Why don't PRCs have ECL minimums?

[Aquillion]

This is something that's always bothered me about how PRCs work. Nearly every PRC ever printed has a clear intended minimum level to enter it; yet it's never explicit, which allows people to cheat their way into them early with things like Improved Sigil: Krau and the like.

I think it's obvious those early-entry tricks are not RAI, so why didn't they just give all those PRCs explicit ECL minimums you have to meet to enter them? Aside from closing loopholes and hopefully making them more balanced, it'd make them easier to read, too, since you could tell at a glance what the earliest possible entry point for a class is rather than having to parse it out of the skill and spell requirements. In a few cases a class might have multiple intended entry paths, but even then, nothing would really be harmed by taking the earliest intended entry point and making that the minimum ECL.

(This would also sometimes remove the need to use unnecessary spell and skill requirements in a class solely to establish its entry minimum, which would let some PRCs be more widely-available.)

[InvisibleBison]

I don't see what minimum ECLs would add. If a group doesn't want to use early-access shenanigans, they can simply not use them. An explicit rule banning them would unnecessarily limit the range of playstyles the rules can encompass.

[BowStreetRunner]

When you design a prestige class, make sure that characters must be at least 5th level before they can meet the entry requirements. Specific feats, skill ranks, and base attack bonuses make good entry requirements.
Basically, the designers underestimated the resourcefulness of the players. Common design problem in games. Every game designer thinks they know how best to keep the game from being broken. But in practice, sooner or later someone comes along who figures out what the designers didn't.

[johnbragg]

This is something that's always bothered me about how PRCs work. Nearly every PRC ever printed has a clear intended minimum level to enter it; yet it's never explicit, which allows people to cheat their way into them early with things like Improved Sigil: Krau and the like.

I think it's obvious those early-entry tricks are not RAI, so why didn't they just give all those PRCs explicit ECL minimums you have to meet to enter them? Aside from closing loopholes and hopefully making them more balanced, it'd make them easier to read, too, since you could tell at a glance what the earliest possible entry point for a class is rather than having to parse it out of the skill and spell requirements. In a few cases a class might have multiple intended entry paths, but even then, nothing would really be harmed by taking the earliest intended entry point and making that the minimum ECL.

(This would also sometimes remove the need to use unnecessary spell and skill requirements in a class solely to establish its entry minimum, which would let some PRCs be more widely-available.)

I really don't think this is a very big problem. The most common PRC entry requirements are "arcane/divine spells of N level", "X ranks in Skill", and BAB. It's not THAT hard to figure out the minimum ECL for normal entry.

IF you don't like early entry shenanigans, say "No" to early entry shenanigans.

(Of course, in my E6, most PRCs start at ECL 3 because they require both halves of a hybrid to work.)

[Amphetryon]

Those early-access "cheats," as you call them, are not violating any rules-text. They are built-in methods the game has to provide specific exceptions (and 'exceptions' are not 'cheats,' any more than exceptional people are cheaters) to the expected earliest entry point. They reward a certain amount of system mastery and splat-book access within the rules, which are themselves largely exception-based.

Play the game as you and your friends see fit, but I am honestly curious as to what you think Improved Sigil: Krau, Primary Contact, Earth Spell, and other game mechanics apparently designed to exceed limits otherwise imposed on Characters are actually supposed to be used for, if using them for early access is 'cheating.'

[SethoMarkus]

I think the OP is being misunderstood. The issue is not "early access to PRCs is bad!", it's more "the designees clearly intended this to be ECL 5, why didn't they just say that?".

I think BowStreetRunner came closest to hitting the mark, if not a bullseye. The designers probably didn't think it was necessary. And now that they have already been released, there's no point in changing them. As others in the thread have stated, the intended ECL can be figured out fairly simply, and those that dislike early entry would just ban it.

[Troacctid]

Skill ranks and BAB are effectively ECL requirements, as the only way to get them is to increase your ECL. (Okay, Primary Contact, but that's highly inefficient and only even works in niche cases like Necrocarnate.)

It's mostly only spell levels where this comes up, and honestly, that's not really problematic.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's explicitly mentioned, maybe in the DMG section on designing PrCs, that character level requirements are bad requirements. The entry requirements of a prestige class are intended to represent minimum skill levels, not some abstract level of 'power'. ECL is intended to be used OOC only, to calculate XP rewards, not IC, to acquire special abilities.

[Amphetryon]

Basically, the designers underestimated the resourcefulness of the players. Common design problem in games. Every game designer thinks they know how best to keep the game from being broken. But in practice, sooner or later someone comes along who figures out what the designers didn't.

The designers also gave us Stoneblessed and Survivor, among others - Prestige Classes expressly designed to go against that advice in the DMG. Again, exception-based design.

[icefractal]

For both PrCs and feats, there was a concept that the requirements should be "natural", not directly referring to character level. Now in practice, I feel like this was a mistake. Not primarily because it allows early entry, but because it makes it necessary to plan your build in advance to qualify for the things you need. And also creates mechanically sub-par characters when people enter something later than intended.

