Theoretical: What if all Prestige Classes are now like the Legacy Champion?

[One Step Two]

After reading over the PrC Evaluation thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?601838-PrC-Evaluation-Thread) an idea popped into mind that I wanted to share:

If every PrC that exists now had the same 8/10 progression of "+1 level of existing class features" like the Legacy Champion, skipping those features at 1st and 7th, and all PrC's which had spellcasting progression is replaced with the same, which PrCs would be most impacted by this change?

For shorter PrC's such as those 5 levels, they would only have the skip at 1st, like the Uncanny Trickster.

Off the top of my head 5/10 casting PrCs are of course uplifted, and 10/10 are slightly nerfed, but gain lost features. Druid becomes a powerhouse again, but it makes diversification of skill more interesting. Edge cases like Theurge classes are harder to gaugue, but it would make mystic theurge slightly more attractive, depending on the classes used to enter into it.

I would enjoy hearing any thoughts the playground might have, anything build ideas that pop into mind. Or are there too many things that might break as a result?

[EndlessKng]

It feels like it risks breaking too much. There's too many prestige classes to know for sure, but if ALL of them did this, it certainly would risk making some super powerful.

Consider a particular conundrum I've been working over for several months and LITERALLY just found the solution to (I'm sure someone else probably did awhile ago, and it is very unoptimized but I'm happy to have come to the end of it myself). I wanted to find a way to take all ten levels of Disciple of Mephistopheles AND all three of Hellfire Warlock. The conundrum was that the requirements made them mutually exclusive in a 20-level build under normal circumstances - Disciple requires +6 BAB, which a Warlock COULD get but only after 8 levels of pure Warlock, meaning they'd have to lose one level in one or the other prestige class at minimum. Hellfire Warlock requires 12 ranks in a skill; thus, it can't be taken before Warlock 9 (Warlock 8 if you take the feat that raises your skill cap for a skill), so you can't enter it earlier and use it to get the BAB where you need it.

To make it work, I ultimately had to:
-Start as a Human Duskblade with Precocious Apprentice for 1st level, getting a 2nd level spell (which itself is a somewhat rules-questionable tactic but generally accepted for getting into PrCs);
-Take four levels of Warlock, getting a BAB of +4 at this point - the highest level you can get while losing only one level of BAB to the Rogue progression;
-Take Spellsword 1, going to BAB +5 and Warlock casting 5;
-Take Abjurant Champion 1, going to +6/+1 and Warlock Casting 6, getting the invocation for Hellfire, and seven levels total;
-Go Disciple of Meph as long as you want, taking off three levels in there after you get Knowledge Planes 12 for Hellfire Warlock. This leaves me with 9 total levels of Warlock Casting, and only four of Warlock abilities.

Now, let's consider this alternative: What if Disciple of Mephistopheles gave the progression you mention herein? The math changes SIGNIFICANTLY. I no longer need to limit myself to losing only one level of Invocations and one level of BAB progression to make this work. I do need to get some extra BAB to meet the requirement for Disciple in time, but now I can take Warlock to 4 (BAB +3) and then take +3 BAB worth of other classes, losing three levels of Warlock casting. Let's say for argument's sake that I take OA Samurai 2 and Fighter 1, getting an Ancestral Weapon and a couple Bonus Feats. Still level 7 when I enter Disciple.

Then I take Disciple, and assume that I take it 10 straight levels. However, for 8 of those levels, I also advance Warlock. Keep in mind that, as written, Legacy Champion explicitly adds to spellcasting. Suddenly, I'm in a ten-level full BAB class with features on nine of them, gaining 8 levels of Warlock casting AND features. That means when I finish Disciple at level 17, I'm a level 12 Warlock for all feature purposes (which means I get Imbue Item) AND I get all the class features from those PrC levels to boot, plus I'm at a +16 BAB, meaning I get four attacks a round. Then, I take three levels of Hellfire Warlock. I lose one more level of Warlock Invocation progression by your rules, but that still means I'm at Warlock 14 for all other purposes, on top of a +18 BAB, three combat class levels with two bonus feats, and all the benefits of Disciple of Mephistopheles AND Hellfire Warlock.

