The emancipation of feats and death of PrC's?(long)

[BryonD]

The PH had no PClasses. I don't think the PHII also not having any says anything at all about a shift in focus on D&D overall.

 

[Gold Roger]

Out of curiosity, Gold, have you tried taking a look through the Iron Heroes rules? they feature...

1) No PrCs that I've seen yet... (There's really no need for them with the options available.)
2) Increased frequency of feats gained... (Two at 1st level, one at every even level thereafter plus bonus fetas from classes, instead of one every third level.)
3) Expanded feat and feat-chain options in the form of "feat masteries"... (Many class abilities and magic item effects have been incorporated into these feat masteries to increase character customization, and reduce reliance on magical items for a character's power.)

You should take a peek at it... The system goes a long way to making many of changes you suggest.

Own it and have in fact tried it. Dropped it mostly because I prefer my fantasy games to have magic in the PC's hand. Even if reliable magic is rare, PC's are for me always part of "the few".

As an anecdotal side comment, I actually thought about introducing PrC's back into IH to reintroduce magic to the game.

I decided that was to much work for to little gain and realized D&D is a working and adaptable system and there where ways to reduce the amount of flavorless magical gizmos without messing with any elementary stuff.

Since then I'm mostly happy with stock D&D. But it can be improved upon and I think Iron Heroes showed many good starting points for that.

That mearls is now a developer for wotc and the parallels between some Iron Heroes and PHB2 stuff is where I draw a lot of my confidence that the game is moved in a good direction from (not only on the issue of PrC's).

 

[Turanil]

So, am I all alone on this position? Are there any points of PrC grandness I didn't see? Is my argumentation flawed? Am I just rambling and hoping on a change that won't happen? Or am I on to something?

I agree with your analysis. Myself I am fed up with the endless flow of prestige classes. Fortunately, Grim Tales or True20, as well as C&C, have got rid of them. Now, if I were to run again D&D3e, I would restrain PrCl to those in the DMG, and would use the variant way of gaining them outlined in the UA (no specific skill ranks and feat selection, but to pass a test, roleplaying and adventuring, in order to be acepted in it), so people could get most of them at 3rd level (archmage / hierophant being an exception). Frankly, the more I read about PHB2, the more I find it a good purchase idea.

 

[Pbartender]

Own it and have in fact tried it. Dropped it mostly because I prefer my fantasy games to have magic in the PC's hand. Even if reliable magic is rare, PC's are for me always part of "the few".

...and the Players couldn't choose Arcanist as a class and have magic, even if unreliable and rare, in the hands of their PCs because why?

 

[Bront]

I guess part of the problem with feats vs PrCs is this.

Most characters get get 7 feats, while they get 20 class levels, so classes are actualy more flexable at the moment because you have more levels to play with than feats.

However, there are so many feats out there, why wouldn't you want more?

So, here's my question: Why sould PCs get to do everything they want? Isn't part of the point of character development wanting to get better? If you give players access to a ton of feats, does it spoil them?

 

[Felon]

I agree with your analysis. Myself I am fed up with the endless flow of prestige classes. Fortunately, Grim Tales or True20, as well as C&C, have got rid of them.

So, you're fed up with the "endless" flow of PrC's, so you prefer to seem them eliminated in favor of having those PrC class features minced up into piecemeal feats and talents, as is the approach taken by Grim Tales (and suggested by Gold Ringer)? You'd prefer to do away with an infinity of X in favor of intinity-to-the-tenth-power of Y?

Prestige classes are easier to evaluate and keep track of than feats. It's a lot easier to say "here are the dozen PrC's approved for my campaign" than it is to say "okay, I've gone through all the 1338 published feats I'm aware of and here are the 120 I've approved for my campaign".

 

[Gold Roger]

...and the Players couldn't choose Arcanist as a class and have magic, even if unreliable and rare, in the hands of their PCs because why?

I think there's no contest that the arcanist was the worst piece of design in Iron Heroes. I was looking into alternatives and would have propably converted the warlock and incarnum classes (and now the binder) to IH. There where also some traits I had done that gave minor magical abilities that could be improved uppon with feats.

It was not only spellcasting though. While I was happy IH did away with a need for a ridiculous amount of minor magic items, I just couldn't do without any magic items.

 

[Gold Roger]

So, you're fed up with the "endless" flow of PrC's, so you prefer to seem them eliminated in favor of having those PrC class features minced up into piecemeal feats and talents, as is the approach taken by Grim Tales (and suggested by Gold Ringer)? You'd prefer to do away with an infinity of X in favor of intinity-to-the-tenth-power of Y?

Prestige classes are easier to evaluate and keep track of than feats. It's a lot easier to say "here are the dozen PrC's approved for my campaign" than it is to say "okay, I've gone through all the 1338 published feats I'm aware of and here are the 120 I've approved for my campaign".

Is eveluating feats so much more work than evaluating spells? Last time I checked most books had more spells of which each had more text than a feat. I've never actually had any problem with evaluating feats or substitution features.

Usually the feats from one book can be taken together easily. Why not simply present a list of books from which feats are allowed. Feats that come with certain indication for the campaigns flavor are much rarer than PrC's that do so. And I rarely run about a feat that's really overpowered.

 

[BryonD]

So, you're fed up with the "endless" flow of PrC's, so you prefer to seem them eliminated in favor of having those PrC class features minced up into piecemeal feats and talents, as is the approach taken by Grim Tales (and suggested by Gold Ringer)? You'd prefer to do away with an infinity of X in favor of intinity-to-the-tenth-power of Y?

Prestige classes are easier to evaluate and keep track of than feats. It's a lot easier to say "here are the dozen PrC's approved for my campaign" than it is to say "okay, I've gone through all the 1338 published feats I'm aware of and here are the 120 I've approved for my campaign".

Wow

You know, I play D&D for my high magic fantasy and GT from pretty much everything else.
I really enjoy both and I've never experienced the slightest hint of these issues as a problem in either case. I'm really glad i'm not one of those gamers that goes looking from problems to borrow, and forcibly drag into my game.

 

[Pbartender]

I think there's no contest that the arcanist was the worst piece of design in Iron Heroes. I was looking into alternatives and would have propably converted the warlock and incarnum classes (and now the binder) to IH. There where also some traits I had done that gave minor magical abilities that could be improved uppon with feats.

Eh... A lot of people grumble about it (and granted it's not the best class in the book), but the one player using an Arcanist in my game hasn't complained about it yet.

Besides, there are very simple house rules you can come up with to fix that. For example... "Instead of the standard spellcasting ability of an Arcanist, an Arcanist gains spellcasting levels as if he were a Bard of the same class level. They may choose their known spells from the Sorcerer or Cleric class lists." or... "Instead of the standard spellcasting ability of an Arcanist, an Arcanist gains Invokations as if he were a Warlock of the same class level."

On top of that, there are dozens of people who have made good alternate Arcanist classes and IH magic systems. They're all posted on the web for free, have been thoroughly field tested, and require practically no work on your part to add into the game.

Finally, pages 248 & 249 of the IH rulebook gives guidelines for converting standard D&D classes (like the wizard or cleric) to Iron Heroes.

It was not only spellcasting though. While I was happy IH did away with a need for a ridiculous amount of minor magic items, I just couldn't do without any magic items.

Iron Heroes has magic items... otherwise why would they include the Use Magic Device skill?

In Iron Heroes, magic itms are complex, strange things custom built to meet a specific need or to contain rare, wonderous magical energy. Learning to use a new item is like mastering a completely new talent.

Mastering Iron Heroes, the GM's suppliment for the game goes to expand the rules for magic items in IH... In general they tend to be powerful, but very dangerous and/or addictive to use.