Do you allow players to switch skill ranks around for PRC quals?

[fba827]

For those of you that do no allow any house rule for this, don't you think that creates a significant bias towards prestige classes that have base attack bonus, class level, and particular spell access (all of which occur without you even knowing that you are working towards a prestige class), and a bias away from prestige classes with skills and feats as a prerequisite? Is there some good in-game reason for creating this bias, or is it just an attitude of "the rules are the rules"?

In my mind ...

PrCs represent a focus
Prereqs for a PrC represent skill, feature, or ability in the direction of the PrC

Therefore, if the PC is not already aquiring the requs (at least similar ones) can you really say that the character's focus is the same as the PrC that he is trying to attain? If his skill set is dramatically different then, in my mind anyway, he needs to start spend levels and skill points towards the requirements before he can get it.

Being able to swap around points seems to belittle the skill point system that is established per core rules (or feats) because you are inadvertantly saying "pick what you want now, what you think will get you through the given adventure - you can swap them later (with/without a slight penalty later).

I am taking an extreme example here but, using what you said "someone taking 9 ranks in profession sailor - sure, it's been helping them for the past 6 levels while they were at sea. But then the PC realizes he wants to be a Devoted Defender so suddenly he unlearns some of his sailor skills in order to sense motive ?

Now, changing requirements if the change of requirements is equal, I see no problem with..

Of course, IMC I follow the same method someone else already described - all the PrCs are world specific and in most cases PCs don't know much about them until later and joining them is a long-winded process rather than "just adding a new (albeit Prestigious) class" - different methods for everyone

 

[Negative Zero]

In my mind ...

PrCs represent a focus
Prereqs for a PrC represent skill, feature, or ability in the direction of the PrC

Therefore, if the PC is not already aquiring the requs (at least similar ones) can you really say that the character's focus is the same as the PrC that he is trying to attain? If his skill set is dramatically different then, in my mind anyway, he needs to start spend levels and skill points towards the requirements before he can get it....

this is all well and good, but what happens when the player doesn't have the information he needs to make the right skill and feat choices. when this is due to the fault of the DM, then the player shouldn't be made to pay. in the situations that Jerrid Al-Kundo describes, those are deffinitely DM choices that he's making his players pay for. in this regard, NPCs will always have the advantage. as the DM, who is their brain, will be able to custom fit them, while players run around in the dark.

most PrCs have either a BAB or a minimum skill rank prereq. this is what's meant to reflect how long it should take for a player to get into a PrC. if you use them at all, then you should make the available ones known to your players, and at the relevant times, spill some details of the prereqs. do it ingame if it makes you feel better, or hand out notes. either way, don't punish your players for your choices.

as for hte issue of how to make up for prereqs that a player doesn't have, in one of my games, the DM has Librams and Learned Tomes that allow characters to, after usually 20-40 in gmae hours, spend XPs for a feat or ranks in a skill. he's got a very complex system for how much it costs, and as a lowly player, i'm not privy to the details.

however of what i do know, mental feats/skills are easier to learn from a book, so the DC is easier. at the halfway mark, you make an INT check and if you beat the DC you can learn that skill/feat. the more you beat the DC by, the fewer XP you spend on it (tho i'm sure, not a whole lot fewer ) if you fail, but fail by 5 or less, then you have to start again. by more than 5, and your character cannot grasp the info in the book. also it's assumed that you treat these books like a work book, making notes in the margins and underlining sentences. each use of the book raises the DC a bit. you can choose to make seperate notes but the DC to learn is higher.

in another game, the DM has a much more simple system. find the right trainier, and you pay money for XP. for example, if you're 100 XP off your next level, you can spend a certain amount of money (dependent on your level) to earn those extra XP. a similar thing might be applied to skills and feats. get the PCs to spend money and time, and have them learn the feat/skill.

yet another DM that i've played with, chose PrCs for all the players, based on their character concepts and the way they played them. specific feats that were needed but unknown, were usually given to the players as a reward for good roleplaying. and he always founda way to do ingame that made sense. of course, this method only works for certain types of feats/abilites. but you get the idea.

i like the idea of PrCs being found out ingame, but players should not be penalised for ignorance forced upon them.

