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I like prestige classes. Sure the system can cater to dippers and power gamers, but it can also add variety to a game, and it gives the players tools for progressing their characters in various ways.
I use them in my games that I run. Usually in any campaign that is started with one of my regular groups the question is raised of how to deal with them. Currently how it is being handled in the 2 games I run (and the 2 I play in) is that the characters get to choose two books at character creation (aside from any material that the DM chooses to make available for all) to make a character that fits into the campaign. The GM's reserve the right to not allow books/classes/feats, but otherwise its up to the players (I have not personally disallowed books, but in one of the games I play in the DM disallowed one of the players from selecting the book of exalted deeds as his second choice). The players may choose a second book at level 8 and a third one at level 16 (if the campaign lasts that long).
If the players decide to take a prestige class then we apply a muticlass EXP penalty to them if they do not finish it before taking a second one (Ie. If a character has 2 levels in one PRC and 6 in another they would be penalized just as if they had 2 non favored classes more than a level apart)Having more than two unfinished PrCs is not allowed in any of the games.
What ends up happening is we tend to have characters with one or two classes and a single 10 level PrC, and another popular choice for our groups is the 3-5 level PrC Ironlobster build which ends up completing several smaller PrCs on top of usually a single class.
But heck, PrCs do not make exploits and powergaming possible. It is the multiclass system in it self. As long as the group does not do silly multiclassing then it works out beautifully.
love,
malkav
Please folks, play nice. There's no need to insult one another.
I like the concept of prestige classes, but I don't like how one of them (the assassin) should be, in my opinion (and this is my opinion only), a standard character class and how later character classes would make better prestige classes... namely the knight.
I'm not talking so much skill here as I am the concept of prestige... as in being part of an exclusive order and all.
But I'm willing to live with the way that they are now as to not deter from the feel of 3.0/3.5... I understand that this much of a change would be too radical of a change.
Again, just my thoughts.
Please folks, play nice. There's no need to insult one another.
I don't mind, should've just left it up.
I like the concept of prestige classes, but I don't like how one of them (the assassin) should be, in my opinion (and this is my opinion only), a standard character class and how later character classes would make better prestige classes... namely the knight.
I'm not talking so much skill here as I am the concept of prestige... as in being part of an exclusive order and all.
I think it was a branch of White Wolf that put out prestige classes they called "advanced classes". They were usually modular (which I liked), didn't use such a hot-button phrase as "prestige" (which I liked), and had crazy role-play requirements to enter (which often seemed over the top).
Like, there was a class called the Adamantine Warrior that could get some inherent bonuses to Strength and Con, DR, and the ability to keep fighting until you were well into the negatives and dropped dead. But to get in you had to take some kind of weird vision quest, fight an army by yourself, and eat a live dire bear... or something.
I think the modular options were the best part. Even if two people in the same class chose the same class ability, say a boost to Con, the bonus was equal to the level you chose it. So if you took the Con bonus at first level it was +1, if you took it at fifth it was +5 (they were all 5 level classes). And there were more class abilities than levels, so you couldn't have everything. It was pretty neat.
I like prestige classes. Sure the system can cater to dippers and power gamers, but it can also add variety to a game, and it gives the players tools for progressing their characters in various ways.
But heck, PrCs do not make exploits and powergaming possible. It is the multiclass system in it self. As long as the group does not do silly multiclassing then it works out beautifully.
Wow. Couldn't have put it better myself.