheet.
Secondly, all you role-playing story-freaks, I salute you, but why are you reading this thread? You should be out talking with your DM, not some nerds with a cable connection. In a role-player's world, PrCs are there to help you generate ideas, to give you a little prod in the right direction. In case no one noticed, it says (I'm pretty sure in the DMG) to customize the base classes if you feel like it. I think they do a number on a ranger. You could do that even if it wasn't in the DMG, but it's nice to have a little reassurance now and then. Your character concept should come first if you put yourself in this paragraph. If this is not the case, go home.
I'm not saying you can't, as a player, use a PrC, but it should be a epiphanous moment when you realize that your character fits really well into a given PrC. It may come as a great relief that now you don't have to adjust your base class stats to fit your character because someone has already done it. Most of the time, building a character to fit a PrC is boring and just plain stupid. Most of the time, taking a PrC is unnecessary and often hurts the character's...well, character. The desired result can be achieved within the skill and feat set, possibly with a few modifications from the DM. For instance, if you want that urban druid, maybe you could get your DM to let you give up some animal forms in exchange for some rogue skills as class skills. That would even let you take, for instance, a rat or cat form instead of a bear! Amazing! It even fits in an urban environment! You could get a similar result without even DM interference; just take the skills as cross-class skills. You won't be as good at them, but you shouldn't be; there isn't quite so much nature to be in tune with in Central Park as in the middle of the jungle.
Is adjusting a class to fit your characters abilities (such as giving up certain things you don't use for, say, bonuses in combat while riding sheepdogs) powergaming? A little bit, yes, but it also fits character. If your character would never wear heavy armor, why did he learn how? Wouldn't he have been practicing a few of the intricacies of...fencing or something?
In the end, it all comes down to preference (especially that of the DM), and I don't think anything that's been said so far will change a DM's mind, including my post, which I am wonderfully proud of...*cough, cough* In conclusion (which is, of course, a vastly different preposition from the "in the end" used to start the previous paragraph), shut up and go home.
I'm sorry, but I find this to be amusing. No offense, but you've only played third edition D&D, haven't you?
Yeah, I have, but what does that have to do with anything? I didn't say that 3e doesn't have enough customization compared to 2e, or compared to 1e, or compared to GURPS, for that matter. I said that it doesn't have enough customization to make PrCs unnecessary.
If you want an Urban Druid, then be a Druid/Rogue.
But that's not good enough. Because that's not an urban druid -- it's a Druid/Rogue. The Druid and Rogue both have specific, pre-customized class abilities that I may not want. What if I want 8 skill points per level, but I don't want Sneak Attack? Or vice versa?
Each core class is a very distinct package of abilities except for the fighter. A lot of the abilities are there just because they're iconic for a "D&D Rogue". And it works fine. If that's what you want. If you don't want to play D&D iconic things, then you need PrCs, or new base classes, because there is very little customization built into any class except for the Fighter.
Multiclassing is not 'customization' -- it's multiclassing, which means you get a combination of more than one D&D iconic class. But you're still stuck with the given ability packages. What I'm suggesting is not to get rid of all those iconic abilities, it's simply to make the system more modular.
What's wrong with that? You can still build yourself a D&D Druid -- you'd just be the one building it out of a more generic caster class that you add feats to taste, then. My point is that the feat system is great, but for it to be used to properly customize EVERY class needs to have the customization of the Fighter, that is, their abilities need to be mostly feats. As-is, other than the Fighter, most classes are 90% class, and 10% feats.
That's what makes them very difficult to customize.
Taking another look at the history and Origins of the PrC, what I see are the old 1E and 2E Campaign World 'Base Classes.' For example, Dragonlance - they turned the AD&D Cavalier of the original Unearthed Arcana into Solamnic Knight, which then was able to branch out further into the other Orders... a definite Prestige Class pre-cursor. In the same game world Wizards were rebuilt into the White/Red/Black Mages of the Tower of High Sorcery.
PrC classes now allow Campaign Settings to customize classes without having to rewrite all the base classes. Wonderful system, but one that a DM has to be strict about to prevent the world from getting blurred with an overdose of specialization.
Originally posted by Sancus
But that's not good enough. Because that's not an urban druid -- it's a Druid/Rogue. The Druid and Rogue both have specific, pre-customized class abilities that I may not want. What if I want 8 skill points per level, but I don't want Sneak Attack? Or vice versa?
Then you just don't use what you don't want. If I want to play an Archer, and I want a good BAB, that means I play a Fighter based archer. What do I do with that proficiency with Greatswords? Or with all kinds of armor and weapons and shields, if I'm never going to use them?
The answer is that you do not need some perfect compilation of only the abilities and skills you want to be able to play a character concept. Your character is NOT defined by what class they are, what gear they use, or what abilities they have. Your character is defined by your roleplaying skills, pure and simple. As such, all one has to do is to get a build that approximates what you want, and use that.
It’s the same with the PrC stuff. You do not need the Assassin PrC to be an assassin. Yes, the PrC gives you nifty things like Death Attack, but you don't NEED that to play an assassin. Just like you don't NEED some kind of Urban Druid variant or PrC to play a Druid that lives in a city. All you need is your own ability to roleplay, and do a little multiclassing. Yes, you will get abilities you don't need. But no one ever said you had to USE them. Or, better yet, just ignore things that don't fit your concept. If I'm playing a Fighter based Archer, I'm not going to rail that he should have a high Reflex save when the Fighter gets a high Fort, I'm just going to use the mechanics and ignore the incongruity. Because, again, I know my character is not just what the little numbers on the character sheet say.
And I am still of the opinion that there is not a single character concept anywhere in the game that cannot be done reasonably well with nothing more than Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue, some multiclassing, and actually ROLEPLAYING the character to fit the concept.
Why do PrCs matter at all?
Whether or not a game has good roleplaying, good character interaction and good plots has nothing to do with the rules at all. That onus is 100% on the players (Note, I've dropped the whole idea of the DM a long time ago. He's just another player. Everyone in a well run campaign will help design the world and drive the plot. If that’s up to one person, it just never turns out as well).
Can prestige classes make good worldbuilding tools? Sure. But the players can use just about anything to build there world. You don't need a set of rules for a classes abilities to design an archtype.
Can prestige classes be good character building tools? Sure. But the players can design deep characters without specific "class skills" or "bonus feats."
From a roleplaying standpoint, prestige classes are just another thing that can be used as a device like anything else. They'll take the effort to play it well or not. Same thing with magic items, custom classes, kits, etc. They all work if you want them to and won't if you don't.
It doesn't matter what titles or statistical advantages you give a character. Good roleplaying will always be good roleplaying. Period.
I am also of the opinion that the inflationary output and use of PrC endangers good roleplaying. DnD leaves a lot of room for min/maxing. It is a very number oriented and, well, capitalistic roleplay where you have to "earn" experience to "spend" it on feats, BAB and especially levels. And the more, the better. Now I am a capitalist myself, but when it comes to roleplay, it is not a wise thing to do to reduce a character to its stats, feats and numbers. But in a way, that is what PrCs do and invite players to do. If you meet the requirements, you are good to go. That's the reason why a lot of people (especially in the OB) couldn't care less about the so called "flavor text" that puts a roleplaying perspective on the class in the first place. Heck, the fact that there is something as an Optimization Board says something about how mechanical a view on a character in DnD can become. Now, you can "optimize" your character and still be an awesome roleplayer, don't get me wrong. But it is much easier to just see the mechanical side of things, rather than the roleplaying aspect. Pure number crunching is a lot less difficult than thinking about how a certain character would react in a certain situation and what that reaction and that situation means to the character when it comes to future development. I'd say that people find the latter part very hard in real life too.
And if you earn you salary in the roleplaying industry, it is always good to come up with another PrC that somebody might be able to use. You just put some numbers and a rather weak character idea together - and voila!
So when I think of PrCs I think about character and campaign flavor. I see PrC in a more, well, Warhammer FRP sort of way. They used "Advanced Classes" that all had a a great deal to do with the campaign you played in. Not a single one came without a deep campaign root. That also meant that the Templar class was probably the best combat machine you could find, it was very imbalanced compared to other advanced classes. But hey, if it fits the character and the campaign, helps the story development and is fun to play, why not? It made good roleplaying possible.
Many people see PRCs as a powergaming device or as a DM's way of building on a world.
I don't think either option adequately fits the role of PrCs appropriately.
Before I continue, I will openly admit I am a powergamer. I min/max. I make my character as good as I can for what it does. It's not always about power, however.
I will use my present PnP character as an example:
Elven Rogue 3 / Wizard 5 / Arcane Trickster 3 / Arcane Archer 3 / Eldritch Knight 1 -> total C level 15. A bit high? Probably; but the group has been active for 3 months now and we play pretty often. It is our play style. We like to level often, and we like to have fun doing it.
Most importantly, we roleplay, and we build off each other. The DM builds the world around us. He molds his adventures to us. To our needs. We roleplay and take the campaign to the next level, by continually building our characters towards our goals. The DM builds off of our goals and gives us situations where we use our talents and our skills, and our role play, to get us past us.
As you can see my character is an odd hybrid. He has good spellcasting and good archery. But most importantly, he is very fun. I diversified his skills tremendously, and he has no focuses. He is a jack of all trades.
One could argue I could do everything that character does with just a Rogue / Wizard combo. Maybe, but I wouldn't have had half as much fun playing through as I did with this. My DM made me do many quests before taking these classes, and in addition, they really opened up some fun roleplaying between my group as well as the DM. To become an Arcane Trickster I had to do some crazy stuff - some of it to my party members!
To cut this short, since I am running a bit longer than I planned:
PrCs should be used as roleplaying devices for the players to push the DM to strive even harder to amplify the fun for everyone. In this way they are both a Player's tool and a DM's tool. I like them that way. It is said somewhere in this thread that PrCs are used by players to avoid role playing. I disagree, I think it is used by us players to push the DM to create more innovative scenarios to provide more interesting role play to accommodate our needs.
My .02,
~ Lock.
Originally posted by Lockindal
Elven Rogue 3 / Wizard 5 / Arcane Trickster 3 / Arcane Archer 3 / Eldritch Knight 1 -> total C level 15. A bit high? Probably; but the group has been active for 3 months now and we play pretty often. It is our play style. We like to level often, and we like to have fun doing it.
Wow! There is no right or wrong way to play, but 15th level in 3 months? That seems unfathomably fast to me... How many times a week do you play?
In contrast, the last Campaign I DMed, playing once a week generally for a 5-6 hour session, the party advanced to 8th level-ish in somewhere between 6-8 months.
Originally posted by Lockindal
One could argue I could do everything that character does with just a Rogue / Wizard combo. Maybe, but I wouldn't have had half as much fun playing through as I did with this.
Why? Why would you not have had just as much fun? Is there something about not having cherry-picked abilities from a half-dozen PrC that makes you incapable of playing the character in exactly the same manner?
What I question in situations like these is "Are you playing your character, or are you playing your character sheet?". As in, are you playing a character concept (not build, concept) and then just taking what fits the concept, or are you going "Okay, if I take this and this and one of that, I can get this...", and then trying to roleplay the mix-matched classes as one character?
Both as a Player, and as a DM, I find it highly questionable when someone says they simply can't play something unless they have this or that special ability to do it with. You don't need levels in Assassin to be an assassin. You don't need to be a Paladin with Lay on Hands to be a holy warrior. You don't need Dragonslayer and Vassal of Bahamut to be a dragon slayer with cool armor. You don't need Order of the Bow Initiate to be an archer. All of these can be done with nothing more than a straight classed human fighter.
It is, in my opinion, wrong to pick a PrC, and then to build a character around that PrC. You should get a concept (Again, a build is not a concept. "Brash young man with a sword and a drive to destroy evil dragons" is a concept, "Human Fighter with Greatsword aiming at Dragonslayer PrC" is not a concept, its a build), flesh it out. Get personality quirks, habits, opinions. Then pick things like alignment, weapons, classes, etc.
This isn't a video game. You don't need to be a Rogue to have a roguish person. You don't need a PrC to validate your character.
The first was touched upon by Tzor. These classes cover mechanical limitations of the current CR/level system. A Cleric 8/Wizard 8 is simply not as powerful as a Wizard 16 - if the wizard is a CR 16, I'd estimate the muliclassed character at a CR of about 14. One of the books mentions this with the section on giving class levels to monsters, using the example of (I believe) a giant with sorcerer levels and suggesting that rather than using monster CR + class levels you use monster CR + 1/2 class levels when adding suboptimal classes. There is, however, no such option for players. The PCs are simply weaker. Some of the least flavorful PrCs, such as the Eldritch Knight, serve as a 3.x stopgap solution to this problem.
The plethora of lightly-armored fighter PrCs also address a problem (the fact that a Fighter with leather and a dagger is sub-optimal). They too serve as a 3.x stopgap, albiet for totally different mechanical limitation.
Before I go into the second part, I'd like to mention that I'm a big fan of heavy role-playing and generally agree with your previous post (the one immediately preceding this one) regarding flavor. However, as much as deep role-playing campaigns are great, straight tactical campaigns can be fun as well. Depending on the (perhaps limited) experience of the DM or the desires of the players, they may even be preferred, and the actual role-playing may be limited. D&D was originally a tactical wargame and 3.5 has returned heavily to this. Most of the modules support this. The detailed miniature/AoO/AoE, etc. rules support this. And it can be tons of fun. In such a campaign, your character really is little more than a character sheet, and a PrC, any PrC, does add a lot.