~NegZ

 

[Gez]

No. Unless both skills were not used before and the player has a very good roleplay argumentation about why he made a mistake by putting ranks in one whereas it would be more in the character to put them in the other.

 

[hong]

No. Unless both skills were not used before and the player has a very good roleplay argumentation about why he made a mistake by putting ranks in one whereas it would be more in the character to put them in the other.

There's nothing particularly "in-character" about having 4 ranks in Wilderness Lore and 4 ranks in Knowledge (nature), as opposed to 8 ranks in Wilderness Lore only. Rare is the character concept that's precise enough to be statted down to the level of skill points.

Getting back to the original question, I wouldn't have a problem with switching skill points around, if 1) the PrC was a reasonable choice given the character's history so far; 2) the skill hasn't been incredibly useful to the point of being a life-saver; 3) the player genuinely wasn't aware of the PrC prereqs or he didn't know about it.

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

The rest of the party would probably not want to go along for the training ride for one players prestige class.

Well, I recommend training, but that's a flavor/style issue. For you, I wouldn't recommend training, but finding out in-game doesn't require training. It does require that the PC learn of the PClass and find out what's required to become it.

Training or no training is irrelevant in this regard.

Although, for the record, I do have rules for gaining extra Skill Points. Not Feats, though. Definately not Feats.

For those of you that do no allow any house rule for this, don't you think that creates a significant bias towards prestige classes that have base attack bonus, class level, and particular spell access (all of which occur without you even knowing that you are working towards a prestige class), and a bias away from prestige classes with skills and feats as a prerequisite? Is there some good in-game reason for creating this bias, or is it just an attitude of "the rules are the rules"?

Simple: I don't make any PClasses where the prereqs are so simple, as that alone generates its own bias (Bard1/SorcererX/VirtuosoX, anyone?). All of the PClasses I have are heavily prereqed with Feats and Skills; BAB and/or Spell Casting, if anything, is added to those.

this is all well and good, but what happens when the player doesn't have the information he needs to make the right skill and feat choices. when this is due to the fault of the DM, then the player shouldn't be made to pay. in the situations that Jerrid Al-Kundo describes, those are deffinitely DM choices that he's making his players pay for. in this regard, NPCs will always have the advantage. as the DM, who is their brain, will be able to custom fit them, while players run around in the dark.

Oh, don't be so negative.

Actually, my Players are on equal footing with me because I'm not a Power Gamer. After all, read page 10 of the DMG. It's rather clear the game balance isn't about numbers or making everything available to the Players at their whims, but about fairness. As a DM, I run a fair game. If the PCs don't match up to the assumed power level of ACL/CR (which is grossly assumptive, IMO), then it would be unfair of me to make the challenges and opponents more powerful than themselves.

If my Players develop their characters in such a way the Skill Points are diverted into interests and hobbies rather than Spot, Listen, Hide and the like, then I, as a fair DM, have a responsibility to do the same with the NPCs.

It would be unbalanced not to.

most PrCs have either a BAB or a minimum skill rank prereq. this is what's meant to reflect how long it should take for a player to get into a PrC. if you use them at all, then you should make the available ones known to your players, and at the relevant times, spill some details of the prereqs. do it ingame if it makes you feel better, or hand out notes. either way, don't punish your players for your choices.

Isn't what I've described, though? Rather than present a PClass for them to say, "hey, that's neat, I want one of those," and then pursue it, they let their characters evolve. Then, I present the PClasses that most fit that evolution, allowing them to take their character further than they had originally thought possible.

