D&D 5E Prestige Classes?

[Warmaster Horus]

The Totem Barbarian gives a good glimpse in how you can differentiate abilities to create a variety of Prestige-like classes. At the various Totem ability levels the player has the choice of taking one of five different options. These work like chained feats but can be decoupled if desired and mixed with other appropriate abilities.

 

[Gradine]

Prestige Classes get a bad rap... I always thought they were perfectly fine in 3.5 (the proliferation of feats, and particularly unintended feat combinations, were what ultimately drowned that system in bloat. It's telling that nothing really surpassed CoDzilla, but suddenly add Divine Metamagic...). At their best, they made interesting choices to help improve multi-class characters, or gave interesting mechanical bonuses to joining a specific organization.

That said... you don't need them in 5e.

Let's riff off of the comment from earlier about the three things prestige classes did:

I'm going to go with no.

Realistically, PrCs did only three things:

• Get most of the powers of a Base Class with an additional hyperspecialized powerset.
• Combine Two Base Classes progression, sometimes with a theme, because the normal multiclass rules tended to suck.
• Give a mechanical framework for some RP focused abilities that was of questionable practical use, and tended to make a character that is worse than if they had just stuck to the base class and actually roleplayed out that kind of stuff.

In 5e, Feats basically cover both of the first two bullet points. They're for multi-class dabbling (e.g, Arcane Initiate) or hyperspecialized abilitiies (e.g, Shield Mastery) and they do a pretty good job of that. There are also, of course the "multi-class" subclasses, like Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster, to say nothing of War Cleric (or really, any Paladin), blade-pact Warlock, etc. Both of these options are well covered.

That leaves us with the third bullet, which I will give the benefit of the doubt to as mostly referring to "organization" prestige classes. 5e has that covered too, from a variety of angles. Is the main benefit from a non-combat pillar? That's what background features are for. Here's a dirty secret; PCs can earn new background-like features as they travel. This is kind of what the faction system is designed to represent, but you don't need anything so convoluted. The characters gain new contacts, and call on specific favors at the appropriate time and locations.

What if the "organization" benefit is mechanical in nature? That is what Blessings and Charms are for. These are two different things, mechanically, but they don't really have to be. Basically, Blessings give a permanent passive benefit, while Charms give a temporary power with a set number of charges (or length of time) before expiring. But you could use this concept to gift players joining a specific organization access to a new permanent power.

Prestige classes would be too convoluted to fit into the current structure of 5e as-is, and with all that already exists I don't really see how there's a new for them.

 

[steeldragons]

I'd like the concept of prestige class/paragon path to be something new. Archetypes already covers the idea of classes mix-mash or super-specialization. I'd use PrC to give some level to some things that dont have level progression in the game: races and background.

ex: someone with the guild artisan background could take the Guimaster PrC to increase the background feature and gain new features related to his increasing status within the guild.

A dwarf could take the First-born of Moradin PrC to increase his dwarf-ness, like immunity to poison, shape earth cantrip or precious metal-sense.

This has legs. I dig it.

 

[OB1]

I don't know. I don't mind the UA's first attempt. I don't think it really worked the way they wanted. But it had potential. I WOULD probably reclassify them by a different name than "Prestige Class" since that has some baggage and, apparently, bad feeling that comes with it.

I'd like the concept of prestige class/paragon path to be something new. Archetypes already covers the idea of classes mix-mash or super-specialization. I'd use PrC to give some level to some things that dont have level progression in the game: races and background.

ex: someone with the guild artisan background could take the Guimaster PrC to increase the background feature and gain new features related to his increasing status within the guild.

A dwarf could take the First-born of Moradin PrC to increase his dwarf-ness, like immunity to poison, shape earth cantrip or precious metal-sense.

