D&D 5E (2014) With the reintroduction of PrCs which are on your 'must see' list?

[Psikerlord#]

Genuinely curious: What are you going to do, now that Prestige Classes are a thing the designers are explicitly willing to consider creating?

Um nothing I guess. I just wont use them..? I would prefer to see them put optional rules into UA, rather than more classes/PRCs etc that I wont use.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Um nothing I guess. I just wont use them..? I would prefer to see them put optional rules into UA, rather than more classes/PRCs etc that I wont use.

I'll be honest: I have something of an ulterior motive here. A lot of people, when they use terms similar to what you used ("I don't believe X fits/belongs in 5e"), follow it up with something like "and if they added it, I would leave." You see an awful lot of "keep your classes unchanged and no money will get hurt!!" rhetoric these days.

 

[77IM]

Political roles might work for prestige classes too. For example, what if Archmage could apply to any arcane caster --and had more to do with the social and political aspects of being an Archmage than with simply being a more powerful wizard. "Can you imagine? A warlock being appointed Archmage? The scandal!"

I hate to say it, but I agree with the idea from earlier that Warlord would make a good PrC. It just doesn't make sense to me to have a level-1 "warlord." But it makes total sense for a high-level fighter, paladin, or heck anyone who can raise a warband to become a warlord.

Guildmaster has potential as well. It's tricky to balance that sort of thing as a class because it's not clear what the combat relevant abilities would be. I think classes like Hierophant and Loremaster could be done in this vein too, where it's more about your role in the world than your abilities on the battlefield.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I dont want any prestige classes. I dont think they fit 5e (I dont think MCing is a good fit either). If you want a certain concept added to your class, there is already an excellent tool to do this - custom feats. It doesnt need to get any more complex (or potentially unbalancing) than that.

In my opinion the question does X fit 5th edition is a bad one.
Personaly I would like to see more focus on campaign setting, so one should ask does this thing we designed fit the campaign sdetting we designed it for ?

With Eberon being a setting that started in 3rd edition prestige classes might be a good fit for the Eberon world.
(and make it easyer to convert 3E Eberon content)

 

[ExploderWizard]

It'd be like if a level-based MMO such as WoW or Guild Wars just didn't have anything for you to do for the last 5 levels of the game.

No it wouldn't.

An MMO is strictly a consumer product. All you can do with the game is play what is given to you. A tabletop rpg provides you with the building blocks to create your own content. You can purchase the core books and create all of the adventures yourself.

With the power of content creation in your hand, the game company shouldn't have to spoon feed you everything in order to qualify as supporting the game.

Besides, do we really want to see stupid crap like Master of Chains in 5E?

 

[Li Shenron]

Every class gets feats/ASIs at 4/8/12/16/19, maybe a talent-tree like progression of alternate feats to take at those levels?

Well we had this idea for a while during the playtest, they were called 'Themes' or 'Specialties' It wouldn't be wrong to design feat chains or feat bundles, and give them a fancy name.

 

[Sunseeker]

No it wouldn't.

An MMO is strictly a consumer product. All you can do with the game is play what is given to you. A tabletop rpg provides you with the building blocks to create your own content. You can purchase the core books and create all of the adventures yourself.

With the power of content creation in your hand, the game company shouldn't have to spoon feed you everything in order to qualify as supporting the game.

Besides, do we really want to see stupid crap like Master of Chains in 5E?

Oh shove off. Asking them to support ALL of their game at least once isn't asking to be spoon fed.

D&D is not a bucket of legos. Even LEGO, quite possible the most "building blocks" company has products that give people the ability to build whatever they want and the ability to construct specific things. How do they do that? With instructions, the LEGO equivelent of adventures and campaigns. Not every product has to go from 1-20 that's fine, just as not every LEGO set has 3000 pieces.

I think PrCs are "stupid crap", but apparently we're getting those. You think supporting the entirety of their product is "stupid crap" which boggles by fricken mind but hey whatever.

Also: don't ever accuse me of wanting to be spoon fed.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Well we had this idea for a while during the playtest, they were called 'Themes' or 'Specialties' It wouldn't be wrong to design feat chains or feat bundles, and give them a fancy name.

I dont think there needs to be any "chain" invovled, just a bunch of feats that help reflect your concept. Eg "warlord" has inspiring leader, sentinel, martial adept and healer feat (*ducks*)

I definitely do not want feat pre-requisites for other feats like in 3e. I want to be able to choose add on feat abilities in any order. You just have to make them balanced against each other.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Oh shove off. Asking them to support ALL of their game at least once isn't asking to be spoon fed.

D&D is not a bucket of legos. Even LEGO, quite possible the most "building blocks" company has products that give people the ability to build whatever they want and the ability to construct specific things. How do they do that? With instructions, the LEGO equivelent of adventures and campaigns. Not every product has to go from 1-20 that's fine, just as not every LEGO set has 3000 pieces.

I think PrCs are "stupid crap", but apparently we're getting those. You think supporting the entirety of their product is "stupid crap" which boggles by fricken mind but hey whatever.

Also: don't ever accuse me of wanting to be spoon fed.

I never said high level adventures are "stupid crap". I was saying that high level official adventures aren't required for a company to qualify as supporting a game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I hate to say it, but I agree with the idea from earlier that Warlord would make a good PrC. It just doesn't make sense to me to have a level-1 "warlord." But it makes total sense for a high-level fighter, paladin, or heck anyone who can raise a warband to become a warlord.

I hate to hear it. ;( But there is a good point in there. Most classes (except perhaps rogue) could be construed as constituting more experience and competence than is really appropriate at 1st level or 'Apprentice Tier.' You couldn't have been an apprentice Paladin, for instance - you'd be a squire, with no right to wear armor or bear chivalric weapons - and even after being knighted, you'd have to enter the service of Charlemagne, himself.

But, even though you could be a 1st level Paladin or Warlord or whatever other class comes down the line, there could always be a higher-level PrC to really nail one of the specific, and higher-status concepts that a high-level in that class might be used to model. So you could have PrCs like Lord Protector of the Pale or Exarch of Pelor or Field Marshal of Cormyr or whatever, that really point to a high level in a specific class (and tie into a setting), but could be lifted by another with some aspects of the build in common.

Guildmaster has potential as well. It's tricky to balance that sort of thing as a class because it's not clear what the combat relevant abilities would be. I think classes like Hierophant and Loremaster could be done in this vein too, where it's more about your role in the world than your abilities on the battlefield.

Also good examples of using PrCs to nail high-level concepts that class alone would struggle with.


Another example of pushing a class concept up the level ladder using PrCs could be in a low-magic game. One thing that's always made "low-magic" problematic is that so many PC classes get magic as an endlessly-renewable daily resource from level 1 on. If you were to make 'Wizard,' 'Cleric,' 'Druid,' and so forth PrCs that you can't access until higher level, you can make magic 'lower' and 'rarer' for the PCs as well as for the world.