Director of Narrative
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A week and a half ago I played a game with one of my fellow players GMing a group of complete and total new RPG players. He wanted it to be simple and have a little bit of everything so that each character could shine at least once. He pre-generated three characters for the new folks and let me build my own 1st level PHB only fighter.
Doesn’t sound too exciting, does it?
That’s where you’re wrong. (Well, if you were me, so I guess that renders that whole rhetorical question moot.) That session was one of the most enjoyable gaming sessions I’ve had in ages. Was it because of the new life new players injected into a bored view of a basic D&D? Maybe. Was it that I only carried three books to the game, two of which were extra copies of the PHB that I passed out to the new players? Most definitely.
Does anyone here play a strict SRD only game?
Anything close?
How’s it going? Are you a RP kinda group or a crunchy group? Or both?
I ask because I recently ran past the players of my upcoming Runelords game the idea of getting back to basics and just using the SRD. Most of them were open to my call, but some I knew would prefer to play with a more broad selection of options.
I want to get feedback from groups/GMs/players that use few if any supplements.
~looks at my "collection" of D & D books~ You know, it would really be simpler if only the 3 core books were used. ~thinks~ Maybe I will do that.
I was planning on it for my next PbP, before things got busy.
I really like the sound of it, because it forces players to focus more on the character and less on the bells and whistles.
In addition, it’s a lot less for me to have to carry around and constantly reference, so I think things would flow quicker. Still on the fence about UA, even though it is one of my favorites supplements.
If you allow psionics, the options expand considerably, to where you really don't miss all the other books.
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Director of Narrative
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I was planning on it for my next PbP, before things got busy.
I really like the sound of it, because it forces players to focus more on the character and less on the bells and whistles.
In addition, it’s a lot less for me to have to carry around and constantly reference, so I think things would flow quicker. Still on the fence about UA, even though it is one of my favorites supplements.
That was my thinking, and a few guys seemed down with it until someone asked about prestige classes. I thought about it, but hadn't talked to the group since then, and I was thinking, "Tell me what you want. I'll build you a prestige class when you show some prestige." Other than that there's plenty of options with class variants and multiclassing.
We're meeting to build characters and talk about the campaign this coming Sunday. Most of them are still open to the idea and I'm trying to a) See if it truly is a good idea, and b) get some assistance building some good arguments.
All of my 4 pbp characters are SRD compatible.
3 are good old PHB.
2 are straight single class.
Now and then a little fancy stuff is fun but I like to the basics just fine and if a DM says Core only of SRD only I don't feel a drop of disappointment. My meatspace game is just the 3 core books, no psionics.
Personally this is not really my cup of tea but if it was I might go with something slightly expanded. PHBII significantly increases the players power and a lot of its not really necessary but there is some material in there that I think should really improve the players experience at the table at the higher levels. I feel that core only is a pretty damn good game until around 8th level and then it starts to break down somewhat.
A few examples:
The advantage a sorcerer has over a wizard is that the sorcerer has a lot of spells, disadvantage is that he's a spell level back and has a very limited selection of spells. These two classes are well balanced against each other, IMO, until they both start getting into the higher levels. At that point the wizard really pulls ahead since its no longer really possible to run out of spells. If the wizard has, say, 30 spells a day and the sorcerer has 45 spells a day its not that big a difference becuase your going to have a really hard time using 30 spells in a day - especially in something like RotRL.
PHBII addresses this with the inclusion of a bunch of pretty good immediate and swift action spells. Usually they are a bit weak for their level - but their swift actions!. This benefits a caster with lots of spells a heck of a lot more then a caster with fewer spells and gives the sorcerer something that keeps him very competitive even into the higher levels.
Another example has to do with fighters and feats. The fighter gets a whole heck of a lot of feats and their are lots of good options for the first few levels. But there soon comes a point where the higher level fighter seems to have all the feats he really needs to do his basic schtick. Unless he is a spiked chain trying to be both an awesome tripper and get up the whirl wind feat chain he sort of runs out of good feats. Worse yet he runs out just as fighters are becoming relatively weaker in the game - so not only are the magic users becoming increasingly dominant after around 12th but the fighter player is unhappy becuase he can't seem to find a cool feat - he's already picked up all the best ones.
PHBII addresses this significantly by having a slew of really powerful fighter feats with prereqs that require the fighter to be 12th or 15th or 18th level. This is a good thing as this gives the fighter player something to look forward too. So instead of the fighter player running out of cool options he actually can't wait until he gets to be high enough level that he can finally pick up soem of the really awesome feat options.
I guess what I'm saying is back to basics is a pretty cool idea but you might want to cherry pick a bit of extra material as well, mainly just stuff that helps the game out at the higher levels where play balance is particularly weak in core only.
This is inspiring.
Reasons?
Reason 1: I've been playing 3.5 for two years.
Reason 2: I'm cheap and down want to buy every book in circulation.Reason 3: My idea of fun is writing a crazy background and milking my game for RP craziness.
As a Lawful Neutral individual, this is inconceivable to me. I always have a standing list of characters I'd like to play, and every character on that list uses non-core material as an integral part of the build, and is interesting because of it. Players don't like being told that they can't do things. I've invested a lot of time and money in issues of Dragon magazine, and if you're unwilling to permit any of it because you might have to learn something new, then screw you and your game. If the character I want to play can't be satisfactorily represented in game mechanics without a class from a non-PHB book, and you're unwilling to compromise for that, then the problem is with your rules, not my character.
There are many, many good reasons to disallow various secondary rulesets. "I don't want to deal with it" isn't one of them.
When it comes to the initial game, I never use anything but the basic books- if and when my players want to tweak the game, then it's open to discussion, but on the whole it simply doesn't come up- the only exception was our Scarred Land Campaign, when the Character Class Books that complement the setting got a bit of an airing, but not until 7th level or so.
I have a very pared-down and simple game.
I use:
PHB, DMG, MM I-IV, Spell compendium, Fiend Folio.
Monks are not allowed.
Magic item shops do not exist.
Prestige classes are NPC only.
Some spells are outlawed: teleport and fly.
I like the simplicity, and it removes almost all min-max-munchkin issues automatically.
At the moment my Sunday group is going through age of worms.
When I run my next group through Rise of the Runelords, they will also have the pathfinder stuff to choose from, and I plan on eliminating more of the travel spells at higher level, like air walk, to make distances an obstacle again.
I have a phb-only campaign running. So far we have played through Hollows last hope, Crown of the kobold king and Conquest of the bloodsworn vale. The reason for core only game was that I had two new players in my group, who didn't have any 3.5 experience. It's very refreshing. The two new players don't know how to maximize the power of their characters, so they just make characters that sound cool to play. For example we have a bard that kicks ass. Well not in the battleground, but he's cool.
My players are now at 6th and 7th level and so far there has been no balance issues. Fights have been extremely difficult sometimes, like the BBEG in Bloodsworn, and one character has died two times (no other casualities).
I think I'm going to run this campaign to 12-level or something and see how it goes. I'm tempted to run Curse of the Crimson throne to same players with core only...
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...You know, the irony here was when I read the title, I glanced at my bookshelf and my old D&D Rules Cyclopedia is sitting there...
But yes, I have considered it; more, I've actually been designing a few villains who are core-only. I'm mining the other books for ideas, but the actual material being used is purely SRD.
For the record, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with non-core, just that I don't need core to make interesting and unique characters. Now, give me a few more years playing 3.5 (lol) and I might think otherwise.
Magic item shops do not exist.
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Some spells are outlawed: teleport and fly..
re the first house rule I like the idea but What do players do with the extra treasure and money?
(I remember AD&D 1st edition we always ended up with wheelbarrow loads of 'useless' gold)
no fly, ok adds an element of complexity (unless you allow airwalk or other spells but just not the speed of fly)
but in my games teleport is sometimes needed to run away from bad encounters when you get to high level. Without it retreat is almost not an option- which means whenever a fight started the players almost always would have to stay to the end.
how does it work for your group?
2 new players, 3 players who've been away from the hobby for a long time.
Core 3 rulebooks and a Shackled City hardcover only.
It's great.
Oh - and a GM who's never even played before.
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My games are just PHB, DMG, MM & Pathfinder, plus Tome of Battle (basically, replacing fighters with Warblades or the occasional Swordsage).
Very little multiclassing, because I want a character reason why you're sly rogue is suddenly raging, or where that magical training came from, etc.
It's basically to avoid getting m ebogged down in rules, and the players getting bogged down by the hunt for combat advantage.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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i moved down to Iowa four months ago. Some folks here have roped me into a "Living Arcanis" campaign. "Living Arcanis" has a rule: PHB, DMG, and any Arcanis supplements allowed, but you need to physically own any Arcanis material you want to use.
