Why Prestige Classes?

[Corinth]

If it's not on the sheet, then it doesn't mean jack. Prestige classes fix that problem.

 

[Snoweel]

Any rule that requires role-playing to implement properly has absolutely no place in the player's hands. It should be explicitly DM material that may be optionally used (at DM's discretion) by players.

W3rd.

I've got NPC-only classes and PrCs that are balanced by RP requirements in my campaign, and there's no way I'd allow players to use them.

 

[Bigwilly]

Taking a PrC should be justified in-game

For the longest time I only had one PC with a PrC in my homebrew campaign - a dwarf fighter/cleric who wanted to become a Mighty Contender of Kord (I think from Dragon magazine?). He was able to meet all the requirements except for the knowledge (religion), which needed to be 9. However I let him take the class if he was willing to spend at least one of his 2 skill points per level on this skill and used this for a bit of between session roleplaying. While this class has some pretty significant abilities, it is at least balanced by having only a 1 per 2 spellcasting improvement. He has really made an effort to roleplay his character and this has added a lot to the campaign. Good use of a PrC.

Another PC has just started down the anointed knight path. Again this was through roleplaying and the fact that the PC found part of Holy avenger sword that could be used as the key requirement. Again, this choice came from 2 years of roleplaying in my campaign, so I was happy to go for it.

Two other PCs have been generated using PrCs to replace dead characters. One is a wizard/elemental fire savant whose backstory is that he is the 'son' of an efreet and he took a whole raft of feats to match his backstory in addition to the PrC. Good PC background that has already led to adventures in the City of Brass - good use of a PrC.

The other one is a Champion of Gwyneth (yeah I know that's not her name) from the BoED. This one is a bit of a compromise on my part, as he seems more manufactured to have certain abilities than to fit a background or character concept. However, if he doesn't work out I'll just kill him off.

In the end it's about having fun and as long as the PCs and DM are happy with the PrC, then go ahead and use them. Admittedly though, with all the PrCs that are out there, it is too easy to go overboard.

Bigwilly, NSEDM

 

[PJ-Mason]

Now I've heard of appeals to authority, but this seems to be an appeal to lack of it then...

I'm not a deconstructionist, i swear!

If you feel that way, feats give you leeway. If you are thinking something more exotic, that is the time to make your own variations (which is exactly what the DMG encourages you to do for your own world) or seek some out. But for it's job, it's a decent PrC (except I think the 3.5 tweak to their magic totally doesn't make sense, BID.) It has most of the competancies an assassin would need to have and likely develop.

As would Rogue. Make Death Attack a special ability for rogue and the prestige class becomes useless. Well, except for spellcasting, which know that all assassins have.

False. If you can realize the concept with base classes and feats, you should not be using a prestige class for it. That's overkill. But feats are limited in the scope of what they can realize, and prestige classes have a bit of an inherent concept entrained in them that most feats don't.

We just plain disagree on this one, my friend. I haven't seen a prestige class yet that couldn't be done/simulated by a feat/feat chain, multiclassing, and/or templates.

 

[PJ-Mason]

I have seen plenty of prestige classes that would be just as good - even much, much better - as a chain of feats. The exotic weapon master from Complete Warrior is a perfect example - there's honestly no reason for this to be a class, because it's all about pseudo-feat abilities. Ideally, the vast majority of a prestige class's abilities should be things that wouldn't be appropriate as feats - spellcasting, supernatural and extraordinary abilities, et cetera.

Hell, I've seen base classes that ought to be feat trees - Complete Warrior samurai, anyone? Tell me that shouldn't be a fighter with two-weapon fighting feats and a few intimidation-based feats.

Well said

I absolutely agree with those who say that they don't feel that all people who are called assassins should be members of the assassin prestige class - even within the confines of a gameworld Order of Assassins.

