Should Prestige Classes be more powerful than Base Classes?

[wedgeski]

Wow!! I am one of those guys too!!

Me too! I think we've already broken that statistic.

I love PrC's. Not because every splat book is full of them, but because they give me, the DM, a brilliant opportunity to use mechanics to flavour-up my homebrew. As random options in some expansion waved under a DM's nose, they're not so hot.

And yes, just like, I'm sure, the way they were originally envisaged by the 3ed designers, PrC's should be more powerful than base classes but less versatile. This appears to be surprisingly difficult to pull off, though.

 

[comrade raoul]

In all seriousness, imho the way to judge whether a prc is 'balanced' is to figure out what the optimal entry path is and then compare a character with ten levels of the prc against a character following the optimal entry path 10 levels longer than required to enter the prc (i.e. fighter 6/cavalier 10 vs. fighter 16).

This is a really helpful principle. I'm amazed I've never heard it before.

 

[comrade raoul]

To answer the original question, it depends. I think there are two appropriate uses for prestige classes (although it might be better in many situations to implement the first change by adding or revising feats or base classes), and shape balance judgments.

1. Modelling character archetypes that should be available to players but are suboptimal, difficult-to-implement, or both under the core rules. Examples include the duelist and the mystic theurge. These kind of prestige classes should be balanced with base classes, but may be somewhat more powerful in a certain sense to compensate for the suboptimal choices necessary to pursue the archetype before pursuing the class.
2. Fleshing out a campaign world by representing archetypes or organizations crucial to the flavor of the campaign. These kind of prestige classes should be slightly--but only slightly--more powerful than base classes, in order to give players a mechanical incentive to make choices that tie them in to a greater extent in the spirit of the campaign. Examples include the extreme explorer, warforged juggernaut, or harper scout. I do not think there should be more than five or six such classes available to a single character, however, and they should have significantly different abilities from the base classes. (An order of knights who are on paper much like fighters should probably be composed of fighters.)

Note that most published prestige classes serve neither role.

 

[Nifft]

This is a really helpful principle. I'm amazed I've never heard it before.

If taken too literally, though, it leads to "can cast foo 2/day as a spell-like ability" (where "foo" is some spell that's great at level 6 but useless at level 15). Many of the BoVD PrCs fail in exactly this way.

-- N

 

[Klaus]

It depends.

If the PrClass requires a character to make sub-optimal choices to gain entry (like, say, Weapon Specialization: Whip), then the PrClass has to be more powerful to make up for it.

When I make a PrClass, I come up with a concept that can be translated into base classes already available, then assmeble a proto-class from multiclassing those. For my Battledancer (my take on the Bladesinger archetype), I started by building a 10-level Ftr/Wiz progression, then averaging the HD (d10+d4/2=d7), skill points, BAB, etc, and going from there.

The process can be found here: http://www.fierydragon.com/db/2003-11-26.htm

And the finished class can be found here: http://www.fierydragon.com/db/2003-12-03.htm

 

[JoeyD473]

I voted that they should be more powerful. They are Prestiage Classes. One thing you have to remember is for most PrClasses you need to multiclass which means your probably losing more then your gaining from multiclassing (unless you took sorceror as your 1st base).

My campaign is a core rules campaign However I have told them If they want something frm another book or campaign ask me first. A few of them have and most of them I have said yes to. However no one asked about using any prestiage classes. One of my players I expected to ask about using one so I asked why he didn't. His answer was that e felt in the long run he would be more powerful just sticking to one class and not multiclassing. My other players agreed.

Now I feel that many of the PrClasses should be come base clases. Obviously most of them need some work for that to happen but I think converting them into base classes is the way for them to go

 

[DragonLancer]

Prestige classes should just go away. It's a tremendous waste of game designer effort. A base class with a simple qualifier (i.e. a ROLE-PLAYING reason instead of a munchkin reason) would be so much more useful game content.

I look at the HUGE WASTE OF SPACE that is prestige classes that 99..999999% of the time are useless to most DM's, campaigns, and players.

Prestige classes are to splatbooks, what God-Stats are to the deities and Demigods books. USELESS waste of space.

Just my ever-humble opinion.

Here here! I agree completely.

 

[greywulf]

I've say that prestige classes should be more powerful, but also more narrowly focused so it balances out.

 

[DragonLancer]

I voted for the middle ground. A PrC should never be more powerful than a base class.

 

[Cor Azer]

If the PrClass requires a character to make sub-optimal choices to gain entry (like, say, Weapon Specialization: Whip), then the PrClass has to be more powerful to make up for it.

I don't fully agree with that notion. While I agree that some prestige classes should encourage off-the-main-road prerequisites, I don't think that "sub-optimal" ones should require the prestige class to be more powerful - after all the prestige class should be making sure those prerequisites are not "sub-optimal", by making sure they're useful to the newly entered class (to carry on your example - a PrC that requires WS:Whip likely has other abilities that bring the whip up to a near equal with a sword or bow, but it certainly shouldn't be more powerful).

That said, I strongly dislike prerequisites that are just there to limit access and are never built upon (the old Toughness for Dwarven Defender).