PrC with the worse fluff

[A Tad Insane]

Ever looked through a splatbook and saw a prc that made you go "who wrote this lore? Why do they still have a job?", well, now you can vent.
For me, I hate the fluff of initiate of the sevenfold veil. They're basically a mage who thought any of the prismatic spells were awesome, and wanted to use their effects an obscene amount of times.

[Juntao112]

Cloud Anchorite

[ArcturusV]

Yakuza. Mostly because the "Fluff" behind it is basically "I'm a member of a thieves guild". How the hell is that a PrC? That should just be a basic concern of being a rogue. Really that is the only distinguishing bit of fluffery behind the whole PrC.

[Kennisiou]

No prestige class in particular, but just... every class in magic of incarnum. Just the entire book. It feels like they were working from weak thematic concepts the entire way through and just using them to create low-power but mechanically interesting concepts. Which is fine and all and has its place and I know a bunch of people love magic of incarnum, but just... Even with the other splatbooks, if you take a class and show it to someone who has no idea what D&D is, just from the name of the class and a brief description they should get what they do, there's usually some really powerful core thematic concept to latch onto there (main exceptions being, like, fighter and other vague classes that cast too broad a net). Nothing in Magic of Incarnum was like that to me. I looked at it all and saw no real familiar archetypes I could latch on to to get a better feel for what exactly the class's mechanics meant fluff-wise. This goes for basically every PrC and base class in the book.

[G.Cube]

No prestige class in particular, but just... every class in magic of incarnum. Just the entire book. It feels like they were working from weak thematic concepts the entire way through and just using them to create low-power but mechanically interesting concepts. Which is fine and all and has its place and I know a bunch of people love magic of incarnum, but just... Even with the other splatbooks, if you take a class and show it to someone who has no idea what D&D is, just from the name of the class and a brief description they should get what they do, there's usually some really powerful core thematic concept to latch onto there (main exceptions being, like, fighter and other vague classes that cast too broad a net). Nothing in Magic of Incarnum was like that to me. I looked at it all and saw no real familiar archetypes I could latch on to to get a better feel for what exactly the class's mechanics meant fluff-wise. This goes for basically every PrC and base class in the book.

Seconding this, reading through MoC feels like someone was tryng desperately to come up with a completely original idea and ended up vomiting an entire jumble of odd terms and mechanics into the pages of a book.

[Zombulian]

No prestige class in particular, but just... every class in magic of incarnum. Just the entire book. It feels like they were working from weak thematic concepts the entire way through and just using them to create low-power but mechanically interesting concepts. Which is fine and all and has its place and I know a bunch of people love magic of incarnum, but just... Even with the other splatbooks, if you take a class and show it to someone who has no idea what D&D is, just from the name of the class and a brief description they should get what they do, there's usually some really powerful core thematic concept to latch onto there (main exceptions being, like, fighter and other vague classes that cast too broad a net). Nothing in Magic of Incarnum was like that to me. I looked at it all and saw no real familiar archetypes I could latch on to to get a better feel for what exactly the class's mechanics meant fluff-wise. This goes for basically every PrC and base class in the book.

I disagree entirely, but no matter.

Ragemage has some pretty terrible fluff. But that's just another bit in the stack of issues that went with creating that PrC.

[Sith_Happens]

Cloud Anchorite

Please elaborate.

[Prime32]

Flayerspawn Psychic. How exactly can you be descended from a creature with no reproductive organs? :smallconfused:


No prestige class in particular, but just... every class in magic of incarnum. Just the entire book. It feels like they were working from weak thematic concepts the entire way through and just using them to create low-power but mechanically interesting concepts. Which is fine and all and has its place and I know a bunch of people love magic of incarnum, but just... Even with the other splatbooks, if you take a class and show it to someone who has no idea what D&D is, just from the name of the class and a brief description they should get what they do, there's usually some really powerful core thematic concept to latch onto there (main exceptions being, like, fighter and other vague classes that cast too broad a net). Nothing in Magic of Incarnum was like that to me. I looked at it all and saw no real familiar archetypes I could latch on to to get a better feel for what exactly the class's mechanics meant fluff-wise. This goes for basically every PrC and base class in the book.You need to read/watch Shaman King then. :smalltongue:
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd54/Prime32_temp/Motivators/motivator7780873.jpg

[Big Fau]

Hard to beat the Flayerspawn Psychic PrC.