However, I think this is a strong argument against the concrete binding of prestige classes to gameworld organisations - instead, I encourage people to use them only when feats and/or careful multiclassing won't do the job. For example, I don't think the assassin's death attack ability should be turned into a feat - so for those characters whose modus operandi as an assassin involves a little magically-assisted stealth and infiltration and a devastating single attack that leaves their victim dead, the assassin prestige class is worthwhile. For entirely magical assassins - spellcasters using their magic to cover their tracks, for example - or others who don't use the "stealthy murder" approach, the class isn't necessary.

I go farther and say that assassins don't offer stealthy murder any more so than a rogue, other than their death attack, which could (and should be IMHO, as is in my campaigns, natch) be a Rogue Special Ability, if not feat. If they wanted spellcasting, 3 or 5 levels of wizard would get the job done.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is this: don't believe every prestige class ought to be one, nor that everyone in the role the prestige class is intended for ought to be a member. Prestige classes are a tool for the DM to use in designing his world and for players to use in realising a character concept - but common sense has to be brought to bear on both sides.

I think its a DM's tool that isn't needed and only really exists to make publishers relatively easy money. Feats, templates, and er, treatise on multi-classing, don't sell as well, but i think they are much more effective.

My nickname is Irish Gaelic, but it means "son of the Goddess".

Thats pretty cool.

 

[Belen]

If you have players who don't care about the flavour of your campaign, the mechanical balance of their characters, the logic of their character's history as a person living and adventuring in the world, and who abuse prestige classes to fit their personal power-concept of an "awesome char!!!!one" . . .

. . . the problem you have is nothing whatsoever to do with prestige classes.

As I have said here and elsewhere ad nauseam, prestige classes are nothing more than a tool. They are a game-rules construct that can be employed in a number of different ways.

* You can use them to represent the teachings of a particular game-world organisation, like an Order of Assassins headquartered in a remote mountaintop complex. All characters who enter the assassin prestige class would have to be accepted into the order, which may or may not have requirements other than those necessary to actually learn the skills of an assassin - such as the "must kill someone for no reason other than to join the assassins" requirement, or more.

* You can use them to represent particular traditions taught by individuals or loose groups that don't qualify as an organisation. Maybe all contemplatives are trained one at a time in a close relationship with a master, in an unbroken lineage of practitioners stretching back to the first holy figure ever to discover the techniques - or receive them in a vision.

* You can use them to represent skills that a character can learn on her own from lore and secrets she may have uncovered herself. Perhaps a wizard finds a volume of forgotten magics in a long-abandoned tower and discovers the insanity of the Far Realms through independent study, eventually taking on the alienist prestige class as her researches grip her more and more obsessively.

* You can also use prestige classes to mechanically model things which don't even remotely require anyone in the gameworld to recognise that the character is no longer progressing in the same class as before (even to the tiny extent that characters in the gameworld recognise such things in the first place). Prestige classes used to patch inadequacies in multiclassing - like the eldritch knight - are an example of this function, but so too are classes which represent a concentration upon one part of something the character already does, such as the frenzied berserker, who's done nothing more complex than learn how to lose herself even more completely in the depths of her rage.

I don't have a lot of respect for people who allow the idiocy of others to prejudice their opinions towards something barely related to said idiocy. Bad players are bad players, bad design is bad design, but that's it.

This is bull. Since most of my group has been around since the 2e days, I can accurately say that 3e and PrCs have completely changed them. Mechanics seem to be their only concern now, which was not the case before rules and mechanics became the big dog on the street.

If you're group is different, then I am happy for you; however, ignoring that problems exist or relegating those people to "bad gamer/ no respect" land is elitist assumption.

 

[Belen]

It isn't redundant. Feats do not work perfectly to specialize characters Some special abilities can be expressed well as feats, things like BAB, Saves, and spell use don't work well in such a form, IMHO.

In addition, giving a character enough feats so that they could fill out their specialization leads to problems similar to those found in systems that deconstruct classes so that you can simply buy class features with XP - loss of control for the DM, excessive complexity for the players trying to build, and an even larger vulnerability to min/max tweaking.

