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Morof Stonehands
2020-03-15, 09:04 PM
I’ve been pondering making an 3.5 E6 setting, and had an idea, that I wanted to float past other people to see if it was bad or not.

How balanced/broken/unworkable would a game be if it didn’t use the base classes and only had Prestige Classes? I’ve had a cursory glance through the books and have come up with some modifications as follows, and so far to my untrained eye it seems like it could work out okay.

1. Only 5 level PrCs allowed, thus turning the game into E5
2. No multiclassing.
3. Prerequisites would be eliminated, except for maybe race requirements.
4. Classes that advance spell casting would do so on the levels that they say they do.
4a. Players choose any base class as their casting progression/list, and that’s what they advance, but it must match the style of the PrC (a PrC that advances arcane casting couldn’t have cleric chosen)
5. Almost all PrCs don’t give weapon/armor proficiency so I would have to decide for each one.

I’m sure there is a lot more stuff that would need to be adjusted but to me it seems like it could be decently fun. Lets the players get abilities that they might not normally have, mixes things up a bit.

So is there something I’m missing? How good or awful is this idea? Is there something broken that might come about from this? I’m interested to hear what others think!

sreservoir
2020-03-17, 08:07 PM
You'll need to check carefully case-by-case to avoid things being totally broken. There are a lot of PrCs that implicitly assume that, well, you qualified for them, and are at an appropriate level given that. More than one just splashes in SLAs of spells above fourth level, and then you have things like Trapsmith (Dungeonscape), which looks fine at a glance (it only goes up to 3rd-level spells) ... but its spell list includes not only the notorious 1st-level haste, but also 2nd-level dimension door, and 3rd-level wall of stone and fabricate.

Then there are all the classes that are basically broken because you can't use their features because you can't e.g. cast the spell they're all keyed off, though that's less concerning (just don't take them).

Morof Stonehands
2020-03-23, 01:01 PM
That’s a really good point. My first look just pulled any class that had 5 levels only. So I’ve gone back through and made the following lists:


Thief Acrobat
Tempest
Streetfighter
Ollam
Fatespinner
Effigy Master
Forest Reeve
Sanctified One
Avenging Executioner
Combat Trapsmith
Fortune’s Friend
Spellwarp Sniper
Dark Hunter
Invisible Blade
Master Thrower
Occult Slayer
Purple Dragon Knight
Reaping Mauler
Thayan Knight
Dragonsong Lyrist
Dread Commando
War Weaver
Dread Witch
Dirgesinger
Topaz Guardian
Chaotician
Menacing Brute
Outcast Champion
Battlesmith
Cragtop Archer
Earth Dreamer
Goliath Liberator
Stonedeath Assassin
Stonespeaker Guardian
Disciple of the Eye
Dragon Devotee
Survivor
Leviathan Hunter



Exalted Arcanist
Maester
Geometer
Argent Savant
Ordained Champion
Paragnostic Apostle
Evangelist
Abjurant Champion
Holy Scourge
Nightmare Spinner
Cloaked Dancer
Archmage
Thaumaturgist
Frostrager
Combat Medic
Legendary Leader
Master of Radiance
Sacred Purifier
Havoc Mage
Elemental Warrior
Runesmith
Shadowcraft Mage
Knight of the Pearl


No changes/fixes have been made yet on my part, that’s next for me. If anyone has any ideas about what to amend on those classes to make them work (or to nix them all together) I’d love to hear them. My next post will have my possible alterations

I have decided that I won’t be using any subsystem for now, so no Psionics, Incarnum, Shadow, Binding, Truenaming, or Maneuvers
Also haven’t looked at any Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Dungeon/Dragon, etc.

Falontani
2020-04-28, 06:48 PM
questions:

why no multiclassing?
why remove the base classes?
why not use the higher level prestige classes (like 6 level, 10 level, or more) but still cap them at the same place?

What about prestige classes that expect you to have turning?

The idea sounds like it can work, but will require a lot of effort I'd expect.

nonsi
2020-04-28, 07:15 PM
.
Point to consider:
While there was an obvious effort made to maintain a reasonable balance between the base classes at the lower levels, these no noticeable balance between PrCs at all.
Some are weak to the point of uselessness. Some are frighteningly powerful.
Using PrCs in an E6 game is basically counting on pure luck that things don't break down very early in the group's existence.