Lame Prestige Classes

[DaveMage]

The trouble with that is that you lose the ability to give really significant powers.

Classes like the Fochluchan Lyrist, Spellsword and Eldritch Knight are fascinating prestige classes that cannot be achieved by simple feats.

Cheers!

I disagree. I think you can give really significant powers with feats, as long as the prereqs are in place.

For example, for the archmage, each "High Arcana" ability could be a feat with the following prerequsitie:
Caster Level 15+.

Also, feats don't have to be simple, one-line benefits. "Spellsword" could be a feat whereby you gain all the current 1st level abilities of a spellsword.

 

[MerricB]

I disagree. I think you can give really significant powers with feats, as long as the prereqs are in place.

Please tell me what feat chain would give Fighter BAB, d6 HD, 6+Int skill points, bardic music, full arcane spell progression and full divine spell progression. (Fochlucan Lyrist).

Or 8/10 divine spell progression, 6+Int skill points, d8 HD, Sneak Attack (+3d6 over 10 levels), bonuses to search to sense motive, detect evil, a bonus to AC when a spell is expended, etc. (Shadowbane Stalker).

I'm getting "clunky" here from the feat idea. Do you have "half-feats" for abilities that aren't quite worth a full feat?

Also, feats don't have to be simple, one-line benefits. "Spellsword" could be a feat whereby you gain all the current 1st level abilities of a spellsword.

And is there another feat, "Spellsword 2" that gives the abilities of a 2nd level spellsword and so forth? That's just the regular class by that stage.

No, for combinations of abilities, the Prestige Class provides a superior format.

 

[DaveMage]

Please tell me what feat chain would give Fighter BAB, d6 HD, 6+Int skill points, bardic music, full arcane spell progression and full divine spell progression. (Fochlucan Lyrist.)

If the base class is a bard, then the only feats (made-up) you'd need would be:
Fighter BAB (or Optimal BAB)
Enchanced Arcane Progression
Enhanced Divine Progresssion

If the base class isn't a bard, then you multiclass to bard for the other abilities.

Or 8/10 divine spell progression, 6+Int skill points, d8 HD, Sneak Attack (+3d6 over 10 levels), bonuses to search to sense motive, detect evil, a bonus to AC when a spell is expended, etc. (Shadowbane Stalker).

Base Class: Rogue
Feats (I'm making these up, of course):
Medium Divine Spell Progression
Enhanced Hit Dice
Multi-Skill Focus (for the bonuses to two skills)
Detect Evil
Spell-Powered AC Bonus

I'm getting "clunky" here from the feat idea. Do you have "half-feats" for abilities that aren't quite worth a full feat?

No, for combinations of abilities, the Prestige Class provides a superior format.

I suppose it depends on the combination. Certainly, you are correct, under the current system to receive a combination of bonuses, the only way is a prestige class. And there are certainly some which have more abilities than others.

But what if base classes received more feats at each level? Alternatively, what about "feat packages" that you could get if you qualify for them. Rather than have a separate class, you could maintain your base class, and just stick on a feat package.

Also, there are a large amount of prestige classes that do NOT have multiple abilites. These could easily be replaced with feat chains. As a DM, I think it would be easier to not have to be aware of the hundreds of prestige classes, but instead only worry about feats.

 

[Falkus]

Why don't we just do away with classes altogether? What you're suggesting is overly complicated and unwieldly. There is no reason whatsoever to use your suggestion over prestige classes.

 

[Andor]

Kinda drifting off topic here, but what you're proposing seems a lot more like a class construction system than a feat system. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think you'll see it in 4e.

The class/level system is probably the greatest of the 'sacred cows' of DnD. And while I can think of 3 'build a class' systems for d20 off the top of my head, none of them are DnD.

Also I think there is some roleplaying value to prestige classes that would not exist in a feat chain. That being that some (not all) prestige classes are facets of or represent training from specific organizations. The PC must join, serve and win the trust of these organizations to gain access to the prestige classes, and that kind of quest is a great role playing tool. Also the existence of these organization and the roles they serve help to flesh out the world.

 

[Psion]

People complain about statting up high level NPCs and choosing feats as it is. I think with this in mind, replacing prestige classes with feat chains in all cases would be counter productive. As a DM, I find it CONVENIENT to just say that I have a 6th level assassin (or whatever) and be able to quicly list the class abilities they get at that level, minimizing the number of choices I have to make.

