Prestige Classes... meh?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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kyrt-ryder wrote:
You see, to me, that's the GM's responsibility. He's the one who denies or approves characters. When one of my players comes to me with a character concept that's either too strong or too weak for the campaign, I work with them to bring it back into line.

I agree. What I'm talking about though is game design as a whole though. The game system should be designed to make the GMs job easy so he can focus on story telling and roleplaying his end of things.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Why do people insist that making the most of a mechanical system means I don't roleplay? Roleplay and Character Optimization are not mutually exclusive.

I think the key here is that many people do not see classes as just pieces of a mechanical system. Many people see classes as part of the "story" of the character. And, as it was said before, the multiple classes strain credulity because it makes it harder to imagine a character's story when it doesn't have a tighter focus.

For example:

Take any character who is Class A/Class B/Prestige Class C/Prestige Class D. One guy would say "I see, you're going for a concept that's kinda A, a little bit of B, some of C, and some of D". Another guy would say "Wow, that character has bounced around in jobs quite a bit. I can't understand the type of personality that would do that."

I'm not trying to say one way is better. I'm just trying to give you insight into WHY people believe the two to be mutually exclusive in this one respect.

Sovereign Court

Stephen Ede wrote:


As for the stock "Powergamer" cry. Show me how my PC was uber-powerful and I'll start listening.

Um I think you're confusing me with someone else, I've never once made the "stock powergamer" cry. and if you had come to my table with a custom built class I would have looked at and compared it to similar classes at that level and probably approved it. I merely pointed out what I saw as building from a mechanics perspective rather than a character perspective. I never once got into the powergamer arguement, I even said if that's your groups playstyle more power to you. I think you're mixing my points with arguements made by ChrisRevocateur, he's the one who made the cry of powergamer. I merely jumped in after you posted your build with several PrCs pointing out that it was built with a mechanics first character second perspective, and the closest I came to saying it was overpowered was saying that if it was thrown into one of my games I couldn't help but wonder if it would be more powerful than my players characters. I didn't even claim straight out that it was.

Sovereign Court

In the end, Dennis and I are remarkably close in design philosophy and gaming style.


Sweet, it did work... and now I have no idea what to edit in lol. It seems we've pretty much wrapped up the multiple prestige class debate, those who view them as roleplay items will continue to do so, those who see them as a mechanical framework will continue to craft their own stories that don't use the classes as 'jobs.'

Thanks for the discussion guys (and double thanks to the majority of you, those who remained civil and polite)


Class dipping shouldn't be a power issue, and frankly normally isn't (despite complaint to the contrary). Unless the classes have been so badly designed that most of there best stuff is up front then what dipping gets you is a lot a medium weight powers and class abilities, while the PC who stuck to them is getting a more narrow focus of stronger abilities.

For example the complaint about dipping into assassin for poison use. Whoope do! Poison use, wow that comes into play so damned much, NOT! I've been in parties that managed to acquire weak poisons as incidental treasure but otherwise poison is difficult to get hold of and expensive to boot. And it's a 1-2 hits on a bladed weapon for 1 dose.

That pretty much sums up the low level class abilities of any half way decently designed PrC. The abilities are generally either nice abilities you can only use 1/day, variations of what's available in base classes, or things that sound good if you don't think about them, but of limited practical use (Mettle).

Stephen

Lantern Lodge

Krigare wrote:
Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

I have the impression that this thread does no longer serve its purpose.

It was intended to point out that the prestige classes where desinged badly and inferior to the mighty core classes.

Now this has become yet another room for flamming the infidels:

----------------
do(

RP: "You are a power gamer!",
PG: "No, I am not a power gamer!",
PG: "Ok, maybe I am, but I am also a Roleplayer tm!"
RP: "No, you cannot multiclass in Roleplayer because you have Lvls of Powergamer"

)while== Thread is dead;
----------------
Is there a slight possibility to go back ranting about poor PrC-design?

