Shouldn't Prestige Classes be done differently?

[d20Dwarf]

Any wizard who kills enemies with a single, powerful strike and uses stealth could easily be an assassin.

Easily? Let's not go overboard. If you're saying that a wizard could join an assassin's guild as a wizard, yes. If you're talking about the prestige class, well...

20 cross-class skill ranks. Let's assume it's a human wizard with 7 skill points per level (2+4+1). To have 7 cross-class ranks in a skill you must be...*counts fingers*...11th level. You must also spend 40 of your 98 skill points on Disguise, Hide, and Move Silently. Not a particularly good option for a wizard that already needs to buy up at least 3 other skills to max every level. You're spending 42 ranks on Conc, Kn(arc), and Spellcraft, and 40 on these 3 skills. Ok, so it's doable, but by no means easy, and that leaves you only 18 skill points for other knowledge skills, craft (alchemy or construct), and perception skills. Then, after doing all that, you're going to stop progressing in spells (effectively) and pick up non-stacking sneak attack, uncanny dodge, and death attack with your ray of frost (natch).

I think some people are addressing the original poster sorta sideways. Prestige classes, ostensibly, were *not* designed to specialize certain character classes...theoretically. The designers always maintained that they were supposed to flesh out organizations in particular worlds...that's why we put ready-made organizations in the Path books for each class. Some even lamented their use as "better archer," "better tracker," and "better knife-thrower." Of course, it's much easier to design them mechanically, and much easier to fit them into every book under the sun. The original poster's idea is an intriguing one...what if there was an "assassin" prestige class that catered to all manner of characters, or at least one for each of the big 4 archetypes. Interestingly, I wrote a similar article for Dragon a few years back, although it wasn't quite the same. The enforcer class in that article was a little bit of "what about a thug assassin, rather than a stealthy one?"

Focusing on assassins also limits how people are thinking about the poster's original question. Think also of horizon walker, blackguard, or even Waterdeep guild mage (with emphasis on the first two words, of course ).

 

[fanboy2000]

Wow, there are some great ideas in this thread.

My first thought was to suggest advanced classes. In d20 modern, an advanced class is one wth few requirements and you can usually take it around level 4. I've found the advanced classes to be more flexible (ie, less cookie cutter) than D&D's prestige classes.

 

[Starglim]

I certainly can't find a prestige class in any of my books that is open to any class and at least a passable choice for any class.

I thought that was the original idea of prestige classes. Certainly I'd consider at least two different paths of advancement to get into any PrC that I wrote up.

It should be easier (not easy) for certain character concepts to gain a prestige class than others, but apart from base classes that are absolutely integral to the setting for story reasons (such as Jedi in Star Wars) it is a design flaw to have any prestige class that requires levels in one particular class to enter.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

My first thought was to suggest advanced classes. In d20 modern, an advanced class is one wth few requirements and you can usually take it around level 4. I've found the advanced classes to be more flexible (ie, less cookie cutter) than D&D's prestige classes.

I think that's d20M in general though. Look at the basic classes and comapre them to the D&D classes. Do you really want to be a Fighter or Barbarian or just a "Strong" Hero? The advanced classes stem from that. They aren't designed to be like the D&D prestige classes. They're just supposed to be the classes you can get to once you've made it through about 12 gaming sessions. The D&D prestige classes tend to require a little more effort.


I really like d20M. I wish I got to play it more often.

 

[Ranger REG]

My first thought was to suggest advanced classes. In d20 modern, an advanced class is one wth few requirements and you can usually take it around level 4. I've found the advanced classes to be more flexible (ie, less cookie cutter) than D&D's prestige classes.

Meh. d20 Modern advanced classes are basically prestige classes with a much lower level requirement.

 

[hero4hire]

How about 1-level prestige classes? Most members of the organization, guild, cult or whatever take this prestige class, but it is only a single level. That might nicely tie together the members while still having each be quite different. I might prefer this to having five or six prestige classes for EACH organization (ala Harpers).

In fact, it might be a better way for me to do most prestige classes in my game. Entry to each isn't very difficult, but entry to several might be a big strain on skill points & feats.

EDIT: The basic reason that I shy away from the idea of feat-based organization is that feats shouldn't be as powerful or as "packaged" as a level in prestige class. For instance, I have a group in my game that worship a reptilian water goddess. I want the members to be transformed into the reptilian subtype and gain water breathing. Too much for a feat/feats to do.

Sorta sounds like you want them to take a racial level to me...

 

[ptolemy18]

I find this argument unusual to my ears; the reason? Prestige classes were originally DESIGNED to be world- or guild-specific.

