Paizo Fails Harder with the PrCs

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:45 am

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:35 am

My first impression upon skimming. They barely did anything seems like. Other than take spells away from the assassin (because they were so powerful!).

At least some of the character pics look pretty.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:36 am

clikml wrote:My first impression upon skimming. They barely did anything seems like. Other than take spells away from the assassin (because they were so powerful!).

At least some of the character pics look pretty.

They still have their spells (it's on the table) but the entry is missing.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:36 am

Dragon Disciple got some improvement (not as sucktastic). The rest pretty much sums up as:
A) Completely ignorable capstone (mystic theurge, pathfinder chronicler)
B) Add a capstone that's incredibly badly designed (Assassin, arcane trickster
C) Completely ignore the real problem (death attack, MT, AT, EK, AA, duelist, shadowdancer)

That's pretty damn bad.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:37 am

THat look as uninspiring as plain 3.5 PrCs. A big who the fuck cares.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:38 am

They look no different than 3.5 classes.

Once again, only the art is good.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:28 am

Assassins actually aren't supposed to get spells. It's a mis-print.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:16 am

Hmm, the art's not that bad (only reason I bothered looking). Not great - I have the feeling that I could probably do about the same quality, and I noticed the odd problem (such as head sizing), but still decent enough.

Shame about the other stuff packaged along with it.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:19 pm

Those prcs are an utter failure.

The arcane archer is better of just being a ranger, i mean, seriosly, Hail of Arrows 1/day? What the fuck?

All the classes that were worth dipping into look pretty much the same; so people will take Shadowdancer for the same reasons that they used to, not b/c anything has really changed with it.

The only change is that a Human Rogue 3 can enter Shadowdancer at lvl 4.

All in all, it seems like nothing got changed at all.

Arcane Archer sucks balls compared to a straight ranger.

Arc trickster the is pretty much the same as before.

Assasins still use the stupid death attack mechanic from the DMG class.

Dragon Disciple is worthless unless you don't want to be a spell caster. Maybe for a sorc/pally gish?

Duelist.... no real change and still gets brutalized in a melee by an armour wearer.

EK, a buff for gishes, oh boy!

Loremaster is still dippable for the same reasons as it used to be.

MT.... around here we know how this is stupid. Just gets some side buffs for being a cohort-caster. You can switch spell slots between arcane/divine, so you could have a lot of just wizard spells; but really that's dumb.

This could work as a caster that runs around in cleric gear and uses their wizard spell slots for extra cleric spells, so that they don't give a shit about ASF and have tons of spells to boot.

They also get 3.0 Haste for spell casting; but your spells have -2 to their DC. Ugh, it's a capstone ability? Useless.

Then their own bullshit bard/wizard class. That has no way to actually.... find paths in any sort of mechanical or flavour sense.

I really hate poorly named classes. Really, the class could be called "Insightful Bag Lady" or "Magical Hobo".

Shadowdancer, no real change, you can just enter earlier.

All in all, I wouldn't let any of those classes suck my left ball.

Nor my right one either.

Tequila Sunrise · Post by **Tequila Sunrise** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:00 pm

As much as I want to love the MT capstone, MT being my fav class of 3e, I suspect it has the potential to be incredibly overpowered. Messing with the action economy is always dangerous.

TS

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:34 pm

Tequila Sunrise wrote:As much as I want to love the MT capstone, MT being my fav class of 3e, I suspect it has the potential to be incredibly overpowered. Messing with the action economy is always dangerous.

TS

It's once per day. That's worse than straight up giving sudden quicken IMO because you still have to use the full cast time.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:51 pm

A lot of those stupid things have once per day shit. Which is just like a kick in the balls.

And wow, it actually has a DC *penalty*? Thats just fucked up and mean. Or completely irrelevant if you're nailing some bastich with a pair of maximized enervations.

And Jason roots through yet more garbage. The dragon disciple is slightly less stupid, but you're still not a full caster. And even more niche-worthy. Not only do you have to play a certain, fairly crappy class, but you have to be a specific *type* of that crappy class. Far too specific for a small handful of PrCs. Its something to tuck into the Big Book of PrCs because you've fucking run out of ideas.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:25 pm

The MT capstone ability imparts a penalty to the targets save, not the spell DC. It also gives +2 bonus on caster level checks with the spells.

For the most part, it looks like all they did was update the HD for most of the classes, and change the save progression. I cross-referenced the shadowdancer, and it seems word for word out of the SRD. Seems kind of lackluster to post it with such little changes.

I also question the removal of the archmage and others. So much for backwards compatiblity.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:58 pm

Or the backward compatibility by removing the assassin's spellcasting, and making all those assassin spells in various books useless.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:10 pm

Well Archmage is a PrC actually worth taking, and one could make the argument for Assassin back when it had spells.

