No Prestige classes allowed

[Ridley's Cohort]

I dislike most PrCs, but that is a matter of personal taste.

I can see that they are a useful bandaid for creating characters that have some focus and some twist not found in the standard palette of classes.

However, I tend to see them as bandaids.

A heck of a lot of PrCs strike me as concepts that could be adequately supported by a Feat or a Feat tree instead of an entire class.

Nothing intrisically wrong with having more than one way to skin a cat, though.

In principle, PrCs could be a great boon to DMs.

 

[Animus]

I've had mostly positive experiences with PrCs. I haven't seen that many of them actually used in my personal games, but when they were the players chose them for story reasons. Still, I can think of 4 distinct PrCs taken by players over the 6 years of me running 3E, and one of those was a homebrew PrC. It just hasn't been anything my players (new group excepting) has been in to.

So what am I saying? Do what's comfortable for you, because in the end, you know your players and their tendencies.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

A heck of a lot of PrCs strike me as concepts that could be adequately supported by a Feat or a Feat tree instead of an entire class.

I think we'd need far more feat slots for that to be a viable option.

My group is all about prestige classes. Some people haven't bothered with them, but they're integral to some characters' concepts.

Brad

 

[Sqwonk]

Sounds to me like a DM who lost control of his game.

That is what I am afraid of happening. Several months ago we started doing a "feat every level".. . Crothian, you were one of the folks who said they really liked the dynamics of "feat a' level". To me also adding in PrCs means there are too many rules for me to try and know. How do you handle PrC + feat per level?

 

[Felon]

Sqwonk, if everyone understands that anything new is subject to revision or revocation, that goes a long way towards not needing to know every rule intimately before they hit the table. Or to put it another way, it's more important that players know what the boundaries and guidelines are for choosing a feat or PrC than it is that the DM know what every feat or PrC in existence can do.

 

[Crothian]

That is what I am afraid of happening. Several months ago we started doing a "feat every level".. . Crothian, you were one of the folks who said they really liked the dynamics of "feat a' level". To me also adding in PrCs means there are too many rules for me to try and know. How do you handle PrC + feat per level?

I don't care about player power and my players are not trying to out do each other. The important thing is to figure out what you can handle and if that means limiting books, players options, or whatever then that is what you need to do. I still requiore all players to tell me what feats and classes they are taking. Prestige classes I know of well in advance because I require it. DMing is not always the easiest of jobs. At times it takes as much time as a part time job.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A heck of a lot of PrCs strike me as concepts that could be adequately supported by a Feat or a Feat tree instead of an entire class.

I think we'd need far more feat slots for that to be a viable option.

I once suggested that Feats should have level-dependent improvements. As you'd go up in level, each Feat you have would add functionality according to a pre-determined progression...possibly different for each feat. "Low-power" feats might improve every level. "High-power" feats might only improve every 3 or 4 levels.

And those level-dependent improvements would essentially be other feats.

Example: Power Attack would have improvements such as Cleave, Great Cleave, Sunder, etc. Power Attack, a fairly useful Feat, would improve every 4 levels.

 

[airwalkrr]

I am starting a new campaign soon in which prestige classes will be different, as opposed to not allowed. A number of classes, like the blackguard and assassin, are simply their own 20-level character classes. For a player to take a prestige class that I haven't converted to a 20-level class, the abilities are built into that character's class (or classes) and the character must sacrifice abilities from his base class to gain the prestige class abilities. A character class can only be tied to one prestige class (although a prestige class can theoretically tie to several base classs).

I haven't started the campaign yet, but I think it will be an interesting approach.

 

[Hussar]

Originally Posted by Cor Azer
Some DMs just don't want to deal with more rules than necessary. For them, it's not a DM vs players, or campaign world vs players issue - it's a "I'd like to keep my sanity/have time for non-gaming things instead of buying and reading scores of extra rulebooks"

I'm sorry, but, in this day of technology, that's an incredibly poor excuse. If the player wants to play a PrC, and you don't have the book, hie him to the nearest 7/11 and a photocopier. 50 cents later and you have the PrC in hand and you don't have to worry about buying a new book.

 

[The Forsaken One]

I've always allowed my players to use PrCs liberally and never had a problem with them. I even encourage the creation of custom spells and PrCs to let players flesh out their chars as best as they can to their wishes.

In the end its all about players not abusing things and wanting to keep it fun. If one player gets ahead of the rest by far its never fun and it ruins the game for themselves as well, they learned that by now. I kinda allow everything but in open dialogue with my players that they do it for fun and for their PC idea, not to abuse it for power mostly and they are handling it very well. If things turn out to be abused or overpowered I act on it and change some things, but at first I'm open to try out any thing they come up with as long as its not something overly munchkin or somthing.

If all players decide to take the power route... I even like that. Grants me the possibility to come up with powerfull NPCs and monsters myself and introduce wicked enemy strategies and spell combos. The more power play the players choose the more I up the power level, challenge and risk involved. I have absolutely no problem with that at all.

DMs that have problems with PrCs and custom stuff aren't in control of their game and in dialogue with their players about what they actually would like in the game. As long as its all done in open discussion and not with abuse in mind its all good with me and if players wanna up the power level, sure, goes for the rest of the game and challenges then to which just gives me more options to play myself .

So I don't really see any problems with PrCs or certain custom stuff, just do it together and introduce those things with the right mindset. They have just increased the enjoyment of the game for me and my players, everyone takes a PrC every game for the last few years with me except a guy who hardcores his cleric. Worked out fine .