Weakest. PrCs. EVAR.

[Josh_Kablack]

1087007657[/unixtime]]PrCs don't need to exist AT ALL for fighters. Feats alone should be able to cover most anything you want to do.

PrCs are simply an excuse to stop work on fixing the fighter and barbarian classes.

I agree that the Core classes need work, but I strongly disagree that PrCs don't need to exist for fighters and that everything should be done with feats. (Unless you are asserting that PrCs don't need to exist at all, which is a seperate argument)

If you ask me, all Fighter Type PrCs should be like the Frenzied Berserker, but all official PrCs should be roughly equal in overall power to similiar Core Class/Multiclass Builds.

From a DM view, Fighter-PrCs should exist to

1. 
   
2. Represent influential organizations or fighting styles in his game world
   
3. Provide game-mechanical rewards for players who can mesh their character concepts with those organizations or styles, thereby promoting game-world cohesion and PC involvement.
   
4. Reward players who have a narrow character concept with additional bonuses towards advancing that concept at the expense of character versatility
   
5. Provide a band-aid fix or flavor shift to mechanics that the DM doesn't like, but doesn't want to make major changes to. For example: want the whip to be a primo weapon, but don't want everybody taking it? Just include a Fedoraed Archaeoligist PrC who gets bonuses to performing all those crazy whip manuevers, can use his whip for movement purposes and gets to hurt things with natural armor, and bingo it's fixed enough for you without needing to errata any of the Core Rules for it.
   

From a Player View, PrCs should exist to

1. 
   
2. Provide your character with more specific choices than do Core Classes.
   
3. Reward your character for concentrating on one particular choice instead of diversifying.
   
4. Reward your character for completing lengthy story elements (ie special prereqs)
   

Even if you want to do everything as feats, their should still be Fighter PrCs which allow characters to advance a given concept further by giving out specific bonus feats faster than the fighter gets selectable bonus feats at a cost of specific feats for prerequisites. That's not to clear, so let me use an example. The hypothetical "Nifty Cavilier" is a mounted combat type PrC for fighters. It should be identical (or at least balance-wise equal) to the fighter core class in what it grants, save that it should grant X specific mounted combat feats, where X is equal to the number of prerequisite mounted combat feats it requires. Thus a Nifty Cavilier is X feats better than a fighter at mounted combat, but X feats worse than a fighter at doing things other than mounted combat. PrC design like this does mean that PrCs are more powerful than core classes, but only within their specific niche, and their specific focus means that they are worse than core classes in other areas. This rewards specific character concepts without unfairly punishing players who have more general concepts.

[RandomCasualty]

1087013347[/unixtime]]
Even if you want to do everything as feats, their should still be Fighter PrCs which allow characters to advance a given concept further by giving out specific bonus feats faster than the fighter gets selectable bonus feats at a cost of specific feats for prerequisites. That's not to clear, so let me use an example. The hypothetical "Nifty Cavilier" is a mounted combat type PrC for fighters. It should be identical (or at least balance-wise equal) to the fighter core class in what it grants, save that it should grant X specific mounted combat feats, where X is equal to the number of prerequisite mounted combat feats it requires. Thus a Nifty Cavilier is X feats better than a fighter at mounted combat, but X feats worse than a fighter at doing things other than mounted combat.

But if the prerequisite feats aren't garbage, and they shouldn't be, then they're not a cost at all. Taking spirited charge as a cavalier requirement isn't a cost at all, and you dont' deserve something for it, because you wanted it anyway, so you're not actually giving up anything, even with clever wording. Saying you're giving up something because you're "forced" to choose the exact feats you wanted anyway is just asking for free power.

PCs are already richly rewarded for specializing. Compare multiclass casters to singleclass casters, or a fighter/rogue to a straight rogue. Specialization is already so richly rewarded, we really don't need to reward it anymore, at least not to the extent of the frenzied berserker. Especially when you've got the frenzied berserker "I'll give up a little damage reduction and trap sense to get a super frenzy ability, become unkillable by hit point damage and make my power attack x4."

