Is Your Home-Grown Prestige Class satisfying? Find out now!

Answer these simple questions to determine if your home-grown prestige class is satisfying to your target audience:

1. Question: Are the class abilities or features too simple or too complex?
   
   Correct answer: No. If your prestige class is too simple, chances are good that you will achieve the same results by simply rewarding the character with some magical item that will emulate the increased prowess that you desire (see the Weapons of Legend sourcebook for some great examples).
   
   If it is too complex, then you run the risk of overwhelming your player with too many decisions and even worse, you could introduce some wildly powerful combination of effects that could unbalance your game.
   
   
2. Question: Does the power level of this class make sense given the level, skill, and class prerequisite requirements?
   
   Correct Answer: Yes. Always be careful to balance the base character class requirements against common prestige classes of similar types. For example, the Duskblade is combination fighter/sorcerer. Notice that the class does neither area particularly well, and I am certain that is by design, so the fighter in you gets a taste of the magic, and the sorcerer in you gets to swing a sword around (and miss, at mid to higher levels). You shouldn't have a fighter capable of taking on the Tarrasque and a sorcerer that can curl Elminster's beard all in one package at the end, that would be what the common folk call unbalanced.
   
   Be sure to not overpower your prestige class just to add to the cool factor, or else you run the risk of having a single player character capable of "ruining the game" for everyone else with their superior skills.
   
   
3. Question: Does the player running your prestige class constantly ask you for an increase or adjustment?
   
   Correct Answer: No. If you have a certain player that is midway through your prestige class constantly asking for an adjustment of skills or prerequisites this can indicate that you got some permutation of your calculation incorrect. In addition to the "wow factor" of a prestige class, you should always aim for the "satisfying player experience" prerequisite that will make the cool class that you created fun to play.
   
   You don't always want to leave your audience (in this place your player) wanting more. Prestige classes should gain skill and renown commensurate with experience, and not be handicapped in some aspect so much that they cease to be fun.

Behind the Screen: Wrangling prestige classes at epic levels...

Tonight's topic may seem a bit tailored to a given rule set, but if you've hung around this long you understand that we are a predominantly D&D oriented crew around here. As previously mentioned, we are in the late stages of an epic level campaign and are learning many lessons from our course thus far, and today I would like to examine epic character development and the challenges that it poses to both player and Dungeon Master.

As always, my inspiration is my Lovely Assistant

Well, not assistant so much as wife, but still... earlier this week Stupid Ranger provided a look at motivation behind epic level character development that touched on many important aspects of planning an epic level character.

She did directly mention the need to keep your epic character exciting, and that is something that the DM may be able to help facilitate. The real quandary that I can see is what to do with a character that has worked very diligently down a specific "career path" but finds themselves at an end as they get up in levels. That character has attained all the ranks of a given prestige class, and having topped out those ranks they now are forced to look at other avenues to continue down.

An example from my own past

When I was a player, I had one such character that completed his prestige class. I had built the notion of this prestige class so deeply around my character that reverting back to standard class ranks was far too mundane and didn't even seem to make much sense given the progression of his personality. I decided to take another path: knowing that my DM was open to "out of the box" thinking I asked if I could forge an additional prestige class (of course, pending his approval) that would heighten my character's skills beyond the published prestige class.

After several revisions, the result was satisfactory and the character finished out the campaign on his own unique road which happened to mean a lot to both the character and to me as a player.

Don't be afraid of this stuff, but be careful all the same!

As DM's, I challenge you all to be open to working with your players to do their characters the most service. If you're worried about game balance, simply take a look at modifying an existing prestige class to suit your needs, adjusting skills/feats/spells/effects as necessary. If you are comfortable with crafting an entirely unique prestige class, allow your players that option. Be very careful to keep game balance in mind with either of these options, make sure you're not over- or under-powering your abilities as you look at further development.

As players, don't be afraid to ask your DM to work with you if you feel that it makes more sense to allow your character to continue going down the prestige path that they have forged.

