Prestige Classes, what do you think?

As I result of my power gaming as a youth, part of me dislikes Prestige Classes, I thought I would ask for other people's opinions.

I do not think we will have epic levels, DnD begins to break down between levels 12 and 15, So I am not even sure allowing the server to go all the way to twenty is a good idea.

So peoples that are checking this stuff out, what are your opinions? Do you like PRCs? Would you play on a server that was soft capped at 12 and hard capped at 15? Or do you think soft capping at 15th level and hard capping at 20th level is a better choice?

For those unfamiliar with the soft cap and hard cap terms, Soft Capping is when the PCs would run out of scripted quests, but can gain xp from participating in DM plots and events. Hard Capping means they cannot go beyond that level, they could still play, but will not advance in level.

Since it is my question, I suppose I will let you know my feelings.

You know I dislike PRCs.
You know I dislike Epic Levels.

I personally have no problem playing on a server soft capped at 12th level or 15th level. The servers I have had the most fun on were servers that did that. That was City of Arabel's model when I played on it many years ago. I want an engrossing story server, with meaningful combat, not the mindless grinding of an MMO.

I find it difficult to include high and low levels in the same events, even between levels 5 and 15, I can't imagine the planning that must go into a group ranging from 10 to 40. I'm used to soft caps and hard caps, so I don't mind them, but I can see the drawbacks when people want to play their characters longer.

As for PRCs, I think they have their place, as long as the roleplay element is earned. There's not much you can't do with feats, but the PRCs seem to be a fair trade from normal class advancement.

I'm in favour of a soft cap at 12 and a hard cap at 15.

I prefer low level games... find them much easier to build and DM for as well as making players rely on each other much more completely.

My input.

Greetings and a friendly Hello to y'all !

I literally just stumbled into your 'City of Rookroost' forums and, being a Greyhawk fan of elder times, felt the urge to register at once. I'm intrigued by the approach to things you guys are taking here, and very curious how this'll evolve and grow.

Personally, I favor a low-level approach to adventuring and roleplay as well. IMHO there's nothing more boring that 'superhero' epic characters who prevail against all odds. My favorite NWN1 server ever also did cap at 20 (or lower, depending on your character's race), so a soft cap of 12 and a hard cap of 15 sounds pretty good to me. You can as well be sure that it'll keep the powergamers away.

Classes might be a tad unbalanced though, especially comparing casters to non-casters, but then online multiplayer games will never be balanced, that's what you've got your trusty DM for. I'm not an expert on the Pathfinder system, but the additional feats for certain classes (rogues and the like) might even the field a little.

With the large amount of old, new and altered base classes I doubt there's a need for prestige classes. Prestige classes have the tendency to make people think exclusively about their precious 'builds' and forget all about character evolution and story progressions. There's a couple PrCs in NWN2 which can be easily abused as well, especially if you're taking a low-level approach to things. Just imagine a multiclassed Antipaladin / Blackguard with CHA mod times two saving throw bonus and compare those to the saves of a pure rogue build .... and the list could go on.
The selection of classes presented on the forums thus far feels all fine and 'greyhawky' IMHO. Maybe some additional ones specific to the setting could be added later, but that would only be icing on the cake.

Just my two gold pieces

Howdy NB, and welcome to the forum :-). Thanks for offering input, I like to hear from as many sources as possible when making this sort of decision.

I'm liking the reasoning behind nixing prestige classes. honestly I'd rather see players roleplay their place in society rather than have them given a class to emulate, and after seeing these comments here, I have to agree that the changes we're making to the game should offer up plenty of unique opportunities for character variation.

And yes, let's keep those power gamers at bay :-). When you can one-shot a 10 thousand year old red dragon, I get upset.

Just say no to the PrCs.

I've yet to see one that can't be represented by a combination of a couple of base classes.

And having them tends to focus people on qualifying, not RPing.

A quick question which is slightly off-topic, yet class-related if I may ...