Despite suggestions to that effect, being able to choose every ability you get is not an exclusively beneficial goal. I want prestige classes precisely because they are an implementation of a concept.

 

[Insight]

This discussion in getting really far OT, but since we're there anyway...

The systems that use feat chains and not classes (or simplified classes in some cases) give out more feats. Thus the 'weight' of a feat is less and doesn't need to be the 1:3 ratio it is in D&D. True20 gives out feats each level, as their classes have no class abilities at all. D20 Modern, Grim Tales, Iron Heroes, etc., use a model whereby the player customizes their class abilities through feat chains.

So it's not at all impossible or unwieldy to get rid of class abilities and make them into feats. You can always change the 'value' of a given feat through prerequisites. But I think with the current ratio in D&D, feats are too valuable to spend on class abilities. You would need to make a wholesale change in how feats are distributed, and would need to weigh certain feats and/or feat chains differently to keep play balance somewhat intact.

 

[Insight]

Also I think there is some roleplaying value to prestige classes that would not exist in a feat chain. That being that some (not all) prestige classes are facets of or represent training from specific organizations. The PC must join, serve and win the trust of these organizations to gain access to the prestige classes, and that kind of quest is a great role playing tool. Also the existence of these organization and the roles they serve help to flesh out the world.

To play the devil's advocate here, couldn't you make joining an organization a prerequisite to pick up the start of the feat chain? I would make it a prereq and let the GM decide when the PC had fulfilled that requirement. That's where the roleplaying would come in.

Here's an example of this sort of feat chain:

ASSASSIN TRAINING
You are a member of the Assassins' Guild and have been trained as a killer for hire.
Prerequisites: Acceptance into the Assassins' Guild, Hide 6 ranks, Move Silently 6 ranks, Evil alignment.
Benefit: You add +1d6 to your Sneak Attack damage. This stacks with any existing Sneak Attack damage you may have.

DEATH ATTACK
You have the ability to kill with one strike.
Prerequisites: Assassin Training, Hide 8 ranks, Move Silently 8 ranks, BAB +4.
Benefit: as the SRD etc.

So you can see here the beginnings of a feat chain that somewhat models the Prestige Class. If I had my materials in front of me, I could probably make it a little more accurate, but you get the idea.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I dislike PRCs too. Most of them can be well represented by core classes (frenzied beserker is essentially a barbarian) or with 1 or 2 new feats added to a core class (such as in the case of the assassin, death attack is a feat in my games and hide in plain sight is a rogue special ability). That said I can see the use of PRCs in a very limited number of circumstances.
Unfortunatley those of us to dislike PRCs seem to take alot of flak for it.

 

[wingsandsword]

I dislike PRCs too. Most of them can be well represented by core classes (frenzied beserker is essentially a barbarian) or with 1 or 2 new feats added to a core class (such as in the case of the assassin, death attack is a feat in my games and hide in plain sight is a rogue special ability). That said I can see the use of PRCs in a very limited number of circumstances.
Unfortunatley those of us to dislike PRCs seem to take alot of flak for it.

This I will agree with. There are many superfluous Prestige Classes that seem to exist mostly to give a raw Power Up to an existing class (Frenzied Berserker), or give benefits which can largely be emulated through feats (Assassin Death Attack and Poison Use).

The Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster/Mystic Theurge classes are a workaround cludge to make multiclassed spellcasters viable, especially like they were in AD&D, not something you can easily do with just feats alone. Some PrC's like Focluchan Lyricist and True Necromancer also play with the spellcaster multiclassing and might be overpowered as feats.

However, sometimes a Prestige Class exists to depict something that really does represent a whole new direction in character development besides learning one new ability, something that is as big a change to your character as multiclassing is. That's what a new class should represent.

Thus, I believe that you could eliminate a sizable majority of prestige classes and still have a perfectly good game, however Prestige Classes still fulfill a useful role in the game as a way of depicting highly detailed and specialized training that is far more in-depth than a simple feat, a way of showing that a character is progressing in an entirely new and specialized direction, or as a rules way of creating character concepts that cannot be easily created with the core classes. Prestige Classes should not be used solely for "Power Up" of being better than the base class you had before in every meaningful way (which sadly a few have fallen into the trap of).

"Power Up" PrC's might be salvagable as BBEG classes, for DM's who have a good eye for scaling and won't abuse the power, but in normal campaign use they really should not be there.