PrC design is pretty much a mechanics discussion...so, seems like while there may be the occasional sidetrack by soemone who comes along and says "I see talk of mechanics in comparing one character vs another...POWERGAMERS!!!! DIE!!!!!" (Possibly a slight exaggeration) the threads been on topic.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. With what Pathfinder did, and what seems to e their goal with PrC's, I think of the 10 PrC's in the core book, only one its utter failure. 4 of them do a really nice job of making multi-class arcane casters viable, and the other 5 are varying levels of solid (from plain solid to rock solid) alternatives to the respective classes for end level advancement. do you have a specific gripe about the PrC's in PF, or...just a general "meh" about the fact that none overpower the base classes?

No, like I wrote in my first post of this thread, I think Paizo did a good job on the core classes (except the Bard), but I have the feeling that the PrC are intentionally bad desinged. You may say that the Duelist is actualy playable but keep in mind that you have to invest resources (feats and skill point, often not in an optimal way) to enter the class that the core class could spend elsewhere. If you loose something you have to gain something in exchange. Thats balance. But Instead your class features are not appropriat to your Level. Please compare the features of the Duelist or the Arcane Archer to the ones you would get as a straight fighter of the same Lvl.. They should be not the same but equaly powerfull.

Common Ground is that it is not neccesary to print PrCs if they are senseless, right?
So I say, fix em or leave em out.

Sovereign Court

Stephen Ede wrote:


I would've loved to do that. Indeed I found a PrC on the net which looked fine to me and would've done what I wanted. The DM was only interested in printed classes from the core of Complete... series.

See that's something I've run into that bothered me as well, as if WotC's completes didn't have crap sandwiches and gold brick thrown in mishmash and every other source is some kind of aweful thing. I can understand limiting character creation to books the DM owns, but at the same time, I expect my players to come to me if they have something they want to play outside of the books I own, also I would look at player created material, I may not let you run it as you gave it to me, but I would definitely look at it and tweak it to the powerlevel I find appropriate for my campaign while still allowing for your framework to remain in tact. Hell if you just came to my table and said I want to do XYZ I probably would have just built you a PrC to do XYZ even if you hadn't created your own.


veector wrote:


I think the key here is that many people do not see classes as just pieces of a mechanical system. Many people see classes as part of the "story" of the character. And, as it was said before, the multiple classes strain credulity because it makes it harder to imagine a character's story when it doesn't have a tighter focus.

This has been my argument from the beginning. 99.99% of the reason people dip into multiple prestige classes is to get added power NOT to further advance their character concept. That's why I don't mind people taking 2+ base classes, which basically represent molds anyone can follow. Prestige classes IMHO should be reserved for those seeking a particular story arc or background and the deication that goes along with it.

Personally I couldn't care less about Powergamers, my group either rejects their application or my DM purposely seeks them out for the kill (funny they usually don't show back up afterwards), but it does make life easier for all involved to have some type of standard buffer against these individuals.

Stephen it's not that I think your character was over-powered by any stretch of the imagination, I was just pointing out the fact you took additional prestige classes to gain extra powers/abilities not because it fit the original mold of your character concept.


But Deyvantius, what's wrong with an evolving character concept? Why can't a character be a humble woodsman and archer one year and the next year be a warwizard of vast power and martial skill. (Oh wait, there is such a character, the main character from the Sword of Truth books, DOH. lol)


kyrt-ryder wrote:
But Deyvantius, what's wrong with an evolving character concept? Why can't a character be a humble woodsman and archer one year and the next year be a warwizard of vast power and martial skill. (Oh wait, there is such a character, the main character from the Sword of Truth books, DOH. lol)

LOL Right!!!


Dennis da Ogre wrote:


When a player gets to 6th level he should be able to look at the options for prestige classes or base classes and say "I want to be more like this character" and take that fork. Then again at a later level it should be similar. Given a balanced set of class choices players can focus on building their characters and any mechanical decisions will be a consequence of that.

