Anyone else getting tired of prestige classes?

[Umbran]

Take a supplement. Remove all the PrCs. Replace them with a combination of other crunch and fluff content. How much of this other stuff are you actually going to use?

Each campaign can only use so much material. There are only so many rules variants that you can put into play at once. There's only so many interesting locations you can use, and a finite number of plot hooks that you can deploy at once. No matter what's in the books, we can't use it all. So, in a way, everything is overdone.

But really, it isn't. The goal of supplements is not to give you an entire book of stuff you will like and use. The goal is to give you choices and inspirations.
Your game may only have three PrCs in it. But you're beter off having picked those three from a bazillion then from a half-dozen.

 

[Faraer]

So, in fact, what proportion of prestige classes have special abilities where the existing rules truly couldn't represent the whole concept of the class?

The goal of supplements is not to give you an entire book of stuff you will like and use. The goal is to give you choices and inspirations.

That's the voguish d20 thinking, but hardly the only way a supplement can be.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

if they want to be an acid mage they should have certain abilities tied to that that make them better with acid than any other mage rather than them just prefering Melf's Acid Arrow over Scorching Ray.

You could do that with a couple of new feats. I've seen way too many good feat ideas absorbed by PrCs instead of being free-standing. This is especially bad when it comes to the fighter class - so many worthy high-level fighter abilities became part of PrCs instead of becoming fighter feats.

 

[Belen]

Take a supplement. Remove all the PrCs. Replace them with a combination of other crunch and fluff content. How much of this other stuff are you actually going to use?

Each campaign can only use so much material. There are only so many rules variants that you can put into play at once. There's only so many interesting locations you can use, and a finite number of plot hooks that you can deploy at once. No matter what's in the books, we can't use it all. So, in a way, everything is overdone.

But really, it isn't. The goal of supplements is not to give you an entire book of stuff you will like and use. The goal is to give you choices and inspirations.
Your game may only have three PrCs in it. But you're beter off having picked those three from a bazillion then from a half-dozen.

And how much fluff came with complete warrior again? How many chapters that covered fighters in society etc?

These books focus on telling players who they are in terms of rules. I am a Duelist, or I am a Neked Frufru Fist Avenger. Just once, I would like a chapter on something like.

"My name is Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

There was a time when your character was someone rather than a collection of rules and numbers.

 

[Driddle]

I am, I mean I got the Complete Warrior book recently and about 70 percent of it is just Prestige Classes. Most of them very uninspiring. just like about 90% of all PrC I see. ...

((Skipping to my response, regardless of what anyone else may have said already.))

The funny thing is that I still haven't found particular prestige classes that fulfill all my expectations or desires for some characters. It almost always requires fudging the guidelines or mixing some other PrC levels to get there.

What this tells me (me me me; others doubtless will argue) is that special perks/abilties acquired by level advancement would be better represented as individual units to be picked up or "purchased" in some other way, for the ultimate flexibility that players are seeking. "Prestige" titles can be affixed to individual tastes.

Since d20 D&D's release and the (second-party) variations that have evolved from it, the strongest seems to be the BESM d20 character points structure. It's a satisfying middle ground between too much flexibility in a total point-buy system and too much rigidity in a total class-level progression system.

 

[diaglo]

i've been tired of them since the introduction of the monk and paladin in Supplements...Greyhawk (1975) esp...

 

[BryonD]

These books focus on telling players who they are in terms of rules. I am a Duelist, or I am a Neked Frufru Fist Avenger. Just once, I would like a chapter on something like.

"My name is Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

To me, I think everyone already knows how to do that. I was pretending to be spiderman at the age of 3. I would find a book claiming to teach me how to use my imagination to be almost insulting.
However, a book of mechanics that provides an elegant method for simulating the abilities of spiderman while I use my own natural ability to pretend to be him is what I REALLY like to find.

There was a time when your character was someone rather than a collection of rules and numbers.

Really? When?
I played Basic D&D and the characters were a collection of rules and numbers.
Roleplaying is up to the player, not the rules.

 

[eris404]

The problem is not with the PrC the problem is with DMs letting people just "take" them. It is up to the DM to make the PrC fit the campaign... not up to some game designer that has no idea what gods or organizations you have running around in your home brew world. They are options just like most of the other stuff in 3.X... people really need to see it as that. Options are good. They let those of us that like to run in-depth campaigns have a starting point to which we add the specifics. If you don’t add specifics in your world don’t blame anyone else but yourself.

AMEN to that. I love PrCs even though I don't use 90% of them, and to be honest, I don't buy a book because it has new classes (though having new classes is gravy). But I couldn't design a balanced class to save my soul. I'm not a game designer and I'd rather have a someone else do the dirty work for me. Also, I'd rather have lots of options to use in my campaign. Then I'll go about making the PrC flavorful by making the organization, NPCs, philosophy, whatever.

I love d20.

 

[tetsujin28]

Yeah, I'm a bit tired of prestige classes. But I'm pretty tired of classes. The only thing I don't like is that so many of them are pretty flavourless.

But I don't buy books for fluff. Fluff I can come up with on my own. But I don't have nearly as much time for system monkeying as I did back in the Dark Ages of gaming, so good crunchy bits are always welcome.

 

[BryonD]

The only thing I don't like is that so many of them are pretty flavourless.

Right. That I will agree with 100%.
There are plenty of boring or redundant classes out there.
And these make the concept look bad, even though it is not.

But I don't buy books for fluff. Fluff I can come up with on my own. But I don't have nearly as much time for system monkeying as I did back in the Dark Ages of gaming, so good crunchy bits are always welcome.

Same here.