Really, name me a barbarian who WOULDN'T take that benefit. If that's what you want the barbarian to be, you might as well just make frenzy a class ability of a high level barbarian. Even still I think making someone utterly immune to hit point damage is the dumbest move ever, because it eliminates the one consistent game mechanic that you can kill something by cutting it up.

I agree that if you want a whip master or something, then yeah it's a good idea to make that a PrC probably. Though you could prob get away with feats too also.

[Username17]

Feats alone should be able to cover most anything you want to do

Only if people accept the fact that a single feat therefore needs to be the quivalent of three ninth level spells, and a sixth level spell cast on yourself.

If people won't concede that point then the Fighter class simply can't exist past the first couple of levels and we need PrCs which are completely uber relative to the feats people will allow to take over for the rest of the drive to level 20. As long as getting a feat is less than casting four spells on yourself it's hopeless.

And I'm not talking about "feat chains" or any of that shit either. I'm talking each single feat by itself needs to be as good as taking absolutely every spell slot you get out of a caster level and casting it - because that's what you are giving up.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

1087015631[/unixtime]]
If people won't concede that point then the Fighter class simply can't exist past the first couple of levels and we need PrCs which are completely uber relative to the feats people will allow to take over for the rest of the drive to level 20.

That or give the fighter some frelling class abilities. Not that I'll be holding my breath.

[Lago_AM3P]

Okay. This is the sort of shit a high-level fighter feat should accomplish.

Complete Shot: A person with the power attack feat automatically subtracts the difference between his attack bonus and the target's AC and up to his BAB and power attacks up to this; this manuever even works with iterative attacks, reducing the amount power attacked just to the point where the attack will hit.

Supreme Readjustment: A person with this feat can move up to 15' during any time he is entitled to a 5' step.

No Lucky Blows: A person with this feat can take 10 on any attack rolls or saving throws, and regardless never misses on a natural one or is struck by a natural 20.


And all that is in one feat, and it's a mid level one, too. Unfortunately, as you might've guessed, people are much more resistant to powering up the fighter than they are to new UberPrCs, so let's put out new UberPrCs. The idea of a PrC not having to be better than the core classes is complete crap, as only people who don't care about numbers intentionally take a power hit--that's why almost all clerics are sacred exorcists.

[RandomCasualty]

I don't know why you guys think feats have to be freaking awesome. I mean pretty much all PrC abilities aren't even as good as you want feats to be.

High level feats should be good, sure... but they the equivalent of 9th level spells, or giving you three really good abilities in one... that's just way over the top. I mean by that logic I could make a feat that granted me a +9 luck bonus to attack and damage, citing divine favor as a baseline. Obviously this crap is too powerful.

A feat should basically be worth 2 levels of PrC abilities at high levels. That way a fighter is on par with any PrC. They don't need to be super... They really don't.

Fighters fight pretty well in D&D, their real achilles heel comes that they have nothing to do out of combat. Give them diplomacy, bluff, and a few other skills and more skill points. But combat wise, they only really get trumped by a cleric using persistent spell, spikes or any of the other overpowered supplement stuff, or by a druid (which is broken anyway).

A fighter with a PrC does fine though, and it doesn't have to be a broke PrC like frenzied berserker, I'm talking about just something simple like weapon master, or holy liberator or whatnot. They do fine damage wise, unless you're dealing with lots of overpowered spells like spikes. But those spells shouldn't be allowed in the first place because they're super broke.

[Lago_AM3P]

Fighters fight pretty well in D&D, their real achilles heel comes that they have nothing to do out of combat. Give them diplomacy, bluff, and a few other skills and more skill points. But combat wise, they only really get trumped by a cleric using persistent spell, spikes or any of the other overpowered supplement stuff, or by a druid (which is broken anyway).