The worst they can say is no! (Unless they decide to devour your character using vorpal rabbits, which is always an attractive option.)

Joys of Playing an Epic Character

Dante has share some of the growing pains he's experienced as a co-DM for our epic campaign. And it surprised me when I realized that playing an epic character really isn't the walk-in-the-park I had expected.

It'll All Be Easier When I'm Epic

It's very easy to fall into the mindset everything will come up sunshine and rainbows once your character reaches 20th level. Think of all those fabulous spells/feats/skills/etc your character didn't have when they were younger. Life will be happy and joyful. Let me remind you that as your character gains awesome spells/feats/skills, enemies will also gain spells/feats/skills. You think your party's wizard is pretty awesome now, wait 'til you see the spells the evil wizard can cast! Hope your character's reflex save improved too!

When I Grow Up....

I'm a huge proponent of career planning, making decisions early so you know what your character wants to be when they grow up. Unfortunately, my optimism doesn't usually survive to 20th level. I had a mid-character-life crisis upon realizing that I didn't know what to do next in terms of career development for Ari. I have since overcome that particular obstacle by finding a new prestige class that compliments her combat style.

One of the harder parts of growing epic is the need to keep your character exciting, to have something toward which you can look forward as your character gains new levels. For me (and Ari), it was finding another prestige class; for you, it might be the need to start inventing your own spells. Figure out what keeps you excited about gaining a new level and build that into your character development.

Playing an epic character in an epic story to save the world is very exciting; I'm thrilled that Ari is awesome enough that wizards want to try to disintegrate her! I just caution you to consider that with great levels come great responsibility.

The Nail Of The Dragon

As I've mentioned before, since I'm a simulationist and I like it when things that happen in-game make a reasonable degree of sense, I've been having a lot of trouble with the idea that 4e is going to streamline a lot of stuff in the name of gameplay. Now, I'm all for gameplay -- but when stuff doesn't make sense, it tends to take me out of the game. Even when I'm being completely ridiculous and off the wall, what I'm doing generally tends to make sense in the game world unless I'm being deliberately anachronistic or something (as with my bard Bat Loaf, who prays to Sammy Hagar for spells). But that's intentional). When I watch a bad movie because it's a bad movie, I have fun. When I go to a good movie and I discover halfway through nothing makes sense, none of the plot or the characters mean anything to me anymore and I hate that like the sun hates the night. And don't kid yourself, the sun despises the night.

I'm not the only person out there who thinks this way, and WotC knows it. But it's not that they're ignoring us. The guys at Critical Hits recently did a great interview with Rob Heinsoo, lead developer of the 4e core rules. In reference to us simulationist types, he said "You know what, don’t tell them that they’re wrong. They’re right, in a simulationist world, the system they want to use is RIGHT. That is exactly what happens in real life, but guess what, it’s a real pain in the ass."

I suppose I can see that. The first thing that comes to mind that I really hate is camping and deciding who has what watch and how many hours of sleep everybody gets. Yes, it's a fantastic simulation of figuring out who sleeps when. It's also as fun as having my teeth drilled. I hope they severely gloss that part over in 4e. But combat? The new, more-official, very World of Warcraft-y combat roles they're rolling out with 4e make me a little nervous. Making me more nervous is that they want to make what you do in combat "cooler" and "more like the movies". This to me throws up about ten red flags that say "stupid things are about to happen that don't make sense". You know, like in almost every movie.

