D&D 5E Legends & Lore Archive : 12/9/2013

[Tovec]

You had 44 homebrewed prestige classes in 3e? Wow. That seems HUGE to me.

Why? A long while ago I wanted something like a Mystic Theurge for an Assassin / Blackguard BBEG but MT didn't give me what I wanted, so I invented one. A few notes on a piece of paper (now lost) for a 5-level PrC and job done. Repeat as necessary.

Which part makes you ask 'why'? Was it that I found 44 to be huge or that I found it to be unnecessary?

About what you did: I'm glad you created what you needed for your BBEG. I don't know whether we would have needed to create a whole new prestige class to achieve the same thing, or that we would have put the kind of effort into make one. Mostly if we needed something for a BBEG we would just make it up (aka lie, cheat, steal) whatever the BBEG needed without paying attention to the rules. So, a prestige class seemed irrelevant. In our games, a prestige class was created with the PCs in mind, not NPCs. So, over the course of play we did sometimes make things up when there was not an acceptable substitute but those were not too popular over all as they were generally overpowered, underpowered, or otherwise too niche to be used. If a player came to us asking to do what you did for your BBEG the default answer would have been "no" if only because we didn't want to open that floodgate, even for something that is perfectly balanced against other options - especially since we had more than enough options already and a significant bunch of players (and DMs) who were power gamers and honestly just jerks who would abuse the system, meaning there was no need to make something up and further strengthen them.

And, going back to my question, that you quoted, I already got an answer as he explained what he meant and I have also explained what happened in my games (twice now) - I'm just saying I don't know what you found confusing about my comments about 44 prestiges since there were posts (the rest of mine and the reply) that followed it that explained my position and his (presuming a male gender here, apologies if it is incorrect).

 

[Sunseeker]

That could also be marriages based on deception.

I refuse to use the word "Obfuscate" this year.

I hope you don't. I take poorly to it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I did, however, make an objective statement when I said that the Skill Focus feat falls behind at later levels when compared to having a class skill, but that's not really an opinion open to debate. It's just how the numbers work. Perhaps to objective tone of that statement bled into the preceding one.

Sure! But a little more to my main point is that just because Skill Focus falls behind at later levels when compared to having a class skill doesn't mean it's not enough for someone to say "I'm pretty good at this."

You don't need to be good in comparison to the 16th level rogue. You just need to be good in comparison to the Commoner with 10's for ability scores. Skill focus totally gives you that!

Now, an individual player may prefer to represent this skill as something that is exceptional when compared to other characters at any level. It's just not exactly a requirement -- it's one way of saying "I am a survivalist archer!", but that way doesn't matter for someone who is OK saying it in some other way.

I don't think we're really disagreeing, I just wanted to clearly make the point that there isn't one set of requirements for what is "enough" to represent that.

 

[1of3]

You don't need to be good in comparison to the 16th level rogue. You just need to be good in comparison to the Commoner with 10's for ability scores. Skill focus totally gives you that!

Neither is correct. You need to be good compared to whatever the GM considers to be an appropriate antagonist. And D&D does a very bad job in helping the GM determine that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Neither is correct. You need to be good compared to whatever the GM considers to be an appropriate antagonist. And D&D does a very bad job in helping the GM determine that.

Again, it's pretty subjective.

3e D&D has plenty of guidelines for what you need to roll to survive in the wilderness, IE, what your "appropriate antagonist" is. It's actually really easy for someone with a fairly low skill check to be a survivalist in 3e!

But that's not going to matter to someone who doesn't feel like they're a true survivalist unless they can live off condensed sweat in the burning wastelands of Hell (which might have a higher DC!), or to someone who just wants a big number, or...