Are these "lousy" games? No, just different, and as I mentioned they can be a ton of fun. Dungeoncrawls are one of the bases for D&D. You don't always need a detailed background, personality quirks, and a family tree to have fun. Sometimes you just need a bunch of numbers and a grid. And when all you have are a bunch of numbers, the word "Assassin" on your character sheet can be a lot more rewarding than knowing that your character doesn't like broccoli or is the niece of the mayor of Smallville, that town where you always dump your loot (and sometimes buy restoration spells).
-Shaftiel
Both as a Player, and as a DM, I find it highly questionable when someone says they simply can't play something unless they have this or that special ability to do it with. You don't need levels in Assassin to be an assassin. You don't need to be a Paladin with Lay on Hands to be a holy warrior.
No you do not. But how does your character fit into the world if other holy warriors are blessed by their deity with powers beyond those of a normal person? Is he just not holy enough? Does he worship a non-existent deity? Sure you can role-play a bunch of internal motivations for your character, but how do you explain the external differences. The actual numbers on the paper ? If I'm as holy as the next guy, but I can't lay on hands, what does that mean to the campaign ?
This leads to the flip-side of the question - why does someone who joins the assassin guild suddenly get a death attack and a mastery of poisons and some spells ? Why do I have to join the assassins’ guild to get any of those things? If it makes some roleplaying sense (e.g. I grew up in Zith Tor the land of the snake, where everyone knows how to use poisons from birth, or something), why do I need to take a level of Assassin to get those abilities?
The problem is that people want to customize their external face with as much control as their "internal" face. I can say I'm a holy warrior of the snake goddess as much as I like, but I want to be able to express that in real numbers as well. The Character Concept is the interface to the rest of the world, but the Character Sheet is the interface to the system you're running the world on. If your sheet can't back up your concept, then either the system can't express your concept, or your ability to use it to do so has been curtailed by some other force - such as a dyed-in-the-wool DM who doesn't like cherry-picking
It is, in my opinion, wrong to pick a PrC, and then to build a character around that PrC. You should get a concept (Again, a build is not a concept. "Brash young man with a sword and a drive to destroy evil dragons" is a concept, "Human Fighter with Greatsword aiming at Dragonslayer PrC" is not a concept, its a build), flesh it out. Get personality quirks, habits, opinions. Then pick things like alignment, weapons, classes, etc.
This isn't a video game. You don't need to be a Rogue to have a roguish person. You don't need a PrC to validate your character.
No - but it's hard to say "I'm a highly accomplished Dragon Slayer who has long since stopped shaking in his boots at the mere sight of a small wyrm", with the standard Fighter class and his poor will saves, when the guy with the DragonSlayer PrC is standing next to you, immune to fear.
There's little doubt you can create a beginning character with the standard classes. The "Brash young..." or "Eager ..." or "Apprentice ..." types are easily expressed in such terms.
But when you're attempting to describe a character with significant history, and abilities that match his claims, sometimes you need a PrC (or four).
A semi-recent episode of South Park I believe would exemplify this. In the episode in which the boys buy ninja weapons and "play ninjas," they each describe themselves as characters with special abilities. One of the boys, Cartman, goes a bit farther than the others in granting himself powers to the extent that they take away his powers. He then has to play the next encounter with Dr. Evil without any ninja powers, until they say, "Ok you can have your powers back."
It is this type of play that the rules surrounding D&D formalize. We are playing ninjas like these 8-year-olds from South Park. The powers that you grant yourself are subject to rejection from the other players at the table. If you have lenient players (or a dm if you want to specify) then you can get away with anything.
For example, there was a thread asking about how a group of lvl 5000 characters could thwart their DM's plot to kill off their characters with a greater diety. This is clearly well beyond the scope of the game imagined by most players and creators in the DnD world. However, in their play session, this is perfectly acceptable.
Edymnion claims that I can play an assassin character by being a rogue/sorc. Maybe that is possible at his table, but at my table, if I say I sneak up behind the warrior and kill him in one blow, the others say to me, "ok, roll damage." For a rogue5/sorc5, there is almost certainly no way I could kill anyone of equal level (who was not already injured) with one blow, even if it were a sneak attack (or a critical for that matter). Maybe in Edymnion's campaign, the DM would say, ok, i will rule you can kill him in one blow based on you roleplaying your character as though he knows how to apply a precise killing strike, but he'll get a fortitude save first.
If that is the case, then Edymnion's DM is simply granting the assassin death attack, which brings character abilities out of the hands of the players and places it in the hands of the dm to dictate to the players what skills their characters have.
If that is not the case, then Edymnion's rogue5/sorc5 is a terrible assassin. Maybe he can "roleplay" as being a great assassin, but without fudging the rules, he would just be roleplaying a liar.
Maybe it's different for other people or players of previous versions, but when we sit down for a game, we let roleplaying decide what actions are taken, and we let the rules govern what the results of these actions are, not dm decision (of course the dm does decide world related and NPC related actions, but not whether I land a critical at the right moment or if I can kill somone in one hit because I call myself an assassin).
If a DM said to me while I was playing a character, "ok, based on the number of times you've used that weapon, I've decided you deal double damage now." I like the feeling of player vs dm, where I draw my power from the creation and selection of abilities for my character, and the dm has control of everything outside of that. If the dm is creating the abilities of my enemies, and also creating my abilities, I feel like a passive spectator in the game.
My current character (the first in a while as ’ve DMed the last two campaigns) is a swashbuckler3/fighter 1. I use light armor and a rapier. My attack is +10 rapier+1(1d6+6). I apply my int bonus to damage. If I were a fighter 4, and I said to my group, "I think since I am using a finesse weapon and I have a 16 int, I should be able to use my int modifier to do extra damage since I know where to hit," they wouldn't let me, and even if I did, I would feel like I was cheating, and everyone in the group would want something 'extra' like me.
Is my swashbuckler/fighter strictly stronger than a fighter 4 using a rapier with weapon specialization? It seems like it, but I gave up 3 feats and weapon specialization for weapon finesse, +int to damage, +1reflex save and better skills.
How can you represent a swashbuckler3/fighter4/duelist 10 with fighter/rogue? I could easily go with rapier focused/specialized light armor wearer, but unless the dm or the other players are going to allow me to bend the rules or alter my abilities, I'm not going to be able to do the cool swashbuckling/fencing things that one imagines such as being hard to hit due to his skill in parrying and dodging alone (not magic armor/rings- though one could 'roleplay' as though the magic isn't really helping...), striking blows dealing extra damage based on precision strikes against an opponent fully aware of him (maybe improved feint, but then he's restricted to fighting toe-to-toe since it's a move action- you could fudge this...)
Basically the point boils down to roleplay vs roll play again. Most players do not roleplay combat. I don't roleplay that I score a critical hit-- the dice tell me that, not the dm. Most of the abilities associated with PrCs are combat abilities. Thus, for typical gamers, the ones who follow the written rules for combat and character abilities, they need the mechanics to back up their combat rollplay so that it agrees with their roleplay.
Certainly any group can assign rollplay abilities to characters based on roleplay, but printed PrCs that everyone knows about and has access to (not whomever the dm feels he should grant power to) formalize this fudging of the written rules in such a way that the appropriate balance is maintained. If this fails to be the case, then it is the writing of the PrC that is in error, not the existence or use of them as rollplaying tools.
Certainly any group can assign rollplay abilities to characters based on roleplay, but printed PrCs that everyone knows about and has access to (not whomever the dm feels he should grant power to) formalize this fudging of the written rules in such a way that the appropriate balance is maintained. If this fails to be the case, then it is the writing of the PrC that is in error, not the existence or use of them as rollplaying tools.
Hmm, I'm kinda with you.
However the Prestige Classes are a wonderful world building and roleplaying tool that - if you give ready access to all players - is quickly squandered. A player may be aware that the Assassin PrC has some abilities that he is after, but if he has to join the 'Secret order of Murderous B'stards' to learn these secrets he may think twice.
Likewise, the elven archer who wants to learn how to be an Arcane Archer. This can add some depth to the world when the players find themselves seeking the Temple of Pointy Earedness where a mystic order of Elven Archers reside ... and the PC finds that he must learn 'humility, honor and sense' before they will teach him the advanced secrets.
Also, it takes so much time and money to keep up with the plethora of PrC's coming out that it makes sense to limit those available in the campaign, just so that you don't go broke under the weight of your roleplaying debts
In my group, there's a kid (he's 14, so we give him an easier deal) who just flips through books and says "Oh snap I gotta make that!" And it's some Prestige class, such as a Dragon Rider from the Draconomicon. The kid has a ton of fun doing it, and I can't possibly force myself into limiting someone else's fun, particularly a kid and newbie to D&D.
But I'm the one in the wrong. At least that's what the designers would politely withhold. Read on.
To amend the first post, the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide actually says: "Prestige classes are purely optional and always under the purview of the DM. We encourage you, as the DM, to tightly limit the prestige classes available in your game." (Emphasis mine.)
So it's not even ambiguous what prestige classes are. The DMG describes them as "A new form of multiclassing..." and goes on to describe exactly what one is. And then WotC even takes the liberal step of encouraging the player (the DM in this case) what to do with them. The core books don't 'encourage' a whole lot. It's mostly "This is how it works," with an occasional, "This is what it's intended for." But WotC specifically recommends that we tightly restrict prestige classes in a world.
And I don't do that. The rule of my (rather liberal) game is, "If you qualify, I won't step in the way." (Conversely, if you don't qualify, I will step in the way, no exceptions.)
So it's all about how each group uses them, not really a solid "What are they" kinda deal, to me. What they are to some, they are not to others. Apparently they can be a tool, or a device, or just another option, or something you ignore. It's all up to the players to define "What are they?" and "What are they going to be?". (Incidentally, "What they were," is no longer under the control of said players.)
Then you just don't use what you don't want. If I want to play an Archer, and I want a good BAB, that means I play a Fighter based archer. What do I do with that proficiency with Greatswords? Or with all kinds of armor and weapons and shields, if I'm never going to use them?
The answer is that you do not need some perfect compilation of only the abilities and skills you want to be able to play a character concept....All you need is your own ability to roleplay, and do a little multiclassing. Yes, you will get abilities you don't need. But no one ever said you had to USE them.
I'd like to explore this point, although I understand and certainly sympathize with it. I don't think it's excessive munchkining to want to replace class abilities you may never use with comparable powers a prestige class may offer. It may be wrong to assume that all 10th level characters are evenly matched, but at some point a player should rightfully expect a certain degree of usefulness for the experience point investment. Ignoring more and more powers hurts that notion and weakens the character vis-a-vis other characters. And while that may be fine with respect to the player's concept of her character, it could adversely affect the rest of the party, or mess up the DM's calculations when it comes to statting the opposition.
Or, better yet, just ignore things that don't fit your concept. If I'm playing a Fighter based Archer, I'm not going to rail that he should have a high Reflex save when the Fighter gets a high Fort, I'm just going to use the mechanics and ignore the incongruity.
With a high enough Dex and low enough Str, and judicious use of feats, there are ways around it.
* * *
I lean more towards the "select group" theory of prestige class design, rather than the "advanced specialist" theory. I thought that Dragonlance's story-based prerequisities for some of its knightly classes were wonderful. Having more of them would not only arrest munchkinism but encourage roleplaying - it would make attaining a prestige class that much more rewarding.
No you do not. But how does your character fit into the world if other holy warriors are blessed by their deity with powers beyond those of a normal person? Is he just not holy enough? Does he worship a non-existent deity? Sure you can role-play a bunch of internal motivations for your character, but how do you explain the external differences. The actual numbers on the paper ? If I'm as holy as the next guy, but I can't lay on hands, what does that mean to the campaign ?
A simple Fighter/Cleric can do everything a Paladin can do, and can often times do it better. You don't need the Paladin class to take the 4 core classes and make the concept work.
This leads to the flip-side of the question - why does someone who joins the assassin guild suddenly get a death attack and a mastery of poisons and some spells ?
Ideally, the DM should be forcing the Player to have his/her character go through some roleplaying in actually being trained to do these things.
No - but it's hard to say "I'm a highly accomplished Dragon Slayer who has long since stopped shaking in his boots at the mere sight of a small wyrm", with the standard Fighter class and his poor will saves, when the guy with the DragonSlayer PrC is standing next to you, immune to fear.
Yeah, so the Fighter has low Will saves. He's got plenty of bonus feats, he can spend his normal ones on Iron Will. Couple of those and a few levels, and he'll be fine. Yes, you have something more mechanically sound by having the custom built PrC, but that does not mean you can't get the same overall effect without the PrC.
But when you're attempting to describe a character with significant history, and abilities that match his claims, sometimes you need a PrC (or four).
I don't think so. You give me any general concept that does not specifically use the abilities written into a PrC, I can easily give you a build that can get the same general feel down pat with nothing but Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue.
Edymnion claims that I can play an assassin character by being a rogue/sorc. Maybe that is possible at his table, but at my table, if I say I sneak up behind the warrior and kill him in one blow, the others say to me, "ok, roll damage." For a rogue5/sorc5, there is almost certainly no way I could kill anyone of equal level (who was not already injured) with one blow, even if it were a sneak attack (or a critical for that matter). Maybe in Edymnion's campaign, the DM would say, ok, i will rule you can kill him in one blow based on you roleplaying your character as though he knows how to apply a precise killing strike, but he'll get a fortitude save first.
Okay, so you are basing this defense around the fact that your assassin can't kill one of the most powerful people in the gaming world with one hit?
By the time you are a Rogue 5/Sorcerer 5, you are easily going to be able to kill the vast majority of people in the gaming world in one hit if they're standing there looking you in the eye. While at the same time, a lvl 1 "assassin" could kill a lvl 20 character by simply slipping some highly potent poison into their food. Or you sneak up and do a CdG when they are sleeping.
