Why do prestige classes have prerequisites?

[Kae'Yoss]

Thanks for writing that out. But it's building the NPC up to that level, evaluating skill points and prerequistes that drive me a bit batty in the first place.

This isn't too hard, really. After all, it tells you what you need in the prereq section. Most of the time, it's a metter of seconds to figure out what class he should be (especially if you should think about this, anyway), and then just take all the stuff in the prereq's and fill up with other things.

But I admit to being a little impatient with that sort of thing. With 2nd Edition AD&D I never had to "build up" any NPC or monster.

Well, you can always just ignore PrC's. They're optional, anyway. Don't want all that hassle about assassins and their prereq's? Just make a rogue and call him assassin.

And I say it's not that much harder to build a NPC with only NPC classes and base classes, then it was building NPC's in AD&D. And you can give them much more life.

I say, with rogues, it's actually easier: just pick 8+int(+1 for humans) skills and max them out. Before that, you had to assign all those percentages, and look at how much bonus percents you get for your dexterity and all that. The new thing is both easier (IMO) and much more powerful (not to speak of consistent with the rules in general). And you don't have to care about non-weapon proficiencies any more, cause they're skills now.

I just decided level and knew everything else by heart (or at least the pages numbers), and it was easier to wing it without ignoring the written rules.

Well, you don't really know any page numbers any more, and you don't have to know any tables by heart. Just a couple of facts. When you're just building an NPC, as supposed to a PC that will stay on the stage for quite some time and needs personality, you can just whip up something in a manner of minutes: choose race, class, assignt standard array of ability scores, assign skills (all maxed out), feats (often there's a lot of pretty standard things for the classes, like focus/specialization for fighters, the archer feats for archer characters, weapon finesse and combat expertise/improved feint for rogues, spell penetration, combat casting spell focus for arcanists and so on) class abilities (there's nothing to choose about), some standard equipment, and then maybe spells. Or you just use an NPC generator, reportedly there are a bunch of good ones out there.

PrC's aren't for mooks, anyway. They're for memorable characters, and these deserve a little more care than the quick build-up. They should have at least some personality, and therefore stand between standard NPC's and PC's.

 

[billd91]

Again, for me this just leads to the appropriateness of the adventure needed to gain access. May be it's just me but I don't like to use the word "never" to players when I can help it. Dwarves as a rule might never open up a prestige class to another race but hey this halfling has just saved the kingdom/united the waring clans/destroyed our ancient enemy, etc.

But I'm of the opinion that there are some things that, regardless of what the heroes have done, won't be shared. We have to keep our trade secrets secret don't we? Even if the kingdom had been saved, there are some things that just aren't appropriate to give out. That halfling can be rewarded in many other ways that keep dwarven secrets to the dwarves alone.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Again, for me this just leads to the appropriateness of the adventure needed to gain access. May be it's just me but I don't like to use the word "never" to players when I can help it. Dwarves as a rule might never open up a prestige class to another race but hey this halfling has just saved the kingdom/united the waring clans/destroyed our ancient enemy, etc.

Sometimes, they're just not fit for it. That halfling might be the great saviour, but if he's a weak, frail sorcerer without any stamina to speak of and an attention span shorter than himself, he isn't dwarven defender material.

 

[Reynard]

One thing that I haven't had a chance to implement but am considering is allowing PCs to take PrCs for which they don't qualify but are 'close'. I started considering this when I realzed that whenever a new book (like the Complete series or the Races series) came out, there would very likely be some cool PrC in there that the player thought worked for his character, but the PC hadn't prepared for.

So, what I am thinking is, if I allow it (how 'close' a character is to qualifying is heavily subjective) the character takes a -20% XP penalty until the character meets all the requirements. Also, if the PrC improves an ability or feat, and the PC doesn't possess it, then they don't get that PrC ability until they have the 'base' ability.

Like I said, I haven't tested it, so I am not sure if it would work out well. has anyone tried anything similar?

 

[Umbran]

And, finally, a lot of it is bad design. You aren't supposed to be eligible for a PrC until at least 6th level and rather than fleshing out the organization or profession some designers just tack on stuff.

Interesting, because one person's bad design is another's good deisgn. I think that, for most cases, fleshing out the organization would be poor design.

Not all PrCs are linked to an organization. So, fleshing out said organization is not applicable to all PrCs. In any case, the organization is merely the easiest way to define the class' role in the world. But the designer want sa published PrC to be portable to many worlds. The more fleshed-out the organization is, the less portable the class becomes.

One of the basic tenets that the D&D designers tried to stick to much of (but not all) the time was to avoid using role-playing to balance game-rule advantages. Paladins break this rule, of course, and PrCs do slightly when they require the character to join organizations. Flweshing out the organization would even more deeply entrench the balance in role-play, which is probably not wise for published stuff.

 

[MerakSpielman]

There are some IMC that are tied to organizations, but most of those are for NPCs. I have no problem with a PC multiclassing into a PrC without joining any sort of organization. PrCs, if designed properly, aren't any more powerful than their regular class. Perhaps the powers of the PrC better fit the PC concept.

