Monte as he originally conceived them saw the PrC as a way to convey the flavor of major NPC driven organizations.
This is a bad approach, because RL experience has taught us that what drives organizations are interests (political / religious / economic / . . . )
Tying organizations to game mechanics is just asking for troubles (they just didn't know what kind of troubles in advance).
Also in practice, the PrCs Monte created had the problem that every member of an organization was typically the same character.
Later on, you mentioned feats.
A hard working DM could split feats into groups, where some are common knowledge and the rest are to be divided among elite-esoteric-secret organizations you mentioned.
The same approach could be applied to certain spells, skill-tricks, gear, substances etc.
I only wish I had the time and energy to implement this approach.
Thinking out dozens of organizations with their sets of feats / spells / skill-tricks is way too much work for me and I wouldn't know how to do it correctly without closing the door on a multitude of character concepts.
They were an attempt to patch the balance between casters and noncasters by giving noncasters more robust options.
Which I view as something that one should strive for from the get go.
I'm well aware that there's never 100% symmetry between the classes (no matter what those classes would be) and that's ok, as long as there's a healthy tradeoff between raw power and versatility.
They were an attempt to patch problems with the baggage carried by core classes to allow for choices that the core classes didn't allow for.
Actually, one of the more annoying excess weights for me was making Trapfinding a class feature. It's a baggage that goes all the way back to BECMI (didn't really examine Chainmail, so I couldn't go that far).
Using core only, it forces you to take Rogue at low levels out of game necessity rather that out of wanting the class for its awesomeness.
And, it makes no sense whatsoever.
What if you wanted a ranger that wasn't a spellcaster? Or a ranger that was suited to an urban environment?
I've been arguing for the longest time that Ranger and Barbarian should be Fighter variants or Fighter build-options.
If you think of it, in concept and spirit, Ranger and Barbarian are not so far apart.
WotC began to print PrCs that actively undermined its own game system. They were cheap to make as long as you didn't play test them (imagine, not play testing a class in a class based system), as witnessed by the hordes that appear in 3rd party supplements.
It's not just 3rd party supplements.
They didn't see the following monstrosities coming to life:
- Sublime-Ur-Lyrist
- Ur-Theurge
- Mindbending-Hellfire-Ur-Lock (via Eldritch Disciple)
- or even Incantatrix / IotSFV / Planar Shepherd
But yes, with a 5
th level entry point and a single Cleric level (with Able Learner), 3
rd party Dweomerkeeper is insane on its own. Just begging for completion with Archmage or Abjurant Champion
I think the decent alternatives are suggested by something like your multi-classing fix, plus...
a) Broader embracing of the feat and what a feat is allowed to do, particularly in a more 5e style. For me this realization occurred when I realized that every PrC was simply a feat chain generally geared to a particular class which had as its requirements the requirements of entering into the PrC.
b) General rebalancing of the core classes. For me a lot of that has involved a combination of thinking about class abilities in terms of 'feat equivalents' (if every feature of this class was bonus feats, how many feats would the class features be worth), toning down the power of spells/spell-casters while increasing the power of feats and skills (and those that rely on them).
I had all these criteria in mind when I set out to making the last incarnation of my codex, but I also realized that since...
1. feats are not (and could not be) made equal
2. feat-chains are not (and could not be) made equal
3. feat-combos are not (and could not be) made equal
then feats should not become the dominant factor or measuring tool for character power and versatility, and the assessment should be applied to whole packages.
Feats, however, should definitely remain a decisive customization tool, but I don't like the fact that you get so few of them in 5e and that you have to weigh them vs. advancement of ability scores.