Prestige Classes - 3E

[EZ_Vorashus]

Ive finally gotten my whole group moved over to third edition rules. As of yet we havent really given much thought to prestige classes.

The only one we've had experience with was one of my players using the Dark Stalker prestige class (Scarred Lands) on his ranger.

We really werent sure how it is supposed to be done. All i know is that it really overpowered him in comparison with my other players, and since then ive not let people pick any prestige, until I can get it figured out.

So... How are prestige classes supposed to work in general, in regards to implementation and experience. I know most of them that I have seen only go to 10th level, so is there a lmit to how much experience you can add at one time, and a normal level prequisite to each level in prestige?

As always, any help and advice is most appreciated
Edited by: Vorashus at: 6/2/02 5:11:48 pm

[EZ_Saluthyus]

Only thing really governing prestige classes is the prereqs for them. Some of the more powerful ones(not sure of hte one you mentioned, as I don't have scared lands) require insane levels in skills and feats. They work just like a regular multiclass character in all other respects(add the attack bonus, saving throws, etc). Also remember that if a character gets over a 1 level difference then they get a 20% xp penalty (i.e. 2/3 is ok, 2/4 gets a penalty) unless its a favored class. In your case, the ranger/dark stalker is the same as a ranger/wizard. He has to assign levels the same way. So if he was a 3rd level ranger and got a level of the prestige class he would be 3/1...

Hope that helps alittle
Saluthyus

[EZ_Arafain]

Prestige classes do not incur multiclassing experience penalties. If you want to find out more about prestige classes, read up on them in your 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. There are also many prestige classes listed in Sword & Fist, Defenders of the Faith, Song & Silence, Tome & Blood, and Defenders of the Wild, as well as in the Magic of Faerun and Forgotten Realms sourcebooks.

A good rule is 'Provide Documentation' - don't allow a skill, feat, or prestige class in your campaign unless the person who wants to possess it owns a 3rd edition book with that skill, feat, or class listed in the book.

On the whole, Prestige classes aren't that overpowering - they just add extra dimensions to a character. However, there are a couple of prestige classes that are....interesting...in terms of ability. For example, the Fang of Lloth prestige class can grant a player with the correct feats 10 sneak attacks in one round at 5d6 per sneak attack. That's 60d6+extra of dmg in one full round of attacks with a d6 weapon if they all land. Or, for another example, if a player with a very high base ATK bonus takes all 10 levels of the Drunken Master prestige class, they can have 10 attacks per round unarmed at monk damage bonuses...without ever having a single level of monk.

At first glance, this might seem outrageous. What you don't realize is that a Fang of Lloth is a humanoid vermin that looks like an eight-armed hideous THING with chitinous plates, compound eyes, and gigantic fangs. This causes problems for the average party trying to stock up on food and potions in town - and requires the aspirant to the class to activate a DC 25 cursed item known as a Fang Scarab of Lloth (which, I might add, is NOT AT ALL easy to acquire) which, when activated, sinks its claws into the victim's throat, enforces the monstrous changes that are a part of the prestige class, and causes death if removed. Similarly, the Drunken Master prestige class requires the Drunken Master to carry around ridiculous amounts of alcohol with him, behave extremely erratically, and deal with pretty big negatives to Dex, Int, and Wis 90% of the time he's not in combat.

It's like the old argument that GMs in EQ would happily give players swords that are 80dmg/20dly if they procced Kill User. Just a question of giving the players enough rope to hang themselves. -- Veteran Arafain Entreri, 60 Assassin
-- Arafein Soulstriker, 54 Champion Relic
-- Arafax Kokorozan, 20 Monk Giantfriend
-- Formerly of Requiem of Souls
-- Formerly of The Rathe Server, now of Zebuxoruk
"Once, in the old west, a gentleman shot a professional gunfighter in the back. When asked why he didn't give the other chap a chance to draw, he replied, 'Well, he's dead and I'm alive and that's how I wanted it to be." -- from <u>Red Planet</u>, Robert A. Heinlein[i]

[EZ_Kethaal]

lol, was gonna post on Prestige Classes being too powerful in some cases, but I'll leave it up to your imagination. Basically I had a character that could coup-de-gras quite a lot. Oh, and the wacky ideas other players get about playing things like elven rogue / magical archers. (forgot the name)

They can get overpowering, but if your GM is smart, they'll step up the campaign to make it enjoyable.

