Prestige Class woes

[niastri]

Oh, I forgot. I also did a barbarian variant- the urban barbarian. I

It might sound odd, but Monte said the whole point of the barbarian is that he fights with passion/rage rather than formal trainig of the fighter. Since I saw no reason an urban person couldn't fight with passion/rage rather than formal training, I created this barbarian variant. He would be the big tough guy who spent their time learning to fight in the school of hardknocks on docks and in both taverns and alleyways. He is good at soaking up damage and just use pure strength and rage in combat. Think the big biker types in cinema, the stereotypical bouncer and the American from Van Damme's Bloodsport, but put them in a fanatsy urban environment.

Doesn't seem odd to me at all. Anybody who has ever seen my college educated suburban raised little brother get his glasses knocked off can clearly understand how a city person becomes a berzerker.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, yeah. What I meant by "the mechanics don't support you" is that you can't actually play your concept well. A swasbuckler, for example, is a great concept, but with the core rules, the mechanics don't really support you until you get to the duelist prestige class. I certainly don't want the swashbuckler to be the most powerful character class out there, but I want it to be equally attractive and useful as any other class out there.

I think I see your point. But for instance, what is your concept of a swashbuckler?

 

[Li Shenron]

I dig 'em. Because they don't take over the concept. Sometimes taking over the character concept is just what you want. Sometimes you just need a hint of flavor.

I am using the three level classes from Book of the Planes (and some vaguely defined ones of my own) that define planar factions. The thing is, some of these factions will give you benefits, but they are often tangential to what the character does for a living, so it's not appropriate in these cases to require a character to sink in 10 levels towards such a concept.

My knowledge of <5lv PrCl is mostly confined to FR, and probably that early experience screw up my opinion so much that now I have those prejudices

Except those Archmage & Hierophant, almost all the other 5-lv PrCls in FRCS and MoF were badly written IMHO... now checking through the book for a couple of examples (paraphrasing the "forbidden text"):

Arcane Devotee
concept: a wizard or sorcerer affiliated to a church, providing magic firepower, divination and item creation
features: some longer-range spells, some ST bonus or magic protection, 1 item creation feat, DC alignment-based bonus

There's absolutely no need to take this PrCl to actually cover the concept! And the implementation doesn't even follow it really...

Divine Disciple
concept: intermediary between worshippers/priests and divine beings
features: bonus domain, telepathy with outsiders, ST bonuses, imbue spells ability, becomes outsider at the end

What does it have to do with being and "intermediary"?

Guild Thief
concept: a rogue belonging to organized group controlling local crime activity
features: sneak attack, uncanny dodge, bonus feats (combat or skill-related), bonus to leadership score, minor skill bonuses

What is the actual difference with just staying a normal rogue?

Harper Scout
organization: devoted to fight evil, preserve knowledge, protect nature without harming civilization
concept: espionage and gathering info
special: it is said that most harper scouts are bards
features: minor arcane spellcasting, one skill focus, bonuses to ST, 2 favored enemies (based on organization), bardic knowledge

No doubt most harper scouts are bards... the PrCl basically IS a bard with favored enemy instead of bardic music, and much more limited spellcasting.

These are IMHO all example of bad PrCl design. You don't need any of these, unless you are specifically looking for some character min-maxing. Everything can be done within core classes if you just allow a minor variant or with the right feat; to me it seems that all these PrCl's special abilities should be rather made into feats (when they aren't already) because there is little or no real progression/consequence in them and as such the mechanic of a class is the wrong way to give those features, since a class is exactly a progression.

 

[hong]

The theory of prestige classes allows, I think, for two specific meta-game concepts to be realized:

• Belonging to an organization that grants special class-related benefits (i.e., the Harpers, Red Wizards of Thay, etc.); or,
• Narrowing in on a concept that is too specific to really be a core class

Those are two objectives of PrCs, yes. But you've left out one that may be just as important, at least from a player PoV.

A prestige class is a way of _individualising_ a character. Consider someone who wants to be a "weapon master". Now in 3.5E, the standard method of doing this (to the extent that any method could be considered standard) would be to get lots of fighter levels and pick up Weapon Focus, Spec, Improved Focus and Improved Spec. In mechanical terms, you are thus a master of that particular weapon, having a total +2 attack and +4 damage with it, which is pretty substantial.

From a strictly game mechanical point of view, this is fine; if you were just looking to get the most advantage out of a build, it might be perfectly adequate. But just having a bunch of feats is pretty bland and impersonal. For many people, there's a certain cachet to being able to write "weapon master" on their character sheet, and to have that label be meaningful in terms of game mechanics.

