[3.5] Qualifying for "Special" prerequisites

[Maginomicon]

What relatively-easy methods do you use to get around the special requirements for prestige classes and feats?

For example, a single casting of Path of the Exalted makes you qualify for the special requirement for entering Contemplative.

NOTE: This is not a thread about dropping the "Special" requirements from prestige classes and feats. Replies that say "just drop the special requirements" (or something similar) would therefore be blatantly off-topic (and probably count as thread-crapping).

[Deophaun]

Dread Witch. The Special is that you must have failed a save against a fear effect. Since you're also required to have cause fear and scare on your spell list, you just cast that one of those on yourself and voluntarily fail.

Whew, that was easy!

[Kuulvheysoon]

Almost all adventurers fulfill the Special requirement for pyrokineticist by the time they qualify for the class;
Special
Must have set fire to a structure of any size just to watch it burn.

[Psyren]

A lot of them are roleplay requirements that you can write into your backstory.

The Pyrokineticist one is funny because you can set fire to a dollhouse.

[JoshuaZ]

Arguably any Jade Phoenix Mage qualifies for the special requirement for Blood Magus, since they've been reincarnated.


And any mage with access to True Creation can use it to qualify for Green Star Adept. I don't know actually why any of them bother as the text claims to actually go and search for the metal. Just find cleric with the Creation domain. or a psion with the corresponding power.

A variety of different classes require peaceful contact with an outsider or other creature of the right type. One might have fun figuring out how many of those one can handle in a single contact event. If one can find an evil outsider that also has the [fire] subtype then one can qualify for both Blackguard and Elemental Savant. If you can get it to look like an insect then you might be able to get Vermin Lord too.

If we look at BoVD we get some neat similar issues. One fun bit is that although the feat requirements prevent one from taking both a PrC dedicated to a specific demon, and a PrC dedicated to a specific devil, nothing prevents one from having multiple devil PrCs or multiple demon PrCs. Since many of them involve sacrifices under specific circumstances, one can even qualify for multiple with the same sacrifice. Hooray efficiency!

The easiest one to combine with others is Disciple of Baalzebul which requires a sacrifice of a person in their home. You can easily combine that that with the sacrifice for Mephistopheles which requires sacrificing the person in a magical fire. Unfortunately, the obvious way of combining this with pyrokineticist doesn't work because if you burn the house down to get all three then you didn't set the house on fire just to watch it burn.

Similarly, one can easily do Demogorgon, Graz'zt and Jubilex at once, for the demon end. And there's enough overlap within the non-special requirements, that one can actually dip into all three at not very high levels if one wants to. Graz'zt and Demogorgon would actually make nice 1 level dips.

[herrhauptmann]

Don't the demon/devil ones all require a specific mark? You know, thrall to demogorgan, thrall to orcus...
With the feats section saying you can only be a thrall to one demon/devil?

As much as I like swiftblades, I will never play one without being high enough level to already have my first level in the prc. Having to cast only haste in my 3rd level slots (or wherever I get it) for an entire level, sucks.

I don't think most PCs get into Pyro that easily. Usually they set things on fire for a specific reason, biggest ones being:

Kill things
Cause diversion
Cover escape.

[Wraith]

I don't think most PCs get into Pyro that easily. Usually they set things on fire for a specific reason

This is immediately what I thought, too. Technically; setting fire to a building in order to watch it burn in order to qualify for Pyro makes you ineligible for the PrC, because by RaW you are doing it with an alterior motive, not 'just' to watch it burn.

It's weirdly zen, in a way. The only people who qualify for Pyro, are the ones who either a) don't know it exists, or b) can act with utterly sincere single-mindedness that using it genuinely doesn't occur to them. :smalltongue:

For easy class requirements, I always liked Drunken Master. The prereq is "requires a night of carousing and bar hopping without dying or embarrassing yourself" which most adventurers to as a matter of course, but there's no definition of 'embarrassed'. You can do pretty much whatever you like, with any results, and simply state that 'I meant to do that'. No embarrassment? Have a PrC! :smallsmile:

[herrhauptmann]

This is immediately what I thought, too. Technically; setting fire to a building in order to watch it burn in order to qualify for Pyro makes you ineligible for the PrC, because by RaW you are doing it with an alterior motive, not 'just' to watch it burn.


Thats...
Beautiful.

[Studoku]

A lot of them are roleplay requirements that you can write into your backstory.

The Pyrokineticist one is funny because you can set fire to a dollhouse.
Or an orphanage.

[Macros]

I don't think most PCs get into Pyro that easily. Usually they set things on fire for a specific reason, biggest ones being:

Kill things
Cause diversion
Cover escape.


Well, one of my current PCs tend to burn things just for the heck of it. I mean, it's pretty much one of the first things he did after the beginning of the campaign (which was the group waking up inside open coffins in a crypt with hazy memories). Claimed it helped him "calm down".

Didn't burn a building yet, though. He did, however, burn a forest. That might count.

@Wraith : well, that kind of dissonent serenity would be expected from someone who is so in love with arson that he made it his class.

