Banning core (3.5)

[Balor01]

I am thinking of classes to be allowed in my next campaign and an idea came to my mind of banning core-classes. Especially, because my group used mostly core and I would like to see them make interesting characters. Do you think banning core in this aspect is a good idea? What about core feats?

[Chrono22]

In most cases this would actually help balance the game, so long as you provide useful substitutes.
Warlocks and binders make great sorcerers. Factotums make ok wizards. The initiator classes can fill the roles of just about any of the core melee classes. For divine casters, you have dragon shaman or favored soul.
But alot of the non-core classes are just duplicates of the core. Such as the archivist. Avoid using these. There are also a huge number of broken metamagic feats in many splatbooks.
All in all, though, I'd say it would probably be an improvement in regards to balance.

[Yuki Akuma]

Banning core isn't likely to be a great idea. Banning Wizards, Clerics and Druids is probably a great ideas, as is banning Monks (because they suck). The rest are great dipping sauces - and some, like Bards and Rogues, are good enough to take until you hit a PrC! And Bards can do things no other class can do, to boot, without crazy PrC shenanigans.

Maybe insist that players taking core classes take ACFs? That way, at least they'll be somewhat unique.

You cannot possibly ever ban core feats. The feat system breaks without those.

[Darrin]

I am thinking of classes to be allowed in my next campaign and an idea came to my mind of banning core-classes. Especially, because my group used mostly core and I would like to see them make interesting characters. Do you think banning core in this aspect is a good idea? What about core feats?

Bad idea. Non-core does not mean "interesting" characters. Just because a beguiler or warblade has different class abilities doesn't mean that your players will have different playing styles or different ideas on how to develop characters.

You'll want to put some more thought into what you mean by "interesting" characters. The mechanics of D&D chargen do not encourage "interesting" characters. If you want characters with deep internal conflicts, or dynamic weaknesses they can strive to overcome, then you may want to consider some other RPG systems.

[Chrono22]

^I agree with most of what you're saying, but a warblade most certainly is more interesting than a fighter, mechanically. It provides a host of much more flavorful (and flexible) options in or out of combat.
Banning the core melee classes would help party balance. Eliminating other very suboptimal choices, such as the skill feats and toughness, would also help.

[archon_huskie]

If the characters cannot play what they want to play, why would they want to play your game?

[The Glyphstone]

If the characters cannot play what they want to play, why would they want to play your game?

Because maybe what they want to play happens to fall within the limits of his game, and thus they can play what they want to play? He's not going to be chaining his players down to the table with PHB classes tangling out of their reach like Tartarus.:smallcool:

[Barlen]

I had been toying with this idea in a certain way but had too many other things to do.

Basically I was going to create a low magic (no pc magic) world. The PC classes would be based on ToB with a few skill monkey classes added in (ranger/rogue/scout maybe extended out to Swift hunter/daring outlaw). The rangers would be the spell-less variety from CC and get extra feats. They are in a world where magic (all magic) is considered evil.
Clerics in the state religion would not be DnD clerics and would not be healers. They would have actual religious/administrative duties (Expert/Adept/Aristocrat).
Many of the enemies would be based out of ToM with solo CE binders causing trouble and a LE society of Shadow magic on the other side.

Never got far enough to make it happen.

[Cahokia]

Go for it. It sounds fun. Not that ditching the core classes inherently makes things more fun, just that a simple change of pace can often reinvigorate the game. Just keep the core feats and you'll probably be good.

[Coidzor]

Let's see, Archivist and Artificer would become the new go-to boys. Wait. No. There'd be no item creation feats from core. Hm... All you could make would be grafts, I think.... or maybe psionic artificer if the psionics system doesn't count as core.

You'd rightfully have done away with almost all of the mundane melee classes...

Be interesting to see melee builds other than totemist natural attack bonanza that have to make due without power attack or spirited charge.

...Actually, you'd have to restructure feats a fair bit unless you wanted to also axe all feats that rely upon core feats.

I think Archivist and Spell-to-Power Erudite are the only casters left who can still function (and Archivist has to make due with spell compendium, setting, and splatbook spells only).

Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, and Warmage have most/all of their spell lists axed. As do Duskblades...

Thankfully Magic Item Compendium would allow your characters to have magic items even if most of the staples are out, as otherwise you'd have to do some houseruling in order to make up for the lack of magic swag making your characters better.

[Echoes]

You'll want to put some more thought into what you mean by "interesting" characters. The mechanics of D&D chargen do not encourage "interesting" characters. If you want characters with deep internal conflicts, or dynamic weaknesses they can strive to overcome, then you want want to consider some other RPG systems.

I agree with the first sentence of this quote very strongly. Many people fall prey to the misconception that cool features make cool characters. If Miko from OotS proves anything, it's that with some creative storytelling you can even turn an assumed cut-and-dry core class like Paladin into something exotic and interesting. No one says that just because your druid is a druid, you're banned from playing him as a tribal shaman who reveres dragons, even though the "dragon shaman" class seems to be a closer fit.

That being said, I would like to respectfully challenge the two bolded points.

Roleplay is, by its very nature, something which exists completely separate from the mechanics of the game. From my perspective, if rules are suggesting your character's course of action, then you're doing it wrong. Nowhere does it say in the books that someone who is now lawful good cannot be born into a neutral evil family, and still be socialized by his childhood development to initially react things from an evil perspective, even though he despises his family and is now seeking redemption. Good roleplay comes from the ways you take the mechanics, and bend them into a compelling story - You can just say your character starts the game as a wizard with spell focus(illusion) "because I'm optimizing for x", but good roleplay is including in your background why your character is specialized in that way. Telling the other players you were trapped in an enemy camp for years, and every day you worked on refining your illusions until you developed ones that were more lifelike than any of your peers so you could make your escape, that is a tale that really adds depth to something that could otherwise be a trival three words penned on a character sheet.

The obvious counter-point someone is bound to make to this is 'alignment-restricted classes', saying that personality in D&D can't be fluid or transitory without risking the loss of character development. In my argument against that, I will again employ a strip of OotS (never realized there was so much normative rhetoric in that comic, did you?), specifically the one in which Roy stands at the gates of the Lawful-Good afterlife. The secretary points out to him that many of the things he's done could be considered chaotic or even evil, but when he responds that he believed he was acting in the best interests of his cause she let him through. Alignment isn't (or at least shouldn't) be defined by a Bentham wannabe adding up a list of your good and bad deeds. Alignment is about self-concept - how your character sees itself, and the way this perspective informs his actions. If your DM decides that burning down the house of a corrupt politician automatically casts you out of a lawful good alignment without exception, then you have a bad DM, not bad mechanics... And trust me, bad DMs are easy to find, in every ruleset.


Now, to re-address the reason this post is related to the topic: You should not ban core books simply because you want your players to generate interesting characters. Even someone using the most abstract and mechanically convoluted splat class can still distill it into the same four repetitive attacks/skills used every action in every encounter if they have a mind to. If you want to do it from a balance perspective, know that you'll likely have to do a lot of homebrewing to make the game still work if you're disallowing any reference to the PHB or DMG. If the wall of text I've written has done a terrible job of conveying anything, it's that less is often more when dealing with interesting character concepts; the guy who figures out to use handle animal, a piece of chalk, and a length of rope to save the day will be much more entertaining than the guy who gets a xd6 damage ghost touch 3/encounter then spams that attack for the remainder of the game, every time.

[WarKitty]

I agree with the first sentence of this quote very strongly. Many people fall prey to the misconception that cool features make cool characters. If Miko from OotS proves anything, it's that with some creative storytelling you can even turn an assumed cut-and-dry core class like Paladin into something exotic and interesting. No one says that just because your druid is a druid, you're banned from playing him as a tribal shaman who reveres dragons, even though the "dragon shaman" class seems to be a closer fit.

That being said, I would like to respectfully challenge the two bolded points.