And the FLGS owner tells me that the Arcanis books are at least out-of-stock, if not out-of-print.
So, I'm playing, by default, a Core Rulebook character. It's fun.
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A week and a half ago I played a game with one of my fellow players GMing a group of complete and total new RPG players. He wanted it to be simple and have a little bit of everything so that each character could shine at least once. He pre-generated three characters for the new folks and let me build my own 1st level PHB only fighter.
Doesn’t sound too exciting, does it?
That’s where you’re wrong. (Well, if you were me, so I guess that renders that whole rhetorical question moot.) That session was one of the most enjoyable gaming sessions I’ve had in ages. Was it because of the new life new players injected into a bored view of a basic D&D? Maybe. Was it that I only carried three books to the game, two of which were extra copies of the PHB that I passed out to the new players? Most definitely.
Does anyone here play a strict SRD only game?
Anything close?...
Actually, I can't find an experienced group here...but I found a half-dozen guys who remember the Red Box, and vaguely remembered the AD&D Orange Spine books...that's right. I brought all my v3.5 books over here, and while they liked the artwork, they all had not played in some fifteen or twenty years and honestly thought the game looked too complicated and involved. While my actual Red Box is back home in Alaska, I did purchase the PDFs from Paizo some time ago, and a couple weeks ago we played through Bargle's dungeon...and had an absolute blast!
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Other than the spell point system I use, our game is completely core. We play with prestige classes frequently, but only those in the DMG. It's not really a matter of laziness as much as it is a belief that there's enough flexibility in those rules alone to play just about any kind of character. This is particularly true if you suspend the multi-classing penalties to give your players more freedom of choice.
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I see a lot of people stating "I ban book X at my table", and such, and I think that, while it is perfectly right to make amendments to one's home game, some material should be considered on its own merit (or lack of it), rather than prejudging it due to where it may or may not have come from.
There are spells in the Spell Compendium that I wonder "Why is that not core?". And there are spells in the Player's Handbook that are hideously broken.
It is easier to ban a whole book than to go through it with a fine-tooth comb, but if you have a player who is intent on breaking your game, he could easily do it with core rules only. And it may be less likely to be spotted, since you let your guard down "Oh no problem, it's core rules, after all..."
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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It's funny as I've never thought about it before, but our players consistently play core classes from the PHB. We may grab a feat or spell from another source if it makes sense for the character and maybe cross class into a non-core class or Prestige Class from another source after reaching 8th level or so, but we've always used the base classes to begin new campaigns.
It hasn't made the game any less fun, nor has it made the characters "stale", as no 2 PCs ever play the same even if the same player plays the same class in a new campaign.
Splat Book options can be fun, but I think they can be a little over-rated. I like having the option to select them, but I don't believe they are necessary to build a memorable character.
I don't have many books personally. My team has about evry wotc D&D3 book ever made (excepting eberron and FR, but a few of those too).
I just told them I am not going through the entire Complete, Races, and Tomes of, and whateverScape to find out what "fits" my game. That's more work then I wanted out of a game.
So I told them everything is 'legal'. Yes, everything. Book of 9 Swords? Yup. Complete Scoundrel? You betcha.
Is it better then a 'basic' game? I doubt it. But the players wanted it.
Magic item shops do not exist.
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Some spells are outlawed: teleport and fly..
re the first house rule I like the idea but What do players do with the extra treasure and money?
(I remember AD&D 1st edition we always ended up with wheelbarrow loads of 'useless' gold)
no fly, ok adds an element of complexity (unless you allow airwalk or other spells but just not the speed of fly)
but in my games teleport is sometimes needed to run away from bad encounters when you get to high level. Without it retreat is almost not an option- which means whenever a fight started the players almost always would have to stay to the end.
how does it work for your group?
Lack of magic shops.
If players want to get a magic item, they need to find an artificer with the ability to make it, and then pay him for the time.I divide all prices in the game by 100. Adventuring is not the only route to wealth, but it is the best way to get magical items.
In the build up to zyrxog's lair in HoHR, I had the party poisoned in a meeting with their artificer contact. The party were more concerned with his well-being than theirs.
My game seems to not need the same gads of items for the party to survive. I run the game with the characters one level higher than the adventure is written, and I give max HP. It works for me.
The players get very excited when they find a magic item other than a potion or scroll. The sorceress hoards the charges in her wands. The druid has no magical weapon, and needs to use spells to hit DR creatures. Extra treasure goes to fixing up the mine from 3FoE.