This is the reason why you have PrCs like the weapon master, the exotic weapon master (CW), the archmage, the frenzied berserker, and other PrCs that are distinguished by basically being pumped-up versions of a base class. They're there to provide that extra bit of personalisation, so that you can say that you're more than just another fighter, or wizard, or whatnot. (Whether or not you still ARE just another fighter or wizard is not the issue. The issue is what you _perceive_ yourself to be.)

You might object: but where's the personalisation, if anybody can become a weapon master or archmage? The personalisation is in the context of each individual campaign, and each individual group of PCs in particular: it doesn't really matter if anybody can become an archmage, as long as in _my_ party, _I'm_ the only archmage around. My schtick is secure, because what goes on in your campaign has no bearing on what goes on in mine. Problems only arise if another player in my group also wants to become an archmage, in which case it's fireballs at dawn.

The same also applies for PrCs that are supposed to represent membership of organisations. I can always say that my character is a member of the Harkwood Rangers or the League of Arcane Knights, and have that reflected by purely RP benefits: I have a bunch of allies, ditto enemies, maybe access to some funky new spells or items, and so forth. But it's a lot more flavoursome, and more conducive to capturing the imagination, to have that membership be reflected in the rules themselves. Yes, you can do this with a feat, but again that's pretty bland.

Personally, I think using PrCs like this is a good thing. Anything that helps to get players more involved in the game is a plus for me.

 

[Desdichado]

Good point, hong. Absolutely true.

 

[jmucchiello]

My knowledge of <5lv PrCl is mostly confined to FR, and probably that early experience screw up my opinion so much that now I have those prejudices

How about the 3 level wayfarer guide (from T&B I think)? It's just a little boost to the teleport spells. There isn't much more to add to such a class so why pad it out to 5 or (an insane) 10 levels when everything the class needs fits neatly into 3 levels?

Writers design a PrCl thinking about which class (usually only one) is meant to qualify for it. Requisites usually cut off every other class, either for the other classes it's too expensive to qualify or the PrCl simply demand a class ability which belongs to only 1 core class.

I wrote several pages about how one should avoid this in my Character Customization book. (No, I don't know when it'll be updated for 3.5.) I agree it is annoying when a PrC has specific class requirements for no reason.

 

[jmucchiello]

It certainly would be preferable to me rather than the 100s of full-blown prestige classes out there which I probably will never use.

So you just end up with hundreds of full-blown templates out there. And I think templates would be harder to balance compared to prestige classes, especially if you could apply more than one at a time. (Course, like Phil, another side of my brain went Yoink when I read this post....)

 

[scourger]

don't use 'em

When I DM, I don't allow prestige classes for player characters. This started with 3e. I just don't see that they add that much to the game for the players. The blackguard is pretty cool for a DM to have as a villain, though. I figure my players can realize any character concept they may have using the flexibility of the races, classes, skills & feats in the Player's Handbook.

I learned with 2e that I prefer a core game. All the "complete" books just made the game more complicated and shifted the balance of power toward the players while foes/monsters in modules/adventures still stuck to the core. The whole Player's Option/Combat & Tactics series took things even further out of control (thankfully, I never bought them even though I played it).

I apply these lessons to d20. I don't buy the expansion books. Those books usually contain PrCs along with other new stuff I don't need (like feats). If I want something new & different, I go for a d20 game that isn't sword & sorcery fantasy; and even then it needs to have a limited amount of new rules material.

PrCs are OK for foes. I would rather have a publisher give me something more generic and therefore more portable.

 

[Acid_crash]

I like the concept of PrCs, but I don't like how they have been implemented with the insane amount of PrCs available on the market (add to this the number of monsters and feats, but that's for a different thread ).

I think EQ2rpg will show us how to really handle the idea of PrC and advanced classes, with the base core classes providing talents and feats until they reach a certain level, then the advanced classes can be chosen and provide more variety of talents and feats until a certain level is met...then the PrC are available if one wants them.

If you wanted to mold the PrC with base classes to fit a concept, how would you do that so as to not unbalance the core system (I know talking about balance in a rpg isn't the wisest but a lot of folks feel the need to have things balanced)? Let's pick the Dwarven Defender, Shadowdancer, and Duelist PrC from the DMG and see how we could adapt them to core classes or feat/talent chains so they can be selected as people advance in the core classes. Anybody care to start (I have never designed a class of my own, so I don't feel qualified to do this, but it could be a good experiment to see what happens).

 

[hong]

When I DM, I don't allow prestige classes for player characters. This started with 3e. I just don't see that they add that much to the game for the players.

I think the best judge of whether PrCs add anything to the game for the players would be the players themselves, yes?