No, they don't. Even when we remove druids and clerics from the game entirely, fighters still stink.

Crack open the Monster Manual sometime. Check out the opposition past CR 10. A fighter, unless he's taking advantage of the flight + arrows thing (good luck with that at your level and in this edition), will get his face rocked by the vast majority of the opposition. Past CR 15 all until the end of epic, fighter-types just get utterly destroyed, either in their inability to get to/damage the creature or their inability to take a reprisal attack. This gets way worse in supplements like Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II, where the monsters only get weirder and wilder. But Fighters are not meant to tackle weird and wild.

Fighter-types aren't even all that good IN THEIR ELEMENT. I feel no need to preserve their current mechanic or the things that fuel them as-is.

[Draco_Argentum]

1087031193[/unixtime]]
No Lucky Blows: A person with this feat can take 10 on any attack rolls or saving throws, and regardless never misses on a natural one or is struck by a natural 20.

This dosen't seem that good powerwise. I also don't like the idea of taking 10 on an attack roll. Take 10 works for skills because you either know the DC or can retry 6 seconds later at no penalty. How often you you know your enemy's AC?

[RandomCasualty]

1087032531[/unixtime]]
Crack open the Monster Manual sometime. Check out the opposition past CR 10. A fighter, unless he's taking advantage of the flight + arrows thing (good luck with that at your level and in this edition), will get his face rocked by the vast majority of the opposition. Past CR 15 all until the end of epic, fighter-types just get utterly destroyed, either in their inability to get to/damage the creature or their inability to take a reprisal attack. This gets way worse in supplements like Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II, where the monsters only get weirder and wilder. But Fighters are not meant to tackle weird and wild.

Oh, I have. In fact I've run high level campaigns, and fighter types seem to do ok in their element. The fighters definitely held their own, and they didn't need anything anything unbelievably powerful to do it. Obviously they need magical items, but if you follow the wealth guidelines they do quite well in my experience. Obviously a druid or cleric can do better if you allow the broken spells, but they're just that... broken.

What specific creatures are you referring to as being so much better than the fighter?

[Josh_Kablack]

1087014460[/unixtime]]But if the prerequisite feats aren't garbage, and they shouldn't be, then they're not a cost at all. Taking spirited charge as a cavalier requirement isn't a cost at all, and you dont' deserve something for it, because you wanted it anyway, so you're not actually giving up anything, even with clever wording.

So?

No, seriously,

So?

You wanted to play a mounted combat-type and by inclusion of a cavalier PrC, the DM has given his implicit encouragement of that type. You're being rewarded for having a character concept which meshes with the DM's worldview.

Yeah, you'll rule on horseback. But that's not going to make the generalist fighter player cry, since when it comes to fighting off of horses, he has an extra archery feat over you, an Improved [whatever] feat over you, and an additional weapon specialization or two.

So you're rewarded, the DM's worldview is encouraged and the guy who might feel inferior still has enough advantages to not be hosed - Where's the problem again?

[RandomCasualty]

The point is that you really don't need it.

The non-mounted fighter doesn't have anything "over you", that's a very flawed way of looking at it. He has less abilities than you do, because you've got a PrC and he doesn't. And there are plenty of ways to get your mount inside dungeons. The easiest just being a small creature riding a medium sized mount.

As for meshing with the DM's world view, I think if the DM allows it at all, it should be good. There's nothing worse than worlds that give you tons of benefits if you're the DM's pet class or character concept.

Sure if you want a specific sect of powerful cavaliers then make a PrC for it, but if you think the mounted character in general needs a boost, then change around or add more feats.

If the PrC isn't an order, it means nothing in the game world, and therefore you might as well just use a fighter. The fighter class can call itself so many things depending on where you put your feats. If you specialize in the longsword, then you can call yourself a swordsman. If you specialize in mounted combat, then you're a cavalier. If you specialize in using a bow, then you're an archer. If you specialize in two weapon fighting, you can call yourself a tempest. You don't need endless amounts of PrCs to represent all these concepts, because each and every one is nothing more than a fighter with specialized abilities that might as well be feats.

