Prestige Classes...

[agumathebear]

Hey all, my party consists of munchkins from hell so im restricting the only classes you can play to the ones found in players handbook 3.5 (and yeah, i know they can be munchkinned too...) and i'll only allow a certain amount of prestige classes and i want them to not be extremely broken etc. and i want them to come as "Expansion Packs" if you will, and they can only get them by Roleplaying how they got them (along with prerequisites) but there are so many prestige classes idk what to add, can yall just throw me some good ones yall like that arent massively OP? Thanks!

[Keld Denar]

You are right, there are SOOOO many. How about this, allow each player to pick a PrC that they are interested in possibly working toward, and then you post those PrCs here, and we'll give you feedback on how strong they are.

Also, inbe4druid20. :smallcool:

[agumathebear]

one player hasnt made up his mind on what he wants to be, the other is going to be a sorcerer and work his way up to psion (massively redone by houserules, and i say work his way up because its a heavy rp thing, not just anyone can be psion, blah blah) and one player wants to be a stealth warrior, kinda like medieval black ops lol.

[SamsDisciple]

I say let them munchkin it up but they have to role play everything they get, down to the skill points they receive. That should be enough of a deterrent to avoid massive munckining

[Keld Denar]

Eh, I'm against arbitrary restrictions. If a player is going to abuse the rules, thats a problem with the player, not the rules. Deal with the player, and the rules become a non-issue. Not saying that the rules aren't broken, but that abusive players can be abusive within the rules, and imposing arbitrary rules won't stop the abuse.

As for your players:

Sorcerer into psion? I'm kinda confused. Psion is a base class...if he's going to be a sorcerer AND a psion, Cerebromancer is a PrC that combines both.

Stealth warrior...you don't even need a PrC for this. Rogue4/Swashbuckler16 achieves this with the Daring Outlaw feat in Complete Scoundrel. If you really want a PrC, there are a few in Complete Adventurer and Complete Scoundrel that give you that fighter/rogue crossbreed blend. Nightsong Enforcer IIRC, and Shadowbane Stalker both fit.

[Kobold-Bard]

Maybe make them take a test like these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/testBasedPrerequisites.htm#prestigeClassTests) before they can take levels in the PrC.

[Z3ro]

Eh, I'm against arbitrary restrictions. If a player is going to abuse the rules, thats a problem with the player, not the rules. Deal with the player, and the rules become a non-issue. Not saying that the rules aren't broken, but that abusive players can be abusive within the rules, and imposing arbitrary rules won't stop the abuse.


I don't know if I agree with this. Now this is obviously only my experience, but players often like to be powerful. They abuse the rules to become powerful, often out of fear of others being more powerful than them.

Back when I first started DMing, I allowed just about anything that wasn't pun-pun broken, and it was a disaster. After a little experience, I changed styles and banned or restricted many things, resulting in charecters that were far more equal in powerlevel, and the group suddenly started having a lot more fun. Not saying that's always the case, but the reasons behind problem players are many, and some require in-game solutions.

[unimaginable]

{please delete}

[agumathebear]

They RP really well, the one who hasnt decided is the munchkin from hell tho...the other is just kinda. they rp really well but one time in the last campaign he was playing...oh what was he...some sort of rogue assassin invisible blade, etc. and i threw a level 20 big boss at them and he killed it on his first turn. With them its not a question of what they can kill but how long it will take because they usually exploit the rules so thats why im stepping in and restricting classes.

I guess i should lay down a little bit about the world as to maybe give some inspiration to myself and others for prestige classes that could be given by certain races or locations.

as for races the humans, gnomes, high elves, and dwarves are all technologically advanced and kinda steampunk/warcraft-ish. more good guys (or at least neutral) include lizardfolk tribes, The Ancestral Tribes (druids, satyr, wood elf, you know...woodsy stuff), and The Brotherhood (which is a religious group that basically invites all sentient races to join in the name of their god and consider themselves peace keepers)

then there are the bad guys; the orcish alliance (orcs, trolls, ogres, goblins, etc.), The Dominion of Shadow (Demon worshipers, assassins, necromancers...ultimate evil), The Hive (insectoid creatures), and The Dragonspawn (very dragonlance-ish)

and then there is the Orient which i planned on picking out a few classes from, of course, Oriental Adventures

umm...as for notable places there is one continent that is almost completely overrun with undead due to The Lich King (i know, im real original), there is one island that never got past the dinosaur age, small tho, there is one island that is basically the embodyment of magic, everything glows with arcane energy, etc and it's inhabitants are all magical by birth...hmm...oh yeah, there is one continent that is basically like a huge, magical las vegas (imagine magic signs instead of neon lol) and there is a magic tournament held there every 3 years to name the world champion mage.

