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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tessarael" data-source="post: 1932933" data-attributes="member: 12909">Let me give you a stupid example from 3.0E D&D days with Song and Silence. Skill Focus (Bluff) gave +2 bonus to Bluff, and was a prerequisite for Spymaster. However, Song and Silence also had the feat Persuasive, which gives +2 to Bluff and Intimidate. Skill Focus (Bluff) is not a more specialized feat than Persuasive, it is plain worse. Spymaster has that prerequisite to make Spymaster a bit weaker prestige class. This is poor mechanic design in my opinion.Prestige classes serve two primary purposes: (a) plugging mechanic holes in multi-classing (e.g. Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster), (b) representing specialization, as per organizations (e.g. Assassin, Red Wizard).It makes sense that a character should fill certain mech prerequisites for (a), but there is no reason for these mech prerequisites to be weak (and in general, the 3.5E D&D flavor of these filler prestige classes do not have weak prerequisites, other than enforcing multi-classing before taking the prestige class). For (b), the prerequisites really should be storyline and flavor. However, storyline should never be used to balance power, as some campaigns will ignore storyline. i.e. I think prestige classes shouldn't be balanced with storyline prerequisites. If you want the Underwater Mages Guild in your world to have Skill Focus (Underwater Basket Weaving) that's fine. However, I don't think that should be a default balancing method when publishing prestige classes. As a DM, I should be able to waive or change prerequisites, without worrying that the class may be overpowered as a result - i.e. I would like published materials to provide me with balanced prestige classes.In general, 3E lacks any mechanical way of balancing prestige classes. There is no method for directly pricing class features, figuring out if a class is front-loaded, or whether it gains too much over 10 levels. I would like to see a more modular 4E, where many abilities (spell-like or not) are priced out vs. character level that they can be gained (e.g. getting Magic Missile 1/day at 1st character level is much more useful than getting it at 10th character level), giving a better system for building and balancing prestige classes.</blockquote>

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