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<blockquote data-quote="Arc" data-source="post: 2285944" data-attributes="member: 12184">Personally, I don't see Prestige Classes as roleplaying aides, or special organizations/situations/etc. A decent imagination and some minor descriptive flavor can turn pretty much any class into whatever you want. What I really like about 3e is that the base classes are further removed from roleplaying stereotypes, so class determines mechanics, not personality.In that way, Prestige Classes are a mechanical way of breaking the rules in a controlled fashion. Feats act much the same way, but don't require the same character investment, and don't take specific class levels to gain. Furthermore, if feats replaced PrC's entirely, then Fighter 20 would be the best way to go. Rather, Prestige Classes fill in gaps in the base classes (Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, Cerebromancer), give abilities unavailable otherwise (Archmage and Heirophant, as well as pretty much every other PrC available), and allow specialization in a specific combat type or action (Tempest and Exemplar, for example). They're a way to break the rules, but prevent (to a degree) the mixing and matching that feats provide. Sure, there are plenty of ways to cheese and optimize them, but they require a lot of work to do so, and the truly broken builds depend on very specific combinations (which designer's can't be expected to think of). So, I see the question as this: Do you want to allow exceptions to the rules? And how much flexibility do you want with the exceptions?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Arc, post: 2285944, member: 12184"] Personally, I don't see Prestige Classes as roleplaying aides, or special organizations/situations/etc. A decent imagination and some minor descriptive flavor can turn pretty much any class into whatever you want. What I really like about 3e is that the base classes are further removed from roleplaying stereotypes, so class determines mechanics, not personality. In that way, Prestige Classes are a mechanical way of breaking the rules in a controlled fashion. Feats act much the same way, but don't require the same character investment, and don't take specific class levels to gain. Furthermore, if feats replaced PrC's entirely, then Fighter 20 would be the best way to go. Rather, Prestige Classes fill in gaps in the base classes (Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, Cerebromancer), give abilities unavailable otherwise (Archmage and Heirophant, as well as pretty much every other PrC available), and allow specialization in a specific combat type or action (Tempest and Exemplar, for example). They're a way to break the rules, but prevent (to a degree) the mixing and matching that feats provide. Sure, there are plenty of ways to cheese and optimize them, but they require a lot of work to do so, and the truly broken builds depend on very specific combinations (which designer's can't be expected to think of). So, I see the question as this: Do you want to allow exceptions to the rules? And how much flexibility do you want with the exceptions? [/QUOTE]

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