PrCs and losing prerequisites

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Lago_AM3P
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PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Awhile ago, it was mentioned that in Complete Warrior, if you lose prerequisites for the PrC you lose practically everything except for base saves, hit die, and BAB.

Does anyone find this bafflingly retarded? In both a mechanical and roleplaying sense. If your fighter gets ability drained such that he cannot use the power attack feat anymore, all of the levels in his bear warrior and frenzied berserker class just go away. Roleplaying wise, if your character becomes lawful evil (as it is a requirement for the Super Ninja PrC) and gets ninja training, all of his ninja training goes away as soon as he fights for good and justice!

Apparently, someone got super-pissed when someone pointed out the paladin/blackguard level switching, even though there are PrCs and core classes IN THAT BOOK that already allow this shit without playing the prerequisite-swapping game.
User3
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by User3 »

PC/PrC ability loss:

1. Kicks level as a measure of power in the nuts.

2. Cripples RP.

3. Not fun, on any occasion(friend or foe).

Basically, the justification is that for RP, you should not have evil paladins. Rather than just say "Paladins that go evil use abilities off the blackguard chart," they kick us in the nuts in an attempt to prevent us from RPing and/or min-maxing.

Basically, they need to cut prereqs out entirely and make it level dependant. Since each class has a prereq tied to a min. number of levels you should have(since the class abilties gain are as powerful as abilities gained by characters of a the expected level), they should just be honest.

It is quite easy to break those expected limits and prereqs and make something broken. For example, any skill based PrC reqs can be met by becoming a were-beast(higher skill cap and free points to fill those caps) or taking a PrC like that brain eating Illithid PrC from SS, which lets you steal ranks(even higher than your level) from another character.
Username17
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Username17 »

The statement in the Complete Warrior is a word for word copy/paste from the 3rd edition PrC rules, and is thus just one typo out of many in that book. I mean, it's not as typo filled as the Complete Divine, but it is close.

The complete rules for PrC requirements are found in the DMG, and are subject to the erata and Q&A stealth errata that have been printed for them. So far, the only forthcoming errata or "clarification" stealth errata made for them is that PrCs do not subject characters to XP reductions.

Yeah, that's the long and the short of it. The Complete Warrior has many pieces of errant text in it, of which this is simply one example. The fact that some people latch onto it because it happens to say something that would hose player characters is beside the point (although in no way surprising).

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Lago_AM3P
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Why is that?

Haven't they learned by now that general nerfs hurt the average gamers more than the powergamers way more?

The closest this philosophy has ever gotten to making the game more fair was the persistent spell nerf. Every other time I've seen general nerfs hurt non-powergamers way more; and that seems to be the only reason why they put it into the book (and also why people hold it as gospel). Because it makes it a little more difficult to pull off the important parts of the Beholder Mage / Maho Tsukai / Ur-Priest combo. That's why everyone else has to suffer.]

Damn game.
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Username17 »

That's just it though. They didn't "put it in the book". They failed to remove it from the book. It's something that got missed when they were updating those rules to the 3.5 standards.

It's one of the reasons I'm so unimpressed with the 3.5 stuff. I could honestly update rules to the 3.5 standards better than Andy can, and he wrote the 3.5 standards. That's not good.

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RandomCasualty
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by RandomCasualty »

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1088180786[/unixtime]]
Basically, they need to cut prereqs out entirely and make it level dependant. Since each class has a prereq tied to a min. number of levels you should have(since the class abilties gain are as powerful as abilities gained by characters of a the expected level), they should just be honest.


I agree for the most part. Unless the feat or whatever is absolutely essential for the PrC, then I don't think you should need it.
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Josh_Kablack
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Well the 3.0 approach where you lose PrC abilities due to form-shifting, poison, literal Skipist interpretation of level-drain, gaining your first level in Survivor and a bunch of other stuff is downright retarded - but the 3.5 Core approach where you only need to meet the prerequisites for the first level of the PrC is so prone to abuse that[/i]ed wizard MyThs, triple agent blackguards, PrC levels gained solely due to Magic Jar used once years ago) you might as well drop the notion of prerequisites entirely.


My thinking is that prereqs should work such that you have to meet them to gain ANY level in a PrC. This still leaves a small problem with the precise timing of level-up and how it interacts with spells/effects used to temporarily meet prereqs, but it would be a step towards a happy middle ground.
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User3
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by User3 »

Prereqs change all the time, due to damage, special effects of spells, and the like.

Loosing your mojo each time is painful and pointless from a rules balance standpoint, but dumb from a story standpoint. If I possessed a dragon, and take a level of Dragon Pimpdaddy, then I should keep that. I can name a few stories where the hero gets possessed or upgraded or shapchanged, and then later when he's a real boy again he has one or two of his old abilities. Its cool, and flavorful.

The mechanic should read: "When have enough XP to reach the next character level, you can take any PrC for which you have qualified for during that level. To gain further levels in the PrC, you must qualify for that PrC during the next character level. The exception is energy drained levels: You may only regain PrC levels that you have earned in normal play."

Also, classes like the Beholder Mage needs a "should you loose your spell eyes for any reason, you may not use the spells or caster level granted by this class." The Maho-tsugkai, UrPriest, ect needs the "you may never apply more caster levels than your character level."

A few simple rules make for a better system. DnD has a bunch of unwritten design rules that get broken whenever a new supplement gets written up by a new developer.
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Re: PrCs and losing prerequisites

Post by Username17 »

I can also name many a story in which the villain has a whole lot of mojo, but then some seemingly minor event happens which makes him no longer able to tap into his power anymore and he either becomes powerless or turns to dust. That can be very flavorful and very fun. The whole thing of losing prereqs and losing abiltities is, at the heart of it, the way you kill Liches and Vampires.

And it's cool. But it's not cool to have to do it back and forth over stupid crap like fatigue. It's a book keeping nightmare.

Losing prereqs and the power associated with them at the same time should be the exception not the rule. It's cool when the demonologist loses all his powers when you stab his quasit, but it's dumb for the Guild Boss to lose his ability to appraise quality metalworking when his fourth apprentice joins the clergy.

Having a couple of classes which have special cases under which you lose all of your powers temporarily is neat, it makes a good story once in a while. But having a general case where every defensive fighter loses all of their abilities whenever their dex falls below 13 is just retarded.

The adventure hook where the paladin is boned and has to atone to get his mojo back is mean as fvck, but makes a good story. The story in which your party Berserker is kind of tired and can no longer talk to bears until he rests is just dumb.

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