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<blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 288181" data-attributes="member: 94">Heh... I'll pull this quote, too.Generally speaking, I don't defend that. I'm currently in the process of writing up lots and lots of prestige classes for the Heroes of High Favor line of books, so I've given it a lot of consideration. My view on this is skewed a bit as the PrC's I am working on are essentially multi-class hybrids: taking a bit from two classes and merging them into a PrC. This process is a little different than just making a prestige class &quot;from scratch&quot; because I have two core classes to balance against. I won't say it's easy but it is easier.Anyhow, I don't think that prestige classes should be more powerful than a base class-- generally speaking. However, you do have to consider the pre-requisites of a PrC as a &quot;cost&quot; of sorts. Skill rank pre-reqs are often quite high, giving the player very little freedom to spread his skills out where he wants them. Same goes for feats, especially when the PrC requires &quot;less than optimal&quot; feats (skill focus, endurance, toughness, etc.) Giving up those skill points and feats is the cost of entry, the balancing factor behind most prestige classes.Even so, I don't tend to look at that cost as a balancing factor against the abilities of the PrC. In my mind, those pre-reqs are the &quot;cost of customization.&quot; Psion touched on that a bit (more eloquently than I did, as well) in that any class is a &quot;package deal.&quot; PrC's allow the player to carve out some of the useless fat from his core class (this is subjective, of course, from player to player) and specialize a bit.When it comes down to actually balancing the abilities of the class, I balance the usual: hit die, skill points, spell progression, granted powers, etc. I always try to take a little to give a little, and tend to err on the side of &quot;underpowered.&quot; Again, this is due to my philosophy on the cost of customization.Wulf</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wulf Ratbane, post: 288181, member: 94"] Heh... I'll pull this quote, too. Generally speaking, I [i]don't[/i] defend that. I'm currently in the process of writing up lots and lots of prestige classes for the [i]Heroes of High Favor[/i] line of books, so I've given it a lot of consideration. My view on this is skewed a bit as the PrC's I am working on are essentially multi-class hybrids: taking a bit from two classes and merging them into a PrC. This process is a little different than just making a prestige class "from scratch" because I have two core classes to balance against. I won't say it's easy but it is easi[i]er[/i]. Anyhow, I don't think that prestige classes should be more powerful than a base class-- generally speaking. However, you do have to consider the pre-requisites of a PrC as a "cost" of sorts. Skill rank pre-reqs are often quite high, giving the player very little freedom to spread his skills out where he wants them. Same goes for feats, especially when the PrC requires "less than optimal" feats (skill focus, endurance, toughness, etc.) Giving up those skill points and feats is the cost of entry, the balancing factor behind most prestige classes. Even so, I don't tend to look at that cost as a balancing factor against the [i]abilities[/i] of the PrC. In my mind, those pre-reqs are the "cost of customization." Psion touched on that a bit (more eloquently than I did, as well) in that any class is a "package deal." PrC's allow the player to carve out some of the useless fat from his core class (this is subjective, of course, from player to player) and specialize a bit. When it comes down to actually balancing the abilities of the class, I balance the usual: hit die, skill points, spell progression, granted powers, etc. I always try to take a little to give a little, and tend to err on the side of "underpowered." Again, this is due to my philosophy on the cost of customization. Wulf [/QUOTE]

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