Anyone else getting tired of prestige classes?

[shilsen]

Actually that's another thing that bugs me hugely I wish they had never called the damn things prestige classes as it tends to enforce a restrictive view the the class as printed has to come with something specific to a setting or organisation.

I totally agree. A lage number of the complaints about PrCs stem from assumptions which are fueled by the name of the concept.

In many ways I see them as more like the 'advanced classes' of d20 modern, they just clarify the focus of the generic character class the person is playing.

As I was reading your post, I immediately thought of the effects of PrCs being called Advanced Classes instead. One result would be complaints that they aren't advanced enough or at too advanced, that it's a stupid name because they're not advancing in the original class, etc. It's easy to make some of the people unhappy some of the time, and it just takes a word to do it.

 

[MerricB]

I love prestige classes. In my current game, I have a Duelist, a Mindbender and a Eldritch Knight. I've had a Shadowdancer, an Order of the Bow Initiate, and other interesting classes.

Where other people might go, "I have an organisation here, I must have a prestige class for it", I work in the opposite direction. My player has a prestige class they want to take? Then how does it fit into the campaign world?

Instead of the campaign world defining the prestige classes, the prestige classes define the campaign world - giving me more options and creating more than I could come up with on my own.

You want to play a Samurai in my very occidental campaign? Now, how does that fit in?

Cheers!

 

[Bards R Us]

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.

It has come to my attention that D20 Publishers seem to look at PrCs as a kind of a filler to make their products seem to have more meat. If the book isn't long enough they whip up a few prestige classes and cram it in.

I hope I'm wrong, but just the sheer number of Prcs I have seen since I started playing is very disheartening and when I see a promising book I have been looking forward to (like CW) filled with nothing but PRCs I feel I could have spent my money better.

Hope I'm not alone.

I don't mind them, though I was hoping that Complete Warrior would include more tips on, say, how to coordinate with other party members to take down the monster. Or perhaps strategies on what feats to use in certain combat situations and whatnot. Somebody should a publish a book on that.

 

[borc killer]

Where other people might go, "I have an organisation here, I must have a prestige class for it", I work in the opposite direction. My player has a prestige class they want to take? Then how does it fit into the campaign world?

Instead of the campaign world defining the prestige classes, the prestige classes define the campaign world - giving me more options and creating more than I could come up with on my own.

Yep! I could not agree more. Prestige classes are only bad when a DM lets them be... just like most things.

Oh well... PrC rock. They are great building blocks that make campaigns even more interesting.

Borc Killer

 

[Psion]

Where other people might go, "I have an organisation here, I must have a prestige class for it", I work in the opposite direction. My player has a prestige class they want to take? Then how does it fit into the campaign world?

Instead of the campaign world defining the prestige classes, the prestige classes define the campaign world - giving me more options and creating more than I could come up with on my own.[/b]

Sometimes I go that way.

Often, I find that when I make organizations, core classes are more than sufficient, and no prestige class is really needed. That's cool AFAIAC. To me, new classes aren't about being a rules placard to represent an organization, but rather to be the simplest way to realize a concept.

 

[Olive]

But what does all this mean? That people need to be selective in the supplements that they pick up. One person's "awful collection" is another person's "pure goodness".

In other words, it's best to look through any supplement and decide in terms of yourself and your campaign as to whether it is a good buy or not.

Not every supplement is good for everyone. And supplementitis is horribly catching...

I totally agree.

 

[Thotas]

A good supply of good PrCs is a good thing. True, not all the PrCs are good, but I doubt that anyone ever would have said they expect every single one of them to be good with a vast number of people creating them. Likewise, with many people creating them independantly, it would have really surprised me if there wasn't some overlap and redundancy in the concepts that people come up with.

I would say the important thing is to remember that, as some of you have said already, PrCs are a DM resource, at least in the first step. Using my own designs as an example, I read in a book once that there are scholars who think that the Valkyries of Norse mythology might've been inspired by an elite class of priestesses, the memory of which got garbled by the passage of time. Clearly, this is PrC territory ... unique abilities possessed by a small group that is very geographiclly/flavor specific. I always intended to sit down and write it up, until Green Ronin did a nice job of saving me the trouble.

So now, the PrC is part of my campaign, whether I wrote it myself or not. The actual integration of the PrC into my campaign will reflect the original idea that I had, anyway. So now, it's available to PCs. Fine, but even if none of them ever take it, it still helps decribe my campaign, and it may supply one or more NPCs and a variety of story-hooks. Which is the primary purpose of the idea.

The issue of whether a PC takes the PrC is the least important part of the process. Especially since some PrCs are clearly meant to be opponents (ie, they are actually "monsters" in disguise) more than PC options.

 

[Sholari]

Prestige classes are like spice. A little bit can really add some flavor, but too much can make you want to throw up. There are some decent prestige classes out there, but most are unfortunately mindless, uninspired, and poorly balanced.

My rule of thumb is they really have to fill some niche in the campaign setting that can not be done with the core classes.

 

[D+1]

Right. Add WOTC to the pile that can't do it right!

Even worse - WotC literally wrote the book on what PrC's are supposed to be and do within the game and then IGNORED what they wrote. Everyone else just followed their lead. To be at least a little forgiving it's been admitted that WotC really hadn't forseen the way PrC's would be so popular. But to turn critical again they haven't done anything that I can see to turn the perspective back to what they originally were saying they ought to be, but instead joining the throngs of overly PrC-happy publishers in cranking them out at a steady pace.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Even worse - WotC literally wrote the book on what PrC's are supposed to be and do within the game and then IGNORED what they wrote.

I actually find that pretty funny myself; particularly since what they originally stated about them is exactly why I manage them in-game the way I do. I don't think I even really noticed that there was a general misuse of them until I read MC's mini-rant in his Prestige Class Design Workshop.