Re: The Professional - a PC rated Expert



Bradd W. Szonye wrote: 
Jim Davies wrote:

The "Expert" isn't an expert. At a given level, it has the same max
ranks and the same max feats as a commoner.



It looks like you're too hung up on class names. Look at what the class
does, rather than judging the book by its cover, or you'll mistakenly
assume that all uncivilized characters are "barbarians.

Just as the barbarian class models a particular kind of barbarian, the
expert class models a particular kind of medieval expert: the wealthy
burgher. It does not model other "experts," like the foreman of a labor
gang, the village blacksmith, or the swordmaster.


It's not intended for adventuring. [Jim's presumably referring to the
professional class here, not the expert class.]



Why create it, then? The existing non-adventuring classes already do a
fine job of modeling non-adventurers.


You might well take a level or three to round out a fighter, but a
pure Professional is going to have very little to do in a dungeon.



The expert class is already good enough for that. The game could use
some more adventure-worthy skilled classes. Why not focus on that,
instead of wasting our time with stuff that's deliberately /not/
designed for PCs?

Once again, you've created a class that's ridiculously powerful for a
mundane character yet nearly useless for adventuring. It's really only
good as a level-drop class, and it's not even great for that. Most PCs
would be better off taking a level in bard, fighter, ranger, rogue,
sorcerer, or wizard to get the benefits of this class. (Fighter gives
you a bonus combat feat, freeing up one of your starting feats to take
one of the "professional" feats.)

Ironically, one of the major problems with this class is that it offers
very little depth. Unless the character focuses on item creation, you
only get a couple of bonus feats in your specialty before you're forced
to spread out into other skills. In other words, a standard commoner or
expert could easily match the professional "specialist" with just a few
more levels' worth of general feats.

About the only thing this class is good for is creating a magical
craftsman PC, and it's not even very good for that. You could build a
much more capable item creator with standard NPC and PC classes. I
wouldn't mind seeing an NPC-quality class for item creation; I've even
created one myself.


I'm pretty sure Eberron's Magewrights fit that bill.

   - Ron   ^*^

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