D&D 5E Legends & Lore bits about prestige classes in 5e (and NEW playtest packet!)

[pemerton]

When I DM, through the course of play, I often provide something character defining for each character.

<snip>

The point is, this kind of thing is unforeseen. It can't be planned for during character creation. And it leads to more dynamic and interesting characters and thus a better game.

This seems to assume that players can't make choices for their PCs that are unforeseen.

In my experience, though, they do. The game doesn't need to have GM control over PC story elements in order to have dynamic and interesting PCs.

 

[Li Shenron]

Apparently this thread of mine is getting funny...

It looks that clearly there are 2 school of thoughts about PrCls in the game: those who see them as a DM's tool, and those who see them as a player's tool.

Let's not forget one thing however: PrCls were one of the biggest reasons (if not even the biggest) why people bought 3ed supplements, and not once but twice, because they bought them while in 3.0 and them bought the same thing again updated to 3.5.

In retrospect, I have to say that in 3ed as a player I used them on my own initiative (but I mostly played under a DM who owned tons of books and was happy to find a use for them), but as a DM (I had my dose of splatbooks, but not too many) I mostly ignored them and almost all my players didn't even ask for them.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

What are your thoughts on the Pathfinder archetypes?

I'm not familiar with Pathfinder.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Let's not forget one thing however: PrCls were one of the biggest reasons (if not even the biggest) why people bought 3ed supplements, and not once but twice, because they bought them while in 3.0 and them bought the same thing again updated to 3.5.

Really? I mean, I know there were a lot of prestige classes in a lot of books, but I don't know that people bought the books for those PrC's. Certainly there was a lot of grumbling about that, and I think the embellishment of prestige classes in later supplements, both in content and in style, contributed to declining sales and the abandonment of 3e as a business.

Me, I'd take two pages of good feats over ten pages of prestige classes any day, and the content that drives my purchases is not always the content that takes up the most pages.

 

[Stormonu]

My thoughts as well - give me equipment, spells, feats and alternate class abilities and I'll happily ignore/rip out the pages on prestige classes.

 

[Starfox]

Been so long since I've read any of the 2e books, but I think we can all agree that if there was something "kit-like" implemented in 5e, we'd want it to be implemented *well*. And I think there's a general consensus that TSR got better at creating and balancing kits as time went on.

What are your thoughts on the Pathfinder archetypes? That mechanic strikes me as the best way to handle "kits" in a modern rules set. Sub-out some abilities for others that are relatively balanced, allowing the players to tweak the flavor of existing classes to suit the character they envision.

Archetypes are very much the "kits"of 2E. In general, they work very well and cut down on the need for PrCs a lot.

But as background/organization options, they are a bit too invasive. One should be able to be a member of a theive's or mage's guild without taking a special archetype for it.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

This seems to assume that players can't make choices for their PCs that are unforeseen.

In my experience, though, they do. The game doesn't need to have GM control over PC story elements in order to have dynamic and interesting PCs.

I would never claim otherwise. I only claim that prestige classes work better for this purpose as a GM tool.

But, keep in mind, I think of prestige classes as containing concepts and abilities that shouldn't be available to any player that wants them, in the same manner as they can't walk into town and buy an artifact.

Pathfinder has a good model for this. There is a difference between a Prestige Class and an Archetype. Archetypes do a much better job of providing players with options for crafting their character than Prestige Classes ever did. This leaves Prestige Classes as a GM tool without limiting players.

 

[GX.Sigma]

It's here.

 

[FireLance]

I think I would prefer a "prestige class" approach that was structured more along the lines of 4e Dark Sun style themes, except that they do not grant any additional abilities. Instead, all they provide are a series of alternate abilities which the PCs can gain in place of their class powers. In that way, prestige classes provide additional options, but not much additional power (apart from synergies with existing abilities).

Unfortunately, I don't think this will work well in 5e, given its move away from a unified power structure.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think they should drop the label of "prestige class" or "paragon path" or "kit" or any prior term--as if it has the baggage it does in fact have--and then build something new that meets the design goals. Preferably, this should be done either as part of or after the design of a functional multi-class system, since no doubt it will at least nudge that part of the design. Then if when this is working, they need a good name for it, and one of those labels fits, well so be it.

If they want to talk about elements that a DM can use as rewards, then they are talking about something mostly outside the normal class/level structure. Let's not let that thing, whatever it is, be constrained with "(type) class" labels, surely!

As for the DM/Player control, I think that issue is a side effect of the prior lousy design of trying to shoehorn such elements into the class structure to begin with. Make the elements solid enough, and they'll work as things that a DM can use as rewards in one group, and as things that players can pick as a character crafting option in another group.