Prestige Classes: A solution to the Capstone Problem?

[Rueon]

So with a 2.5 year advancement cycle to level 20, and multi-classing too soon cutting you off from 'Capstones', it seems like PFO has a sort of Power-Now Vs. Power-Later choice that may or may not work for a lot of players.

I myself prefer Gish Character, but if I choose to be Fighter 1\Wizard 1, I lose hope of ever being Capstoned in either just because I jumped right into my favoured play-style. To me, the idea of playing what I want for the long term shouldn't knee cap me from ever being 'topped off' as either class. But at the same time; there is another player who worked hard as a Wizard to max it out before jumping into Fighter who, for what it's worth, earned that g!+ d%%n Capstone.

But, I made a choice earlier on and it permanently marked that character. Unless there was a way to say "Hey, I only wanted a little bit of fighter, but I wanted it after I got a bit of Wizard, so can we pretend I did this in a different order?" (for the sake of arguement, we'll say I'm Fighter 1, Wizard 5 at this point).

Currently in PFO, the answer would be "No, go home.". But in Table-top, the answer is "Yes, you crazy Eldritch Knight you, take away one more caster level and we'll have you casting 9th level spells like the best'of'em!"

To me it seems odd that the BEDMAS of leveling choices stops progression to higher level abilities and it would be cool if by selecting certain Prestige Classes, I could "budget" myself some training to other archetypes.

For Example, with the Eldritch Knight, I still count as progressing my Wizard Path, but I'm given a budget of a few merits I can put into Fighter without booting me off the Wizard Path. Essentially giving me some small multi-classing without me needing to jump off my capstone-paved road and allowing me to have a play-style I want for the majority of my gameplay. Imagine an Arcane Trickster who can budget some of his merits off to the Rogue archetype.

If I could compare it a real-world example; think of it like having a Major and a Minor is university. I'm Majoring in the Arcane Arts with a Minor in Stabbing People. The majority of my studies will like every other wizard, maybe slower, maybe I'll need to take another year or some summer classes, but I'll finish with a PHD in Shocking Grasp and Undergraduate in Mithril Armor Modeling. But if I fail out of Wizard school, my Minor in Longsword swinging goes with it, (i.e, picking up a third class screws up everything).

Just a thought, I've love a response or critical analysis. Or just rip it apart, that's cool too.

[Mbando]

Rueon, did you read the Capstone discussion? I think your info is pretty far out of date. Here's the current proposal from GW:

Quote:

The main thing we want to achieve with this system remains keeping optimized multi-role builds from being far more desirable than single-role builds. This keeps the role feeling more special/distinct, and also doesn't penalize players that don't really pay much attention to optimization from feeling outclassed by others that do (e.g., we don't want to see "You're just a pure Fighter? No, I think we'll hold out for a Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue or a Fighter/Paladin/Ranger for our melee character.").

We've heard and agree with all your arguments about how a carrot at the end of the progression doesn't really achieve this, and that you don't want to be locked out of getting a capstone.

So what we're proposing now is the idea of a "Dedication" or "Focus" bonus.

Essentially, whenever you only have feats from one role slotted (rounded out with generic feats that aren't role-specific), you'll gain a bonus to doing what that role is supposed to do. This bonus is pegged to making the pure build competitive with the best synergistic multi-role build, may shift over time as new synergies are discovered, and may scale up in power based on your level (becoming similar in power to tabletop's Capstone at 20th level if high-level synergies are really powerful).

For example, if we decide that Paladins are supposed to be the best in the game at melee damage vs. evil targets, but testing determines that there's a synergistic Paladin/Ranger/Fighter build that does better without losing any real effectiveness in other areas, we may tweak the Paladin Dedication bonus to increase Smite Evil damage. This gives us the ability to shore up specific corner-case issues without having to rebalance the feats of a whole role (which may propagate out to cause further issues).

Your bonus is entirely dependent on what you have slotted, not what you know. If you build a Fighter 5/Barbarian 5, you get the Fighter bonus if you only slot Fighter feats, the Barbarian bonus if you only slot Barbarian feats, and no bonus while you slot feats from both (or neither) roles. And there may remain situations where you prefer the synergy of two or more roles to whatever the individual bonus is. If we scale the bonus in power by level, it will likely be based on the highest-tier feat you have slotted.

