Base class versus Prestige Class?!

[Arnim Thayer]

While I like the feel of the Cavalier, I have to wonder if it would have been better served as a Prestige class. Looking it over in total, it just seems to have been stretched in order to make 20 levels. A firm 10 levels would have probably been enough to make the class work, and to give a martial class that any of the other martial core classes would be able to take, though with a different feel depending.

The Oracle, on the other hand, is the Divine version of a Sorcerer; it needs and deserves all 20 levels.

Just an opinion... your mileage may vary.

[Mistah J]

Well, you are not alone. I feel exactly the same way. One of the things that I've always felt about the various new base classes that have appeared over the years is that they're more like PrCs.

But, what can you do? Paizo can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time and so, if there is ever a place I have to disagree with them - this is as good as any.

[Kolokotroni]

One of the problems about serving certain concepts and ideas in only prestige classes is what about low levels? There are lots of groups that prefer lower level play, one of the guys who dms in our group almost exclusively plays 1-7, I think we got to 8 once in one of his games before he wanted to start over. Its not my prefered style but I know there are lots of people who prefer low leves. For those people, and for low level play in general prestige classes do absolutely no good.

Personally I'd rather see a few well done base classes then a book full of prestige classes.

[Carnivorous_Bean]

I, personally, would also prefer a number of skillfully-written base classes to be added than prestige classes.

As a DM, I absolutely loathe the fact that prestige classes are only used at the level when play starts to get a little iffy anyway.

And my common sense revolts, for example, at every single knight in a kingdom needing to be level 10-12+ in order to actually function mechanically anything like a knight -- because there's no way you can make a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or probably even 4th level fighter look much like a knight, mechanically.

I would love to have 1st level cavaliers in my game who are readily identifiable as being cavaliers, rather than being "generic fighters who will eventually become cavaliers if they get into the top 0.00003% of warriors on the planet."

Also, I prefer it as an occasional player because I may be able to get my concept from the get-go, rather than waiting until the campaign is almost over before my character even begins to vaguely resemble what I had in mind at the start.

So I say, bring on the base classes -- hold the prestige classes, please.

[Jason Bulmahn]

The cavalier will remain as a base class. It needs a fair amount of revision and revising at this point and I am happy to discuss those options, but changing it to pclass is not currently on the table.

This thread is locked.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing