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Perhaps I am in the minority, but I believe that 3rd edition and the OGL gave us an awesome and powerful engine with which to run a role playing game. We were given a golden opportunity to tell a variety of exciting stories in several customizable ways. The modular nature of the system and its focus on a unified mechanic has proven to be a stable breeding ground for innovation and creativity. A plethora of source material has resulted.
Is the majority of available material (both official and 3rd party) crap? Probably, but that's the case for most things in life. (Present company excluded...)
Haven't the various splat books broadened our perception of the rules? Have they not allowed us to tailor-fit our games with easily swappable content? With every new book, are we not allowed more freedom to run the game we want to run?
I say, bring on the splat! I'm an open-minded player and I try to be an open-minded DM. I like to have options at my disposal. I don't buy every book I lay my eyes on, nor would I want to. In that same vein, I don't allow every piece of material in my games, nor would I expect another DM to allow it in his/hers. There is no one holding a gun to our head.
As for the players that feel entitled to use every book they spend their hard-earned cash on... Well, it's not like most gamers aren't predisposed to wasting money. Furthermore, blowing money on source material you'll probably never use is a likely sign of a DM-in-the-making. Encourage them to run their own game. The world needs more DMs.
I think that the concern of customer about the quality of the single book if the book production rate increases is completely reasonable.
Said this, complain about the fact that an RPG company produces RPG books is just madness. I cannot find other words to define it.
Until now, for what I have seen from DMG, APG and bestiary 2 the quality is high. APG is worth alone 4 of the old completes + half of the arms and equipment guide. Bestiary 2 is on par with 1.
IF UA and UC will fall back, that's another issue. But what I have seen 'til now by playtests, it should not be the case.
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The problem was not only quality but also the customization that you tout. In my 3.0 and 3.5 games I had to limit the allowable materials or it was a huge problem for me as DM to run a solid game. As I already did hours of prep when I just allowed the 3 core books I did not care for doing even more work.
If they had focused on publishing more adventures I would have bought many but as it was they just liked the splat books. The epic adventures made my job a lot easier and my players had a lot more fun as I could use the extra prep time to work in things about their characters.
Pathfinder has done exactly this and drawn many like minded people to them. People who just wanted to pay 3.5 could still play it if they desired and many do. So it just comes down to a matter of taste.
My beef is the balance issue. I can make a combatant doing more than twice the damage of a like-level optimized core combatant if I'm allowed splats. Same with wizards and clerics. Some of the spells available in splats is several times more powerful than what is available in core. Not to mention magical items. There is a cloak in Drow of the Underdark that mimics the Epic Dodge feat, only better, AND provides a +1 deflection bonus to AC for less than 6000gp.
If I am writing my own campaigns, I can deal with this, but you can't use adventure paths as written without huge balance issues.
There is nothing inherently bad about splat books. Some of them are quite good, and almost all of them have at least some good elements. That said, here are some of the reasons splats sometimes can be bad:
1) When they are poorly playtested (or not playtested at all) and deeply unbalanced.
2) When players try to bully GMs into allowing their use and/or call them control freaks or bad GMs if they won't.
3) When they present options that are considerably more powerful than the core, leading to power creep, which many view as bad.
4) When new classes/feats/spells/items presented step on the toes of existing classes conceptually, decreasing their attractiveness.
5) When GMs and players feel compelled to spend ever more money to buy ever more books in order to "stay current" or "be competitive".
6) When the sheer mass of rules material becomes so large no GM can master it, leaving gaping holes for rules lawyers and powergamers to exploit, potentially breaking a game.
7) When it encourages optimizers to devote dozens of hours to scour the books looking for the best possible combos and builds to produce supercharacters, necessitating the GM devote even more time to adjusting his adventures so that they continue to be a challenge.
8) When the GM caves to social pressure to allow classes or other things that really don't fit into his campaign world, damaging the internal logic of the game and people's ability to immerse themselves in the world.
Basically, my bottom line is that I like additional material, with the big caveat that I think everyone needs to acknowledge that all these books are optional rules that each table, led by its GM, needs to decide whether they want to include either in whole or in part. So long as that understanding is ironclad and everyone agrees to follow it, bring on the splats!
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I'm with the others. Splat in, say, GURPS isn't such a horrible thing because everything is gauged on a 'balanced' scale. (Allegedly, anyway.) Many games, but especially 3e, have nothing of that sort. In those settings there is always an arms race to make the cheaty-est character one can get. This feat from this book, that race from that book, this spell from this e-zine, and so on...
