Which PrCl would you never want in your game? (part 1 - DMG)

[Storm Raven]

Un-huh. Lemme see what I need to "lose" mechanically to enter, oh I don't know, the assassin "prestige class". Um, I need Disguise 4 ranks, Hide 8 ranks, Move Silently 8 ranks.
[Sarcasm]
Oh man I feel the pain of my sacrifice .
[/Sarcasm]

You also lose the ability to take say, rogue levels, and the benefits that accrue from taking those levels instead of the assassin prestige class. Specifically, you lose 4 skill points per level, and the ability to take as many nifty high level rogue special abilities, and (for what it's worth) advancement of your trap sense.

It's called opportunity cost. Look it up.

 

[DungeonMaster]

You also lose the ability to take say, rogue levels, and the benefits that accrue from taking those levels instead of the assassin prestige class. Specifically, you lose 4 skill points per level, and the ability to take as many nifty high level rogue special abilities, and (for what it's worth) advancement of your trap sense.

Oh gosh oh dear oh my!
I only gain, a death attack, 4 levels of spells, poison use, save bonuses to poison, hide in plain sight. And I can take a level of rogue at any point? How will I cope?

It's called opportunity cost. Look it up.

No, that's trying to justify the blatantly wrong . If even for 1 second you think PrC are not blatant powerups then you've spent that second as a wasted second of your life.

I'm ok with people enjoying blatant powerups, it can be fun. I am nothing but irritated by how people would even try to claim them different . It's called intellectual dishonesty . Look it up.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

To add to your experience:

• 
  3. They're inflexible.
  4. They don't scale well.

Those are my two biggest pet peeves. They are combined in the typical PrC cop-out -- "do cool thing 1/day, DC=fixed number".

The first isn't a downside - prestige classes are supposed to be specialised. If you mean it in a more metagame sense, well . . . I encourage all DMs to modify prestige classes as they see fit, but I'm not sure that a good DM needs the encouragement.

As for scaling well, that's a balance issue. Like I said, Wizards have produced poor prestige classes.

 

[Storm Raven]

It does when the single class + cohort can't afford enough gear to adventure properly.

Your math simply doesn't add up, because you don't understand the rules of the game.

This makes no sense. The PC + cohort needs to have 2 sets of gear. Get it? 2. The number 2. It's twice as much as 1. You cannot get more out of less. Ok? If you want your cohort to survive he's going to need things like armor, weapons, cloaks of resistance, luckstones, and so forth. Unless you like raising him a lot. That or your own gear is much weaker.

Or you use your double ability to craft items to make up the difference. Oh wait, that requires you to understand the rules, which you don't.

I find area of effect spells tend to hit large numbers of the party.

Then your party is comprised of pretty dumb people. QED.

That's why AoE spells and effects are actually useful, that's their point. Get it? You use AoE spells because, beleive it or not, you can often manage to hit multiple things with them. Funny that?

Funny, smart players rarely give their opponents the opportunity to do it. So it's not much benefit. Plus, given the way magic items scale, a pair of cloaks of resistance +3 cost about the same as the same as a single cloak of resistance +4. Add in the double crafting capability, and the cost of two cloaks of resistance +4 is actually less for the single classed caster plus his cohort.

Saying people spread out after being smashed around a bit isn't wrong. Saying that you're never going to get caught by them is. You will. It happens. All the time. Part of the game.

Minor part, and one that does little to diminish the value of a cohort.

Look guy, I don't understand how you're having so many problems with the concept of twice the resource expenditure. You're not getting twice the cash for the same monsters as the lone MT if you're a PC+cohort.

Read the crafting rules sometime. You will find them illuminating.

I don't actually like the 3.5 rules - and I didn't bother to look it up.

In which case you have no business getting into a rules discussion concerning the rules. That's why your argument sound so stupid, you don't know what you are talking about.

Sounds like someone's having trouble coming up with actual arguments...

If you had an argument concerning the rules that made sense, there would be a response to it. You don't.

Depends on how far non-core you go and how high level. You can easily use precocious apprentice to make the level gap 1 and the arcane heirophant or other similarly broken and stackable half-half caster PrC.

Except we aren't talking about non-core right now. Plus, if you actually understood the MT class and the cohort rules, you'd realize how big the caster level gap is.