[JoshuaZ]

Don't the demon/devil ones all require a specific mark? You know, thrall to demogorgan, thrall to orcus...
With the feats section saying you can only be a thrall to one demon/devil?


Sort of. It isn't clear from the wording if it is a separate symbol or not. The requirement listed in PrCs is just "Disciple to Darkness" for the devil PrCs and and "Thrall of Demon" for the demonic PrCs. A DM might reasonably disagree here though.

[Deophaun]

This is immediately what I thought, too. Technically; setting fire to a building in order to watch it burn in order to qualify for Pyro makes you ineligible for the PrC, because by RaW you are doing it with an alterior motive, not 'just' to watch it burn.
Well, there's the question of why the player had his character set something on fire ("I want to go into Pyro") versus why the character did so ("Fire is pretty"). The player can have whatever ulterior motive he desire, but since that's a meta concept, it doesn't impact the character's ability to take the class.

[herrhauptmann]

Well, there's the question of why the player had his character set something on fire ("I want to go into Pyro") versus why the character did so ("Fire is pretty"). The player can have whatever ulterior motive he desire, but since that's a meta concept, it doesn't impact the character's ability to take the class.

Not like joining the assassins. :smallbiggrin:
"I killed him because I like killing people." vs "I killed him so these guys let me join their club."

[Fax Celestis]

Avenging Executioner's special line is pretty straightforward: "Must have been tragically wronged in some manner" is deliciously vague and can be written into backstory with surprising ease.

Cloud Anchorite is the same way: "Live for a week alone at 12000 feet or higher".

[Dusk Eclipse]

Spellsword has to be one of the easiest if you start as a melee class, you will qualify by the time you take your second fighter level.

[mistformsquirrl]

A lot of them are roleplay requirements that you can write into your backstory.

This is what I usually do. Not only does it make entry easier; but it also usually provides a good roleplay hook for the character as well. It can tell you something useful about the character, like who their non-adventuring associates are (a knightly order, a wizard school, etc for some PRCs), or something about their personality or things they've experienced they may or may not be willing to talk about.

That said from the DM side of things, it's imo worth watching this kind of thing carefully - it can be done really well (and in my experience often is); but sometimes someone just writes up "Oh and I was stuck in a tomb for 3 days so now I qualify for Palemaster.") and that's kinda meh imo.

[Wraith]

Well, there's the question of why the player had his character set something on fire ("I want to go into Pyro") versus why the character did so ("Fire is pretty"). The player can have whatever ulterior motive he desire, but since that's a meta concept, it doesn't impact the character's ability to take the class.

I don't know.... can a character join a class that he doesn't know exists? There's a certain logic that says that the only way to join it is to metagame.

If the PC doesn't know it exists, logically he can't join it because it's outside his notice. Of course he can be a pyromaniac and a Pscionist if he wants, but he can't combine the two - that's the point of the PrC, which he doesn't know about.

If the PC does know about it, and wants to join it, he can't because his acts are tainted by the RaW. As soon as he becomes aware of it and gains the desire, any fires he starts are no longer "just for fun" and thus he doesn't qualify for the prereq.

If he does know about it, and doesn't want to join it, he won't. :smalltongue:

And if the PC doesn't know it exists, yet enters it at the Player's intent.... Well, that's got to be metagaming; Player knowledge used to benefit the character.

Arguably, the only way to genuinely join the PrC is for the Player not to know that it exists, play a pyromaniac character, and genuinely discover it in-game after that point. Which no-one reading this thread can ever do, because we've spoiled it. :smallbiggrin:

I know I'm being a little facetious, but hopefully you can see my point. It's very, very hard to do genuinely do something for reason X when you have any knowledge that it also allows result Y and Z which may work to your advantage. A real stickler of a GM can make life very difficult in that case. :smallwink:

[Lord Vukodlak]

This is immediately what I thought, too. Technically; setting fire to a building in order to watch it burn in order to qualify for Pyro makes you ineligible for the PrC, because by RaW you are doing it with an alterior motive, not 'just' to watch it burn.

It's weirdly zen, in a way. The only people who qualify for Pyro, are the ones who either a) don't know it exists, or b) can act with utterly sincere single-mindedness that using it genuinely doesn't occur to them. :smalltongue:

Or they accept they can never qualify for the PrC but keep burning things anyway... thus qualifying!

[Deophaun]

I don't know.... can a character join a class that he doesn't know exists? There's a certain logic that says that the only way to join it is to metagame.
This assumes that PrCs are concrete things that exist independent of characters, as opposed to being a meta concept the game uses to describe what a character does. If you're playing a game where everyone who takes the Fighter class calls themselves "Fighter," and no one is called a "Champion" without one level in one of the dozen or so classes containing the word, sure. But in a game where the Crusader 20 introduces himself as a Paladin of Pelor, or the Warforged Artificer calls himself Megaman, knowledge about classes does not exist. All that someone who wants to be wizard knows is that reading arcane text will give him mastery of magical forces. The seventh level Sorcerer didn't choose fireball at some mythic level up; his magic blood just awoke with the power to create it.