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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 1648428" data-attributes="member: 14159">I think that part of the reason PrC's are so popular with players is that they let players know that their character really is what they want it to be.If Joe Gamer wants Tharack the Fighter to be a proud and noble knight later, he can earn the title in-game, and have nothing special happen, or he can write down on the "Class" line "Crown Knight of the Kingdom" or something, and have a mostly fighter-type class that trades off some bonus feats for a few abilities related to the duties Tharack has to perform for his kingdom, or for mounted combat, or whatever knightly duties he's expected to perform.By the same token, the player of a mage can take a PrC representing membership in an order he's tried to join or a school of magic he's been trying to learn, or a cleric can take a class representing a special priesthood of his deity (like the Specialty Priest classes in 2e which were often wildly different from clerics).Another reason is that sometimes they support archetypes not supported by core classes.  Loremaster is one.  In 2e games (I started in 2e), I normally played sage/knowledge oriented characters who spent every proficiency slot/character point on knowledge related proficiencies, took lots of divination spells, and generally made my PC's into walking libraries.  Unfortunately, while fun to play, it made this specialized sage pretty weak (when a 1st level Bard could know more with a lucky roll, and 2e multiclassing was a disaster).  Now, with the Loremaster PrC, a knowledge/sage oriented spellcaster is a archetype supported by the core rules, and combining a good skill list and points, bardic knowledge, and continued spellcasting you support this type of character and make it equally useful as a dedicated Wizard or Cleric.  By the same token, Duelists are another DMG PrC which is really just a way of supporting popular archetypes without adding new base classes.  I've also known of people who like to play Clerics who aren't heavily armored tanks, instead being wandering mystics or seers (the Mystic base class from Dragonlance is great for this, I wish it was Core), but PrC's like Contemplative or Mystic Wanderer help to support the idea of a divine spellcaster who isn't a fighter-lite with healing spells and anti-undead abilities.One problem 2e suffered toward the end was an endless proliferation of new (base) classes, and kits which were practically new classes.  The Faiths and Avatars trilogy of books had a new character class, 1st to 20th level for every faith in Faerun, and several new "generic classes".  PrC's help to keep this proliferation under control, by helping players start from the same foundation of base classes, with PrC's helping to reshape or refine these classes (or combinations of those classes).</blockquote>

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