The game system should be designed around this concept otherwise it is frustrating as a GM and as a player when one or more characters wind up stealing the spotlight. The game is fun when everyone has a chance to shine. When some characters in a campaign are significantly weaker than others it becomes not fun for those players.

Unfortunately prereqs for PrC's means if you get to 6th lev and look around and choose your fork you'll find that to enter that fork you need x feats and y skills which will take you another 3-5 levels to get. I had that problem with a Druid that I looked where the campaign had gone and thought "hey, he should become a Blackguard". Very much in his chracter, despite been an athiest. A truly vile person for all that he was technically a hero and on the side of good. Unfortunately the prereqs for Blackguard are steep and I had to take 2 levs of Psychic Warrior to have a hope of getting there before the campaign reached it's climax.

Stephen


lastknightleft wrote:
Stephen Ede wrote:


As for the stock "Powergamer" cry. Show me how my PC was uber-powerful and I'll start listening.
Um I think you're confusing me with someone else, I've never once made the "stock powergamer" cry. and if you had come to my table with a custom built class I would have looked at and compared it to similar classes at that level and probably approved it. I merely pointed out what I saw as building from a mechanics perspective rather than a character perspective. I never once got into the powergamer arguement, I even said if that's your groups playstyle more power to you. I think you're mixing my points with arguements made by ChrisRevocateur, he's the one who made the cry of powergamer. I merely jumped in after you posted your build with several PrCs pointing out that it was built with a mechanics first character second perspective, and the closest I came to saying it was overpowered was saying that if it was thrown into one of my games I couldn't help but wonder if it would be more powerful than my players characters. I didn't even claim straight out that it was.

Sorry you're right. I read several in a row and should've split my responces better.

My apologies.

Stephen

Sovereign Court

Stephen Ede wrote:


Sorry you're right. I read several in a row and should've split my responces better.

My apologies.

Stephen

Hey no prob, I understand when it seems you're being yelled out by everyone you start responding to peoples posts and start clumping all arguments into a single massive argument, heck I did it not two days ago on a paladin thread :)...

And I think if you joined my game it would probably take some getting used to on your part, but that ultimately you'd have just as much fun because you could flex your designer muscles instead of your search muscles. Your characters in my game might not wind up as strong as one you might build using 7-8 classes, but it would match the other players in power and have all thematically tied abilities that let you get any concept you come up with. Hell as it is I ususally watch how the game is going anyway and create PrCs for players if I don't see one that fits where they're heading thematically. Then they have the choice to develop the abilities they've been leaning towards, follow the class progression they're on, or find their own PrC. But I do limit players to up to 3 base classes and only 1 PrC. It's just that with the custom jobs I do, thats never an issue.


Deyvantius wrote:


Stephen it's not that I think your character was over-powered by any stretch of the imagination, I was just pointing out the fact you took additional prestige classes to gain extra powers/abilities not because it fit the original mold of your character concept.

Yes and no. I'd designed him to be low strength (Str 10) and yet be a damage dealing fighter. To do this I needed to have ways of increasing his damage by other ways. Weapon Specalisation is a stock way. I could do that as a Fighter or as a Pious Templar. I'd dome a high level Fighter (8 levels) previously and Pious Templar seemed much more interesting as well as giving some fun abilities. The important points been "interesting" and "fun".

There was also the pleasure in putting it all together. I had to meet the various prereqs for all the PrC's, including the ones that I was taking simply to get a standard feat other than as a standard feat. It's like building something with Meccano or Lego. The basic building blocks are provided, and they may be intended to make something else, but once they're in you hands you can make all sorts of wonderful things.

I am unashamedly a min-maxer. I use those skills to take the silliest/weirdiest designs and make them work. I maximise their strengths so they're good at what they're intended to do (even if it's a bit silly) and to have a couple of glaring weaknesses, so the party has to cover my weakness, and if the DM wants to take me down he doesn't have to take the party down. I use similiar tools to Powergamers but tools are just tools. A hammer can be used to build a table, a house, or to bash someones head in. Having a hammer and emjoying using it doesn't make one a murderer.

