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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
help me play with prestige classses/paragon paths
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6362350" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>That's quite limiting, but ok.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Absolutely yes.</p><p></p><p>If you have a mid/high level character concept which you intend available to more than one class, subclasses won't work. </p><p></p><p>Feat chains may or may not work, depending on how extensive the character concept is. If it covers a lot of levels worth of features, it might result in the feat chain not being enough for a PC to take all of it, or it might require to reach levels which are too high. In that case it's better to design a prestige class (i.e. an N-levels class that starts at higher level).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Personally I think we need to throw the old standards of prerequisite design out of the window...</p><p></p><p>I would completely eschew mechanical prerequisites, and just go with narrative prerequisites. </p><p></p><p>If a prestige class directly boosts some feature normally gained previously (from a base class), then it's ok to have it as a prerequisite, but it's mostly to avoid someone to accidentally choose a prestige class that wouldn't work. But you can also have the prestige class grant such feature itself! (That's actually what 5e feats do: instead of requiring you to be proficient in heavy armor, a "heavy armor master" feat <em>grants</em> you such proficiency if you don't have it already - although this might have changed in the PHB)</p><p></p><p>For example, in your example the Bladesinger keeps progressing in spellcasting each level, so when you enter the 1st level you <em>also</em> learn more spells and get daily slots. But it could also be that you start here, as a 1st level Wizard for example.</p><p></p><p>It depends of course on the concept, but I would rather go with the narrative... Instead of requiring "able to cast 2nd level arcane spells", I'd make it so that the Bladesingers <em>usually</em> invite into their ranks only individuals who already have some generic arcane skills (but there can be exceptions).</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>The <em>real</em> balancing factor to consider is the minimum level to enter. Once you fix this, you can gauge the value of the prestige class features against features of equivalent levels in a base class.</p><p></p><p>For instance, if you decide that Bladesinger should be entered normally at 11th level minimum, and be a 5-level class, then you can "balance" those 5 features (assuming you get 1 per level) against 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th level features of a few base classes.</p><p></p><p>But because of that, it would be so much simpler to go straight to the point and say "prerequisite: 11th level". It saves a lot of work, it's more clear to the players, and it doesn't lose anything interesting about the prestige class.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6362350, member: 1465"] That's quite limiting, but ok. Absolutely yes. If you have a mid/high level character concept which you intend available to more than one class, subclasses won't work. Feat chains may or may not work, depending on how extensive the character concept is. If it covers a lot of levels worth of features, it might result in the feat chain not being enough for a PC to take all of it, or it might require to reach levels which are too high. In that case it's better to design a prestige class (i.e. an N-levels class that starts at higher level). Personally I think we need to throw the old standards of prerequisite design out of the window... I would completely eschew mechanical prerequisites, and just go with narrative prerequisites. If a prestige class directly boosts some feature normally gained previously (from a base class), then it's ok to have it as a prerequisite, but it's mostly to avoid someone to accidentally choose a prestige class that wouldn't work. But you can also have the prestige class grant such feature itself! (That's actually what 5e feats do: instead of requiring you to be proficient in heavy armor, a "heavy armor master" feat [I]grants[/I] you such proficiency if you don't have it already - although this might have changed in the PHB) For example, in your example the Bladesinger keeps progressing in spellcasting each level, so when you enter the 1st level you [I]also[/I] learn more spells and get daily slots. But it could also be that you start here, as a 1st level Wizard for example. It depends of course on the concept, but I would rather go with the narrative... Instead of requiring "able to cast 2nd level arcane spells", I'd make it so that the Bladesingers [I]usually[/I] invite into their ranks only individuals who already have some generic arcane skills (but there can be exceptions). --- The [I]real[/I] balancing factor to consider is the minimum level to enter. Once you fix this, you can gauge the value of the prestige class features against features of equivalent levels in a base class. For instance, if you decide that Bladesinger should be entered normally at 11th level minimum, and be a 5-level class, then you can "balance" those 5 features (assuming you get 1 per level) against 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th level features of a few base classes. But because of that, it would be so much simpler to go straight to the point and say "prerequisite: 11th level". It saves a lot of work, it's more clear to the players, and it doesn't lose anything interesting about the prestige class. [/QUOTE]
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