cimbrog
Explorer
I've always been a big believer in Prestige Classes as being organization based. One of the problems I have with them is the way characters are supposed to plan themselves ahead just to be elligble. I like for campaigns and characters to evolve a little more naturally than that.
For example, your dwarven fighter finally tracks down the Society of Drunken Dwarven Fighters and wants to become a member. According to the requirements for the prestige class, besides being a dwarf and having a certain BaB and Fort save you need the Toughness and Great Fortitude feats. Storywise, the 20 Con dwarven fighter would seem more than perfect for this organization, but would still have to wait from 4 to 6 levels to take those two feats that he never considered himself needing before.
The house rule I had in mind was to replace many requirements with "tests". Here's an example for a Shadow Dancer test to replace the Combat Reflexes and Mobility feats:
The character is placed in a chamber filled with moving targets and fellow armed Shadow Dancers. There are ten targets in a circle that are moving at 20' per round. Ten feet away, forming an inner circle, are five armed members. The applicant must stay withing the 5' space between the circles, hitting all of the moving targets while not being hit by any of the members. While it would be possible to do this without the required feats, Combat Reflexes would allow the applicant to hit more targets per round (the moving targets would be subject to AoO's) and Mobility would allow the applicant to keep moving without the AoO's from the inner circle being too much of a problem.
I'm probably going to try something like this anyways, but I thoughy I'd throw it out here for other people to comment on and see what they think.
-Chad
For example, your dwarven fighter finally tracks down the Society of Drunken Dwarven Fighters and wants to become a member. According to the requirements for the prestige class, besides being a dwarf and having a certain BaB and Fort save you need the Toughness and Great Fortitude feats. Storywise, the 20 Con dwarven fighter would seem more than perfect for this organization, but would still have to wait from 4 to 6 levels to take those two feats that he never considered himself needing before.
The house rule I had in mind was to replace many requirements with "tests". Here's an example for a Shadow Dancer test to replace the Combat Reflexes and Mobility feats:
The character is placed in a chamber filled with moving targets and fellow armed Shadow Dancers. There are ten targets in a circle that are moving at 20' per round. Ten feet away, forming an inner circle, are five armed members. The applicant must stay withing the 5' space between the circles, hitting all of the moving targets while not being hit by any of the members. While it would be possible to do this without the required feats, Combat Reflexes would allow the applicant to hit more targets per round (the moving targets would be subject to AoO's) and Mobility would allow the applicant to keep moving without the AoO's from the inner circle being too much of a problem.
I'm probably going to try something like this anyways, but I thoughy I'd throw it out here for other people to comment on and see what they think.
-Chad