Take a single classed wizard. He's, say, 11th level, able to cast 6th level spells. He has a cleric cohort, who it turns out by the rules (see page 106 of the 3.5 DMG) can be no more than 9th level, and thus able to cast 5th level spells.

Now, take your MT. Let's say he went to MT as fast as he could, and is a 3rd level wizard, 3rd level cleric, and 5th level MT. Neat. He is an 8th level caster as a wizard, and an 8th level caster as a cleric, meaning he can cast 4th level spells in each. Not so nifty. He is a lower level caster than his single classed companions cohort.

"But", the MT schemes, "I'll take leadership too, and get a MT cohort and show my wizard friend who's boss." Not quite. His cohort can be at most 9th level, and thus could be, at most, a 3rd level wizard, 3rd level cleric, 3rd level MT. His caster level is a measly 6th level. He can cast 3rd level spells.

Putting the cohort three castable spells levels behind the single classed character. Two behind the single classed character's cohort. Not much use when it comes to dealing with CR 11 opponents.

You see. The math makes your "MT cohort strategy" pretty silly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Oh gosh oh dear oh my!
I only gain, a death attack, 4 levels of spells, poison use, save bonuses to poison, hide in plain sight. And I can take a level of rogue at any point? How will I cope?

You have, in a normal game, 20 levels or less to spend before the game resets. For every level you spend doing something, it costs you the ability to do something else. In exchange for high-level rogue superpowers, you gain spells that your wizard friend can already cast, save bonuses to poison that your fighter buddy doesn't need, a death attack that the cleric is better at doing through magic, and a hide in plain sight wich is piddly in comparison to invisibility.

Congrats. You now can do things that everybody else in the party could do worse than anybody else in the party could do it. This is power? This is horrendous might? This is out-of-control-might-mongering? ESPECIALLY compared to the "I'm an elf so I win!" kits?!

No, it's called trying to justify the blatantly wrong . If even for 1 second you think PrC are not blatant powerups then you've spent that is a wasted second of your life.

I'm ok with people enjoying blatant powerups, it can be fun. I am nothing but irritated by how people would even try to claim them different . It's called intellectual dishonesty . Look it up.

I have ten dollars. I can spend it on many different things: a night at the movies, some gas for my car, save it for rent, buy two old 2e pdfs, etc. No matter what I spend it on, I have more than I had before I had that ten dollars, but spending it on one thing makes me unable to spend it on something else.

3.5e gives you levels. You can spend it on many different things: PrC's, advancing your base class, multiclassing, bloodline levels, powerful races, etc. No matter what you spend it on, you have more than you had before you had that level, but spending it on one thing makes you unable to spend it on something else.

If you'd like to compare it to kits, in 2e, it was like trying to give you a new dollar and take four quarters, but effectively it just gave you a free dollar, because it never really took four quarters.

I'm not sure by what criteria you determine blatantly wrong or intellectually dishonest, but it seems that kits tried to give you something for nothing, while PrC's give you something for the price of a level, which is a rescource that most campaigns don't have in much abundance.

 

[Particle_Man]

If you don't like 3.5 rules, why are you talking about the Mystic Theurge at all? They don't even exist in the 3.0 rules.

I also find it suspicious when a prestige class *requires* certain items to be on par with other classes. If you need such specific items as orange ioun stones and rods of metamagic (quicken) to function on anything close to par (or in your terms, be overpowered), then I think that an easier solution would be to ban orange ioun stones and rods of metamagic quicken than to ban Mystic Theurges. If you think MT's are too powerful, that is. And note that you cannot make rods of metamagic before 12th level, so you are relying on your DM to be generous to let you buy one or find one. Not every DM has "Ye Olde Magic Item Supermarket".

As to prestige classes in general, I would say that some PrCl's are more prestigious than others. The assassin is relatively easy to get into (if your DM allows evil characters at all) and gets the death attack, but it is a one-trick pony feature that usually doesn't work (hard to set up, and fort saves are the easiest saves to make for monsters, and characters with low fort saves tend to have anti-assassin measures built into the class (rogue uncanny dodge, wizard/sorceror spells, etc.)). The Fochluhan Lyricist, on the other hand gets lots of goodies, but it requires 3 different base classes and lots of levels before you can get into it. So some of the "power ups" seem relative to how easy it is to enter the class.

