Thoughts on The Master class

[Royce]

I recently got a hold of the Dragonlance War of the Lance splat book, which had the new base class The Master. I'm very interested in using this class in the next adventure my DM is running. It just seems like the ultimate skill monkey class with some interesting party face aspects. It's basically an upgraded expert class, but seems like there are possibilities for some real fun. I know it isn't a high tier class, but for a city campaign it looks like it could be great. Just wondering if anyone has played one or any DM has run one in an adventure. It just seems like something different. Any thoughts or opinions?

[Fizban]

Haven't played or run one, but I wasn't too impressed, it sounds good but indeed once you read it it's basically just filling in for things a War of the Lance campaign is supposed to have absent: no easily available magic items so you can (spend a long time crafting) better masterwork items, but the only reason you'd want to do so is because you can't buy them in the first place. It's fine if all you want is what it gets, but as you've noticed what it gets is not very strong by most people's standards. Unless the crafting is absolutely required or your group is fine with one party member's combat contribution being +2 or -2 and basic attacks, it's just too meh. And if your group does expect "skillmonkey" to include phat backstabs or magic magic magic, they're going to be disappointed.

What bothers me the most is that the Noble and Master classes are both presented alongside way more powerful or just interesting prestige classes, from the obvious Wizard of High Sorcery to the Chorister, Dragon Highlord, Dragon Rider, Legendary Tactician, Ambient Tempest (that one's in the monster book), and the so borked it actually got errata War Mage (daily limit on the damage bonus, its still borked). Its like they decided that the Aristocrat and Expert weren't enough to make NPC aristocrats and experts because they didn't have Class Features, so they made new classes without actually trying to make them comparable to any of the actual PC classes for fear of overshadowing them. You could do the same or better just making them into feats and having a "feat rogue" to match the fighter.