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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 156073" data-attributes="member: 554">Lurker: Your cleric example is pretty compelling. I think Spellblade is more suited for arcane spellcasters. With clerics, it's close to broken; with mages and sorcerers (and bards, to a lesser extent) it's balanced by the fact that it's limited to melee combat, where you'd almost always want to have armo, and by the fact that arcane spellcasters generally aren't as tough as clerics are. Besides, my image of the typical feat-user was always closer to the fighter/mage than to clerics and the like.As for Focused Strike, in practice the feat can't be used that much more often than the weapon master ability (a 3rd level weapon master -- generally a 9th level character -- can use it three times per day; a 9th level character with the best possible BAB for his level can use it once more than that). It only outstrips the weapon master's versions at very high levels (when maximizing one's damage dice becomes trivial compared to the damage bonuses involved). And Focused Strike does cost a feat, while the weapon master gets it on top of a host of other abilities.And finally, feats and prestige classes. For a long time, I thought the way you did about that. It's true, for weapon masters especially, that that sort of thing is largely a life path; and it seemed to me that specialized skills and refined archetypes within classes could be best handled by prestige classes.But I realized three things. First, those "refined archetypes" were getting awfully close to 2e-style kits (which feats were designed to replace). Second, prestige classes were generally seen as player-driven (that is, to better articulate a character you wanted to play) rather than DM-driven (for special organizations, and the like, as the designers said they intended). Third, it's impossible for WotC to publish enough (balanced) prestige classes to satisfy the specific vision that players have for their character (most of the content in the class books is terrible). This created the need for lots, and lots, of fan-created PrCs (as is obvious to any reader of these boards). But the overriding problem is that a prestige class is very tough to properly design and balance.I feel that these problems make it very difficult to address refined archetypes within a class with prestige classes. I also feel that refined archetypes can, and ought to be, addressed with feats. Ultimately, I feel that almost any legitimate character archetype ought to be realizable with feats and multiclassing alone. I'm also favor rewriting what are generally taken to be defining prestige class abilities as feats: the dwarven defender's defensive stance, the assassin's poison use (and perhaps death attack) can both, I think, make great feats.I also feel that a feat is much easier to balance than a prestige class, because it's a singular ability necessarily chosen at the expense of other singular abilities. It's easier to compare one feat against a list of others than it is to compare one prestige class against another. The seven feats above weren't ideal on the first go-around, but I think they're getting much closer to that now.Do you lose the "specialness" of the prestige class; the way it makes your character look like a member of a rare, select few? Yes. But that's just a price you have to pay, I think, and it seems the best option under the circumstances.</blockquote>

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