Are prestige classes still viable?

[billd91]

"Hey these harper guys we met and helped out on their major quest are pretty cool, and they invited my wizard to join their magical secret society and learn their special techniques! Too bad I didn't take the educated feat at first level and can't take the prestige class."

Such is life. You're still on the organization's good side. Not all characters are going to qualify because of choices they made. Would you be making the same complaint if the PCs encountered an opportunity to train arcane archers and you didn't make up an elf?

 

[Qwillion]

I find prestige classes to now be what I wanted them to be all along, an interesting choice, a piece of the game world, a roleplaying option, reprentatives of a faction, orgranization, or specialty, not a power build.

I especially enjoy this as a GM and as a supporter of the compatibility licence.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Such is life. You're still on the organization's good side. Not all characters are going to qualify because of choices they made. Would you be making the same complaint if the PCs encountered an opportunity to train arcane archers and you didn't make up an elf?

Do you realize how dumb that sounds?

"After helping us slap the Mind Flayer that had taken control of our ancient society I invite you to join us and study our mystical mind powers. What? You didnt take Skill Focus: Knowledge Arcane? I am sorry, I did not know we were dealing with such a commoner. Here have a donut and run home to mommy now."

 

[pawsplay]

We very much tried to make prestige classes not into power-ups for base classes but "flavor choices" for base classes. I'm still not sure we accomplished this, and I'd love to hear more feedback... but the basic goal was that we were hoping that folks would pick up a prestige class for either roleplaying reasons (becasue they want to be an assassin or a loremaster) or because they wanted to do a complex multiclass (like arcane archer or eldritch knight). HOPEFULLY this'll also result in folks not doing the prestige class dip as much, because if you're taking a prestige class for roleplaying reasons or to support a multiclass, you'll WANT to stick it out to the prestige class's end.

Anyway... I'm looking forward to seeing how this shakes out!

I like these ideas. I'm not sure if things panned out, that remains to be seen. One concern I have is that the new favored class mechanic means that spellcasters are not simply trading bonus feats or powers for a different set of bonuses, but are also giving up 1 hit point or skill rank per level.

Not intended to denigrate what is in the Pathfinder core rules now, just sharing my thoughts. The Loremaster seems like it may have come up a bit weak; on the one hand, it still benefits from 4 skills ranks a level, but on the other hand, a straight up wizard has more hit points, extra languages are no longer at such a premium, and the extra feat, spell, and save bonuses you can acquire are not much different than what a wizard or sorcerer would gain anyway. Although the sorcerer gets some nice class skills, the divination spell requirement is still pretty difficult for a sorcerer to do. In some ways, it actually works better as a cleric Prestige Class than anything else at this point. From a wizard's standpoint, the whole class could probably be efficiently replaced by a feat that granted some kind of lore/bardic knowledge ability, and some way to get unlimited analyze dweomer. I'm wondering if stripping down the class and melting it into 3 or 5 levels might not have worked.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Do you realize how dumb that sounds?

"After helping us slap the Mind Flayer that had taken control of our ancient society I invite you to join us and study our mystical mind powers. What? You didnt take Skill Focus: Knowledge Arcane? I am sorry, I did not know we were dealing with such a commoner. Here have a donut and run home to mommy now."

Doc, you've been here long enough to know that you don't tell people they are being dumb. Please don't do it.

 

[milo]

The simple way to fix a lot of these problems from the DM's point of view is to remove some of the less important prereqs from prestige classes if someone in the party does something to help the organization. I think an invitation from an organization over-rides most prereqs. If you are a half-orc archer who dabbles in magic and you do something great for the elven nation and they invite you to be an arcane archer then that is a great story.
Always remember that there is a rule 0 to help out with things like this. You as a DM have the power to do things like this and help out your roleplayers and balance out there characters with the rollplayers in you group.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Do you realize how dumb that sounds?

"After helping us slap the Mind Flayer that had taken control of our ancient society I invite you to join us and study our mystical mind powers. What? You didnt take Skill Focus: Knowledge Arcane? I am sorry, I did not know we were dealing with such a commoner. Here have a donut and run home to mommy now."

No, I agree with Build. Sometimes you're just not qualified for a class, even if you'd like to enter it. Besides, if the DM is cool, he'll let you retrain a feat so you can enter the prestige class you suddenly discovered.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

No one disputes the fact that a DM can mitigate bad game design with Rule 0. That doesn't mean that bad game design should be wholeheartedly embraced.

And retraining a feat? In my opinion, that's a perfect example of using a bad rule to fix another bad rule. Why should a character have to forget how to do something so he can join an organization?

Ken

 

[amerigoV]

No, I agree with Build. Sometimes you're just not qualified for a class, even if you'd like to enter it. Besides, if the DM is cool, he'll let you retrain a feat so you can enter the prestige class you suddenly discovered.

Although I do not have a direct example from source material, it has always been my impression that being in an organization does not mean you have the prestige class. Those with the prestige class are toward the top of the food chain of the organization. So it is perfectly reasonable that you might get an offer to join the organization before you meet the prereqs to get the real learnings (prestige class).

Actually, Eberron is a good example. You can be a member one of the Dragonmark Families without (1) having a dragonmark and (2) without the prestige class Dragonmark Heir.

It was also my impression that the prereqs were balancing items -- they tended to be an "odd" progression from a min/max Core Class prespective that was then made up with interesting and at times more powerful abilities from the PrC (although I kinda like the concept of it being more balanced with Core classes that PF is taking).

 

[billd91]

I'd say just take the feat the next time you get one and start taking the prestige class after that. Again, there's nothing in the system saying the PC has to pick up a prestige class at the first potential opportunity. That's an attitude brought by the individual player. You can play it that way, but the game does not require it. Other priorities may be pursued first.