NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 178460" data-attributes="member: 1645">Thanks, SHARK.Absolutely.  For the most part, I don't see the need for Prestige Class mechanics, especially for what amount to Fighters with cool Feats.  Introduce the Special Abilities as new Feats, and let the Fighters have 'em!I think the designers are confused by the fact that they don't have a mechanic for each of the paths a Fighter might take: Knight, Archer, Pikeman, etc.Interesting.  The Feat Master reminds me of a few ideas I've been batting around.  In particular, I was thinking there should be a generic Adventurer class, a bit like the Rogue, something of a jack-of-all-trades, with the Skills and Bonus Feats appropriate for a typical adventurer, all the things an adventuring wizard might learn that a bookish wizard wouldn't, for instance.  Then we could peel off the BAB progression, the extra Hit Dice, the improved Saves, etc. from many "bookish" classes, and "adventurers" would be multiclassed Adventurers: Adventurer-Wizard, Adventurer-Priest, Adventurer-Expert, etc.Besides, most adventurers should have a few ranks of Wilderness Lore, Hide, Spot, and other random skills -- at least once they've actually been adventuring through a few jungles and crypts.Thanks.  Call of Cthulhu, which I got after implementing this idea, basically makes everyone an Expert, but they get to choose which is their Good Save (Fort, Ref, or Will) and which are their bad Saves.  (It also allows a trade-off of BAB for a second Good Save, but let's ignore that for now.)  What I didn't like about CoC's Investigators, and something that's always bothered me about D&D's Experts, is that they get no Bonus Feats (or Special Abilities).Rogues, on the other hand, look just like Experts with lots of Special Abilities, just no choice of Class Skills (or Special Abilities).My solution?  Mix the two!  Then make up lots of variants!  Start with a Rogue/Expert, choose the appropriate Good Save (Ref for a typical Rogue, Will for a typical Expert, maybe Fort for a laborer or smith), choose Class Skills, then pick an appropriate Bonus Feat list (with many Special Abilities as Feats).  This makes new "mundane" classes very, very easy to design.  A "bard" is a Rogue/Expert with the Bard's list of Skills and "juggler" Feats like Ambidexterity, Dodge, Mobility, etc.  A "ranger" is a Rogue/Expert with the Ranger's list of Skills and "scout" Feats like Alertness, Endurance, etc.  A "barbarian" is a Rogue/Expert with the Barbarian's list of Skills and Feats like Alertness, Toughness, etc.  (That barbarian isn't much like the D&D Barbarian though.)It also works well with Fighters.  Viking berserkers are Fighters with a Rage Feat.  Paladins are Fighters with Aura of Courage, etc.Lastly, this all works particularly well with spellcasting classes as Prestige Classes.  Not everyone likes a "low magic" campaign, but I like the notion of a 1st-level Druid only being able to cast spells because he's already a 5th-level Expert who knows the forest like the back of his hand.So far, so good, but my group's pretty casual.  I've been playing low-magic almost from the get-go, and that helps.  There's no expectation that "it's in the PHB, so I can do it!"</blockquote>

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