Washington -- Wizards of the Coast expressed concern yesterday with the Loremaster Prestige Class in a written statement this week, lambasting the PrC as "the only one left without Uncanny Dodge."
"We've tried to create a fun and exciting gaming experience for people of all ages," the only remaining publicist at Wizards announced, "but obviously, some classes just weren't thought out as clearly as they needed to be. It was a huge oversight on our part not to include Uncanny Dodge as an ability in the Loremaster Prestige Class."
Prestige Classes (PrCs), a new addition to the most recent version of Dungeons & Dragons, are more powerful or exotic classes that characters can multiclass into as they become more powerful. While initially, only the Assassin, Shadowdancer, and Dwarven Defender PrCs had Uncanny Dodge in the core rulebooks (or, in the Dwarven Defender's case, Defensive Awareness, which functions in a similar manner), later errata releases gave this benefit to the Arcane Archer to better reflect the lightly-armored spirit, and to the Blackguard, because such evil creatures should always be ready to be attacked.
Errata to the splatbooks has produced similar fixes to the problem early versions had with some PrCs not having Uncanny Dodge, and almost all 3rd-party publishers and individual PrC creators have followed the new industry standard. "My AXE-WHACKER gains this awesome shapeshifting thing where he TURNS INTO a greataxe and flies through the air and whales on you for like 10d8 damage!" reported Devon Aldamarson(Munch13). "He's got immunity to all Will-save spells, 'cause, like, he's a construct now. And he can grow these talons and rip through stuff, too. And of course, he's got Uncanny Dodge."
"I would never have played my Weapon-Master/Fang of Lolth/Tempest if he didn't have stackable Uncanny Dodge in all three classes, thanks to that new errata," proclaimed Geordan Bushong, a local player. "It would completely violate my class concept to play that guy, otherwise. Uncanny Dodge is a roleplaying aspect of my character." The Weapon-Master/Fang of Lolth/Tempest character does not currently have a name or background, but maintains its Dex bonus to AC even when flat-footed, and cannot be Flanked, even while wielding its mastered weapon with perfect ambidexterity with each of its six arms.
With the most recent errata release, the Loremaster is the only Prestige Class left in existence that does not have Uncanny Dodge listed among its class abilities. This has caused the PrC to suffer a huge popularity loss: Wizards are flocking to the Divinist, who gains insight bonuses, new class skills, and bonus metamagic feats, while Clerics have shifted to either the Divine Master of Knowledge or the Teller of Legends, both of whom give lorelike abilities, random bonuses rolled at each level, and direct channels to the cleric's deity. Of course, all of the above classes also give Uncanny Dodge.
Monte Cook angrily defended the DMG in response to the announcement. "Look, we were working under a lot of time pressure, and some things were bound to get overlooked. Uncanny Dodge is a powerful ability that can have a huge affect on game balance. Frankly, we had assumed that any intelligent DM would simply house-rule that every single PrC ever created gets this ability right off the bat."
Monte's revised Loremaster, available at MonteCook.com, which now includes Uncanny Dodge as one of the Loremaster's learnable "secrets", rolled randomly at odd Loremaster-levels, has been met with acceptance by some, but most feel that the class needs a complete Uncanny-Dodge-focused overhaul. Industry analysts predict that the class may be removed from future printings of the DMG if it is not rewritten completely to compensate for its current underpowered status.
A spokesman for the Society Against The Extinction of Sneak Attacks (SATESA) offered support for the PrC in a short statement later in the day.
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