As I recall, 2nd ed. kits allowed advantages without serious disadvantages. Elf kits were the worst abusers of this. Prestige Classes are agreed by almost everyone to be more balanced than 2nd edition kits. The few strange loopholes (hulking hurler being one) can be quickly eliminated by a slight wording change in one of the class's abilities. That is not endemic of a serious problem with prestige classes in general. Even Assassin has some limits. If I want a Rogue/Assassin, I am good to go. If I want a Swashbuckler/Assassin or Warlock/Assassin or Hexblade/Assassin, then I got problems because those classes don't have the right skill-set. So I already would have to plan ahead to multi-class into a class with the right skill-set, just to get into the assassin class. With 2nd ed. kits, you are good to go from 1st level.

Oh, another advantage of the Wizard/Soreror + Cleric Cohort: twice as many feats, for twice the amount of items that can be created, or other goodies.

Another problem: your Mystic Theurge takes longer to set up his combos. That slow down is going to, well, slow him down, relative to the rest of the party. By the time he is set up, the 20th level Wizard has already done his Time Stop and destroyed the BBEG, and then had tea with his cleric cohort.

Personally, I think that the problem with prestige classes is that people forget that they are there for the DM. The DM decides which one's would fit his world, for roleplay reasons. A few "multi-class utility" prestige classes are a bit dry, but that is because they are designed to plug a multi-classing hole, and the DM, if he allows them, is expected to add the flavour.

 

[Storm Raven]

Oh gosh oh dear oh my!
I only gain, a death attack, 4 levels of spells, poison use, save bonuses to poison, hide in plain sight. And I can take a level of rogue at any point? How will I cope?

You aren't understanding. Every level of assasin is a level of rogue you can't take. You get to be, for example, a 10th level rogue/10th level assassin. He gets to be a 20th level rogue.

You gain those things. He also gains 40 more skill points, three more special abilities, and trap sense +6 (yours caps out at +3).

Death attack is offset by a special ability. As is hide in plain sight. The single classed rogue has one more special ability. The save bonus to poison is offset by the rogure's increased trap sense. The 12 spells per day you can cast (at a maximum caster level of 10th) are offset by the rogue's 40 extra skill points.

No, that's trying to justify the blatantly wrong . If even for 1 second you think PrC are not blatant powerups then you've spent that second as a wasted second of your life.

Ah, the rantings of someone who doesn't understand what they are talking about. RtFM one of these days and actually pay attention. You might not sound so ignorant when you yelp.

I'm ok with people enjoying blatant powerups, it can be fun. I am nothing but irritated by how people would even try to claim them different . It's called intellectual dishonesty . Look it up.

I believe someone failed their Knowledge check to figure out what the term "opportunity cost" means.

 

[Storm Raven]

No, no he doesn't need to take "practiced spellcaster". He can just stack orange ioun stones. They're unnamed bonuses to caster level, they stack.

Yes, getting infinite amounts of 30,000 gp items is always easy. Just where do your characters keep their infinite bags of money>

It's an option, but keep in mind if you're both hit by AoE spells and your cohort is likely dead. Regardless the MT can do so many things the others can't it's not even funny. Greater glyphs of warding with arcane spells, contingencies with diving spells, stacking personal range buffs like blink and sanctuary, spectral hand and healing spells or inflict, etc...

A wizard with a cleric companion is probably less able to survive AoE than his cohort. And all of the "neat tricks" you talk about occur three levels later than just using the spells would for the single classed character. I'm not sure I really care if your 5th+ level character can use spectral hand to deliver cure or [/i]inflict[/i] spells (inflict spells? straight wizard touch attack spells are almost always much better anyway), or if your 14th level character can make a greater glyph or warding with an arcane spell, or pretty much any of the tricks you can do. By the time a MT gets to a caster level, the spells have lost much of their punch, as he is facing more powerful opponents.

That's only true in a certain level range and the MT can always take precocious apprentice to make the gap only 1 level.

No, it's pretty much true at all levels. An MT lags at least 1.5 caster levels behind a single classed character. A cohort must always be two levels lower than the character he is attached to. So the cohort lags even further, 3 spells levels or so.

