Should prestige classes be better than base classes?

[Aus_Snow]

Many, especially older ones. It finally occurred to some designers that, once you had progressed through 10 levels of a PrC, what you were getting over the course of those levels wasn't worth the tradeoff of your most powerful spells.

Hm. Which ones?

I often find that I have to tweak the spellcasting advancement of spellcasting PrCs to make them even close to playable.

I nearly always find that I have to tone down a few things for any type of PrC, to make them even close to not overshadowing any and all base class options.

Of course, may older and 3rd party PrCs had the opposite problem, of not really giving anything up at all. But overall, AS, I think you are tarring with a big brush.

This has all been IME, since '03. So, not the whole journey (from '00), sure - what I've been saying might not apply to certain 3.0 sources - but I have found PrCs to be rather consistently overpowered, and for the most fundamental of reasons (IMO).

Which is, put another way: Why take a base class when you can take this, this or this *clearly* more powerful prestige class, and lose so little in the 'trade-off' as to make it a no-brainer, in terms of your character's survivability in amidst the arms race that others will no doubt be approaching with some thought of advantage. Weaker PCs can even be a liability for the party, so why would someone who is aware of / thinks at all about such things deliberately choose the poorer option, all else (such as style and so on) being more or less equal?

I know, not everyone is a powergamer / munchkin / whatever. But in the end, if you're doing combat and all that stuff, power does matter. Balance does matter.

 

[Psion]

Hm. Which ones?

The last 2 I upgraded were Cerebrex (though I didn't convert them, I could see the two other PrCs in the same article, the osteomancer and the flux adept were in the same boat) and the mirror mage (again, there are others in the Book of Eldritch might in the same boat).

There are many others I have spotted but can't rightly call to mind. In 3.5, I could much more easily name the ones I know of that don't adequately compensate.

This has all been IME, since '03. So, not the whole journey (from '00), sure - what I've been saying might not apply to certain 3.0 sources - but I have found PrCs to be rather consistently overpowered, and for the most fundamental of reasons (IMO).

Again, you are tarring with a big brush. Early 3.0 sources were pretty blatant... but they got ripped apart for it. Designers learned. But you fail to recognize that.

Which is, put another way: Why take a base class when you can take this, this or this *clearly* more powerful prestige class, and lose so little in the 'trade-off' as to make it a no-brainer,

I can only think of 1 or 2 no-brainer tradeoff in recent 3.5 PrCs. Nerf bat is in hand.

If you give up 3-5 levels of casting for what amounts to abilities that are less powerful than the spells you'd be giving up + the lost caster levels, it becomes a no-brainer alright: don't take this class.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I remember this argument for elementary school. I believe my response should be "Yes it is."

. . .

No, never mind. Ditto for the rest of those.

Arcane Trickster
Archmage
Eldrich Knight
Heirophant
Loremaster
Mystic Theurge
Thaumaturgist

Gee, in the DMG, about half. Whaddya know. And the Eldrich Knight isn't going to be any kind of effective in melee without taking more than one Fighter level, so that would be another.

Or perhaps you meant, "Of all the spellcasting PrCs that don't give up any spellcasting levels, how many of them give up more than three spellcasting levels?" Then I'd have to say you are quite right. Or is that what you meant by "(that's their FOCUS)"? So suddenly any spellcasting class that gives up spellcasting levels doesn't have spellcasting as their FOCUS? Good circular logic, that would be.

Well, to begin with, what I actually thought you were originally referring to was spellcasting-focused PrCs *wherein* you must give up more than three levels of spellcasting, not *wherein and/or for which*. My mistake, arguably. Either way, do you honestly believe that - for example - a rogue/caster hybrid shouldn't have to give up any spellcasting levels? Or even, less than the arcane trickster demands?

The eldritch knight - should they not, either?

And so on. Because, to me, these PrCs should have to give up something to gain the exatrordinary amounts of things they do. In fact, more than they must at present. As I have said before.

Terribly sorry, I thought you would have been interested in knowing how a PrCs still have weaknesses.

What, next you will tell me that d4 HD for a purely spellcasting PrC is a balancing factor, a "weakness". . .? Nope, I don't buy this line.

