this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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D&D Next - 5e Discussion
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That's because they were.
With subclasses, prestige classes become redundant on top of fighting for levels you need to unlock higher level abilities.
If you want things like prestige classes and multiclassing to not fight single-class characters at the design level you need to push single-class abilities away from the high levels of the class, which just leaves them empty and boring. At which point, why bother playing at high levels? Why bother single-classing ever?
You just end up removing choice by turning what should be a valid decision into a false-choice that does nothing but penalize you.
3rd edition, for example, should have cut the base classes off at level 5 or 10. The way the game was designed, there was no need for them past that point since everyone ended up taking either alternative base-class levels or prestige class levels.
With subclasses, you either need to embrace dipping and only define the base classes to level 15, getting rid of EVERYTHING that comes out in levels 16-20 (which kills a sacred cow and will make some people, like me, very un-happy), or you need to retire multiclassing, or at least try to balance it.
That means no more subclassing at 1st level and, preferably, standardizing subclass ability levels. Why people are against that I have no idea. Who cares if everyone gets their 2nd subclass ability at level 7 regardless of class?
Honestly, the only reason I can think of to want them at different levels is purely for power-gaming. The ability to plan out "a build" that is hands-down better than other builds because you get to squeeze in one more ability than other builds.
Seriously, what are the other reasons? The valid reasons?
Of course not. Prestige classes don't do the same thing that subclasses do. They aren't a specialisation of the abilities within a class, they're a broadening to a set of features that could theoretically be taken by characters of any class, but which is not in depth enough to justify being its own full class.
But talking about things in the abstract is pointless. I'd rather point to actual concrete examples. Because the 5e homebrew community has shown categorically that there is a useful place for Prestige Classes. This vampire prestige class is the one that most convinced me of it, but you can find a whole heap of good examples of prestige classes in the homebrew community. Sure, you could design a full 20 level vampire class (and 4th edition did!), but it really works better if you have a highly flavourful and more succinct series of abilities. Get in, give you the abilities that satisfy the fantasy, and finish there. But to make vampirism a subclass doesn't make sense. Which class would it be? Rogue? What if you want to be a wizard who gets bitten by a vampire? Do you now have to multiclass into rogue, and only get vampire features once you reach the 3rd level of the multiclass? And not until the 9th level before you get more vampire stuff? That's just this one vampire prestige class, but any time you have a concept where that same reasoning could apply, that's an example of a concept for which the prestige class makes sense.