The Gaming Den

I really really wish PrC's were designed so that the capstone and final level gave you a reward that really had some "oomph" and some wow-factor behind it. The vast majority of optimization experts out there know that the best builds are often those that cherry-pick the PrC's with frontloaded goodies while finding optimal exit points in those PrC's - only to move on to the next in their ultimate 20 level build.

Is it unreasonable to make the final level in a PrC one that is just chock-full of benefits, perhaps moreso than the current WotC formula?

You know, kick-ass benefits that will really entice people to actually play through an entire PrC's level progression.

As it stands, I'm leafing through every WotC D&D book imagineable this morning, and not finding hardly any PrC's worth committing to in the long run.

Perhaps we can call this tail-end lump of goodies ... the "Capstone Reward".

Even if you make the ass end of a PrC really super-duper awesome good, if the intervening levels suck more than a cheap whore nobody's gonna suffer through it to get there.

Just having a good capstone ability isn't enough; the class has to be worthwhile at every level, or else somebody is going to bail out and find something better.

I disagree. I think that we should drop the last levels of every class. The first level of a class comes with everything you need to be considered a member of that class. It gives the signature abilities, it gives the oomph. At first level in Fighter you get all of your weapon and armor proficiencies. At first level in Monk you get all your stupid equipment substitution abilities. And prestige classes are the same way.

The first level of any prestige class you'd ever take had better give you the basic foundation of abilities that would make you recognizable as a member of that class. If the first level of Rhinocerous Warrior didn't let you have a recognizable Rhinocerous Fighting Style, would anybody ever take it? Of course not! So when you design a Rhinocerous Warrior class, you give out all the essential abilities at level one.

So once you've given away the store at first level, what's left?

Some things actually have something left - like Necromancy. That's a big field, and there's lots to do. You could speak with spirits and be considered a "Necromancer", but then you could have an army of skeletons (or not) and still be doing "Necromancy". So you have multiple optional abilities that can go in to later levels. But Bear Warrior only does one thing: you turn into a bear. There's nothing left to put in on later levels.

So yeah, if you can't come up with anything for level 10, don't write ten levels. Many, perhaps even most, prestige class concepts are incapable of supporting more than one level without filler. Don't write filler. Don't write powerful filler to try to encourage people to take filler levels. Write the levels that actually provide abilities that help define a character.

A 12th level character shouldn't have even a single level that is no a character milestone that is itself in some way important to what they can do. Not a single level should be taken up with "same as before but slightly bigger" - because that kind of shit isn't even noticable. If you find yourself with 20th level Barbarians and 20th level Goblins with the same dynamic as 1st level versions of the same and bigger numbers you would be better off just not having character advancement at all.

-Username17

You preach it Frank!

The Reg wrote:The vast majority of optimization experts out there know that the best builds are often those that cherry-pick the PrC's with frontloaded goodies while finding optimal exit points in those PrC's

That is the entire problem right there. Every level in every class should be worth just that - one level. Making a level of a class more powerful then the other levels will result in people leaving the class right after that level. All the proposed workarounds to this don't solve anything.

Prerequisites to make you "pay" for your level of awesomeness just encourage people to get around them or to take 5 classes with similar prerequisites to they end up paying once and gaining multiple times.

Backloading classes results in someone having less fun then the other players until he gets to the big "capstone" level.

Just design classes that have exactly as many levels as your mechanics can support, then make sure that each level is worth the same, or as close as you can manage. Then you will end up with people taking the entire class. You will still have some who leave the class early, some because they want some levels in another class, some because they want more rangerliness in their barbarian and some because they do not care for the mechanics of the last few levels. But that is fine. What matters is that PrC 10 is just as useful as PrC 8/2 or PrC 2/1/1/3/1/2.

If you want to have some feeling capstone "I have done it" feeling then place the impressive and the rulebreaking abilities in that last level. Say you have 2 abilities that you consider to be balanced, powerwise. One let's you walk through walls, the other gives you some extra damage. Placing the walk through walls in the last level may give the player the feeling of "my character is so fast he can walk through stone before the stone notices" and may make for a nice feeling of "well, I have done it, I am the master of speed".

Zherog at [unixtime wrote:1111514048[/unixtime]]Even if you make the ass end of a PrC really super-duper awesome good, if the intervening levels suck more than a cheap whore nobody's gonna suffer through it to get there.

Just having a good capstone ability isn't enough; the class has to be worthwhile at every level, or else somebody is going to bail out and find something better.

Zherog, I didn't say anywhere in my original post anything about not giving appropriate class abilities at each respective level in a PrC. In fact, that's a given -- if your PrC is rife with lots of dead levels and a few bountiful levels, no one will want to take.

