Player Purity: The pilgrimmage from 1 to 20

[The Persian]

A few questions about classes, from level 1 to 20.

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

 

[Pseudonym]

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

In some cases, yes, especially where spell progression is concerned or some other key class ability. The artificer from Eberron comes to mind, as does the monk.

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

Druid. I have yet to pursue a PrC for any of my druid characters, part mechanically, and partly because I have yet to find one that fit the flavor of the character.

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

In a long lasting campaign, no. We did once manage to make it from 1st to 8th in the Kalamar coin trilogy without anyone going for a PrC, but that may have been due to the fact that we all knew that after the third module the campaign was over with.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

Mechanically, not so much-- with the exception of spellcasters, it's usually about the same to go to 20 levels in one class or to split your levels up between two classes. Prestige Classes generally involve a substantial increase in power, but only within a specific area not covered well by the base classes themselves. (Once again, excepting spellcasters-- Sorcerors lose nothing by adopting any PrC with 10 levels of spellcasting, and Wizards are usually still better off.)

As long as the single-classed character isn't trying to do something the PrC is specifically better for-- for instance, a Fighter 20 rapier specialist vs. a Fighter 10/Duelist 10-- I'd say they're usually about the same.

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

I have never, ever done this. Hell, I only played one single-class character ever in AD&D 2e, when multiclassing was supposed to be a lot rarer than it is now. The idea of taking a single character class for the character's entire career is utterly alien to me.

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

A couple of the guys I DM for are usually pretty diehard purists, but I've never had a whole group function that way.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

A few questions about classes, from level 1 to 20.

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

Sticking to a core class is a guaranteed good build, you have to try hard to stuff it up. I have witnessed some multi-classing disasters, with the worst being a 6th level character that could go invisible & that was all he could do - every combat.

I'm not a big fan of PrC at all, so my favourite classes for a full 20 development would be all, especially post 3.5. In 3.0 you never went 20 levels in ranger.

Yup, but the current crowd are not so pure, with 3 players aiming for a PrC, two multi-ing between 2 classes & just the one who will go pure. That is a bard who is already developing for the leadership feat & gathering political influence & fighting men. In the other campaign we're playing we are all pure classed & I doubt anyone will multi in that game.

 

[Thanee]

A few questions about classes, from level 1 to 20.
1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?
2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?
3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

1. Less pencil needed to fill in the character sheet?
2. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin and Ranger from the core classes;
2. Favored Soul, Scout, Spellthief, Spirit Shaman and Warlock from the Complete books.
3. Not in this sense, no. I'm currently running two games with basically no multiclassing, but that is because we are using the Gestalt rules and they are quite troublesome when combined with multiclassing.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Yig]

A few questions about classes, from level 1 to 20.

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

You need 20 levels in a class to get epic bonus feats for that particular class.

So if you're a fighter 15/occult slayer 5, you will need 5 more levels of fighter before getting the fun stuff

 

[Wombat]

I dunno

Never played a character up to level 20; not really in a hurry to, either

Above 15th level, the game gets to weird for my tastes

 

[S'mon]

I can see playing Fighter to 20 & suffering 13-20 to get those Epic Fighter Feats at 21+

 

[tetsujin28]

Cleric's a pretty good bet for all your levels, as is Druid. That Sorcerers have no reason not to go for a PrC kind of annoys me, for some reason. But then again, the poor Sorcerer is so screwed once you get to mid levels, maybe it shouldn't bother me.

 

[Altalazar]

A few questions about classes, from level 1 to 20.

1. Is there any benefit, mechanically or mentally for sticking to 20 levels of a class?

2. Which are your favorite to stick to for 20 levels?

3. Have you ever ran a group, or played in a group of purists?

1. The benefit is you get what that class gets at each level - something you generally lose if you change classes.

2. I almost always like to stick to classes for 20, with exceptions for specific character concepts. I especially would hate to split up a spellcaster (or equivalent) because so much of what is great about them is getting a full spellcasting level per level. I did once play a thief / illusionist, but I was only going to take 3 levels of rogue max, to be sure I'd eventually get 9th level spells in the normal progression.

3. I've never had anyone declare purity, but much more often than not, people have stuck to a single class unless they had a specific character concept that required them not to.