Come on guys, he all know the Piazo design guideline:

"We promise to reduce 3.5 D&D to six options. Just six. Promise."

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:22 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Assassins actually aren't supposed to get spells. It's a mis-print.

Whoops my mistake, that would have made it more compatible...oh well.

They really didn't do anything with the Loremaster except give more hit points and a sooner entry.
Now I know it wasn't that much to begin with but with the changes with the system you think they would make it have more "options" instead of "+3 hp". They pretty already said fuck backward compatibility so you might as well just give the loremaster a brand new secrets.

The Pathfinder Chronicler is really just a 3 level prestige class, and is the only PrC I can think of that actually gets money for entering.
1. Live to Tell the tale (except it's Fort save isn't Good)
2. Improved Aid
3. Inspire Action
4. Deep Pockets

Hell 1-3 could just be given to the bard and not even have to deal with this class's abilities.

smug · Post by **smug** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 1:18 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote: The only change is that a Human Rogue 3 can enter Shadowdancer at lvl 4.

5 ranks takes five levels, now. Rank max is now HD and you get a +3 bonus to the skill modifier if the skill is a class skill for any of your classes. Getting into pre-published 3.5 PrCs has a different criteria (which is in the Beta at the beginning of the skills section; not particularly complicated -if it's a class skill for one of your classes, you need ranks-3 and if it's a non-class skill, double ranks - but one would have to bear it in mind).

As an aside, all skills that are class skills for any class are class skills for you at every level jump, regardless of what class you're levelling in.

EDIT: 3.5, not 2.5

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:43 pm

I see.

So now your ranks are 1 for 1 each level.

.... meaning that organic characters that spread out a few of their points into knowledge, profession, language or perform skills get the shaft.

Way to fuck over people that pick up mechanical things for role-play reasons.

The double costing for non-class skills is .... ugh. Fuck, shit, piss, hell.

You'd think that people would have clued in that setting things that give power on fire will happen regardless of the opportunity cost for a player.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:56 pm

The double rank thing is only for entrance into a PrC, and it's about the same if you try to get into a PrC that has a skill prerequisite you don't have as a class skill; except one level in a class that gives it at any point solves it (rather than multiple to get enough points).

As for being anti-organic, eh. Only for the first level.

It's basically the same system as before, just vaguely simpler.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:55 pm

On second glance, I like their Eldritch Knight. Compared to the WOTC one it's superior.. but then again, look at how crappy the original is.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:20 pm

sigma999 wrote:On second glance, I like their Eldritch Knight. Compared to the WOTC one it's superior.. but then again, look at how crappy the original is.

It's a caster class. Why did it need improving?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:54 pm

ubernoob wrote:
sigma999 wrote:On second glance, I like their Eldritch Knight. Compared to the WOTC one it's superior.. but then again, look at how crappy the original is.
It's a caster class. Why did it need improving?

Probably to make up for the fact that you were casting like a cohort.

smug · Post by **smug** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:22 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote:I see.

So now your ranks are 1 for 1 each level.

.... meaning that organic characters that spread out a few of their points into knowledge, profession, language or perform skills get the shaft.

Way to fuck over people that pick up mechanical things for role-play reasons.

The double costing for non-class skills is .... ugh. Fuck, shit, piss, hell.

You'd think that people would have clued in that setting things that give power on fire will happen regardless of the opportunity cost for a player.

Well, you can put four points into something to get four ranks, you just can't have a total of more than LEVEL ranks (I hadn't been clear).

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:29 pm

Leress wrote:
ubernoob wrote:
sigma999 wrote:On second glance, I like their Eldritch Knight. Compared to the WOTC one it's superior.. but then again, look at how crappy the original is.
It's a caster class. Why did it need improving?
Probably to make up for the fact that you were casting like a cohort.

It was still the best "Melee" PrC in the DMG.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:06 pm

ubernoob wrote:
Leress wrote:
ubernoob wrote:It's a caster class. Why did it need improving?
Probably to make up for the fact that you were casting like a cohort.
It was still the best "Melee" PrC in the DMG.

I suppose, and still better than Bard if you do, say, Fighter 1/Wizard 5/EK X.
2 lost caster levels is better than a whole delayed progression, and sure as hell better than none at all.
I guess the capping ability is my favorite most of all, except that its activation is tied in with "on a critical" rather than "when you beat your target's AC by 10 or more" or "on a natural 20".

Linking anything to a straight out critical will only explode all over the place when you factor in scimitar + Keen + Imp. Crit and so on.