The ability to do massive amounts of damage in a single attack has nothing to do with assassination. Yes, the PrC does help you kill people easier, I'm not saying it doesn't. What I'm saying though is that you can play an assassin character without being an Assassin. Just sneaking in and killing people can easily be done by a straight up Rogue. A sneaky killer with magical powers can be a Rogue/Sorcerer.
All that is beside the point, however.
The game system defines a character's ability. Sometimes it does it well, and sometimes it does it poorly. I'd say that D&D does iconic archetypes well (single-classed characters) but straying from those archetypes is done poorly. By that, I mean the implementation of mixed concepts in the D&D system results in a lower powered character when using the basic multi-classing system than is warranted for the description.
If I want a Fighter/Mage, I want a 10F/10M to be roughly equivalent in power to a 20F or 20M. Not necessarily as good as both, but able to hold his own standing next to them. (Actually, I'd also be happy if a 20F was equivalent to a 20M, which is the subject of a different debate)Unfortunately, that is not the case in the D&D system. That, alone, justifies the addition of certain "bridging" Prestige classes.
Saying that a Fighter can take multiple Iron Wills to make up for his low will save (or just put his highest stat into Wisdom) isn't sufficient. A Paladin is Immune to Fear, but not enchantments. A high Will save won't accurately simulate that. The game system isn't granular enough to do that. I can approximate a different character concept with mixing the four archetypes, but I can't nail it. That's what prestige classes (and the other base classes, for that matter) are for -- to nail the concept. To add the granularity that's missing from the discrete level-based paradigm and to plug the holes in the multi-classing system.
Now while its may be possible to emulate any character without going into any PrCs, it doesn't always work out well. Because, lets face it, nobody likes their character to suck, and that's not a munchkin way to think, its realistic. Think about it: no heroic (or for that matter villainous) adventurer has a goal like, "I'm going to be a crappy fighter/mage/whatever because power isn't important." If your character concept is a mage that can shatter mountains with a spell, your character sheet should support that. If you're a thief who can take someone's trousers without them noticing, you need to actually be able to do that, rather than having only 1 rank in Sleight of Hand and just roleplaying the rest. Sure, its possible to be someone who thinks they're better at stuff than they are, but that's its own concept, and that's not what everyone wants to be. By the time I reach high level, if I'm playing an unstoppable juggernaut, a lightning fast martial artist, or a powerful mage, then that's what I want my character sheet to support, and I want to be as good in battle as the concept dictates, not just be all talk.
Lets take an example, like Wizard/Cleric. Without Mystic Theurge, you're not going to be a mighty spellcaster who commands the power of arcane magic with one hand and divine power with the other, you're going to be a lousy wizard and a lousy cleric, and if you claim to be great at it you'll just be a braggart too. Not all PrC abilities are reproducible either, and roleplaying can only go so far when the going gets tough.
So a Fighter/Cleric can detect evil at will, summon a mystical mount with which he has a special bond, and is immune to fear?
Again, you are missing the point. The point is not that you can exactly reproduce a class/PrC with only other core classes.
The point is that you can get something very close to the concept.
Can you get somebody that is immune to fear, summons horsies out of thin air, and runs around smiting people with a Fighter/Cleric? No, you can't.
Can you get a character that is a front line defender of their faith, that combines the power of their faith with the power of their own swordarm to defend the ideals they stand for? Do you get a character that upholds the highest of ideals, and fights with a pure, holy purpose with a Fighter/Cleric? Yes, yes you can.
The point is that you can make a character that gets close enough to the concept without having to have a custom built class/PrC to do it with. Yes, the custom built job is going to do a better mechanical job at it, but just because a build is sub-optimal and has a few wasted or lacking bits here and there does NOT mean that it is wholly unsuitable for the task.
That is what I'm saying. You can build a character concept without PrC. You can build character concepts with nothing more than the 4 main classes and some roleplaying. Will they be perfect reproductions? Not a chance. But do you have to take Peerless Archer to play an Archer character? No. Do you need to be an Assassin to skulk around in the dark and kill people? No, you don't. Do you have to be a Paladin to be a holy fighter that heals and upholds the beliefs of their church? Heck no!
The proliferation of PrC as a character development tool is killing people's ability to roleplay. They think that if they just take Race X, Class Y, PrC Z and use the default flavor, that they've somehow come up with a unique character, and pat themselves on the back for their roleplaying skill, when they've done nothing more than plug some pieces together and then play a stereotype based on their cherrypicked abilities.
If you don't understand the basic fundamentals of roleplaying and how to use mechanics to back up flavor instead of flavor to back up mechanics, then you don't deserve to have access to the mechanics. I guarantee you that if you gave me a character concept that makes no reference to specific abilities of a Class or PrC, I could build a playable version of it with nothing more than the Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric and some basic roleplaying skills.
I mean, really. Its like saying you can't move things from one house to another unless you've got a U-Haul, when you've got a truck sitting in the garage. Can the pickup compete with a big U-Haul in how much it can carry, and how many trips it takes to finish the job? No, it can't. Can it get the job done? You bet your sweet bippy it can.
20 is not the same as D&D, but is the system that is used in the game. It's the operating system used to run a program, and though it was designed to run D&D, it is not technically the same thing. So, when we are play D&D, just because something can be created using d20 rules doesn't mean it was meant to.
I'm not condemning anyone's play style, but what I am saying is that the D&D game was initially created with a feeling in mind. Initially inspired by Tolkien and similar fantasy (But especially Tolkien), the game was invented with a couple of innate preconceptions regarding classes. In addition, it was invented using classes, which interjects a certain amount of rigidity into the game in itself. Using classes interjects the assumption of rigidity, imposes limitations on ideas, and makes certain things impossible without an alteration of the rules.
This poses a problem, since people - especially the highly creative people who bother to play - often have ideas outside of the norm, and want quirks, abilities, and skills to be detailed so as to be able to use them in the game.
Upon the translation from 2nd edition into the more generic and mutable 3rd edition, a lot of choice and flexibility was injected into the game. It is not the same game that 2nd edition and 1st edition was, and I appreciate that. However, it's still D&D, it's still class-based, and it still has artificial limitations on abilities based on classes - something that wasn't removed for traditions sake. In order to keep the game D&D, it requires artificially limiting classes, abilities, spells, etc. It's the way any world playing the D&D game works.
It's absurd to think that the d20 system couldn't support a ability/stat point-buy system a la GURPS, but that wouldn't be D&D, and it wouldn't be the same kind of world. Fully possible to use the d20 operating system, but a different program.
PrCs are a symptom of a problematic program. They are like patches you add after installation, to be heavily moderated by the DM. They may be roleplaying aids or crutches. They may assist the rping experience or the may cripple it. It's up to the play group and DM to allow. Personally I play something I would call pseudo-D&D, it's not really operating under the same premise anymore, but uses the class system and whatnot. PrCs exist to provide alternatives to classes, to give alternative abilities. I create a slew of non-core feats. Using multi-classing to provide the same ability as divergent core classes, non-core material, or PrCs are thesame thing as far as story is concerned. They just have different names.
The problem lies with the DM, and how he deals with the players and setting. If you don't like PrCs much, or feel like the same thing could be done with feats, and PrCs are a bad idea:
1) Don't select them.
2) Or - make PrC abilities feats or class options available to be bought under certain rare conditions. I use this sometimes.
3) And/Or - make PrCs difficult and rare, forcing the PCs to jump through hoops to get them. Add additional story requirements to the class, and disallow certain combinations or PrCs which harm the flavor of the game. I do this most frequently.
These are just by suggestions, this was just my analysis of the game. I'm an avid player and serious DM, but I have an opinionated take on the game in general and ymmv. On the other hand, you may find it enlightening.
While I don't mind PrCs as a whole, I just don't like most of the ones currently being made because they seem mass produced and crappy. (Open up Libris Mortis and ask do we really need both the Pale Master and the True Necromancer).
Is it true that you can make just about any concept using just the Core Classes? Yup. But many of those concepts will suck. Badly. If I wanted to make a Rogue with magical talents, a multiclassed Rogue/Wizard should work. And hell, I could roleplay it perfectly, and it could be cool. However, power wise, it would bite. I would fall behind the other characters in the party, and would get frustrated. That's what the Arcane Trickster does. It allows me to fulfill a concept, that while technically possible with Core classes, would not be mechanically sound.
Same thing goes for a Fighter/Wizard. Classic archetype that, while you could do with just the Core Classes, would suck power wise. The Eldritch Knight PrC helps this problem, and allows you to fulfill a classic archetype, without having to suffer because of it.
I agree that there are too many PrCs right now. They have been mass produced, with WotC going for quantity instead of quality. I'd rather open a book that has 5 or 6 GREAT PrCs, than open with 1 GREAT, 4 GOOD, 6 MEDIOCRE, and 10 CRAP.
Still, I'm the type of guy who likes options. 4 Core Classes? No. I don't want to be limited, I want to be able to choose things. If I want to play an Archer, the Fighter feels wrong. Having feats or abilities and not using them does not cut it. It's a waste. Classes were balanced based on playing it and using those abilities. By simply not using them, you are effectively weakening yourself. I like character concepts, but I also like to play strong, min/maxed characters. I should not have to sacrifice one, to play the other.
I guarantee you that if you gave me a character concept that makes no reference to specific abilities of a Class or PrC, I could build a playable version of it with nothing more than the Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric and some basic roleplaying skills.
Well any 'concept' can be approximated by some combination of those 4, sure. However, any concept that requires more than 2 is so watered down at the higher levels as to be almost useless. In addition, any concept is going to involve some 'class abilities'. A 'really good archer' isn't much of a concept. An 'archer who can use their bow so well they don't get attacks of opportunity for doing so' is also a concept (or part of one) but it also refers to a class ability.
It's like saying "I can approximate any animal you can think of with a dog, snake or chicken as long as you make no reference to genus, species, color, presence of fur, etc." Well yeah a bear is just a REALLY big dog with sharp claws, or a Lizard is just a squat dog with scales and a longer tail...but so what?
You can't always rely on feats either, since the cleric, wizard, and rogue get 7 feats from 1st through 20th. Now if there were feats that emulated such things as Wildshape, Favored Enemy, Bardic Music, etc. and each character got maybe a feat every other level or 2 every 3 levels, then sure you could do away with PrCs and other core classes. However, you cannot customize every character concept with 7 feats spread over 20 levels.
Some challenges:
1) 3.5 Bard (Concept: Lightly armored arcane spellcaster who doesn't need to memorize spells, Music that affects his group and allows him to do other things, Knowledge of lost or forgotten lore)
2) Druid (Concept: Nature/Divine casting, shapeshifting protector of nature that usually has an animal friend to aid in his cause)
3) Ranger (Concept: Lightly armored warrior of nature who specializes in fighting certain enemies, using woodland skills and animals to help him)
4) Monk (Concept: Enlightened unarmored fighter with near supernatural abilities of avoiding damage, doing incredible amounts of damage with his bare fists, and moving faster than any other known creature)
5) Barbarian (Concept: Fierce, primitive warrior, moderately armored, prone to flying into a physically enhancing rage against his enemies and able to withstand extreme punishment)
Again, you are missing the point. The point is not that you can exactly reproduce a class/PrC with only other core classes.
I think you are missing my point. I'm saying the feeble ability of D&D to approach a general concept with only mixing the four base classes is *insufficient*. As someone else mentioned - the Bear is like a big dog. Yet slapping a "Large" descriptor on a Dog entry and changing the flavour text doesn't capture the true capabilities of the Bear. Similarly, slapping 10 levels of Wizard onto 10 levels of Fighter doesn't approach the capabilities of the Eldritch Knight. Nor does slapping Iron Will and a couple of levels of Cleric approach the feeling of the Paladin.
Sure I can do a Bard with a level of Fighter, some levels of Rogue and some levels of Sorcerer, concentrating my skill ranks on Performance and Knowledge skills. But I still fall far short of a true bard. You seem to be content to settle for 'almost'. Why should the rest of us?
Some challenges:
3.5 Bard (Concept: Lightly armored arcane spellcaster who doesn't need to memorize spells, Music that affects his group and allows him to do other things, Knowledge of lost or forgotten lore)
Rogue 2x/Sorcerer X. You roleplay verbal components as needing to be sung, and semantic components as playing an instrument. Max ranks in Knowledge skills.
2) Druid (Concept: Nature/Divine casting, shapeshifting protector of nature that usually has an animal friend to aid in his cause)
Just a specialized cleric. Take the animal domain.
3) Ranger (Concept: Lightly armored warrior of nature who specializes in fighting certain enemies, using woodland skills and animals to help him)
Rogue with max ranks in Survival, a few levels of Cleric thrown in for the magic.
4) Monk (Concept: Enlightened unarmored fighter with near supernatural abilities of avoiding damage, doing incredible amounts of damage with his bare fists, and moving faster than any other known creature)
Fighter, Improved Unarmed Attack, Dash feat. Make up a couple feats to increase unarmed attack that require the Improved Unarmed Attack feat as a prereq. Although nowhere in any mythos have I seen an oriental monk that gains inhuman speed at running, so I'm going to say you just threw that in there because you knew it would be difficult to do.
5) Barbarian (Concept: Fierce, primitive warrior, moderately armored, prone to flying into a physically enhancing rage against his enemies and able to withstand extreme punishment)
Fighter, the Barbarian is nothing more than a variant fighter, just like the monk is essentially just a variant fighter. And a physically enhancing rage is not a concept, its a mechanic. If you want a character that flies into a rage when he goes into combat, that's fine. Wanting specific stat boosts to go with that, that's not concept, that's crunchy mechanics. And again, there is little historical precedence for that kind of rage. Only thing I know of are the Norwegian rage fighters that would essentially strip naked, work themselves into a frenzy, and throw themselves at the enemy with just their axe. It wasn't any kind of special ability, they just simply ignored their own personal safety and threw themselves completely into the battle.