Banning teleport.
Five foot steps and fighting for your life. Full defense. Sacrifice for the survival of others. Dimension door. Sanctuary.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 8
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This summer I played in a uber high magic and power Forgotten Realms game. I played a human Bard/Shadowdancer, using only core PHB, DMG, and 1 feat from the FRCS. I had fun, ultimately I think my character became one of the most powerful of the party without tons of magic items and feats and such. But then I spent most of my time hiding and convincing others to do my dirty work for me, so somehow I eventually became party leader (didn't want it, ditched it ASAP).
But Core only. I did it to show the rest of the folks at the table that core can still be fun. I'm usually DM so playing this was a nice change for me. I purposefully limited myself.
As a DM, I have no problem restricting stuff any more. Why? Because some stuff just doesn't play well with the rest.
Core (especially core + variants) can be full of flavour and fun.
Daigle,
I use Core, and I tell my crew that if they want to use something from another book.. ask first.
So far I have allowed the Shapeshifting Variant for the Druid in PHB 2, simply because I was convinced (after some research) that I might be saving myself a big headache called 'animal companion.' It has not hurt thus far, I've been pretty satisfied with that decision.
I also allow a couple vigor spells from the Complete Divine.
We had no wizard, and no sorceror (no one would do it!). After 3rd level, the Rogue has taken a level of wizard for the last two levels.. and I have permitted the Practiced Spellcaster (sp?) feat out of the Complete Arcane.. which is useless to a true wizard, but really balances out a multiclass. (It allows casting a spell at a CL of the total level, but does not provide extra spells- so the net result is a multiclass wizard who can only cast a few spells, but he casts them effectively in relation to the total level of the party).
That's it.. everything else Core.
I have suggested John Ling's Sword Bond for Iomedae paladins from KQ#2, but I have no paladin at this time.
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I mostly ask for just Core because I'm a newer 3.5 GM. By asking to review everything outside of Core, I make sure I only add things that I understand. I have rejected a few things, like the Knight class, a misuse of the Monkey Paw feat, and a few other things.
I might be starting up a second Runelords group (get more practice GMing and do somethings differently the second time around!) I have a player who is talking about a Duskblade, and I am uneasy about that.
My group uses the PHB only (I am the only one with a MM or DMG) and the class variants from UA. They have flipped through a few of the other books out of curiosity but other than the occasional material from campaign books they have no interest in anything else.
As a Lawful Neutral individual, this is inconceivable to me. I always have a standing list of characters I'd like to play, and every character on that list uses non-core material as an integral part of the build, and is interesting because of it. Players don't like being told that they can't do things. I've invested a lot of time and money in issues of Dragon magazine, and if you're unwilling to permit any of it because you might have to learn something new, then screw you and your game. If the character I want to play can't be satisfactorily represented in game mechanics without a class from a non-PHB book, and you're unwilling to compromise for that, then the problem is with your rules, not my character.
There are many, many good reasons to disallow various secondary rulesets. "I don't want to deal with it" isn't one of them.
Wow. Attitude much? "I thought it up, so you have to allow it, because I don't like to be told 'no'."?
My game isn't about your "build". Looking ahead and having an idea of where you want to go with your character is one thing. But your "build" doesn't really need my campaign, or anyone else's for that matter, does it? You've already built it all the way out to 20th level (or wherever), you know what's going to happen. More importantly, you don't care what's going to happen. You've already made all the choices you want to make for your character, why complicate it by actually running it through someone's game?
Tell me again why I should care that you told me and my game to screw off, taken your pencils and dice and gone home?
I am starting a new campaign tonight Daigle, and I am hoping to convince the players to do this. I have noticed that with everyone playing outside the box (which is REALLY funny for a game based in imagination) that they forgot how to or never learned to play rogues, fighters and wizards.
The half dragon gnoll warlock/dread necromancer with the shadow template is pretty cool but... designing challenges for things like that is a pain in the a$$.
Having to keep up with more and more rulesets and addendum is annoying and not a whole lot of fun for me.
I'd love to run a pathfinder with only the PHB classes. I'd allow feats and spells and alternate classes from other books, but only the classes in the PHB. I'd also allow custom variants and substitutional levels and such. But no warlock, no swashbuckler, no shadowcaster and so forth.
Our experience is that, while Core-only PCs are my preference as a player, we have to scale down the published material quite a bit to make it work. Core PCs are significantly weaker at the high levels.