...

oh, there is one island where Ogre and Goblin mages teamed up to summon rain clouds that poured down alcohol, and accidentally poured so much it flooded the peninsula with magical ale (the entire ocean within a 10 mile radius of the whole ex peninsula; now a cluster of islands; has been converted to drinkable ale.

and i have changelings in my campaign and i read somewhere they were like 1/2 doppleganger alien so i decided they came from outer space and they also invented warforged, but they are now on this planet so maybe i could do something with that, idk, we dont have any changelings in the party as of yet lol.

[Psyren]

Maybe make them take a test like these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/testBasedPrerequisites.htm#prestigeClassTests) before they can take levels in the PrC.

No matter how many times I read the SRD there's always something I haven't seen yet :smallsmile:

The hierophant test makes me lol, because Druids auto-fail. (Of course, actually entering Hierophant is a different form of fail so it evens out.)

[sonofzeal]

See my sig for the "PrC Tier system". This sounds like exactly what you need. Note, though, that some of the highest-rated ones are merely bringing weak classes up to speed, such as "Soulbow", and are in no way overpowered.

As for limiting base classes, you might find it better to say NO core classes, and limit choices to the Completes. Samurai, Swashbuckler, Hexblade, Scout, Ninja, Spellthief, Warlock, Warmage, Wu Jen, Favoured Soul, Spirit Shaman, Shugenja. There's still some significant differences in power here (CW Samurai and Favoured Soul as the two extremes), but merely using these in place of the Core classes will do a heck of a lot to reign in the optimization.

From there, I'd make "Equal" or lower PrCs open to any who qualify, save "Up One" PrCs for those who RP well to earn them, and limit "Up Two" PrCs entirely except in special circumstances. This gives players room to explore and experiment and be creative, while discouraging known tricks and abuses.

[Keld Denar]

No Z3ro, you have a point, and it doesn't necessarily conflict with mine. Banning things that aren't in the PHB doesn't really fix the main loopholes though. You still have Natural Spell Druid20s, and Wizard20s with Gate and Wish and Polymorph Any Object. It also limits fun, balanced things like Daring Outlaws and Swift Hunters and Dragonfire Adepts and Totemists and other moderate power Tier 3-4 things.

I'm a HUGE proponent of banlists. I'd never EVER let an Incantatrix in my games. I'd allow Shadowcraft Mages, but no Shadow Miracles, and no casting pseudo-spells that are higher level than a mage of your level should be casting. I'd allow DMM and Persist Spell, but not ever DMM used with Persist Spell. I ban Shocktrooper. My restrictions make sense because I know what power level I'm comfortable dealing with. I'm not losing anything that is reasonably balanced while keeping my fingers crossed to hope that my players don't find the broken things left out in plain daylight.

I'm in favor of restricting things...what I'm against is arbitrary blanket bans on things that don't need to get banned. Its like cutting out the healthy tissue with the cancer, except in this case, you are leaving the worst of the cancer behind and mostly just taking healthy tissue.

[agumathebear]

See my sig for the "PrC Tier system". This sounds like exactly what you need. Note, though, that some of the highest-rated ones are merely bringing weak classes up to speed, such as "Soulbow", and are in no way overpowered.

wow...yeah this is basically exactly what i needed, ill go over the classes listed and pick out ones that fit into my campaign

also i like the idea of test based prerequisites as well, i may do them for a few, but yeah, This is me signing out and getting to work, thanks for the really really really quick help all lol

[Z3ro]

No Z3ro, you have a point, and it doesn't necessarily conflict with mine. Banning things that aren't in the PHB doesn't really fix the main loopholes though. You still have Natural Spell Druid20s, and Wizard20s with Gate and Wish and Polymorph Any Object. It also limits fun, balanced things like Daring Outlaws and Swift Hunters and Dragonfire Adepts and Totemists and other moderate power Tier 3-4 things.

I'm in favor of restricting things...what I'm against is arbitrary blanket bans on things that don't need to get banned. Its like cutting out the healthy tissue with the cancer, except in this case, you are leaving the worst of the cancer behind and mostly just taking healthy tissue.

I'm not saying there aren't OP things in the PHB, or that I would blanket ban things for no reason. Instead, I prefer to have a very small list of allowed things, then exceptions made based on what a player wants to do (sort of how prestige classes were meant to be). If a player wants to be a swift hunter they can, they just need to ask first. I find players who are allowed anything get mad when you ban one thing, so I go in the other direction.