Characters will still receive a regular feat at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th and 15th level in addition to the bonus feats some classes receive ?

The inclusion of HIPS as an advanced rogue feat and advanced scout feat (level 10+) makes sense, but why do Swashbucklers have access to it as well ?

Thumbs up for removing the stupid bard persistent auras !

yes they still receive normal feat progression...

as for swashbucklers, I'm not sure. I'll ask AWU about it. Seems rather silly to me.

lol, and you can thank AWU for the bard changes.

Great idea having the 'Divine Champion' replace both the paladin as well as the antipaladin class. The 'Knight' class seems to be another very fluffy addition.

I'm anxious to see if the knight is going to be as broken as i think he is. that defensive stance that AWU's putting together looks like it makes them almost invincible.

Mammon wrote:

I'm anxious to see if the knight is going to be as broken as i think he is. that defensive stance that AWU's putting together looks like it makes them almost invincible.

You can always run away from the Knight, unlike a barbarian.

NightBelow wrote:

Thumbs up for removing the stupid bard persistent auras !

I like bards, but they were too strong due the auras, which were more like the marshal's class abilities then anything a bard would have.

I'm in favour of lower levels, and I like the idea of the soft cap of 12 and hard cap of 15. In my experience of NWN online, it works best with lower levels. That way you can feel tough at levels 4-6 and awesome if you make it past there, and a legend if you get to 10+.

Low levels, low magic, and slow XP gain, tends to focus/attract players who're more interested in RP, ploting and intrigue, rather than quest grinding to try and keep up with everyone else.

I saw you say you played on CoA, Raven. There are several aspects of City of Arabel that I feel made the server an incredible roleplaying experience, and we're hoping to include a few of those here as well.

This slow leveling, low magic, low level cap, and focus on roleplaying and story are features that we enjoyed there and hope to bring to life here.

Mammon wrote:

I saw you say you played on CoA, Raven. There are several aspects of City of Arabel that I feel made the server an incredible roleplaying experience, and we're hoping to include a few of those here as well.

This slow leveling, low magic, low level cap, and focus on roleplaying and story are features that we enjoyed there and hope to bring to life here.

Yes. I played on CoA and loved it. Infact I was still heavily involved up to a week ago when I bought a PC that can finally play NWN2. I tried many server before CoA, and finally chose it because of many of the aspects you're wanting to include on your server.

Thus I'm very excited about bringing the winning aspects of CoA to a Greyhawk setting.

Interesting development.

In removing favored classes from the game, I've realized that the xp penalties are hardcoded in place and I will not be able to remove them.

This means that individuals who take classes that move more than two levels apart from each other will take xp penalties.

I'm not opposed to this, how do you all feel?

Personally, I prefer it.

Cuts down on the one level dip to get a whole whack of feats/abilities with no thought to RP reasoning behind it.

I favor a soft cap at 12, hard at 15.

I don't mind PrCs, as long as they have to earned rationally/RP justified- some unlocking quest chain, and perhaps a doubling of the multiclassing penaly for switching to them. Oh wait- they don't get a penalty do they? Well, put one in.

If MC penalties are hard-coded, could a rider be added on top of that that references the hard code instead of changing it?

Another question is Strategic Twinking- will it be possible to make a bunch of crafter alts to supply a UMD/minimally multiclassed character (Wi1/Cl1/Dr1/Real Class) with lv 6-7 scrolls to tank up?
Lesser variants also possible OFC. (Grind a Druid, a Cleric, and a Wizard to 7th level to get all possible potions/wands craftable to feed alts/friends).
Would this work with that Holy Sword Paladin Spell? (Have to get that guy to 15th, though, so it would require sperg devotion to twink the Juggernaut Squad with those. Getting a Cleric with Time Domain to Lv 15 to make Premonition Scrolls would be just as tedius, if that can even be scribed.)

I'll just make a Rogue or Ranger, probably.

edit: didn't check dates- is this a dead forum?

"necro edit": The Cleric Domains are different here, too.