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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6061823" data-attributes="member: 1465">I agree with most you wrote before this part, but here I think it makes no sense to say that paragon paths were better, because they were simply a completely different idea. As you say, they were essentially an individual path, while prestige classes were supposed to represent groups, pretty much the opposite.I think a shortcoming of 3e PrCls for me was how the requirements were typically designed, which spawned hundreds of PrCl meant to work for 1-2 classes only. Other base classes could simply not qualify, or if by accident they could, then there was probably a non-intended class that could exploit the PrCl features too much.If a PrCl is supposed to represent a group, them having some requirements (even mechanical reqs, as long as they fit with the concept... not &quot;Sunder&quot; as a requirement to become a Blackguard) makes sense and become a tool for the DM to establish what will be common to ALL members of such group. But then you couldn't have a single PrCl to represent a non-homogeneous group such as The Harpers... you needed a Harper Mage, a Harper Scout, a Harper Priest and so on and so on...Then probably the biggest flaw of PrCl was, as usual, the gaming community, which started to demand &quot;more, more!&quot; but they had to be absolutely &quot;balanced&quot;, which made the designers more motivated to release rigid/narrow PrCls, too standardized (insane how some design habits later became absolute must), and use requirements only to balance the &quot;entry cost&quot; with the gamers wanting &quot;crunch&quot; and not fluff even in requirements, so less focus on in-game control of PrCls access and more power in the hands of players who would just pretend to entry a PrCl from an obscure splatbook &quot;because I have all the requirements&quot;. If it was going to end like this, PrCls should have probably stopped at the DMG examples.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6061823, member: 1465"] I agree with most you wrote before this part, but here I think it makes no sense to say that paragon paths were better, because they were simply a completely different idea. As you say, they were essentially an individual path, while prestige classes were supposed to represent groups, pretty much the opposite. I think a shortcoming of 3e PrCls for me was how the requirements were typically designed, which spawned hundreds of PrCl meant to work for 1-2 classes only. Other base classes could simply not qualify, or if by accident they could, then there was probably a non-intended class that could exploit the PrCl features too much. If a PrCl is supposed to represent a group, them having some requirements (even mechanical reqs, as long as they fit with the concept... not "Sunder" as a requirement to become a Blackguard) makes sense and become a tool for the DM to establish what will be common to ALL members of such group. But then you couldn't have a single PrCl to represent a non-homogeneous group such as The Harpers... you needed a Harper Mage, a Harper Scout, a Harper Priest and so on and so on... Then probably the biggest flaw of PrCl was, as usual, the gaming community, which started to demand "more, more!" but they had to be absolutely "balanced", which made the designers more motivated to release rigid/narrow PrCls, too standardized (insane how some design habits later became absolute must), and use requirements only to balance the "entry cost" with the gamers wanting "crunch" and not fluff even in requirements, so less focus on in-game control of PrCls access and more power in the hands of players who would just pretend to entry a PrCl from an obscure splatbook "because I have all the requirements". If it was going to end like this, PrCls should have probably stopped at the DMG examples. [/QUOTE]

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