[Rueon]

Mbando wrote:

Rueon, did you read the Capstone discussion? I think your info is pretty far out of date. Here's the current proposal from GW:

Quote:

The main thing we want to achieve with this system remains keeping optimized multi-role builds from being far more desirable than single-role builds. This keeps the role feeling more special/distinct, and also doesn't penalize players that don't really pay much attention to optimization from feeling outclassed by others that do (e.g., we don't want to see "You're just a pure Fighter? No, I think we'll hold out for a Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue or a Fighter/Paladin/Ranger for our melee character.").

We've heard and agree with all your arguments about how a carrot at the end of the progression doesn't really achieve this, and that you don't want to be locked out of getting a capstone.

So what we're proposing now is the idea of a "Dedication" or "Focus" bonus.

Essentially, whenever you only have feats from one role slotted (rounded out with generic feats that aren't role-specific), you'll gain a bonus to doing what that role is supposed to do. This bonus is pegged to making the pure build competitive with the best synergistic multi-role build, may shift over time as new synergies are discovered, and may scale up in power based on your level (becoming similar in power to tabletop's Capstone at 20th level if high-level synergies are really powerful).

For example, if we decide that Paladins are supposed to be the best in the game at melee damage vs. evil targets, but testing determines that there's a synergistic Paladin/Ranger/Fighter build that does better without losing any real effectiveness in other areas, we may tweak the Paladin Dedication bonus to increase Smite Evil damage. This gives us the ability to shore up specific corner-case issues without having to rebalance the feats of a whole role (which may propagate out to cause further issues).

Your bonus is entirely dependent on what you have slotted, not what you know. If you build a Fighter 5/Barbarian

...

Must've missed that one, thank you for the 411.

[Nihimon]

Roles and Role advantages (Capstones!)

For easy reference.

[Kakafika]

I almost cried out in anguish when I saw this thread.

True story.

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Then again, we still don't know anything about capstones, do we? When I saw that post, I immediately noticed that he didn't mention anything about capstones. I almost asked about it in that thread but thought better of it, having discussed it to death for so long.

That post freed up capstones to be whatever they wish of them. So, what are capstones going to be?

My guess is that they will be weapon flourishes and the like.

I wonder if they will still be exclusive?

[Nihimon]

@Kafi, I actually expect that Capstones will be significantly more powerful than originally planned since it is now impossible to completely lock your character out of them.

And it was quite clear that you'll only be able to equip a Capstone if you only have Abilities equipped that are part of that Role, so in that sense they'll be exclusive.

[Kakafika]

I think we misunderstand eachother. I think here is the reason:

Stephen Cheney wrote:

We've heard and agree with all your arguments about how a carrot at the end of the progression doesn't really achieve this, and that you don't want to be locked out of getting a capstone.

So what we're proposing now is the idea of a "Dedication" or "Focus" bonus.

I took this to mean that the "Dedication" or "Focus" bonus was the new mechanic for balancing multi- vs single- classing. I can see how you could read that as just being a descriptor for the capstone bonus or as replacement words for "Capstone."

This, though:

Stephen Cheney wrote:

Essentially, whenever you only have feats from one role slotted (rounded out with generic feats that aren't role-specific), you'll gain a bonus to doing what that role is supposed to do. This bonus is pegged to making the pure build competitive with the best synergistic multi-role build, may shift over time as new synergies are discovered, and may scale up in power based on your level (becoming similar in power to tabletop's Capstone at 20th level if high-level synergies are really powerful).

The last line makes me think again that this is an entirely different system than a capstone, because it is a bonus that you will get long before you reach your 20th badge.

So, if the basic idea of a capstone (basic meaning not including balance aspects, and potentially not being a reward for single-classing) is still something that GW wishes to include in the game, they haven't designed anything that is given as a reward for reaching 20th level in an archetype.

And I guess that is where my question comes in.

[Nihimon]

@Kafi, you're right, I took this new design as a replacement for the Capstone. It never occurred to me that might not be the case.

[Stephen Cheney]

As currently conceived, the "Dedication" system replaces the previous idea of "Capstones" (as something you would only get if you take all 20 levels of a role in sequence).

The feats you unlock by getting a role up to 20 may be something exciting we save for your "max level," but you'll get access to them no matter what multiclassing path took you to 20.

[Nihimon]

Thanks very much, Stephen.

[Kakafika]

Thanks, Stephen!

I thought it was weird that nobody else asked my question...

My mom says I'm special!