2nd edition prestige classes

[Muurgh]

I was just wondering if any of you 2nd ed players had ever created prestige classes? if so give me some ideas and the mechanics you used.

[ravenkith]

I've played 2nd ed, and I read your other post: my strong advice to you is don't.

I don't like to do it now, because I tend to make them overpowered. There are plentry of PRCs out there available in book form, more than enough to duplicate any feel you might want to achive.

I heartily recommend Complete Arcane, COmplete Divine and Complete Warrior. If you get those (you can easy get em for $10 each online), you'll be covered as far as PRCS go.

However, I'd disallow PRCs for a starting group altogether. Restrict them to stuff rom the PHB, at least while learniing teh game.

[Muurgh]

Well im not looking for them for a starting group its for a game already in session, and something else we always learned is
forward is always north
right is always east
left is always west
and backwards is always south

[Matthew]

I can't quite imagine how Prestige Classes would work in (A)D&D 2.x. I imagine something along the lines of Kits that are acquired? What exactly is the purpose of this?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There were no Prestige Classes in 2nd ed. About the closest you could get would be either Kits (which gave bonuses and penalties, but nearly all of them required that you get them at 1st level), or the 1st ed Bard (who started out Fighter, then went Rogue, then went Bard).

Personally, I just don't play 2nd ed anymore, and feel no need to 'reverse compatibility' PrC's. 3rd ed is just easier to run with. After all, there were no +LA in D&D 2nd ed, so you could run with just about anything in the MM that is declared sentient (like Dragons, for instance) and be the same level as everyone else, though far superior.

[JadedDM]

Yeah...the only way to integrate something like prestige classes into 2nd Edition would be to totally rework the entire class system. The best you could do is utilize the dual-classing rules, but the odds of a character qualify for dual-classing are usually too rare to really be worth it. (I've been DMing 2E for some ten years now, and I've never once had a player opt to dual-class.)

I mean, 3E was designed around the whole idea of having mulitple classes. 2E was not. You were generally expected to take a class and just keep it throughout your career. Really, you'd be better off not trying or just switching to 3E instead.

[Innis Cabal]

kits were the PrC's...kinda...you wouldnt make them since the rules are different...

[JadedDM]

Kits were quite different than Prestige Classes. You might say that Kits were the closest thing to PrCs that 2E had, but they are far from the same thing. Kits were taken at character creation. You were allowed only one kit per character. You could not take another kit, even if you abandoned the first one.

Really, the main thing the two have in common is that there were waaaay too many of them and a lot of them were broken.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Really, the main thing the two have in common is that there were waaaay too many of them and a lot of them were broken.

Prestige Classes replaced Kits without being an update of them.

Then they made Substitution levels and Variants that were in some ways updated Kits.

Sometimes Kits made more sense than Prcs sometimes they didn't. The idea that an Army of Cavaliers are all at least 6th level is odd but so is the idea that a first level character could get away with calling themselves a "Kensei".