Isn't the whole Complete X series a little... off?

[Gez]

Yup, I agree it would have been nice to have a few, say, "magic dabbling" prestige classes for warrior- and scoundrel-type characters in CA.

I have an Eberron character who's a wizard (diviner) investigator. The idea is to use spells like locate object or detect thought to help during investigations. However, without multiclassing with rogue, it is really hard to be effective, since the wizard is far from having enough skill points to boost cross-class skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Gather Information, Search, or Sense Motive. Given there's also Concentration, Knowledges, and Spellcraft to boost... My wizard would need 32+ Int to keep most of them at max rank.

So, I'd appreciate it if there was a prestige class in Complete Adventurer that was meant for arcanists wanting to round up their P.I. skills, for example.

But given the direction set by the previous Complete thingies, it's unlikely. If there's a prestige class corresponding to this concept, it will have sneak attack or bardic music as prerequisite. Or it will have required ranks of 12+ in Search and Sense Motive.

I think that's another grudge I have with these books. The PrCs there are most always designed around the idea that the characters that will multiclass into them will be custom built from level 1 to qualify ASAP.

 

[nothing to see here]

At the risk of a mini-hijack, I'd like to note the following.

The pointabout the investigative wizard -- and his expectation that complete Adventurer will dissapoint...speaks to the major flaw in prestige classes.

In general, I don't like be shoehorned into straightjacked requirements for Prestige Classes. As some of them offer significant abilities, you should, in turn require a significant pre-requisite to get into them...but the one size fits all approach speaks more to the priorities of a game deigner than a game master.

The test-based pre-req's in Unearthed Arcana are a good start. A far more flexible qualification method.

The problem, of course , is that certain Prestige requirements aren't designed to force a chracter to 'reach' a certain level...they're designed to 'de-power' a character in order to take advantage of the cool goodies that come afterword.

Everyone's favourite...the mystic theurge...is a case point. The Pre-req's require a spellcaster to be BEHIND his single classed counterparts on the spell power curve, in order to compensate for the rapid advancement in two spellcasting classes.

Hence -- we need stringent requirements for some prestige classes...but not others...very frustrating.

 

[shilsen]

The 3.5 series of "complete books" is said to be designed with a different idea in mind: each book was though to support one theme of the game and nature/role of the characters (combat, the divine, the arcane, adventuring). Each book should help anyone to improve becoming effective within that area.

Isn't this the official idea of the complete books or did we make it up on the forums?

I think that idea is at least partly an assumption, rather than the official reality. With what I'd heard of the books before they came out and seen in the excerpts on the WotC site, I never thought that they would help any and all classes and concepts, so I wasn't surprised with what we got. I think fahrd's point here sums it up best:

WotC may have oversold the universality of the Complete Series but each of them really did extend something to those outside the related base classes. Arcane disciple, the (gnomish) SP feats from CA, arcane strike, they basically let characters dabble in another classes abilities. I don't find it surprising that 90% of the material tends to its core constituency. If your expectation was multiclassing without multiclassing, I think that's asking too much. I think the books meet(if barely in CDs case) their goals.

 

[Tumbler]

It might be better if some of the prestige classes worked like some of Green Ronin's. In their Bow and Blade book, for example, prestige classes can be reached by different paths, and in some cases then gain slightly different abilities.

So maybe you have a more martial dragon disciple who gains the strength and what, and a more arcane one that gains special dragon magic.

 

[beaver1024]

I find complete arcane added nothing to existing core classes. It's the most unattractive and dispensible of the 3 books. At least complete divine added something useful to my campaign despite its bad editing and some overpowered feats/spells and PrCs.

 

[ivocaliban]

It might be better if some of the prestige classes worked like some of Green Ronin's. In their Bow and Blade book, for example, prestige classes can be reached by different paths, and in some cases then gain slightly different abilities.

I think this is an interesting idea. For example, instead of a True Necromancer* who requires both arcane and divine spell-casting, there might be two slightly-different versions for priests who call the dead to rise and for traditional necromantic wizards who summon them. But, then again, I suppose that is what the plethora of new feats is supposed to accomplish...allowing you to focus on the aspect most appealing to you.

*I realize that this conversation has nothing to do with Libris Mortis, but it essentially houses the arcane and divine classes dealing with the undead. The True Necromancer is simply the first PrC that came to mind.

 

[Davelozzi]

As far as I'm concerned, the new splatbooks are still designed for a few different classes each. But they are marketed for maximum sales (in other words, as if they're useful to everyone).

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that idea is at least partly an assumption, rather than the official reality. With what I'd heard of the books before they came out and seen in the excerpts on the WotC site, I never thought that they would help any and all classes and concepts, so I wasn't surprised with what we got. I think fahrd's point here sums it up best:

So it was just my illusion then... Probably I still too much think as a DM rather than as a player - tho i'm both - and I was thinking how nice it would have been for me to have a book called "complete arcane" to provide all the campaign characters a pinch of arcane magic, and same with the other books.

I suppose the hard problems are with PrCl only however, and less with feats and equipment for example.

 

[Li Shenron]

In general, I don't like be shoehorned into straightjacked requirements for Prestige Classes. As some of them offer significant abilities, you should, in turn require a significant pre-requisite to get into them...but the one size fits all approach speaks more to the priorities of a game deigner than a game master.

I think this is very relevant with the Complete series. I too don't like the trend in published PrCls, they are too much designed around one single core class. This is IMO very far from the original idea by Monte Cook, of prestige classes open to everyone.

I mean, all WotC published PrCl are still following the guidelines of never put a requisite like "Fighter level 4" or "Sorcerer level 8", but several do require "Weapon specialization" or "Spontaneously cast 4th lv arcane spells". :\ In theory it's still open for non-core classes or other PrCls, but in practice it almost never happens.
Other PrCls don't have such strict formal requirements, but really the majority is evidently designed to benefit one core class only (at best, some PrCl benefit all martial classes, but not the others).

What do you get from such an array of PrCl each of which has a specific use only? That the whole game needs hundreds of PrCls published, to hopefully cover the desires of as many characters as possible. And yet every single time one of our group wants to take a PrCl, it's never exactly what he was looking for...

 

[Li Shenron]

The test-based pre-req's in Unearthed Arcana are a good start. A far more flexible qualification method.

The problem, of course , is that certain Prestige requirements aren't designed to force a chracter to 'reach' a certain level...they're designed to 'de-power' a character in order to take advantage of the cool goodies that come afterword.

One more point about requirements!

The biggest issue designers seem to be concerned about IMO when setting the requirements is AT WHICH MINIMUM LEVEL YOU CAN QUALIFY.

Now, why are we kidding ourselves all the time? If we want so that no PC should get a PrCl before level 6, why not just finally accept that character level 6 is officially the minimum before a character can take one? No one thinks it's "inappropriate" as requirement for Leadership for example. So why bothering by setting an exact minimum skill rank or BAB or base ST or number of feats? If one PrCl isn't appropriate before level 11, why not just put CHARACTER LEVEL 11 as a requirement?

Note that I like having in-game requirements such as feats or skills for PrCls. I think they are important because they define what all characters of a PrCl have in common (together with 1st level features). Therefore it makes sense if an archer PrCl requires Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. What sucks is that requirements are instead much more often used as "price to pay".