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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felix" data-source="post: 3243120" data-attributes="member: 3929">A casting PC that winds up at level 20 without 20 spellcasting levels gives up power. If they give up 3 or more, that is a significant loss of power relative to base-class casters. It is even more significant for the Arcane Trickster, for example, that the spellcasting levels are lost in their first 8 levels, and not spread out through the PrC progression. This means they must eat a 3-level loss of spells early in their career and they will never be able to make it up. So the PrC better darn well provide something of worth.Nor should eldrich knights; they're still by and large going to be staying out of melee - and they're supposed to be a fighter/wizard. Thank goodness they will eventually get access to Transmutation spells that will make up for their utter inability to wear armor and cast.It is when you're a fighter/mage. A pure fighter is going to go to work on you in melee, and a pure caster is going to stomp your spells. Unless you have something like the Eldrich Knight that allows some confluence of the two disciplines.Why print them? Because people like to play the fighting wizard?And yes, the gish does suffer similar problems to the bard, which are exacerbated in the 3e multiclassing system. In 2e, because of the non-linear level progressions, a fighter/mage was not 1/2 character level fighter and 1/2 character level wizard; a 7/8 gish would be roughly equate in XP terms to a level 10 single-classed character.Not that 2e multiclassing was without its problems; I prefer 3e much more. But the point being that 2e multiclassing allowed for viable gish builds wheras 3e must have PrCs to account for the non-linear power progression in a linear XP regime. As far as the bard is concerned, if the campaign is a intrigue-heavy and NPC-interaction based, the bard will shine brightly. This is not always going to be the case, and in a combat-oriented campaign, the bard will suffer terribly, unless he is happy to sit back, help a little, and boost his allies and make them better. And so he is "weaker" because his power manifests through others.Because you earlier mentioned (at least I do believe it was you) this progression:Specialty in a Niche --> Increased Power in Niche --> Increase in PC Involvement in Niche Circumstances --> Increased Overall EffectivenessI read that to which I responded, and I read between the lines as well. If a PrC's 1st level ability is Do Everything Better Than Everyone Else, then the PrC is overpowered. This is not often the case. The only way most PrCs will achieve *having more overall power* is not by having more game-mechanical power, but rather by applying their specialized power more often. The two are not the same thing.For example: The Bloodhound (CAdv) is a ranger-based PrC and is very good at tracking. All of its abilities have to do with tracking someone down and being mean to them. If a PC takes this class, you can be sure that he will want to track people down. This does not mean that he is overpowered compared to a single-classed ranger. He's just better at tracking. If you have one of each in a party, and all they do is muck about tracking people, the ranger will feel outclassed. You might think it's the PrC's problem. And then you run head on into a gang of Favored Enemies +6 and the ranger goes to town on them. Then maybe you think the PrC might not be the problem, but rather the campaign and its challenges that skew your perception.Of course balance issues are terribly subjective; the campaigns in which these issues take place have more effect upon the opinions of any particular person than any other factor, including the mechancis of the PrC itself. If you take an artificer PrC and plop him into a low magic-item campaign, he'll break the bank by raising cash from magic item sales. A lone psion in a "psionics are different" campaign will have a similar effect, with no mage being able to counter or detect his manifestations.In absence of the "Do Everything Better Than Everyone Else" ability, it is the campaign that paints the PrC in a good or poor light.My apologies, then. Celebrim posted a PrC lover/heroin addict analogy earlier to which I took offense, and your "if that's what you like, more power to you, no pun intended" struck a nerve.</blockquote>

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