[ArqArturo]

Shining Blade of Heironeus is spherically awful.

[Prime32]

Shining Blade of Heironeus is spherically awful.I have no problem with the fluff ("charge your sword with energy"), but the mechanics...

[ArcturusV]

Fluff wise it reminds me of G Gundam... which I liked because of it's cheesy over the top anime martial arts genre with mechs flavoring. I kinda want to do the Domon speech with one.

"This hand of my is burning red! It's loud roar tells me to grasp victory! SHINING FINGER SWORD!" or something. :smallbiggrin:

Which honestly if the fluff makes me want to have a moment with a class (even if it's just a one shot cameo NPC because I'd hate to play it everyday), it ain't terrible.

[Rubik]

Fighter and monk. Look at all the the things they're billed as being good as. Fighters make lousy guards, what with no Spot and Listen, and bandit kings? Forget it. They have no Sense Motive or Diplomacy. They're not even good at IDing their enemies. And monks are horrible at their supposed specialty, which is fighting unarmed and unarmored. Bleh.

[A Tad Insane]

Fighter and monk. Look at all the the things they're billed as being good as. Fighters make lousy guards, what with no Spot and Listen, and bandit kings? Forget it. They have no Sense Motive or Diplomacy. They're not even good at IDing their enemies. And monks are horrible at their supposed specialty, which is fighting unarmed and unarmored. Bleh.

... I.... Um...
Ok, moving on. Not arguing with that.

[Zombulian]

Fighter and monk. Look at all the the things they're billed as being good as. Fighters make lousy guards, what with no Spot and Listen, and bandit kings? Forget it. They have no Sense Motive or Diplomacy. They're not even good at IDing their enemies. And monks are horrible at their supposed specialty, which is fighting unarmed and unarmored. Bleh.

Not... What this thread is about.

[Rubik]

Not... What this thread is about.Oh. Right. PrCs. I was thinking "class with the worse fluff." [sic]

Though given that they're only a 6 level dip -- at absolute best -- they might as well be PrCs with no prereqs but alignment (for monks).

[No brains]

Oh! Pleased to meat you, A Tad Insane! It's always good to be honest about what's missing in your head!

One or two PrCs that bothered me were these two 'Scar' something-or-others that were half-elf supremacists. They take the sole bonus of being a half-elf, likability, and flush it down the toilet for totally uncomplimentary powers. Worse, I think they don't get to use magic items for elves or humans anymore. Maybe they're NPC classes or perhaps classes for hard-mode players.

[A Tad Insane]

Oh! Pleased to meat you, A Tad Insane! It's always good to be honest about what's missing in your head!

One or two PrCs that bothered me were these two 'Scar' something-or-others that were half-elf supremacists. They take the sole bonus of being a half-elf, likability, and flush it down the toilet for totally uncomplimentary powers. Worse, I think they don't get to use magic items for elves or humans anymore. Maybe they're NPC classes or perhaps classes for hard-mode players.

You, I like you.
And you're thinking of the Scar Enforcer

[JoshuaZ]

Flayerspawn Psychic at least has easily modifiable fluff (descended from someone experimented on by illithids, or descended from someone who had an implant and was then rescued before the implanted illithid consumed them, or even cooler- not a descendant but an ancestor of the ones that will be at the end of all things).

I don't think the incarnum Prcs have such bad fluff. I don't like the incarnum fluff, but once one gets past that it is ok. The Necrocarnate's direct abuse of souls is pretty morally unpleasant and so is great villain or anti-hero fluff. And the Soulcaster is one of the few official hybrid classes where the fluff is more than just "You get to advance to classes, shut up and be happy about it."

The truth is very few PrCs have genuinely bad fluff, with the problem of crunch not supporting fluff being a far more common problem. If I really had to single out bad fluff, I'd point to the already mentioned Flayerspawn Psychic, but I'd also like to point to the Illumine Soul, which doesn't have any psionic feel at all. For that matter, most of the PrCs in Complete Psionic have that problem, with the major exception being the Flayerspawn who has its own myriad problems.


