I'll start by saying, I, personally, am the one who pushed to include prestige races. Just fessing up so that you know I'm biased. And besides repeated accusations that I "found a shiny bit and wanted to include it", I think it fits in very well with the setting, but I'll get to that.
Second main point before I address Hardhead's points is that the prestige races in Planescape are 100% ignorable. Hopefully we'll have them crop up again in future releases and on the site, but they should be equally ignorable in all of those instances as well. Don't like them, don't use them. The rest is some really great stuff so I hope no one throws it all out over a couple isolated pages.
Now to Hardhead's points, specificially:
Hardhead said:
The idea for these were originally put forward in Dragon #304, in an article written by Brannon Hollingsworth, the maintainer of Planewalker.com.
Nitpick: The idea originated in the Oathbound campaign setting and were the brianchild of Greg Dent, Jim Butler, and/or Tim Morasch. However, Brannon did some great work with the later Dragon article and other Bastion stuff.
Hardhead said:
You go to a "focus point" like the Spire, spend 3500 XP and presto, you gain Darkvission. Now, besides the fact that 3500 XP is probably too cheap for such a great ability (every character higher than 12th or 13th, to whom this amount is a pittiance, would should take it)[1]. It's just a bad system.
Personally, I see this "bad system" as it's biggest strength. Gaining some of these abilities at low level is very beneficial, and so should cost more. At higher levels, most, if not all, of these abilities are weaker given the availability of higher-leveled spells and magic items, and so should cost relatively less. Having a flat-xp cost is, in my mind, the #1 way to do this.
Now, some things are good enough at any level, that they should often cost the same at low level and high. That's what Level Adjustment is for. But for abilities that are relatively of greater or weaker benefit, a flat cost works well.
Hardhead said:
Mainly, it's the fact that it's similar to the Item Creation feats (you pay XP to get abilities), but you don't have to spend a feat for it, the item can never be taken away, and if the DM wants to come up with some of his own, he just has to guesetimate how much XP it should cost (which looks like what was done on a lot of the "prestige racial powers," hereafter PRPs, listed).
The Dragon article has some notes on how to determine the XP cost that were developed by Paizo (not Greg or Brannon). However, being involved with Bastion at the time, I was able to see the original article that had very specific rules for determining the XP cost. Dragon's is much simpler which means it's probably less accurate. Maybe I should make it a project to run some hard numbers and playtests to help determine the best cost rules. However, they were never just guesstimated.
I'll also see if the Bastion folks would be willing to post or let me post the original XP costs Greg came up with.
Hardhead said:
Secondly, there's no CR modifier, often because one individual power isn't enough to bump a CR up. But they form chains, with increasingly better powers. Theoretically, I could put them all on one creature, making him much more powerful, but there's no change in the CR.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'll revisit the Planewalker ones and try to determine at what point a CR increase is valid (or if it's something like, "Original monster HD 4 or less, CR +1, HD 5 or more, no CR change" type of thing).
Hardhead said:
Thirdly, paying XP for special abiliteis is dumb, when we already have many other mechanics for that in D&D: We have feats, for smaller powers, and levels for abilities that are too powerful to be feats (as part of Prestige classes and Level Adustements).
Feat slots, prestige class levels, and level adjustments don't scale with level. A feat at 3rd level is the same cost as a feat at 6th level as a feat at 18th level. Same thing with PrCls levels and LA. The cost doesn't scale.
For most abilities, this is fine. However, I think there is enough room in the d20 system for flat-cost abilities like prestige races. This point is certainly subjective, but, for me at least, prestige races fill a gap in the system. Yeah, it functions just fine without it, but I think it works better for me with it.
Hardhead said:
The problem is, XP is a "renewalbe resource," since D&D has a cath-up mechanic for those that fall behind in XP. While if you spend a feat or a level, it's gone forever. Over the course of many adventures, this causes the ability you gained from spending XP to essentially vanish in the D&D catch-up mechanic (when Oathbound was released in 3.0, this wasn't as true, but the 3.5 edition should be taken into account here). This is also a problem with magical item creation, but since they also require you to spend both feat and gold, it's not as big of a deal. With no gold to spend and no feat lost in aquiring PRPs, the problem is magnified.
The renewable resource issue is valid, but I don't think it's really a problem in practice. Say one character in a party starts taking a prestige race. That PC will fall behind the others in XP. If they only take part of a chain, then they would level a little later than everyone else, but the benefit they gained isn't as major. If they take most or all of a chain, then until higher levels, the character could easily be a level behind everyone else for quite a while. Renewable or not, that character, either some or all of the time, is paying for the benefits of the prestige race.
The flip side is, say an entire party takes prestige races (haven't seen it happen in any campaign I've been in, but I imagine it could happen somewhere). If the entire party is benefitting from prestige races, but are all at the same relative level, then, yes, no one is really paying for those extra benefits.
The thing is: it doesn't matter at all. Balance is only important across a party. If each PC is balanced with the other PCs, then it really doesn't matter at all. But what about CRs?, you ask. Challenge Ratings are only a guideline. If the entire party is more powerful than the "average" party, then adjust what you throw at them accordingly. It's no different than how vastly different undead are against a party without a cleric and one who has maxed out his/her turning ability. A DM has to know their party.
For example, I am a player in a campaign where all the characters have a +1 LA. We realized that we could basically forget that entirely and run as normal characters as long as the DM knows we're slightly more powerful than Lydda, Redgar, Mialee, and such for the same level.
Hardhead said:
Lastly, it's not Planescape. These "focus points" did not exist in 2e. You didn't go to a spot, spend xp, and get new abilities. You did get abilites from your belief and philosophy, but that's different. If they were tied to factions, I might be more forgiving, but they aren't. In this way, they undermine the flavor of Planescape. It's one thing to convert things from 2e to 3e (and, you've done a generally good job of that). It's another thing to introduce entirely new core concepts to the settting.
This to me is the most subjective difference we have. For one thing, I'm not really interested in a 100% direct conversion of the rules. It's an entirely different ruleset, and I am far more interested in maintaining the spirit of the rules than the exact numbers. You, apparently, are in the different camp of wanting a more direct conversion. Fine by me. I don't like mint chocolate chip ice cream either.
But as for whether it fits with the flavor of the setting, personally, I think it fits perfectly with Planescape. There are numerous references and allusions to the planes twisting and altering beings. The prestige race mechanic can do that now. But I also see it as perhaps a newfound magic (or old magic that someone spilled the beans on) that can do that same sort of transformation, but in minutes rather than generations. I think it's a perfect fit for Planescape, you don't. That's why I wanted it ignorable.
Hardhead said:
In summary, it wasn't a great mechanic to start with. It was made worse by 3.5, and there are better "pay" mechanics in 3.5 in the form of feats and levels. I know several people on the Planewalker staff like the mechanic, since they had hands in creating it. But keep it where it belongs. It's not Planescape-flavored. I don't want your Oathbound in my Planescape. If you like them so much, put them in a supplement or something. Don't try and change the core setting so much.
Just for the record, I had absolutely no hand in creating the mechanic and so have no vested interest in spreading it. I just really like it and think it fits the setting very well. Enough of the design team agreed, and so it was included.
And I really don't think including this ignorable new aspect really changes the core setting so drastically much, at least no more than including a new PC race (why haven't we seen tuldhara running around the Outlands all this time? where were they hiding all that time??).
