Here Come The PRESTIGE CLASSES! Plus Rune Magic!

Mike Mearls' latest Unearthed Arcana column presents the first ever 5E prestige class: the Rune Scribe! "Prestige classes build on the game’s broad range of basic options to represent specialized options and unique training. The first of those specialized options for fifth edition D&D is the rune scribe—a character who masters ancient sigils that embody the fundamental magic of creation."

It's a 5-level class, and also contains the basic information on how prestige classes work and how to join them - including ability, skill, level, and task-based prerequisites. Find it here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

5e is not going to bloat at it's current pace the way 3.5 did, even if they add the PrC concept, we won't three 300+ of 'em. We'll see a handful a year.

A handful would suggest 5 or less, no? I suspect we'll see more like 10-20 per year on average, from WotC, and many more from 3PPs.

But for my money, the number of PrCs wasn't the problem. Indeed most of the worst offenders for abuse came pretty early on. The vast majority were simply dull and overspecialized, often being aimed at a single organisation in a single setting (hopefully 5E will avoid this as it is the leading cause of PrC proliferation - even near-identical organisations warranted different PrCs).

The first PrC shown is decent, I feel. It's not "Base Class+". They need to keep that up. They particularly need to avoid any/all "Keep your normal spellcasting progression" PrCs, which were the most abusive ones in 3.XE, generally.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"If you don't like it don't use it" is a cop out. If a player who is excited to play the newest official race or class or use a new official option can't because you told him no, the DM looks like a wet blanket. The player insists that his vampire pixie psion is perfectly legal and he doesn't understand why he can't play it in your game. You can try to explain to the player why you won't allow it but you come across as a stick in the mud. Bloat breaks systems to the point where the core game become unplayable. More rules equals more moving parts and a higher likelihood of broken rule sets. Broken rule sets make new options overpowered. They no longer mesh with the normal fantasy arch-types of fighter, wizard, rogue, and cleric that the original game was built upon. It ruins the game.

By this logic nothing should ever be added to the game. It's also hilariously anti-reality to claim F/M/R/C are "normal", and everything else is "abnormal" given the many decades most of these classes, races, etc. have existed. Clerics are more abnormal in fantasy as a genre then psionicists.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The vast majority were simply dull and overspecialized, often being aimed at a single organisation in a single setting.

Setting, organization or even adventure-specific PrCs would be one of the best uses 5e could put them to. They don't bloat the Standard Game, they're just there to provide a PC connection to the material, when you're done with the material, you're done with the PrC.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Setting, organization or even adventure-specific PrCs would be one of the best uses 5e could put them to. They don't bloat the Standard Game, they're just there to provide a PC connection to the material, when you're done with the material, you're done with the PrC.

I disagree, Tony, with respect.

Here's the problem - good PrCs have their own mechanics. Those mechanics take a lot of work to create, and to ensure they are balanced and workable. The example PrC for 5E is a great example - the effort involved there is pretty huge.

If a PrC doesn't need it's own mechanics, it shouldn't be a PrC, I would suggest. It should be an in-game organisation, which may well have significant temporal benefits, but which doesn't have mechanics. The Knights of Awesome Knightlyness, who are all/mainly Paladins don't need a PrC unless they, by design, must depart significantly from the default Paladin class.

The Purple Dragons in the FR are good example of a group who absolutely have no need whatsoever for a PrC, yet will almost certainly get one. They're pretty much all Fighters or Mages. The power their organisation has is entirely temporal, and is in no way magic or mystical. You are not changed on a basic level by becoming a Dragon. So they shouldn't have a PrC. There's literally no reason.

Thus we have dichotomy - either a PrC has mechanics, justifying it's existence, but the cost of creating those mechanics suggests it may need to be more broadly applicable, OR a PrC doesn't have mechanics, and should not be a PrC.

There will be exceptions - Dragonlance's knightly orders do change you significantly in joining, will have their own mechanics, and it matters to the setting that they do, so should be PrCs, for example.

But mark my words, if you don't like PrC proliferation, the whole path of setting-specific, organisation-specific PrCs as a normal, common thing is a really bad one. As I've pointed out, at best it means a ton of needless PrCs which replicate each other (sometimes even within a setting), and even if they're technically not applicable to other material, that's still proliferation of a kind. At worst it means a lot of unique/cool mechanics being generated that are almost never used, which is a huge waste of game-designer time.

So I think what must be avoided is ASSUMPTION that because an elite organisation exists, it warrants a PrC, or, gods help us, multiple PrCs.

EDIT - Also, to make a subtext, text, there's an element among game designers, one I've never seen avoided, of "Keeping Up with the Joneses", and/or "Lowering the threshold", which is that if even non-mechanically-different organisations are warranting PrCs, then virtually every organisation warrants one, which leads directly to a 3.XE-type situation (most 3.XE PrCs were precisely that). If that caused bloat in 3E, it'll cause bloat in 5E.

 

[Greg K]

"If you don't like it don't use it" is a cop out. If a player who is excited to play the newest official race or class or use a new official option can't because you told him no, the DM looks like a wet blanket. The player insists that his vampire pixie psion is perfectly legal and he doesn't understand why he can't play it in your game. You can try to explain to the player why you won't allow it but you come across as a stick in the mud.

