Least favorite Prc

[Psion]

Here's another example of the break between concept and execution folks have mentioned earlier in the thread. Personally, I love the idea of the Arcane Trickster, but as it stands the ranged legerdemain and impromptu sneak attack are almost gravy when you're already essentially advancing without penalty in two classes at once.

I really disagree. Anyone with a shred of perception about the balance of classes in 3e will tell you that taking levels of any other class when you are trying to be a serious spellcaster is a serious disadvantage... it's usually not worth it to lose those extra spellcasting levels.

One of the supposed reasons for a prestige class is to make a weak concept viable. This is where classes like Arcane Trickster fit in.

 

[Psion]

Even if you compare it to a Rog5/Wiz15, the Trickster beats it around the block and back again, because it doesn't have to give anything up.

Of course it does... because the rog5/wiz15 isn't as effective as a single classed 20th level character. The gravy that the arcane spellcaster gets puts it on par.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Actually, I'm assuming that a Rog5/Wiz5/Trickster10 is a better rogue than a Rog20, and almost as good of a wizard as a Wiz20. And that's just not right.

Even if you compare it to a Rog5/Wiz15, the Trickster beats it around the block and back again, because it doesn't have to give anything up. It's got all the casting power of the Rog5/Wiz20 plus 4d6 more sneak attack plus 20 more skill ranks plus ranged legerdemain plus impromptu sneak attack...and it gave up, what, 2 metamagic feats for it? You don't even have to take useless skills or feats to get in.

And I think a Rog10/Wiz10 (or a Rog5/Wiz15 for that matter) is plenty effective as a 20th level character if the player is smart. He can't act like a 20th level evoker, which is what too many people try to do with multiclassed spellcasters. But if he uses stuff where the effectiveness is not so dependant on his caster level, he can be a nightmare.

J

I'm not sure comparing the Arcane Trickster to core classes is the best way to go. Comparing Prestige Classes to core classes will inevitably lead you to de-power or altogether throw out at least half of the official PrCs.

Yes, the Arcane Trickster is powerful compared to a Wizard/Rogue. Any spellcasting PrC that grants full spellcasting ability is powerful compared to their respective core classes. Most PrCs that grant any spellcasting ability at all to nonspellcasters are powerful compared to their core classes.

But I do agree that Arcane Trickster is one of the more powerful PrCs (but not so powerful that I'd change it).

Straight multiclassing is underpowered in 3E. For spellcasters, higher class levels are worth far more than lower class levels. You gain much more power going from Wizard 6 to Wizard 7 than you do going from Wizard 2 to Wizard 3. But the 3E multiclassing rules treats this as the same. In earlier editions, because of the lower experience points required for lower levels, this wasn't a problem.

Nitpick: The Arcane Trickster's requirement of 7 ranks in Decipher Script seems fairly useless to me. After all, they can cast Comprehend Languages.

 

[DonAdam]

My least favorite: any, ANY, prestige class without some roleplaying requirement, such as membership in a guild or something. Along those lines, any non-broken prestige class with an ability that can't be emulated conceptually by a skill or feat can be made tolerable by adding such a requirement.

This is why I like the Legendary prestige classes from FFG. In fact, I like all the prestige classes in Path of the Sword. Even if I wouldn't allow them because I don't have a place for them in my campaign, there's significant roleplaying info for each class.

The Fang of Lolth is the only prestige class in song and silence that I DO like. The others are just, "Take the appropriate skills and feats." It's great for NPC's.

Since all the splatbooks have had their doozies, I'll do one least favorite from each:

-Sword and Fist: Ghostwalker- I know I'll get loads of flack from all the people that think this is a great roleplaying class, but I didn't see it. There's no actual description of what the class is. Also, the dark, mysterious anti-hero is way, way corny for my tastes, and that's all this seems to be. It reads like it was written by a 13 year old fan boy. And the abilities. Walking through shadows? What does that have to do with anything? Oh wait, shadowz are l337 anti-hero goodness.
The Duelist is my favorite, and is the one exception to the specific RP requirement, because there's simply no other way to do a lightly armored fighter. This is something that provides a "fix" to the core rules, which is why I give it an exception.

-Tome and Blood: Ok, there were too many bad one's here to not list all of them: Alienist (broken), Arcane Trickster (broken), Candle Caster (lame, broken), Elemental Savant (broken), Mage of the Arcane Order (horrendously broken), Mindbender (just play an enchanter), Wayfarer Guide (useless). By broken, I mean: gets lots of extra abilities for giving up nothing. I HATE power creep. Favorite class is the Dragon Disciple, if you take out that ridiculous size increase.
I don't blame the book for having that many classes I consider bad, as spellcasting prestige classes are very difficult to do.

