Prestige Feats?

[Li Shenron]

Sounds a very nice idea to me, go ahead and try more examples!

A couple of things that come to my mind are:

1) those prestige classes which give the same kind of special ability every level seem to be perfect for this experiment; the DMG ones are Archmage, Hierophant and Horizon Walker, which may need only 1 feat each

2) this system may work better if you slightly increase the total number of feats per characters; also if there are many feats resulting from the conversion of a PrCl, making them a feats tree instead of a feats chain could be more interesting (to have members of the same PrCl with different abilities)

3) some of the prestige feats could actually be allowed as fighter bonus feats as long as they are clearly combat-oriented; anything that makes fighters attractive at high levels is welcome

 

[Gez]

Sounds a very nice idea to me, go ahead and try more examples!

I'll try when I'll have some time.

1) those prestige classes which give the same kind of special ability every level seem to be perfect for this experiment; the DMG ones are Archmage, Hierophant and Horizon Walker, which may need only 1 feat each

They're kinda the prime suspects. These are merely "high-level <class> with special abilities". Especially Archmage and Hierophant. They should, in fact, not have been PrC, but have been merged with the base classes, IMO. Conceptually, I prefer a class to continue to give some nifties every few levels. That way you trade something in when you multiclass.

However, some PrC would be too hard to convert into a series of feats. Notably when the skill selection is important in the PrC's concept.

2) this system may work better if you slightly increase the total number of feats per characters; also if there are many feats resulting from the conversion of a PrCl, making them a feats tree instead of a feats chain could be more interesting (to have members of the same PrCl with different abilities)

I don't want to increase the feat allotment. But prestige feat trees seem interesting.

3) some of the prestige feats could actually be allowed as fighter bonus feats as long as they are clearly combat-oriented; anything that makes fighters attractive at high levels is welcome

I take it you've not seen my alt. fighter.

 

[Li Shenron]

I take it you've not seen my alt. fighter.

I did but I had forgotten about it among the many

It was very well designed indeed, for these reasons mostly:

- stunts can be taken in place of a few bonus feats: when someone makes an alt. fighter, you can be sure that they ADD stuff, but the problem of the fighter is not to be week, just to be less interesting at high levels (and usually players take levels in something else); your variants perfectly address the real problem IMHO, without empowering an already balanced class

- stunts don't have prerequisites (other than min Ftr level and Weapon Spec): this leads to more diversity among fighters, since you don't need to stack regular feats to qualify as you need to with normal high-level feats

 

[HellHound]

What I've been working with lately is three to five level prestige classes with a collection of feats that require membership in the class to take - even a single level.

Some classes that are very class-specific (like the Mystic Theurge classes in Secrets of Theurgy) remain ten level classes, but for classes that represent membership in a faction that should be open to fighters, wizards, rogues and so on, it works best to have them as a 3 level PrC of which only a single level is required to gian access to the special feats in question.

 

[Agamemnon]

The idea is not without merit, but I don't think a character has enough feats to sacrifice. Furthermore, I fail to see a compelling reason to ditch the present system. If you aim to fix something, it better be broke.

 

[Gez]

Well, for the "compelling reason", I'm trying to make staying single-classed more attractive.

Some classes, like the monk, get enough nifty things throughout their progression to make a single-classed, non-"prestiged" character attractive.

Other classes, like the sorcerer, seriously lacks an incentive to not multiclass into some +1/level PrC.

The way I'm doing it, for now, is by modifying base classes so that they gain interesting abilities at least once every two levels. For the wizard, for example, I've stolen the AU magister's aspects of power.

But I've also thought of removing PrCs to replace them by feats, so that character would stay in a single class and join prestigious organizations through feats.

It is, however, an impressive work to do... That's the biggest con IMO.