In lieu of prestige classes...

[Celebrim]

I can't think of a single popular PrC that is like that...The nimble rogue should have no more problems getting duelist levels than he has getting fighter levels (provided he fulfills the entry requirements).

Ok, let's start with duelist.

At first level, the duelist gains:

Canny Defense (Ex): When not wearing armor or using a shield, a duelist adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per duelist class level to her Dexterity bonus to modify Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a duelist is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied her Dexterity bonus, she also loses this bonus.

Adding your Int bonus to your AC is a feat equivalent ability.

At second level, the duelist gains:

Improved Reaction (Ex): At 2nd level, a duelist gains a +2 bonus on initiative checks.

Arguably this is a half feat ability, to which a second half feat is added at 8th level. But this isn't the whole story. This is half of one of the best (if not the best) feats in the game - improved initiative - and it stacks with improved initiative. In essence, you are gaining not half of improved initiative but superior and greater initiative. If this 'superior initiative' was offered as a feat that only gave you a +2 bonus that stacked with improved initiative some characters would take it. So, arguably this is a full feat level ability. Either way, as we will see, this is more feats in 10 levels that a fighter would recieve in 10 levels.

At third level the duelist gains:

Enhanced Mobility (Ex): When wearing no armor and not using a shield, a duelist gains an additional +4 bonus to AC against attacks of opportunity caused when she moves out of a threatened square.

This is another feat equivalent ability...

Grace (Ex): At 4th level, a duelist gains an additional +2 competence bonus on all Reflex saving throws. This ability functions for a duelist only when she is wearing no armor and not using a shield.

And another feat equivalent ability...

Precise Strike (Ex): At 5th level, a duelist gains the ability to strike precisely with a light or one-handed piercing weapon, gaining an extra 1d6 damage added to her normal damage roll.

Note that Precise strike is not only a feat equivalent ability, but its equivalent to or superior to weapon specialization, which is another almost mandatory and valuable feat. And then again...

Acrobatic Charge (Ex): At 6th level, a duelist gains the ability to charge in situations where others cannot. She may charge over difficult terrain that normally slows movement. Depending on the circumstance, she may still need to make appropriate checks to successfully move over the terrain.

Another feat equivalent ability...

Elaborate Parry (Ex): At 7th level and higher, if a duelist chooses to fight defensively or use total defense in melee combat, she gains an additional +1 dodge bonus to AC for each level of duelist she has.

And another one, and again this would be a very good feat (at least +7 to AC!).

At 8th, we get the other half of improved initiative.
At 9th we get...

Deflect Arrows: At 9th level, a duelist gains the benefit of the Deflect Arrows feat when using a light or one-handed piercing weapon.

You guessed it, another feat equivalent ability.

And finally at 10th we gain improved precise strike, which would be exceptionally powerful as a feat.

So, in the course of 10 levels the Duelist has gained the equivalent of 10 bonus feats. An equivalent fighter would only obtain 5 or 6 bonus feats. And that's not even the whole story, because in addition to having full fighter attack progression, and full fighter HD, the duelist has improved skill progression and vastly superior access to skills. It is in every way but flexibility superior to the fighter class. People take Duelist mainly because they want to play a fighter that recieves more feats per level and more skills per level without really sacrificing anything (because if they have taken a few levels in Rogue they probably aren't planning on wearing full plate anyway).

Suppose we made all the class abilities of duelist available as fighter bonus feats? Would anyone take levels of fighter in order to play a duelist when in 10 levels they would only get half as many feats, and they would have to spend their general feats improving thier skills rather than getting superior skill access for free? Of course not. Yet exactly what is it about thier training that makes Duelists more productive with thier time than Fighters? Surely if Duelists are spending time learning all those valuable skills they can't possibly spend as much time learning to fence as a fighter? Yet that is not what we see. We see that fighters that practice in light armor cannot possibly become as good as fighting in light armor as fencers. This is not an indication that we need Duelists to allow some concept to be playable. This is at most a failure in the design of the fighter class, or arguably a failure on the part of PC's to accept that hard tradeoffs or required and that you can't have it all (quickly).

 

[krichaiushii]

FFG's Path of ... series contains the schools/organizations mentioned above by No Name.

Basically, you gain entry to the school, pay cash, and get a nifty ability of some sort. Successive "lessons" costs more in time and cash, as well as prerequisites.

In addition, each school has its own tuition, room and board, and other such fees.

Not a bad system, really.

 

[DMH]

Take a look at Bastion's Guildcraft for this very thing.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3678&SRC=EnWorld

I agree and want to mention Bloodstone's Savage (also on rpgnow). It is a totally customizable class that shows the strengths of the generic classes in UA. I liked the generic classes before I bought Savage and now I really don't see any need to use any other kind of class...

 

[Mark Causey]

I took a look at the FFG Paths of ... series and man, was I blown away. (And no, I don't work for FFG). I love the Schools concept, and they did so much for variants to add for the world (especially the Magic one). If FFG made a book of just Schools, I'd buy it in a heartbeat (update the old ones to 3.5 while you're at it ). Legendary classes also represent a neat feature; they feel like Epic level characters, but not at epic levels.