Now, if you edit it to make it so that only casting PrCs advance casting abilities, that MAY resolve the issue... but may not. Again, there's too many to be sure, and Theurge classes make things worse altogether.

[One Step Two]

Thanks for taking the time for listing out your full build, I had anticipated a higher optimization ceiling, but now that you've written it out in full, it does seem like a means to reproducing Gestalt to a degree.

By appearances it helps raise the optimization floor as well, because as you've also shown, you are afforded a far-less torturous build path for what you had in mind, thus giving players more options about how they can build their ideal character.

It also makes some PrCs more attractive, using the Disciple of Mephistopheles still, combining it with unarmed Swordsage could be good fun for example. With this theoretical idea you're able to play an infernal fire based martial artist without sacrificing maneuvers known and granted, without worrying as much about staggering level selection to optimize IL and swapping maneuvers.

Is it more powerful than a full Swordsage? That is hard to judge, as actions are still limited per turn. The opportunity cost of taking DoM is two feats, and a loss of skill points per level, a single stance, two maneuvers known and 1 maneuver readied, a use of Dual boost, and a +1 to Quick to Act. Similarly, a Wizard 10/DoM 10 is casting as an 18th level wizard, their familiar scales, and two bonus feats, in exchange they're getting all good saves, better HD, and some flavorful Sp and Su Abilities, which is worth the loss of two caster levels for some.

Ultimately, I think classes like Warlock, which don't have dead levels are the biggest winners.

[SirNibbles]

Every monk-advancing PrC becomes less-valuable than it already is because every PrC now advances monks (but with UAS damage capping at 20, that never really mattered since items cover that)
Druids get Wild Shape and Casting advancement from things like MoMF without losing anything
Fighters get their Bonus Feats while getting actual class features
Rogues can advance sneak attack with pretty much any PrC- Arcane Trickster could possibly double-dip

Most classes benefit, but the strongest classes benefit the most.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

One thing that would curtail the most obvious abuses is making them only advance base classes, not other prestige classes. You lose some cool options by doing this, but you can always make case by case exceptions ("This class's features can be advanced by other prestige classes, even though it is a PrC itself") or even partial exceptions ("You may use a PrC to advance this class's casting, but its other features cannot be advanced this way").

This has the additional minor benefit of keeping Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster the only classes that can advance any PrC this way.

[NigelWalmsley]

There are probably weird abusive corner-cases, but they already exist in the form of the Legacy Champion, so who cares?

We already know how this change works for casters, because there are already partial progression caster PrCs. Casters don't take them. This change, like every proposal that you make casting PrCs partial progression, forces characters to choose between power and concept in a way that is never interesting.

For non-casters, this makes PrCs an even better deal than they are already. The average PrC level is about as good as a marginal level of Fighter, so if you can get any of the benefits of Fighter while getting its benefits as well, it becomes even better.

Honestly, I would probably pick certain class features that are just fully advanced by PrCs. That's already how it works for casters, and that paradigm is fine.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, I would also add that this rules change should remove all "+1 level of spellcasting progression of a spellcasting class you have levels of" from PRC's. Any PRC that has this class feature should instead rely on getting further spellcasting by advancing the class features of a spellcasting class.

Though this would cause problems with things like Thurges. Those classes would need a rewrite.

And you are going to run into PRC's with their own casting and the problems therein if they can also be used to advance another casting class on top of themselves.

For example Bard / Sublime Chord would do weird things by ending up with 18 levels of bard progression and then all of sublime chord's casting on top of that. While this isn't problematic in the case of bard / sublime chord things could get weird with Ur-priest and an arcane casting class.

