Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Just a small change of pace,
Being that we're looking for something new in the world of classes, and although i like the idea of a 'class-less' system.
I've recently been reading up some Dungeons and Dragon books and i'm starting to rather like the idea of Prestege classes.

Here's how it works:

You start off as your chosen class, lets say Druid. Level up, yadda yadda, eventually you come across some interesting quest items and you meet certain requirements, suddenly you have the option to focus the path of your class into something different, ie: the druid becomes a Tamer of Beasts when certain requirments are met, or the druid becomes a blighter merely by choosing to be an ex-druid at nth level.

You stop gaining specific skills and such from your base class and instead gain the benifits of the prestege class, this does not change your class, it merely gives you a new title and changes some of your options.

anyways, here's a list and short description of each prestege class i can find right now:

The Animal Lord: a druid focused only into animals, gains summoning and shapeshifting benifits.
The Bane of Infidels: a very evil charicter who focuses on sacrifices and deitie related issues.
Blighter: Ex-Druid.... Much like a necromancer, only involving nature.
BloodHound: A class that is effectivly a bounty hunter. Marks someone and will hunt them to the ends of the earth.
Deepwood Sniper: Ranged weapon focus.
Exotic Weapon Master: Very proficient with Exotic weapons, gaining special attacks and such.
Eye of Gruumish: a very scarred warrior who fights blind, gains many warrior attributes.
Foe Hunter: A character who gains many bonuses vs specific enemys.
Forsaker: A character who hates anything magical and will destroy it whenever possible. Gains bonuses for destroying magics.
Frenzied Berserker: Gains berserker specials.
Geomancer: A character deformed by magic, gains magical feats.
Hexer: A shaman type character who uses 'hex' spells.
King/Queen of the wild: A character who is a survivor, focuses on one terrain and gains bonuses from it. (eg, Queen of the Forest/ King of the Skies)
Oozemaster: An experiment gone wrong, the character is turned into an ooze and can use 'ooze-like' abilities. (race change)
Shifter: A shape-shifter able to take on shapes other than animals.
Tamer of Beasts: A druid able to control hordes of animals.
Tempest: A two-weapon focused fighter
Verdant Lord: A very plant focused druid, pretty much a treant. (race change)
Watch Detective: A detective, very observant of details. (likely roleplay heavy)
Windrider: A mount focused class.
Dread Pirate: Become the pirate you've always dreamed of! (likely roleplay heavy)
Dungeon Delver: A tombraider of sorts, treasure hunter good with traps. (if this comes out, i'm taking claim to the name Indiana, until then i'll be looking for a good hat)
Fang of Lolth: A rogue transformed into a spiderlike beast (race change)
Outlaw of the Crimson Road: Someone who really loves stealing.
Royal Explorer: Speaks many languages, loves to explore.
Spymaster: Able to change identities, assassin.
Temple Raider of Olidammara: A rogue who likes traps, setting them and looting others.
Thief-Acrobat: a very dextrous rogue, fast attacks.
Vigilante: A lucky, streetwise enforcer of good. (likely roleplay heavy)
Virtuoso: A bard that focuses on performance and not combat.

Anyways, these are merely examples of what it could be like.
And it's not like writing it would require a whole new class for each, it just opens and closes abilities avaliable to the character's original class and perhaps throws a few bonuses/ penalties at them. A rogue is still effectively a rogue, just more focused in it's field, eg: a rogue who turns into a Sniper looses her proficiency with all weapons but gains proficiency with ranged weapons, also gains stuff like extra range and maybe even faster attacks.
A ranger who becomes a Bloodhound gains the ability to 'mark' a target, making them able to track it from almost anywhere, and giving them bonuses against their marks, though they can only have one or two at a time.
A mage who becomes a Geomancer gains resistances depending on how they're transformed (the players description also changes), and perhaps gains the ability to use all elemental runes.

I think this would also improve the Roleplaying element of the game greatly, because people could do stuff like 'hire' a bloodhound to hunt down someone else, or team a Vigilante with a Watch Detective to solve a special quest.

Anyways, these classes are taken directly from the DnD books so i hold no claim to they're originality, though i think many of them will be very useful. Feel free to design your own Prestege class on this thread, dunno, maybe someone else will think this is a good idea too.

this actually all sound good and what about the classes we are working on like monk and merchant pick some name for them too

celeborn may use these ideas as something that players can purchase

purchase as in: sending actual funding to cele, and in return for supporting, that player has the option to turn their characters prestege?