All of those can be roleplayed the same, and I guarantee you that if you were looking in on a game, you would not be able to tell the difference between which one was being used, and which weren't.
Unearthed Arcana even has the Paladin, Bard, and Ranger worked up as PrC, and they're quite good, showing that they don't need to be base classes.
That brings me to the point, however, where we end up with "too many PC classes" just like we have "too many PrCs." In just making a list for my players to choose from I had around 42 options. Many of those I was hoping they would not pick, because I was still working out how to make them work.
I think that the real option here is for DM's to be a little more flexible and willing to modify the game to what their characters need.
Let's say I have an Archer character. What does this character want? All the Archery feats, Combat Archery, and a different priority on HP, AC, and saves.
So, I could say "Play a Fighter or a Ranger until you can be an Order of the Bow Initiate." As posters have mentioned, neither of these feel quite right. Would my player not be happier if we worked together to create an Archer class? Start with a fighter class. Drop the HD down to d8, drop shields and heavy armor prof, increase skill points and add skills for sneaking and visual observing (spot, search, move silently, hide). Switch good save to Reflex. Add special abilities like Combat Shot, an extending melee "threaten range" for AoO with archery, and the ability to recover 50% of even magical ammunition fired by the Archer.
You still have something balanced, with all the abilities the player wants, and the player has no reason to multiclass.
Now, for the Dragon Slayer, do you really need more than a new feat that says: Immunity to Dragon Fear (Prereq LV 6) - You are immune to the fear effects of dragons. ??? Such a feat would hardly take away from a Fighter build, and the fact that it is not the Paladin's total immunity should not bother a character whose goal in life is to smack down on Dragons.
After all, if you were meant to have a rigid and perfectly balanced rule system, why would you even need a DM? You would merely have published read-as-you-play, choose your own adventure style adventures that everyone would play through together.
There is and has been a sizeable demand for variation and customization. While I have seen some folk state that they feel all that is necessary are the four "archetype" classes, and that even multiclassing is completely unneeded given the roleplaying potential that is already represented with the "core four," it’s not a very common sentiment. A lot of players want to be able to customize their characters, make them their own, differentiate them, and have their particular differences adequately represented. A demand like this will seek an outlet, and in this case it has co-opted the mechanics of the PrC from their original role.
The fact is that even back in the 3.0 DMG there was a feature for class variation. While prestige classes were marked as entirely a world building tool, but there was a section on class modification and variants. It was a little section near the prestige classes that talked about things like the fire mage, the desert knife fighter, the witch, the warrior-priest, the witch, the undead stalker. It came with a statement along the lines of: (though this is from the 3.5 version)
Sometimes, however, players come to you and say that they like a certain class, but want to change a feature or two... Allowing a player to play the character she wants to play is always a desirable goal. Sometimes it can't be achieved - the player asks for too much, or what she wants doesn't fit your campaign - but the effort to accommodate reasonable modifications is almost always worth it.
There we have it: Class variants and prestige classes, two entirely separate things. In fact, there are guidelines for class variations the type of which Edymnion has noted in this version's PrCs. Look closely and you’ll note that the description of variant classes in the DMG has a remarkable similarity to the summary given in the Regdar's article. And different from these variant classes were prestige classes. Much has already been stated about their original purview as optional, world-specific classes, their purpose and role.
So how did we get from the fire mage to the elemental savant, from the knife fighter to the weapon master, from the undead stalker to the hunter of the dead, and so on? Part of it is the same reason that those two pages weren't mentioned in this thread or over in the article - they're two small pages, suggestions without a clear system, taken as marginally optional at best and completely overlooked or forgotten at worst.
The rest of it is that prestige classes are a markedly mechanically superior mechanism for achieving the same goal of variation. PrCs are highly portable self-contained character progressions that can be added to existing characters. A loose set of vague variation guidelines which need to be taken into account when creating a character just doesn't compare. And while the variant class mechanism falls far short of even being a system, PrCs go a step beyond a system - they're plug and play.
Because PrCs weren't originally meant to fill this role, they show signs that they are being stretched. That's one of the reasons that you are starting to see a new trend of base classes in the latest round of splatbooks. PrCs, for all of their game mechanic sexiness, just don't truly fill the role of variants - not completely. Take the very first sentence in the 'Modifying Character Classes' section:
Imagine the desert knife fighter, after with a limited weapon selection but early specialization with a knife.
A PrC can't do that, whether you're talking about a generic 'knife fighter' variant or a more specific 'desert knife fighter of kazaadun.' The reason why is very cleverly pointed out by Josh Wilhoyte:
Ever since the prestige class has been introduced, there has been a group of people who did not like them and preferred to play a class from 1 to 20 that matches their concept as opposed to having to make a Rogue 3/Fighter2/Duelist10/Whatever5 to match their idea of a Swashbuckler. Now they can buckle their swash from 1 to 20.
Needing to start off as a base class and meet requirements in order to enter a PrC are a clear vestige from the original concept of those prestige classes representing a type of specific progression that a character would work towards becoming a part of.
So what's the solution? What would make it such that PrCs could again be limited to their original purpose? If you want to be honest and practical, it's probably too late for this version. There are already mountains of material and strong associations that aren't going to go away. Not that I'm saying I want an immediate revision - just giving a nod towards pragmatism.
Other than that, the answer seems fairly clear to me. Provide a proper outlet for the demand of class customization and variation. Put a system behind those loose guidelines. A system that has enough structure to allow for a straightforward, streamlined construction of variant classes. Something that has a satisfying amount of flexibility while not throwing away balance, and not overshadowing or superseding any existing core base class. And though a system will never be as sleek as something entirely plug and play like PrCs, you'd want it to be as transparent as possible, giving as smooth and complete a character progression as possible.
That was certainly the motivation behind my [post=2885063]roles and tracks[/post] system. And I would imagine that it was designed according to these factors one of the key reasons why it was so well received. While certainly not perfect, it's been noted that a good majority of what prestige classes and the new base classes provide could be broken down into use with the system. Different books could include more content for variants without having them (all) expressed as PrCs.
Of course, probably the hardest thing to work in to a variation system is one of the things that draws people to the use of prestige classes. And that's the simple fact that you can pick them up, that a character can change direction. (To mechanically be able to change progression ‘on the fly’ allows for a character to react to the story flow of a campaign; what weapons they have been training with, what enemies they have been fighting, and other such particulars.)
Lastly, you'd just need to fix the multiclassing system. You're on your own with that. Honestly, while this is certainly an involved and separate enough subject to occupy and fill its own thread, it does certainly have its own impact on PrCs, reaching for them as a stopgap solution. (I don’t want to get drawn into a discussion right here on how seamless or complete the multiclass system is or isn’t, but try this briefly: As a basic mental exercise, compare a 20th level wizard with a character who has taken the 1st level of wizard 20 times.)
Righteo. That turned out about as long as I figured it would be. Anyways, I think considering why PrCs have migrated roles is probably a lot more important in gaining insight into the issue than just analyzing what function they are currently serving. And while you personally might not care much for class customization, it’s such a strong recurrent trend and a common desire that you aren’t certainly aren’t going to get rid of it. While you don’t need extra options, you similarly don’t need to not have those options; it’s a matter of play style and personal preference.
The Players of the game (DMs and players worldwide) have been the subjects of a massive, intelligently executed marketing campaign to convince us that we need these supplements. Power-creep is starting, in the sense that the new products are published with more powerful spells, PrCs, etc than before. Compare the "Hammer of Moradin" in the Player's Guide to Faerun, and the Dwarven Devender. No comparison in power level at all, the Hammer dude trumps the supposed 'pinnacle' of the dwarven martial tradition.
It's so they can sell us more stuff. Guilty as charged, I occasionally buy a new book, sometimes for the prestige classes in it. BUT, I have recently (and only VERY recently) begun considering a classless system.
Everybody would get 1d4 HD, poor BAB, 2 poor and one good save, 2 skill points, and nothing else. They would go up levels normally. Then, with some sort of point buy system, they would "buy" feats, BAB, class abilities, skills, spell levels, etc etc AT EACH LEVEL. Naturally, this will be an immense challenge, but it addresses all of the problems noted above;
1. You can make ANY concept you want. No pigeonholing at all, no punishments in the mechanics department to replicate a certain concept.
2. Your character doesn't get any abilities they won't use.
3. Role-playing is enhanced. When you can't use a crutch like a PrC or a Class for role-playing, you HAVE to have a character concept and backstory. ALL YOU HAVE IS THE NUMBERS when you generate your character - even the most diehard anti-role-player will HAVE to come up with SOMETHING for "who my guy is".
4. Characters could change directions in mid-career. This is a problem with making EVERY PrC a 20 level class - you will always be punished for changing your job. BUT, if you buy your individual class abilties, feats, skills, hit die etc as you go, you can have your character decide that swinging a sword in the open is dangerous, and he would rather work from the shadows with a little magic knowledge to keep him alive.
I have no idea how such a system would work (I haven't read bitnine's Roles and Tracks yet, looks similar to what I am suggesting), but I think it would solve a LOT of problems. Plus, for flavour and world building, you can set requirements for your "prestige organizations" or "prestige jobs"; For instance, say if your Character has certain BAB, weapon focus longbow, weapon focus quarterstaff, light armor proficiency and move silently + hide at more than X ranks, he can join the "merry men of nottingham" or whatever. Voila, a prestige class.
The advantages of joining would be in roleplaying (allies, a reputation perhaps). But, this would come at a price - you're an outlaw, and you life in a mud hut in the forest, (which would suck in my opinion). The numerical advantage of being accepted into a "prestige" class / path / organization? It can be replicated with a point based system for buying your character feats skills and "class" abilities - totally customizable. Maybe award 5% extra points for joining an organization if you want them to be more powerful, but trade that off with an insistence that they continue to spend these extra points on relevant stuff. I don't know, but I think that scrapping the classes altogether is the answer. My favourite characters in other roleplaying systems were from White Wolf's World of Darkness, D6 Starwars, and Shadowrun - Why? Because I DESIGNED those characters in EVERY aspect, and I had TOTAL control over EVERYTHING that they were - in other words, no classes.
Naturally, this is just how I am going. I understand completely that many people probably won't agree with me, and I respect that. Thanks for reading anyways.
L8er
evilgenius
Enter other systems which are classless AND level-less and have been doing it successfully since the 80's. You could even give Amber a go, and get rid of the dice.
Don't reinvent the wheel - just change chariots.
There are problems with each. My suggest is very rigid. Change is not an option, and often the level of adaptability of each class is insufficient for acceptable variety. Notice some of the more restrictive classes (Monk or Barbarian, for example) and compare several of them to see how little one level 15 Barbarian really varies from another. They are likely using the same equipment (more or less), similar feats, and likely even similar roleplaying. Monks might vary a little more in build (a few places where there are options, but tracked out, much like the ranger), but in equipment, almost clones. Creating an Archer class tends to do much the same. Even with choices, most Archer classes are going to end up looking about the same. Thus, my system gives a lot of "Locked in" choices which the character roleplays through.
There are problems with the fluid system as well, however, and it has to deal with human nature. You will get munchkins, power gamers, and dedicated role players. With the DRPs you will not run into any problems, each will choose a character's character and make choices to back that up. Of course, that is what they were already doing. The problem with a fluid system is when you get Munchkins and Power Gamers.
Munchkins will always try to create "Uber characters" able to do everything, and with the point system, they can. They will find ways to get more "points" (anyone ever dare to count how many adventurers have a Charisma of 3?). You will end up with someone finding the most powerful "central" build, and then they will "net deck" it (to borrow a M:tG term).
Power Gamers will realize that 4-6 munchkin clones might beat up some DRPs, but they also realize that not in multiple generalized characters, but in a team of specialized characters does true power reside. Thus, one character will have UBER AC and HP, another character will be a walking apocalypse of magical power that a toddler could beat up, one will be able to take a DNA printout and heal it back to life, and one has such skill that it will steal your underwear off your body in REAL LIFE just from its stats on paper. So, once again, you get either 10000000000000 Drizzel clones or a super party, but either way, no variety, since optimization will ultimately rule the day [insert evil laugh here].
The real answer is not in the system, but in creating and growing gamers into the type of quality players that play an enjoyable character regardless of the system. Take, for example, the Mystic Theurge. Everyone keeps trying to break it (to no real avail, the class just is not that powerful, considering the other brokeness out there). I have seen several MTs that where just horrible, and no fun to even play with. I have, however, run one that was the gem of the party. Instead of trying to break it, or run a munchie character with every spell in the book, I ran a character based on item creation and buff spells for the rest of the party. When you heal, buff, and equip your party, everyone loves you. When you make that part of your character's nature (someone more interested in the nuance, rather than the raw force of magic), it becomes a useful build for the idea (Druid/Wizard based, rather than Cleric, to better reflect inquisitiveness, kind of like research and field experience). So, it is the quality of the player, rather than the system that affects the most the way that PrCs REALLY work within a campaign.
I mean, really. Its like saying you can't move things from one house to another unless you've got a U-Haul, when you've got a truck sitting in the garage. Can the pickup compete with a big U-Haul in how much it can carry, and how many trips it takes to finish the job? No, it can't. Can it get the job done? You bet your sweet bippy it can.
This is a telling example. Reading some of your responses puts me in mind of a guy demanding that I use a truck even though the U-Haul is *right there next to me*. If Assassin is a better match for a character idea, why not use it? I've got the class in a book, I want to play it, its not overpowered, and its appropriate for the campaign. Why on earth shouldn't I play it?
If a PC wants some ability/class/whatever, the only questions I ask as a DM are as follows:
Is it out of place for the setting?