Wheras gish base classes are signifigantly underpowered. The PrC attempts to bring them back into line with a single-classed build. Snort yourself.

Really. Then why print them at all, as has been done throughout various splatbooks and elsewhere? If they are so underpowered, perhaps it's that the gish archetype is itself "weaker", much as the Bard is "weaker", a common subjective appraisal of the generalist, in general.

So if PrCs are better at their speciality than base class builds, which are more generalized, then they're overpowered. No wonder you have the opinion you do.

It would help if you took the time to read that to which you are responding. I very specifically referred to *having more overall power*. I fail to see how that could reasonably have been misinterpreted as meaning "better at their specialty".

My apologies, there should have been a negative in that statement: "If you don't believe X, then define or defend your opinion" or something along those lines. But since you decided to provide the definition, I'll suggest that if someone is determined to find something, they'll find it: you don't like PrCs, and you've contrived a way to "prove" that it's the case.

Actually, I love PrCs. They were (IMO) a great idea, and I like many of the concepts, and in fact many of the game mechanic designs that I've encountered and - post-tinkering - used. That people find what to them appear to be balance issues in D&D should - I'd have thought - come as no surprise to almost any player or DM. After all, I am hardly the only person to have expressed such a view, IRL or on forums - wherever.

This is similar to the, "Heroin addicts like heroin, more power to them for shooting up." I suppose since I'm such a powergamer and don't have any idea about proper game balance I should just be on my merry and not discuss things like this when the grown-ups are in the forum.

Uh, I was only kidding. Hence the smiley that I chose. It was actually an unintended phrasing at first, then I decided to keep it, but make it clear that I was just being a bit daft. Or something. Eh, never mind. I meant no offense by it, suffice to say.

 

[Vuron]

I would NEVER take more than 1 fighter level in an EK build.

Ehh, for some people the goal (especially if thier aim is Epic progression) is to get 4 iterative attacks and 9th level spells at 20th level. Generally the only way to do this is via the SRD is to take two levels of a melee class and 8 levels of wizard plus the 10 eldritch knight. Sure it's a bit slower to get 9th level spells than Fighter1/Wizard9/Eldritch Knight 10 but some people are willing to go with delayed gratification.

 

[Psion]

Ehh, for some people the goal (especially if thier aim is Epic progression) is to get 4 iterative attacks and 9th level spells at 20th level.

I find people who plan around 20th level baffling. I get the impression a lot of them never play their builds.

For me, I was contemplating going with an EK build with my current wizard character. The thought of delaying my 4th level spells for one more level was pure pain.

I suppose if I ever made it that far, I might be willing to take one more fighter level after I already have 9th level spells. But my experience is that most games end before 20th.

 

[Terath Ninir]

TANSTAAFL comes from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. I could be a Heinlein scholar if I had any desire to be such.


The problem with statements of what prestige classes *should* be is that all of them, if you use the right evidence, are *true*. Game design at WotC has been run by numerous different people during 3e and even at a single time, different designers have had different ideas of what a PrC should be.

Some designers clearly follow the specialist ideal -- you give up something to get something else. The mystic theurge would fit in that category; you get a hella lot of spells, but the hp, BAB, and turn undead hit for your cleric abilities is no small sacrifice.

Others clearly follow the organization model, especially in Forgotten Realms supplements. If you want to use the Harper classes in another setting, you're going to have to put in the Harper organization or something like it.

And, though it's a smaller section in 3.5 than it was in 3.0, there's the set of designers that clearly see PrC as I do -- as wahoo power ups. The Radiant Munchkin of Pelor is solidly in that category -- you get everything a cleric does, at the sacrifice of (on average) 1 hp per level.


So you can find evidence to support any view of PrC, and they're all right, since so many people are involved in designing them, even in just the WotC materials.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I voted other.

A good RPG from a flexibility and balance standpoint is a point/slot/feat based system.

Gurps is the canonical example.
The downside is you lose the archetypes.

D&D needs the archetypes to stay D&D.

The crux of the matter is how to help players who want to go "beyond" the archetypes in the core books. They want the archetype handed to them on a platter.

In 2E it was kits, in 3E it is prestige classes. Players need the "special archetype" or they don't feel good. Playing a Fighter with ARchery feats isn't as satisfying as playing an "ARCHER".