[EZ_Heartsong Steelsoul]

I can also say that a lot of the prestige classes put out by third parties that I've seen were not, well, particularly balanced. HEck, the ones put out by WotC aren't balanced to each other much.

If you think a class isn't balanced well, you're the GM, change the rules until you think it IS balanced. On the other hand, yes, most prestige classes are more powerful in particular ways than normal classes - if the other players are worried, they could always find the one for them.

Heartsong Steelsoul

[EZ_Arafain]

Changing the rules of a prestige class to fit your personal opinions of relative power is kinda lame IMHO. The more powerful prestige classes have very difficult prerequisites BECAUSE they are so powerful. The way to balance a powerful Prestige class is not through altering the actual abilities and bonuses to suit you, but by looking carefully at the roleplay requirements for that prestige class. If a player chooses to take some levels of Master Samurai, give him a -2 circumstance penalty on any skill check involving western culture, citing mental culture shock and diversity stress. A lot of the time, the manuals will spell these things out FOR you, with predetermined penalties, so make sure you thorougly read and notate a player's documentation for his prestige class before you let him/her play it. Sometimes, however, they'll just assume you'll do this, so you still have to pay attention to what you're doing and be careful not to take it overboard so that the game is no longer fun. Just try to tailor the penalties to the relative power of the prestige class, and make sure you stick with a rule once you set it. If you find out six battles into the campaign that the penalties you set for a prestige class are too light, it's too late - you'll just have to try harder next time. However, you can ease up penalties that are too heavy, giving the reason that the character is adjusting to cope with his/her difficulties. Plus, the players like this a lot more than they would a 'nerf'.

Rule of thumb - set penalties high to begin with if you're dubious about a class's power, then scale them down as it seems appropriate.

[EZ_namelessshaman]

mostly I agree with arafain , however
Quote:
Changing the rules of a prestige class to fit your personal opinions of relative power is kinda lame IMHO
this is right out - it's our/your game, feel free to modify it as you deem necessary
and part of the entire point of prestige classes is to fit certain roles within a campaign world. if your world doesn't have dark elves, much less Lolth, that spider fang class just doesn't really fit, but maybe you have some other dark spider god that has something similiar but toned down in power, hey knock yourself yet and change things for your campaing, that's part of the point

[EZ_Telurinon]

Many of the listed prestige classes are poorly designed. Most are UNDERPOWERED compared to an equivalent singleclass character. A few, however, are grossly powerful and still a few others, when combined, can become godlike.

The best rule of thumb is to look over any prestige class someone wants to play. If it is obviously broken (Incantatrix, Arcane Trickster) disallow it. If it seems ok, but later turns into a problem (The ninja guys from Sword and Fist or Red Avengers) you have to decide whether you want to compensate for that character, or ask the player to strip down the offensive abilities.

Also, beware of Prestige Classes which give most of, or their best abilities up front with only one or two levels in them. These allow players to switch from class to class and quickly become ludicrously powerful.
Telurinon Aelvenborne, 52nd Rake of Black IsleMangore Orcsplitter, 40th Warrior of Black IsleDewin gan'Bran, 28th Wizard of black Isle
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day.

[EZ_Kethaal]

Best idea is to make sure your players and / or yourself can correctly police their PC's abilities. Makes things run a lot smoother.