Because you can dip into PrCs anyway, there's no need to have them be classes at all, and might as well just make all the abilities feats with the given prereqs. It's a hell of a lot simpler to just do things that way.

[Draco_Argentum]

1087095575[/unixtime]]The non-mounted fighter doesn't have anything "over you", that's a very flawed way of looking at it. He has less abilities than you do, because you've got a PrC and he doesn't.

Once again thats a result of the fighter as written being the worst PHB class.

[RandomCasualty]

1087097473[/unixtime]]
Once again thats a result of the fighter as written being the worst PHB class.

Then improve the fighter instead of wasting time trying to apply PrC bandaids.

That's my whole argument.

Don't just reward some guy who wants to play a character who goes apeshit and kills his companions to gain mechanical benefits. If you think the fighter is too weak and needs a boost then boost the fighter, don't create uberPrCs and other broken crap to try to fix it. It's like 3.0 psionics all over again... where they basically knew the psion was underpowered and so they produced tons of broken supplements as a band aid.

If you think the fighter is underpowered then fix that... It's a hell of a lot less work than trying to design a custom PrC for every warrior concept out there.

You don't even have to alter the fighter much at all either. Add a few skills, and skill points and then just make feats better. 1 feat should be worth exactly 2 levels worth of a PrC, assuming you keep the fighter at the standard 1 feat per 2 levels.

I for one am sick and tired forcing characters to look for a "Best fit" PrC to not suck.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I'll take RC a step further. Prestige Classes should never be weaker or more powerful than taking another level of a core class. They should do two things: Allow players to reach concepts that cannot be directly managed under the core, and they should provide mechanical backing to the world's flavor. With the way it is now, you need to PrC no matter what just to keep pace within the system as it is and that needs to stop. Noone should EVER be punished because their character's concept is he hits things with a beatdown stick, and it's just retarded to do so.

And while the Fighter, The Monk and the Bard, I'm sure need some buffing, I don't think they're the real problem in the system, the Primary Casters are. Lets beat on magic with the Nerf Stick until our arms hurt. Within the system as written Cleric, Wizard and Druid all have paths to Real Ultimate Power, but how many exist outside the Caster Classes? Fix that, and you'll have gone a long way to fixing the system.

-Desdan

[Crissa]

So, RC, one feat should be worth two levels of PrC... Or two spellcasting levels?

O-o

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1087111946[/unixtime]]So, RC, one feat should be worth two levels of PrC... Or two spellcasting levels?

Two levels of PrC abilities. Like you can look in the ability collumn for a fighter PrC, like the weapon master, and you can take the first 2 levels and that's a feat.

It's very hard to actually put a price on what spellcasting is worth, and I agree with Desdan, we need to actually nerf casters more. Right now, no feat benefit is worth the stuff you're getting from spells if you want to use spells to their utmost potential. So, trying to make feats = spells is a pretty futile pursuit until you actually bring spells down to earth. Not to mention a "level of spellcasting" for a 2nd level character is a lot different than a "level of spellcasting" for a 18th level character. And a change of 1 caster level for a 25th level character probably isn't very significant at all. So trying to judge feats by that standard isn't getting you anywhere, because nobody can say exactly how much a single level of spellcasting is worth.

[Username17]

It's very hard to actually put a price on what spellcasting is worth

It's worth one level of the abilities column of any other class, because that's what you pay for it.

Note that my assessment: that a feat needs to be the equal of four spells known prepared and cast, was based on the simple improvement of the Fighter that they gain a feat every single level from first to twentieth. If you want to use the Fighter as written, you have one hell of a problem on your hand and it's called Fighter level ONE.

