Prestigous Woes...

[Sejs]

If you don't have enough imagination to make your character cool in one class, go back to video games and leave D&D to people who can actually think and have imagination.
flame away, 'cuz i know it's coming.

Ya know, if you know the counter-flames are coming, it's probably best not to post at all in that tone. Everyone has fun in different ways; there's no need to belittle someone else's play style just because it's different from your own. You like single, core classed character - hey, cool. Some other guy likes PrCs - hey, just as cool. Neither is inherrantly better than the other.

Live and let live, yo. It's just a game, after all.

 

[reanjr]

You just wrote a very amusing illustration as to why Monk, Hexblade, Soulblade, and Warlock shouldn't be core classes. They're already prestige classes. They just have 20 levels.

 

[reanjr]

I have a tendency to simply design prestige classes the PCs will encounter opportunities for during the course of the campaign that reflect the interests of the PCs. My players tend to pore over the books, and often drool over the PrCs, but they know that only a handful of them would even vaguely be an option in any given setting. However, when they let me know what their interests are, I'll take the idea, twist it a bit, bounce it around, and create some NPC or NPC organization or whatever to introduce the idea to the character in-game.

Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that the PrC will behave perfectly in sync with the character's current abilities, but at least I can make the trade-off worthwhile. Furthermore, without the players seeking such an opportunity, all I put together are PrCs appropriate for my NPCs, etcetera.

That's the way I do it, too. I hate the proliferation of prestige classes because so few of them can be used in a particular campaign. I just don't need them or want them. I can make my own.

I would actually like to see a prestige class building book come out rather than more prestige classes. I think it might bring more people over to the concept of making your own that are appropriate to your campaign world.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

The classes in the core book are balanced, fair, and are perfect for the game. Imagination makes for prestige classes with what is there, noto some underbalanced set of new abilities, feats, and other stupid nonsense. If you don't have enough imagination to make your character cool in one class, go back to video games and leave D&D to people who can actually think and have imagination.
flame away, 'cuz i know it's coming.

How very childish.

 

[tec-9-7]

If you don't have enough imagination to make your character cool in one class, go back to video games and leave D&D to people who can actually think and have imagination.
flame away, 'cuz i know it's coming.

Agreed. Characters aren't boring - players are. Admittedly, I do say that after many years of gaming. In my younger days, I'd also probably have been slavering all over PrCs... That said tho, at this point in my life, I'm not really willing to put up w/ players who want some abortion-of-a-build in a thinly disguised attempt at munchkinism/powergaming, allegedly in the name of 'an interesting character'.

 

[Sejs]

I would actually like to see a prestige class building book come out rather than more prestige classes. I think it might bring more people over to the concept of making your own that are appropriate to your campaign world.

Agreed. That would make a very good chapter in something like another version of the DMG, or Hero Builder's Guidebook.

 

[Ace]

You just wrote a very amusing illustration as to why Monk, Hexblade, Soulblade, and Warlock shouldn't be core classes. They're already prestige classes. They just have 20 levels.

Toss in a Bard and a Spellthief (or a Ninja ) and that would be a really cool group

 

[Klaus]

Agreed. That would make a very good chapter in something like another version of the DMG, or Hero Builder's Guidebook.

And that's precisely what's included in the DMG II, due in 2005.

 

[Piratecat]

How very childish.

You know the rules -- no name calling, please. As Sejs said, it's possible to hold a differing opinion without belittling the other person.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I don't see the need for these classes to have more than a few PrCs available. I mean, why are there prestige classes in the first place? Two reasons, really, aside from the whole "game world organization" fluff: specialization and differentiation.

Bob the fighter is good with a bastard sword, but Dave the exotic weapon master gave up some generic fighter options to specialize, making him really good at the bastard sword, but maybe not quite as good at some other stuff.

Jeff the wizard is just like every other wizard. He has a spellbook, a familiar, casts fireball, etc. Howard the alienist is weird and unique, setting him apart from the average wizard thanks to his alternate class trajectory.

For both of these modifications, the classes mentioned have little to benefit from prestige classes. It's hard to specialize when you're already a specialist. Unarmed fighting? It's hard to get better at that than a monk. Swatting people with swords made out of psionic energy? Can't beat a soulknife. It's likewise hard to differentiate yourself from a class that's already pretty darn weird. The monk's got a few options there, mostly from the vast genre of kung fu movies, but what would a weird and unique soulknife even look like? He's weird and unique enough. Differentiation would really just be further specialization, which for a class that's already a specialization, would just be more limiting than it's worth.

However, for the generic classes--fighter, spellcaster, sneaky guy, divine servant, there's a lot of room for modifications. There are vast reams of genre fiction to sift through in order to find interesting archetypes to emulate, and the classes are broad enough that specialization or differentiation doesn't totally change the trajectory they initially had.

Prestige classes are good for adding options and flexibility to classes that could play out in multiple ways even without PrCs, but aren't so good at enhancing specialists, because they have more to lose for each further specialization they undergo.