[EZ_Telurinon]

Hey, Vor...what's up with your Sig?


edit: removed sig Edited by: Telurinon at: 6/10/02 1:33:39 pm

[EZ_Arafain]

What exactly makes an Incantrix so powerful? I've heard that a lot of DMs don't allow them in their campaigns, but I've read through the description and can't find anything dreadfully overpowering. I don't really see what's so uber about a couple of bonus metamagic feats, a +2 bonus on dispel checks, and the ability to see and strike Ethereal things.

[EZ_Telurinon]

Arafein, the really gross instant metamagic ability is the problem. With the right combination of feats and incantatrix level 10, a wizard is capable of doing giganormous amounts of damage in a single round. Think in terms of a Maximized Meteor Swarm (not normally possible under the 3rd edition rules) and then start getting more creative.

The only other Prestige Class that has this sort of ability is the Spelldancer, and in that case the ability is limited in such as a way as to make it properly balanced. The Incantatrix has few limitations on the ability and is considered broken as such.

EDIT: removed sig Edited by: Telurinon at: 6/10/02 1:34:01 pm

[EZ_Vorashus]

My sig? I dunno... looks alright to me

Guildie made it in Flash, so if its showing up strange that could be why.

If youre refering to my personal pic.... /shrug

[EZ_Telurinon]

I get prompted if I want to allow ActiveX an ActiveX app to run on this page, and you sig is the only thing not loading when I hit No. /shrug

[DarthEnder]

Well, without some kind of expanded exp table, a character can't be a level 10 prestige class and higher than level 10 in another class anyway.

I mean, I didn't see an expanded table in the DM guide for characters with more than 20 levels total.

So I don't know what you mean by a level 10 Incantrix/wizard with powered up meteor swarms since level 10 wizards can't cast meteor swarm.

[EZ_Kehvrynne]

You don't need an expanded experience table. The progression in the existing table is very clearly defined: for each level, you need to gain the same amount of experience required to reach your last level plus 1000 more experience points.

Observe:

You need 0 experience to become 1st level.
You need 1000 experience to become 2nd level.
You need 3000 experience to become 3rd level.
You need 6000 experience to become 4th level.

1st level to 2nd: 1000 experience
2nd level to 3rd: 2000 experience
3rd level to 4th: 3000 experience

The progression holds all the way to Level 20 - so why would reaching 21st level be any different?

20th Level to 21st: 20000 experience
Total experience required to reach 21st level: 210000.

You couldn't do this in previous editions. Each class had it's own experience progression requiring different amounts of experience to reach the next level.

[EZ_Telurinon]

Ravenwing: If you look at the Incantatrix writeup, you'll notice it has something that says it gives +1 effective level in a previous class as far as casting is concerned (I don't have my books with me or I would type exactly what it says.)

So, if you are a level 10 Wizard/10 Incantatrix, you cast spells as a level 20 Wizard. This includes the number of spells per day and the level of spells usable. Without that, anyone who is primarily a spellcaster would be foolish to ever take a presetige class, which is contrary to the design philosophy.

EDIT: removed sig Edited by: Telurinon at: 6/10/02 1:34:21 pm

[EZ_LordOfChains]

Kethaal: about those magical archers, they're called "Arcane Archers" and ya have to be elven/half-elven and also be capable of casting at LEAST 1st level magic spells.

I did up a character seeing how powerful I could get a character with bow skills, taking a Ftr5/Wiz5 and adding 10 levels of Arcane Archer and Order of the Bow Initiate.

It was not pretty. The guy could have taken out entire armies without even taking a scratch.

Magical armies, even.

And don't even get me started on what I manage to come up with using "Tome and Blood"

Edit: Oh, and there IS advancement beyond 20th. Its called going epic. Epic levels are discussed in a little detail in Forgotten Realms, and there is a sourcebook coming out that'll talk about it in-depth.
_________________Where's that Metallic rattling coming from?Edited by: LordOfChains at: 6/6/02 6:19:40 pm

[DarthEnder]

Interesting.

Personally, I don't care much for Prestige classes.

