Just say NO! to Prestige Classes in 5th Edition.

This week WotC released another Unearthed Arcana with the subject of Rune Magic and specifically, the Rune Scribe as a prestige class (PDF).

My initial reaction was shock and disbelief that they would actually bring up the concept of prestige classes returning to 5th Edition.  Prior to the release of 5th Edition, during the play test, I had heard explanations of the overall design philosophy was to learn from the problems of the past editions and not to repeat them.  One of these problems that were named was the "Bloat" from 3.x Editions that particularly arose from prestige classes.  The amount of numerous book surfing, and extensive planning necessary for character progression really took away the organic character development that followed the story of the campaign.  The solution that was presented in 5th Edition was the "Archetype" system.  Having a single class, but multiple iterations that branched upward and outward.  This system allowed for simple progression and minimized the chaos of "Frankenstein-ing"multiple classes to get a unique character concept.  Also the updating of Feats to become fewer but MUCH strong and flavorful allowed for the unique crafting of numerous characters all within a single class structure.

Part of the original "restrictions" were RP based "must find object/teacher" but were mostly ignored by the players and thus guiltily pressure the DM to not deny them the character that they want to build, thus making the DM have to build all the requirements needed for this player into the story.  I'm not one to say the DM is an dictator, I subscribe to the "co-storyteller" school of thought, but at the end of the day, it is the DM that shoulders main onus in this situation.  Also there is the party parity concern that players who have access to more books/sources have the potential to skew the power balance among the others.  Finally, the greatest burden is placed on the developers because suddenly balancing has opened Pandora's Box.  Every future class will have to be balanced with every other possible combination.  Every prestige class that is built for a class, race, skill, country, will then have to be given equivalents for every other class, race, skill, and country.  All having to be attempted to balanced.  It is a VERY dangerous spiral of side effects.  The current answer provided to players of the game is to place such unique design requests in the hands of the DM and let them work in tandem with their player(s) to craft exactly what they want in that specific microcosm.  This allows for a simple solution to DM, player, developer, with all being happy.

With all that being said, the Rune Magic system and class concept is very interesting to me and I will attempt to take this information and present it as an option without worrying about the stigma or plethora of problems that prestige classes present.