Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1086519" data-attributes="member: 3146">I think it's a mistake to think that  prerequisites for p-classes ought automatically to be punitive. My take is that they ought to, in the first place, define the kind of character who will gain the class's abilities. The cavalier needs mounted combat not because it's a suboptimal feat for most characters but because all characters who take the class ought to be skilled at mounted combat. Similarly, Templar requires Endurance, WF: Deity's favored weapon (sometimes a drawback--Pholtus or Wee Jas for instance), and knowledge: religion ranks not because it needs costs to balance out the benefit but because Templars ought to be skilled in their deity's weapons, ought to be able to exert themselves longer than others, and ought to be educated in the teachings of their faith.Now, balance issues enter into it as well but I think the primary purpose of prerequisites is to define candidates for the class rather than to punish them.And speaking of punishment/drawbacks, especially for clerics (who, IME, tend to have 2 or 3 skill points/level), skill ranks do represent a very significant balancing factor in a game. Obviously this is less true in >32 point buy games, but I'd maintain (having run a 36 point buy game for several years and found that it was like giving PCs at least one extra level (vis a vis 28 point buy) in terms of offensive capability) that such games are inherently unbalanced anyway.</blockquote>

Verification