I would have rather seen each one fleshed out into a full class. And if I wanted to be part something else and part that class, I'd just MQ as normal.

[EZ_Kethaal]

Yup, that's it. One of my buddies played a Rogue / Wizard that went to Arcane Archer, assassin style. The only person in my group who could keep him in check was my Monk turned Ninja of the Crescent Moon. Threats of physical violence work well against a person you can a) 95% of the time suprise and get initive on, and b) kill in one round.

Arcane Archers are powerful, and in the wrong hands become a PITA.

[EZ_LordOfChains]

Well, the one thing about combining order of the bow initiates with arcane archers is that you get the magic bonus on yer arrows as well as the ability to sneak attack, no melee penalties for shooting arrows off at close range, and the ability to sneak attack the baddies by banking a shot off the wall.

Give the guy a magic item that gives infinite arrows, put him at the end of a hall and you can just keep throwing critters against him. Not a thing will get through.

And monks that go into ninja are scary. You get a +17 attack bonus that you can use for unarmed attack range! Yeek! _________________Where's that Metallic rattling coming from?

[EZ_Heartsong Steelsoul]

Well, prestiage classes aren't like regular classes - they are specializing in a particular thing, basically. Like "I'm not just going to be a fighter, I'm going to be a bow monkey" or "I'm going to make divination totally my thing as a cleric" or what have you. It's another way of making people who are the same class not be identical.

Heartsong Steelsoul

[EZ_Vorashus]

K... I believe I understand everthing now.

Next question -
What D20 books have extra prestige classes right now?

All i have with prestige classes:

3E Dungeon Masters Guide
Scarred Lands, Rituals and Relics (this book also has some really neat extra spells and such)
Traps and Treachery

I know there are a ton more out there - so what all am i missing?

[EZ_Matheren]

all the wotc class books - sword &amp; fist, defenders of the faith, tome &amp; blood, masters of the wild, song &amp; silence.

the four forgotten realms books - FR campaign setting, magic of faerun, faiths &amp; pantheons, lords of darkness.

then all of the other publishers have loads of books that feature prestige classes - my particular favorites are the ones monte cook has done, the books of eldritch might 1 &amp; 2. the first one is out in print, and the second will be soon, and can also be bought at www.montecook.com

then you've got mongoose publishing's quintessential series (fighter, etc), battle magic.. if you like prestige classes, there are loads upon loads of books out there Edited by: Matheren at: 6/9/02 11:28:22 am

[DarthEnder]

The ones in Traps and Treachery are especially well balanced in my opinion.

Roofrunners and Trapmasters are are great depending on wether you spend all your time in the city or in dungeons.

[Dragynphyre]

Also are some prestige classes associated with the Oriental Adventures (I think that's what it's called. ) Delissandra Splitshadow - First and Best Assassin in "Far Seekers" - The Rathe
Aileena Brellious
Yinka Din`Kadoo
Arzza Mojomama

[EZ_Matheren]

ahh yeah. oriental adventures has quite a few, some really good ones. the psionics book has the two psionics classes, and three or four prestiges in there. but for those you have to go to bruce cordell's website to download the redone versions - they were completely messed up in the book.

[EZ_Kintire]

I for one would be very reluctant to let some go for two prestige classes until they had completely fininshed one. They are supposed to represent great dedication, not grab a few skills and run!

[EZ_AlyssiaLaterose]

Quote: Give the guy a magic item that gives infinite arrows, put him at the end of a hall and you can just keep throwing critters against him. Not a thing will get through.

Bullcrap. Anything can be killed by something else. Even PC's. Take the arcane archer for example... you said put him in a hallway...

Well.. a wizard of equal level could cast Wall of Force right behind said archer. And then Move Earth and squish the archer to death very easily... all from behind a Wall of Force protecting himself or a stoneskin spell... or anything else that would protect them from arrows.

Trust me... I've been DM'ing 3E long enough to know all the tricks to getting around anything.

~Aly