Is it overpowered?
Sometimes a PrC will be fine balance wise, but wrong for the setting. Solamnic Knight may be a fine class mechanically, but it’s not finding it’s way into my Darksun game. Sometimes a PrC will have serious mechanical problems, like the hulking hurler. If the PrC would make a player more powerful overall than other characters his level it won’t be allowed. BUT, if the answer to both questions is ‘no’ then I’ll allow the class.
Is a magic using, sneaky, killer out of place in your setting? Presumably not if you insist a Sorcerer/Rogue is almost identical and you’d allow that.
Is the Assassin PrC more powerful than other characters of his level? I’d say no. I’ve never heard an argument that Assassins are overpowered, and you certainly haven’t provided one.
Neither of my criteria would justify prohibiting the Assassin PrC, but maybe you have an extra criteria I haven’t mentioned.
The proliferation of PrC as a character development tool is killing people's ability to role-play. They think that if they just take Race X, Class Y, PrC Z and use the default flavor, that they've somehow come up with a unique character, and pat themselves on the back for their role-playing skill, when they've done nothing more than plug some pieces together and then play a stereotype based on their cherry picked abilities.
Maybe I should add a criteria like “Will this class undermine people’s ability to role-play?”
But I don’t think I will, because I think the odds of any class doing so are nil. My ability to role-play a believable memorable character has nothing to do with his class skills. The two are totally independent. A first commoner can be played with interesting beliefs, credible decisions, and a deep vibrant personality. He can also be totally botched as a two dimensional prat. This remains true if I’m playing a Rogue/Sorcerer, a Rogue, a Rogue/Assassin, or a Rogue/Fighter/Duelist/Assassin/Sorcerer/Arcane Knight. A poor role-player can sleepwalk his way through a 1st to 20th Fighter build just as easily as a 10 PrC monstrosity. The assertion that otherwise fine players will suddenly start acting with the realism of Diablo townspeople is frankly baffling. Why should it? Stats and personality are distinct. Have you actually seen real players in real games do this? I haven’t. Do you have an example from a game you’ve played in?
You might ask, “Well if PrC’s don’t influence role-playing prowess, why have them, you just said they do nothing!” Because there are rules too, and you want them to be good rules. A Rogue/5 Sorcerer/5 is broken. At 10th level his 2nd level spells aren’t doing anything and his Rogue skills aren’t high enough to face 10th level tests to them. You don’t have a CR: 10 shadowy killer. You’ve got a guy who can’t pick a 10th level lock, can’t evade a 10th level spotter, who’s spells don’t stop 10th level opponents, and who dies if he gets in a 10th level fight. You’ve got a broken mess. Sure, he scares the pants off 5th level assassination targets, but his peers needn't fear him and (most importantly) his adventuring party doesn't have anything much for him to do.
-Stephen
I like PrCs that give abilities not available to other classes, or twist existing abilities into new and interesting shapes, instead of simply uber-powering-up an existing class combo. The 3.0 Shifter, for example, gives a whole new meaning to the Druid's Wildshape ability, one that just could not happen by using feats to approximate it. Given that a Druid gains the aforementioned 7 feats (and far fewer after he gains his first usage of Wildshape), approximating the Shifter's sheer width and breadth of flexibility of Shifts at the expense of every other class ability would not be possible by using any other d20 convention other than a PrC (or, possibly, an alternate class, but I wouldn't want to do that, since the Shifter is far too focused for such a use).
I, personally, think that any time a player spies a PrC that he likes (whether or not he already has one on his cherry-list), he should visit the DM and begin asking the aforementioned questions (appropriate? unbalancing?). Assuming the DM has no qualms, they should begin working the ascendance of the character into the story somehow.
Not all PrCs need a mentor, since some could conceivably happen spontaneously, or be stumbled upon by the character in question. What if Bhob the Fighter came up with the idea for sword-chucks? No one prior to Bhob had ever thought of sword-chucks before, but Bhob just knows that they would be lethal, so he invents the sword-chucks and develops a fighting style in which he wouldn't slice his own limbs off? He would be the world's first Sword-Chuck Master, and would then instruct others in the mysteries of sword-chuckery.
I've dabbled in making PrCs (such as my Final Fantasy-esque "Dragoon Knight"), and I do think that many concepts simply cannot be executed in any other way. Some are too focused for 20-level progressions; some are far too powerful for feats to simulate; still others simply make sense as "prestige classes," as written. Some PrCs, however, really would make better feats (or collections of feats), such as the Weapon Master class abilities.
Moral of the Story: In the end, PrCs and their uses in games are subjective to the Players involved.
And that's all I have to say, about that.
Here I offer two observations: firstly, the game may be about role-playing, and creating a character with a vivid, memorable personality, backstory, and concept, but it rests on the back of the rules. You can role-play the gleam in your eye, the sweat building and running down your brow in grit-filled rivulets, the brutal efficiency of your sword's arch and the soreness left in your arm from the power of the swing, but ultimately it's d20+str. mod (excepting Finesse)+BAB+misc. mods. So is it not logical to have your character's concept supported by a set of viable "crunchy" bits? It is unlikely that one would create a deadeye archer without a high BAB, so why decry the Paladin for having features putting numbers to his religious convictions? The archer's ability with his bow is just as evident, in this case, as the holy warrior's healing ability. So, as long as one role-plays, there is no true harm in putting some numbers to it to back it up.
My second point is this, and I beg pardon if I don't express this as articulately as I would hope, but it is 3:46 a.m. and I'm getting somewhat incoherent; PrCs are shortcuts to the role-playing. To clarify: let us assume that one has generated a character concept, the swashbuckler say. One would play the core classes according to said concept until one became eligible for the Swashbuckling PrC, at which point one would, with the DM's permission, begin advancing in it. BAM: instant swashbuckling mechanics to support my swashbuckling RP, instead of spending hours out of game mucking about with the core classes, running sums in me poor noggin trying to figure out the best way to build a buckler of swashes without the disruptive PrC, which is a waste of time, given that I can just use swashbuckler in a PrC and get on with playing my character, not, as Edymnion put it, my character sheet, as no matter what's on that page, I can play a Swashbuckler, this way's just easier on me.
As for my two cents on whether on the topic of PrC: Character Building Tool or World Building Block; I can only say that I see no reason why they cannot be suited for both roles simultaneously. We're all in this for the fun of it, and if a well-developed character with abilities best described by a PrC is fun, go for it. Same with a well thought out world with small groups of elites with special training beyond the ken of most mortals. I personally think PrCs should be made available without too many reservations to players, and a good selection, if possible. They represent specialization on the part of the character; to extend a popular metaphor used often in this discussion: they are the college to the base classes' primary and secondary schools (and as a further argument for the case of PrCs rather than only permitting straight builds: one cannot remain in high school forever, more's the pity). They also can portray the dark gnosis of chthonic cults or brotherhoods, so that the DM can add some depth. Or both, depending on the DM and the players.
I shall now cease my rambling, as I honestly have no idea what I'm talking about at this point. Good evening/morning/afternoon/flaming apocalypse/etc., gentlebeings.
It's a very weak argument that using only the base classes is "just as good" or "almost as good." In fact, it's not even a weak argument, it's a concession. If my players want their character to be X, where X is, within reason, anything, it seems natural that they should be able to be. Class A, Race B, PrC C is not going to hamper their roleplaying ability any more than Class A and Race B are, ie, not at all. Give the people what they want. You fascists. ; )
I see PrCs as divided into two general categories: generic and organization-specific. A generic PrC (sort of oxymoronic, isn't it?) is something like an Arcane Archer, or an Assassin, or maybe a Dervish that isn't necessarily associated with a particular organization. I generally don't restrict my players from taking these types of PrCs any more than I restrict them from taking character classes (they have to make their multiclassing make sense).
The organization-specific ones, though, are heavily regulated by me. I do not allow PC's to take them unless they are members of that organization. Ever.
I do use plenty of the published PrCs, though I usually tweak them a little bit or at least make some changes to the flavor so that they fit my world better. For example, when I ran a high-psionics campaign in which psionics had been introduced to the world by an enormous comet that crashed into the world and left a huge crater in the middle of a desert, I converted the Green Star Adept PrC in Complete Arcane into a psionic PrC called Prophet of the Star. In my world, there was only one individual who had this, and he was the leader of a cult that worshiped the comet. Instead of starmetal as described in Complete Arcane, he consumed the dust from the comet.
I believe that that is how PrCs are intended to be used: You look at what WotC has to offer, you make some changes if necessary, you regulate them heavily, and you make up some of your own.
A generic PrC (sort of oxymoronic, isn't it?) is something like an Arcane Archer, or an Assassin, or maybe a Dervish that isn't necessarily associated with a particular organization.
Um, the first two are. You cannot be an Arcane Archer without also belonging to the elven military, and a special unit of it at that. It's like saying "Green Beret" or "Navy Seals." You can't just BE a Navy Seal, you have to be a member of the Navy, you have to pass rigorous testing and training, and only the elite few can be one.
Same with the Assassin. You can't just pick up levels without being an active member of the Assassin's guild. Its one of the balancing factors that the guild can call you to do a job at any time, and you HAVE to take it. If you don't take it, or you fail, the guild comes after you. So, you better succeed, or die trying.
You can't take up either of those in a vacuum, you MUST have the organization, or else you're houseruling the PrC's organizational ties away, in which case anything can become a generic PrC...
Flavor text.
Take the Eldritch Knight, for example. Rather than saying "This is a prestige class with no purpose other than to plug the holes in the multiclassing system (c.f. Arcane Trickster, Mystic Theurge)" they wrote a nice little background on what kind of people try and master both arcane and martial disciplines. But notice how bland that description is ? Suits the class as level-filler doesn't it ?
The problem with Prestige Classes is that there are many different ways of writing one... The Eldritch Knight is written as generically as possible. It's hardly "prestigious". It fills the role of allowing Multiclassing to not be completely broken. As such, it's light on game-world description. There aren't any requirements to belong to any organizations etc.
Then there's something like Bladesinger. You have to have elven blood and be admitted into their organization, and so and on, and so forth. This is what the original PrC's were all about. In many campaigns, it really means something to belong to the Red Wizards, or the Bladesingers.
Then there are the ones that fall somewhere in the middle.
Assassin, is really not much more than a job description. It's not really hard to envision a self-taught assassin (or more importantly, a game-world where there are Assassins (the class) but no Assassin's Guild).
Arcane Archer could easily be available to any race that showed an affinity for magic and archery, or even any single person with such a bent. The restrictions to Elves in the military is flavor text, and not even particularly necessary.
The thing is, there are plenty of different backgrounds that can work out for one's character concept. They are tools, not a straitjacket.
When it is a simple matter of swapping a high Fortitude save for a high Reflex save, I can see the balance. But how can I calculate the relative powers of a core class with some prestige class that includes powers or abilities that don't correlate with anything in the core class? If it can't be turned into a feat, does that new power or ability belong in the game? I don't have time to perform extensive playtesting to ensure balance. I have allowed prestige classes in my games, but I don't like them very much.
But as it is, I get the idea that many prestige classes are attractive to players simply because they are more powerful than the core classes, and that bothers me.
Which actually leads into another problem, known as Power Creep. Where, over time, the overall power level of game raises. And this is exactly the sort of reason it happens. Too many of the designers seem to think that, to get that "Wow, this is cool, I wanna use this!" reaction, the class has to be just a HAIR more powerful in its field than what's come before it. Usually, it's not even enough to really notice, or if you do, it's small enough to not be a big deal.
Thing is, cycle after cycle, that hair's width of power increase keeps adding up, until you're at the point where a class looks balanced compared to everything else coming out at the same time, but when you take it back to just the original books, its quite powerful by comparison.
And when WotC thinks it has to put PrC in EVERY FREAKING BOOK it publishes these days (please, someone tell me how they are even trying to pay lip service to PrC being under the DM's control when they put the things in every player oriented book they print?), that means the cycles come pretty quickly, which means the power ramp up becomes more obvious more quickly.
But hey, this is what you get when you rely on the RPGA to be your game testers... its either nerfed into uselessness, or they keep their mouths shut about the abusive things just so it'll sneak through the cracks and they'll get to use it in official games.
1.) Have a Good Time
2.) Experiment with different fantastical strengths and weaknesses that are in your personal control, not a story's.
3.) Roleplay a fantasy character and interact with other people.
4.) Use you special powers and capabilities to work towards a certain end.
That's it. I like the base classes in the PHB. But I also love the base classes in the complete series. I love all the PrCs in the DMG. I like every class or PrC that works on a new capability. I also like all the classes that allow you not only to roleplay a situation but have it make sense. A powerful elven fighter in a no PrC world could say "I spend all my time studying Archery and have a magical aptitude for it" without PrCs that character is just FtrX/WizX. Yet add the Arcane Archer (One of my Favs) to the mix and you add something new. You give this character an element of ability that cannot be emulated. He does shoot better. It isn't an element of RPing smoke and mirrors based on idle chatter. He is a better archer. Sure, it should be hard and require work to get into this class. Yes, he should seek out another AA to teach him. This creates a sense of completeness and gives him RP-able stories and powers to tell that are actually there.
Look, for example, at the Mage of the Arcane Order from complete arcane. Everyone who has every rolled up a wizard can say, "I belong to a great Arcane Order and they help me" but it doesn't mean anything. With the Spellpool they gain a real tangible benefit. He has a power.
The game is all about possibilities. Every time a PrC comes along that adds something the game is made better. For example the Arcane Archer gave you all the shot abilities, the Arcane Trickster gave you Ranged Legerdemain and impromptu sneak attack, The Archmage High Arcana, the Assassin death attack, the Blackguard poison and sneak attacks within a paladin's combat body, the dwarven defender gave defensive stance, the hierophant gave his specials, Loremasters the secrets, the Shadowdancer shadow jump, Thaumaturgist gave you permanent planar ally.