Bring a system of balance to 3e and then yes, bring on the splat.
Power creep and poor playtesting and editing are concerns when you release any new content.
Expanding options are good but making new options completely outclass other options isn't a positive development.
In addition with an expansive ruleset like 3.x and the tendency of using freelancers there is absolutely no reasonable expectation that every one of the writers will have complete system mastery and realize when a new option just happens to have an unexpected synergy with another option or options.
Many of the most outrageous build found in the CharOp forums were based upon focused individuals stumbling across these weird synergistic loops and then creating a broken build that exploits those synergies.
Even outside of the margins and keeping in mind that most of the truly outrageous builds require very tortured logic to work the simple fact of the matter is that even slight variances in baseline power level can have a cumulative effect when multiplied across the breadth of a gameline.
For example the APG is pretty tightly balanced but there are definitely options found within the APG such as persistent and bouncing metamagic that enhance the baseline power level of casters. Considering the consensus seems to be that casters tend to be more powerful than martial classes this can be seen as an example of power creep.
They are cool feats in theory but the cumulative effect can result in a negative impact upon some games.
However the truth of the matter is that you'll never really get balance 100% correct and companies cannot afford to have static gamelines so you can try to minimize the negative impacts of expanded rules on gameplay but you can never truly eliminate them.
Splat in RPG's is the same (to me) as spaghetti code in computer programs.
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Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit. (Forget the explicit disclaimer in the front of the APG.)
Also, why is balance so important? I have never thought that whatever world the rules sought to model was fair and balanced. Each character typically fills a niche in which no other character can compete. Granted, some of the available material can produce way overpowered characters. But, isn't it our responsibility as players and DMs to filter out the crap, play openly and honestly, and seek the enjoyment of all participants?
It would seem to me that the problem with splat books is not their creation, but their reception. Once upon a time, I remember getting ready to join a new 3.x game and it was common practice for the DM to provide a list of allowable source material. Is this no longer the case?
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In direct answer yes... remember a lot of us have PFS as our only gaming source, and all Paizo-legal products are there. So as much as I hate them, gunslingers will be there as their out-of-flavor selves, and I remember the power Creep of splatbooks destroying my beloved LFR forever :(.
So I am a bit worried about the fast release of the books... but do like Paizo's "open playtest" approach, so think they get better results. At least APG was balanced, if slightly underpowered.
Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit.
I have to explain my players again and again why I don't allow forgotten realms regional feats IN GOLARION !!
One reason splat can be bad that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that it makes it impossible to run published adventures constructed with a lesser amount of splat (e.g., almost all of them) without rebuilding all the NPCs and probably then some.
It's not even just about power creep, although there is that too -- the 3.5 Warlock is the textbook example of this. It's certainly not an overpowered much less high tier class, yet, it could do a number of things that previously published classes just couldn't and that no previously written adventures were set up to accomodate. An awful lot breaks down if the whole party is permanently flying and invisible at a relatively low level, even if overall the Warlock just wasn't that good.
My beef is the balance issue. I can make a combatant doing more than twice the damage of a like-level optimized core combatant if I'm allowed splats. Same with wizards and clerics. Some of the spells available in splats is several times more powerful than what is available in core. Not to mention magical items. There is a cloak in Drow of the Underdark that mimics the Epic Dodge feat, only better, AND provides a +1 deflection bonus to AC for less than 6000gp.
If I am writing my own campaigns, I can deal with this, but you can't use adventure paths as written without huge balance issues.
This is something I have an issue with. In 3.5 the simple fact of the matter was with splat martial characters became much more power while spellcasters became marginally more powerful. I only truly powerful splat spells that did not rely on the DM being in a vegetative state (locate city bomb est stupidity) were the celerity line for wizards and venomfire for druids. The most abusable spells were all present in the PHB: time stop, polymorph, divine power (which makes the fighter almost unneeded, prismatic wall, and gate.
In fact 3.5s splat was on average more balanced that core. For instance I found games to go much more smoothly when one replaced the wizard and sorcerer classes entirely with the more specialized caster classes (dread necromancer, beguiler, warmage) though I had to homebrew up classes for the schools that weren't already covered in splat it helped make the martial classes on more equal footing with casters. In fact for my balanced rules set I banned all core classes save the bard, rogue, and barbarian, replacing all of the other classes with specialized casters, psionics, Tome of Battle classes, and Tome of Magic classes. Most of the unbalanced things were prestige classes (ur-priest, hulking hurler, tainted scholar) and/or clearly not intended for player use (beholder mage, illithid savant).