See, the first two levels of Fighter come with Heavy Armor Proficiency, all Martial Weapons, and Tower Shield Proficiency. They also come with two feats. The next two levels come with one feat. I could fertilize my yard with that.

So RC's solution is to have one feat be the equivalent of two levels of a PrC. The obvious problem this generates should be, well, obvious. Let's say that you are a Paladin/Ranger/Samurai or whatever on your route to becoming a Knight Protector. Why would you become a Knight Protector if the first level of Fighter gives you the benefit of the first two levels of Knight Protector?

That's a completely intractable problem. Before we can even pretend to be doing something about the basic feat inequality, we need to admit that at the very least no class can give objectively less abilities for a later level than an earlier level. That's true for any and every level. If a later level is objectively less than an earlier level in the same class, something is horribly wrong. You are supposed to be roughly twice as powerful every two levels, and some classes actually bare that out. Having any class gain attenuated power from continued level gain is comically bad design.

And the fact that balancing PrCs to the later levels of Fighter makes multiclassing into the early levels of Fighter broken is simply an inevitable consequence of that fact.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah, either you'd have to make the fighter grant a feat at only even levels, or you could have the fighter grant a feat every level, but instead make a feat worth exactly one PrC level of abilities. Either way can work. The latter is a bit more bookkeeping for NPCs than I'd like, which makes it slightly problematic.

[Lago_AM3P]

Yeah, either you'd have to make the fighter grant a feat at only even levels, or you could have the fighter grant a feat every level, but instead make a feat worth exactly one PrC level of abilities.

I've seen the former suggestion made before several times when I advocate powering up the fighter. This usually happens after I point out that the ratio of abilities to levels goes DOWN the more levels you take.

Why would you want the new fighter to have fewer abilities than the already-weak fighter?! The only way this suggestion would make sense at all if the advocates of the current fighters are thoroughly embarrassed at the diminishing returns class design. As in rather than admit that the 100%, 100%, 66%, 75%, 60%, etc. level ratio of the fighter should give them a reason to massively redesign the class, the first feat somehow breaks the sacred mathematic progression and by removing it, they can now claim that the fighter never goes down in the abilities-per-level ratio! So the fighter is in fact, mathematically balanced, and we should up the power of feats. Even though this new fighter is weaker than the previously woefully underpowered fighter.

If I totally misread why you make this suggestion, tell me, but on the WotC boards, this has ALWAYS been the case.

[Username17]

Note: when you get zero feat and then one feat on alternatiung levels, you set up a situation where it is mathematically good and mathematically bad to leave the class for a PrC.

Consider leaving at level five. Assuming that you've somehow powered up the feat util it is the equal of two levels of a PrC, you now have the choice: pick up a level of Fighter (gaining 2 levels worth of abilities), or pick up a level of any prestige class (gaining one level of abilities). And then, from there, every two levels of PrCs and every two levels of Fighter will both generate 2 levels of abilties, so you aren't investing in anything either way. So if you stay Fighter for one more level you end up with one level more of abnilties total when you are level 20 (and every even numbered level along the way).

But consider the possibility of leaving at level 6. When you take level 7 as Fighter, you don't get shit, and then at level 8, you'll get two levels worth of abilities. But if you take a PrC, you'll get one level worth of abilities at level seven, and then another at level 8, for a total of two. You'll be either one whole level ahead or even from now until forever, right? So why the hell would you stay in Fighter?

Uneven ability gain within a class is retarded. It causes it to be mathematically ideal for you to stop gaining levels in a class after one of the boom levels and mathematically dreadful to leave the class after one of the bust levels. There's no excuse for that.

If for some reason you are wedded to the idea that a Fighter has to be balanced with bonus feats alone, then you have to accept the following:

1> Fighters can never have an amount of bonus feats per level which goes down.

and

2> The sum total of bonus feats that a Fighter gains in a level has to be equivalent to the sum total of spells gained by Clerics or Wizards in the same level.

