Opinion on PrC (Fighter versus Spelluser)

[dthornburg]

I am the DM of our gaming group and a discussion has recently arisen concerning Prestige Classes. Our Wizard was looking at various PrC's and he found it interesting that many of the Arcane PrC's allow progression in their previous spellcasting class. They also usually receive some type of increase in Base Attack, Saving Throws, in addition to their special class abilities.
When you compare those PrC's to those that focus on the fighter types (non-magic using classes) we noticed some important differences, at least in our view. The most important difference being that the Fighter PrC's do not progress with their bonus feats. They do get special abilities, but then again so do spellcasting types.
So does anyone agree with that assessment or am I missing something?
My other question is this; I was considering some sort of rule to allow progression for our fighters with their bonus feats if they decided to go the PrC route. Do you feel that would be too much of an imbalance? or is there a better way?

Dave

 

[the Jester]

A lot of fighter type prc's do get bonus feats; they're just already assigned. For example, the exotic weapon master gets focus and specialization, the tempest gets off-hand parry and the improved two-weapon fighting chain, etc. Most of the rest of them get abilities better than straight feats. Also, keep in mind that they aren't all designed for fighters; if you do build something like this into a prc will you give bonus feats to rangers or barbarians that take the prc?

Plus, prc's are usually themed. Giving random bonus feats, imho, breaks the reasoning behind taking the prc in the first place. Spellcasting prc's are all about spellcasting, maybe specializing in a specific area of magic or whatever, but spells are their meat and drink. For fighter types, their meat and drink isn't feats; it's combat abilities.

Finally, keep in mind that spellcasters lose stuff from their base class when they take a prc (even sorcerers stop advancing their familiars), and lots of spellcasting prcs don't advance your casting ability every level.

 

[dthornburg]

Jester;

Good points. I don't think we have looked at all sides of this issue. Especially the instances you sited with the fighter prc's getting their bonus feats as special abilities.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Dave

 

[the Jester]

Hey, when you're bored and surfing this site as much as I do, it's easy to pop off the quick replies!

 

[dthornburg]

Jester;

I have been hanging around EN World's website for a long but I never took the time to reply. Lots of interesting discussions going on but I don't think I will have time to read them all.

dt

 

[the Jester]

Well, if you find an intersting one jump in, it makes your post count rise.

Sometimes its fun to look for the heated discussions and throw oil on the fire, so to speak.

Er, did I say oil?

 

[trimeulose]

One other thing is that the fighter Prcs can get some pretty always active feats. For instance, Wep Master gets Improved Critical (+2 to threat range) at 7th level Pretty bad ass for a weapon that has a high crit mulitplier.

Another point is that yeah they are just bonus feats picked for the class progression, but also you should point out that for PrC they get bonuses every level, not just at say the even ones. So they are effectively doubling their feats.

If your players want to complain that the feats arent right for his/her character concept. Let them choose another class (there is plenty of all of them).