The actual problem with splat books in 3.5 was their lack of support. For instance take the warlock a fun looking class which you could play and be about on par with the party rogue. Unfortunately however as new books came out everyone else got new toys to play with but the poor little warlock gets nothing. Out of the dozens of books published after its creation only 1 (Dragon magic) had any support for the warlock and that content was 3 pages.
Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly.
Yes there are... and yes, it most certainly is.
I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit. (Forget the explicit disclaimer in the front of the APG.)
It's implicit, explicit, and too often ignored by these types.
There was no problem with "Splat" books just how they were executed their was a difference of thought on what was powerful and not powerful so some things in the books were way off.
Thats the great thing about Paizo they accually playtest all their classes, how do we know this we do the playtesting
I think people dont have enough faith in Paizo and what they are doing and are complaing about what they are doing in their books
Its crazy to think that an RPG company is not going to release more books and what sells
Adventure dont sell that great
Campain Setting only sells to people who are running that campain.
So new rules classes, feats spells thats what most people want and buy
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Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit. (Forget the explicit disclaimer in the front of the APG.)
Also, why is balance so important? I have never thought that whatever world the rules sought to model was fair and balanced. Each character typically fills a niche in which no other character can compete. Granted, some of the available material can produce way overpowered characters. But, isn't it our responsibility as players and DMs to filter out the crap, play openly and honestly, and seek the enjoyment of all participants?
In my view having unbalanced characters leads to someone being left out. I have been in games where one person dominates and it's no fun for the other players. He gets to be Superman whilst everyone else gets to play Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion.
As for splat, some splat is fine (I allow virtually all the APG rules for example) but I limit it. In my next campaign I have told my players that some of the Bestiary 2 races will be available as PC races, but only for one of the players in the group. When Ultimate Combat comes out I will ban Ninja, Samurai and Gunslingers from my game because they don't fit with the game I want to run.
The problem comes from unrestrained splat where you get cavalcades of weirdness. PC's with bizarre templates, combinations of rules that were never meant to go together and unbelieveble concepts that do not mesh in any reasonable way.
You get people who take Vows of Poverty from the Book of Exalted Deeds and then proceed to "hold items for everyone else". You get people pulling massivly unbalanced spells from the Spell Compendium which have not been properly playtested. You get characters whose concept follows build rather than build following concept which is the way that it should be.
That's why people dislike splat, because it encourages people to think of characters in terms of numbers and mechanical advantage rather than concept and personality.
Most splatbooks have a particular theme, however allowing too much splat runs the risk of diluting the intent of those splatbooks. A party consisting of character concepts taken from one splatbook will ususally follow a theme and seem unified and characterful. However 6 characters culling rules from a dozen splatbooks has very little flavour to it and ends up being a mess.
This is something I have an issue with. In 3.5 the simple fact of the matter was with splat martial characters became much more power while spellcasters became marginally more powerful. I only truly powerful splat spells that did not rely on the DM being in a vegetative state (locate city bomb est stupidity) were the celerity line for wizards and venomfire for druids. The most abusable spells were all present in the PHB: time stop, polymorph, divine power (which makes the fighter almost unneeded, prismatic wall, and gate.
In fact 3.5s splat was on average more balanced that core. For instance I found games to go much more smoothly when one replaced the wizard and sorcerer classes entirely with the more specialized caster classes (dread necromancer, beguiler, warmage) though I had to homebrew up classes for the schools that weren't already covered in splat it helped make the martial classes on more equal footing with casters. In fact for my balanced rules set I banned all core classes save the bard, rogue, and barbarian, replacing all of the other classes with specialized casters, psionics, Tome of Battle classes, and Tome of Magic classes. Most of the unbalanced things were prestige classes (ur-priest, hulking hurler, tainted scholar) and/or clearly not intended for player use (beholder mage, illithid savant).
The actual problem with splat books in 3.5 was their lack of support. For instance take the warlock a fun looking class which you could play and be about on par with the party rogue. Unfortunately however as new books came out everyone else got new toys to play with but the poor little warlock gets nothing. Out of the dozens of books published after its creation only 1 (Dragon magic) had any support for the warlock and that content was 3 pages.
