GM Choon wrote:
I went back and forth on reduced point buy vs delayed leveling. I couldn't justify having a noble at lvl 1 while the rest of the party was 3. The bab, saves, etc. disparity felt wrong. I thought about letting nobles be one level behind but I feared that would make them tower over the party and I would get zero submissions that weren't nobles.
That's why I went with the Through-the-floor point buy. I agree is not the best, but it's there a happy middle road I'm not seeing I'm happy to hear it.
Well, I have two thoughs in this regard. First, it's somewhat acceptable for a character to tower over party so long as they only do it in their area of specialization. In my first 3.5 game there's that troglodyte char that utterly eclipsed the rest of the party as a melee powerhouse (at least in part due to racial stats and features). It didn't make him depend on the other players any less, since even in combat there were occasional enemies that were highly effective against his particular fighting style, nevermind other challenges the party faced. As such, everyone felt useful and productive, and we had fun.
As for zero non-noble submissions, I'd like to have faith in players here and think they value RP more than that. After all, being a noble of Menzoberranzan is very, very limiting to one's options in terms of background. Which leads me to the second point.
Namely, that while it's not always possible, the crunch ought to strive to represent the lore, since it's, essentially, a model of such. Drow nobles have superior breeding and education. They are, in fact, better than commoners (on average) and their stats should reflect this. The important part is that it also imposes severe limits on them.
A noble drow girl is always a priestess of Lolth, regardless of player's wishes (well, that or a sacrifice on an altar). She may be more powerful than a commoner one, but she can also receive her goddess command at any point and will be expected to drop everything and fulfill it successfully or lose powers for unspecified period, from a day to months. She has much greater social and religious obligations, and a lot of proactive enemies just by merit of her station.
A noble drow boy's initial class is strongly influenced or even outright determined by the high priestesses, not always with his personal best interests in mind. In any case, they can only pick from specializations taught in Melee-Magthere or Sorcere (or a similar establishemnts in other drow cities) and will be expected to complete necessary training before pursuing their own preferences. When that's finally over, they'll still have to deal with House Matron and her demands.
Basically, the idea is that advanced bloodlines or templates are not something a player routinely picks and makes a normal PC - it's got to be a double edged decision where player's character actually gets to be considerably better than normal in their selected party role at the expense of player having to scramble twice as hard to overcome the limitations imposed by the choice. Incidentally, since such things demand a lot of GM's attention, and since a party full of special snowflakes is highly improbable and strains suspension of disbelief, an artificial limit of only one or two such submissions being accepted in the end would also make sense.