That said, I went with 5/6 Core PCs for my upcoming CotCT party: fighter, ranger, rogue/sorcerer, cleric, bard. The odd one out is a gestalt wizard/monk, just because the character background was screaming so hard for that combination. I will be very happy if I can advance these PCs in their base classes, avoiding prestige classes completely. (We've found that some of the base classes, particularly paladin, don't work well for that; I tried to pick classes which would.)
People who dislike restricted rules sets tend to assume that the GM is pushing this on reluctant players. For our group it's the opposite. The GM would cheerfully run a splatbook-rich campaign, but I strongly prefer not to play in one. I enjoy the game more when I have a good level of rules mastery, and there are far more rules in those splatbooks than I will *ever* be able to learn.
My SCAP PCs were 5/6 Core also, and the non-Core PC was actually something of a disaster--we didn't have enough experience with the classes involved, and what sounded like a cool and reasonably powerful idea turned out to be nearly unplayably weak. (Oddly, the GM's other group did a similar build, with the same results.) I like character continuity, and gambling on unplaytested splatbooks really bugs me. By the time I knew she would never be any good in combat past 9th level, I was really attached to that PC.
Mary
I have a very pared-down and simple game.
Some spells are outlawed: teleport and fly.
We did this for RotRL (and also lost levitate, dimension door, planeshift, shadow walk, etc.). It was hard to GM in spots because the enemy tactics relied so heavily on fly and teleport, but my player reports that it really improved the game for him.
His comment was along the lines of:
Regular high-level D&D feels like playing a modern elite military squad: pinpoint insertion, destruction of the target, instant escape. I could enjoy that but I'd actually rather do a modern/postmodern game if that's going to be the flavor. RotRL felt much more like fantasy, with real journeys and more sense of place; and we had to deal with the outer defenses, not just skip through to the final target each time. I'd do it again next campaign.
It does make retreat from a bad fight harder, but generally not impossible: the PCs made *heavy* use of spider climb, invisibility and its variants, silence, haste, expeditious retreat, summoning, and area control spells--grease, web, walls of all kinds, black tentacles, and their current favorite, acid fog. And I was really happy that it eliminated the high-end "We teleport onto them with surprise." "They teleport away, and next day they teleport onto *you* with surprise." My player likes the NPCs to use smart tactics, but that one is hell on the PCs if played to PC standards.
Mary
I'd love to run a pathfinder with only the PHB classes. I'd allow feats and spells and alternate classes from other books, but only the classes in the PHB. I'd also allow custom variants and substitutional levels and such. But no warlock, no swashbuckler, no shadowcaster and so forth.
This is probably a threadjack, but do you find those specific variants over-powered?
It might be that I start running a second iteration of Runelords and this group is already poking at non-Core classes, and I'd lobe an opinion before I agree to something that might come back to haunt me.
I've always taken a somewhat restrictive approach to splatbooks as a DM: I'm happy to entertain requests for just about anything, but you've got to run it by me first. I'm running a PbP campaign with a warlock in it right now, and that's working out fine, but I've also banned or altered several spells from the SC that players proposed to add to their list of spells known. I've allowed a number of feats from the Complete series and Dragon magazine, but altered or disallowed others. When I had a request to for one character to multiclass his wizard to crusader (Bo9S), I strongly discouraged that, and instead genned up a prestige class that did what he wanted but without the (to my mind) ridiculous complications of the Bo9S classes. In short, I don't like DMing a no-holds-barred campaign where everything WotC is fair game, but there is a lot of cool stuff in the splatbooks and I want players to be able to play the character they want to play, within reason.
That said, I'm playing in a core only campaign, and it's fine, but with my old group I was experimenting with some non-core classes and builds, and that was very fun. For me, the process isn't about the "build" per se--it's about the role-playing inspiration derived from trying to figure out how that character fits into the campaign world. This is particularly true when one is starting at a higher level--having a multiclass or prestige-classed character allows one to create a background to explain that character, or more likely, the background and the build emerge at the same time. So joining a mid-level campaign with a Rogue/Favored Soul/Shadowbane Stalker devoted to Mystra gave my character some roleplaying hooks that I and the DM could both use to help me integrate into the campaign, whereas being a simple Rogue would have provided less fuel for our imaginations about how the character could be meaningfully incorporated into the game.
For first-level characters, you can't do that as easily, of course--the planned multiclassings and such may be more of a hindrance than a help to character development, decreasing the player's (and DM's) flexibility to respond to what happens in the campaign. But not always.
