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The Prestige Fallacy
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<blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4578005" data-attributes="member: 35909"><p>The abundance of prestige classes is annoying at times, but I've never seen your fallacy in any of my games. Many of the most powerful/memorable characters I've seen had no prestige class at all, and many were either single classed or a (what I would consider perfectly ok and normal since it was available in 2E) dual class. My three most favorite characters ever were:</p><p>[sblock]1) A straight Rogue Changeling (and I didn't even use the racial sub levels, fool that I was <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> ). Partly nostalgic, but he was a lot of fun and was blatantly made for everything other than combat and still was very useful to the party. My first such attempt, before that I had played mostly melee classes.</p><p>2) A Goliath Barbarian / Rogue dual class, decked out with almost a dozen variants -- martial (feat) rogue; wilderness rogue; lion AND wolf totem (DM allowed it, they didn't step on each other's requirements); Vactic Gaze; racial sub. levels for both classes; I think Lunar Rogue sub. levels... If he had reached level 17, I had planned to enter Warblade as a Rogue 8 / Barbarian 8 both to add to his combat maneuvers repertoire and to prove that having a multiclass xp penalty isn't so bad. He was both fun (like, pouncing charging leap attacking improved tripping hitting and knocking the guy back 30 ft into a wall as he was used like a bowling ball to lay low his own allies on the way fun) and my most broken character, or at least tied with my #3.</p><p>3) Mandated by campaign (modeled on Final Fantasy 1) single classed Human "Black Mage" (Int-sorcerer with a few other minor changes). I chose to refrain from blasting and focus on battlefield control (again, new territory for me). Later, this role expanded to party tactician and buffer (originally i intended to only do debuffing). The DM and players even gave me the affectionate job position of "breaking the game" for the sheer number of encounters that <em>should</em> have been hard (including many boss fights) into no-contests. Fortunately, the DM was amused by this, and the other players liked I left the dirty work to them and included them in my plans, so on one got angry about it.</p><p></p><p>My fourth favorite character was a Dwarf Cleric / Fighter / Church Inquisitor, but I liked him more for his personality than his mechanics.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p>Yeah, it's anectdotal evidence. But I don't have any studies or statistics to look to, so...oh well.</p><p></p><p>I would definitely favor making prestige class abilities into feats and variant options for the base classes to take, and in general making high levels in the base classes more appealing. I don't feel any imminent need to ban prestige classes, though. I did limit players in my current game to no multiclassing and only one prestige class, but that was because it's a gestalt game and they shouldn't need more multiclassing than that to get the right "fit" for their characters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="StreamOfTheSky, post: 4578005, member: 35909"] The abundance of prestige classes is annoying at times, but I've never seen your fallacy in any of my games. Many of the most powerful/memorable characters I've seen had no prestige class at all, and many were either single classed or a (what I would consider perfectly ok and normal since it was available in 2E) dual class. My three most favorite characters ever were: [sblock]1) A straight Rogue Changeling (and I didn't even use the racial sub levels, fool that I was :) ). Partly nostalgic, but he was a lot of fun and was blatantly made for everything other than combat and still was very useful to the party. My first such attempt, before that I had played mostly melee classes. 2) A Goliath Barbarian / Rogue dual class, decked out with almost a dozen variants -- martial (feat) rogue; wilderness rogue; lion AND wolf totem (DM allowed it, they didn't step on each other's requirements); Vactic Gaze; racial sub. levels for both classes; I think Lunar Rogue sub. levels... If he had reached level 17, I had planned to enter Warblade as a Rogue 8 / Barbarian 8 both to add to his combat maneuvers repertoire and to prove that having a multiclass xp penalty isn't so bad. He was both fun (like, pouncing charging leap attacking improved tripping hitting and knocking the guy back 30 ft into a wall as he was used like a bowling ball to lay low his own allies on the way fun) and my most broken character, or at least tied with my #3. 3) Mandated by campaign (modeled on Final Fantasy 1) single classed Human "Black Mage" (Int-sorcerer with a few other minor changes). I chose to refrain from blasting and focus on battlefield control (again, new territory for me). Later, this role expanded to party tactician and buffer (originally i intended to only do debuffing). The DM and players even gave me the affectionate job position of "breaking the game" for the sheer number of encounters that [i]should[/i] have been hard (including many boss fights) into no-contests. Fortunately, the DM was amused by this, and the other players liked I left the dirty work to them and included them in my plans, so on one got angry about it. My fourth favorite character was a Dwarf Cleric / Fighter / Church Inquisitor, but I liked him more for his personality than his mechanics.[/sblock] Yeah, it's anectdotal evidence. But I don't have any studies or statistics to look to, so...oh well. I would definitely favor making prestige class abilities into feats and variant options for the base classes to take, and in general making high levels in the base classes more appealing. I don't feel any imminent need to ban prestige classes, though. I did limit players in my current game to no multiclassing and only one prestige class, but that was because it's a gestalt game and they shouldn't need more multiclassing than that to get the right "fit" for their characters. [/QUOTE]
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