Celebrim
Legend
In my opinion, PrC's represent the singlest biggest design flaw of 3rd edition. They should have never happened. They were justified in Monte's mind by roleplaying factors, but this never works out (an insight that Monte ironicly applied to most of the rest of the revision).
PrC's should be balanced with the core classes. If they aren't, they strongly encourage twinking and punish non-twinkers for failure to limit thier characters to one of the more potent sterotypes that one or the other unbalanced PrC represents. If you have unbalanced classes, what you end up with is players having unbalanced importance to the story - one or more players end up being more central to the game than the others. This is bad in every way.
The number of significant problems with the very idea of a PrC are to great to list out. But just a few will suffice.
First, PrC's must either be more narrow than a base class or else just as broad. But, if they PrC is more narrow than the base class, you have a specialization problem on par with the weapon specialization problem introduced by Unearthed arcana. If what you are specializing in is what you do all the time anyway, you aren't really giving up anything. You haven't truly gotten more 'narrow', if the one 'trick' you are specializing in is what your character would have done anyway. A fighter that specializes in combat is redundant. He's already a combat specialist, becoming more of a combat specialist doesn't give up anything. If you gain anything in return for becoming a 'specialist' it renders you more powerful than a normal fighter. The same can be said of a wizard or sorcerer that specializes in spell casting.
On the other hand if the PrC is as broad as a base class, one wonders why it isn't just a base class to begin with.
Second, there is almost nothing that a PrC can do that can't be done just as well by utilizing the feat system. All you have to do is transform the PrC's abilities into feats that have a prequisite equivalent to the prequisites for the PrC (sometimes bundling several weaker powers into a single feat, sometimes bundling a stronger than feat power with a drawback). The feat system is far more flexible than the PrC and doesn't pigeon-hole PC's into particular sterotypes. PC's can still specialize, but without all the baggage that comes with a PrC. What is interesting about this, is if you do start turning PrC's into feat trees you quickly discover that most PrC's boil down simply to base classes that have additional feats. So, typically a full fighter BAB progression PrC is simply a fighter that gets bonus feats more often than every other level. Typically, a full spell progression PrC is simply a wizard or sorcerer with additional feats. In other words, if you can't do it with the feat system its almost certainly because the PrC is just a naked munchkiny grab for power.
Third, much of the justification for PrC's comes down to design failures with the base classes. Too many of the base classes are overly narrow in flavor and scope to qualify as base classes: ranger, druid, barbarian, and paladin actually refer to particular builds of the underlying base classes (hunter, shaman, fanatic, and champion if you will) not to base classes themselves. Many PrC's exist simply to let you do things with some overly narrow base class that a well designed base class should have allowed in the first place. For example, there are no end of 'X hunter' PrC's that a well designed hunter base class should have allowed for with just a few choices in the initial build and later one a few well designed feats. Many other PrC's exist only to deal with specific problems with multiclassing spellcasters that should have been handled in the base rules. Often as not a PrC simply substitutes for a feat tree that was missing from the original design (and sometimes is still missing). In other cases, the underlying problem is that too many classes (actually, pretty much all of them except cleric) don't get much of anything in particular for sticking with thier class except for spell casting ability. While its easy for an 'oldbie' to dismiss this as mere calls for more power, there is a real design problem here. It shouldn't take too many levels to make a character into a viable concept. It shouldn't take too many levels to differentiate character A from character B on a mechanical level. Most of the PrC's are at fault for being too front end loaded because they are trying to address this legitimate complaint.
The problem that the popularity of PrC's reveal is that feats are simply available in too limited of numbers to allow many or most players to identify with their PC. There are too few oppurtunities to shape and differentiate thier PC. A handful more bonus feats for some of the classes (2-4 over the course of 20 levels depending on the class) or handful more one time 'career choices' at first level for most classes would not have been unbalancing (certainly less unbalancing than many of the PrC's unleashed on the game), but would have satisfied the problem of not feeling that thier character was unique and interesting enough in a much better way.
PrC's should be balanced with the core classes. If they aren't, they strongly encourage twinking and punish non-twinkers for failure to limit thier characters to one of the more potent sterotypes that one or the other unbalanced PrC represents. If you have unbalanced classes, what you end up with is players having unbalanced importance to the story - one or more players end up being more central to the game than the others. This is bad in every way.
The number of significant problems with the very idea of a PrC are to great to list out. But just a few will suffice.
First, PrC's must either be more narrow than a base class or else just as broad. But, if they PrC is more narrow than the base class, you have a specialization problem on par with the weapon specialization problem introduced by Unearthed arcana. If what you are specializing in is what you do all the time anyway, you aren't really giving up anything. You haven't truly gotten more 'narrow', if the one 'trick' you are specializing in is what your character would have done anyway. A fighter that specializes in combat is redundant. He's already a combat specialist, becoming more of a combat specialist doesn't give up anything. If you gain anything in return for becoming a 'specialist' it renders you more powerful than a normal fighter. The same can be said of a wizard or sorcerer that specializes in spell casting.
On the other hand if the PrC is as broad as a base class, one wonders why it isn't just a base class to begin with.
Second, there is almost nothing that a PrC can do that can't be done just as well by utilizing the feat system. All you have to do is transform the PrC's abilities into feats that have a prequisite equivalent to the prequisites for the PrC (sometimes bundling several weaker powers into a single feat, sometimes bundling a stronger than feat power with a drawback). The feat system is far more flexible than the PrC and doesn't pigeon-hole PC's into particular sterotypes. PC's can still specialize, but without all the baggage that comes with a PrC. What is interesting about this, is if you do start turning PrC's into feat trees you quickly discover that most PrC's boil down simply to base classes that have additional feats. So, typically a full fighter BAB progression PrC is simply a fighter that gets bonus feats more often than every other level. Typically, a full spell progression PrC is simply a wizard or sorcerer with additional feats. In other words, if you can't do it with the feat system its almost certainly because the PrC is just a naked munchkiny grab for power.
Third, much of the justification for PrC's comes down to design failures with the base classes. Too many of the base classes are overly narrow in flavor and scope to qualify as base classes: ranger, druid, barbarian, and paladin actually refer to particular builds of the underlying base classes (hunter, shaman, fanatic, and champion if you will) not to base classes themselves. Many PrC's exist simply to let you do things with some overly narrow base class that a well designed base class should have allowed in the first place. For example, there are no end of 'X hunter' PrC's that a well designed hunter base class should have allowed for with just a few choices in the initial build and later one a few well designed feats. Many other PrC's exist only to deal with specific problems with multiclassing spellcasters that should have been handled in the base rules. Often as not a PrC simply substitutes for a feat tree that was missing from the original design (and sometimes is still missing). In other cases, the underlying problem is that too many classes (actually, pretty much all of them except cleric) don't get much of anything in particular for sticking with thier class except for spell casting ability. While its easy for an 'oldbie' to dismiss this as mere calls for more power, there is a real design problem here. It shouldn't take too many levels to make a character into a viable concept. It shouldn't take too many levels to differentiate character A from character B on a mechanical level. Most of the PrC's are at fault for being too front end loaded because they are trying to address this legitimate complaint.
The problem that the popularity of PrC's reveal is that feats are simply available in too limited of numbers to allow many or most players to identify with their PC. There are too few oppurtunities to shape and differentiate thier PC. A handful more bonus feats for some of the classes (2-4 over the course of 20 levels depending on the class) or handful more one time 'career choices' at first level for most classes would not have been unbalancing (certainly less unbalancing than many of the PrC's unleashed on the game), but would have satisfied the problem of not feeling that thier character was unique and interesting enough in a much better way.