The problem is not so much that later books enhanced the effectiveness of martial characters (although I think more than a few gamers have issue with some of the builds possible with extended feature sets) but rather that the later books also enhanced the full casters by a significant margin.
Unless absolute no new content is available to the casters then any power balance discrepancy only gets magnified across the line.
Let's just go with some baloney number to illustrate this:
Let's assume that the core martial is 70% as useful as the core caster. If each class gets a 2% increase in base class strength year over year the martial class actual loses ground in terms of utility every year.
Yes the beguiler is weaker than a wizard and the warblade is stronger than a fighter but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about whether the fighter lost ground vs the full casters over the course of 3.x.
In that case I think the answer is an undeniable yes. There was so many poorly balanced options that showed up for full casters in terms of bad spells, bad feats, and especially bad PrCs that while we did eventually get Fighter++ builds we also got Wizard++ and Cleric++ builds.
Those sucked and a large number of us would prefer if Paizo didn't go down that road with PF.
<snip>The problem is not so much that later books enhanced the effectiveness of martial characters (although I think more than a few gamers have issue with some of the builds possible with extended feature sets) but rather that the...
That is true to a degree. The problem however lay mostly in the feats and prestige classes provided to casters rather than the spells. Additionally the casters were already far to much ahead of core martial. I personally believe that splat can be used to fix that, if you get rid of core casters or at least restrict their access to splat heavily. I guess my main point is don't hate the splat hate the flaw in the core system.
Creative Director
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My personal take has less to do with game balance or power creep (although those are certainly compelling reasons to be wary of too many rules books), but simply one of preference. I much prefer books with lots of flavor to them—adventures and campaign setting type books. My preferred way to run the game is to have the rules evolve naturally out of the setting—come up with ideas for the world, then build the rules you need to make those ideas work.
The rule-heavy books approach it from the other angle, usually—come up with some cool rule concepts and then attach flavor to them to make them fun.
Both methods are fine for designing RPG supplements. I just prefer the former.
ALSO: Rule heavy books, in theory, sell to ALL players of the game (GMs and players alike), whereas the campaign setting books and modules sell (again, in theory) to the GM. So there's a perception that more people will buy your rule-heavy books than the flavor-heavy one. That said... GMs spend a HECK of a lot more money on the game... but still, players outnumber GMs by like 4 or 5 to 1. Rule-heavy books with player options simply sell more copies as a result.
The group I play in has been 3.x for years. We just finished Age of Worms and our entire party used Splat books to an extreme. The DM also used the splat books to make things interesting. We were a very high powered party and some fights took just a couple rounds.
The DM put a TON of work into his campaign and is now taking a break before he runs Savage Tide. Our group has since made a complete transfer to Pathfinder Core and APG with I think just Augment Healing making the trip into our new games.
I think that it's great leaving most of 3.x behind. We as a whole have decided to play Pathfinder and use what Paizo puts out for our games. And if Ultimate Magic or Combat or whathaveyou comes out we'll stick to what we started with till the next campaign. Makes things easier to go into a campaign with rules set and stick with it till the end.
Now, like I said our group used and liked splats but now we're pretty much hanging them up for the new system. To each their own.
Aren't those self only?
I think you're right. Now I can't figure out if there was a way to get around that or if not, what I was thinking of.
My personal take has less to do with game balance or power creep (although those are certainly compelling reasons to be wary of too many rules books), but simply one of preference. I much prefer books with lots of flavor to them—adventures and campaign setting type books. My preferred way to run the game is to have the rules evolve naturally out of the setting—come up with ideas for the world, then build the rules you need to make those ideas work.
The rule-heavy books approach it from the other angle, usually—come up with some cool rule concepts and then attach flavor to them to make them fun.
Both methods are fine for designing RPG supplements. I just prefer the former.
ALSO: Rule heavy books, in theory, sell to ALL players of the game (GMs and players alike), whereas the campaign setting books and modules sell (again, in theory) to the GM. So there's a perception that more people will buy your rule-heavy books than the flavor-heavy one. That said... GMs spend a HECK of a lot more money on the game... but still, players outnumber GMs by like 4 or 5 to 1. Rule-heavy books with player options simply sell more copies as a result.
I'm in agreement with almost all of what Brian Bachman said above. The Magic and Martial books planned for release later this year will put me on notice to see if there is power creep.