[nyarlathotep]

They RP really well, the one who hasnt decided is the munchkin from hell tho...the other is just kinda. they rp really well but one time in the last campaign he was playing...oh what was he...some sort of rogue assassin invisible blade, etc. and i threw a level 20 big boss at them and he killed it on his first turn. With them its not a question of what they can kill but how long it will take because they usually exploit the rules so thats why im stepping in and restricting classes.


Now this is just an observation, but I think you should really think about making your bosses harder. A rogue going into invisible blade is fairly good and contributes to the party, but if you're allowing prestige classes or full casters at all without min/maxing of any sort they will usually outdo the invisible blade.

To be worse than an invisible blade a caster needs to purposely make bad decisions. I'm not talking even things like bypassing the good stuff (time stop, polymorph, evard's) but actually seeking out the worst spells possible for the situation at hand. Just with meteor swarm (a fairly bad spell) a caster does half of an invisible blade's average damage each round with no save of any kind. If a creature has that little hp is must have a small size and thus low grapple modifier, i.e. Bigby's crushing hand could disable the boss immediately letting the PCs kill them at their leisure.

Just give important opponents the very basic defenses needed to be a threat. Max their hp per hitdice, give them fortified armor to prevent lucky crits, mindblank so they don't become the PCs mind slaves, whatever. It just sounds like either (a) your PCs are cheating and no amount of restricting will stop that or (b) you are severely underestimating what even purposely bad PCs are capable of as they grow in level.

[Firechanter]

The Powergamer's number one rule when playing with DMs that restrict splatbooks and/or multiclassing: play a straight core caster, i.e. Cleric, Druid or Wizard.
Reason being that these are super powerful just with core material; anything else is just icing on the cake. Opposed to that, the partial- and non-casters by Core are just weak. In other words, you _need_ non-core material, feats and PrCs to get these cripples up to par. (Yeah I am putting that a bit harshly, maybe it's not _that_ extreme but it's definitely the general direction.)

What you can do to avoid game-breaking builds is to allow all splatbooks as a whole but only a certain number per character.

Either way, you need to keep in mind: Core Casters are insanely powerful. There is probably nothing in all WotC Splats combined that can make a non-caster more powerful than a straight Wizard. Also, many or most caster PrCs make a caster character weaker rather than stronger. But there are exceptions.

Thus, a rule of thumb: if one of your players wants a class or combo that is not a full caster, it's probably alright because it's still more balanced than a singleclass Druid. If he starts out with a full caster and wants to stack more spellcaster PrCs on top, you may want to have a close look at it - powerlevel could go either way.

[sonofzeal]

There is probably nothing in all WotC Splats combined that can make a non-caster more powerful than a straight Wizard.
Pun-Pun can be achieved on a non-caster. There are a few other extremely abusive combos. The difference is, non-caster cheese is generally far more obviously abusive, while caster cheese can be slipped by subtly.

[Z3ro]

The Powergamer's number one rule when playing with DMs that restrict splatbooks and/or multiclassing: play a straight core caster, i.e. Cleric, Druid or Wizard.
Reason being that these are super powerful just with core material; anything else is just icing on the cake.

Either way, you need to keep in mind: Core Casters are insanely powerful. There is probably nothing in all WotC Splats combined that can make a non-caster more powerful than a straight Wizard. Also, many or most caster PrCs make a caster character weaker rather than stronger. But there are exceptions.


This assumes two things; first, that core casters are allowed without question in the first place (they're not) and two, those casters are played to their full potential.

[nyarlathotep]

Pun-Pun can be achieved on a non-caster. There are a few other extremely abusive combos. The difference is, non-caster cheese is generally far more obviously abusive, while caster cheese can be slipped by subtly.

Pun-pun requires the use of a supernatural ability possessed only by 1 creature intended to be a mover and shaker for DMs to use. It also requires the DM to be very very lenient with granting Wishes, a spell I might add that you can only obtain through a very specific magic item.

In summary non-casters can have nice things, but only because wealth is the most powerful class feature of all time, and finding ways around wealth by level always boosts power.

[sonofzeal]

Pun-pun requires the use of a supernatural ability possessed only by 1 creature intended to be a mover and shaker for DMs to use. It also requires the DM to be very very lenient with granting Wishes, a spell I might add that you can only obtain through a very specific magic item.

In summary non-casters can have nice things, but only because wealth is the most powerful class feature of all time, and finding ways around wealth by level always boosts power.
Of course. My point was merely that the statement quoted was an over-generalization.