Stephen

Sovereign Court

Stephen Ede wrote:

Having a hammer and emjoying using it doesn't make one a murderer.

Stephen

MURDERER!!!!


Stephen Ede wrote:


Yes and no. I'd designed him to be low strength (Str 10) and yet be a damage dealing fighter. To do this I needed to have ways of increasing his damage by other ways. Weapon Specalisation is a stock way. I could do that as a Fighter or as a Pious Templar. I'd dome a high level Fighter (8 levels) previously and Pious Templar seemed much more interesting as well as giving some fun abilities. The important points been "interesting" and "fun".

There was also the pleasure in putting it all together. I had to meet the various prereqs for all the PrC's, including the ones that I was taking simply to get a standard feat other than as a standard feat. It's like building something with Meccano or Lego. The basic building blocks are provided, and they may be intended to make something else, but once they're in you hands you can make all sorts of wonderful things.

I am unashamedly a min-maxer. I use those skills to take the silliest/weirdiest designs and make them work. I maximise their strengths so they're good at what they're intended to do (even if it's a bit silly) and to have a couple of glaring weaknesses, so the party has to cover my weakness, and if the DM wants to take me down he doesn't have to take the party down. I use similiar tools to Powergamers but tools are just tools. A hammer can be used to build a table, a house, or to bash someones head in. Having a hammer and emjoying using it doesn't make one a murderer.

Stephen

+1 and this is exactly the point, just because a character is optimized doesn't necessarily make it a problem character (and the lego analogy was brilliant!)


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Scott Viverito wrote:


If you are ROLL playing, not Role-playing yes the mechanics monkey always wins...but I at least perfer Role-Playing and lets be honest in a Role-Playing campaign, how would the character even know about most of the prestige classes in the first place...unless you've seen one or heard of it through RP where would you start looking for a Eldritch Knight?

You see, it's this kind of attitude that makes me contemplate quitting forums, people pull that 'roll playing vs role playing' crap.

Well I definately don't want to make someone leave a forum. So, I apologize for using a pair of well known terms(can also read as buzzwords) that states two different styles of character design/play that I have encountered in groups and CONs.

I used the terms I was familiar with, sorry if some find it offensive.

But back to the point there are many schools of thought on character design, the two I was meaning to reference were:

Type I - where the mechanics only drive the design. And combat only drives the adventure.

and

Type II - where a concept and mechanics drives the design. And hopefully there is non-combat interaction as well as the combats.

And in truth there are those that feel only concept should drive design...not sure what I would call that.

I have found playing with people that have a concept for character, more fun than the one that is just looking for the better ability for his combat effectiveness. But that is just me, and I thought forums like this was a place to air those opinions.

In answer to your later question about the Eldritch Knight, I see no reason he should be able to create his own merging of his multi-class, I pulled the EK for my example because he was used before in this thread. But my point was many(not all) of the various prestige classes can be used as role-play opportunities as rare and wonderful/dire legends of someone who can do X. And be a whole quest chain trying to find them and after finding them convincing them you are worth training. Just an idea....and if it offends it was not intended to.

Liberty's Edge

kyrt-ryder wrote:


Personally, I find "Lets try this instead, we'll take these mechanics, and your story will develop how it plays out" to be so much better than just a flat "No" so many GM's are fond of. (I myself refuse to ever ban a book as a whole. Everything is up for request and discussion.)

I am very much like that as well. If a player is interested in a certain type of character I am going to do what I can to make sure that character is a viable one, not too weak and not too strong. If that means dipping, then that is what needs to happen. No source is off limits. I might alter an option if I feel it is too strong. I have rarely banned anything.

Most of my players are somewhat casual. Some find it hard to visualize options by just reading them in the book. That is where my job comes in as DM. I help my players develop the character they are looking for. In some cases I even insure the world adapts to help the characters feel more integrated. I won't change fundamental concepts of a setting, but I do like the challenge of finding out how this character would fit into the world. If anything, my players have helped define cultures and nations in ways I would not have imagined.

