HOnestly, I have no issue with as many class dips as you want to do. It's JUST a game of mechanics. Classes, Archtypes, prestige... They're JUST a set of numbers to help you mold your character to what YOU see it as.
If I have some kind of image in my head of something that requires a ninja/shadowdancer/assassin.... Then by all means, DO it. What difference is there that it dips into two prestige classes??
What difference does it make if your character is some kind of Oracle/bard/monk?
Personally, I always take the RP fluff over the mechanics when I can... but the mechanics have their purpose too. Everyone at the table should be able to envision what they want their character to be. If player A can do that with just Fighter... congratulations. If player B needs to branch out and mix and match... who cares?
My only gripe with prestige classes is that they do not get the favored class bonus.
I allow Favored class bonus for Prestige Classes in my game it makes sense.
I agree. The difference is between people who make everyone else's fun as important as their own and those who don't.
Agreed, but that doesn't have anything to do with optimization. There is a ton of ways people can have fun at the expense of others at the table, including outshining everything everyone else does. Likewise, someone who builds an effective character can help build the fun for all at the table.
But this to me is part of the function of DMing. Limiting power choices or making players present RP reasons as to how or why they got access to certain training, organisational goals etc would be a good start. If you really want to house rule it, say that Prestige classes are 1 per character, meaning you can multiclass core and base classes but can only ever have 1 prestige class. It kind of makes sense because to me prestige classes represent more focused training or somekind of exclusive membership.
I think I am missing a jump in logic here. How does how many classes or prestige classes the guy sitting next to you has written down on his character sheet make it so that he is stopping you from having fun? Shouldn't your reactions to him be just in how the character is presented in a role-playing sense, not what you can lean over and see on his sheet?
Additionally, if he has fun building characters isn't limiting his choices just a way of ruining his fun? Why would it be ok for him not to have as much fun at the table?
Sean Mahoney
The DM has enough stuff to deal with without having to deal with emotionally immature players trying to rules lawyer, complaining when GMs reign in the most powerful character builds, complaining about how " taxes", etc. and following it all up with the complaint that they have a right to play at the table.
Is this what happens when someone has more than one prestige class?
Something tells me if you have a player who acts like this, then changes in the rules (like limiting prestige classes to a role other than they had in 3.5), is not going to make you have a better experience gaming with this guy.
If you have an immature player, you need to deal with the player's problems in the group (and remove them if no alternative becomes necessary). Removing the things they (and some others) might find fun about the game isn't a good way to deal with a problem player.
Sean Mahoney
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Everyone at the table should be able to envision what they want their character to be. If player A can do that with just Fighter... congratulations. If player B needs to branch out and mix and match... who cares?
I completely, 100% agree.
Everyone at the table needs to be playing and having fun. Different people enjoy different things about the game.
In a game with 4 players, all of whom are a single class, you are likely to have someone who wants more tactical combat and digs dungeon crawls, someone who would be happy never ending the city in an endless series of RP encounters, and probably two guys who are happy to just roll some dice and BS with friends. None of those are bad fun.
Likewise if one of those people really enjoyed crafting a character to fit his character concept... why would you want to punish him?
Again, if he is making things not fun for other players, that is another problem that has to be dealt with... but it isn't his having a bunch of prestige classes and base classes down on his character sheet that is the problem.
Sean Mahoney
It was just a matter of time til you got here. Improving the quality of your opinions is a side effect of learning :)I think that is the first time lilithsthrall has said something I 100% agree with.Worse, I find myself in agreement with Lilith AND Seeker...
And everything is back to normal... Close call.
Mostly, I just get annoyed when I see an archetype that could better be designed as a prestige class available to multiple classes.This a thousand times. Every time a mechanic is presented in an archetype, that means that mechanic can never be made available to other classes by any means. The design space is used and locked down forever.
Mistakes like that can't be reversed once they're published.
That's not true at all.
Sneak attack, bombs, weapon training, trapfinding, tactician, inspire courage, threatening with a bow (hi there Zen archer), multiple pets split amongst your class levels (hi beastmaster, pack lord, and broodmaster), Celebrity / Demagogue....
This statement, while true, in no way dimenishes the fact that munchkining one's character is one of the ways that people often demonstrate more concern for their own fun than for everyone else at the table.
If someone makes an effective character it ruins your fun at the table?
This statement, while true, in no way dimenishes the fact that munchkining one's character is one of the ways that people often demonstrate more concern for their own fun than for everyone else at the table.If someone makes an effective character it ruins your fun at the table?
There's a difference between a munchkin'd character and an effective one.
A munchkin steals the spotlight and marginalizes the contributions of other members at the table.
This statement, while true, in no way dimenishes the fact that munchkining one's character is one of the ways that people often demonstrate more concern for their own fun than for everyone else at the table.If someone makes an effective character it ruins your fun at the table?There's a difference between a munchkin'd character and an effective one.
A munchkin steals the spotlight and marginalizes the contributions of other members at the table.
But it is subjective.