This is probably a threadjack, but do you find those specific variants over-powered?
Depends. If you're looking at the PHBII variants, I'd say no. Sorcerer is probably the easiest to point at being "overpowered" It does come across that way for "losing the familiar", but familiar is probably the least undervalued class feature in the entire game. Something like 3 feats and you can have a dragon as a familiar. I'd call that slightly more powerful then being able to use extend spell 3 times a day. CW Ranger, lost spells gain ability to move faster. Some Spell Compendium Ranger spells rule ass. Even the 1st level spells. (Excellent work Mike.) I'd certainly call that a balanced trade off.
The gish variant from UA that lets you pick and choose, yea that's just broken. But other then that, I really like variant classes. I hate the fact that EVERY SINGLE RANGER IN THE KNOWN WORLD IS IDENTICAL save which type of combat style they use. Give me something that can really differenciate one character from another. Varying classes is oen thing that can definitely do it.
My general rule is PHB classes and no prestige classes. My players seem happy with this approach as we lost a lot of respect for the prestige class concept in 3ed and eventually got a bit fed up havinmg to work out the kinks. I allow a few prestige and non-core.
I ask about the no-fly no-teleport no-magic shop because I am interested in using these styles.
Thanks Taliesin and Mary for your informative responses. I think I am half sold on the no-fly, no-teleport.
I reckon you need dimension door or wizards just get eaten by improved grab monsters. Is this what you have found/decided?
I do not really get your method of no magic shops- you have to find the right person to pay them to make what you want. It is more restrictive but it is basically a version of a magic shop (on a mechanical level). I am happy with a level of magic item trade restriction, especially at low level.
Just wondering how others deal with this. The way I see it the game contemplates magic item trade- so that promotes balance (crunch)- on the other side the fantasy genre dislikes the quik-e-mart so to have such unrestricted trade lessens the fantasy feel of the game (fluff). IMO fluff should be more important than crunch but you need this crunch too.
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Director of Narrative
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Wow! Thanks everyone for your experiences and opinions.
It’s funny that on the eve of a new edition, I’m rolling my game back a few years. Or at least wanting to. All of you have made some good points and I will bring them all to our Sunday night game meeting/character building session and see what the guys think.
Often I’ve wanted to hack up all the sourcebooks and cherry pick what to use and what not to use, but for some weird reason never felt that was terribly fair. At first I didn’t like being inconsistent, then I felt bad for not allowing them to use their books they paid good money for. That last reason has long faded since I don’t think anyone in the group but me has bought a new book since PHB2.
Keep the discussion coming and I’ll report back how my game ended up ruleswise.
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First off, this thread is great, and I really enjoy the different perspectives being shown here.
I'm intrigued by the low-magic campaign. My campaigns are usually high in fluff, but the players take the challenge of building interesting and effecive PCs that suggest roleplay through their mechanics, so they use alot of additional rules away from the table.
For example, in my current campaign to do with a plague of mutating magic one of the characters started out as a paladin of the LN deity of justice and punishment. He had a hereditary shield with spike and took alot of feats to do with Shield Bash. He roleplayed his charater as young and confident, but as a simple son of a blacksmith analogized everything complex or philosophical to battle and weapons. When his party nearly got killed by a mutant horde, his youthful confidence was shaken, and his shield only barely survived a sundering attack (2hp). I ruled that this reduced the shield's armor value, and so as his character found a new party and joined an extremist group within the church that exterminated mutants as abominations against law, he took the Witch Hunter PrC from Tome of Magic (which he had modified to target mutants instead of Binders), took some specialist 2-weapon-fighting feats and started using his shield almost exclusively as a weapon. At around 10th level the party found the source of the mutation and attempted (perhaps through me failing to convey his power appropriately) to attack the 20th level druid BBEG. After being saved by some of the mutants (who were not really all bad) the player lost his Paladin powers when he attacked his rescuers. As his character slipped to the depths of LN, the player met me outside the game to ask about redeeming himself, as he had no interest in continuing the game with a now-extremely-hobbled-without-his-class-abiliies Paladin. Flipping through my copy of CA I suggested he take the Shadowbane Inquisitor PrC instead as this would allow him to continue to function pretty much as a Paladin without having to fudge the final parts of the story arc. I bent the rules to let him continue advancing in the class as a fallen Inquisitor and he ended up roleplaying his character much like an Inquisitor from Warhammer 40K. The peasantfolk didn't know whether to ask for help or run away.