For instance, during a 3.5 game one of my players wanted to enter the Mystic Theurge class as a druid/wizard. He was somewhat "snake" oriented. So I created an organization known as the Mage Priests of the Serpent, a somewhat questionable organization of druid/wizard mystic theurges. I worked my player to make sure the mechanics were what he wanted while I helped the character feel at home in the world.

Later, when that same character began a new life in Ptolus (long story) the player aimed for the Arcane Heirophant PrC, a class specifically designed as a version of the theurge for druid/wizards. Once again I worked with him to make his character effective and I insured the lost Circle of the Green had a higher order of druids that were Arcane Heirophants. This gave the character something to shoot for.

I feel Prestige Classes serve two purposes. First, they act as exclusive clubs for a certain type of character. In this case, the PrC is an organization unto itself and the stuff I create reflects that. Second, they have qualities that might help a player realize his character more completely. This simply means dipping in the class will bring the player closer to what he wants. In the first instance, if a single PrC will serve a player's needs, I will often tailor an organization (fighting style, school, etc.) for the character to join. If a PrC is only serving as a gateway to another class then I will likely just assume that everyone who joins the organization (fighting style, school, etc.) has a few levels in the class as well and tailor it to incorporate that concept.

It should be noted, those ideas are not mutually exclusive. While my campaign setting might have an organization centered around the Arcane Archer that doesn't mean a player can't take a few levels of Arcane Archer to better realize a concept. In that situation those levels don't represent membership in the Order of the Silver Arrow. They simply represent training that the player has undergone to join the Arcanists of the Oaken Bow, who are actually a group of Mystic Theurge/Arcane Archers. Does that make sense?

In fact, some organizations might actually use the same PrC but people living in the world don't realize that. Heck, the characters might not even realize that. For the people in this imaginary world, one character is an Arcanist of the Sacred Ring while the other is a Magus of the Golden Wyvern, despite the fact both of those characters have the Archmage PrC. In my mind, PrCs are tools that help me and my players realize the world more fully.

By the way, I see what you are saying and I agree with you on the subject of optimization. There is a huge difference between optimization and "munchkinism" (whatever the word really means). Optimization doesn't exclude good roleplaying. If fact, 3e was built to reward players who understand the system and make "good" choices for the campaign in which they are participating. Why shouldn't they gain some benefit from their research? Breaking the system is one thing. Understanding the system so you can build an effective character is something else entirely.


The other point to keep in mind with PrC's is they can be inspirational if the fluff is suggestive rather than binding.

Not all of us a founts of inspiration. Indeed the only character I roleplay really well is psychos (I do those really well to the extreme that a party went to considerable danger and effort to save a really annoying character of mine been phased out because the hardened shadow runners found my replacement character to disturbing after a couple of minutes of intro which involved me walking in and saying hello...).

In the multi PrC build I mentioned choosing the classes and looking at the prereqs I needed helped me form the character/personality to roleplay. At the start I had no idea what my character would be. The fluff of PrC's can help that form.

Actually in mind of my response to a post by the Ogre I'd add another point to my list of things that PrC designers should keep in mind.
- The prereqs shouldn't be to difficult or restrictive. If they have to dedicate 5 levs of feats and skills to enter it, go back to the design board.

On rare cases this can be broken if you're intending a very narrow class of character to enter it, and it's a breeze for them, but difficult for others. But even then it should take more than 3 levels of normal progression at the most to get there for other classes.

Stephen

Liberty's Edge

As for the debate with the PrCs as presented in the PFRPG, I generally think they are okay but I haven't devoted too much time to deciphering them. I do admit I was kind surprised at how the base classes turned out, but I am pretty happy with how they look. I don't think PrCs should be more powerful than the base classes, just present different options.

I was doing some research for a player of mine and I can't find any class that would better serve his purposes than going with a paladin all the way to 20. I might find something, but for now, it seems staying with the paladin will work best. I was happy to see this.


