The proliferation of core and prestige classes

I went to my FLGS tonight, and while I was browsing around I saw a teenager come in with his friend and start browsing the D&D books, and one picked up Complete Adventurer while standing right next to me and his friend was on the other side of me, and after flipping through it for a few seconds, the following conversation ensued (recalling from memory):

Teen: Wow, cool, you can play Ninjas in D&D now!
Friend: Woah, we can have ninja in our games now?
Myself (after a moment's pause): Uh, you could play ninja in D&D before.
Teen: Uh uh, I've never seen Ninja in D&D before.
(I politely ignore Sword & Fist, Oriental Adventures, Rokugan and Way of the Ninja, which are all on the shelves and bookcases)
Myself: You could have played a ninja with the core rules if you really wanted.
Friend: No you couldn't, there are no rules for ninja in the Player's Handbook!
Myself: You could play one before, play a Monk/Rogue and take Assassin levels.
Teen: You can't multiclass Monk and Rogue, or you can't be a monk anymore.
(Realizing they would probably consider the fact that I let Monk's multiclass in my games to be sacrilege, I offer an alternate explanation)
Myself: First level in Monk, 4 levels in Rogue, take 10 Assassin levels, then finish out in Rogue.
Teen: That's not a ninja, that's a Monk/Rogue/Assassin! It doesn't have special ninja powers and anyway, monks have to be lawful and assassins evil, this says ninja can be any alignment, so I can have my chaotic good heroic ninja!
Myself: It's all in the roleplaying, how you describe and play your character, wear black pajamas if you want (also bite my tongue on the idea of heroic chaotic-good ninja).
Teen: Nuh unh, now you can play them in D&D, it even says so right here, it'll even say right there on the character sheet: "Ninja".
(Teen and his friend go over to the register to buy Complete Adventurer, happily chattering about Ninja PC's they want to make).

Then it struck me exactly why there is such an incredible proliferation of Prestige Classes and now Core Classes. Many people are unable, unwilling, or simply haven't thought of the idea of creating character types from existing classes. Because it says "Elder of the Inner Circle" or "Grand Dragonmaster Monk" or "High Priest of Grummsh" on their character sheet they can play that character, but the idea of using multiclassing, or even just a single class and some good roleplaying (and feat/skill selection) eludes them. I like the flexibility in classes that 3.x has given us, but starting gaming under earlier editions made me learn how to do more with less I guess, and not need a special class for every single character concept.

Now, I like prestige classes, I think they are a good thing. But you can have too much of a good thing, probably hundreds of "official" ones between D&D books and Dragon magazines and thousands more from the d20 field. A dozen new core classes in the Complete books didn't help much (when honestly, many of those core classes could be easily represented by existing combinations of core and prestige classes, feats and some actual roleplaying and creativity). I like the idea of using Prestige Classes to create paths for characters that couldn't be easily done in other ways (Dragon Disciple), to act as a workaround for spellcaster multiclassing (Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster/Mystic Theurge), or to represent highly specialized advanced training in a field that comes with membership in an elite organization (Red Wizard), however classes that exist only as uber-power-ups (Radiant Servant of Pelor) or a reason for characters to be able to write the name of an organization or concept on their sheet (Ronin, Dread Pirate) seem to be redundant.

Are you making a prestige class because it does something you can't do with base classes and existing PrC's or makes an organization really unique, or just so you can write a new word on the "class" line of your character sheet or a nice way to power-up your character?

Does anybody agree with this?

I think it's important to remember that a large portion of DnD's target audience is rather young compared to most regulars here and veteran roleplayers anywhere. Certainly when I was younger I was much more likely to take the rules more literally, at least in good part due to having friends who I couldn't trust to bend the rules in a way that was balanced in terms of the group.

For example, when I was still playing ADnD 2nd Edition, one member of our regular gaming group made a custom class that took the fighting and hit points of the Fighter along with the percentage skills of the Thief and then just averaged the experience charts of the two classes together. If you played much of 1st or 2nd edition ADnD you'd realize this was not a very fair way to handle such a situation.

To answer your topic question, I don't worry about having tons of extra classes around. I find it's much easier to ignore things you don't like than have to make up your own material from scratch when you find things missing. I might worry more if the PHB suddenly contained 30 core classes, but it doesn't.

I would rather have exactly what I want than something that's pretty darned close to what I want. And until all class features have been broken down into equivalent feats, the next best thing is to either tweak an existing class (or a couple of them), or create a new one.

I personally prefer a few exciting and useful (i.e. they fill a definite niche) new core classes to a ton of PrCs. But that's just me.

EricNoah said:

I would rather have exactly what I want than something that's pretty darned close to what I want.

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Copy. Paste.

With the monk/rogue/assassin that calls himself a ninja there's a great danger of lack of clarity - communication problems. The DM and other players aren't sure what you mean. Given that 99% of problems in roleplaying are communication problems that's something that should be avoided or minimised at all costs.

Much better to be a ninja who says he's a ninja. Then there's no doubt.