This was probably the biggest exampe of this so far but it's exemplary of how my players like to play the game. However on occasion I'll get a character like an Ubercharging Scout(CA)/Fighter/Cavalier(CW) who could 1-hit anything I put in front of him, especially with the magic item set he had aquired. I felt bad about taking his lovingly-crafted PC away from him but I didn't want to have every single NPC for the rest of the campaign use a longspear just to compete so I got him to make a new character. The low-magic campign suggested above not only helps prevent the more complex builds, but I think would also put emphasis on the basic classes.
Regular high-level D&D feels like playing a modern elite military squad: pinpoint insertion, destruction of the target, instant escape. I could enjoy that but I'd actually rather do a modern/postmodern game if that's going to be the flavor. RotRL felt much more like fantasy, with real journeys and more sense of place; and we had to deal with the outer defenses, not just skip through to the final target each time. I'd do it again next campaign.
I agree completely with this. After buying Heroes of Battle I actually ran a mini-campaign based on modern warfare that went just like this. But I agree that though D&D is written in the image of high fantasy (LotR etc.) many high-level PCs detract from this. I'd have to think harder on spells like Fly, but low divination and teleportation campaigns might be something to try.
TWB out.
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This is probably a threadjack, but do you find those specific variants over-powered?
I'm currently running RotRL for a group of 6 30-pt PCs, so a fairly powerful bunch run by experienced players. The PC I find is going to give me the most trouble is the warlock, with his eldritch blast being helped along by PB Shot / Precise Shot / Coordinated Shot. That is one tough machine gun.
Mostly, the classes used were dependent on the background of the PCs. Thus we have, aside from the warlock, we have a Dwarf fighter, a half-orc Paladin of Torag, a Shoanti Bard/Barbarian, a halfling Rogue/Cleric (of Desna) and a human Druid/Wizard.
Usually, I try to keep things within core books, but tidbits from other books are acceptable if I find them not to be too unbalancing after discussion. However, I stay away from Psionics and Tome Of Battle.
For the sake of challenge, some NPCs have access to off-limits (for PCs) tricks. For example, I
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My games and characters tend to vary from core to non-core depending on the situation. I definitely like the simplicity of everything I need to run my character or understand my player’s characters being in the PHB, and I believe that you can make an interesting and functional character using only that source. However, if my players really want to use stuff from other sources I usually let them, as long as I’ve read and understood the material and don’t think it’s game breaking or going to give me too many headaches as a DM.
Games I am running:
Shackled City AP: all the PCs in this game were created using PHB only. However, the characters are at the 5th to 7th level mark, and I have begun to allow other options, particularly in regards to prestige classes; two are going for prestige classes from Dragon magazine, one has picked up a feat from Sandstorm, and one a feat from Complete Adventurer.
Two player homebrew game: given that there are only two players (And two characters) in this game, I allowed them more options with their characters. Both use Core 3 plus various options from Dragon mag.
Pbp homebrew Age of Darkness campaign: I had intended to keep this pretty much core only, but in the end I caved and pretty much all the characters have feats, spells or variant class features (and in one case a class) from non Core sources. Strangely, this is also the one game where I really use a lot of house rules.
Games I’m currently playing in (mostly pbp):
Human rogue / bard (rl Ravenloft game): PHB + Ravenloft PHB (Sword and Sorcery)
Elf necromancer (pbp homebrew): PHB only
Warforged paladin (pbp Eberron): PHB + ECS + Races of Eberron + PHB2
Human ranger / rogue (pbp Eberron): PHB + ECS
Elf transmuter / mystic ranger (pbp Golarion): PHB + RotRL Players Guide + Dragon Mag + Complete Mage (for intended PrC)
Half Elf Cleric of Fharlanghn (pbp Greyhawk Savage Tide): PHB only
Bariaur ranger / binder (pbp Planescape): PHB + Planar Handbook + ToM
Human ranger (pbp Ravenloft): PHB + Complete Warrior
Human rogue (pbp Greyhawk): PHB only
The groups vary as to RP v. Crunch, but overall I’d say it’s fairly evenly split. Neither me nor most of the players in my rl games own very much in the way of splat books etc, with the exception of one player who owns quite a few of the Complete books.
I reckon you need dimension door or wizards just get eaten by improved grab monsters. Is this what you have found/decided?