I have a grand unfied theory of how I'd do 4e that this ties into gotta post it soon.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Hey, Charwoman! Long, long time no see!

Going with what I'd like to see -- I'd like a system somewhat like Shadowrun. (Gee! Big shocker there! ) Shadowrun had a modified point buy system. You had several categories (race, money, ability scores, magic, and skills) that you set a priority on. You then got points to spend in each category -- so it was point-buy, but structured.

The other thing that they had was archetypes. You could make any weird character you wanted, or you could just copy down the stats for, say, a street samurai and run it straight up.

The same could be applied to D&D. You could have archetypes, like fighter, that show a builld from 1st to 20th level. Or you could pick and choose abilities, making the exact character you want.

I'd like that a whole lot more than the current system, with 4,000 base classes and 5,000 prestige classes.

 

[icedrake]

I think of PrCs like graduate degrees, you sacrifice a number of things, skills, feats, class levels, etc, to receive specificity and specialization. At least in theory, you should be better at a ranger at tracking if your a bloodhound but give up some of the ranger features to do so. Unfortunitely, not all classes are created equal, base or PrC, and this is proven wrong.

 

[Celebrim]

A good RPG from a flexibility and balance standpoint is a point/slot/feat based system.

Gurps is the canonical example.

It sometimes amazes me how people who play RPG's can have exactly the opposite opinion from what I see as obvious. Along with the whole, 'I want them balanced by being more powerful in a narrow area but being less flexible..." meme, here's another one.

You think GURPS is balanced? It's far easier to twink and min/max in GURPS than it is in D&D, which I would have thought everyone who had played GURPS would know. There is nothing enherently balanced about a point system. In fact, point systems are harder to balance and notorious for being unbalanced and subject to abuse (as is frequently made fun of in Knights of the Dinner Table).

The downside is you lose the archetypes.

No you don't. You can keep archetypes in a point system quite easily. Most of them do that successfully. What you can't do is retain balance. The point of points packages aka 'levels' is that you can balance the archetypes more easily than you can with a point system that lets players decide what they want and not pay for what they don't want. The point of 'levels' is that you only have to test out a limited number of builds, whereas with points there are an infinite number of builds.

D&D needs the archetypes to stay D&D.

D&D needs levels to stay D&D. Levels are a great mechanic. They aren't enherently inferior to point systems, and they have some big advantages. It's no accident that most of the successful CRPG's out there adopt a level/class based system rather than a point based system. It's just easier to balance and it gaurantees more diversity in the player creation because its easier to prevent there being one best build.

The crux of the matter is how to help players who want to go "beyond" the archetypes in the core books. They want the archetype handed to them on a platter.

And there I think you are correct. I think PrC's appeal to the 'new school' RPGer who has grown up on CRPG's and is mostly interested in recreating the CRPG experience on paper. PrC's take D&D in the opposite direction that the rest of the 3rd edition changes took it - away from a points based system rather than more towards one (in something of a hybrid system). Now, there is nothing particularly wrong with that as a game design, but the problem is that the PrC doesn't really interface well with the rest of D&D's design. It breaks things. It's a cludged on addition. If we wanted to redesign the game to retain PrC's (I wouldn't, I'm more old school), the best bet would be to redo all the base classes to just have 10 levels so that everyone eventually took a PrC, something like what D20 Modern does with 'advanced classes'. That's not personally the way I'd want to take things, but at least its a consistant design.

In 2E it was kits, in 3E it is prestige classes. Players need the "special archetype" or they don't feel good. Playing a Fighter with ARchery feats isn't as satisfying as playing an "ARCHER".

Kits were an attempt to add flexibility to an inflexible system. The real analogy with kits between 2E and 3E is with feats and skills. Kits were 2E feats. In many ways, PrC's encourage a reduction in flexibility, because they have more limited choices than a base class (in fact, thats IMO the only thing you in practice sacrifice to take a PrC). It results in more characters having the same build, which is the opposite of the way feats take the game (fewer characters have the same build).

I have a grand unfied theory of how I'd do 4e that this ties into gotta post it soon.

Cool, I'd be interested to hear it.