I'd also suggest the Ronin from Complete Warrior as having issues. The mere state of dishonor isn't a whole PrC. This PrC exists to some extent just to make it so that a samurai isn't screwed when they mess up, but that's only necessary because samurai is its own class, which is itself a bad idea.

Another bad fluff is the Church Inquisitor which is mainly harmed by the fact that you have to be either lawful good or lawful neutral. So, the lawful evil inquisitor, which is almost the archetype of the word isn't an option.

And there's almost every PrC from the Book of Exalted Deeds. A lot of them are associated with these pseudo-angelic beings that don't exist in pretty much any other official book. To some extent, this may have been an attempt to make a correspondence with the PrCs in BoVD, but this is utterly unappealing. Just use a few good deities. And then it doesn't help that a lot of them have fluff of "I'm very good, and I hit things hard" or in the case of the Exalted Arcanist "I'm very good and I cast really hurtful spells". And then you've got the ever fun Slayer of Domiel who is a really good assassin who is really good, and kills bad leaders for the great good. Remind me how that isn't neutral again?

[TheIronGolem]

Most any PrC whose concept is "You're a member of the Order Of People Who Took Levels In This Prestige Class, here are some abilities I guess" rubs me the wrong way. It comes off like a cheap pretense of being More Roleplay Than Thou by imposing artificial barriers to entry.

[Zaq]

Okay, I know it's a base class and not a PrC, but Dragonfire Adept. Love love love the class, but the fluff is godawful. Even if you like D&D dragons (and I kind of hate them), "I really like dragons, so I can breathe fire" doesn't really make any sense to me.

For actual PrCs, Heirophant combines with the crunch in a really weird way . . . you're the favored of a deity, so you don't get any more spells? Seems like giving you a "promotion" that's actually just moving you somewhere where you won't be in the way. Or else you just get a sad and increasingly delusional priest who's talking about how great his Canadian girlfriend deity is, and how much that deity favors him, and all the great times they have together, with it becoming increasingly obvious that something just isn't right. So I guess you can get some humor out of that.

Death Delver is fluff that works if you're not thinking about it, but the more you think about it, the dumber it gets. Clerics bring people back to life all the time, people can physically explore the afterlife, necromantic spells that deal with the very fabric of life and death are common knowledge, but YOU'RE the one who really thinks about death and what it means? Okay, pal, whatever you say.

Jade Phoenix Mage is completely over the top. If you play it as over-the-top, it's fun. If you try to take it too seriously, though? No.

[The Trickster]

Part of me is inclined to say Spellsword, simply because there really isn't much fluff to go on. Yeah, the "melding magic and weaponplay" is alright, but it isn't the only class to do that, and other classes have better RP reasons to do it.

It is a bit nit picky though.

[JoshuaZ]

Death Delver is fluff that works if you're not thinking about it, but the more you think about it, the dumber it gets. Clerics bring people back to life all the time, people can physically explore the afterlife, necromantic spells that deal with the very fabric of life and death are common knowledge, but YOU'RE the one who really thinks about death and what it means? Okay, pal, whatever you say.

Death Delver is in Heroes of Horror which is a book which explicitly has rules for making resurrection much more difficult, so in the context of a campaign with those rules, it makes sense.



Jade Phoenix Mage is completely over the top. If you play it as over-the-top, it's fun. If you try to take it too seriously, though? No.

Is this a fluff or a crunch problem? The "I explode" thing is over the top but is more on the crunch than fluff side. On the other hand, the idea of being a member of a continually reincarnated group, sworn to keep watch over an ancient evil, is awesome fluff.

[Zombulian]

Is this a fluff or a crunch problem? The "I explode" thing is over the top but is more on the crunch than fluff side. On the other hand, the idea of being a member of a continually reincarnated group, sworn to keep watch over an ancient evil, is awesome fluff.

Isn't there a limit on the amount of JPM's there can be at a time too? So you gotta murder one of em to get in.

[ArcturusV]

Thought it was supposed to be handwaved and "Oh, you were always the chosen one!" because when one dies, there is instantly a newborn who is destined to become one and has all of their powers.

[CyberThread]

I honestly thought sun caller was a really weak prc class for lore, good concept, just really bad.... limits.

[Spore]

Paladin.