I sat out for 3.5 and 4.0. I had mixed emotions about splat in 3.0. I liked the options, but disliked the design. The power creep was very evident in each later release. It was like WOTC was Magic:The Gathering my D&D with each book.
WOTC's release schedule would have caused me to throw my arms up and say I'm just not spending that much money on a game. I've kind of outgrown that phase of fandom where I need it all.
The key for Paizo is I think to keep new rule-options balanced with everything else released. Keep a CR 5 critter in Bestiary 1 the same challenge as a CR in Bestiary 4. Ditto with classes in Core versus classes in Hardcover Expansion IV. This is something WOTC did not do.
We are talking about whether the fighter lost ground vs the full casters over the course of 3.x.
Right here. I can tell you that if you simply go core + complete mage + complete arcane + spell conpendium even with not setting books or anything else, you could hand the martial characters all the books they want and they will be 100% outclassed. Hell, a simple wall of force flat out stops martial characters.
Here's how middle level combat goes:
Wizard: I cast wall of force in front of me.
Since you can't do anything I will spend the next 9 rounds on buffs.
Alright, now I mow you down.
At least now they made wall of force and force cage theoretically damageable.
The thing that fundamentally sets casters apart from noncasters is simply permutations. Consider the total raw number of possible character combinations compared to the number of possible martial characters. The number is so absolutely staggering that even as a physics major I have trouble estimating it off-hand. Meanwhile I could get within a few orders of magnitude on the number of martial characters in a few minutes. That's just core. In order to make a real dent in the difference, casters need to be forced to be more specialized, especially full casters. If we take an honest look at the wizard, they can do whatever the hell they want except cast cure light wounds and hit someone with a stick. Oh wait, the polymorphs allow them to hit people with sticks just as well. Also in the spell conpendium there's "healing touch" which gives them rather good healing capabilities. Sticking to core only then they'll just have to suck up a limited wish or a wish. At least they got rid of the 25k item spawning from wish because the wizard could just wish for a spellbook filled with spells (cost is merely 100/level until they took 2 levels of geometer where it's 100 flat) if DM was being stingy with scrolls.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they can't do it all at the same time; but really what the hell kind of excuse is that? It's fine to have classes that can do anything they want so long as it's not all at the same time or all the time?
I love the splat books, it's extra reading and "fluff" which is a big part of the game for me, and I absolutely love new options, especially new feats.
That said "power creep" became a huge issue in 3.5, not only from new base classes becoming bigger and badder than the last, but also from the ability for WAAC players to develop insane multi-class combos that were never "meant" to be mixed, creating uber characters with complicated rules, and virtually no RP aspect of the character.
On another note, I would never dare push my DM to allow options/classes outside of the core book. Can you imagine a player intimidating their DM into allowing Vow of Poverty? That crap is double banned in our games lol.
Perhaps I am in the minority, but I believe that 3rd edition and the OGL gave us an awesome and powerful engine with which to run a role playing game. We were given a golden opportunity to tell a variety of exciting stories in several customizable ways. The modular nature of the system and its focus on a unified mechanic has proven to be a stable breeding ground for innovation and creativity. A plethora of source material has resulted.
Is the majority of available material (both official and 3rd party) crap? Probably, but that's the case for most things in life. (Present company excluded...)
Haven't the various splat books broadened our perception of the rules? Have they not allowed us to tailor-fit our games with easily swappable content? With every new book, are we not allowed more freedom to run the game we want to run?
I say, bring on the splat! I'm an open-minded player and I try to be an open-minded DM. I like to have options at my disposal. I don't buy every book I lay my eyes on, nor would I want to. In that same vein, I don't allow every piece of material in my games, nor would I expect another DM to allow it in his/hers. There is no one holding a gun to our head.
As for the players that feel entitled to use every book they spend their hard-earned cash on... Well, it's not like most gamers aren't predisposed to wasting money. Furthermore, blowing money on source material you'll probably never use is a likely sign of a DM-in-the-making. Encourage them to run their own game. The world needs more DMs.
I don't think splat is bad. I think rushed, not play tested, over powered splat is bad. That was the issue with 3.5. Almost every book had something you could use, but a lot of it was just there, and it seems the writers were given an "or else" deadline.
The "splitting" enhancement, for one, never should have been made.