My assertion is that the Capstone Reward should be more significant than the normal WotC formula is for 10th level PrC acquisition (or lower in some cases). And of course, that should go hand-in-hand with level-by-level dishing out of lesser goodies. Even if those lesser goodies are just minor things like 2 bonus skill ranks or a +2 to saves vs. poison gas (and similar). Of course, balance is important as well as power scaling.

As it is, the authors at WotC ought to just stop wasting their time fleshing out PrC's that offer a ton of great goodies at 3rd level, and 4th through 10th offer just mediocrity or average stuff. Capstones should compel people to stay the course. To reward them for commitment.

Guest wrote:As it is, the authors at WotC ought to just stop wasting their time fleshing out PrC's that offer a ton of great goodies at 3rd level, and 4th through 10th offer just mediocrity or average stuff.

Agreed.

Guest wrote:Capstones should compel people to stay the course. To reward them for commitment.

No. If the previous 3, 5 or 9 levels have been good levels on their own why would you need to reward anyone for taking perfectly fine levels?

Because you see it common fiction all the time.

If you work hard, relentlessly, and diligently to achieve certain objectives and goals while staying steadfast in your commitments ... good things happen to you in the end.

While your point is valid in certain Prc's, it's not in others. Such as the Knight of the Middle Circle PrC or Mage of the Arcane Order PrC. These are organizational PrC's and usually have a tie-in to hierarchy levels and titles anyway.

Organisation based PrC should not grant leadership positions anyways. It is absurd that there are no mages of the arcane order under level 6 and that a wizard 5, MotAO 10 can be a master but a wizard 11, MotAO 9 can not. Organisations based PrCs should just have a sidebar listing what is required to gain ranks in the organisation - and most of that should not be based on mechanics. Classes rewarding you with organisation bonuses are just silly.

If I outwit the grand master of the arcane order and bear him in a mage duel at level 10 then I want to become a master of the order. Similarly I do not want to slay a dragon before I can take levels in the dragonslayer class. However it is fine to have to kill a dragon to become a member of the guild of dragonslayers. And similarly it is fine to have to show that you can bind a demon to your will to become a member of an organisation - requiring x levels in a specific class just stinks though.

Making class all class levels equally viable will never stop people from bailing out on a class early based on the upcoming abilities. It doesn't really matter if the next level in the class gives you the ability to rip people's hearts out of their bodies with no save and show it to them before they die, if you don't want to rip people hearts, then noone can fault you for bailing.

Making a class viable at every point is important, but let's not kid ourselves here. The only thing that will make people consistantly complete PrCs is railed advancement, and that's pretty ass.

-Desdan

As much as a hate the WotC PrC designers' output, I'm not going to rant about that here. Instead I'd just like to point out that there are two opinions about PrCs so far in this thread which I disagree very very strongly with - and that disagreement suggests to me that there are some radically different opinions of just what Prestige Classes are meant to be in the first place.

The Reg wrote:If you work hard, relentlessly, and diligently to achieve certain objectives and goals while staying steadfast in your commitments ... good things happen to you in the end.

Of course it does... it's called being high level. Taking 10 levels of Necromancer one after another isn't somehow more work than taking 3 levels of Necromancer, 2 levels of Spiritseer, 1 level of Rag Man, 2 levels of Skullblinder, and 2 levels of Shadowmaster - it's exactly the same amount of effort. It's precisely ten levels worth of effort in either case.

If anything, the second one is more effort spent into getting precisely the abilities you want. You spent all that time figuring out that the first level of Rag Man let you do what you wanted to do better than the fourth level of Necromancer or the third level of Spiritseer would have. That's effort and perserverance right there.

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Did you read Master of the Five Magics? The book is pretty mediocre, but it underlines the point here very well:

There's some Thaumaturgy that you can learn. Once you've learned that, there's some more Thaumaturgy you could learn, or you could go learn some Enchantment instead. Whatever, it's up to you. Sometimes you'll be in a situation where having more Thaum instead of the Enchantment would be better. Sometimes you're in a situation in which having the Enchantment at all is a way better deal than having more Thaum.

But it's the same amount of learning either way.

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In the real world we can produce examples and counter examples in both directions. Some things take a very long time to grasp the basics of, but the upper eschelons basically fall into your lap. Some things are very easy to get a basic journeyman's facility with but take a lifetime to get appreciably better.

And I don't give a damn about the real world for these purposes! Levels aren't a measure of effort, they are a measure of power. Saying that taking levels in a specific order should get you more or less power is an insult to the basic idea of a level. If you embrace a level corresponding to different amounts of power you are embracing the idea that a level doesn't mean anything.

And I won't agree to that. If we have a system in which being "level 5" is supposed to mean something, the only thing it can mean is that you are roughly as versatile and powerful as other "level 5" characters.