That's interesting; I didn't know that. But you're right, it kinda makes sense when I look at it, though... although obviously some Prestige Classes are much more specific than others. To use examples from 3.0, Red Wizard of Thay is pretty specific; Devoted Defender or Highwayman are not so specific. It's easy to imagine people in different parts of the world developing the Devoted Defender or Highwayman prestige classes independently of one another, without some great "Grand Brotherhood of Highwaymen" tying them together.

Basically, I agree with Insight and others that there's nothing that *requires* that Prestige Classes need to denote a particular organization. I typically don't modify the *rules* behind any Prestige Classes, but since I'm not running a Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms game, I usually modify the *backgrounds* quite a bit. Just because my campaign world isn't Rokugan doesn't mean I can't have Eunuch Warlocks.

Basically I'm happy with the existing Prestige Classes. I don't see the harm of having "smaller" Prestige Classes (1-level or 3-level classes) as well. But I feel that generally, Prestige Classes should reflect a sort of super-specialization... like "That 10th level rogue may be pretty good at killing people... but I, the Assassin, am REALLY frickin' good." Or "That 10th level conjurer-specialist wizard may be pretty good at summoning monsters... but I, the Alienist, am REALLY good at it."

Jason

 

[ptolemy18]

Meh. d20 Modern advanced classes are basically prestige classes with a much lower level requirement.

The problem with d20 Modern being, it seems really boring to go through so many "generic" class levels to get to the interesting stuff. Unless you're intentionally starting a campaign at high levels, or doing really quick level advancement (like 1 level per game).

Jason

 

[ptolemy18]

I think some people are addressing the original poster sorta sideways. Prestige classes, ostensibly, were *not* designed to specialize certain character classes...theoretically. The designers always maintained that they were supposed to flesh out organizations in particular worlds...that's why we put ready-made organizations in the Path books for each class. Some even lamented their use as "better archer," "better tracker," and "better knife-thrower."

Hmm. Well, yes, I guess I fit exactly into this heresy. But I think there's room enough for both interpretations of prestige classes.

So let's all peace out together while I stripmine the prestige classes for their rules-sets and toss out the backgrounds!

Jason

 

[Li Shenron]

Who's with me on this? We can start lobbying for the change when 4E eventually comes out. What really bothers me is that I often want to have a group organization share a prestige class. The problem? Prestige classes are way too narrow. I certainly can't find a prestige class in any of my books that is open to any class and at least a passable choice for any class. Why should my order of the bow organization be so cookie cutter? Are there no wizards or clerics specially trained in the organization? What say you?

Me say you absolutely right

When Monte Cook "invented" prestige classes, he said that the idea was that everyone should be able to qualify for, and the difference was only that some classes had an easier time and could therefore qualify earlier.
Exceptions are fine, but they should have been the minority, instead now the standard is that prestige classes are designed to work for 1 only core class (or 3-4 at best), probably because it's easier for authors to balance a PrCl which is available only e.g. to Druids. So we soon got PrCls with reqs like "must be able to cast Lightning Bolt as a divine spell". It's also quite pathetic that they don't have the courage to write down "req. Druid level 5", which would be more honest.

The only solution I have for this problem is to be the DM and do what you want which means not to feel restricted too much by what the PrCl description says in the book, and modify it as you like.

For instance, the Arcane Archer MUST be able to cast arcane spells. What does this requirement have to do with the PrCl abilities? Only the Imbue Spell ability has to do with this. What about allowing a high level Ranger to qualify? By the RAW you can't, because the Ranger casts divine spells, but do you really care? If the Ran/AA would be a nice character, why not?

Another thing I would like to think about is PrCls for spellcasters: they give you spellcasting, but they require you spellcasting. What if instead some PrCl which give "+1 level in spellcasting class" would NOT require spellcasting ability in the first place? What if Dragon Disciple did NOT require you to have a level of Sorcerer, but gave you bonus 1st level slots on top of nothing?
My opinion is that at the end what matters is (1) the character concept makes sense and (2) the result is balanced with the other characters. Obviously it would be ridiculous otherwise to go as far as allowing entering a PrCl which empowers a specific ability if the character doesn't have it at all, so the deal is to be done with PrCls one by one.

As for organizations, there are some points to remember:
- you shouldn't think that taking the PrCl is mandatory for a member; actually it makes sense that one first becomes a member and second is trained in "secret lore"
- you shouldn't think that every member aims to get all levels in the PrCl
- there could be more PrCls for the same organization (see Harpers)
However, if you have a group which is seriously focused on some abilities, such as the OOTB, it makes sense that everyone would be trained in them. The 3.0 OOTBI had one design mistake IMHO, that of requiring WSpec (IOW, 4 levels of Fighter); I think the 3.5 OOTBI dropped that and required more skills, so it's open to everyone.