My aversion is quite irrational, I don't know how common it is. I am a completist and will buy every splatbook that comes out, however I don't enjoy reading them. I'd rather any RPG company I support would put out setting material and stories which I enjoy reading rather than mechanics and class options which I can't do without, yet don't particularly enjoy browsing. The dominance of fluff over crunch was part of what cemented Paizo's position as one of my game companies of choice.
Splat books remind me of poor city planning. For anyone who has lived in a city/town that experienced an explosive growth period, it draws in a lot of people with new interesting features. The city layout seems not as important as having the available content there.
The books had neat thing in them, but all to often unintended consequences like players outshining each other or headaches with constantly having to make adjustments for uneven builds just killed the good that was intended.
Also, while it is true that many publishers have the bottom line of needing to make sales, the competition had become an arms race IMHO. Many of the players I played with back then would shop for the most powerful books they thought the DM would let them get away with.
While no one can expect all of the 3PP to discuss all of their products by to prevent unwanted overlap, the DM had to cross examine a lot of stuff... time that could have been spent better elsewhere. Worse yet, the guilt trip a player tries to impose when their newly purchased content is rejected.... woe the DM saying no to spent money. :p
All this said, I still buy a splat book here and there, mostly sticking to official content. There are a couple publishers that have earned my trust and are allowed at my table. I realize creating balanced content is a difficult thing and takes a lot of scrutiny. That's why I do not produce that kind of content myself. Especially if the flavor is right... :)
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The problem comes when you stop exploring rules and just put out books to put out books, as 3.5 became near the end with the sheer number of books they put out, several of which contained rules and classes clearly not well playtested or thought out.
So far that hasn't been the case with Paizo, although this last round of classes they put out for playtest certainly feel more rushed and thrown together than previous playtest classes.
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Hence the reasoning behind a playtest I suppose
I agree, I just felt like the other classes they put out for play test had a much clearer vision, while these seem almost like they just threw them out there unsure of what to do with them.
Maybe it is just because the three are so iconic in peoples minds that they can't be as laser focused as you can with completely new classes, but they feel very much like brainstorming session let loose on the community without any one person having the vision for what they want them to be.
I kind of wish each of the big three Developers would claim one as their baby and go from there competitively, as they seem more of a collaborative "please everyone" mish mash than a firm class concept at this point.
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Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit.
I have to explain my players again and again why I don't allow forgotten realms regional feats IN GOLARION !!
BUT YOU'LL ALLOW A KENDER, RIGHT?
I MEAN KENDERS ARE AWESOME, AND I WON'T BE A PROBLEM I SWEAR I'LL BE JUST LIKE A HALFLING AND YOU ALLOW THOSE RIGHT?IT'S SO EASY TO FIT ONE IN I COULD HAVE FALLEN THROUGH A WORMHOLE FROM DARK SUN, OR LEFT BEHIND BY A SPELLJAMMER, RIGHT?
RIGHT?!
RIGHT?!?!?!?
Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit.I have to explain my players again and again why I don't allow forgotten realms regional feats IN GOLARION !!BUT YOU'LL ALLOW A KENDER, RIGHT?
I MEAN KENDERS ARE AWESOME, AND I WON'T BE A PROBLEM I SWEAR I'LL BE JUST LIKE A HALFLING AND YOU ALLOW THOSE RIGHT?
IT'S SO EASY TO FIT ONE IN I COULD HAVE FALLEN THROUGH A WORMHOLE FROM DARK SUN, OR LEFT BEHIND BY A SPELLJAMMER, RIGHT?
RIGHT?!
RIGHT?!?!?!?
*plugs fingers into ears at high-pitched voice*
Easy there Snorter. I think you're already made on that score.
Hey, wait, where are my house keys?
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*plugs fingers into ears at high-pitched voice*
Easy there Snorter. I think you're already made on that score.
Hey, wait, where are my house keys?
Well, don't look at me. What would I want with them?
You can check my pockets if you like."
Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play? That just seems silly. I've always thought that "subject to DM approval" was implicit. (Forget the explicit disclaimer in the front of the APG.)
Also, why is balance so important? I have never thought that whatever world the rules sought to model was fair and balanced. Each character typically fills a niche in which no other character can compete. Granted, some of the available material can produce way overpowered characters. But, isn't it our responsibility as players and DMs to filter out the crap, play openly and honestly, and seek the enjoyment of all participants?
It would seem to me that the problem with splat books is not their creation, but their reception. Once upon a time, I remember getting ready to join a new 3.x game and it was common practice for the DM to provide a list of allowable source material. Is this no longer the case?