You can't roleplay defensive stance. "I'm going stand here until I die" yet you don't get benefits from that. You need PrCs to add extra unique powers.
Also I don't see anyone proposing that rogues shouldn't get sneak attack because it's a RP crutch. No one suggests that a flanking rogue just say, "I aim extra well to hurt him an extra amount".
By the same token some PrCs really are crutches. For example the take the eldritch knight from the DMG. This class doesn't add an ability. It just repackages two separate abilities. It is just a role-playing crutch, just like the mystic theurge or the cerebramancer.
In conclusion, you have painting very useful PrCs that add something unique with the same brush that you use on PrCs that are useless, such as the Eldritch Knight.
~Rogue Newb
I really think that the mechanics of 3rd edition are an improvement over earlier editions (more streamlined, more intuitive), but the proliferation of prestige classes (and even new base classes) is an unwelcome development. I think it has taken the emphasis off of roleplaying, since characters seem now to be more about what they can do instead of what kind of person they are. If a D&D campaign were viewed as a story (written by the DM and the players), then what story basis could there possibly be to justify a single character taking multiple prestige classes?
It would be nice to see a new product that wasn't chock-full of prestige classes. Just think what they could put in a new book if it wasn't half-filled by new classes.
Some people like to roleplay, SOME DON'T
I know that sounds like the secret of the universe, but come on people. The GAME (AKA D&D) is about playing a fantasy character. If you really want to roleplay the entire set of abilities and skills and features you don't need D&D. Do buy a fantasy screenplay, act it out with your friends and go away.
This debate echoes a lot like the Nature vs. Nurture debate (I don't know how many of you are familiar with that). Some of you :cough: Edymion :/cough: prefer to have the game be based on the character's "nurture;" how they have acted their character's history and background. More emphasis on how powers were acquired and used. I have a guy like this in my game. He always has straight characters, and their not bad. However they don't usually end up lagging behind, but he admits freely that there are things and abilities that he wishes he could take levels in frenzied berserker (CW) but he feels that his character has never seen one, didn't grow up with one, and has never met someone who could teach him so he doesn't take it.
Others prefer to focus more on the "nature" of their characters. They desire to have the characters possess fantasy powers, not a fantasy background. They like to gain a level and gain something cool and new. The emphasis is on the power and it's uses not whether or not to use it. I also have a player like this in my group. His characters aren't any more powerful but he's fairly multiclassed and PrCed but he likes it. He can be a bit confusing in the city scenes. (I come from... uh... Bobsville!). He doesn't really like the town scenes, but he has a blast in the midst of dungeon crawling or battle.
Now if you substitute the words roleplaying for "nurture" and roll-playing for "nature" you sum up the whole debate.
I play a very hybrid of the types. I believe it is very much a influence of who AND what you are. The most important part of the game is to have fun. I like to take a level or 2 or 10 in a class I think is cool AND fits. But I don't crazy about it. I never play ftr1/sorc3/swash2/rogue3/AT2/AA1/WM1/Eld4 type characters, it just doesn't make any sense. But on the other hand if I have a Ftr 6/Sorc1 Elf I don't feel bad about taking AA. It gives me some cool new powers and it adds to the background.
It shouldn't be either you roleplaying or you powergame, there is a middle ground. It's roleplaying via roll-playing. A RP freak with a bad character is gonna have less fun, and for some the reverse is true.
Now, take a deep breath, have fun and enjoy some great D&D regardless of what the other players are doing.
~Rogue Newb
Instead if your player wants to use a Prestige Class he asks you; the DM. If the player does not like the answer then he is in the wrong game; one core idea of roleplaying games is to have someone in charge to settle disputes and deal with nuances as well as ensure the game stays within proper parameters to be played as it should be. If a player can’t handle that then they should find another line of gaming.
You could make easy house rules to cover this for yourself. For example several games that have simple house rules;
-If the DM does not own the book; you can’t use anything in it.
-If the Prestige Class has more than “X” (Sp) abilities it cannot be used
-If the Prestige Class has more than “X” (Ex) abilities it cannot be used
-If the Prestige Class has more than “X” (Sp) abilities and has more than “X” (Ex) abilities it cannot be used
-If the Prestige Class has requirements from a class unrelated to any class you had levels in within the last 5 levels you cannot use the class (i.e. if the class requires evasion and you are a Fighter 7/Rouge 3 (or even just a rouge 3) - started taking levels in Rouge 3 levels ago – you cannot use this prestige class until you are already a 5th level rouge)
-You may not take a Prestige Class until after “X” level
-All rules regarding organizations that Prestige Classes are a part of will be STRICTLY enforced (this one works quite well)
-If the prestige class has an alignment that is opposed drastically to anyone’s in the party it cannot be used
-You must have at least 10 levels in the classes underlying core class (i.e. Rouge 10th level for Assassin, 10th level fighter for a Knight Protector)
-And the biggest, bestest one that I love: Only ONE PRESTIGE CLASS allowed per character, ever, no exceptions, ever - even if the character looses levels and then no longer holds levels in that Prestige Class; that is still the only one he can ever take. This works very well with the house rules above as well.
Try some of those.
A prestige class is meant to focus ones abilities in a certain direction. To take the “foundation” of a core class and modify it to focus on a particular mechanic or roleplaying aspect. Where I have seen the biggest issues is with those classes that require roleplaying as a balance and not a mechanic. And you will find the powergaming munchkinizers will try and take many of these since they will argue that intrinsic roleplaying aspect all day long. The Kensai from Complete Warrior is a good example of this. If the DM shirks his duty to enforce the “Oath of Service” rules then that character is VERY unbalanced (something powergamers love).
Keep in mind that the balancing mechanic could be simply giving up the benefits of the underlying core class(s) exchanged for new abilities. For example the Eldritch Knight form the DMG; you loose a casting level since at first level you don’t get that caster level increase like you do with the other 9 levels. In addition, if you’re a wizard, you don’t get those free spells every level, the metamagic feats or anything else like that. The gain is the best BAB out there; but the balance is noted above here. That is a mechanic (give and take).
I am sure everyone can think of plenty of examples of each and some that are a mix; but the point being you are the ultimate god of your world and you make the rules. If players don’t like it then perhaps they should go elsewhere. The game is about challenge and overcoming obstacles in character not overcoming the rules and winning; that is a different type of game altogether (such as wargaming). This may mean your group all falls apart; but then again should that not be the case then? You should be having fun to; not just them. Your job is not necessarily to cater to the players but to provide a viable environment for them to work within that all of you enjoy. If they manage it through you then the powergamers in your group will dominate since they are like the lobbyists in Washington and always seem to have the loudest voice.
Thoughts???
I introduce them through organizations, but also single people. For example, an Archmage might be part of a local Archmages Guild, but he might be a unique but powerful figure. If a PC wants to become an Archmage, they will need to learn secrets from him. Even if the PrC is not an organization, you can't "learn" the PrC on your own.
In my dream every world builder worth his salt makes five PrCs for every major organization that is built into the politics of the world. Even if some, or even if most, of those aren't that great. Commoner PrCs, why not? Cook PrC?
In my dream not all PrCs are created equal! The archers of Southreach pale in comparison to the elders of the iron wall! Sure is easier to train with the Southreach guys though!
I have dreamt this dream before, in the realms forgotten, and the along the edge of the dragon's lance! Knight of the Rose, Crown, and Sword. Have you seen the D&D 2.0 (note: no A)? Has "Pre-PrC" concepts as well.
I hope DMG 2 has rules for characters making prestige classes for other characters see. I have had a player declare that they wanted to make a prestige class to teach his followers. He just made it, but there could be a rule analysis of what is going on in the consensuality of the setting.
"Hmmm...I know! I want to play a character that likes magic. He doesn't care what it is. He likes the idea of using the power of the whole world against his enemies."
So, he chooses a sorc/cleric/druid. But then he sucks. At everything he does. He can't wildshape, can't cast fireball, can't case lightning, can turn maybe one skeleton every day.
You don't have to be min-maxing, but this character, at twelfth level, can cast second level spells only. And that, even if it's a fun concept, it just sucks mechanically. A PrC is designed to combine an interesting concept with a mechanically sound build. If I wanted to design a monk only fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue, I'd choose a fighter who specialized in unarmed strikes. Still, I'm inferior to any weapon-using fighter. The monk class makes unarmed strikes a viable option over something else. Sometimes there are interesting concepts that are just mechanically crap.
Some people like to roleplay, SOME DON'T
Heh, so why are they playing a Roleplaying game? It's like saying, "some people like to fight, SOME DON'T" and using that as a basis for why there should be more basket weaving in Mortal Kombat.
No offense to anyone this may pertain to, but if your only interest is in killing things, then why don't you just play a computer game? The entire point of playing Pen and Paper these days is that you can ROLEPLAY it. You can do things BESIDES seeing how fast you can kill things.
I mean, if you just want to follow the line from A to B and kill stuff along the way, play Diablo II or Final Fantasy (don't get me wrong, I LOVE final fantasy). But D&D is a roleplaying game. Its very definition is that you take on the role of your character, and control their interactions with the game world.
And I'll say it again, I've got NOTHING against PrC being used to make a concept playable. I'm all for it, many of my characters end up taking PrC for that exact reason. What I'm against is people that don't even think about what their character would do, and just grab PrC because it lets them kill things faster. Or that pick a PrC just for its abilities, and don't even try to do anything but the stereotype with them. Or that think they NEED a PrC just to do something normal. Again, the newer members have no idea how many times threads like "I wanna be an assassin, but my DM won't let me take that PrC!". Threads where no one can convince the original poster that you don't NEED a PrC in order to kill people for money.
PrCs were originally intended as world building tools, ways to help the DM make a more interesting world. They represented organizations and special groups of people. Now days PrC represent "I want an Uber-character that can cast every spell in the game, and I don't want to lose any power at all while I'm doing it!".
The FIRST rule of any class or PrC is that no character should ever be totally self-reliant. If you've got a PrC that lets a character go toe to toe melee, cast offensive, defensive, and healing magic, sneak around, and all of the rest, then you've got a broken class/PrC. If there isn't a big weakness that someone else in the party has to fill (preferably two or three of them), then something is terribly wrong. No one character should ever be able to handle anything that gets thrown at them by themselves. This game is all about teamwork. You do something well, and you leave the other stuff to the rest of the party so they can have their moment in the limelight as well.
To use the earlier example of "a character that can use all the magic in the world", yes, they would suck in comparison. That's true in just about every game, and its true in real life as well. The specialists are the ones that excel, the JoATs (Jacks of All Trades) do okay in many areas, but will never be able to beat a specialist in their field. Think about it, if you've got a major injury/disease, who are you going to go see? The general family doctor, or a doctor that specializes in that part of the body? I don't know about anyone else, but I'll go to the JoAT for the easy stuff, but when my life is on the line, I want a specialist.
Same in D&D. A character that can't focus is not going to be as powerful as a character that does focus. And frankly, I would call any PrC that lets a combination type character rival a dedicated specialist in terms of power broken. You wanna be a Wizard that is also a front line fighter? Well, then you're not going to be as good at fighting as a dedicated fighter, and you're not going to be as good at casting as a dedicated caster. But you're more versatile than the fighter, and more durable than the wizard. Its a trade-off.
You can't have your cake, and eat it too.
But, the thing is, many people I see don't come up with a character that needs to be good at both, then try to find classes/PrC that will let them do it, they instead go "Oh hey, if I take this class and this PrC, I'll be unstoppable!" and then try to make a convoluted character that will fit the class combination.
Instead of using PrC as a tool to refine their character concept into a playable character mechanic, people are using PrC to make a super-strong mechanic and then trying to tack a character personality onto it. PrC were intended to be, essentially, detail work. Trim work. They were meant to be things to refine characters with, to make them special. Now they're being used to make rough blocks of numbers that the player slaps a little paint (rudimentary character concept) on, and calls it finished.
I'll liken it to atomic energy. It was created to benefit mankind, to make life easier and more enjoyable for all. Then a couple of guys got their hands on it, and turned it into a faster way to kill people. Enriching the world = good. Killing things as fast as possible = bad. Same with PrC. If you're using it to make a more rounded character, and to enrich the game world, great! If you're using it just to get abilities to kill monsters faster, then you've pretty much missed the entire point, IMO.
Like any option that a PC wants to use, the DM should scrutinize it to ensure that it won't unbalance his or her campaign or, at some, point, leave the PC stranded from the rest of the group through diverging storylines/interests. But this is no less of a problem with having any characters that have developed backgrounds that may tend to separate them from the group. The challenge for the DM is to find some way to weave these adventure threads together, or nip these character concepts earlier to avoid problems.
A lot of the discussion in this forum reminds me of the arguments surrounding allowing PCs to play non-standard races. Yet now we see rules attached almost to every monster description allowing for PC selection. Of course, the DM is the ultimate arbiter of allowing the selection in the first place.
Customizing a character, ultimately, is a good thing for the DM because it provides ready-made storyline hooks and invests the Player in the PC. The DM just needs to look at his or her campaign and the other PCs to ensure that the new character will not disrupt things too much, or that the campaign can be altered to facilitate the insertion of the new character.
If I am playing an elf archer (a boastful and jovial fellow, who loves to show off his marksmanship skills as well as picking up the girls). Now, I want him to be able to depend entirely on his bow (with only a back up dagger). Carrying a big sword just doesn't fit who I want my character to be. I want him to be able to use his bow in melee. Thus, I have a mechanical desire with role playing motivation.