How A 500 Foot Monster Taught Me How To Love Again

I find the less I know about something, the more fun I have when I watch it. Sometimes I hate being a nerd. I saw Cloverfield a couple months ago, and shortly thereafter I read a very interesting article about what it might take to actually take out a 500 foot monster. Well, naturally that got me thinking about dealing with other giant monsters recently and how the lance our paladin hit the Tarrasque with wouldn't have done much damage at all and eventually my mind wandered back to a scenario I always wondered about ever since I first started playing D&D:

How in the HELL does a 6 foot tall adventurer take a wee (albeit powerful) little sword and kill a dragon that stands ten times his height? All he could realistically reach would be the dragon's feet! Maybe he could climb on there and attack an ankle. I don't know. But most plate-mail-wearing fighters aren't gonna pull a Legolas and climb and flip all over everything. Right? They're gonna wade in there, hopefully dodge the fiery death and razor sharp talons the dragon throws at them, and try to cut the dragon until it dies. Somehow.

Uh oh. It seems my desire for "making sense" has painted me into a corner. At this point, the only way to kill a dragon that really makes sense is that he hacks the dragon's toenail completely off. Hopefully the dragon is a hemophiliac, and bleeds out really fast before it gets a chance to have an order of fresh, delicious, flame-broiled Adventurer Nuggets.

It seems the concept of hit points has already abstracted out most of the battle for me. Because a fighter that winds up on top probably didn't just do 400hp of Toe Damage. He probably did a lot of really incredible things to make that dragon keel over dead. Things that set dragons to bleed, princesses to swoon, and bards to write furiously.

It seems what I was worried about had already come to pass -- several years before I was born, when D&D (and hit points) were created. And the world didn't end.

So Now What?

This revelation gave me the ability to handwave some of my fears about the upcoming fourth edition of D&D. But I'm not cured completely. I still want everything to make sense, but sometimes it's better if I don't know all the details. Or if those details get somewhat exaggerated. With the things our characters do, we're doing epic, legendary things. And let's face it -- a lot of mythology doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I guess my chainmail panties are only in a half-twist now.

Behind the Screen: Spicing up tavern antics...

Today is St. Patrick's Day, one of the most drinkin'est holidays on the standard calendar (and one of my favorite days of the year). In that vein, I would like to look at a few fun and easy ways to spice up a layover at your campaign's local tavern.

The Colorful NPC

One of my personal favorite things to do in a tavern is to introduce a colorful NPC to liven up the standard "I want a drink / I want to kill some time / I have nothing better to do" cycle that usually brings in our adventuring patrons.

These NPC's don't necessarily need to have a specific purpose or be particularly powerful or important. If you try this a few times with the focus on color and entertainment and less on driving home yet another plot point, you may find that your players interact more richly with the NPC and you can drive some storyline with them at a later time.

In fact, in our recent campaign a disposable NPC ended up married to Vanir's character, Bat Loaf, precisely by this process. It works, people. Trust me!

The Random Item

If you're up for a little excitement, you can always introduce an out of place item. Be it an expensive gem unexpectedly found at the bottom of your glass of grog, or a wondrous item found slipped under the door, you can start an excellent detached moment of intrigue and you gain the ability to practice your ad-libbing skills based on how your party reacts to this stimulus.

It might help in either one of these scenarios to have a chunk of episodic content woven around your approach, but it isn't required. If you have a chaotic enough party, they might just pocket the extra bit of treasure and "fly casual" with the loot. Whether or not someone catches them is an entirely different story...

The Local Color

This is something that runs slightly tangent to my first point, but it is important to give your local tavern some life. How many bars have you been in that have touted to have the World's Best of something? Your tavern should have some sort of a hook or special feature that makes it have a little curb appeal.

If you find yourself in a world where your party travels overland often, towns start blurring together and without some level of distinction you can get that cursed affliction that they warned you about in high school driver's education: highway hypnosis. If every bar looks the same in every town, eventually your players will want to handwave that whole process and you will loose that opportunity to interact with them.

Just don't skimp!

I highly recommend taking a few minutes before your next game session and map out an opportunity or two for your players to have some quality roleplaying time inside of their next tavern. The great thing about tavern encounters and color is that you can plan them and use them whenever they are needed, and it gives you some great practice to work on your impromptu dungeon mastering skills!

Luck favors the bold, so give it a go this week!