Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 1439503" data-attributes="member: 6398">Ah, but concept is everything...  After all, without concept, all that's left is numbers. That's true, but is it always the viable choice? And as my Knights of Silver Hill example showed, not everything has a Prestige Class. I would posit that this is more telling about player expectations than the GM's control over Prestige Classes.  For instance, you indicate that if the GM is "restricting" an unfortunate situation can imerge (your word is "argument", but I'll assume that was meant as descriptive).  However, reading over the explaination of Prestige Classes in the DMG, one could surmise that the GM that freely allows Prestige Classes is, in fact, being incredibly generous.  That generosity has now become an expectation.  And that expectation leads to the disgruntlement you describe above when a not-so-generous GM is at the helm. Is that a fair expectation to put on the second GM? Well, I wouldn't say they're identicle, since Option 2 permits a DM to freely advertise the presence of Prestige Classes without allowing them while Option 1 indicates that there are no Prestige Classes at all.  Option 2 also means that the players can expect something other than Core Classes in leveled opponents and NPCs. When the generosity of one GM becomes expected of another GM, then it's being abused. This, again, is pointing towards the idea of being "brought in" by an NPC.  Whether its an aged Duelist sharing the secrets of his rare (unique, perhaps?) fighting style or a band of Knights instructing a young hero, this avenues are made available for the NPCs to relay information to the PC.  When the PC levels up, he's informed what aspects of this mentorship would be influencing his gains (i.e., which Skills and Feats are recommended, but not forced, by their mentorship, with knowledge that these recommendations point the PC towards admission into the group or graduation by a single instructor). Sure, not everything can be relayed adequately in-game, but we try to go in that direction with as much as we can. Technically true.  But let's read on... But here's the issue: If IC and OOC is as seperate as you indicate, then what we end up with is a whole lot of characters that just happen to gain certain abilities that just happen to evolve into other abilities.  The in-game consequence is that these characters are just sprouting out powers and abilities without any rhyme or reason, which is the problem we have with this line of thinking: Rather than being a part of game play, they just spontaneously manifest.  And, oddly enough, do so in a most efficient manner. Yet isn't that what he's doing if he pre-determines what Prestige Classes he's going to take? The only way I can think of for the player to determine his "own role" by way of Prestige Class is for him to create his own Prestige Class that does exactly what he wants it to do (or, alternately, his own Base Class). Ah, now see, Classes and Prestige Classes do not just "appear" for no reason.  They are a collection of Skills and abilities that have become grouped together to represent an archtype.  Base Classes are for archtypes that are so common that young characters can fit them.  Prestige Classes are archtypes that are grown into.  Having a Prestige Class present for Pegasus riders would require that people riding Pegasi are (or atleast were) common enough to form an archtype. And here's the other half of the issue: Even if I laid out every Prestige Class I've designed for my players to pick and choose from, I'm not expanding their options, but limiting them.  Why, you ask?  Why, because the world is an ever growing, ever expanding place, becoming more detailed every time I open Word.  By saying "here are all of the Prestige Classes", the players are now making choices based on what is present now.  However, one player may pick something as being the closest fit to his character, only to find 6 months later that I designed something similar but more in-line with his wants.  Now, he's been following this map to PrC1, but now really wants PrC2 instead.  Unfortunately, he wasn't picking the right prerequisites. Will this not have the same effect as not having known about the Prestige Classes in the first place? I am, believe it or not, very giving with Prestige Classes.  However, my philosophy of applying them to PCs is based on player decisions.  Essentially, what the group understands is that they can take a concept as far as the rules allow, as presented.  Once that's done, if the concept can be taken further, and if this new direction can be justified as an archtype within the setting, then I will present the opportunity for them to do so. Which, of course, is why I'm less concerned about mechanical prereqs and more focused on in-game justification.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

Verification