Now, I find that mechanic in two places (1) on an epic feat and (2) as a 1st level ability of the Order of the Bow Initiate. I don't want to wait until epic levels, as by that point it is too late for the ability to be a central part of the character's growth and development. It is unsatisfactory both mechanically and conceptually.
The other ability is easily qualified for (since I will already meet all the pre-reqs for the PrC with feats I have planned to have since the beginning). With just a single level of "splash" I get the ability I want at a reasonable level. Mechanically, it works great. However, my character has no resemblance to the zen-like OBIs. They are a meditative group and have nothing in common with the charismatic and brash character I am running. So, I convince my DM to let me have the ability as a feat with all the pre-reqs of the OBI PrC. Problem solved, so long as the DM is reasonable.
Other times, however, you have the other problem. It is the PrC that is wanted, but the abilities do not fit. The most famous is the Assassin. Lots of players want to BE Assassins, and just saying that anyone who kills for money is an assassin is empty. The player wants their character to be identified as and with the guild of Assassins. The class, however, just does not make that good of an Assassin. A straight Rogue makes a better Assassin most of the time (and the save or die ability is frankly inferior to the 7th level spells the Wizard will be casting by that point). A better Assassin might not have all of the spells, but have spell-like and supernatural abilities for stealth, non-detection, disguise, and poisoning. It might also have a non-good rather than evil only alignment (since not every assassin is motivated by greed).
Of course, in that case, the Assassin is defined more off of how it kills (which is not evil, since killing is pretty much what all the classes are about), rather than the fact that they do it for money. Thus, you might have Assassins working for ideals (like a neutral aligned church) rather than just money. Or you might just have a grim shadow killer of the Orcish hoards that ravaged the characters village of birth.
So, PrCs look like a solution to the limited abilities of the base classes to build certain types of characters, they really maintain the same problem in a smaller scale. The only time the desire to flip classes won't happen is when the desired build can be made without it.
Solution: make more Loremasters and less Mystic Theurges; let us choose PrCs because they suit our character concepts and not just because they are the powerful option.
Except options like the mystic theurge, eldritch knight, etc are needed to make class combinations strong enough. The lasher is another example of this. It takes a weak weapon, and lets you build a thematic character that can compete on an effectiveness scale with another weapon wielder. The duelist lets you function better as a light armored character, as the mechanics so dramatically favor an armored one.
Take the ever popular elven fighter/magic-user from 1st edition. With 100,000 xp he's a 6th-level fighter/6th-level magic user. Now if he were a straight magic-user, he'd only be 8th level. All the multi-classed characters work like this.
Now 3.5 edition. At low levels, it's fine to just split; a fighter 3/wizard 6 is roughly as good in melee as a 6th-level fighter (same BaB, same Fort save, less feats but better HP) and the equivalent of a straight 9th-level wizard, which seems okay. But 3.5 scales up to at least 20th level, and a Fighter 6/Wizard 8 is the "equivalent" of a 14th-level wizard - nothing like the Fighter 8/Magic-User 8 from 1st edition who, if he had been single classed, would only be a 9th or 10th level magic-user. So how do you recreate this 1st-edition multiclass? With the Eldritch Knight, MT, and other select prestige classes, most of which are horribly vanilla but mechanically very sound.
So not all PrCs are "new" and tampering with the perfect ruleset. And a lot of them just let you recreate stuff that's been around literally forever. Heck, the assassin used to be a basic class and they certainly could make instant kills. So they just brought it back and it made some of us, who had played 1st ed. half-orc assassins, very happy. The Incantatrix (however you spell it) from FR is from Dragon 64 or so... that's really old too, and they tweaked it but it was always out there and very unusual.
Anyway, your "stuck in the 80's" reminded me of this and I thought you might appreciate it.
-Shaftiel
A big problem I have at my table is getting player's excited about playing. The adventures are good, the treasure is steady, but after week upon week it all tends to run together. PrCs are a way of keeping my players somewhat interested in advancing their character. Using that energy, I can springboard into whatever I want.
Does one PC shine above others due to this? Regretfully, yes, it happens. But when it does, the character and I usually work a deal. Like they don't show off so much unless they need to in exchange for stature among NPCs. Sometimes the player will get bored with his munched out character and abandon it for another. So long as this maintains his interest in the game, I write it off as an unusual playing style and it ends there. I have never turned down a PrC class to anyone, but I always issue my players the same warning: If your actions threaten my game and the amusement of myself and the other players, the behavior must stop.
Personally I think Power Creep is a myth. Even if it does occur, I don't see it as being unhealthy to the game. 100% of all game problems begin and end behind the DM screen. Rather than state the obvious about PrC power levels, DMs need to get their noses out of the books and on the table. When I stop seeing thread after thread of whiny DMs complaining about problem players and begs for adventure wriing advices, then we can worry about the actual quality of what we have. Until then, we (D&D fans) need to focus on creating an actual game, rather than a fair game.
I agree with Edymnion that PrCs are supposed to be world-building tools for the DM. However, I doubt the designers had some organisation-related thing rather than the idea of the "Advanced Classes" in mind, because even though you show some examples and statements of designers who originally saw the Prestige Class as a means to add flavour to organisations, books like MotW and DotF (meaning early 3.0 accessories) did and do not really support that (meaning that there already were many Prestige Classes based upon the "Advanced Classes" idea).
Well, not really. That just shows that the bean counters realized "Hey, if we throw out that garbeldigook about worldbuilding tools, and turn PrCs into 3e kits, we can stuff lots of them into every book we publish, and make a lot of money off them!"
Which is exactly what has happened.
A character has always liked fire. One day, the character noted that he can create it himself without any flint nor steel, by his force of will alone. The talent he kept hidden as mages are feared in the location. The character, as the patriot he is, enlisted to army got quite proficient with a plethora of weapons, most notably longswords. At his free time he played with whips, practicing the remarkable hand-eye coordination he had been blessed with since birth.
Later, a war broke out. The character was among warriors. In a desperate situation, with no weapon (it had broken), his comrades in arms dying everywhere, outnumbered, he summoned his innate gift into two fiery swords. Swords of fire. The armors of opponents proved ineffective and he fought through the enemy, saving remaining soldiers around him. For the use of magic he got banished from army, but got a permission to use said magic as long as it caused no mayhem.
Today, the character travels the land, forming whips and swords of fire to fight anything foolish enough to cross his ways, and to amuse and threaten people. His fiery weapons can be called at will, and have been in existence for many hours in the battlefield. Other than those he has shown absolutely no gift in the arcane arts. Wizards presume that he is a kind of magical savant.
Create this through the 4 classes alone.
Just a note: I am not aware of any ways to create this character with any accuracy. A psionic class might exist, not sure.
Your character concept challenge is still up, I presume? It works well as long as the character shouldn't be able to use magic in specific ways.
A character has always liked fire. One day, the character noted that he can create it himself without any flint nor steel, by his force of will alone. The talent he kept hidden as mages are feared in the location. The character, as the patriot he is, enlisted to army got quite proficient with a plethora of weapons, most notably longswords. At his free time he played with whips, practicing the remarkable hand-eye coordination he had been blessed with since birth.
Later, a war broke out. The character was among warriors. In a desperate situation, with no weapon (it had broken), his comrades in arms dying everywhere, outnumbered, he summoned his innate gift into two fiery swords. Swords of fire. The armors of opponents proved ineffective and he fought through the enemy, saving remaining soldiers around him. For the use of magic he got banished from army, but got a permission to use said magic as long as it caused no mayhem.
Today, the character travels the land, forming whips and swords of fire to fight anything foolish enough to cross his ways, and to amuse and threaten people. His fiery weapons can be called at will, and have been in existence for many hours in the battlefield. Other than those he has shown absolutely no gift in the arcane arts. Wizards presume that he is a kind of magical savant.
Create this through the 4 classes alone.
Just a note: I am not aware of any ways to create this character with any accuracy. A psionic class might exist, not sure.
That's rather easy, actually. It's a Sorcerer/Fighter (heavy on Sorcerer). Takes nothing but Fire spells, has Exotic Weapon Prof (whip) for his bonus Fighter feat, and he knows an arcane version of the Flame Blade spell.
That's rather easy, actually. It's a Sorcerer/Fighter (heavy on Sorcerer). Takes nothing but Fire spells, has Exotic Weapon Prof (whip) for his bonus Fighter feat, and he knows an arcane version of the Flame Blade spell.
Not quite that easy, though.
- Campaign flavor: This shows special group or regional training, or something in a particular bloodline.
- Odd Combos: PrCs can also be used to make certain sub-optimal choices good. Focusing on a whip, familiars or knowledge are all examples of good PrCs both NPCs and PCs could take (IMHO at least).
- Better Combos: The Eldritch Knight would be even more mechanically sound if it lost a spellcaster level every 3 levels but the basics of it are fine. Same with the Mystic Theruge.
I feel if you restrict PrCs to one per character or make them count for XP penalties you'll find an immediate difference in character planning. A 3-class character is the most you'll need to play a certain character I think.
Anyway that's my 2 cents. I think all PrCs should be tied to the campaign, whether organizations, bloodlines or races but I think they SHOULD be available to PCs as long as the DM agrees.
Not quite that easy, though.
Sure it is. You develop the concept with existing materials and some roleplaying. The proper response for when something isn't workable as written is to start on the small scale and work up, not at the top and work down.
Somebody that manifests swords of fire as well as other fire spells? Use a themed sorcerer, and make up a few new spells to fill in the gaps. You don't jump all the way to making a PrC that grants fire sword abilities.
If the problem can be solved with new feats/spells, that is what you should do. PrC should only be pulled out when you're making a large change to the campaign world as a whole.
However, I doubt the designers had some organisation-related thing rather than the idea of the "Advanced Classes" in mind...
I was having a conversation the other day about this sort of thing: why hasn't D&D stolen a page from D20 Modern, and slipped Advanced Classes in between Base Class and Prestige Class? It could work to remove the confusion between prestige-class-as-world-building/organization based and prestige-class-as-patch/hack-to-character concept. Plus 28 base classes is too many, and they themselves are blurring the lines between what a class *is*.
I could write an essay on this alone... and I think I will. Look for it here soon.
1. It is not today possible to build characters with the base classes that emulate Prestige Classes in anything but the most basic way. You can make other characters that are also fun to play that way, but that is another matter. On the other hand it would have been very possible for D&D to incorporate all the Prestige Class mysteries in the game and only use base classes. The key would be a focus on adding feats instead of adding prestige classes - perhaps with a tweak in the rules allowing a slight increase in feats per character. By setting prerequisites for the feats, gradual growth like in prestige classes would still be possible. I think I would prefer it if the game was designed that way instead, as it would be a lot more elegant and a lot more open ended at the same time. I think feats and skills are much more interesting as character building tools than classes.
2. On the other hand: Why should we tell other people how to play? Let them have fun! My main character is a Fighter 4, Bard 6, Virtuoso 7 fellow that I have been building since 3rd Edition came out. I wanted a swashbuckling bard that had more fun with music than the vanilla version, and this is the way I was able to do it. I would have preferred working with feats instead, but when the official rules offered a quite decent alternative, I went for it. I roleplayed the search for a Virtuoso trainer and found one across the sea: My guy tracked him down, made friends with him - and learnt the trade. In another party this might have been two minutes of play time not to slow the main action down, and that would have been their fun way. Outside of RP competitions I see no reason to tell other people how to play their game, and if people want PrCs and/or powergaming then let them.
If people wonder, I have 25ish years of RP behind me and many more ahead. I used to play and organize competitions quite a bit, so I have played with a lot of people over the years. Yes, some are better players than others. And some get more out of what they do than others. But I have seen so many "poor" players love their game and speak of it with heartwarming passion. I have had lackluster sessions of DMing that people have come up and thanked me for five years later - because for them it was all fantastic and magical. And I don't think that was because I am so great that my bad is still top class. I simply think that we look for different things, and roleplaying can at any time create something memorable in a single player's mind. So. Let them have their fun. If PrCs is what they need, then let them have them. If they don't want to limit them the way you would, then it won't hurt you. I won't pick out their underwear. I won't pick out their snacks for them. Neither will I tell them how to love their game.
Sure it is. You develop the concept with existing materials and some roleplaying. The proper response for when something isn't workable as written is to start on the small scale and work up, not at the top and work down.
Somebody that manifests swords of fire as well as other fire spells? Use a themed sorcerer, and make up a few new spells to fill in the gaps. You don't jump all the way to making a PrC that grants fire sword abilities.
If the problem can be solved with new feats/spells, that is what you should do. PrC should only be pulled out when you're making a large change to the campaign world as a whole.
I say that you create a concept and if the rules don't match, change them. But I do think that rules should mirror the concept as well as possible. That is what rules are for; to make the concept work "in practice," so to speak. A good ruleset is able to model a large number of character concepts with good accuracy. The set in stone-abilities of normal D&D core classes don't do this very well, unfortunately. I prefer ultimate classes (see sig) to prestige classes, but everyone has a preference of their own.
and they themselves are blurring the lines between what a class *is*.
Yes, they are. A class is supposed to be a broad idea from which specifics can be built. Like the Rogue can become a thief, a con-man, an explorer, or a dirty back alley brawler. The Fighter can become a swordsman, archer, shield tank, whatever. Very specific things should have been left to PrC. The Monk and the Paladin both fit the model for a PrC very well. They are organizationally tied niche characters. The Monk would have been a Fighter PrC for a fighter specializing in unarmored, unarmed combat instead of sword and board. The Paladin is obviously a Fighter/Cleric PrC (to the point its even turned into a PrC in Unearthed Arcana).
The fact they're throwing niche base classes in all the time now just makes it worse. I mean, just how many things can you make out of a Ninja?