 

[3catcircus]

Hmm - this is why, in my next campaign, I'm implementing a change to the core rules: starting at 2nd level, you gain feats when you meet the pre-requisites, regardless of whether or not you have a feat slot available. This prevents players from finding a PrC that gives them the feats/equivalents that they want without having any reason (in-character) for being able to take the PrC.

Sure, giving feats as soon as you meet the pre-reqs makes for more powerful PCs, but it eliminates the plethora of Rgr1/Rog1/Ftr1/[Insert PrC here]1/.... combinations.

Ok, let's start with duelist.

(snip good stuff)

So, in the course of 10 levels the Duelist has gained the equivalent of 10 bonus feats. An equivalent fighter would only obtain 5 or 6 bonus feats. And that's not even the whole story, because in addition to having full fighter attack progression, and full fighter HD, the duelist has improved skill progression and vastly superior access to skills. It is in every way but flexibility superior to the fighter class. People take Duelist mainly because they want to play a fighter that recieves more feats per level and more skills per level without really sacrificing anything (because if they have taken a few levels in Rogue they probably aren't planning on wearing full plate anyway).

Suppose we made all the class abilities of duelist available as fighter bonus feats? Would anyone take levels of fighter in order to play a duelist when in 10 levels they would only get half as many feats, and they would have to spend their general feats improving thier skills rather than getting superior skill access for free? Of course not. Yet exactly what is it about thier training that makes Duelists more productive with thier time than Fighters? Surely if Duelists are spending time learning all those valuable skills they can't possibly spend as much time learning to fence as a fighter? Yet that is not what we see. We see that fighters that practice in light armor cannot possibly become as good as fighting in light armor as fencers. This is not an indication that we need Duelists to allow some concept to be playable. This is at most a failure in the design of the fighter class, or arguably a failure on the part of PC's to accept that hard tradeoffs or required and that you can't have it all (quickly).

 

[Mark Causey]

Hmm - this is why, in my next campaign, I'm implementing a change to the core rules: starting at 2nd level, you gain feats when you meet the pre-requisites, regardless of whether or not you have a feat slot available. This prevents players from finding a PrC that gives them the feats/equivalents that they want without having any reason (in-character) for being able to take the PrC.

Sure, giving feats as soon as you meet the pre-reqs makes for more powerful PCs, but it eliminates the plethora of Rgr1/Rog1/Ftr1/[Insert PrC here]1/.... combinations.

How about this: PCs get their standard feats and are practicing a certain number of feats (e.g. 3) for which they qualify for. They get a certain amount of times per day or times per encounter (e.g. 3/day, 1/encounter) to use any feat on that list that they want. Every level they can add to that list by some amount (e.g. by 1), and when it comes time to take a real feat, they'll know which feat they'll want to have permanently, and still have a pool of feats to play with.

This will prevent laborious searching by players in books for that feat that they know they qualify for and would fit that situation.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Sounds very promising

I like this idea. It sounds very promising.

Take a rogue for example who want to become a ninja. He still has to meet some kind of prerequisites, like be born in the clan, track the clan down, have certain ranks in certain skills, etc.

Then when he's at a level to gain a feat he's officially accepted into the order and gains some new class skills (still has to spend points though), and a prestige feat from a list ie. sneak attack +1d6, minor shadow walk, quick draw, sudden strike and so forth.

I like very much.

 

[Celebrim]

Hmm - this is why, in my next campaign, I'm implementing a change to the core rules: starting at 2nd level, you gain feats when you meet the pre-requisites, regardless of whether or not you have a feat slot available. This prevents players from finding a PrC that gives them the feats/equivalents that they want without having any reason (in-character) for being able to take the PrC.

Sure, giving feats as soon as you meet the pre-reqs makes for more powerful PCs, but it eliminates the plethora of Rgr1/Rog1/Ftr1/[Insert PrC here]1/.... combinations.

I suggest you carefully limit the available feats then, as you'll quickly end up with PC's with literally scores of feats. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how you'd do this, as many feats don't have prerequisites. What about feats which only have other feats as prerequisites? How fast can you climb the feat tree? And what about feats that you can take multiple times? Do you end up with Weapon Focus in everything as a first level fighter? I've got some 300 DM approved feats available to players. I'd be afraid that they'd very quickly qualify for almost all of them. I'd be courious to see how you plan to implement this.

I'm planning to slightly increase the bonus feats to many classes, because I like the ability of a feat to custimize the class and I don't want to use PrC's to do it. So...

Wizards go from 4 bonus feats to 5. In addition, getting a familiar becomes a feat so they gain an additional bonus feat at first (since familiars remain more of annoyance to both me and the players than a real help) which they can use on something other than a familiar if they want. I'm thinking about some changes in how familiars work to make them more attractive, especially at mid-high levels.

Rogues go from 4 bonus feats to 6 because I've heard people complain that there isn't a point in following the class to the end.

Sorcerers go from 0 bonus feats to 3 bonus bloodline feats, and also have the same option to forgo a familiar as wizards.

Fighters get the biggest bonus, going from 11 bonus feats to 14, which is especially helpful at high levels when spellcasters would otherwise be shining.

I don't have paladins (too flavor specific) but the replacement class is getting 4 bonus feats to maximize customization.

I don't have rangers (too flavor specific) but the replacement class is getting 4 bonus feats to maximize customization.

I'm not messing with the cleric because in my experience it outshines the other classes as is. This might be a little of an overcompensation, but we'll see how it pans out.