Interview C&VG interviews the Floodgate boys on Shadows of Undrentide

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide

<a href="http://www.computerandvideogames.com/">Computer and Video Games</a> has posted a little <A href="http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php(que)id=88088">interview</a> with the guys working on <a href="http://nwn.bioware.com/shadows/">Shadows of Undrentide</a>, the expansion pack to <A href="Http://nwn.bioware.com">Neverwinter Nights</a>. Here's some of the happy:
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<blockquote><b>What new gameplay features and D&D content is the expansion introducing to Neverwinter Nights?
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Ohle:</b> Shadows of Undrentide will contain loads of improvements that should appeal to a lot of Neverwinter Nights fans, as well as fans of traditional pen-and-paper D&D. Among those improvements is the addition of five new prestige classes, including the Arcane Archer, Shadowdancer, and Assassin.
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In addition to those classes, there are a slew of spells, feats, and skills to further increase the customizability of your character.
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Shadows of Undrentide will also feature three new tilesets, 14 new monsters (plus numerous variants), new grenade-like weapons (such as Tanglefoot Bags and Caltrops), henchman AI upgrades, and much more.</blockquote>
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Okay, <b>Spazmo</b>, do your thing. Tell us about those prestige classes!
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.ve3d.com">VoodooExtreme</a>

 

[Spazmo]

Your wish is my command. Prestige classes must really appeal to BioWare, because what they are is a good idea implemented horribly wrong.

Essentially, a prestige class is a class (WOW!). However, it's not like the other classes in D&D 3E like the fighter or rogue. Prestige classes have special requirements, which can vary between statistics, skills, feats, and even sometimes special circumstantial requirements (i.e., a vampire hunter may need to have been bitten by a vampire and resisted the effect or something). When you meet these requirements, you can then multiclass into it at your next level up. Most prestige classes are more or less keyed towards one of the four main D&D archetypes; fighters, mages, thieves, and priests.

Once you start progressing in a prestige class, the differences (and problems) start to appear. Since you're naturally going to take prestige class levels in the mid- to late stages of character progression, they ususally only have five or ten levels as opposed to the twenty the main classes have. This is because unless you use some special rules (which are in a special rulebook), you can only have twenty total levels. But the main difference is that prestige classes are, by and large, extremely poorly designed. This is distilled munchkinism. Characters receive pretty powerful special abilities for no good reason. Just because my fighter chooses to specialize in fighting the undead, he gets a smite undead special ability, which, once a day, will confer a magical damage bonus to an attack against an undead creature? Yecch.

However, giving players very powerful stuff for no reason is a staple of BioWare games, so it fits in NWN. In D&D 3E, however, it's a blemish on what I find to be an otherwise pretty darn good game. Prestige classes are a good idea, but they're done all wrong. And since new prestige classes are created all the time in Dragon Magazine as well as in a huge number of D&D supplements from Wizards and from a whole bunch of other publishers using the d20 liscence, the problem is multiplied manyfold.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Actually, what I mean is, tell us what the Arcane Archer, the Shadowdancer, and the Assassin are.

However, I agree with you about the nice idea gone wrong thing. Really, prestige classes have always seemed to me like attempts to do what classless systems do. This is basically the Tycho Brahe approach to that. Instead of fitting the simpler system as the main system, which would be a classless system, you just keep adding class after class until you have a complex and convoluted system that does the same thing.

 

[Spazmo]

Well, shit. Hell, I'm sure some people out there didn't know what Prestige Classes were.

Anyways, Arcane Archers are another good example of what I'm saying. They're generally elven fighters who decide that bows are just dandy. And thus, they suddenly gain the ability to create magical arrows from scratch. Tsk tsk tsk.

Shadow Dancers are, if memory serves, rogues who are highly specialised in stealth. They may or may not get some shadow and stealth related spells. I'd make sure but I can't be buggered to dig up my DM's Guide.

Assassins are, well, assassins. They're rogues who are good at killing people for money. They get some really powerful special abilities for no reason, too.

 

[Jed]

Prestige classes are a good idea, but they're done all wrong.

How could they be better implemented, in your opinion? I too like the idea, but recognize the POWAH problem; however I only have about 2 ranks in Knowledge (3E).

J

 

[Spazmo]

Simple. Remake them so that they don't have so many magic abilities. Arcane Archers shouldn't get to make magical arrows, they should just get cool trick shots, for example.

 

[Rosh]

Exactly. There's really no special reason for them, except for some pretty exotic background (which would be a campaign-specific thing). It's a perfect example of munchkinism, as you've said. It's really sad to see D&D reduced to this, as it used to be a system that could appeal to more than a few types of players, but it looks like the munchkins are getting heavily catered to now.

 

[Spazmo]

What really bugs me about 3E is how magic abilities are bandied about--look at the monk. I didn't know intense mental discipline made one so uber. By level twenty, a monk is immune or resistant to half of the Monster Manual and has somehow become a planar being. Nonsense. Monks can just kick the shit out of stuff.

 

[Storn]

I despise Prestige Classes - I've been playing D&D for 20 years and these things really irritate the heck out of me - even more than exceptional strength did in 2nd Edition - for some reason. In fact, I've told my players that Prestige Classes are not going to be allowed in my campaign.

It sort of reminds me of another CRPG - I think it might have been Wizardry (haven't played any variation of Wizardry in about 6 years) - where after you reach a certain level you get to pick a 'specialized' class (the only one that I seem to remember was Ninja).

Prestige Classes ... ugh


S.

