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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 1297649" data-attributes="member: 3586">This is one of my pet peeves about people's attitudes to Prestige Classes and Classes: they separate them for the wrong reasons.Originally, there was an attempt to say "Prestige Classes must be special and campaign specific". That is a statement that seeks to limit their application and their usefulness. It was quickly disproved by the plethora of Prestige Classes that appeared in both WotC and d20 System books, and the enthusiasm players had towards them. Prestige Classes are a tool to allow game abilities to be used in a way that the normal system of classes, multi-classes and feats do not allow. There is far more significance to taking a level in a class than taking a feat; and more is possible there. The fact that you can do some pretty nifty role-playing and story-telling tricks with Prestige Classes is a great bonus, but underlying it all is the mechanical reason they work: they make full use of the multi-class system to allow great variance to how players may approach their characters.WotC have realised this, and so you have the Mystic Theurge and Eldritch Knight in 3.5E: not campaign specific, but providing a way allowing players a new type of character to play.However, there is a fundamental difference between a class and a prestige class: the prestige class is easier to design. Designing only 3, 5 or 10 levels is far easier than designing the full 20 levels of a normal class.There is a flaw in prestige classes: they are designed to be taken at level 6 or above. As a result, if you want to have some core abilities at the lower levels, such is not possible. If you want such to happen, you must either modify a normal class, or create a new class. In my mind, they are the same thing. The CW Samurai is a modified Paladin, fulfilling a different role, but with some correspondences and some significant differences.Conversely, the base classes have a flaw that Prestige Classes do not share: you must go through the low level abilities before reaching the higher level abilites. This becomes a flaw when you start multi-classing. There are times when you want only one or two class abilities of a normal class, but if you need 7 levels of a base class before acquiring them, this causes a problem. In this situation a Prestige Class is the best option - primarily because it can be approached from many different paths.There is a distinct mechanical difference between Prestige Classes and base Classes. There are several roles that may be represented as either a Prestige Class or a base Class, depending on your personal vision of that role.That the CW Samurai role could be approximated by feats and a Prestige Class is not in doubt; that does not invalidate the base Class version of that role, for each has different strengths.Cheers!</blockquote>

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