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This is the logic us 4th ed players used and got told off for. We were told that the game needs the Profession skill and that if you want to be a farmer, you should spend resources on Profession (farmer).
Are you by any chance a fellow 4th ed player?
I personally would have no problems dumping the Profession skill from my 3.5 games.
Because people dip into a prestige here and a prestige there to grab a bunch of abilities that were never meant to be together. Next thing you know people are breaking campaigns.
+1
95% of the time this was the case in 3.5. people can say it wasn't but from my experience and from most other GM's- actions speak louder than words. It wasn't about fluff, or roleplaying, or even options, it was power creep and min/maxing to stupid proportions. You had so many prestige classes that were actually good and balanced by themselves but when combined with x/y/z become obviously broken. It was impossible for companies (and GMs) to keep track of all the prestige classes and how they would react together. If paizo ever goes back to a system such as this i will stop buying there products and just dust off my 100's of 3.5 splat. I didn't mind a few prestige classes but once the 50th one came out it just got ridiculous, and if a GM banned prestige classes or a few books, heaven forbid many players would throw a tantrum.
I don't mind multi classing or prestige classes if handled right. With that said Paizo should have made more rules on multiclassing. I reigned in 3.5 cross classing with just ONE rule.
1) multiclass characters may only ever posses 3 classes, including prestige classes.
This originated back from old school dnd. you could play a fighter/mage/thief but you couldn't play a fighter/mage/thief/cleric.
Once that simple rule was in place all the prestige dipping in 3.5 ceased. If you want to be a bladsinger-fine play a bladesinger. But dont try to convince me that the bladesinger combined with prestige X and dipping into prestige y will give you more powerful abilities and make you more of how you see a bladsinger being...
If paizo ever goes back to a system such as this i will stop buying there products and just dust off my 100's of 3.5 splat.:? This seems a little silly to me.
well not ALL there products but,
If paizo wants to make an ULTIMATE MUNCHKIN HANDBOOK thats one thing i will just not use it or only peaces of it. But if they start producing books with numerous PRCS in them then thats just going back to the way things were. And if i already have the books that contain the things that were then buying a the same thing in different wrapping seems silly to me.
+1 to RunebladeX.
The biggest problem I ever encountered was people going through the W/X/Y/Z combos to have that unbeatable build or some outlandish creation. That has gotten on my nerves to no end, granted though I was DMing on a ship for random pick up games so I couldn't be to picky with the folks that came to the table.
The other part that annoyes me is some folks justification for certain options or requests. Case in point, I had a guy come up to the game saying he wanted to play a Musketeer type character and had rolled everything up. Hands me his sheet which was a fighter/rogue/warhulk equipped with a wall blade from Mongoose Publishing Barbarain book. I looked at it and asked why his character choose the wall blade (didn't say he couldn't use it, was just curious). The bloke told me that for flavor it was still a rapier he just wanted the extra damage the wall blade gave.
This lead to a back and forth going from why not just say it's a wall blade and be a different type of musketeer to hearing about how his DM back in port always allowed it and how I was the worst dm because I lack imagination.
Strangely I had a similar encounter in 4th ed with a reflavored fullblade that was a concealed dagger....
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I loathe the idea that people should have to pick a prestige class in order to stay "competitive". The base classes should always be the gold standard for player power. I commend Paizo for disincentivizing people from rampant multiclassing; I find the typical Fighter 2/Swashbuckler 3/Cleric 1/Serial Killer 1/Cherrypicker 1/Twice-Betrayer of Credibility 10 builds seen on 3.5 boards just sickening.
I disagree that 3.5 prestige classes promote variety much; most of them have strict entry requirements that shoehorn characters into a certian build. Due to bad balance, only a handful of those PrCs are played in the first place. Finally, most PrCs start off at a level where many campaigns end.
I don't think modest multiclassing (e.g. 2 classes) or the occasional PrC are a bad thing, but I don't think they should dominate the game.
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Cause if its flavor, I should be allowed to have the just flavor without having to spend mechnical effects.
