No Prestige classes allowed

[Felon]

To my mind, that speaks more to WotC changing directions on what they want prestige classes to be. Which makes sense, since many supplements introduce new prestige classes as a marketing tool. Some (in my opinion) are very flavourful, others are quite bland.

I just don't fully understand why someone would want a specialist class without flavour. For instance, why would all lashers be the same if not part of some organization? Wouldn't it be better to have those lasher abilities as a feat chain of some sort, so that there is some difference between the fighter who specializes in whips and the rogue who does so? Suppose a primary spellcaster wants to use a whip as his weapon of choice - if the lasher stuff is done as feats, he doesn't impede his spellcasting, but as a prestige class he has to make significant concessions just to be a bit different.

Regarding the "change of direction" as to what the designers want prestige classes to be, prestige classes were still a new concept even to them when the DMG came out. I've seen various ENWorld posts over the years which outright lambast WotC for "forgetting" or "violating" the original purpose of PrC's, but the simple truth is we're talking about a concept that's evolved. If I find an effective new way to use a tool, should I be reprimanded for using it inappropriately, or should the guys who make the tool take a few notes and expand the tool's stated purpose?

A lot of folks advocate feat chains as an alternative to prestige classes. First and foremost, this is impractical because you won't reach a high degree of specialization with the number of feats available to a character. You can get an Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus, and Improved Trip, but you're already six levels deep (or nine levels for a non-human) and your whip attack still has some serious defects. On the other hand, setting up a prestige class allows for those who really want to be a master in a certain area to get truly powerful abilities--stuff that's every bit as good spellcasting or sneak attack--with the trade-off being that they actually have to stop doing whatever is they were doing and focus on this role.

Why would all lasthers be the same if they weren't part of the same organization? Because that's the nature of D&D's class-based system. You could say the same about all druids, all rogues, all favored souls, all scouts, all sorcerers, all warlocks, all barbarians, you name it.

 

[Cor Azer]

Regarding the "change of direction" as to what the designers want prestige classes to be, prestige classes were still a new concept even to them when the DMG came out. I've seen various ENWorld posts over the years which outright lambast WotC for "forgetting" or "violating" the original purpose of PrC's, but the simple truth is we're talking about a concept that's evolved. If I find an effective new way to use a tool, should I be reprimanded for using it inappropriately, or should the guys who make the tool take a few notes and expand the tool's stated purpose?

I don't want you to think I mean the change of direction is "bad wrong fun" - it isn't. But it is a change of direction, and I happen to prefer the original concept. Just like I never warmed up to New Coke. To each his own.

A lot of folks advocate feat chains as an alternative to prestige classes. First and foremost, this is impractical because you won't reach a high degree of specialization with the number of feats available to a character. You can get an Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus, and Improved Trip, but you're already six levels deep (or nine levels for a non-human) and your whip attack still has some serious defects. On the other hand, setting up a prestige class allows for those who really want to be a master in a certain area to get truly powerful abilities--stuff that's every bit as good spellcasting or sneak attack--with the trade-off being that they actually have to stop doing whatever is they were doing and focus on this role.

I don't think feat chains would work for every prestige class, but I do see a great number that really only have 2-3 abilities that either increase in power with level and/or are supplemented with bonus feats (either from a subset or not). Maybe my issue is just that I've seen too many bland prestige classes.

Why would all lasthers be the same if they weren't part of the same organization? Because that's the nature of D&D's class-based system. You could say the same about all druids, all rogues, all favored souls, all scouts, all sorcerers, all warlocks, all barbarians, you name it.

I honestly can't refute this... it's a strange quirk of mine that I have much fewer problems with the occurance in base classes than in prestige classes.