It would be a hell of a lot more balanced, and a lot more open to different character concepts, if most things just keyed off character level (not class level, character level).

[johnbragg]

For both PrCs and feats, there was a concept that the requirements should be "natural", not directly referring to character level. Now in practice, I feel like this was a mistake. Not primarily because it allows early entry, but because it makes it necessary to plan your build in advance to qualify for the things you need. And also creates mechanically sub-par characters when people enter something later than intended.

It would be a hell of a lot more balanced, and a lot more open to different character concepts, if most things just keyed off character level (not class level, character level).

Hmmm. There is a versimilitude to saying that, for example, to qualify for the "divine arcanist" PRC you need at least 1 level of arcane caster and 1 level of divine caster, and write the PRC requirements to reflect that (able to cast 1st level arcane and divine spells, 4 ranks in K-Religion and K-Arcana.)

But if we take that as logical, should we require something to multiclass into BASE classes? Instead of just deciding, out of the blue when you level up, you retroactively learned everything an ECL 1 1st level wizard or barbarian or druid or rogue knows.

At the altar of versimilitude, do we require an "initiation fee" to multiclass? 1 rank in Knowledge: Arcana to become a wizard? Proficiency with one Martial Weapon to be a fighter (with the option of retraining the now-wasted feat?) 1 rank in Knowledge: Religion or Nature seems cheap for becoming a cleric or druid. But more than that, and skills-poor classes like Fighter and PAladin cannot hope to qualify.

LEaving aside the Sorcerer, who has inborn magic mumble mumble. Or the monk or barbarian, exemplars of a lifetime of discipline etc etc.

OK, probably a bad idea.

[Aquillion]

I think the OP is being misunderstood. The issue is not "early access to PRCs is bad!", it's more "the designees clearly intended this to be ECL 5, why didn't they just say that?".Yes, this. I don't care one way or the other about early access tricks (3e has much deeper and more serious balance issues anyway.) I'm just curious why the game's original designers went for such roundabout methods to indicate the minimum ECL for prestige classes when they could have just stated it explicitly, and I wanted to know if anyone had any theories why they did it like that.

[johnbragg]

Yes, this. I don't care one way or the other about early access tricks (3e has much deeper and more serious balance issues anyway.) I'm just curious why the game's original designers went for such roundabout methods to indicate the minimum ECL for prestige classes when they could have just stated it explicitly, and I wanted to know if anyone had any theories why they did it like that.

I think that they wrote the requirements so that you had to be a certain ECL, AND a certain type of character.

Thinking about developers' intention, so I'm going to look at the SRD prestige classes. Let's say you want to be an Assassin. Move Silently and Hide, 8 ranks each, plus 4 ranks in Disguise, so the most obvious path is Rogue 5/Assassin 1. Bard 5/Assassin 1 works too. Monks and Rangers have to take Disguise cross-class, but Monk 5/Assassin 1 or Ranger 5/Assassin 1 is doable. Barbarians, Clerics, Druids, Fighters, PAladins, Sorcerers, Wizards need to grind through 13 levels before they can meet the requirements.

Eldritch Knight requires 3rd level arcane spells. So a 5th level wizard can dip 1 level of fighter or whatever and meet the requirements. But a 5th level fighter can't just dip 1 level of wizard and start Eldritch Knighting.

EDIT: ACtually, I am assuming designer intention here. It could be another thing that was not fully thought through and just went in unexpected directions. It's possible the designers considered the Fighter 5/Wizard 1/Eldritch Knight 1 and said "Nay", it's also possible they didn't really think of it.

Is there really a reason to lock Bards out of the Arcane Trickster business? I don't see one.

[Necroticplague]

If someone is clever enough to find their way around rules that are honestly, more of a pain than any kind of benefit, I don't see why their should be anything to stop them. The whole prerequisite system PRCs and feats are built on was a horrible idea that belongs in the garbage bin. If any changes are to be made to the system, it should be to loosen restrictions, not make them even harder.

And IMO, some 'early entry' tricks are clearly intended. Fleshwarper has skill: heal 4 ranks, and a feat that requires heal: 10 ranks (thus making it very clear they were aware of the possibility of short-cutting by acquiring the feat as a bonus feat, and the example character seems to make use of this), the requirement for Soul Eater clearly intend a martial base with a dip in caster (straight martial wouldn't have Alertness or Arcana on their list normally. Unlike, say, a wizard who's familiar gives them Alertness as a bonus feat, and get arcana as a class skill).

[Godskook]

I think the OP is being misunderstood. The issue is not "early access to PRCs is bad!", it's more "the designees clearly intended this to be ECL 5, why didn't they just say that?".

Saying "ECL 5" gives one piece of information and zero flavor. Saying "cast 3rd level arcane spells" gives 3 requirements(ECL 5, access to 3rd level spells, arcane) and gives flavor. Clearly a win-win until suddenly, someone gains access at ECL 4. And no, "ECL 5" is not "more specific" because if you said "ECL 5", you'd still need to say "cast 3rd level arcane spells". Design oversight seems like the clearcut problem here.