[Doctor Despair]

Consider a particular conundrum I've been working over for several months and LITERALLY just found the solution to (I'm sure someone else probably did awhile ago, and it is very unoptimized but I'm happy to have come to the end of it myself). I wanted to find a way to take all ten levels of Disciple of Mephistopheles AND all three of Hellfire Warlock. The conundrum was that the requirements made them mutually exclusive in a 20-level build under normal circumstances -


Prereqs can certainly be annoying, but let's take a look



Disciple requires +6 BAB, which a Warlock COULD get but only after 8 levels of pure Warlock,


Assuming we don't mix and match classes, you can contract lycanthropy to gain the BAB, then cure it later. However, let's continue...



Hellfire Warlock requires 12 ranks in a skill; thus, it can't be taken before Warlock 9 (Warlock 8 if you take the feat that raises your skill cap for a skill), so you can't enter it earlier and use it to get the BAB where you need it.


Gaining temporary HD through something like Inspire Greatness or polymorphing into a Barghet with psychic reformation/retraining can help you to solve that. Heck, even just using lycanthropy and paying for psychic reformation can get you there. For a more PO solution though, Warlock 4 / Full BAB 3 / Disciple 3 / Hellfire 3 / Disciple 7 is more workable, as you found.

[EndlessKng]

Thanks for taking the time for listing out your full build, I had anticipated a higher optimization ceiling, but now that you've written it out in full, it does seem like a means to reproducing Gestalt to a degree.

By appearances it helps raise the optimization floor as well, because as you've also shown, you are afforded a far-less torturous build path for what you had in mind, thus giving players more options about how they can build their ideal character.

It also makes some PrCs more attractive, using the Disciple of Mephistopheles still, combining it with unarmed Swordsage could be good fun for example. With this theoretical idea you're able to play an infernal fire based martial artist without sacrificing maneuvers known and granted, without worrying as much about staggering level selection to optimize IL and swapping maneuvers.

Is it more powerful than a full Swordsage? That is hard to judge, as actions are still limited per turn. The opportunity cost of taking DoM is two feats, and a loss of skill points per level, a single stance, two maneuvers known and 1 maneuver readied, a use of Dual boost, and a +1 to Quick to Act. Similarly, a Wizard 10/DoM 10 is casting as an 18th level wizard, their familiar scales, and two bonus feats, in exchange they're getting all good saves, better HD, and some flavorful Sp and Su Abilities, which is worth the loss of two caster levels for some.

Ultimately, I think classes like Warlock, which don't have dead levels are the biggest winners.

The exact example of the Wizard/DoM wouldn't work since DoM also has a +6 BAB requirement (It's fundamentally not designed to be a caster class, despite giving a +1 to caster level of fire spells - it's designed for martial characters who worship Mephistopheles, or perhaps as a high level dip for a caster but without losing overall power). But, I also wouldn't say that classes with dead levels don't benefit - maybe just not as much as the warlock. Consider the Wizard 12/DoM 8, which still ends up an 18th level caster; it doesn't get the last ability (Body of Fire) but it benefits more from the other features than the warlock does, gets a better hit dice improvement, a full BAB for 8 levels (ultimately hitting +14 - just shy of a fourth attack but only marginally worse than rogue), and still gets 9th level spells. Same could be said of pretty much any martial PrC in this scenario - you lose a bit of casting but end up a better combatant with more HP and get more features besides spells to fall back on, filling in dead levels.

Now, full casters with lots of features? THEY benefit tremendously; Dread Necro isn't getting lich before level 20, but they're still getting all the other perks up to that point. And it definitely still benefits non-casters with lots of features too, pairing them with new features to buff what they have. But it's still not an even raise across the board, and definitely wouldn't help non-casters catch up - full casters, with or without features, are still full casters ultimately, just a bit delayed in getting to the top tier of power but still accessing 7th and 8th and 9th level spells, only now with fewer drawbacks. It's way too difficult to predict just what COULD go wrong in this blanket scenario. Legacy Champion doesn't cause this problem as badly because it involves a mechanic that, from what I can tell, is usually left on the cutting room floor otherwise, and really only seems to get broken when you've taken all ten levels of the class (by which point, the Wizard 20 is already casting Wish for three prior levels); but plenty of other PrCs have features that are good in general and great if you're able to get them without losing as much from the main class.

