A Weird Idea for Prestige Classes, Please Help?

[wayfare]

A friend of mine asked a strange question of me: he wanted to know if I would run a D&D game where the players started off in prestige classes, as if those classes were base classes. So, to be clear, Level 1 of the prestige class would be level 1 of a base class.

I don't want to reject this idea out of hand: can people give me some input as to whether this would be a good or bad idea.


Many thanks

--wayfare

[Seerow]

-Many prestige classes don't have predetermined proficiencies.

-Any caster class is going to suck unless you let them choose the class they use for it.

-If you allow the above, be aware of the relative power gain of theurge classes and gishes (progressing two different casting classes at once starting at level 1 is a huge boon compared to having to lose caster levels to qualify for the cast).

-Similarly, any fast casting progression class will quickly overpower most encounters. Imagine an Ur-Priest with 9th level spells around level 9 or 10, just as an example. If you allow free multiclassing between prestige classes without prerequisites it gets even worse.

[Vknight]

So but stipulations into play make it so that only some are available well others that could be game breakers are not

[Greenish]

Start as a Fochlucan Lyrist. Or while you're at it, as a Sublime Chord or Ur-Priest.

[Bobby Archer]

Personally, I think doing this is just asking for serious power imbalances between PCs. Also, you run into the purely logistical problem of some prestige classes' powers being based off of powers they are assumed to already have. If you just let players have a level of a prestige class at level 1, I think it will be less a problem of having to avoid game-breaking classes and more a problem of the classes themselves breaking in unforeseen ways. Every class will have horrible shortfalls and ridiculous power spikes. I think you'd wind up spending more time trying to house-rule away issues than you would actually enjoying the game.

I'd suggest running a game starting at high enough level that all the players could be started on a prestige class, or taking whatever prestige class the player wants and reworking it to be a base class. The latter would be a lot of work, but would probably end up with something more stable and more playable than just dropping them into a prestige class at level 1.

[wayfare]

Yeah, i don't want to reject the idea out of hand, as prestige classes often do allow for a more narrowly focused and fluff-rich class...but it would be a bookkeeping nightmare.

If i were to allow it, and I probably wont, what prestige classes wouldn't be game breaking?

[j4bberw0ck]

Technically most spell casting prestige would not. Im not familiar with all of them but i do believe most don't actually give you spells slots or additional spells they just add levels to an existing spell casting class, and as this is the first class they have no existing spell casting class and thus gain no bonus (you could apply these bonuses retroactively once they gain a spell casting class).

[SilverClawShift]

That's kind of a silly interpretation of the idea though, isn't it?

If someone wants to be a "Loremaster Base Class™" they're not going into it expecting to have a complete lack of spellcasting. And the DM allowing it shouldn't really think they expect that either. It's more like "Wizard loremaster or Sorcerer loremaster?"

[Magic Myrmidon]

A DM let one of my characters start off as a Master of Masks once. Worked out pretty well. Wasn't exactly overpowered, either. Just chose bard for the spellcasting.

I know it's not the best prestige in the first place, but yeah.

Also, I would recommend modifying stuff like Ur-Priest. You could probably just give those normal progressions for cleric, if you really had to.

[Godskook]

Imho, not a great idea, especially cause most prestige classes are balanced by the 'cost' of entry, forcing people to do specific build choices to get into them. Anything that progressed casting but required a hybrid entry to enter(such as Arcane Hierophant, Abjurant Champion, or Unseen Seer) would become far more powerful as a base class.

[Amnestic]

Overall? Probably a bad idea. If you deal with it on a case-by-case basis though, it could work quite well I think.

[Zaq]

It'd absolutely have to be on a case-by-case basis, but honestly, if you stick to the more low-key ones, I don't think it'd be a problem. If I were DMing, I'd absolutely consider letting a PC play a Dread Pirate from square 1, for example. Stick to the more self-contained PrCs (you know, the ones that don't really build on their obvious entry classes and may or may not have anywhere in particular to go afterwards . . . in other words, most Iron Chef ingredients), possibly tone down some of the abilities or have them scale with level if they're just a little bit more than you'd normally bargain for at any given ECL, and see where that takes you. I'd restrict or at least strongly discourage casting classes, but overall I can see it working.