 

[Spazmo]

Exceptional strength and Prestige Classes are bad, but I think the ultimate munchkin cop-out TSR ever did was Skills & Powers. God, that book was full of so many exploits and min/maxing opportunities. Sub-stats... *shiver*

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I don't think the magical abilities are the worst, it's just that you get tons of crap for free. If they just wanted to add more customization, why not just offer the abilities as feats and make you actually sacrifice something for them? Spellcaster prestige classes can be the worst, since you still advance in your spells and pick up all kinds of bonus abilities, so there's no trade-off at all other than turning doesn't increase for clerics and wizards miss out on that eye-popping bonus feat every 5 levels. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever have more than 5 levels of sorcerer, though. And then there's ones that cram in almost everything you'd get with 20 levels of another class into 10, like the Blackguard and Ur-priest. It all makes the normal classes pointless except for the obligatory 5 levels before you can pick up a prestige class. And the epic level prestige classes are just downright funny; I just browsed it one day for a good laugh and wasn't disappointed. Everything in it basically sums up what D&D's main focus has become, and they just decided to quit trying to tiptoe around it in there.

I thought Skills and Powers was fairly decent, though. I really enjoyed using it. It did offer a ton more customization that straight 2E, and any good DM can just put in a few limits and require rationales when someone tries game-wrecking min/maxing.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

What do you mean by create magic arrows? Like just making normal arrows magically or +3 Deathbringer Deluxe Edition Arrows?

 

[Walks with the Snails]

What do you mean by create magic arrows? Like just making normal arrows magically or +3 Deathbringer Deluxe Edition Arrows?

Like every nonmagical arrow you fire counts as a magical +1 to +5 one depending on what level you are. It is pretty uber. You can also make special arrows like an arrow of death (takes a day to make it and it's free). Everything only works for the creator, but it's pretty potent.

 

[GreenNight]

Prestige classes are a good idea, but they're done all wrong.

How could they be better implemented, in your opinion? I too like the idea, but recognize the POWAH problem; however I only have about 2 ranks in Knowledge (3E).

J

Well, I have spent no points in 3E, but it defaults at 2E-4 :wink: (either that or that I have 3 group ranks in D&D, 2 ranks in 2E and none in 1E and 3E).

I have read how they work in this thread (thanks Spazmo, I was one of those who didn't know) and I agree that they could have been done better. Instead of making the prestige class as classes they could have done them as subclasses.

Then your pool of feats, habilities, perks, whatever... to buy would simply be wider. And adding restrictions to them acording to both the level in your main class and for how long have you studied also the prestige class in order to differentiate even more the characters. In fact the prestige class should also limit somehow the character, making difficult some things that were easy to learn and tending to a certain code of conduct. If not there would be no reason to get one.

You could also have prestige subclasses adding more spice to the mix. Like having class "programmer", prestige class "game programmer", and prestige subclass "game AI master". Another good option would be to be able to dual class your main class and increase in the prestige class if the new class is compatible with the prestige one.

Then giving out magical-like habilities to high level characters which also have high levels in their prestige class would be less problematic. A level 17 "fighter" who was level 10 "undead killer" (prestige class) that had a "magical" blow twice a day would not be überpowerful.

Offtopic: I hate you all :evil: You make me think so hard that my brain is trying to scape out of my head because it doesn't want to hone its english skills bothering not to repeat verbs, conjunctions and writing the best it can, while at the same time pretending to think good points for adding them to the discussion. Thank you all :D

 

[Spazmo]

WWTS, the problem I have with the magical stuff is that beyond unbalancing stuff, it doesn't make sense. Magic is suppposed to be hard to get and only be availible to those who devote their lives to learning it or learning how to control it (for sorcerers). The odd lucky soul may find an item infused with magic, but that's a small fragment of the population. So why the hell should my fighter, upon suddenly choosing to fight undead exclusively, gaim magic abilities without any training? I just don't buy it.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

The Shadow Dancer and the Arcane Archer - perfect that Bioware would put this in the expansion as they are both insanely powerful.
to agree with everyone so far - prestige classes are pure bullshit. Moreover they make no sense. If you want to have a character be able to have an abilty like "hide in plain sight" or the ability to create magic arrows - make it a skill or feat, add some prereqs (preferably hefty) and be done with it. Prestige classes go against what 3e seemed intended on many levels to do - create a classless system. If you are going to have this kind of crap lets just go back to 2e.
their inclusion is the only thing that makes me a bit nervous about ToEE; they are pure munchkin and it makes me fear the intent of the game. In NWN I expect such purile nonsense, from Tim and Co I do not.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

WWTS, the problem I have with the magical stuff is that beyond unbalancing stuff, it doesn't make sense. Magic is suppposed to be hard to get and only be availible to those who devote their lives to learning it or learning how to control it (for sorcerers). The odd lucky soul may find an item infused with magic, but that's a small fragment of the population. So why the hell should my fighter, upon suddenly choosing to fight undead exclusively, gaim magic abilities without any training? I just don't buy it.

There is training, though. At least that's what levels are supposed to do. I have more problems with a 10th level fighter killing a monster and suddenly picking up a level of wizard, really.

Really magical abilities can make sense as far as training because they're generally limited. In a world where magic works, I can see people picking up a few magical abilities if they train a little. What's more powerful, being able to use blur once a day or having a 2nd level arcane spell slot? It's like the difference between going to school for years to become a doctor and taking a quick CPR class. With the CPR class, you can do a tiny bit of what the doctor can do, but that's it. If it comes time to remove an appendix, you're way out of your league.