Self-quoting:

Since the beginning of RPGs as we know them, it has been a hobby promoting creation. OD&D was made for people to adapt it to their own tastes through houserules, variants and so on.

AD&D was then just one way among others to see a more complex, personal set of rules. D&D3 and the d20 system were also based on this concept. Anyone blends stuff and creates houserules and variants. The goal is to make D&D our game. Thus, I see the proliferation of crunch as a very good thing, because it inspires other creators out there, it allows anyone to choose campaign components with wide variety of choice, and so on. And as said above, no one forces - God forbid - anyone to include everything at the game table. That would be absurd.

Only those willing to have a canon D&D and a strictly "official" lecture of the game may want diversity to come to an end. This is in contradiction with the OGL and the very purpose of the game since 1974.

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Remember, a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet.

wingsandsword said:

Many people are unable, unwilling, or simply haven't thought of the idea of creating character types from existing classes. Because it says "Elder of the Inner Circle" or "Grand Dragonmaster Monk" or "High Priest of Grummsh" on their character sheet they can play that character, but the idea of using multiclassing, or even just a single class and some good roleplaying (and feat/skill selection) eludes them. I like the flexibility in classes that 3.x has given us, but starting gaming under earlier editions made me learn how to do more with less I guess, and not need a special class for every single character concept.

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I would frame this slightly differently. I think there are two views of classes: "class-as-occupation" and "class-as-skill-package."

"Class-as-occupation" means that anyone who takes levels in Barbarian comes from a primitive tribe on the hinterlands, anyone who takes levels in Monk is an ascetic who studied in a temple-monastery, and so on. The class is a fantasy archetype.

"Class-as-skill-package" has no problem with a "Barbarian" who grew up in the slums of a major city and learned to channel his anger into a distinctive fighting style to survive on the mean streets or a "Monk" who was a pit fighter in a gladatorial slave pen and specialized in unarmed combat techniques. The class is a set of linked abilities.

D&D was founded on fantasy archetypes and that mode of thinking about classes persists. Perhaps it's maturity or gaming experience, perhaps it's something fundamental to the game of D&D - I don't have a good answer as to the reasons why. I notice this with respect to d20 Modern as well: Modern's base classes really does away with the fantasy archetype and replaces it with ability-based classes and actively encourages multi-classing to the point where there are no 20-level class progressions (i.e., everyone multiclasses at some point), yet I still hear players bemoan that they can't start off as a "soldier" since they can't take the Soldier advanced class until 4th level, perhaps unable to visualize a "soldier" as a Tough 1/Dedicated 1, a Strong 2, or a Fast 1/Charismatic 1.

The fantasy archetype still exists in 3.x, but now we have wide-open multiclassing, changes to class restrictions (remember 17 Cha for a Paladin?), and the introduction of prestige classes. While dual-class characters and multi-classing go back many years, now it's possible to create a character concept and cherry-pick classes to make that concept of ultimate archer or magic-wielding thief or undead-hunter more seamlessly than ever. It's possible to develop a character concept and build the mechanics to make that concept playable, such as wingsandsword's Monk/Rogue/Assassin ninja, but it does require stepping beyond the "class-as-ocupation" archetype, and for whatever reason, some players have a hard time with that. Perhaps it's that these players simply want to play the archetypal hero, and "building" the character through multiclassing takes away from the sense of wholeness or completeness that an archetype represents.

Does this have a bearing on the 'proliferation' of PrCs and basic classes? Perhaps, but I see something else at work. Most of the feats and class abilities I see introduced 'break' the core rules in some way: this class ability allows you to avoid an AoO, that feat offers you the ability to use weapons that are too large for you, and so on ad infinitum ad nauseum. With the newer WotC books most of the rules I see offered as feats and abilities seems to be of the kind that negates other rules/abilities: you have immunity to cold, but now here's a feat that negates your immunity, and here's a class ability that allows you to ignore the feat that negates the immunity. It strikes me that there is such a slavish obsession over balance, of not favoring any one ability over another, that the designers won't be content until every ability, feat, and feature has a means to be negated by another ability et al.

This to me is the problem: too much emphasis on game balance, that for every power there much be a corresponding 'anti-power' somewhere in the world. I think this is one of the sources of so many boring PrCs and feats.

As far as PrCs, I miss the 'prestige' of prestige classes - it was largely dropped from 3.0 to 3.5 when it became apparent that the way to sell books was to offer more PrCs, and the resulting backlash seems to be restoring the 3.0 approach of prestige classes as more than skill-sets to be cherry-picked.

EricNoah said:

I personally prefer a few exciting and useful (i.e. they fill a definite niche) new core classes to a ton of PrCs. But that's just me.

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That's not just you. That's me too.

I agree with the original poster to a point. You always could play a ninja, taking monk and rogue levels (assassin levels are optional). A while ago I devised two "class progressions" based on multiclassing: Warrior-Poet (alternates bard and fighter) and Scout (alternates ranger and fighter). In fact, back in the early days of 3E, Dragon Magazine had a (IIRC) "PC Progression" series of articles where they build multiclassing progressions based on character concept.

Having new crunch is good, as long as it's GOOD new crunch.