Really there shouldn't be any prestige classes. there should be a list of special abilities, that any character with the right pre-reqs can get. So Paladin's get divine Grace freely, but it becomes available to all characters with a Pre-Req of Say LVL 7 and CHA of 15 or greater. Then we could solve this entire debate easily.


Given that the EK has recived a fair degree of mention it's interesting that from my initial reading of it I thought it was overpowered. It seems to me that 8 levels of caster advancement would be fine for full BAB and D10 HD, 3 bonus feats, diverse training as well as a awesome capstone ability.

Toss in a mild power cute ability on the other non-arcane advancement level (6th?) instead.

Other than that I thought it was quite well done.
Not to restrictive for entry.
Nice progression with a good reason to take to the end

Stephen


Scott Viverito wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Scott Viverito wrote:


If you are ROLL playing, not Role-playing yes the mechanics monkey always wins...but I at least perfer Role-Playing and lets be honest in a Role-Playing campaign, how would the character even know about most of the prestige classes in the first place...unless you've seen one or heard of it through RP where would you start looking for a Eldritch Knight?

You see, it's this kind of attitude that makes me contemplate quitting forums, people pull that 'roll playing vs role playing' crap.

Well I definately don't want to make someone leave a forum. So, I apologize for using a pair of well known terms(can also read as buzzwords) that states two different styles of character design/play that I have encountered in groups and CONs.

I used the terms I was familiar with, sorry if some find it offensive.

But back to the point there are many schools of thought on character design, the two I was meaning to reference were:

Type I - where the mechanics only drive the design. And combat only drives the adventure.

and

Type II - where a concept and mechanics drives the design. And hopefully there is non-combat interaction as well as the combats.

And in truth there are those that feel only concept should drive design...not sure what I would call that.

I have found playing with people that have a concept for character, more fun than the one that is just looking for the better ability for his combat effectiveness. But that is just me, and I thought forums like this was a place to air those opinions.

In answer to your later question about the Eldritch Knight, I see no reason he should be able to create his own merging of his multi-class, I pulled the EK for my example because he was used before in this thread. But my point was many(not all) of the various prestige classes can be used as role-play opportunities as rare and wonderful/dire legends of someone who can do X. And be a whole quest chain trying to find them and...

Wow, huge walls of text from alot of people, so I'm going to try to reply to each one at a time to avoid getting things said while I'm busy typing.

The thing that gets me about the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer thing isn't the comparing of your Type I and Type II Scott. I am a type 2, a roleplayer who takes a concept and builds it over a list of mechanics. I tend to call Type I's hack and slashers, because of the stigma that any optimizer is Rollplayer and its not a good way to discuss things.

As I've said many times in this thread, most of the optimizers I know personally are deep and immersed roleplayers ontop of crafting "Masterworked character builds" so to speak, not hack and slashers looking to just kick the door in and stab the monsters in the face and take their 'lewt'


Deyvantius wrote:
Really there shouldn't be any prestige classes. there should be a list of special abilities, that any character with the right pre-reqs can get. So Paladin's get divine Grace freely, but it becomes available to all characters with a Pre-Req of Say LVL 7 and CHA of 15 or greater. Then we could solve this entire debate easily.

Oh Great! There would go half my inspiration for character creation. Where am I supposed to get characterisation seeds from. We aren't all founts of creativity. No joke, I've been reduced to borrowing another players concept once. He was from a Orc tribe that had parted ways with Grumash and started following the Elf God Corrilaen(sp). Great back story so I went "hey that's cool. I'll be your brother/cousin."

We went different tangents from there, but it was his seed idea that got me up and running.

Stephen


MerrikCale wrote:
Samuli wrote:
My point was that we don't need two differently flavored EKs.
OK. But why not have them?

To save some space from the core rulebook. Which could be used for better or different prestige classes. I'm not against PrCs. I just disagree that the 10 we got were the best options.