[Kish]

Phrasing it more sympathetically to the designers: They assumed their players would recognize that something no one contested was obvious RAI was obviously intended and, thus, that "but the rules don't say I can't!" counted for exactly nothing in an actual game. Their game was never designed to be theoretically optimized down to the last blot of ink on the pages--and would be far poorer for it, as a game rather than a thought exercise, if it was.

[tropical_punch]

"but the rules don't say I can't!" counted for exactly nothing in an actual game

That's hardly fair. This is a case of "the rules say I can!"

[nyjastul69]

It's explicitly mentioned, maybe in the DMG section on designing PrCs, that character level requirements are bad requirements. The entry requirements of a prestige class are intended to represent minimum skill levels, not some abstract level of 'power'. ECL is intended to be used OOC only, to calculate XP rewards, not IC, to acquire special abilities.

The designers of the game have commented on this matter. ExLibrisMortis is correct here.

[Hecuba]

It's explicitly mentioned, maybe in the DMG section on designing PrCs, that character level requirements are bad requirements. The entry requirements of a prestige class are intended to represent minimum skill levels, not some abstract level of 'power'. ECL is intended to be used OOC only, to calculate XP rewards, not IC, to acquire special abilities.

Indeed. Keep in mind that the official line for 3.5 treats classes (prestige and otherwise) as far less like modular meta-game constructs than the emergent game play for 3.5 has come to.

The UA variant that allows a specific trial for entry into PRCs is really only different in that it makes the events happen in an "on-screen" trial: if you look at the WOTC's opinion of what makes a "good" PRC in 3.5, you'll find that most of them have entry requirements that can easily and directly be incorporated into some form of demonstrable proficiency.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm going to echo the comments of others who've said that explicit level requirements were left out on purpose. I'll go a step further and say that all of these early access tricks were left in the game intentionally.

Monte Cook is on record stating that not all of the options for classes and feats are balanced, and that new players choosing a Fighter and taking Toughness while experienced players built a more complex character, able to sort the good options from the bad ones, is exactly how the system was meant to operate. He is (or was at the time, at least) a big believer in rewarding system mastery, and he was one of the main designers for 3rd Edition.

[AvatarVecna]

The reason they don't have official ECL minimums is because WotC didn't realize "early entry tricks" were a thing that could happen. Some things are hard to work around (skill rank requirements, for instance), but there's virtually no requirement that can't be worked around somehow; even skills can be worked around with enough cheese. Special requirements are about the only way, and that's almost always fluff.

By the time early entry tricks were a common thing, the design of PrCs was pretty stadard, even though it was based on faulty assumptions.

[Gnaeus]

I'm going to echo the comments of others who've said that explicit level requirements were left out on purpose. I'll go a step further and say that all of these early access tricks were left in the game intentionally.

Monte Cook is on record stating that not all of the options for classes and feats are balanced, and that new players choosing a Fighter and taking Toughness while experienced players built a more complex character, able to sort the good options from the bad ones, is exactly how the system was meant to operate. He is (or was at the time, at least) a big believer in rewarding system mastery, and he was one of the main designers for 3rd Edition.

I find that implausible, given that Cook left TSR in 2001 shortly after 3.0 core, and all the common early entry cheats I know about came in later supplements. Also, there is a significant if non conclusive argument that that quote was simply a CYA move by Cook, justifying why we should buy his later games after seeing the imbalance in the 3.0 core he helped write. But in any event, I can't see Monte being responsible for intentional early entry tricks which emerged years after he left the company. If they had been in core.... Maybe. I think Occam's Razor here suggests that it was one more example of splat crunch which was written with incomplete play testing and a poor understanding of how certain feats would interact with other game elements, rather than a delayed conspiracy to reward rules loopholes.

[KillianHawkeye]

I find that implausible, given that Cook left TSR in 2001 shortly after 3.0 core, and all the common early entry cheats I know about came in later supplements. Also, there is a significant if non conclusive argument that that quote was simply a CYA move by Cook, justifying why we should buy his later games after seeing the imbalance in the 3.0 core he helped write. But in any event, I can't see Monte being responsible for intentional early entry tricks which emerged years after he left the company. If they had been in core.... Maybe. I think Occam's Razor here suggests that it was one more example of splat crunch which was written with incomplete play testing and a poor understanding of how certain feats would interact with other game elements, rather than a delayed conspiracy to reward rules loopholes.

Well, maybe you're right, but I'd be more inclined to think it's a little bit of both. Obviously, WotC's playtesting efforts only took into account the style of play developed by earlier editions of D&D and not what would naturally arise from the rules they were writing, and it's equally obvious that at least some of their writers were unaware of other things that had already been written, but I still have to imagine that the only purpose for some of these things that are used for early entry shenanigans was to allow exactly that. And even if Monte Cook left WotC soon after the initial release of 3rd Edition, there almost certainly were people who remained that agreed with his general design philosophy.