Bladesinger PRC

New models, textures, & integration of 3rd party content.

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hollyfant
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by hollyfant »

Warning: grumbling ahead.

Putting my Standards hat on for a moment: Kaedrin's pack is quite impressive, but potentially horribly unbalancing. We'd need to test every single class up close, to see if it won't upset the ALFA status quo and if it can be made to comply with out other systems.
That's a lot of work, and almost all would fall in AcadiusLost's lap.

Attempting to think as a DM for a moment: How can anyone be expected to have all the details of all these classes memorised? What's the difference between a Hidden Blade, a Shining Blade and a Swiftblade anyway?

And thinking as a player: I've managed to get at least a hundred of my PCs killed over the years. All of them different, using a dozen base classes. Who needs any of these?
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Munmun
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Munmun »

Why do you need anything except fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric? Variety is the spice of life.

And D&D is nothing if not full of class variety.
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Magonushi
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Magonushi »

Agreeing with Hollyfant here. I don't see why we need anything other than we got from NWN2 + expansions. There are already plenty of complaints about balancing as well as other tech issues (like adding in horses) that are far more important to everyone rather than a select few, high-level PCs.

Most of the PrCs don't even add anything RP wise that the base classes don't already allow.
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Blindhamsterman
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Blindhamsterman »

you know, even though it was me offering to make the classes in the first place...

Im now going to take a similar stance to Holly. We have a fair few PRCs in the game as it is, and most concepts can be covered by whats there.

In the case of bladesinger use Eldritch Knight and a few extra warrior class levels (it's what im aiming for)

While my offer to code PRCs remains open. For now I'm happy to sit on the fence

Edit:

Though I should also say that I know the differences between most PRCs Holly as do at least Nuran and SSM along with a few others. Perhaps best thing to do would be ask Admins/HDMs to go through the list of what Kaedrin offers and decide which (if any) they'd like.

I'll happily help AL with any testing/fixing that needs to be done
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Munmun
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Munmun »

I posted about that prc pack because of what AL had said:
So, I'm not categorically against adding custom PrCs, I'd just like to see the following:
-Agreement on a "set" of several custom PrCs to add at once
-Agreement on the prerequisites and abilities of these PrCs
-Confirmation that acceptable scripts/resources are available for these abilities (or at least easily modifiable to conform to our needs).
I was trying to be helpful because there seemed to be some curiosity as to what sort of prc stuff was out there and how easy/hard it would be to implement.

Prcs do add a ton of cool stuff to characters and not just mechanics wise. It lets you take avenues of RP that are different from just the base classes. Each prc has a lot of cool lore to go along with it as well as the potential for stings of DMed sessions for the character on the path to one.

So lets not just dismiss the idea out of hand.
Last edited by Munmun on Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by SwordSaintMusashi »

Dungeons and Dragons is about variety. While true that there is stuff present, how is it a bad thing to add more choices? AL's post was about presenting a number of PrCs and seeing how they could be implemented, not presenting PrCs and then arguing over whether they're needed or not. The interest in them has been expressed. So let's see what can be offered and roll with it, no?
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Brokenbone
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Brokenbone »

If there's limited technical bandwidth to implement new content, I'm used to seeing "most benefit for the most people" prioritization in effect.

The same thinking can apply whenever the DM base is thin (including seasonally, like when everyone goes outside during the summer). Not that anyone orders DMs on minimum group size or session length, unless HDMs are more iron fisted than any I've heard of in the past, but there's often some pressure (polite, or sometimes just implicit) if players generally, regionally, by timezone, type of PC / alignment, or what, appear to be underserviced. So if you have five Euros whose PCs don't see a DM in a month, and one USA player who over the same period has three group sessions with a campaign DM and five 1:1 PrC pursuit things with her PrC-managing DM... well, maybe no one will grumble out loud, but people do get bored and wander away.