[Elves]

I think it's just unclean/inelegant. Either PRCs should be an additive overlay to your base class, as they were in 4e, or they should take the simple route of being a class like any other, but with gated requirements. Universalizing 8/10 base class progression is too awkward.

[Telonius]

I think that a lot of underused prestige classes would suddenly become a lot more viable. The one that jumps to the front of my mind is Master of Masks. Right now, if you enter from a Bard, you get no Bardic Music advancement and only 4/10 casting. If you enter as a Rogue, you get no Sneak Attack advancement. I love the flavor of the PrC, but the mechanics are so terrible that I'd almost never use it (unless I absolutely had to do a one-level dip to get the Gladiator mask for some reason). If it had Legacy Champion class features progression, it would make it a much better choice for either entry route.

[Sutr]

I've done this, not exactly, a straight 8/10ths. We kinda just voted/DM decided when a player took a prestige class to have it progress a base class. If you did a straight 8/10ths Chameleon gets crazy. I know that one didn't advance anything in our system. I had typed up a beginning of a thread proposing a massive project like the LA adjustment reassignment thread when I wasn't busy at work because of COVID, but decided it sounded snotty and was probably homebrew. A lot of my thinking started off with complete warrior, so my conclusions may be centered there. Off of my experience some conclusions:

1: Melee classes still multiclass, these rules still encourage you to dip a tome of battle, incarnum, even wizard, before you go into the prestige class you like so your advancing something that gets good class features.

2: People still won't finish bear warrior: Bear warrior is still a 5 level prestige class the capstone doesn't change enough from brown to dire. Other prestige classes get better but still are not good, looking at Ravager.

3: Independent advancement Classes: you gotta figure out how chameleon works and basically every class from this thread, probably others as some of them do a really good job of giving unique advancement abilities. On the other hand this is probably a roadmap to problems. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?181091-PrCs-with-Independant-Spell-Progression

4: Tome of battle classes need a rework: They did interesting independent advancement and might work better as 8/10ths really anyway.

5: Sneak attack stacking: Rogue into Blackguard is a great trade and those sneak attack modifiers shred things. On the plus side I have a hard time naming any really good roguish prestige classes.

6: You see more variety of classes and prestige classes: When we played using this players were more sure about grabbing spellthief and a few other rarish classes that we hadn't seen at our table.

7: Doesn't nerf incantrix, Initiate sevenfold veil and planar shepherd enough:

8: I felt it extended the playability of mundane classes a little: 3-4 levels but heavily build dependent

[Fouredged Sword]

One simple fix to some of the issue of stacking class features like full BAB onto a wizard dip for a fighter would be to strip down the PRCs to their absolute minimum. If a class isn't specifically set up to give full BAB to a half BAB base class then don't give the class BAB. Just let it advance the BAB of the class who's class features it advances. Saves and skill points can work the same way.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

One simple fix to some of the issue of stacking class features like full BAB onto a wizard dip for a fighter would be to strip down the PRCs to their absolute minimum. If a class isn't specifically set up to give full BAB to a half BAB base class then don't give the class BAB. Just let it advance the BAB of the class who's class features it advances. Saves and skill points can work the same way.

Ah, so more like 4E's Paragon Paths. You get the iconic features of the PrC, but the rest is as your base class?

[StSword]

This reminds me of a alternate prestige class system Little Red Goblin Games suggested- groundwork feats.

Want your levels in prestige classes to extend your spellcasting? Groundwork feat. Want them to expand sneak attack? Groundwork feat. Etc, etc.

So it was mostly to avoid "I can't take prestige classes, or I'll ruin my character's schtick" scenario.