Stephen Ede wrote:


Oh Great! There would go half my inspiration for character creation. Where am I supposed to get characterisation seeds from. We aren't all founts of creativity. No joke, I've been reduced to borrowing another players concept once. He was from a Orc tribe that had parted ways with Grumash and started following the Elf God Corrilaen(sp). Great back story so I went "hey that's cool. I'll be your brother/cousin."
We went different tangents from there, but it was his seed idea that got me up and running.
Stephen

Yeah I got to agree with you on that point. I've been gaming for a while now and the creativity is starting to run dry. LOL, I have a set character for every genre we play because all the good backgrounds have been beaten to death. If I hear about one more "orphan left for dead...." I'm going to implode.


Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

No, like I wrote in my first post of this thread, I think Paizo did a good job on the core classes (except the Bard), but I have the feeling that the PrC are intentionally bad desinged. You may say that the Duelist is actualy playable but keep in mind that you have to invest resources (feats and skill point, often not in an optimal way) to enter the class that the core class could spend elsewhere. If you loose something you have to gain something in exchange. Thats balance. But Instead your class features are not appropriat to your Level. Please compare the features of the Duelist or the Arcane Archer to the ones you would get as a straight fighter of the same Lvl.. They should be not the same but equaly powerfull.

Common Ground is that it is not neccesary to print PrCs if they are senseless, right?
So I say, fix em or leave em out.

OK, since you keep bringing up the duelist...lets take a look shall we?

Duelist Reqruired feats and skills:
Acrobatics, 2 Ranks Perform, 2 ranks
Makes sense, for a mobile light fighter, acrobatics is usually considered a given skill to take, Perform is a little odd, but then again, when I think of a duelist, the Three Msuketeers pop into mind, and it makes a bit more sense, as all three of them were flashy show-off sort of combatants.

Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Finese
Light mobile fighters relying on grace more brute strength. Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Finese covers those pretty well in my book.

Abilities gained from earliest entry as a fighter vs a duelist (talking about what is different, if the same bonus is gained, skipping it (such as BaB):

7 Fighter: gets Armor Training 2, which is a 1 point increase in AC if their dex is high enough,
6 Fighter/1 Duelist: Gains Canny Defense and Precise Strike, +1 Ref saves, which is a whole extra stat added to AC, and +PrC level in damage, as long as they fight in the PrC's prefered style.

8 Fighter: Bonus Feat, Its a feat, yeah, hard to say thats not good, especially for a fighter

6 fighter/2 Duelist: +2 bonus to init (stackable), Parry, +1 ref and will save, The duelist acts sooner, and can sacrifice an attack for some extra defense of not only themselves, but anyone adjacent. Neither of these are replicable by feats. And precise strike has gone up a point (effectively giving greater weapon spec when it applies, 4 whole levels early)

9 Fighter: Weapon Training 2, +1 will, the fighters attack and damage bonus with certain weapons goes up by 1 point. No real complaints.

6 Fighter/3 Duelist: Enhanced Mobility, lets the duelist move around the battle field easier, which means its safer for them to be where they need to be to be more effective...and presision strike is still effectively giving greater weapon spec when it applies (pretty often in PF)

Do I need to keep going on? I try to keep from posting massive walls of text, but I can if you need...

And I'm more than willing to do the same with arcane archer if you like...

Lantern Lodge

honestly, you should get a job as a sales man. The way you beautify crap like enhanced mobility, priceless.
But you should also mention that weapon/armor training is pretty incredible, that the fighter is no longer slowed down by his heavy Armor and not to forget: At level 9 he is picking his first critical feat. The realy powerful feats are now available.
Do not just say at levl. x he gets a feat, take a look closer.

Liberty's Edge

Deyvantius wrote:
Really there shouldn't be any prestige classes. there should be a list of special abilities, that any character with the right pre-reqs can get. So Paladin's get divine Grace freely, but it becomes available to all characters with a Pre-Req of Say LVL 7 and CHA of 15 or greater. Then we could solve this entire debate easily.

I agree with the first part -- I dislike prestige classes in general -- but I do like the idea of qualifying in-game (so that you need the right contacts and some role-playing to join the Arcanists' Guild, rather than just the right Int score and level).

