ZEITGEIST What Are People's Experiences with the Zeitgeist Prestige Classes?

[Ondath]

A player mentioned they want to get a Prestige Class in the future in a Level Up campaign I want to start, and I was a bit surprised. I actually didn't know that A5E had Prestige Classes! Anyway, a quick delve into the Zeitgeist book and I see that there is an interesting selection of PrCs. So my question is to Narrators that ran games with these: How did it go? Did the players that took up a PrC feel satisfied? Did their features feel balanced compared to others who levelled normally? Are there any homebrew rules or fixes that you apply for specific PrCs, or to the general mechanic of PrCs?

 

[Distracted DM]

A5E has prestige classes? Wouldn't they be on a5e.tools? Do I just not know where to look?
Now you have me curious

 

[W'rkncacnter]

A5E has prestige classes? Wouldn't they be on a5e.tools? Do I just not know where to look?
Now you have me curious

yep. the linking doesn't look done yet, though, and monument of war at least doesn't seem to exist...

for context, these are (adjusted) ports of the prestige classes from gears of revolution, which in turn were converted from the pathfinder prestige classes, which in turn were converted from the 4e paragon paths, which were made for the adventure path.

zeitgeist is weird.

 

[RangerWickett]

And the Paragon Paths were in part influenced by the Themes, which were little add ones everyone got in 4e to give them a mechanical ability tied to the plot and setting elements.

Themes were originally developed by WotC for Dark Sun 4e.

I don't know anyone who has mentioned running a campaign with the adventures in ZEITGEIST era, which is set 20 years after the adventure path. Several groups have posted about running the campaign adventure path in 5e, but I don't know if anyone's actually using the newer book.

If anyone is, I would love to hear it.

 

[Anselm]

the linking doesn't look done yet, though, and monument of war at least doesn't seem to exist...

The polyhistor does so it's a mixed bag of what is there but not linked and what isn't there at all: Polyhistor | Level Up

 

[von_recklinghausen]

The polyhistor does so it's a mixed bag of what is there but not linked and what isn't there at all: Polyhistor | Level Up

Question about prestige classes in Zeitgeist: how do they affect feat progression? I see effort in the prestige classes to parallel advancement for other abilities (for example, a spellcaster who takes a level of applied astronomer continues their spell casting progression).

So if character is a 7th level wizard, then takes a level in applied astronomer, is the intent that they still get the feat they would normally have gotten as an 8th level wizard? Or is that delayed until they take their next level as wizard?

My read is that RAW, a level of prestige class doesnt provide the next ASI/feat. This makes perfect sense when multiclassing generally, but I could see an argument that prestige classes are intended to be an extension of the primary class, rather than a diversion, so the character should stay “on track” with class abilities.

Given the complex history of prestige classes (and that I have a player in my zeitgeist adventure path game asking exactly this question ;-) ), I thought I’d check here for clarity before making a ruling!

 

[RangerWickett]

This isn't an official answer, but yeah, I have no problem with the GM saying that you keep getting feats every 4 character levels.

 

[lichmaster]

This isn't an official answer, but yeah, I have no problem with the GM saying that you keep getting feats every 4 character levels.

If I were forced to only keep ASI or feats in my game, I'd take feats without hesitation

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh right, ASIs exist. I never use them myself, so I forgot.

 

[von_recklinghausen]

Agree on feats -- much more interesting & flavorful. In this instance, I was using the terms interchangeably just to focus on the question of whether prestige classes count as "class" levels for feat/ASI purposes. And fair enough @RangerWickett -- if you're comfortable with them fitting together that does help from the perspective of drafter's intent .