Masters of the Wild: Either Deepwood Sniper or Tempest (feat chains would have sufficed)

Defenders: Church Inquisitor (broken), Contemplative should have been a core class, Divine Oracle (broken), Hospitaler (possibly the most broken, ever), Knight of the Middle Circle (lame excuse to give warrios access to true strike), Master of Shrouds (broken, unecessary), Sacred Exorcist (broken), Templar (why not just cleric/fighter?).
Again, bad spellcasting decisions. It's much easier to do druid prestige classes because you can just swap out special abilities.

Song and Silence: Anything but the Fang of Lolth. All the others can be simulated with the right skills and feats. The Acrobat could have been there for tradition's sake, but they blew it big time.

 

[drnuncheon]

Of course it does... because the rog5/wiz15 isn't as effective as a single classed 20th level character. The gravy that the arcane spellcaster gets puts it on par.

Like I said before...it's not as effective as a single classed character if you try to treat it like a 20th level evoker. If you instead use the wizard levels to boost your rogue abilities, you will be better than a 20th level rogue in almost every way and have spellcasting to boot. You don't need nearly as much Climb when you have spider climb, feather fall, levitate, and fly. Hide? You've got invisibility, regular, mass, and improved variety - and with the latter, every attack is a sneak attack. You can passwall or dimension door rather than picking locks. shadow walk. teleport. etherealness. limited freakin' wish. And oh yeah, you can lay a 15d8 area smackdown with horrid wilting if need be.

Like I said, you might not be able to compete in spellcasting power with the 20th level wizards, but even without the extra skills & sneak attack of the Arcane Trickster, you're going to leave the nonmagical rogue in the dust 90% of the time.

Don't look at it as losing 5 spellcasting levels, because nothing is going to look good compared to that. Look at it as gaining 15 levels of spellcasting for your rogue, and you'll see how good it is.

J

 

[drnuncheon]

a Wizard loses more by multiclassing than a Fighter or a Rogue.

Arcane Trickster is meant to remedy this, and so is Spellsword.

Interesting that you bring Spellsword up, since that's what I generally compare Arcane Trickster to. Note that Spellsword only advances in spellcasting every other level...it basically works out close to if you had advanced equally in Ftr and Wiz, and then adds some (very nice) gravy on top of it in the form of the armored casting. I think the Spellsword is balanced about right, and the person playing one in my game doesn't seem to think it's underpowered...but that would indicate that the Trickster is overpowered, since it's as good as 10 levels of wizard plus 10 levels of rogue, and not 5 of each...

J

 

[drquestion]

Originally posted by drnucheon
Like I said before...it's not as effective as a single classed character if you try to treat it like a 20th level evoker. If you instead use the wizard levels to boost your rogue abilities, you will be better than a 20th level rogue in almost every way and have spellcasting to boot. You don't need nearly as much Climb when you have spider climb, feather fall, levitate, and fly. Hide? You've got invisibility, regular, mass, and improved variety - and with the latter, every attack is a sneak attack. You can passwall or dimension door rather than picking locks. shadow walk. teleport. etherealness. limited freakin' wish. And oh yeah, you can lay a 15d8 area smackdown with horrid wilting if need

The problem is that, except for the sneak attack, which is not a very useful way for a Rog/Wiz to be attacking, since it involves melee, and is also hardly more powerful than a straight Rog20 (3d6 vs. 10d6), who could also be getting a sneak attack with every attack if he's flanking, everything you mentioned comes solely from the Wiz levels.

Sure, a Wiz15 can duplicate most Rogue abilities with his spells. That's the way the wizard spell list works. People may not like it, but there it is. What mitigates this is that the rogue can use his abilities whenever and wherever he wants, which the wizard can't. A straight rogue also has a much better sneak attack and other nice special abilities.

So, while I think it's highly debatable whether or not a Wiz15/Rog5 is a better rogue than a Rog20, if he is, it's entirely because of his wizard levels, and by that logic a Wiz20 would also be better. That's not a problem with any prestige class, that's a problem that you have with the wizard spell list, which is an entirely different issue.