I've heard hundreds of tales where one guy (cryer about munchkins) thinks the other is a munchkin, but really the cryer has built a weak character and upset the other guy didn't (he built an effective one).
There's a difference between a munchkin'd character and an effective one.
A munchkin steals the spotlight and marginalizes the contributions of other members at the table.
Working on that definition I am fine with munchkins being bad. But there are people who take multiple prestige classes who don't do that... why can't they have them?
I guess I see it as an issue with choices, not Prestige Classes specifically. By adding archetypes, the munchkins will be able to build their character more powerfully. By adding in feats, the munchkins will be able to build their character more powerfully. By adding in spells, the munchkins will be able to build their character more powerfully.
I could go on... the problem is not the choices, it is the player. If there is a player at the table causing problems by using the rules then deal with the player... you won't win trying to change the rules so he has to play your way.
I could go on... the problem is not the choices, it is the player. If there is a player at the table causing problems by using the rules then deal with the player... you won't win trying to change the rules so he has to play your way.
THIS.
Munchkins do what Munchkins do. If you only let them have access to ONE class, they will optimize and feat it out so that they still steal the spotlight. It's not the multiclassing that makes them hog the spotlight. it's just their nature ;)
Your better off banning the problem player then banning options for the other players ;)
I'd also like to go against the form that prestige classes only be setting-specific. There are plenty of good prestige classes which are not. There are also great archetypes which are setting specific; neither bit of crunch should get pigeonholed like that. Both are rules for simulating reality (er, fantasy, but you get my point) - some concepts work better as prestige classes, some as archetypes.
What I'm arguing for is finding a middle ground between the two where we use the rules best suited to the idea, and not point fingers at one or the other as broken. We had a glut of prestige classes in 3.x, and with so many, many were bad. I'm worried we're going the same way with archetypes. They are inherently a little easier to control (you compare directly to a base class ability), but that doesn't mean they're always the right choice.
As an examples for the people arguing against multiclassing as a part of the prestige class problem, take the gish as an example. Sure, the magus is a good stab at the gish. Does that mean no one should multiclass fighter-wizard, because the magus is the be-all and end-all of the type? Should we throw out the old prestige classes that helped make this path more workable? Of course not. People should keep coming up with creative ways to make that iconic type work. Some of those ways should be archetypes, and some should be prestige classes. Some should be wholly new ideas, but that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
How about, instead, making it so that they don't have to take a ton of PrCs to build the character concept they're aiming for?
If there were a magic way to know what all the character concepts that people could come up with are that would work great. But people come up with all sorts of things... things I would never dream of... some I personally like, some I don't... but the more options they have the more chances they have to make that character.
There are still characters from 3.5 that I can't make... and probably never will be able to as the mechanics no longer reflect the core concept of the characters (like using the concentration skill as one of my main focuses for a warrior worshiper of Irori... no more concentration skill so it doesn't work... was a lot of fun though).
More choices also spark the ideas themselves... You can always not use things in your game, but if you ask them not to be made in the first place no one else can use them in theirs unless they create them themselves.
Allowing PRCs to be more than just group identifiers doesn't cheapen the ones that are... they work the same in game. It just means there is more diversity.
Sean Mahoney
That's not a character concept. It's a rule concept.
On the larger point, if it can be created with PrCs, then it could be created without PrCs (just create feats, class powers, whatever to give what you want from the feats).
Also, the GM is under no obligation to make every character concept possible. He creates the game world. He decides what game concepts are possible.
It is a concept... there is far more to it than taking the concentration skill... that's just the part that got removed.
So if you don't have a problem with options being available (feats, class powers, etc), why the issue with more prestige classes. That is what the whole discussion is about. Not if the DM would like them in his world or is providing for more character options, it is if Paizo should or should not be making more prestige classes (in our opinions).
I am having a tough time understanding the reticence.
That's not a character concept. It's a rule concept.
The best rules concepts inspire character concepts themselves. Rules are not simply tools we must work through - they can be elegant and creative in their own right.
On the larger point, if it can be created with PrCs, then it could be created without PrCs (just create feats, class powers, whatever to give what you want from the feats).
Sure, but not necessarily as well, which is to say, efficiently and elegantly. Or to put it more simply, as fun.
Also, the GM is under no obligation to make every character concept possible. He creates the game world. He decides what game concepts are possible.
Of course, which is why we should have the prestige classes from the publisher. We get choices from them, and the GM sifts through them for his particular vision, but always in consultation with the players. If the minmaxer is the bane of fun on the player's side, then the GM too rigid to adapt his vision for the creativity of his players is the reverse of the coin.
All I can say is that I think you have had some really bad experiences with munchkins and I can only assume haven't had the pleasure of playing with someone who both knows and uses the rules well at the same time as adding to everyones fun. I am sad for you.
I don't think we are getting any closer to understanding the others point on this.
I don't get why you think other options are fine, but not prestige classes. You don't seem to understand that others find that a character whose concept is modeled and reflected by the rules is more fun that one hung on an arbitrary set of rules.
I am thinking I will just leave the conversation at this point.
Sean Mahoney