I'd add paths for things like lycanthropy and vampires curses or the like as well.
[MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] how about Story Class or Quest Class as a new name? IE. Sometimes a character's adventures lead them to encounter new forks in the road that can change the path of their career. Below are rules for a unique kind of class specifically for players to use with the optional multi-classing rules. Quest Classes are only 4-5 levels long and have prerequisites that can only be met via adventuring.

Again, I'd be fine if WotC just provided some official guidelines for creating and leave the specifics to the DMs table, though I would welcome inspiration in the form of some of these as well.

 

[Warpiglet]

In my experience, these were not often used in world building or as new classes but rather as add-ons which could be added without limit, hence the Knowledgable Juggler Chef Rogue Professional Mime and Barber characters. It seemed like people made combination to stack bonuses. Whatever. Just not for me. I could live with a Blackguard or Divine Liberator or whatever if it was treated almost like a new class. The weird combinations from splatbooks did not appeal.

The other issue I have is that it has the potential to make such a niche that I am no longer required to "make" my character via multiclassing and feats. I enjoy the fact that my temple robbing character is a cleric rogue (that I designed!) rather than a "Temple Robber" (TM, Wotc).

I am sure there were some gamers who used these classes in world building character developing ways that appeal to me as well. I just did not like stacking disparate things that would be most unusual even in "magic land." Some of it seemed silly and got me out of the mood.

Also get off my lawn.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I don't think prestige classes will be good for 5e. The multiclassing rules in 5e are bare bones and often involve power trade offs that players may not be comfortable making for their characters.
Instead I'd like to see the templates system from Pathfinder (not sure if D&D 3 or 3.5 had this). Basically a template has a bunch of features that replace features from your base class for something or relatively equal power. It allows customization and even allows you to take away some of the stuff from a base class that goes against the new flavour.

A lot of prestige classes were basically membership in a certain organization. I don't think it's too far fetch'd for a DM to award cool features to a character for rising through the ranks of a faction. It's not much different to awarding a magic item or boon from the DMG.

In addition more PCs options can be added through feats, backgrounds and spells (some spells in 5e are straight up class features from previous editions, find familiar coming to mind).

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

PrC's strike me as something that you can use that would fit in any class so as to not be a subclass to a single class. For example anyone could be a diplomat regardless of class so instead of a lets say Bard Subclass you could have it as a PrC for any class.

Diplomat to me sounds like a background. It's a job,like blacksmith, scholar, whatever.

I personally loathe the bloat or 3E/Pathfinder, where they felt obligated to churn endless splats just to keep the lights on. It just felt creatively uninspired and soulless.

If there is a place for "prestige classes" in 5E, I feel it is with alternate rewards replacing magic items or treasure. Instead of getting a magic item from the Harpers, you gain access to their libraries and training in a knowledge skill or whatever.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Instead I'd like to see the templates... Basically a template has a bunch of features that replace features from your base class for something or relatively equal power.

Hey, I'm glad I included that option in the poll.

system from Pathfinder (not sure if D&D 3 or 3.5 had this).

3.5 did have racial substitution levels, which is a similar concept (sorta, maybe not really). 4e had Themes which gave you some minor benefits like Backgrounds, and the option of swapping out powers for Theme powers of the same level.

So, sure, there's precedent w/in past editions of D&D, itself...
...then as Li Shenron suggested, call 'em 'Kits' for the 2e tie-in.

 

[Eubani]

Diplomat to me sounds like a background. It's a job,like blacksmith, scholar, whatever.

I personally loathe the bloat or 3E/Pathfinder, where they felt obligated to churn endless splats just to keep the lights on. It just felt creatively uninspired and soulless.

If there is a place for "prestige classes" in 5E, I feel it is with alternate rewards replacing magic items or treasure. Instead of getting a magic item from the Harpers, you gain access to their libraries and training in a knowledge skill or whatever.

A diplomat was an example for the point not a requested PrC but I am sure most got the point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It'd be a lot easier to include hem if every class had the same basic subclass structure, but c'est la vie.

That being said, I voted for Themes or a reasonable facsimile.