Kits vs Prestige Classes
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Shadowslayer said:
TSR employed a lot of freelancers to work on the Complete Books, where the majority of kits were introduced. Oftentimes, several freelancers would be responsible for multiple kits in each book. Also, oftentimes, said freelancers had little and/or no communication with one another (i.e., the left hand didn't know what the right was doing). Said freelancers would then submit their material to an editor that had very little time to check it against the core rule and/or other submissions before a final draft was due.
Between the freelancers working blindly and editors rushing to get stuff out the door, a lot of kits that ran roughshod over the core rules or even contradicted rules in the very books in which they were published made it into circulation. Additionally many kits had never been thoroughly playtested (again, because of time constraints) before they made it into print. The result was a huge amount of horribly broken, contradictory, rules.
That said, there were some good kits - but in my own experience, I found about 10 horribly broken kits for every halfway reasonable one. A lot of people just assumed that they were all good, as TSR had published them, implemented them in their camapaigns, and watched their carefully crafted games fall apart before their eyes. Thus, the general disdain for kits.
Lord Mhoram
Hero
As someone who went from being a grognard during the second ed days and only playing 1st ed, to someone who embraced 3rd, I have to go with PrCs because I have never seen a kit. 
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Greg K said:
Probably, but the official WotC PrCs are designed by WotC employees, not freelancers, are playtested, are checked against the core rules, and are edited thoeoughly before they go to press. Sure, some wonkiness still slips thought, but nothing like the game-raping, core rule, end runs that the majority of kits turned out to be.
Imret
First Post
Shadowslayer said:
I don't think they're a bad concept, just that the very title "kit" now carries the stigma of its 2e roots, as far as I'm concerned. YMMV, of course, and Plane Sailing hit the nail square on the head as to the perfect way to have re-introduced them. Unfortunately, the old design team so badly mangled their job I think AD&D 2e would have been vastly improved if they'd never released that product line at all. But then, I threw up my hands in defeat when the Barbarian, a 2e kit, got its own splatbook.
Imret said:But then, I threw up my hands in defeat when the Barbarian, a 2e kit, got its own splatbook.
Yeah, but they did reintroduce the Barbarian as a class and, iirc, they introduced the shaman as a class. My only complaint about the reintroduction of the former as a class is that TSR did not do as good a job as David Howery's Dragon article that fixed the 1e Barbaian.
FireLance
Legend
What I don't like about kits is that they give you some flexibility with one hand and take it away with the other. A fighter with a "cavalier" kit, for example, is better able to portray a mounted knight than a vanilla fighter, but by taking the cavalier kit, he is locked into that concept. If during the course of the campaign, he falls on hard times and becomes a gladiator or a pit fighter, he can't change his kit.Shadowslayer said:
I prefer the greater flexibility of customization that comes from the ability to select different feats and prestige classes, and the flexible nature of certain base classes like the fighter. A single-classed fighter could portray the cavalier-turned gladiator simply by putting skill ranks in Ride and taking mounted combat feats for his first few levels, then putting skill ranks in Intimidate and Exotic Weapon proficiencies in later levels, or by taking levels in a gladiator prestige class.
