[Merged]3.5e Official DMG PrC List and Psion's "next trick" thread

[Plane Sailing]

I intensely dislike the idea of any prestige class which is "designed for one particular class". I think some of the best prestige classes are those which fill a niche that NONE of the existing classes can manage (or, ideally, that no multiclass can manage either).

Prestige classes that are targetted at one particular base class end up the butt of debates about "too good, nobody would stay in the base class"/ "too bad, nobody would take it".

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Are you talking about the one in the Pre-FRCS Living City document?

I don't know about that - the one I'm thinking of is on Seans website here http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/prestige/originalarchmage.html

 

[Arnwyn]

I intensely dislike the idea of any prestige class which is "designed for one particular class".

*cough*kit*cough*

 

[gariig]

I just hope the rewrote the Hierophant and Archmage to be of similar power. You never hear of a cleric going for Hierophant because you lose spell casting levels but almost every mage should go for Archmage since it's full casting. Now I know Archmage has a little bit more stringent req's but not enough to justify the difference..MY little beef is over.

Gariig

 

[Oni]

I have mixed feelings about this list. I'm happy to see they are including so many, but the actual selection bothers me for various reasons.

Seems like about half of them are wizard related PrC's.

Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge. It seems they've decided to fully pursue the bandaid approach to fixing the flaws in the multiclass system, and I am disappointed in the extreme. The Eldritch Knight was a good PrC for 3e (though I do prefer the name Spellsword), addressing one of the systems flaws, but I would have much rather it was not in the DMG and they had just fixed the base multiclassing rules.

I'm hoping they'll have done some revision on the Archmage to reign in spellpower a little bit. It doesn't bother me as much with a PrC like the Red Wizard where you make a bigger sacrifice for it, but a combination of the two is just unholy. I think too much emphasis is placed on the importance of high save DC's. The effectiveness of a wizard shouldn't be so heavily affected by a PrC.

I'm just curious to see what they did with the Dragon Disciple, hoping it's been made more sorcerer oriented and less fighter oriented.


Anyway there are my random thoughts on the list.

 

[Henry]

Since the two threads were almost identical, I merged this thread and Psion's "next trick thread."

Carry on!

 

[Mercule]

Overall, the list looks pretty good.

One thing that I noticed is there are several PrCs that look like they are designed for specific multiclassing (Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge). I wonder if these are supposed to be examples of how to make viable multiclass casters -- i.e. the "fix".

The one class that I'd really like to see made core that isn't in the list is the Thief-Acrobat. I've always liked the concept since 1E. I played one as soon as Unearthed Arcana was released, and I've been playing one since Song and Silence was released (I was very lucky with the timing on the release just as I hit 4th level).

Others have made most of the salient points, but I'm not in favor of the Red Wizard in the DMG, either. Runs against the idea of Greyhawk being core.

I'll also agree that PrCs should almost never be designed for one class only. Smacks too much of kits. I have to say that, regardless of balance or any other faults, MotW is probably the best show of PrC design. There are a fair amount of classes in there that don't look like they are geared toward any single class, or only tangentally. For example, Animal Lord looks best suited to Ranger, IMHO, but the alignment requirements indicate the designers were probably thinking Druid.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

One thing that I noticed is there are several PrCs that look like they are designed for specific multiclassing (Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge). I wonder if these are supposed to be examples of how to make viable multiclass casters -- i.e. the "fix".

I'm kind of concerned about this "Fix" -- since I'm not convinced there is a problem. There should be a price to be paid for multi-classing, and providing a prestige class mechanic that makes up that price slants the balance of the game too far in favor of multi-classed characters.

When a player goes "Wah! My Wiz 5/Rog5 isn't as good as the Wiz 10 or Rog 10!" and we give him a prestige class that makes him almost as good as both, something's wrong.

I'd like to see what they've done to the Arcane Trickster -- 'cause right now I consider that PrC to be entirely too beneficial.

 

[Oni]

I'm kind of concerned about this "Fix" -- since I'm not convinced there is a problem. There should be a price to be paid for multi-classing, and providing a prestige class mechanic that makes up that price slants the balance of the game too far in favor of multi-classed characters.

When a player goes "Wah! My Wiz 5/Rog5 isn't as good as the Wiz 10 or Rog 10!" and we give him a prestige class that makes him almost as good as both, something's wrong.

I'd like to see what they've done to the Arcane Trickster -- 'cause right now I consider that PrC to be entirely too beneficial.

Well some of the caster combinations really aren't viable right now, especially as split level. A sorcerer wizard is an excellent example of this. I think they've gone too far though in the case of the Arcane Trickster and the Mystic Theurge. The Eldritch Knight (Spellsword) doesn't boast the same level of synergy and I think is a better example how this could be done. That said, since they are doing a revision I think it was an extremely poor choice to implement this through the use of PrC's. They've acknowedged that the flaw lies within the multiclassing system, so why aren't they addressing the problem at its root. As it stands, with these PrC's available you won't be seeing any straight rogue/wizards or divine/arcane casters they'll all be Arcane Tricksters and Mystic Theurges. It's a bandaid fix that doesn't address the underlying problem and it is too narrow in its focus (i.e. why should a wizard/rogue, be so much better than a cleric/rogue, or a cleric/sorcerer than a wizard/sorcerer).

 

[Victim]

I'm rather worried about new the prestige classes in the DMG. Some of the older classes now in the DMG include: Archmage, Redwizard, Arcane Trickster.

Because these classes are often debated and considered overpowered by some (many?), I think they might give individuals designing new prestige class an unbalanced view of the baseline power for prestige classes. Since those classes are generally considered to be on the powerful side (even if they are balanced in that campaign), they set a poor precedent for the design of future classes.

I expect to see some really messed up prestige classes after 3.5's release.