-Username17

Murtak at [unixtime wrote:1111534746[/unixtime]]
It is absurd that there are no mages of the arcane order under level 6 and that a wizard 5, MotAO 10 can be a master but a wizard 11, MotAO 9 can not.

Not at all! If the mages of the arcane order are an elite society of only the most powerful spellcasters, then it makes a good deal of sense for a character below sixth level to be denied entry into their ranks. On the other hand, becoming the master of the arcane order might require not only spellcasting ability of a minimum level, but also the super-special power that you only get with the tenth level of the prestige class. So even if your spellcasting power is greater than the master's, you still have to bow down until you get the required the super-special power.

Outwitting the master of the arcane order and beating him in a duel doesn't necessarily mean you are entitled to his title either. In fact, there some very good reasons for an organization not to endorse this method of advancing in the heirarchy. That priest in "The Excorcist" who jogs and boxes could definitely take out John Paul II -- but there's no way that's going to make him pope.

Don't forget that the guy in Master of the Five Magics had one or two levels of Fighter as well.

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See, here is the funny thing: PrCs are designed for one reason and loved for another.

PrCs are designed to give people a certain flavor and certain abilities and you get to live in this perfect universe where the mechanics and the story mesh. Being an Assasin with a Death Attack and Poison Use is so much cooler than being a guy who murders guys for money with sneak attack, a poison budget, and an item for poison immunity for those 5% slip ups.

PrCs are loved because you get to break the level system. Sure, a PrC with a "2nd level arcane slot" requirement means that you should be at least a 3rd level Wizard or 4th level Sorcerer, but since its not explicit you can slide into it with a 2nd level slot off that CA feat Precocious Apprentice and a single level of Sorcerer or Wizard or even a damn Bard (most sucktastic sucker evar) and get stuff just a little too good for your character level.

I mean, if we were honest with ourselves we'd just play characters that looked like single class Sorcerers: almost infinitely customizable and always getting stuff for their level, and never getting too much stuff at one level that sheer flexiblility starts to become a sideways power creep(like how a Wizard can grow in power by learning more spells that are better in very specific situations and he doesn't need to level).

Hell, I'm not saying that Sorcerers are the pinnacle of balance . There are a lot of spells that make a neat "Killer Combo!!!" when used together(Fireball and Solid Fog). There are even a lot of flat unbalanced spells (Planar Binding, Polymorph).

The tactic of level-dipping is just like coming up with crazy spell combos or trying to just get the stuff you want. Ideally, you should take 10 levels of "K's PrC that gets him what he wants" and you'd be balanced and you'd have what you want, but the story guys will never be satisfied with PrCs that aren't 100% customizable and the powergamers don't want a system that can't be broken by the clever and persistant, and so we are stuck with our current system.

Why the fuck should I invest 10 levels in something once I go down the path?

Cecil sure as hell didn't finish his PrC of Dark Knight and I'm pretty sure that Slade was resurrected as a cyberzombie before he finished his PrC of Criminal Martial Artist.

Characters change, stories change, goals change, needs change. Advertising your game as being extremely flexible with character advancement and then calling them munchkin and wanting to punish these people just because the mere title sheet is too complicated means that you are being a stupid, hypocritical douche. A fermented prison wine douche with the principal ingredient of grape-flavored Juicy Juice.

Who the fuck are Cecil and Slade?

Game On,
fbmf

Cecil is from FF4 (2 US). He started as a Dark Knight, but later turned into a Paladin.

Slade is from Teen Titans (I guess?). From what I gather from Lago's post, he was a criminal martial artist human, before turning into a... cyberzombie. Or something.


And no, I have nothing meaningful to add here.

I'm sorry. I'm such a fanboy. OMG.

Cecil basically traded in all of his levels of dark-knight for levels of paladin in FFIV. And that was one of the most awesome parts of the game. They replaced all of those lost levels of dark knight with paladin abilities. Sort of like the blackguard PrC, which gives you consolation prizes for your levels. Poor execution in both the SNES and tabletop game, but a cool idea. As long as you keep in mind that Cecil wasn't rolling a new character but actually HAD to go down the Dark path to take the Light path.

Slade in the Teen Titans cartoon was a sort of evil Batman who owned you in the face. As of the episode Birthmark, he got whup-ass firepowers due to demonic possession. This takes his fighting style in a completely different direction.

Ideally, the "Slade PrC" involved going all fire-fvcker at some arbitrary level. Take 5 levels of Monk, then you start your Slade PrC, then a few levels into the PrC the adventure happens where you die and get ressurrected by Raven's father and now flames shoot out of your penis when you piss.

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Even if they just said only "must be character level X," the PrC system would work better. Not "X levels in some class" or "X ranks or feats or abilities," just something like "must be a fifth level character."

Right now its all about cheaterfaces trying to abuse the system. If some characters take 10 levels of one class to get a certain power level, and some other dudes get 7 levels of 5 classes and end up with the same power level, your game doesn't work.