That's probably the biggest problem with losing dimension door. One NPC villain in RotRL had contingency dim-door-if-grappled, which was absolutely what he needed; I had to take it away and that got him killed. The PCs have also had a near miss with this--the warmage got nabbed by a yeti, and it's not clear he'd have survived without immediate help.
For next game we might introduce a short-range, line-of-sight dim door to solve this problem. We want it to be line of sight so that PCs cannot gain instant entry through walls with it, and short range because making it simply LOS invites the PCs to use it as a long-range travel spell by starting on a tower or mountaintop.
An alternative would be putting free movement on the Arcane list. It's a strong spell but less disruptive than dimension door. Or invent a spell "grease self" which gives large bonuses on escaping grapples--sort of a feather fall analog.
Mainly, though, we figure wizards have to try to stay away from improved grapple monsters. Everyone can use a weakness or two, and this is theirs. They still have blur, blink, and displacement as options, as well as invisibility.
One thing you'll notice if you lose fly is that spider climb, flying mounts, and flying summoned creatures increase in importance and usefulness. You will probably see significantly more summoning than before. Abilities that let you shapechange into a flying creature are also greatly prized: druidic shapeshifting, polymorph, etc. Druids with natural spellcasting (can cast in animal form) become much more formidable.
One of the PCs in our CotCT party is a pseudodragon. I expect his ability to fly will do a lot to compensate for his limited item use, tiny size, and other liabilities.
Mary
As a DM, I have no problem restricting stuff any more. Why? Because some stuff just doesn't play well with the rest.
(emphasis mine)
Exactly my opinion. Also, some of the stuff can cause setting continuity problems.
Core (especially core + variants) can be full of flavour and fun.
Core + some SRD variants works very well in most situations. Bloodlines, Character Flaws, Character Traits, Class Feature Variants, Specialist Wizard Variants, Variant Character Classes, and Weapon Group Feats can (for the most part) be easily inserted in any campaign. Some of the other variants (Craft Points, Prestige Bards, Paladins, and Rangers, Spelltouched Feats, Spontaneous Divine Casters) can be used to make a setting a little bit different, but not too much so. Then there are the Variant Adventuring, Variant Campaigns, and Variant Magic sections to mine for ideas and options on making big changes.
Even limiting the use of non-core material to something like "feats and spells only, anything else on a case-by-case basis" can keep things from getting too out of hand.
Does anyone here play a strict SRD only game?
Anything close?
How’s it going? Are you a RP kinda group or a crunchy group? Or both?
I ask because I recently ran past the players of my upcoming Runelords game the idea of getting back to basics and just using the SRD. Most of them were open to my call, but some I knew would prefer to play with a more broad selection of options.
I want to get feedback from groups/GMs/players that use few if any supplements.
I joined a new game with a new group about six months ago. The DM had a lot of Kalamar material. He decided to use that world. Of the group, one player hasn't played since 1E. He's loving his sorceror. It's a delight to watch him go "Cool" when he fries orcs with a scorching ray. Another player and his wife are doing a ranger and a healer. She said "I've never finished a session sober before. This is so cool." I'm playing a rogue, and the other experienced player is doing an elf fighter/paladin. It's simple and straightforward. We use the PH, Rules Compendium, and a few feats out of other books when someone wants a customer ability. There's no power gamers, no munchkins, and no obsessive roleplayers (except me, and I hide that well).
It's enjoyable because we're focused on the adventure. Yes, we're poor. We have one borrowed magic weapon for the lot of us. We think we're rich because at 4th level we have almost 100 gp apiece. There's nothing special about what we do except that we believe in what we're doing.
Is it going core only? Perhaps. Is it a new group coming together? Perhaps. Is it playing really regularly (like ever other week)? Perhaps. I'm liking it. Staying with simple options has helped.
Update:
We are two games in, and it is the iconic half orc barbarian is about to be the lynch pin for a TPK. I expected the lack of wizard/sorcerer to cause problems.
Half orc barbarian is down to wisdom 2 right now.
Human cleric is doing so so. Player still wants to play a druid but can't get it together. (I told him to play a druid but he ended up with a cleric. I am not sure how that happened.)
Human rogue is the current party leader and doing roguey things well.
Hafling dread necromancer was my exception to the core book rule. I had never meet this person before, she came prepared with a cool backstory and was just ready to go with this concept. Having players fall from the sky and being on their game is something I am willing to bend the rules for.
The feat addendum list is at seven.
So far so good. I like the group as a players and we are having fun.