 

[billd91]

One thing that I haven't had a chance to implement but am considering is allowing PCs to take PrCs for which they don't qualify but are 'close'. I started considering this when I realzed that whenever a new book (like the Complete series or the Races series) came out, there would very likely be some cool PrC in there that the player thought worked for his character, but the PC hadn't prepared for.

So, what I am thinking is, if I allow it (how 'close' a character is to qualifying is heavily subjective) the character takes a -20% XP penalty until the character meets all the requirements. Also, if the PrC improves an ability or feat, and the PC doesn't possess it, then they don't get that PrC ability until they have the 'base' ability.

Like I said, I haven't tested it, so I am not sure if it would work out well. has anyone tried anything similar?

I wouldn't worry about it. If the character is close, why not expect them to wait another level or two before taking it so they can qualify for the prerequisites as written? There's nothing saying that prestige classes have to be taken at the first opportunity.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

One of the basic tenets that the D&D designers tried to stick to much of (but not all) the time was to avoid using role-playing to balance game-rule advantages. Paladins break this rule, of course, and PrCs do slightly when they require the character to join organizations. Flweshing out the organization would even more deeply entrench the balance in role-play, which is probably not wise for published stuff.

I agree with your point about PrCs, but I do have to comment on the idea that "Paladins balance game-rule advantages with roleplaying restrictions" - they do?

Where are the paladins regularly capping people's "Most Powerful Class" lists?

Where are the paladins who are more powerful than wizards past 10th level, clerics past 8th level or druids at any level?

Paladins are probably more powerful than fighters, but not really moreso than rangers or barbarians, and at early levels (the only levels the paladin has a real chance to be #1, because the spellcasters haven't cemented their position there), the paladin is often weaker than the fighter.

 

[Umbran]

I agree with your point about PrCs, but I do have to comment on the idea that "Paladins balance game-rule advantages with roleplaying restrictions" - they do?

Where are the paladins regularly capping people's "Most Powerful Class" lists?

Don't confuse "Paladins balance game-rule advantages with role-play restrictions" with "Paladins are extremely powerful". You don't need to be top of the power ladder to have any particular thing as part fo your class balance.

 

[Li Shenron]

Why do prestige classes have prerequisites in terms of feats, skills, BAB, etc?

Given that characters will only ever meet organisations, with prestige classes associated with them, when the DM allows it and given that to join such an organisation [at least in our campaign] involves an adventure to prove the applicant worthy?

I can see why their are level restrictions due to the relative power of the prestige class and I can buy into the implicit bias that only certain classes can gain access to certain prestige classes [although the latter seems a bit forced] but the other restrictions don't seem to fit given the nature of campaign-specific prestige classes.

[With apologies to all if this topic has been "done to death" elsewhere ]

I think requirements are a very important part of a prestige class, and should be done with care when writing the prestige class. Requirements + 1st level features are the only things which EVERY member of that prestige class will have in common, after all, and as auch they idenitify ALL duelists, mages of the arcane order or radiant servants of pelor in the world.

What is not nice is that quite too often the requirements are used by designers more as a balance tool than to support the PrCl concept. It works like "hey look what cool powers I'm offering you, but you have to pay me 3 feats and 15 skill points first...". If the PrCl features are instead balanced with core classes in the first place, there is no need for an "entry price".

But the requirements are a good tool to help you develop the concept of the PrCl. For instance, to become an Order of the Bow Initiate, you have to be a good archer beforehand. That assures the fact that every OotBI in the world will be a good archer.

What I would like to see (but books have few of them) is PrCls with flexible requirements. Clearly, in some cases you HAVE TO have fixed requirements, such as a PrCl which focuses on empowering the Rage ability, you need Rage beforehand. But in most cases there is no true need for fixed requirements. I try to give an example...

Order of the Bow Initiate:

IIRC requires Weapon Focus (any bow), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, plus BAB +7 and other things.
The PrCl does not directly improve those IIRC, for those are merely bonuses and not new abilities (except Rapid Shot).
You have to force an argument to justify how the Order identifies those bonuses in the candidate: one could say they let the archer shoot 100 times, and notice it hits 5% more frequently with one type of bow (because of WF), but the truth is that it is almost metagaming. An archer with BAB +20 but without Weapon Focus would be a far better candidate in-character, but technically it doesn't qualify.

IMO it is perfectly fine to dynamically adjust PrCl requirements if a character has the chance to take the class. For example, it would make sense to require any 4 archer-oriented feats instead of those 4 exactly. The concept is maintained, the class works the same, but there is less to bother about.

Just to mention, the OotBI is not that bad, but other PrCl are outright off. Why should a deity accept a Blackguard only if the subject can Sunder and Cleave? That is, simply, ridiculous.

In some cases, why not also have (slightly) flexible features? If the OotBI normally grants a Greater Weapon Focus in a bow, which clearly assumes the PC had Weapon Focus, I have absolutely no problem in giving Weapon Focus at that point to a PC who I allowed to qualify with a different feat.

Obviously all this jazz requires some work from the DM, but as long as you have to bother only about a few PC in your game, I don't think it's a significant effort.