This is the logic us 4th ed players used and got told off for. We were told that the game needs the Profession skill and that if you want to be a farmer, you should spend resources on Profession (farmer).
What does this have to do with 4th Ed?
I think it was that in 4e they took the big list of stuff and crunched it down. and any skill that wasn't there (crafting, profession) you would just end up roleplaying instead.
For the most part, If you want to be a farmer in our games.. you are a farmer. If you want some mechanically benefit of being a farmer, you would spend resources into profession (farmer)
So the anti-PrC crowd is against PrCs because they saw somebody(sometimes just on the internet) abuse them.....wow. You guys realize that those people will just find something else to abuse right?
Here is a startling concept...just say 'No'. I don't get why people just can't do that more.
So the anti-PrC crowd is against PrCs because they saw somebody(sometimes just on the internet) abuse them.....wow. You guys realize that those people will just find something else to abuse right?
Here is a startling concept...just say 'No'. I don't get why people just can't do that more.
The fact is as much as I agree with you on just saying no to a concept, there are times you can't. My situation was one of those if you are on a ship you have very few to do a game with, and sometimes you have to bite the bullet.
I do like options, I also like people having the chance to make their favorite types of characters. I don't like the added work and the frustration at the table when a person brings a broken character to the table. I will always support PrCs both generic and setting specific so long as they are thought out, fit with setting, and are not broken from the start.
To be honest though in the full scale of the game it doesn't matter if they make more or less PrCs/archetypes. People that want to will always make broken charcters and people will always disagree on what is acceptible and what is not.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/weapon-descriptions/meteo r-hammer
Or do you mean, in addition to the intresting meteor hammer?
I think one of the big problems with weapons like the Falcata isn't so much that they are just sooo awesome as much as they are the only weapon in a field of dung.
Personally, I prefer the scorpion whip.
I'm sorry, you undestimate the threat/multiplier thing IMHO.
That meteor hammer is LoF. What about using A&EG? what I meant a support for these weapons in a current splat.
No.. No i don't.
But when you compare the falcata to say a butterfly knife, kama, sai.. and most of the other exotic weapons..
Yes, it is a no-brainier. Not just because the falcata is awesome, but because everything else sucks.
Butterfly knife.. Exactly like a dagger.. except worse. Loses weapon finesse, throwing abilities, good duel wield capabilities.
Dueling sword- Exactly like a long sword, unless you take an additional feat to allow you to finesse it. 5 feats later you can take another feat to bump it up just a little bit.
Kama, A sickle by another name.
I could keep going.
Paladin 2/Battle Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8What the hell? You didn't describe a character with that. It's all mechanics. This is dumb.
I fondly remember that build...(everyone knew Abjurant Champion was ridiculous, even back then...but it was already the Wild West in 3.5 by the time that appeared and you could still get your ass handed to you by BBEGs and monsters even with that build, so it wasn't AS big of an issue as you're making it)
That build is a bad example for your argument, though. That's a righteous paladin who has chosen the path of arcane magic (that he has discovered to be an innate gift of his) as a way to augment his melee abilities. That's actually a REALLY easy to roleplay build, and not a huge illogical mishmash to create some broken effect....actually the effect it creates is pretty straightforward and not really broken, just fairly powerful.
Edit: In addition, the problem with builds like this in 3.5 wasn't the build itself. It was the presence of certain spells that made it ridiculous. Wraithstrike was the main offender (the spell, not the poster!) Are we going to start telling Paizo to stop making spells for fear that something like Wraithstrike comes along?
No.. No i don't.
But when you compare the falcata to say a butterfly knife, kama, sai.. and most of the other exotic weapons..
Yes, it is a no-brainier. Not just because the falcata is awesome, but because everything else sucks.
Butterfly knife.. Exactly like a dagger.. except worse. Loses weapon finesse, throwing abilities, good duel wield capabilities.
Dueling sword- Exactly like a long sword, unless you take an additional feat to allow you to finesse it. 5 feats later you can take another feat to bump it up just a little bit.
