The Worst Prestige Class Awards

[Plane Sailing]

Re: Why do i try?

And to those that who would claim that most(if not all) prc concepts could be accomplished with feat chains, i will say you obviously have a vague understanding at best as to the underlying game theory of D&D.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think there has been a bit of a misunderstanding. The issue is not whether "all prestige classes could be accomplished with feats" - clearly false - the issue is "it would be better to provide recipies for creating many character archetypes". In other words, to become a weaponmaster, perhaps one should go weapon focus, weapon spec, improved crit, <few other new related feats>. While to become a cavalier, then Ride skill, handle animal skill, Mounted Combat, Spirited Charge, Ride By Attack, Trample would be in order. An entire list of recipies for different kinds of rogue, wizard, cleric etc. etc could be created in order to help people develop characters in certain directions. Some guidance in class tweaking (a la PHB and DMG examples) would also have been in order, and could be included in these recipes.

Sure, Prestige classes have a (very useful) place - but too many prestige classes are created when in actual fact it would be better defined as a particular path.

Back before S&F was released, it was anticipated that this might form the backbone of the class books. C'est la vie

Cheers

 

[jasamcarl]

No, you missed it....

Yes, it is easy to tailer pcs to a particular niche using 'recipes', but assuming a pc REALLY wants to excel at such a role, i.e. take it to the extreme, only the prc with it's bundled abilities can do so without risking balance.....

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Why do i try?

Sure, Prestige classes have a (very useful) place - but too many prestige classes are created when in actual fact it would be better defined as a particular path.

I totally agree. I think Prestige Classes became the "new kits" soon after the concept was revealed. Soon, it seemed there was a Prestige Class that did what could just as well be accomplished using feats and skills for every character concept. Prestige Classes are fun, don't get me wrong, but sometimes they're more work than is necessary. It could be people are still used to the 1e/2e era, when PC classes were comparatively bland and often needed kits to help differentiate one member of a class from another.

 

[jollyninja]

i can't believe that nobody has given the award for worst nonsensical prerequisites:

weaponmaster, does not need weapon specialisation, does need a bunch of multipurpose feats relating little with the concept of a weaponmaster, which lead to a bunch of abilities derived from the feats that made no sense before. how does limiting the abilities to a single weapon balance things out? typically, characters only carry a couple weapons around anyway with one being their trademark weapon.

tempest: requires alot of the same feats as weapon master, but has no abilities that could be derived from these feats. i consider it the ultimate feat chain PrC, the fact that it gets more class abilities (which should just have been feats) then a fighter does really irritates me. i thought the fighter was supposed to be the ultimate combat machine in the area he has chosen to specialise in. apparently i was wrong.

warmaster: needs weapon specialisation, why? prowess with a specific weapon has nothing to do with the class. or any of the derivative abilities

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Masters of the Wild's FORSAKER. makes no sense. Shun magic, get magic powers, break magic items to get more magic powers, but you can't cary magic items with you, so you really will get no benefit from those powers. Oh, and by the way, we wont even begin to explain why all this works, it was just a neat package of trade offs.

All my opinion, of course.

 

[Archer]

I didn't think tempest was so weird. The only extra required feats are the spring attack chain. Tempest is essentially exactly like 10 levels of fighter but it gets 2 feats unique to their class instead of 2 feats of choice that a fighter would have. The off-hand parry is just window dressing.

Forsaker makes sense but just has a few small implementation problems. The forsaker's powers aren't magic. By not relying on magic as a crutch, he awakens his full natural potential. He needs the powers for game balance anyway. What he needs but doesn't have is Detect Magic (ex) at 1st level and the destroying of magic items should be banked with a declining balance.

Weaponmaster: weird, I vote for it, the requirements run counter to the flavor text and class concept.

Warmaster: runnerup for stupid requirements, I guess that was their plan to make it fighter only.

Exotic Weapon Master: has rage just to limit it to barbarians so people wouldn't complain so freaking much about them not getting anything.

I'm amazed how some designers don't even think of problems that thousands of other people notice immediately. Sometimes a published class is just as messed up as the house rule PrC's people write for free. I remember the 25 versions of the bladesinger after TB came out and before the errated version. I think Monte Cook was so right about many designers not even playing the game and so have no concept of rules questions that occur to anyone who plays monthly. Sometimes classes are based around something totally useless like the ghostwalker or the zombie master, at least forsaker and tempest have clearly defined paths.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

*ConcreteBuddha flips through the various supplements he has purchased.*

I racked my brain, trying to figure out the worst PrC. I flipped through all the class books and random other sources and I came to this conclusion:

I hate PrCs.

As a DM, PrCs are a pain. This is what happens to me:

Player #1: "I want to play a Fighter who grows up to be a Chibby Chub from the S&F!"

Me: "Okay, but you are level 1. You have never seen a Chibby Chub. You have no idea what the requirements are to be a Chibby Chub. You do not have a clue how to become a Chibby Chub."

Then I think to myself, "Dang, now I have to make up an organization, culture or guild that churns out Chibby Chubs. And at just the right moment, at around level 6 or 7, a high powered Chibby Chub has to find the PC and train him in the HIGH ART OF CHIBBY CHUBBING!"

"High leveled NPCs are pretty rare. Exactly how many Chibby Chubs are there in the world? And wouldn't this PrC be better represented by feats? I mean why can't a Fighter take Improved Weapon Specialization (Whip) instead of being a Lasher?"

In gameplay, I always take the "allowing PCs access to prestige classes is purely optional" route." (pg. 27 DMG.) I feel like this is a copout, however, and I wish PrCs were a variant and had a huge title that said: VARIANT: PRESTIGE CLASSES .
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As a player, PrCs are a pain. The DM generally has a specific storyline in mind and will not bow to the whim of "I want to be a Chibby Chub! Let me go find a someone to teach me chibby chubbing while all of you go on the adventure."

Also I find that PrCs go one of three routes:

1) Too specialized. "Now I can kick *** whenever I'm in this specific swamp! Woo Hoo!"

2) Too powerful. "Yay! Now I am better than Joe Blow Fighter who just gets crappy feats! Ha! Ha!"

3) Too weak. "Neat! I just gave up 8 caster levels to be a Squirrel Disciple!"
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In general, I find that PrCs are better represented by feats or hard-won special abilities. I would prefer to cater high-level, special, specific feats, spells or "knacks" to a character than a whole new class.

I think DnD should have feats with higher requirements that require more time and effort. I am annoyed that every feat in the Core Books can be taken at level 12 or less (Forge Ring and Craft Staff are the highest). This lack of powerful feats at higher levels tells me that the game is designed with levels 1 though 12 in mind.

*Concrete Buddha crosses his fingers and hopes that the Epic Level Handbook is good.*

 

[RogueJK]

I racked my brain, trying to figure out the worst PrC. I flipped through all the class books and random other sources and I came to this conclusion:
I hate PrCs.
::snip::

I think that I am starting to agree with you...

IMHO, in general, kits are better than PrCs. (Not all kits, though.) I like the kit concept, but not how most of the kits were handled, mostly with regards to balance. I don't like the prestige class system very much at all, though.

If a character wants to become a Chibby Chub ( ), then they can get most of the character concept fleshed out through skills and feats. For those abilities that you can't get from feats, a kit is applied at character creation which adds certain special abilities at various levels.

This way, a character can be a Chibby Chub from level 1, instead of being a normal Fighter/Rogue/Whatever until 6th level or so when they become a "real" Chibby Chub. It saves some work for the DM, too, and it works better for the characters. It's also better for lower-level games, in which nobody has access to Prestige Classes yet.

Perhaps Prestige Classes could be left in as representations of various organizations. This way, if you join the Ravagers, Red Wizards, Harpers, or whatever during the course of the game, then you can be a Chibby Chub who happens to be a Red Wizard, too.

But maybe I'm just old-school...

/me leaves to think some more.

 

[hong]

weaponmaster, does not need weapon specialisation, does need a bunch of multipurpose feats relating little with the concept of a weaponmaster, which lead to a bunch of abilities derived from the feats that made no sense before. how does limiting the abilities to a single weapon balance things out? typically, characters only carry a couple weapons around anyway with one being their trademark weapon.

The weapon master is the 1E/2E kensai, in thinly-disguised form. The whirlwind attack is straight out of samurai folklore, and the lack of Weapon Spec as a prereq is because it didn't exist in previous editions.

Using a katana-specialist PrC as the basis for a generic weapon master is idiotic, yes, but that's where the class comes from.

 

[hong]

Player #1: "I want to play a Fighter who grows up to be a Chibby Chub from the S&F!"

Me: "Okay, but you are level 1. You have never seen a Chibby Chub. You have no idea what the requirements are to be a Chibby Chub. You do not have a clue how to become a Chibby Chub."

A better response at this point might be "Chibby Chubs don't exist. Pick a different class." If they ask why, tell them because Chibby Chubs don't fit the setting. If they ask why, tell them the precise reasons for which Chibby Chubs go against your vision for the campaign world. If they persist, tell them it's because you said so.

This does assume that you actually have a vision for your campaign world in the first place, and that Chibby Chubs don't fit it. I've always been of the opinion that it's the DM's job to come up with a world that he/she wants to DM. Just as you decide what nations, races and societies exist in the world, you also decide what prestige classes should be allowed. There's nothing in the book that says every class published by every company must exist somewhere in the world.

Allowing everything doesn't result in more flavour; it just results in mush. And mush is bland. But that isn't the fault of prestige classes per se. Even if they didn't exist, the problem would still be around.

In gameplay, I always take the "allowing PCs access to prestige classes is purely optional" route." (pg. 27 DMG.) I feel like this is a copout, however, and I wish PrCs were a variant and had a huge title that said: VARIANT: PRESTIGE CLASSES .

How on earth is this a copout?