Or would it be in-game credits?

Because if you make the classes cool enough, it could be an interesting way to make some $$ and also make the Mud even more unique.

Though, just putting this out on the floor right now, seize the moment kinda deal (plus it's 5am), if this actually does go anywhere and such an idea is implimented, perhaps I would have access to said feature (you know, without paying)...... being that i brought it to the table....

Anyways, however you want to make it work is fine with me, I just think it would be exciting to have such a feature, and possibly have the chance to design our own prestege class!

ingame

yup ingame, such as a way to use your shards and emeralite pieces and such

It would make sense to dish-out some in game credits, but i think it would be more interesting if it atleast involved some kinda quest.

eg: Fang of Lolth: A rogue transformed into a spiderlike beast would require actually obtaining the fang of Lolth and knowing how to use it to get transformed by it.

Or atleast the Dread Pirate requires you to first find the clan of Dread Pirates and pay an entrance fee to join them (if not complete a prestege quest for them)

Its a good idea, as long as they are all original in the end. No drawing off Forgotten Realms and other D&D stuff.

I absolutely agree, i have up until now been using D&D examples just because i know how they work and do not have the time to create a set of them entirely by myself right now.

But, as i stated before, it would be quite amazing if we could influence the design of our own prestege class.
Thusly I will create a new thread for you to post your ideas.
If you have a design for a prestege class, put it there, and if you want to talk about the possibility and your opinion on this subject, post here.

How many prestiege classes would be allowed per person? One? Or three (one per class they have).

In my opinion, one.
Though interesting, I do not know how you could combine some of them.

eg: Geomancer + Forsaker (though you could easily have the forsaker avalable only to non-casters and Geo for casters only)

Oozemaster + Fang of Lolth + Bloodhound, what race would you end up being? an oozy sasquatch with extra limbs??


I see prestege classes as being a very huge roleplaying element, so it would make sense to only have one, but if the designs allow for opinions to differ from mine, why not? With three you could have an extremely unique character.

I was thinking in terms of classes as opposed to races. As in each prestige class could replace one of them. I agree with you on the racial part, I have no idea how you could choose multiple prestige classes that all affected your race.

yeah, i just don't know how difficult that would be.
I think it would be very awesome, but it depends entirely on how they are utilized.

basically, it would be possible if the prestege classes merely unlocked and locked surtain things, +3 here, extra ability there, -6 there, that way you would have heavy negatives from having 3 different prestege classes all focusing on different things yet taking away from your main pool. It could be very stupid to choose to do such a thing as you could effectively cripple your character (atleast how i see it).

perhaps we could have some prestege classes make it impossible to choose others, to avoid contradictions and such.

I think it would be possible to have one prestege per class, but it may not be a good idea to actually do that unless you REALLY know what you want for your char.


Lets see some designs for the prestege classes (other thread) and this may be easier to visualize.

Why not just make the current epic classes the prestige classes? You'd have your class requirement filled, and the skills would be logical extensions of the source classes themselves. Each epic class would have some default skills (determined by the source classes), but would also have a unique skill unlocked at e100. Perhaps every 100 epic levels a new skill would be unlocked, up to whatever the cap is. This would benefit levelling, and could help to balance classes (at least, at the higher end).

To elaborate, every epic class with a Cleric would get a skill called (for purpose of example) "Cleric 1." Following this train of thought, a Warpriest would have "Cleric 1," "Warrior 1," and "Rogue 1," while a Berserker would have "Druid 1," "Warrior 1," and "Rogue 1." At e100, the Warpriest would gain "Warpriest 1," while the Berserker would get "Berserker 1."

there is no cap

While this is all rather interesting (not being sarcastic) I don't think it would be practical to code. With current balance issues people are raving on about, it would only further the problems already inherent to the system.

To counter balance issues i say make the pre classes like in dnd , At the dms choice ..The player would ask about becomeing one and maybe the player would need to prove there worth to become that class/race thing ..Like a test

They would need a detailed RP reason and profe that would you act and RP , or at least not bend the rules when playing with them

oozemasters,hexers,eyes,geos are all very very ugly things . you cant play charming or hot lol

I personaly would give anything to become a shifter again , My lil druid in adnd 3e was a level 10 shifer and it was by far my most fav class to RP and Battle with

Even if it was just a name change of my other classes i would love to see Windslayer a Shifter again, Even if it didnt give any powers or abilitys just something fun to play