How Prestigious?

[joethelawyer]

all core, all the time, every edition since 1st. never a kit or prestige class. we houseruled them into non-existence.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm completely confused. Is the 1e Barbarian "core?" A 2e Fighter Kit? A Hexblade? An Eldritch Knight?

 

[Agamon]

I'm completely confused. Is the 1e Barbarian "core?" A 2e Fighter Kit? A Hexblade? An Eldritch Knight?

According to the poll, I'd say, no, no, no and no.

 

[Agamon]

all core, all the time, every edition since 1st. never a kit or prestige class. we houseruled them into non-existence.

Not even a class from outside the PHB? Wow. Your group sure has Immunity: New Shinies.

 

[Psion]

There was some talk about 3e having too much emphasis on Prestige Classes, and I've heard people criticize 2nd Edition for too much emphasis on kits. Personally, the vast majority of PC's I've seen in all editions have been "mainstream", right out of the basic options in the PHB. How about you?

Wait, so even though the class is the same, you are calling PCs with kits "non-core"? Or is that not what you are saying?

 

[joethelawyer]

Not even a class from outside the PHB? Wow. Your group sure has Immunity: New Shinies.

yeah, we even play a 3.0 base game. never bought 3.5. and we houseruled that back to basically a 1.0/2.0 style game as far as combat goes, by ignoring all rules for attacks of opportunity, damage reduction, thieves being able to backstab in combat, and flanking bonuses.

 

[jdrakeh]

. . . by ignoring all rules for attacks of opportunity, damage reduction, thieves being able to backstab in combat, and flanking bonuses.

Can't thieves and thief subclasses backstab in earlier editions of D&D?

 

[joethelawyer]

Can't thieves and thief subclasses backstab in earlier editions of D&D?

not in combat. they had to move silently/hide in shadows and get surprise, if i remember right. that's hard to do if you were in melee with someone.

they didn't get to do it just because they had some companion on the other side of an enemy they were fighting (flanking) like in 3.x.

 

[El Mahdi]

In 2E, probably about half of our characters, in any given party, were made from a kit from one of the "Complete..." books (or sometimes even Dragon Magazine). The standouts were the Bladesinger and the Beastrider.

In 3E, I have never been in a game, or GM'd a game, that used a Prestige Class. Nobody seemed interested. I think it was mostly the need to have to plan your character from 1st level in order to effectively take one. That was just more trouble that it's worth to me and most of my fellow group players. Most of what we wanted to do with a character, including emulating most 2E Kits, could be done with basic RAW character creation. We just didn't see a need for Prestige Classes.

 

[Serendipity]

So 'core' for the purposes of this poll pretty much just means the PH?
I like third edition, I like the diversity of prestige classes. As the DM in a third edition game, I reserve the right (as I do in any game I run) to tell a player "No, Bob, that's munchkiny."
How hard can that be?