The 6th level sorceror has how many 3rd level spells? 3 or 4 castable per day?
Beyond that he's the same as the MT, except he has less 2nd level magic and less variety in his spells.
Buy a wand of a 3rd level spell.

The bag of infinite money again. But this. Buy that. Make up for other character's class abilities by buying things. Money isn't ever infinite, spending it on a wand means you can't spend it on something else.

I don't think 9th/9th spellcasting ability is "taking a hit".
Or even at level 12 when you've got 6th level magic and the MT (assuming the least broken "build") has 5/5.

And your caster level is 9th, and the single classed caster is 12th. Try overcoming spell resistance (which is pretty common at that stage of a campaign) when you are losing three caster levels. Watch your spells get dispelled with ease by your opponents! Fun!

Using the MT, you can never get to 9th/9th level spell casting ability. Perhaps you would know this if you read the rules. Combined with other stuff, maybe, but we aren't talking about "other stuff" we are talking about the MT. "The MT class is broken when you add other non-core stuff" isn't an argument that's any better than "the fighter class is broken when you add other non-core stuff".

 

[DungeonMaster]

Congrats. You now can do things that everybody else in the party could do worse than anybody else in the party could do it. This is power? This is horrendous might? This is out-of-control-might-mongering?

Except you don't need the wizard or the cleric then? They can use their abilities and resources for other things? That's even assuming you have either in your party at the ready when you actually need the abilities . Which is of course complete and utter crap. A wizard in the jaws of a behir has better things to do than cast invisibility on you no matter how good it would make your next attack.
The "you've gained all these abilities but really they're useless" argument is um, lacking, tremendously.
If you have more abilities -> you have more abilities. And certainly more than a plain frigging rogue.

ESPECIALLY compared to the "I'm an elf so I win!" kits?!

Like? Just for fun. Post the write-up of an "I'm an elf so I win!" kit. Just for frigging laughs.

3.5e gives you levels. You can spend it on many different things: PrC's, advancing your base class, multiclassing, bloodline levels, powerful races, etc. No matter what you spend it on, you have more than you had before you had that level, but spending it on one thing makes you unable to spend it on something else.

Er.. no. The assumption you're making is all options are equal - and they aren't. That's the whole crux of the matter - the prestige class option is better than the other options, 95% of the time.
That's this whole "balance" concept?

The four quarters analogy fails utterly because Prestige class give more than they take - plain and simple. And you can take multiple ones, unlike kits. The price of flexibility is something you've utterly failed to take into account and flexibility is power - real power.

 

[Storm Raven]

Except you don't need the wizard or the cleric then?

Because in extremely limited circumstances you can do what they can do too?

They can use their abilities and resources for other things? That's even assuming you have either in your party at the ready when you actually need the abilities . Which is of course complete and utter crap. A wizard in the jaws of a behir has better things to do than cast invisibility on you no matter how good it would make your next attack.

And that would be just as true if you were a single classed rogue instead of a rogue/assassin.

The "you've gained all these abilities but really they're useless" argument is um, lacking, tremendously.
If you have more abilities -> you have more abilities. And certainly more than a plain frigging rogue.

I believe someone hasn't really compared his options. An assassin has about the same number of options as a single classed rogue. Different options to be sure, but anout the same array, and at about the same power level.

Er.. no. The assumption you're making is all options are equal - and they aren't. That's the whole crux of the matter - the prestige class option is better than the other options, 95% of the time.
That's this whole "balance" concept?

Except they aren't "better 95% of the time". In the case you are arguing right now the assassin's abilities compare relatively similarly to a single classed rogue with total class levels equal to an assassin of the same total class levels.

The four quarters analogy fails utterly because Prestige class give more than they take - plain and simple. And you can take multiple ones, unlike kits. The price of flexibility is something you've utterly failed to take into account and flexibility is power - real power.

Some prestige classes give more than they take. We aren't talking about those PrCs right now, We are talking about the DMG PrCs, which don't, when you actaully look at what you'd give up to get those nifty PrC powers.

And taking mutiple PrCs usually doesn't end up with any more overall power than just taking one, or none. You clearly haven't paid attention to the actual rules as written in the core books, or you'd have noticed this.