Anyhow, as to Hollyfant's thought... I'm not against new, balanced PrCs, but I take to heart the comment on what I guess you could call requirement for encyclopedic DM knowledge. Deep knowledge of every printed D&D resource is not really required of ALFA DMs, although you'll find many favourites do have long PnP histories. Many PrCs originate in what you'd term "Splatbooks", the non-core handbooks that deep dive into new class variants, new spells, new systems (like luck for Scoundrels, Vile stuff from BoVD or Exalted stuff from its counterpart, etc.) and guaranteed at least 5 new PrCs in order to make people buy the book.

Players often are prepared to research the hell out of their character concept and every detailed advantage and twist they can find, that kind of maniacal focus is fine if that's fun for the player, but a DM spending time with random PCs or ad hoc groups cannot be expected to have perfect knowledge either to plan appropriately ahead, or react to completely unanticipated requests for adjudication.

Detect Evil is an example, quick DM, tell me if the people inside this cottage are evil!! DM panics and says the walls are too thick. Player says that it looks like a wooden cottage to him, and unless there's three feet of wood comprising the wall, he should get a reading. DM says the cottage is actually stone, and to ignore the look and feel of the placeable as "abstract", and gets re-educated that unless the stone is a foot thick, he should be able to do his detection. DM starts thinking about how wide an average brick is, although technically not stone, and comes to the conclusion the walls are thin enough to properly break his plot and all the intrigue and bluffing he'd planned for.

Long illustration, but just the observation that we expect lots and lots of D&D knowledge out of the DMs, core D20 stuff and core classes, with their NWN tweaks, are a tall order as it is. Adding complexity means all DMs have more expected of them, to keep the game running quickly, fairly, etc.
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Blindhamsterman »

from a simplicity point of view perhaps this:
Perhaps best thing to do would be ask Admins/HDMs to go through the list of what Kaedrin offers and decide which (if any) they'd like.
would be the best way to do things, or perhaps a poll for everyone on a PRC from Kaedrins they'd like to see, Then of those the Admins/HDMs could select those they felt most appropiate?
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Swift
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Swift »

Are we lacking in an area when it comes to PrCs?

Are there archtypes that have less options than others? (EG Fighter classes may have x number of PrCs while arcane spellcasters have (x - 3) number)
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Blindhamsterman »

Swift wrote:Are we lacking in an area when it comes to PrCs?

Are there archtypes that have less options than others? (EG Fighter classes may have x number of PrCs while arcane spellcasters have (x - 3) number)
this actually would be the most sensible way to look at PRCs, where are there gaps? and do we need to fill them?
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by danielmn »

Barbarians seem to lack a good PrC since frenzied berzerker was removed.
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Mick »

Considering all PrC's currently require a patron/overseeing DM to facilitate and eventually approve, I don't see adding a bunch more PrCs as being an effective use of DM manpower or resources. We already don't have enough DMs to go around. BB is right, some folks getting even more attention for their PrC is just going to accentuate the disparity between the haves and have nots.

Variety is the spice of life, but there are ways to have it without having an ever-increasing number of superspecialized classes, the vast majority of which will never be realized in our particular realm.
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Swift
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Swift »

Good point mick. I have spoken to a couple of players that want to go for a PrC but have reportedly struggled to find a DM with the time to spare for such a specialized things.

I suppose the question should be put up to vote for the DMs of TSM, BG and WHL. PrCs were always reliant on DM time, which was fine back in the day when we had 10 servers and 10 DM teams.
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by Blindhamsterman »

the thing about PRCs is you really need to state from day 1... if a DM knows that by level 10 or so you want x PRC they have more than enough time to do the quest. Its when a player drops it on them just as they hit the requirements its a bit more difficult for the DMs to cope.
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Re: Bladesinger PRC

Post by danielmn »

I would like to see our core classes up to par before we start adding in more prc's, such as the warlock class. Get what we have right to the best of our ability, and then proceed to adding more if we are going to.
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