Kits vs. Prestige Classes vs. Racial Variants

[Greg K]

The reason there were so many PrCs was because PrCs fill books you can sell to players. Later on, a single PrC could fill six pages or more, even though it had only 5 levels and was really boring.

Oh, I know why they did it. But I would rather have class books resembling t the 2e Complete Handbook and Green Ronin Master Class book (i.e, focused on examining a single class including an examination of different sources based on various cultural archetypes, literature, and TV/Film., showing how they can be built with existing tools (4e builds and UA class variants) and providing prepackaged examples, and various ways they can be worked into the game along with providing appropriate support material.

As a DM, I find this much more useful in designing campaigns.

I refuse to tolerate 1 build or 2 heritage feats for a class in one book and then another few in another book (I am looking at the 2e sorcerer).

Even the 4e Power Books were disappointing (albeit much less so than their 3e coutnerparts). Wow, 4 builds for the 4e Shaman in two books? Give me a book like Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook. A 4e book covering all the versions of the rogue from the two Martial Powers books would have been awesome. Instead, 4e takes 3 books to cover the cunning rogue, the thug rogue, the acrobatic rogue and the sneaky rogue.

The 3e and 4e class supplement book models with PrC, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies to pad out books and parcelling class specific things among several books is not a model that I willing to support any longer. It is also why, regardless of how good a core system we get, I will be waiting a year to see how they handle class and race supplements before jumping in.

 

[kitsune9]

Class kits? I liked them for 2e when they started to mechanics introduced in them. Thought they were pretty cool.

Prestige classes? I like them but my gaming group doesn't seem to go for them. I only had two characters in my entire 3.x days where I got a prc though.

Racial variants? I'm True Neutral on this.

None of the above? Well, I think if they were left out of the "core" rules, but kept as part of the "modules" that will go a long way.

Something completely different? I posted this as a set of modules to be included:

1. Definitely would like to see a module on bringing along men-at-arms, mercenaries, followers, and hirelings to adventure with you. I like the term adventure company to mean something other than four players playing four PC's. In my current Pathfinder campaign, the group has about 10 characters (five players with five PC's), two mercenaries, an NPC cleric who is party of the group, and two NPC clerics who has joined the group for the short term. In the next session this Saturday, they were will be a big battle in which they run into a group of six characters to aid so that will bring the party to 16. Of course, there will then be a double-cross, so everyone is going to go at it, so it will be 11 against 5 shortly afterwards.

2. A module for running your own fiefdom, economy, or stronghold. My favorite of the BECMI sets was the Companion set bar none. I loved the idea of being high level and starting to run a little fiefdom, collect taxes and generate income. In between all that, go adventure.

 

[Sunseeker]

If I had to favor a system, I would like a hybrid of 4e's paragon paths and epic destinies and 3.x's prestige class system, as well as some "out the door" customization to all of the above.

I like the prestige class system for the ability to take specific abilities within almost any class and then take on almost any prestige class. I didn't like how undeveloped a lot of them were an how short lived they often were. This stems from the fact that I really don't like multiclassing, at least not to the insane degree 3.x often took it.

I like the paragon path system because although they were often limited by class alone, they felt like an extension of that class. 3.x's prestiege classes often felt like entirely and sometimes disharmonious extensions of your initial class(es). 4e's paragon and epic extensions really felt like "hey I'm becoming a much cooler and more awesome version of my base class"

And while I'm not real familiar with kits, ANY excuse to customize at any step of character creation is something that IMO is core to D&D.

EDIT: missed the racial variants. Yeah, racial variants are an absolute must. But I'd like to see them in the form of kits as well. There are varities of elves that I dream up and put into my settings that wizards doesn't, and I'd like to have those playable with minimal work.

 

[Yora]

I would really like to see wotc focus on another approach. Ultimately this was one of the things that drove me away from 3E toward the end. Settings, modules, gm guide books and unbroken (non game expanding) player sourcebooks add so much more to the game than a bunch of crunch books.

I think 3rd Edition had many of the best books toward the end, like Elder Evils, Lords of Madness, and Heroes of Horror. The later two still had a bunch of prestige classes and spells, but the rest was still quite solid.

Or let's just say "Everything but another Complete or Heroes of series."

 

[TwinBahamut]

I voted "None of the Above".

I really just want to see more interesting races and classes, rather than lots of racial variants or not-quite-classes. Race and class are the key aspects of character choice, so it is best to give those categories as many real, meaningful options as possible without diluting it all with a bunch of lesser choices. Anything else is better off being integrated into a more global customization scheme, like what the Feat system should have been.

 

[SKyOdin]

I am someone who really liked the idea of Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, but never liked the implementation. I liked the idea of hitting a new tier and getting a whole new defining set of class features. In practice though, Paragon Paths are limited in both scope and effect, rarely seem to encompass very good or distinctive archetypes, and generally don't really seem to know what they want to be. I can also understand those people who just want to keep being a plain fighter or wizard.

Class Kits are problematic because they are either going to be a minor tweak to base character abilities like 4E class feature choices or something so comprehensive they end up being a whole new class.

Prestige Classes were kind of cool, but full of problems. Many prestige classes involved a player having to spend 5 or 6 levels of playing a completely gimped character in order to qualify for a class that manages to make their character concept functional, while other prestige classes were easy to qualify for with a straightforward single-class character and were flat stronger than being single-class. Having to give up class features in your original class can be pretty problematic as well for any class that is dependent on complex mechanics.

I really like the idea of being able to branch out at higher level into a cooler, more distinctive concept, but I don't think any of the implementations so far are good enough. Unfortunately, I don't have any good alternatives in mind.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Kits are very similar to archetypes (IMO, I don't know a ton about pre-3e rules). I think that this concept; a list of specialized thematic class features that modify a generic class, is the best implementation we've seen.

Prestige classes are okay on some level, but became way overblown in 3e.

I prefer PF's alternate racial features to having a hundred different little racial variants.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Themes. They're a lot like kits, but not automatically restricted by class.

 

[Tallifer]

This poll is rather outdated. No Themes, Hybrid Classes, Forgotten Realms-style Backgrounds or Paragon Paths? Especially since Themes have been mentioned by Monte Cook recently concerning the Fifth Edition.

 

[Almightyquad]

Overpowered kit: Halruaan wizard.

Negative: -2 str, -2 dex, -2 con. (not that much considering what he gets)

Plus: +4 to all saving throws against magic. His spells cause targets to take -4 to their saving throws. This is alot in ad&d