From R&C: Pargon Paths & Epic Destinies

[adembroski]

This is one of the areas I'm still worried about. It really seems like it's taking something away and replacing it with something inferior. This could have been accomplished without destroying PrCs, and it's no less open to abuse and mismanagement by future designers.

PrCs were, to my mind, one of the great accomplishments of third edition. A huge improvement over kits, and something that lent flavor to each individual campaign without sacrificing game balance (certainly, they had that potential, but so does this).

Furthermore, I liked the lack of class restrictions, even if certain classes met the requirements sooner. Virtually every PrC had multiple paths to reach, it was just a matter of how long you were willing to wait to achieve it.

 

[Belorin]

From the "things have evolved department": There are at least twice that number of paragon paths in the PH now. The variety, it is broad.

Merry happy, all!

Thanks for posting on a holiday, WotC_Miko! Any hints on epic destinies?
Happy Holidays to all!

Bel

 

[Stalker0]

PrCs were, to my mind, one of the great accomplishments of third edition. A huge improvement over kits, and something that lent flavor to each individual campaign without sacrificing game balance (certainly, they had that potential, but so does this).

In my opinion, the concept and execution of prcs started out well, and then went down the toilet. In the beggining, the were a nice way to specialize npcs and add some specific concepts for a pc or allowing them to get involved in an organization.

But as time went on, they became a way from player to powergame and powercreep. Further, the prereqs meant that a player had to plan his character in advance, which makes no sense from a roleplaying standpoint.

There are the fighters out there that were training to be weapon masters, but plenty of fighters who would learn different weapons because that just how the story evolved. But players still built their characters to meet those prereqs, regardless of how the story evolved.

I like the idea of these paths because I'm not giving up anything, it sounds like I'm just getting more. Basically its like gestalt classing. Its a way to keep the linear scale of classes and broaden high level character abilities without the need to just bump up their power. A fighter might get new techniques with his weapon master path, but he doesn't necessarily get a big bump in saves or attack rolls.