In general, your statements that the mechanic is faulty come down to your dislike of the execution of particular classes. You don't like assassins. You feel the PrCs in print are of poor quality. But those don't speak to the quality of the mechanic, in general. In addition, it seems highly likely that your feelings vis a vis quality could be highly flavored by your player's behavior. If they weren't trying to use PrCs as they were, you might find the much less objectionable.

All in all - there's a difference between "I don't like to use them" and "it is not a good mechanic". Your arguments lean hard to the former, rather than the latter. I, personally, don't like psionics much. But that doesn't mean that they stink as a mechanic.

Ah....no. Feats are a wonderful resource that can handle ALL of the specializing abilities found in PrCs. Yes, each class should receive more feats, especially as they reach the higher levels.

PrCs are a faulty mechanic because they handle BaB, saves, and spell use. If you are a rogue and want to specilize in a roguish area, then there is no reason to receive a fighter BaB or gain an extra +2 to your save etc.

A PrC should be no more than a set of abilities that would replace the more general class abilities and it should be a sacrifice. You should miss those other class abilities, even though you have cool abilties to replace them.

Otherwise, you have munchy mechanics freaks which turns the game into a set of numbers rather than a roleplaying game.

Honestly, I NEVER heard people tell me to switch to gurps etc in the older editions of DnD because it had a good balance of roleplay and combat.

These days, when I lament the lack of roleplaying, I am told to switch to a different game because DnD does not DO roleplaying.

That's nuts.

 

[kigmatzomat]

First off, this isn't a dig at PrC's or those who play them. Its just a asking a question that often comes to mind when I read D&D forums.What happened to characters with 20 levels of core classes? Why is it that the majority of players always seem to go for them?

Hmmm. IMC the paladin and monk are pure-classed, not surprisingly. The gnome cleric 15/sorceror 1 is core classed.

The wizard cohort is a PrC but it's a pre-req of my game world right now so it's plot driven. I could have done it as a separate class but didn't want to bother.

Which leaves four players with PrCs. There's a Dragon Disciple; rich in flavor, low on unbalancing specials; which I thoroughly approve of. The Dervish is using my PrC which has some abilities I don't want out there as feats.

The archers could pick up fighter but the system discourages that through XP penalties which IMO is the main reason you probably see so many PrCs. People want a ranger with more archer abilities but now can't pick up fighter without slipping behind.

Remove the multiclass XP hit and you'll filter out the majority of non-twink PrC requests.

 

[reanjr]

First, the clerics in your campaigns must be real jerks. I'd expect an ally/friend to heal me in an instant if he had the capacity, for no other reason than he liked me and we were working together towards a common goal. Friendship and simple recognition that an ally is more useful healthy than wounded are both examples of reasons for healing that are character appropriate.

But the spell is granted by a divine entity. Unless that divine entity has a vested interest in keeping the cleric's companions alive (perhaps they are on a quest that applies to the deity's portfolio), the cleric is wasting his patron's power on something the patron wouldn't really agree with.

Injury and dying are a part of life. Most gods would probably find healing to be adverse to the natural order of things and only provide it when a greater good can be performed (greater good realted to THEIR portfolio).

You are confusing the cleric's goals with the god's goals. The cleric shouldn't be using his spells to promote his own goals, but his patron's.

 

[reanjr]

Second. Yes, prestige classes are entirely mechanical. So are all the other rules in the book. Feats are a group of mechanics to hand pick wacky abilities from. Skills are a group of mechanics to hand pick wacky abilities from. Spells are a group of mechanics to hand pick wacky abilities from. Magic items adn magic item special abilities are a group of mechanics to hand pick wacky abilities from. The Core Classes are a group of mechanics to hand pick wacky abilities from.

They're ALL just mechanics.

Yes, but the core mechanics give us a basis with which to play the game. Any additional mechanics on top of that should have a reason for being there. Prestige classes (except maybe 1 in 20) do not have a reason to be there. They are useless as role playing tools.