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

[Shemeska]

Everything is fine except the Mystic Theurge. I'll never allow anyone to have a PrC that gives dual caster progression in two seperate classes, it's too open to abuse even if you don't get as many feats as a straight caster in one of those classes.

If you want to multiclass go back to 2e or expect me to start putting level limits on your character by race arbitrarily or something like that

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Arcane Archer is dull and, well, elf-centric. Even if I used elves I wouldn't allow it. It's not even mechanically cool. Pretty much a failure on every level.

 

[MadMaxim]

I'd say the arcane archer and the shadow dancer. The arcane archer's ability to make +5 arrows gets obsolete the minute he gets his hands on a +5 longbow as the enhancement bonus goes to damage as well. I think it's just poorly designed and I hope I never see one in any of my games. And the rest of their class abilities aren't very cool either.

I don't like the shadow dancer because it doesn't give anything other than a little shadow jumping, some hide-in-plain-sight and improved evasion. It's just not very interesting for anyone.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Order of the Bow Initiate.

Any PrC built around just improving specialization in one combat style strikes me as plain wrong and invokes the auto-ban.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Mystic Theurge is not allowed in any of my campaigns, never has been, and never will be.

 

[Greylock]

I am astounded that the Horizon Walker is so high on this list. Many find it a fairly weak PrC, but I've always thought it very flavorful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

the only PrC's which I would ever consider allowing from that list are Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, and Mystic Theurge. Those are to me the easiest sort of PrC to justify. They do something useful and they do it in a fairly generic manner that is easy to paint as needed and fit into a game world. A clr5/wiz5/mystic theurge10 seems to me to be about as powerful as a clr20 or wiz20, and a clr10/wiz10 is most certainly not. Similar reasoning applies to combinations like rog5/wiz5/arcane trickster10 and ftr4/wiz6/Elderitch Knight10, because access to higher level spells is simply so powerful.

Odly enough, this is the precise reason I look askance at these classes. They patch a hole that should be filled with something much more substantial. They make multiclassing viable when it should be viable without that PrC.

The fact of the matter is that the game as written now suffers from a BIG problem in that magic is exclusive to spellcasters. Whereas even the most closeted wizard learns to thump head better than a newbie fighter, the most worldly and experienced fighter can't puzzle out a basic Light spell. It's a magical world -- everyone should learn a little bit of magic, to one degree or another.

The stop-gap prestige classes always make me wince, because they're taking things that could be flavorful and unique, and instead replacing them with something designed to simply make a multiclass viable. The multiclass should be viable WITHOUT the PrC. The fact that it's not is a deep problem with the game today that isn't likely to be solved in anything more than a house rule fashion for a long time.

As for the PrC's, I'll agree with others that the DMG PrC's are all pretty good. In fact, I think that a lot of the PrC's that Wizards puts out are at least interesting, even if they're not particularly useful for anything because of the set-up of the game....

 

[Celebrim]

Odly enough, this is the precise reason I look askance at these classes. They patch a hole that should be filled with something much more substantial. They make multiclassing viable when it should be viable without that PrC.

Well, if I could think of a way to alter the arcane classes so that they wouldn't need a PrC in order to justify certain multiclassing combos in a non-abusable manner, I'd do it. But so far I've not seen a simple solution to the problem. Making spellcasting a group of skills might do it, but it would require a big alteration of the existing game and likely a magic system so different from what we are used to seeing that it wouldn't feel like D&D to many.

The fact of the matter is that the game as written now suffers from a BIG problem in that magic is exclusive to spellcasters.

I'm not sure that that is the exact defining quality of the 'big problem', but I know what you are talking about.

The stop-gap prestige classes always make me wince, because they're taking things that could be flavorful and unique, and instead replacing them with something designed to simply make a multiclass viable.

Yeah, but see I don't want things to be flavorful and unique. I want the player to set the flavor of his character, not necessarily the DMG or even the DM. All I want is viable multi-classing in every combination of classes. The thing is, if I can't think of a better way to do it, and some player decides to play a Wizard/fighter (as opposed to a Fighter/wizard, which I can do), then I'd have to allow a PrC before the concept would be truly viable - and I really don't like PrC's.

 

[Storm Raven]

Everything is fine except the Mystic Theurge. I'll never allow anyone to have a PrC that gives dual caster progression in two seperate classes, it's too open to abuse even if you don't get as many feats as a straight caster in one of those classes.

Anuse? You do realize that a Mystic Theurge is significantly less powerful than a single classed wizard or cleric, don't you?

 

[Elephant]

Order of the Bow Initiate.

Any PrC built around just improving specialization in one combat style strikes me as plain wrong and invokes the auto-ban.

Heh. I ban that horrible PrC based on the awful "flavor text" used to introduce it.