The point that Psion and I are trying to make is that a Wiz15/Rog5 is clearly inferior to a Wiz20, regardless of how you try to play him. You could play the Wiz20 in the same way and achieve more effective results. So, the 5 levels of Rogue were almost entirely useless, except as a way to get more hp's. The Arcane Trickster is a way around this problem.

 

[drquestion]

Originally posted by drnuncheon
Interesting that you bring Spellsword up, since that's what I generally compare Arcane Trickster to. Note that Spellsword only advances in spellcasting every other level...it basically works out close to if you had advanced equally in Ftr and Wiz, and then adds some (very nice) gravy on top of it in the form of the armored casting. I think the Spellsword is balanced about right, and the person playing one in my game doesn't seem to think it's underpowered...but that would indicate that the Trickster is overpowered, since it's as good as 10 levels of wizard plus 10 levels of rogue, and not 5 of each...

Well, first off, you emphatically do not get the power of 10 levels of rogue as an Arcane Trickster - you only get 4 skill points per level, which is the skill points of 5 levels of rogue. You also only get the BAB of a wizard, so a Rog5/Wiz5/ArTr10 is still only going to have a +10 BAB, the same as a Wiz20. You also only get d4 hp's, so you're going to have significantly fewer hit points.

You do get the full sneak attack progression of 10 levels of rogue, but you're much less likely to use your sneak attack, as getting up in combat and flanking is going to get your ass kicked quickly. So, you're only likely to get much use out of your sneak attack in the surprise round and the couple of times a day you use the impromptu ability (and twice a day of impromptu sneak attack is hardly unbalancing, considering how often normal rogues can sneak attack when they flank). You also get ranged legerdemain, which is a nice ability, but nothing to get excited about.

The spellsword, though he doesn't get the full spell progression, does get other benefits. First off, whereas with the Trickster, you're stuck with being either a Rog5/Wiz5 or a Wiz6/Rog4 in order to meet the prereqs, that's not your only choice as a spellsword. You could be a spellsword as a Ftr7/Wiz3 or a Wiz9/Ftr1. This opens up some options to the spellsword that aren't available to the trickster.

The spellsword also gets d8 hp's and a better BAB (though I would have liked to have seen this one be one of the rare PrC's that goes from +1 to +8 rather than +0 to +7). He also gets the ability to cast in armor, which is much more generally useful than any of the Arcane Trickster's special abilities, and the main reason why he only gets to go up every other level, IMO. With 10 levels of spellsword, it's possible to cast without the chance of failure in chainmail, or with only a 5% chance of failure in plate. That's a huge advantage over a Ftr10/Wiz10. On top of that, he gets the channel spell ability, which is nice, a bonus feat, and what is essentially another free feat in the form of the spellsword cache.

To sum up:
Compared to a Rog10/Wiz10, a Rog5/Wiz5/ArTr10 has fewer hp, worse BAB, fewer skill points, and 1 fewer feat, but better sneak and 5 more caster levels, plus a couple of minor special abilities.

On the other hand, compared to a Ftr10/Wiz10, a Ftr5/Wiz5/SpSw10 has more hp, the same BAB and skill points, better saves, and the same caster level. He does have 3 fewer feats. However, he can wear armor. He also gets a few minor special abilities. It could also be argued that this isn't the optimal configuration for a spellsword and that, depending upon how you want to play it, either a Ftr7/Wiz3 or a Wiz9/Ftr1, or some other combination, would be better.

As I see it, these work out to be about the same in the long run. The arcane trickster is weaker than the straight multiclass in most areas, but gets more spells. The spellsword is the same as the multi in most areas, and gets to wear armor. Both of these represent, IMO, a significant improvement over the plain multi. However, neither is particularly unbalancing.

 

[Grim]

It's made for creating an incredibly recurring villian. The ethereal and ghost walking abilities give the Ghostwalker an assured escape route, or an easy way to break into the party's homes.

The massive bonust to hit, damage, and AC are just icing on the cake.

As a DM I *love* this class.

As a player, I actually thought this class was appealing. It was good for a sort of "bitter Count of Monte Cristo" sort of character, just a neutral guy out for revenge/justice/etc. Sort of like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, but without that whole cant get hurt thing...

 

[hong]

Well, first off, you emphatically do not get the power of 10 levels of rogue as an Arcane Trickster - you only get 4 skill points per level, which is the skill points of 5 levels of rogue.

Someone who is a wizard, multiclassed or not, is hardly likely to want for skill points. After all, the class only gets 2 skill points per level but you never hear of anyone complaining that wizards get too few skills.