That's not just a funny idea, that's mathematically provable. Cost means something. In a class based system it means power equivalence or it means unbalance. It can have no other meanings.

Fighters could be having four bonus feats per level if people are unwilling to have any particular feat make a large impact on a character. But sooner or later the bonus feats a Fighter gains in a level have to be equivalent to benefitting from Shapechange, Foresight, and Contingency Planeshift whenever you want - because that is what you are paying for that level.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

1087007054[/unixtime]]

Uhhh.. no way. Cause then it totally outclasses anyone who doesn't take an uberPrC, and absolute abilities like "immune to hit point damage" are the dumbest thing in the game. It's like, ok a battle between two frenzied berserkers = totally pointless exercise.

So? Core primary spellcasters and rogues totally outclass fighters who don't take an uberPrC, and still outclass many fighter-types that do.

While the frenzied berserker is totally lopsided, this is just what fighters need to survive; fighter-types are poorly balanced against THEMSELVES and THE VAST MAJORITY OF MONSTERS PAST CR 10, let alone other classes.

Why not fix the fighter instead of just giving situationally broken PrC's that are virtually unplayable if a DM holds you to the rules?

I've been thinking there should be a PrC called "Fighter" that only 10th level fighters can take, that is actually worth taking to 20th level. Make it uber, but a general uber like fighter is from L1-L4. Isn't that really the problem - fighters scale great until about 8th level, then just suck?

[Essence]

I'm talking each single feat by itself needs to be as good as taking absolutely every spell slot you get out of a caster level and casting it - because that's what you are giving up.

Except that you're also gaining 3 HP/level and .5 BAB/level more than the wizard that you're not.

That might not seem like much, but you can't simply discard it when you're balancing out the difference between feats and spells. A fighter's feats come with more on the side than a wizard's spells do.

In fact, you could write the Fighter as a Wizard that got Toughness every level for free, a "+1 to attacks" every other level for free, and a "+1 attacks/round" feat at levels 6 and 16 for free.

That's 32 "feats" that the Fighter gets for free that the Wizard doesn't, not counting class features on either side.

32 "feats" that go toward balancing out the difference between a Fighter's bonus feats and a Wizard's spells. Certainly not the entire way -- probably not even halfway -- but they are there, and you shouldn't ignore them because you think you're proving a point.


Really, the structure that we need, that everyone seems totally reluctant to mention despite the total obviousness of it's necessity, is the "Feat level" structure: 10 levels of feats, structured identically to the 10 levels of spells, with Fighters gaining a bonus feat every level:

The Fighter's Class Features

Code: Select all

[br]1st     Knack[br]2nd     Knack[br]3rd     Feat (1st)[br]4th     Feat (1st)[br]5th     Feat (2nd)[br]...[br]19th    Feat (9th)[br]20th    Feat (9th)[br]

Then, develop a tree, with most of the existing feats being 0th level (Dodge, Weapon Focus, Expertise) through 3rd level (Great Throw, Elusive Target, Whirlwind Attack), and Epic feats starting at 7th level (Epic Weapon Focus), and going on from there, hitting the best Epic feats around 12th level (25th character level).

This entirely eliminates the need for prerequisites (except for those feats which are strictly improvements of existing ones), and it allows for wacky feats like "You gain your base Reflex save to your attack bonus when using finessable weapons" (6th level feat), or "You become immune to all spells and spell-like abilities for one round per 40 base HP per day" (8th level feat).

This way, you can literally balance a feat of a given level versus 4 spells of the same level (taking the HP and BAB differences into account as well, of course.)

[Username17]

Except that you're also gaining 3 HP/level and .5 BAB/level more than the wizard that you're not.

And the wizard is customizable and the fighter isn't.

That's worth a fuctonne.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Plus, a fighter feat isn't worth the same as a new level of spells. Not by a long shot.

[Essence]

The entire point of structuring feats as I mentioned above, Count, is that they would be.