I'd just prefer to have qualified characters get expanded ranges of options, rather than a whole new class with a fixed progression of abilities.

So a wizard who joins the Guild, say, might have access to new feats, spells, and class-ability choices that a non-Guild wizard would not. This expands his options, but doesn't shunt him into a specific 5- or 10-level progression: not all Guild wizards would take the same options in the same order. It makes the prestige organization more useful (IMO) and more flavourful.

And I think a lot of the spells, feats, traits, and other options provided in the various Pathfinder Companion supplements would be ideal for this sort of use: perhaps only arcanists from the Westcrown Academy can learn the Dweomer Retaliation spell, and only monks of the Chelaxian Order are trained in the Cornugon Stun maneuver (feat)? In addition to making the supplements a ready-made source of prestige-group benefits, this also has the advantage of explaining why the new spells, feats, etc., aren't in more general use (i.e., why they aren't in the core rulebook).

(And yes, guess who just got the Cheliax PDF?) :-)

Sovereign Court

Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

honestly, you should get a job as a sales man. The way you beautify crap like enhanced mobility, priceless.

But you should also mention that weapon/armor training is pretty incredible, that the fighter is no longer slowed down by his heavy Armor and not to forget: At level 9 he is picking his first critical feat. The realy powerful feats are now available.
Do not just say at levl. x he gets a feat, take a look closer.

Um level 9 is an odd level, so so is a fighter 6/duelist 3.

And charging over difficult terrain is usually a pretty damn good feature in my games where there tends to be very little in the way of flat surfaces to run around on.

Also if you're building a high dex character who wears little to no armor, you already are moving at full speed in armor, so additional armor training is unnecessary. I don't think you've actually played a fighter/duelist in game have you. This is all on paper talk that your commited to despite differing opinions.

I'll wait to see how the class pays out, but don't forget you also keep talking about how its weaker for the fighter, but forgetting that you can actually get into the class with lots of different classes this isn't a fighter and rogue only PrC

Liberty's Edge

kyrt-ryder wrote:
As I've said many times in this thread, most of the optimizers I know personally are deep and immersed roleplayers ontop of crafting "Masterworked character builds" so to speak, not hack and slashers looking to just kick the door in and stab the monsters in the face and take their 'lewt'

I agree. Optimizers can be huge roleplayers. In fact, the system was specifically designed to reward system mastery and that trait has nothing to do with roleplaying.

As Monte Cook said:

"…the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves — players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.”

And that isn't the only quote by Monte on the subject. I just can't seem to find the others right now. :) But it does give some insight into how 3e was designed.

Optimizing characters towards a concept is not the same as min-maxing a character. And optimizing doesn't have to mean trying to outshine everyone else.


Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

honestly, you should get a job as a sales man. The way you beautify crap like enhanced mobility, priceless.

But you should also mention that weapon/armor training is pretty incredible, that the fighter is no longer slowed down by his heavy Armor and not to forget: At level 9 he is picking his first critical feat. The realy powerful feats are now available.
Do not just say at levl. x he gets a feat, take a look closer.

thanks, know any well paying jobs open? =)

enhanced mobility, for concept based around light armor and mobility, IS a big deal...as big as the armor training your so huge on. Since a duelist isn't in heavy armor, some of the classes ability focuses on offsetting that. enhanced mobility is one (but Canny Defense is the big one, and once tomes and +6 stat mod items come into play, evens the field...at the minimum) Its a stacking +4 (total +8 when you provoke an aoa for moving...yes, very handy for a mobility based character)

The bonus feat doesn't need hyping. Its good, in fact, its one of the biggest draws of the fighter class. Does it really need hyping? Since you say I shoudl be a salesman...heres a good one for you...bonus feats need no hype, especially a fighters, they sell themselves.

And has been stated...level 9 is a level they both get a feat, and both can take a critical feat. I didn't list areas where in their advancement, they are equal. I was highlighting the differences.

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