Prestigious Spellcaster Legality Thread

[Beckman]

Jeff Hazuka wrote:

Bringing up the floor is also power creep.

I don't hate that definition - that "power creep" is any change in average power, but I think the term power creep carries such a negative meaning that I would hesitate to use it in such a context, since in general, I would define it to usually applying to an unintentional slow creep in power. Or even an unintentional large shift in power.

Whereas, I would agree with the term, "Rebalancing" which would apply to a change wherein bad options are made better because they were previously unplayed in order to attempt a change towards a greater diversity of options which are playable.

[Chess Pwn]

The designers wanted solo-class characters to be the norm. The prestige classes were meant to be less appealing mechanically so as to make solo-classing the predominant choice. So it's that they did a very good job at meeting their design goals.

They want prestige classes to be fairly rare and not super common, in 3.5 they were super common and it was expected to go into at least 1 and likely more. You didn't really ask which class are you as which PrC are you going for. So if PrC started becoming more norm, then either the design goal has changed, or their goal isn't being adhered to.

[Talonhawke]

Jeff Hazuka wrote:

Bringing up the floor is also power creep.

But if the ceiling doesn't move as much then the creep might be worth the reduction of the gap. Also there will be power creep it will happen everytime a new book comes out there is a chance of it whether a small amount or a large amount and while the worst might be avoided, there is no way to prevent it all.

[Beckman]

Thomas Hutchins wrote:

The designers wanted solo-class characters to be the norm. The prestige classes were meant to be less appealing mechanically so as to make solo-classing the predominant choice. So it's that they did a very good job at meeting their design goals.

They want prestige classes to be fairly rare and not super common, in 3.5 they were super common and it was expected to go into at least 1 and likely more. You didn't really ask which class are you as which PrC are you going for. So if PrC started becoming more norm, then either the design goal has changed, or their goal isn't being adhered to.

For sure I would agree that the designers wanted solo characters to be a compelling choice - I am not sure that I would agree with the designers making PRCs mechanically weaker so that they would not be selected...

Between 3.5 and Pathfinder, they added a bunch of stuff to the core classes and now you have good reasons to play them. However, not only did they make Core classes, better, generally PRCs got weaker, which created a mechanical asymmetry. They succeeded in creating a reason to play a base character, but that should have little do to with whether the PRCs are mechanically good or if they should be rebalanced by publishing additional options to support them.

[Chess Pwn]

Lets assume that 80% of people play characters for mechanical effect. Not that they don't do sub optimal things. But if they are going for a sneaky guy and class X offers sneak and PrC offers less sneak that they'll go with class X, because they are wanting a sneaky guy.

So the reason behind not seeing PrC is that 80% will not pick it because it doesn't help them achieve their goal. This means that a PrC will only get picked if it mechanically helps them with their goal, like having a shadow pet, or being a melee sorcerer, or gaining fatigue immunity without losing bab. Lets say 4% of playerbase fits this. (this is supported by the "large increase" of PrC seen when early entry was possible.)

What about the other 20%? Well they are doing purely thematic choices. But with PrC being a super duper niche thing, their thematically not what players want. Like bloodmage, while good, isn't what they want for their character.

So the 20% wont pick it unless that is the exact vision they were wanting for the character. lets say that the amount that want the theme of a PrC is 1% of the total playerbase.

Using these values (which are quite baseless but make a valid point regardless of exact numbers used) we see that 1/20 players will use a PrC. This can be dropped even lower if you factor in and say that it's 1/20 that would ever use a PrC, but then it's decreased by how many character options you have, so if 1 person is potential for PrC but has 20 character ideas with only 3 using PrC then we have an even lower amount of ever seeing a PrC.

Now the thematic people wont change. But the mechanic people will flock to PrC if they were mechanically superior to a base class for their goal. As mentioned earlier, this is seen by the increase in mystic theurges, "You're basically a full wizard that also has a lot of cleric."

Since they revoked the early entry rule, and because no one could show how it raised the ceiling, only upped some of the previously bad choices, it lends credence to the PDT still not wanting PrC to be generally viable/common choices.

[pauljathome]

Talonhawke wrote:

Jeff Hazuka wrote:

Bringing up the floor is also power creep.

But if the ceiling doesn't move as much then the creep might be worth the reduction of the gap.

For Pathfinder as a whole I completely agree.

But for PFS I largely disagree.

In PFS power creep leads to major issues since
1) there is a much greater disparity in character power levels within a party than in a home campaign where various balancing options are possible
2) the GM does NOT have the tools to fight power creep at the table.

The problem is that a scenario that challenges the middle will be extremely deadly for the lower powered characters and a complete cake walk for the higher powered.

[Murdock Mudeater]

Louis Manko Levite wrote:

It does come down to a single question, do 2 feats = one caster level and is this power creep?

But that's not what this one does. It's not even one caster level, it's one caster level within the confines of not being able raise the total caster level from the prestige class above the class level.

So, if anything, it balances the prestige classes with the other classes. If the concept of a prestige class is to make a weaker character, then it unbalances the concept prestige class by making it balanced.