Customising the Classes

A lot of the existing prestige classes seem to take the form of "an x, but focussing more on y", where x is one of the base classes, and y is one of the powers of the class. For instance, the Shifter is a druid with more focus on shapeshifting, and so on.

Instead of this, I would prefer to see more flexible character classes. And, to do that I'm going to once again take a page out of d20 Modern, and steal the idea of talent trees.

The basic idea is that each class should have a fixed progression at low levels. At higher levels (say above 8th), at each level the character chooses a power from a talent tree. In order to get the more powerful powers you need to get the weaker ones, of course.

So, for instance, the Wizard would have two trees, the Familiar Tree and the Arcane Mastery Tree. Each step on the Arcane Mastery Tree gives the character a bonus item creation or metamagic feat. Each step on the Familiar Tree grants the familiar new powers (as described on p.53 of the 3.5 PHB - essentially, the familiar becomes more powerful as the character goes up in level).

The Wizard would then have a fixed progression of powers for the first 6 levels, getting the first two steps on the Arcane Mastery Tree, and the first three on the Familiar Tree. Thereafter, at levels 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20, the character may choose an additional step from either tree. (Actually, it should be 15th twice, instead of 15 and 16, but you get the idea.)

The Wizard would, of course, advance in spells as normal.

Then, instead of adding lots of Prestige Classes that are generally very similar, classes would be further customised by adding new talent trees. For instance, you might add a High Arcana Tree, which allows the character to permanently trade spell slots for special abilities, as described under the Archmage prestige class (on p.178 of the 3.5 DMG). You'd need to add appropriate prerequisites on the abilities of the High Arcana Tree, but that's hardly problematic.

Doing this removes the need for a Prestige Class that's a Ranger with more focus on favoured enemies, one with more survival skills, one with more spells, one with better two-weapon fighting, and so on ad infinitum. It would then, hopefully, allow people to start coming up with more interesting prestige classes, classes that fit more with the campaign setting, and it would also remove the need to assume that any character will obviously 'have' to develop towards a prestige class, as sometimes seems to be the assumption people are using (and which I really, really hate).

From a monetary point of view, of course, this makes really poor sense. Talent trees as I've just described take up less space than prestige classes, and require about the same amount of design work. Therefore, it's harder to pack a thivk hardback with them than with prestige classes doing the same thing. And since Wizards are the company most capable of doing the big classbooks of prestige classes...