You are the chosen of god. Because of that....you are worse than a Cleric. Have fun being specialized in battling the most fearsome enemies in the history of the game while sporting single attacks with holy energy.

I think the class was written up by a nerdy teen in the 70s to f*ck over the jock that wanted to play D&D too. "Oh, and you need a Charisma of 17 or higher for that."

[JoshuaZ]

Paladin.

You are the chosen of god. Because of that....you are worse than a Cleric. Have fun being specialized in battling the most fearsome enemies in the history of the game while sporting single attacks with holy energy.

I think the class was written up by a nerdy teen in the 70s to f*ck over the jock that wanted to play D&D too. "Oh, and you need a Charisma of 17 or higher for that."

This is an example of crunch not supporting fluff, and it is a class, not a PrC. That's not the same thing as bad fluff. So at two levels this isn't what is being discussed. (I suppose you could be talking about the paladin PrC variant but I don't get that impression)

Crunch not supporting fluff is very common, whether for PrCs, classes, feats

[ArcturusV]

Where as I actually like the fluff of Paladins. It's awesome, it's compelling. Champion of good, sword of righteousness, scourge of evil. A lone champion against the tides of evil (Reason why I never liked "Dark Paladins", as the idea of the paladin is a lone man who sacrifices himself, puts his own ass on the line against overwhelming tides of evil. The idea of Evil having lone champions just seems... weird. Most settings seem to presume that Good is alone but powerful... and Evil is weak but endless. At least in general. So why subvert that fluff?).

Crunch could be better, it suffered poorly in the update to the third edition system compared to the beast it was in second. But the fluff is still delicious stuff and the reason I go back to playing them even though I KNOW a simple Cleric, or even a Cleric/Fighter mix is better.

[Rubik]

Crunch could be better, it suffered poorly in the update to the third edition system compared to the beast it was in second. But the fluff is still delicious stuff and the reason I go back to playing them even though I KNOW a simple Cleric, or even a Cleric/Fighter mix is better.Why not play something else as a paladin, then? It's not hard.

"I am Fredderick Stoutheart, the champion and paladin of Heironeous!"

"You're a 5th level cleric."

"Paladin!"

"Okay, okay! Fine, whatever, Mr. 'paladin.'"

"Stop metagaming, or I'll smite the literal hell out of you."

"Eep!"

[georgie_leech]

Where as I actually like the fluff of Paladins. It's awesome, it's compelling. Champion of good, sword of righteousness, scourge of evil. A lone champion against the tides of evil (Reason why I never liked "Dark Paladins", as the idea of the paladin is a lone man who sacrifices himself, puts his own ass on the line against overwhelming tides of evil. The idea of Evil having lone champions just seems... weird. Most settings seem to presume that Good is alone but powerful... and Evil is weak but endless. At least in general. So why subvert that fluff?).



On the other hand Evil is seen as the selfish alignment whereas Good is the cooperative, and there are plenty of stories where a group of ragtag heroes learns to work together as they take on an evil being far greater than themselves.

[CyberThread]

Becuase that fluff you are looking at, is generic core, you look at things like Forgotten realms, and evil is just as competent as good, even with plot armor, someone is going to get conquered, and sometimes evil will when the day, permanently on a location, and the good guys will have to live with that.


Greyhawk, again competent evil.


Overall D&D really does the intelligent evil thing, well. Not as badly cliched as the horde versus the small but organized. A good character study on such methods is Obould_Many-Arrows, a very "evil" creature that lead a crusade for a homeland for his own people. An then was strong enough to pull in the reigns and sit on that land, and force everyone to deal with it,even to the point of making trade agreements with good align kingdoms.

[Spore]

Competent but sadly not very intimidating. Take a look at the Blackguard for example. Why should I be afraid of a paladin with identity crisis or a poorly designed evil knight again? I know I am metagaming too much but that "I am the eeeeevil antithesis of a paladin" doesn't really chill my bones. Don't get me wrong, I love the theme of Paladins (although I'd say they should really be LN, LG or NG) but the whole "I am an EEEEEEVIL Paladin" doesn't really work for me.

This is entertaining evil but not disturbing "Silence of the lambs" kind of evil. Maybe I am just a sick bastard but after 15 years enjoying the genre undead monsters aren't cutting it anymore.