Basically, the game can't have permanently fixed abilities attached to static classes. Its better to write down a few new abilities each level in some ascending power pyramid than 15 classes with 15 abilities while planning out 7 future prereqs and going on 8 bogus adventures that are no fun for anyone so that you can meet your PrC quest requirements and hope that it all that adds up to a good character.

Sorcerers are the only model that works. Each level you pick from a huge list and are forced and bound to pick stuff thats appropriate for your level, and you can gradually trade out some of your old stuff. Hell, you could trade out all your abilities every level and it'd be better than what we've got now.

K, I do not know what you're talking about.

That sounds like the wizard model, only I prefer the wizard model because you can add stuff to your ability list because of what you do in the game. I mean, you can still sort of do it with the sorceror model but I don't think the solution for characters like Batman to get poisoned batarangs is to kick Joker and Two-Face around a few times; if he's too low of a level he doesn't get it at all, if he's at a high enough level he can get it for free, if he's at such a high enough level that he would not give up his Batcave ability or his Summon Superman ability, he should just be able to plop down some bennies for it. Not go through six sessions for a seemingly minor item.

Sorcerors are extremely inflexible in their rate of ability acquisition, unlike wizards, therefore I do not support that model.

I'll simplify.

Wizards gain power without gaining levels. Thats bad. The greater total number of spells they have, the more powerful they become.

Trading out one set of abilities for another between adventures is fine. Trading out abilities from one encounter to another is bad. Wizards are bad.

Half the problem with PrCs is that fighter's have way too many PrCs and spellcasters have too few. Wizards should be broken up into necromancer, evoker, diviner, etc. With wizard you end up getting pretty much every PrC you could ever want and more with the extensible spell system.

Fighters on the other hand don't need so many. If your concept is "kick ass in melee" that only needs one class to detail it. Whether you do it by going nuts like a berserker, or you turn into a bear, that's all flavor. And things can be a heck of a lot more balanced just by focusing on what bonuses and abilities a character gets instead of how he does something.

Warriors need very few true classes.

Big damage meleer.
Archer.
Defensive expert.
Master of manuevers.
Accurate warrior.

All warrior types tend to be either one of these five or a mix of them.

About "capstones", if wizards continue to gain spells in spell levels as they do now, then you must have capstones for fighters to compete. WIzards already get capstones with each new level of awesome spells. That means other noncaster PrCs need them too.

K wrote:Ideally, the "Slade PrC" involved going all fire-fvcker at some arbitrary level. Take 5 levels of Monk, then you start your Slade PrC, then a few levels into the PrC the adventure happens where you die and get ressurrected by Raven's father and now flames shoot out of your penis when you piss.

That sort of treatment wouldn't begin to work for a PC. Imagine if your character advancement progression said "Level 6: Get betrayed by Terra and thrown into a volcano and subsequently get resurrected by Trigon" Um... no.

That's why we have different prestige classes. So that when your character gets remade as a demonic herald you don't have to keep learning how to make better and better ninja robots like you were doing before.

K wrote:Wizards gain power without gaining levels.

Yep.

K wrote:Thats bad.

I don't think that's true. I don't think that the fact that quests carry rewards that go over and above the fact that you gained levels is inherently bad. Indeed, when you gain the trust and friendship of the Hammilshire community you are inherently gaining a power that has no associated level cost. It's impractical, and even undesirable to attempt to charge actual character levels for everything that your character gains over the course of their adventuring carreer. So much of it is ephemeral that I shudder to think of even attempting to quantify it all.

What I will grant you is that people gettting extra power that is not associated with levelling at an uneven rate is bad. If you are going to have a system like Item Creation where you convert downtime into power, everyone should be able to do it (or something equivalent) with equal facility.

The problem is not that the Wizard can get power without XP attached. The problem isn't even that Fighters need to get power with no xp attached if they are to have any hope at all.

The problem is that Wizards and Fighters get xp-less power from different sources. Wizards get it just from putting subtitles on the screen that say that 2 weeks pass. Fighters get it only when the DM makes the "you found treasure" song happen. And that's a disparity that is crap.

If you are handing out power without xp in roughly equal amounts to the whole party, things can stay balanced. Now, I admit that "zero" is an equal amount, so the game could be balanced by just removing it all. But I think that's impractical in the extreme.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1111540683[/unixtime]]As much as a hate the WotC PrC designers' output, I'm not going to rant about that here. Instead I'd just like to point out that there are two opinions about PrCs so far in this thread which I disagree very very strongly with - and that disagreement suggests to me that there are some radically different opinions of just what Prestige Classes are meant to be in the first place.

Would you care to elaborate, Bunnyman?

Yes, elaborate, Josh.

Hate makes you strong.