Don't play with snowflake players unable to comprehend that the default assumption of the game is that the DM determines what enters the campaign (again, Organized Play aside). If I had a player like that, they can do us both a favor and find another table. I don't want them at mine and think they would be better off at another table whose campaign is catering to those style.
Furthermore, any DM that thinks it is a cop out to tell a player, "No" needs a to develop a backbone and the ability to take responsibility for the campaign that they are running. Again, the default has always been that the DM determines what options are appropriate and enter the campaign (organized play aside). Some groups run things differently and that is their choice, but it doesn't change the default assumption. Therefore, if the DM is going for a certain feel for the campaign, they should make it known prior to character develop and enforce it- beginning with what options are available and reserving the right to allow or disallow later material as they deem appropriate. Knowing the terms, the player agrees and participates or they don't and either find another group, start their own group, or find something else to do.
Nothing entitles a player to sit at a table where the game is run by someone else. One of the biggest geek fallacies held by many in this hobby is that there should be room for everyone at a table regardless of playstyles. However, not all styles can be accommodated at all tables nor should they be. Sometimes those styles come into conflict with pixie vampires being an example where the group is going for a more traditional fantasy vibe. It is better for the player to find another table.

Bloat breaks systems to the point where the core game become unplayable. More rules equals more moving parts and a higher likelihood of broken rule sets. Broken rule sets make new options overpowered. They no longer mesh with the normal fantasy arch-types of fighter, wizard, rogue, and cleric that the original game was built upon. It ruins the game.

No. Bloat ruins the game for you (and some others). Not every everyone feels that way. For many people, what you call bloat is providing options from which to pick and choose and tailor the campaign setting to their vision. Others still might want gonzo and allow as much as possible.
Options, in my opinion are good (even options such as PrCs which I don't like). Some people like multi-classing to represent certain common fantasy archetypes However, multi-classing is optional and not everyone likes or uses it (or they may not like it for representing certain fantasy archetypes). Such people might prefer and allow a subclass to handle the concept Yet, a third group might prefer a new base class with its own subclasses or even a class variant (as was done with the non-spellcasting ranger and favored soul). Still, a fourth group might want prestige classes to handle a concept. I think including all those options to satisfy each group is a good thing as it allows DMs to choose which is best for their individual campaign.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I disagree, Tony, with respect.

No problem, it is just an opinion. And, not a very important one, since I'm not terribly into published adventures & settings, myself, just use 'em for encounters and forget about them when the season's done.

Here's the problem - good PrCs have their own mechanics. Those mechanics take a lot of work to create, and to ensure they are balanced and workable. The example PrC for 5E is a great example - the effort involved there is pretty huge.

Maybe it was. I don't think a PrC that serves it's purpose in a specific setting or adventure would need to be done to that standard, though, it just has to be evocative and useful in that context.

The Purple Dragons in the FR are good example of a group who absolutely have no need whatsoever for a PrC, yet will almost certainly get one. They're pretty much all Fighters or Mages. The power their organisation has is entirely temporal, and is in no way magic or mystical. You are not changed on a basic level by becoming a Dragon. So they shouldn't have a PrC. There's literally no reason.

I have to disagree on a fundamental level that only mysticism and magic can 'change' people. Even IRL, people have tansformative/life-changing experiences. It's absurd to think that only magical organizations can have mechanical benefits.

But mark my words, if you don't like PrC proliferation, the whole path of setting-specific, organisation-specific PrCs as a normal, common thing is a really bad one.

Seems to be they'd be silo'd in their respective settings.

EDIT - Also, to make a subtext, text, there's an element among game designers, one I've never seen avoided, of "Keeping Up with the Joneses", and/or "Lowering the threshold".. If that caused bloat in 3E, it'll cause bloat in 5E.

5e seems pretty committed to a slow pace of releases that makes bloat a lesser concern, far off on the horizon. If they can stick to that kind of schedule, which the game hasn't done since the early 80s, they probably have the design discipline to handle PrCs without bloating the game to death.

 

[bganon]

Partly to steer this back on topic and partly because I scrolled through several pages and still didn't see all these mentioned, here are some of my thoughts on the Rune Scribe.

Prerequisites: I agree that having to carefully plan character progression from Level 1 is a problem. Here it's mitigated somewhat by ASIs and that you can grab skills via a Feat. I also think it's mitigated somewhat because it's far easier for a DM to drop a requirement than to make up new content, so this is a pretty easy thing to houserule. Still, slippery slope.

Why not a subclass/feat? I wouldn't like to see this as a subclass because it seems so useful to many different classes, and I rather like that it's somewhat independent of background (though see the prereq issue). Redoing it as 1-2 feats might work fairly well, but there's still the issue of abilities being powered by spell slots, so either you give up the scaling abilities (I'd miss them) or a noncaster who took the feat would still need to multiclass into a caster anyway. I think the "prestige class" solves the problem nicely and strikes a middle ground between the two on this. In quite a few ways Prestige Classes (or class levels in general) can be less of an investment than a Feat in 5e (especially if you stop after a few levels).

Giving up wish/blah/whatever: As I see it, full casters would be really unlikely to go beyond first or maybe second level in Rune Scribe. They don't need the slot progression. Runic Discovery is just freebie items, nice but (depending on treasure) not essential. Living Rune is just a flavorful fill-in for an ASI. Rune Mastery is a nice capstone but not worth it unless you've committed to the previous 4 levels already. I don't see a Wizard/Warlock/Cleric/Druid/Bard taking more than two levels; the second rune might be nice but beyond that the delayed core class progression probably isn't worth it.

Of course, this then raises the question of why not just have a single feat - but I think the answer is that those extra levels are useful for noncasters. A ranged Battle Master 5/Rune Scribe 5, for example, would have the slots to get +1 brands, and would have a lot of flexibility to swap attunements around each short rest. This sounds pretty fun! I can imagine a lot of fun with a Fire/Stone rune barbarian, too (especially if rune use doesn't count as "casting" and can be done during rages).

tldr; Prestige Classes are a compromise that occupy a somewhat weird design space, but I think they can still fill interesting niches.

 

[Pauln6]

Themes seemed universally popular in 4E as an easy way to add a bit of flavour. Would another way to do prestige classes be to treat them like that?