Lower-Level Martial Prestige Classes

[VoxRationis]

I am unsure as to whether this is in the correct forum. My proposal smacks somewhat of homebrew, but I'm not actually making any specific rules, merely positing something to the community.

Prestige classes add a great deal of flavor to the setting, used properly. They allow the DM to feature traditions and training forms that stand out from the crowd; he or she can add in NPCs who fight with an emphasis on a particular weapon, tying them to a region associated with that weapon, or who have magical abilities beyond that of even normal wizards (hopefully with some sort of drawback).

However, I find myself confronted with a difficulty. I want to incorporate these sorts of NPCs, particularly those of martial bent, into my campaigns, in sufficient numbers that they clearly represent an organization or school. However, the entry requirements for all prestige classes require that (barring certain shenanigans of dubious character) one be 6th level or higher before entering the prestige class. This means that if I want to feature NPCs with a particular prestige class, they have to be at least 7th level, and probably 10-12th level if I want them to have a decent development of that prestige class's abilities. Thus, if, say, I want a class to represent a foreign fighting style commonly taught to soldiers from that area, I have to pepper—nay, saturate—my setting with mid- to high-level characters. This is undesirable for two reasons: first, it makes life terribly difficult at low levels, both for the players, for obvious reasons, and also for the DM, who has to justify why the level 2 PCs are needed when a single garrison member could do their job over his lunch break; and second, it breaks verisimilitude to have too many mid- to high-level characters, given what a mid- to high-level character is capable of surviving (e.g., ballista bolts to the head, being swallowed by large animals, drinking a shot glass full of mercury, etc.), not to mention any other setting-breaking abilities that come with level.

Therefore, I suggest that certain prestige classes, particularly those for fighters, be revamped to allow entry by martial characters at lower levels (and hopefully remain balanced at those levels). I say this for fighters because fighting is one of those skill sets that benefits, flavor- and tactics-wise, the most from having some sort of new spin put on them.
What are people's thoughts on this?

[OldTrees1]

I though most martial prestige classes could be entered at 6th level.

[HammeredWharf]

Do you really need them to be prestige classes? I think a bunch of feats and/or ACFs would suffice.

[eggynack]

Do you really need them to be prestige classes? I think a bunch of feats and/or ACFs would suffice.
Indeed. There's a whole list of ACF's here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7908), so you can easily have a school of martial arts based around some of the more interesting ones, and a school devoted to some particular feat chain seems reasonable as well. As for the main idea of the thread, I can't think of too many mundane prestige classes that would imbalance the game much if you were to reduce the prerequisites. I would be wary of doing that with classes that grant some form of casting, like runescarred berserker or champion of gwynharwyf, because casting is awesome. Even those could be OK though, especially in a reasonably high powered campaign.

[VoxRationis]

Hm. I suppose that's true. I've never been much of one for ACFs; they seem like cheap munchkin food to me.

[Diarmuid]

And yet for many others, they represent a way to play many different characters of similar classes/skillsets/etc while still maintaining some amount of diversity between characters.

[Urpriest]

Also, be aware that several PrCs, like Fist of the Forest, are designed to be entered earlier.

That said, "this is the fighting style of this land" is exactly what most published ACFs do, so that does seem the most natural approach.

[OldTrees1]

Hm. I suppose that's true. I've never been much of one for ACFs; they seem like cheap munchkin food to me.

The first half of that is fair enough.
Different mechanics for customization (ACFs, PrCs, Archetypes, Feats, Items, ...) have subtle differences in tastes.

So based on your tastes, it looks like you want a series of 5 level martial PrCs that can be entered with BAB+5.

[Godskook]

1.Its not setting-breaking to have....say lvl 10 be the defining level in your setting. It merely defines your setting as being particularly high-powered(Think Eberron or Harry Potter, where most wizards are easily lvl 5+, or Star Wars, where Jedi are clearly OP compared to almost everyone else, but the tech level keeps them in check). If you don't want to define your setting at those lvls, fine, but its not going to break Versimilitude to do it.

2.One of my favorite prestige classes is Daggerspell Mage. And setting-wise, even in 'standard' D&D, it doesn't break anything for there to be a few dozen full-fledged members of the Daggerspell Guild(read: lvl 7+) that are in various states of wounded, busy, captured or uninterested. Otoh, you can fill out the rest of the guild with various apprentices(lvl 2-5) who are wizard/rogue hybrids trying to rank up through the guild. I mean, two daggers and the ability to cast spells is all you really need to look like a Daggerspell in training.

3.Just because your setting has "high level" people around doesn't mean these people are available for the jobs the PCs are given. Various reasons such as "right place, right time", "nobody else cares", "everyone who cares is already needed elsewhere", "I'm retired, f*** off" or such. I mean, look at how OotS handles Elan's mentor, a guy who's probably still got a level or two on the party. Dude is scared to death of dying as a plot point in Elan's story, so he that's why he's not hanging around. Similarly, the Paladins, while very very strong, were primarily purposed with protecting Azure City and the gate. They couldn't go out en-masse to deal with threats abroad, and wouldn't interfere with the other gates via oath. Which leads to the OotS being used for things that their level was irrelevant about. THey could've been a 5th level party as far as that interaction went.

4.For martial training, I think your best option is to get your hands on a bunch of well-balanced Bo9S homebrew disciplines and use Warblades/Swordsages/Crusaders with a *MASSIVE* focus in the "home" discipline. Say....the Church of the Devoted Spirit, or the Monastery of the Diamond Mind, etc. This resource would be incredibly helpful in that regard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7623906).