Kama, A sickle by another name.
I could keep going.
Both. Butterfly knife sucks and falcata is OP. I want balanced, diverse, interesting stuff. Thanks.
Kama is different. Has a special unique use (monk), so is not relevant for the discussion.
Well, in my games, I'm very used to not allowing OP stuff.
But here in the real world, you can't go to the Giant in the Playground forums and ask for help on a melee specialized fighter without being told to play a Warblade. If you say your DM doesn't allow Tome of Battle, then some screeching harpy will descend and eviscerate either you or them.
Meanwhile, most people don't even know what good advice is for "my DM won't let me pick more than three classes".
In other words, houserules that emulate how each game is launched + some fun stuff -> many play by these, but in the discussions people tend towards a much more liberal default assumption.
Any advice you get on the message boards is shakey. Heck the only good advice people can give is 'Talk to your players(or DM). It has always been true. And I would question calling a message board the Real World....
The other reason, of course, and let me be frank:
Fighter / Rogue -> Duelist
This makes sense thematically.
Paladin 2/Battle Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8
What the hell? You didn't describe a character with that. It's all mechanics. This is dumb. And Paizo fixed it like four different ways. Choking down on "hey, buy my book, I'm a broken prestige class" is but one of the ways.
Actualy to me those are both mechanical constructs. Than again Wizard 20 is just a mechanical construct. It is the player who breath life into them. Just because you have never seen it does not mean no one can.
The original intent with 3.0 was that Prestige classes were supposed to be campaign specific, and flavorful. I get that, I like that. But shortly after that came out, I think WotC realized that they could just sell us a million of the damned things so that common sense went out the window.
Yes and there are generic things in all the worlds which can be defined as PrCs. Heck if you don't want wizards in your world would you bemoan the fact they exist in the game?
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So the anti-PrC crowd is against PrCs because they saw somebody(sometimes just on the internet) abuse them.....wow. You guys realize that those people will just find something else to abuse right?
If its not the Prc classes it will be anything that offers options. Awhile back a poster started a thread about making a book about monster PCs. The same comments about the internet and abuse came up. My favorite was that one poster saw a group with a majority of non-standard races and that was proof alone for not having such a book.
Here is a startling concept...just say 'No'. I don't get why people just can't do that more.
Along with "No one is forcing you to buy the book or use whatever is in the book". Never understood why having more options is a bad thing when you can pick and choose what you want. When I choose to run PF I told my players only PF and not 3.5. Not because I have anuything against 3.5. becuase I wanted to keep looking through the various books to a minumum and becuae I was not in the mood to memorize that many rules.
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The original intent with 3.0 was that Prestige classes were supposed to be campaign specific, and flavorful. I get that, I like that.
I dont get this. All PCs are flavorful from some point of view. But as far as being intended as setting specific, I seriously doubt. None of the DMG ones are. Heck, many of the Setting PCs either had options for using them in other settings, or had only minor, easily replacible (like specific deity) parts.
I would say, for 3E, many of the Setting PCs where the bigger issues anyway, either trying to cram in too much in too few levels to allow things from novels, or depending too much on the groups name and being overall subpar.
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All PCs are flavorful from some point of view."Fighter" represents a lot of characters from a bunch of different cultures, but "Purple Dragon Knight" is quite specific. That's what is meant by flavorful: the flavor is in that prestige class. It's the summation of a series of techniques, training methods, magical investitures, and other such things, that you as the story teller are trying to supply mechanics for. It's not a damned grocery store shelf for OP abilities to slap together and throw in the pot and see who can make the best Cheesecake.
Oddly, I was specifically thinking of the Purple Dragon Knight for the second part of what I said. :)
I think I know what you mean, all I am saying is diferent people have different idea's what good flavor is. Could you give an example of what you think a poorly flavored prestige class is? I can't think of any, though I can think of some whose flavor I don't personally like. Also keep in mind that for generic prestige classes, sometimes they need to be nonspecific so that they can fulfill their function as a geneic (setting neutral) prestige class.