Now, my Players have seen the printed PClasses, and they generally laugh about most of them. Very few in-print fit our style or the campaign. Looking back at the examples above, the Player running the Wizard-to-be-Shadow Sister is actually on the fast track to her PClass. Trained directly under the Sisterhood, everything she needs is at her fingertips. The level given (12-15) is how long it really takes to qualify (it's a 5-Level class).

i like the idea of PrCs being found out ingame, but players should not be penalised for ignorance forced upon them.

Again, this is dependant on the situation. The Players are learning about the game-world, thus are on a wondrous journey of discovery and exploration. None of them are the sort that like to know everything before their character's find out. After all, you make references about making them "pay" for my choices; There's no consideration for the fact that my Players may actually enjoy the game.

Consequently, they do enjoy it. After 6 years of playing the same campaign, every game they learn something new and go somewhere they haven't gone before. The characters, rather than living a mapped existance regardless of in-game events, are actually shaped and molded by those events, becoming what they naturally become as their in-game lives unfold. For some, it leads to PClasses that they become. For others, it's not.

Consider the two that recently joined the military. If they saw the PClass that's awaiting them, who's to say they'd want it? Perhaps it's one that only a fool would pass up? Rather than have them make the decision based on that criteria, however, they are presented with the path that leads right to it: The military life in a harsh mercenary company, filled with siege warfare, guard duty and potatoes (and all under the command of a Hobgoblin inspired by Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge ).

If the characters stay or go, it's either from their own desire to live a military life or to desert from it. Show them the PClass, however, and perhaps they'll stick around just to get it regardless of what the "in-character" thing to do is. In this manner, the PCs are rewarded or punished for their decisions, not mine; if my method has any bearing, it just ensures that the decisions made are more in-line with the characters, not just the Players.

Terraism: Check yer e'mail.

 

[Steven McRownt]

I know that givin a loan to a players to qualify in a PrC is not the best solution, but as far comments are addded to the thread, there is no real alternative to mine.

Sometimes it is not just to consider Knowledge (nature) as equivalent of wilderness check. Is something like five ranks in hide (blackguard) for a character class that has it as a cross class and very few skill points per level (warrior, cleric and of course ex-paladin). Delaying a PrC for 3 or four level just for some ranks in a skill is -at least- frustrating. My players actually have not access to everything in the books, but just some little information, and PrCs are something they learn by seeing others or gathering informations by RP, or chatting outside the gaming table. They don't know what are the prereq. and sometimes they come with an idea of a PrC. If it exist or is similar to their idea i can help them to know everything they need, otherwise we can create it ex-novo, like the bare-footed monks you could have read some weeks ago in this forum.

I still haven't to face Mistwell's problem, and i dunno how i will manage it, so i am courious too to know any other solution, other than the ones written 'till now.

Steven McRownt

 

[Negative Zero]

Jerrid Al-Kundo, much of what you say is true, and for the most part, i agree with you. especially the part about the players having fun. if they are enjoying the game, great! if your style of DMing matches their style of playing, then you have something that it seems most people don't get to see. also, it sounds like you have a very unique world where all of the normal rules/books don't apply.

in my experience, and after reading this board for some time, it seems that your situation is pretty far from the norm. and consequently, doesn't apply to the vast majority. my post above, while taken mostly from a very specific world, was made with the intention of applying it to general situations.

while a certain amount of realism is absolutely neccessary to running/playing a good RPG, it still is a game, not a life simulator. the 4-8 hours that most people play can never accurately portray the lives of characters. much like a movie/play, there is 10 times as much that happens offscreen/offstage. converstaions, meeting random people, thoughts/revelations, things the characters witness, books that get read, all sorts of things that make up the character. all of them affect the character's thinking. are they taken into account? hardly ever. most times, players aren't even aware of them. even tho they *should* affect their PCs thinking.

perhaps i get ahead of myself, but i tend to get a lil up in arms about DMs who take away choices from players. DMs already have all the control in games. all players can control is their characters. DMs should be careful of how much of that they take away from players.

If my Players develop their characters in such a way the Skill Points are diverted into interests and hobbies rather than Spot, Listen, Hide and the like, then I, as a fair DM, have a responsibility to do the same with the NPCs. It would be unbalanced not to.

not at all. the word balance gets abused a lot. the balancing factor is the number of skill points per level per class. how you spend them isn't. having the same information available to both NPCs ans players is balancing. skewing it to one side isn't. (of course i'm talking of rules, and options not plot devices and world mysteries. ) you can't talk about balance, and leave out information, which is one of the most essential resources no matter what you do.

now that i've sufficiently railroaded this thread in an entirely different direction, lemme see if i can bring it back.

Rather than present a PClass for them to say, "hey, that's neat, I want one of those," and then pursue it, they let their characters evolve.

i've heard this argument before, and i still fail to see why a character's concept can't revolve around the character witnessing an abilty in use and then spending her life trying to get it from herself. the pursuit of a PrC can be a fun thing. it can even provide adventure hooks. and sometimes, character frustration can be a worthwhile addition to the story. but that should depend on the delicate balance of which player it happens to and their level of enjoyment, of that sort of thing.

but isn't the point of playing to exploer not only worlds and event that yuu enjoy, but also to explore characters that you like as well? a specific character concept and the pursiut of it, is no less valid than a campaign world. now, how does this apply to the argument here?

as i stated earlier, if the PrC that the player wants for her character wasn't made available from the beginning of the character's life, then some allowances should be made to faciliate that. i'm not gonna go over the ways to do that again. they're still there for anyone who's interested. but i guess that's the whole point i was trying to get at.

~NegZ

(geez this thing is long ... am i that much of a windbag? LOL )

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

(of course i'm talking of rules, and options not plot devices and world mysteries.

But is a PClass really a rule or an option that a PC may find themselves in a position to pursue?

i've heard this argument before, and i still fail to see why a character's concept can't revolve around the character witnessing an abilty in use and then spending her life trying to get it from herself.

But isn't that what I've described? After all, consider the Death Master I described. This class is not in use, either PC or NPC, and thus it would be impossible for any PC to be aware the such a thing is even possible. Yet, by your statement, a PC from one nation and culture would be justified to pursue a PClass that's related to another nation or culture thousands of miles away. If the PC, however, actually pursues to increase his Necromantic Lore, then hints of the possibility become known. The PC learns what's necessary, and then seeks out the requirements.

Is that balance or pampering? I mean, a PC gaining a PClass at 10th Level instead of 6th Level isn't that limiting unless you think the game ends at level 20, which is doesn't (granted, I don't think I'll be using the Epic rules as written, but I'll be sure to do something in that regard). Isn't mapping your character to obtain a PClass in the fastest manner possible meta-gaming?

Oh, and no, I don't think you're a wind bag... Certainly not more of one than myself.

 

[dvvega]

IMC I allow players to undertake periods of study under teachers/masters/tutors to gain skill points above and beyond what they normally have.

So if you suddently encountered a Prestige Class (exposure during game, or find it in a new book) and it's okayed by me, then you can go and study under someone to gain ranks in that skill. Normally you won't get all the ranks you need, but a good start on the way.

It costs the character money and time, so it's not like people are just grabbing skills left right and centre, they spend resources ... and so I think it's balanced.

 

[Chacal]

Getting back to the original question, I wouldn't have a problem with switching skill points around, if 1) the PrC was a reasonable choice given the character's history so far; 2) the skill hasn't been incredibly useful to the point of being a life-saver; 3) the player genuinely wasn't aware of the PrC prereqs or he didn't know about it.

My opinion too, plus I've already changed some PrC prerequisites (with "or X ranks in Y skill " or " or the following feat").

For instance, Duelists-to-be can have expertise instead of ambidexterity.


Chacal