In my esteemed opinion, Prestige classes-as their name would imply-are a privilege not a right. They are awarded after establishing your character as a pillar of some cause, technique or style. They do not spontaneously generate, PrCs are earned through the accumulation of "Prestige" ie honor, reputation, and personality. So when you become really qualified at something, be it implacability, sojourning, or learning the Campaign World opens its bosom up to you and allows your character to invest the "earned" prestige in the Campaign Environment.
Now, obviously, there is no PrC that does not require a certain degree of preparation and forethought. But this is the DM's job, not the PC's. This is really one of the things that drives me absolutely up the wall. Dedicated-better yet-Designated PCs should not own any other D+D material other than the Player's Handbook. And I mean that, I mean it more than anyone could ever possibly know. I'm a professional-well, designated-DM I've done it five years straight and I have no regrets. Simply put, I love storytelling, the crafting and shaping of a legend, and the fond memories an excellent play session, and excellent, well-crafted campaign well-executed.
The sad fact of the matter is though: anyone with Core Rulebook II, III or any Splat Book or any Complete Book, any other book is ruining the experience for all the others. The simple fact is: you're peeking at your Christmas presents in August. And that, my friends, is really, really lame. Prestige Classes are no different than magic items, or platinum pieces or tracts of land. The fact you do not expect to get them. PrCs are a random drop. And anyone who preps their character for a PrC is no better than a ganking, newb, farmer. And you should be ashamed of yourselves. The fact is, the DM-bless his heart-has a story to tell, and you're the star. And you, with your big blue eyes pleading for me or my fellow DMs to "Cut to the Ninjas" is bad, bad, bad gaming. And frankly, you've forgotten why you're here. It's great that you come in with expectations, really.
AND IF YOU THINK I'M WAY OFF BASE HERE, CONSIDER THIS: WHY AREN'T THERE ANY PrCs IN THE PLAYER'S HANDBOOK? I'm not gonna tell you why, but I find it highly suspect when they do include a 20 level progression for the base 9 classes.
You guys think you know how to fight a vampire or a basilisk or a purple worm because you read about it in the MM? Ugh! The fact is, you people in the blue corner think these books foster creativity and infinite recombinations of infinite particulars. The fact is that they stifle, they spoonfeed you the easy answer to all your concerns, all you have to do is trade in a feat here, and a skill point there...prick your thumb and you're golden.
I wish there was a sexy way to wrap all this up, but there just isn't. The fact is, step off your DM, he knows what he's doing and he's more than capable of running the show his own self. And you know he can, because his been rockin' on the back of his heals ever since you dropped your Thaumaturgist/Archmage on his dice-bag.
GoR, out.
... stuff ...
I could write an essay on this alone... and I think I will. Look for it here soon.
Woot! That's a good point. PrCs are a design tool, a flavor aid, and a meta-gameplay analysis.
Whereas base classes are basic and you should be able to replicate any given character out of any given play with an decent set of base classes, such as the ones in true20 or D&D.
But! "prestige" classes should be individualized "order of the bow initiate" and "deepwood sniper" seem like a group and a location to me. Now the flavor description may say otherwise, but their best use is in saying, "The archers from the deepwoods area know those tricks, and the order of the bow guys know these." It seems there is a sticking point when it comes to considering PrCs as "inherent to the meta-reality" or "a crunchy (and $$ ) component of fluffy flavor" sometimes a PrC is one, sometimes its the other.
I concur with WotC "using" PrCs for money; it's good money. Like poems, or pictures, each one unique, capable or representing far more than a kit ever could. They gives rise to the delicate power creep or devilish power dance that can be fun if your having fun already. I don't hear any complaints with "more weapons" or "more spells" being abusive? PrCs - same thing, feats - natch, and (apparently to a certain extent) base classes - complete/settings.
It comes back to this, and always will, ideally - you play in your own world, with your own board, your own rules, and your own way. The less work you want to put into things up front - the more knick knacks you can buy. You are paying for convenience - the rules are free [url=www.wizards.com/d20]srd?[/ulr] - not perfect. If you don't want to reforge a PrC, or simply forge your own--buy buy buy. If you can't or simply don't have the time--buy buy buy. That's how the world goes round. No one shows up to thought police your use of PrCs.
I think this is what should be:
Base Classes, then "Base Path Classes" (like some of the current PrCs) that are purely extensions of classes (add req = class lvl X ), and then actual organization (similar to say drunken master ) based classes.
The BpCs should be as generic and "universal" concepts as the base classes, something a character could develop on their own but giving more focus than feats allow, while the actual PrCs should be specifically related to the source of the training. Prestige means "placement, purpose, popularity, and potence" at least alliterally.
Currently I just tag certain PrCs as the "anybody can do it" versions, and add "learn from X" to the prereqs of any PrC I believe should be restricted as such.
List of my decision regarding SRD PrCs,
- Secret Societies -
Arcane Archer (elven cult, - if elves exist )
Assassin (common "guild" training )
Dragon Disciple (note: "disciple" )
Dwarven Defender ("elite" guard training )
Hierophant (Certain number per Church )
Lore Master (Invitation only )
ShadowDancer (uncommon "guild" training )
In case you're curious :D
If the problem can be solved with new feats/spells, that is what you should do. PrC should only be pulled out when you're making a large change to the campaign world as a whole.
See I am of the exact opposite mind set, that I would rather make a PrC then create new spells or feats.
For example, lets use the ranger and the beast-master (CAd). The beast master PrC gives better HD, continues a ranger's BaB, Saves, Animal Empathy, improved animal companion. What is left out is: Favored enemies, Combat Style, Camouflage, Hide in Plain Sight, Woodland Stride, etc.
Some PrC classes and Core Classes have the way in being: what role/niche would this fit into? Is it mainly for flavor (don't get me wrong, flavor is good, not when its the only factor in choosing a class)?
Second, prestige classes are a logic extension of the evolution of the multiclasses system.
Finally what I would like to see in the future of D&D is one class with a basic set of skills, and where with each level you invest points in your skills or in feats. Feats would be abilities where after you invest in them as you do for a skill. A player could buy a package when starting his character, and this package would change (bonify or penalize) the value for buying skills and feats (i.e. package for fighter, spellcaster, etc.).
However, I doubt the designers had some organisation-related thing rather than the idea of the "Advanced Classes" in mind, because even though you show some examples and statements of designers who originally saw the Prestige Class as a means to add flavour to organisations
Monte Cook, one of the men that originally designed the PrC is on record, repeatedly, saying that the original purpose of PrC was organizationally related. It is why there is not a single non-organizational PrC in the original DMG.
You can't get it any more direct than that. "I doubt the designers had some organisation-related thing", well, the designers themselves have been on record saying "We originally meant them to be organization related things".
Remember, the idea of Advanced Classes in d20 didn't come around until d20 Modern, which came well AFTER D&D 3e was published. The Advanced Classes are an offshoot of PrC, not the other way around.
My question is: Why can't they roleplay that AND use PrCs to create it? If, say, Andy wants to make a psychic warrior/pyrokineticist, so why can't he make a character who's always had a passion for flame, and roleplay it? Conversely, why can't Cassandra use the Illithid Slayer PrC to create her character Citrina Deathknell, a tormented and sickly elan who's psionic transformation was interrupted by a group of illithid psions who felt the emanations, and was incorrectly transformed?
What I mean to say is, min/maxing and roleplaying CAN mix. If someone wants to roleplay something, they can find a PrC to match it. If someone finds a PrC they like the idea of, they can find a roleplayable character to match it. What's wrong with that? Sure, they could do it with the normal classes, but all that means is they'll have: Citrina Deathknell, Rogue 6/ranger 2, on the top of their page, instead of: Citrina Deathknell, Illithid Assassin.
I don't think PrC's will destroy roleplaying anytime soon, not as long as DM's don't let it happen.
The creators could easily fix this by creating alternate paths within the Core Classes. I have seen alternate Monk paths, and I have seen them in several supplements. Make Prestige classes purely NPC. Fix this problem in D&D 4.0! Save D&D!
See I am of the exact opposite mind set, that I would rather make a PrC then create new spells or feats.
But it seems like the majority of the prestige classes that we're being flooded with now could be accomplished with existing classes and new feats. The rest of them could be accomplished by allowing substitutions of class features.
Moreover, introducing new abilities as new feats instead of as features of new prestige classes would make them more useful and more broadly available.
Those who favor deregulation, favor moving to an eventual state of the game where all PCs have a "Base Adventurer Class" with abilities that are chosen (usually on some sort of point based system). Thus, things like increased HD, BAB, Saves, Spellcasting, and Abilities would all be "bought."
Upsides: Role players love the incredible flexibility to create any kind of character they want. Min/maxers have a hay day with all of the potentially abuseable options.
Downsides: Min/maxers have a hay day with all of the potentially abuseable options. Role playing becomes harder for new players (the entire learning curve shoots way up for the game). In the end, it is less marketable.
Those who favor regulation, favor the current system with set classes and PrCs. What they want is a more regular system. PrCs need to be cleaned up and better balanced, so that they can fit fully into the core world at the Player level. What you would end up with is more PrCs, like the Duelist, becoming base classes, and PrCs given lighter requirements and printed in Players materials (for example, the True Necromancer's requirements might shift to Cleric 3, Necromancer 5).
Upside: Lots of options for base classes, PrCs, but with a much lower learning curve. Increased marketability.
Downside: WotC will never edit the splats sufficiently for good game balance. All of the downsides listed on this thread, specifically class as a Role Playing crutch (by experienced players).
I want to remind that the rules prevent this kind of abuse: DMG p 176 states that "rules for level advancement apply" (PHB p58) which means that XP penalties must be calculated (the character above whatever his race may be would get a minus 100% on his XP ouch! (such a min-maxer wouldn't accept that).
On the other hand I see prc as rewards for the players: being allowed to meet one organisation , to share its secrets to advance in a new class. Always it means they discover something not only do they become more powerful but they develop ties to the NPC around them.
I want to remind that the rules prevent this kind of abuse: DMG p 176 states that "rules for level advancement apply" (PHB p58) which means that XP penalties must be calculated (the character above whatever his race may be would get a minus 100% on his XP ouch! (such a min-maxer wouldn't accept that).
Not so, check the errata. PrC do not count against multiclassing penalties. After all, it would be impossible to take a PrC without xp penalties if that were the case.
Not so, check the errata. PrC do not count against multiclassing penalties. After all, it would be impossible to take a PrC without xp penalties if that were the case.
I also believe that this is true since most PrCs are attainable only after 5th level.
Although the above is most likely the reason for not having the XP penalty apply to the PrCs, I still think that they should apply against themselves. No, this is not one of the rules since it specifically states that PrCs do not affect the multiclass penalty (I cannot remember where, but I have seen it). Having an XP penalty for multiclassing PrCs would be a big step in solving the Cherry-Picking Syndrome.
I have always allowed more than one PrC, but it is my rule has been that one must finish the first PrC before entering another PrC.
It appears most people agree prestige classes are best when used to improve one's roleplay and that the player planning from lvl 1 to become a FTR 5/Deepwood Sniper 7/Wiz 1/Arcane Archer4/Peerless Archer 2/Order of the Bow Initiate 1 is missing the point (seeking power instead of a coherent character history)
But he does have a coherent history; he's a crazy good archer. He shoots down sparrows from 5 miles below. He channels spells into said arrows. And so forth. No one looks at him and goes, "Oh, he's a FTR 5/Deepwood Sniper 7/Wiz 1/Arcane Archer4/Peerless Archer 2/Order of the Bow Initiate 1... How’d he get all that?" They look at him and go, "Man that guy can shoot."
D&D is both a roleplaying and a wargaming game. Roleplaying has little or nothing to do with the mechanics of things. Above mentioned character might have gone on a quest to avenge his father who was killed by some evil organization, found out his uncle led the evil people, proceeded to hunt him down in a blind vengeful rage, and along the way became the leader of a town, fell in love, made some friends, and did various other memorable things that didn't involve rules at all.
In the meantime, when it comes to the wargaming part, aka combat, the player has skillfully constructed his character to fight as well as possible, in the way that he wants. He looked through his options, judged the plusses and minuses of each level and class and found the combination that he thinks is optimal.
Just because some of you don't have any natural inclination to min/max does not mean you get to be spoil-sports for the rest of us. You complain about min/maxing ruining your fun so you go around ruining the fun of min/maxers. Guess what? A free and open society (which is what I think we should all aim for in any communal activity) is one that allows each person to do what they want with a minimum of restrictions. Anytime you want to restrict something "for the enjoyment of the group" you should be asking yourself, is it really better to ruin one player's fun than to just not be bothered by it yourself?
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I'm starting a new game this week as a DM and I have at this point placed no restrictions on class, race, PrC, or anything. In fact, I'm helping one of my players make a Cheater of Mystra build (without actually using Mystra... or having Forgotten Realms sourcebooks). If it becomes a problem (which it might not because actually the main strength of the class is the "no XP-cost limited wishes bit and I'm no bothering with XP, and thus XP-costs, anyway) I'll just throw additional stuff at the other players till they reach an equal footing. It's better to build up than tear down! Plus it means I can start throwing Epic encounters at them a couple levels early.
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As for the guy who said players should have only the PHB... did you miss the whole Complete series? That whole thing is geared toward players as are a heck of a lot of other things Wizards publishes.
Roleplaying has little or nothing to do with the mechanics of things.
Not so. RPing should determine the mechanical capabilities of a character (though not directly), as the game mechanics shape roleplaying. They, after all, tell how the character interacts with the rest of the world.
That such level-dipping is required to portray a character shows a clear hole in the game. Flexibility is needed, not thousands and thousands of new PrCs which patch up the lacks of clunky, class-based (with no definitive setting) game system.