Trust me I am for let allmost every thing in to game. I own EVERY WOTC Book form there main 3.0-3.5 line and most of there Forgten Realms stuff
a ton 3rd party stuff and all Path finder Hard backs and hand full of there splat. That fill two 8ft tall and 4ft wide book shelves.But Balnce and tested is neeed in all games that I run or play in.
Cause I want to take my turn shire no more or lees than anyone else us all have fun. I want to be do able challenges but not cake walk either.
What fun is play monopoly is I 6 times starting money roll 4 dice keep the best 2. All while 4 other folks play by the regular rules.
The actual problem with splat books in 3.5 was their lack of support. For...
Again lack of Support sucked for the new classes (they buffed Ninja in Complete Scoundrel though with feats). You had to scavenge around for stuff for Warlock.
Funny thing about Spell Compendruim: it was reprints not new spells. It just gathered up 70% of spells out there and reprinted them (a few minor changes sometimes).
Are there really players out there demanding that all available material be allowed in play?
Yes, absolutely there are players who expect everything in a book published by the game company to be used in every game. More often, they expect their favorite thing to be allowed.
Most gamers don't get to play as much as they'd like to. Although I've known a few people to say, "I have too many games going!" it's much more common to hear, "I really wish I could find a good game of XYZ! It's been too long." I the mean time, they're buying and reading game books, and thinking about what kinds of awesome characters they'll play someday. There is no GM at this point telling them which classes, spells, feats, weapons, to fall in love with, and which won't be allowed.
People tend to latch on to certain ideas about character building, and it's hard to dislodge those ideas. If you felt that melee characters were just not strong enough past level 10 unless 9-Swords is used, and you get invited to a game, but then told that 9-Swords is not allowed . . .
Also, why is balance so important? I have never thought that whatever world the rules sought to model was fair and balanced. Each character typically fills a niche in which no other character can compete. Granted, some of the available material can produce way overpowered characters. But, isn't it our responsibility as players and DMs to filter out the crap, play openly and honestly, and seek the enjoyment of all participants?
See my first answer. Nobody thinks that their character is ruining the game by hogging the spotlight and stepping all over the other players!
Balance is important because it's no fun (for most people) to play a character who's supposed to be heroic, but who just can't do anything right. And in a 4-6 player game, "can't do anything right" isn't really measured against the enemy (enemy, NPCs, world, etc.) because there's a GM controlling all of that who's job it is to make the game fun for everyone. Your performance is measured relative to your peers.
"But, isn't it our responsibility as players and DMs to filter out the crap. . ." Only if the game company publishes crap. Why not just have them publish a balanced game in the first place? That's really what this entire argument is about. We all want Paizo to publish material that we can use, not material that we'll eventually label "crap" and edit out!
It would seem to me that the problem with splat books is not their creation, but their reception. Once upon a time, I remember getting ready to join a new 3.x game and it was common practice for the DM to provide a list of allowable source material. Is this no longer the case?
The problem isn't their creation, it's their content. And poor content causes poor reception.
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I say, bring on the splat! I'm an open-minded player and I try to be an open-minded DM. I like to have options at my disposal.I completely agree. Options are *good*.
Agreed and seconded. More options for me are also good. If certain players insist on always trying to incorporate elemetns that you as a DM want to disallow tell them to stop or their out of the game. As a DM I am pretty open and allow a lot. Yet at the same time you sometimes have to be a little firm with players sometimes.
There is nothing inherently bad about splat books. Some of them are quite good, and almost all of them have at least some good elements. That said, here are some of the reasons splats sometimes can be bad:
1)-8)
Basically, my bottom line is that I like additional material, with the big caveat that I think everyone needs to acknowledge that all these books are optional rules that each table, led by its GM, needs to decide whether they want to include either in whole or in part. So long as that understanding is ironclad and everyone agrees to follow it, bring on the splats!
That about sums it up! I would also add that when GM'ing printed material, you shouldn't have to have more then Core and perhaps one other book to run the encounter, and it would be best if you only needed core.
Very astute observations Blueluck! You seem to have a very good grasp of the more emotional or personal aspects of players/GMs.
Note:
Mostly, by nerfing them. What all the people complaining about SC miss is that banning it results in more problem spells, not less.
I cast Celerity and silence you before you can even say that the Spell Compendium is balanced!
That book is a game balance/editing joke.