Roleplay is, by its very nature, something which exists completely separate from the mechanics of the game. From my perspective, if rules are suggesting your character's course of action, then you're doing it wrong. Nowhere does it say in the books that someone who is now lawful good cannot be born into a neutral evil family, and still be socialized by his childhood development to initially react things from an evil perspective, even though he despises his family and is now seeking redemption. Good roleplay comes from the ways you take the mechanics, and bend them into a compelling story - You can just say your character starts the game as a wizard with spell focus(illusion) "because I'm optimizing for x", but good roleplay is including in your background why your character is specialized in that way. Telling the other players you were trapped in an enemy camp for years, and every day you worked on refining your illusions until you developed ones that were more lifelike than any of your peers so you could make your escape, that is a tale that really adds depth to something that could otherwise be a trival three words penned on a character sheet.

*snip*

Not entirely true. You cannot fundamentally make a player who doesn't want to play an "interesting character" do so. However, mechanics can often help a new or inexperienced roleplayer be more effective. Simply put, the more unique things you have in your arsenal, the easier it is to roleplay a unique character. Your generic "I-swing-my-sword-at-it" fighter will start to feel flat a lot faster than your ToB character with his stances and moves to chose from. Because your fighter isn't doing anything that any other melee person can't do.

Yes, a good roleplayer can make any character interesting. But when you're working with less experienced roleplayers, classes with interesting, unique abilities are generally easier.

[Godskook]

Do *NOT* ban core feats. Some great and expected(by the supplements) feats are in core, such as combat reflexes and power attack.

[Echoes]

Not entirely true. You cannot fundamentally make a player who doesn't want to play an "interesting character" do so. However, mechanics can often help a new or inexperienced roleplayer be more effective. Simply put, the more unique things you have in your arsenal, the easier it is to roleplay a unique character. Your generic "I-swing-my-sword-at-it" fighter will start to feel flat a lot faster than your ToB character with his stances and moves to chose from. Because your fighter isn't doing anything that any other melee person can't do.

Yes, a good roleplayer can make any character interesting. But when you're working with less experienced roleplayers, classes with interesting, unique abilities are generally easier.

I suppose you have a good point there - I may have a bias based on the method by which I discovered tabletop gaming. I played roleplay-heavy computer text MUDs for years before I cracked open my first D&D sourcebook, so I had already had a lot of experience taking a race/class combo that's being used by a couple dozen people and figuring out a way to make my RP something unique.

When I was working with new players in the MUD, (I volunteered as a 'newbie guide' who got a fancy admin shell), I did develop a few heuristics that helped with bland characters though. When someone was feeling indecisive about their background, I would start asking them dichotomous questions (Did you grow up in the city, or in a rural area? As a child, were you rich, or poor..?). If they went for cliched class trope #xxx, I would ask them leading follow-up questions designed to elicit character-developing responses (Did your character ever have any experiences at his wizard university that made him feel betrayed or embarrased? Why did your [evil knight] kill his own family, and what was the town's response...?). Ultimately though, you're right, players who don't want interesting characters will always win, because you cannot force someone to produce creative material if they don't want to put out the effort. But, just like I said there are sometimes bad DMs, there are also sometimes just bad players who want to rip right through your 10 pages of meticulously prepared history.

If the problem is just inexperience, there's not much you can do besides scaffolding for the new player, and modelling a good character by displaying to them a string of richly-described NPCs sprinkled into each encounter. When it comes time to re-roll their next character, you'll be surprised how quickly they are able to catch on. Or, you could just make 4 years of MUDding a pre-req for D&D... your choice, really. >.>

[Dragonmuncher]

Anyway, OP, banning core classes should work out fine. Nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit.

A few classes sometimes need a bit of fixing or tweaking, but in general you should be fine.

[ffone]

I am thinking of classes to be allowed in my next campaign and an idea came to my mind of banning core-classes. Especially, because my group used mostly core and I would like to see them make interesting characters. Do you think banning core in this aspect is a good idea? What about core feats?


Well gee, then why not just ban 'uninteresting characters'?

[ThunderCat]

It's a shame your players don't want to experiment with different classes, but I don't know if banning is the answer. Have you tried suggesting new classes for them, or asking them if they want to all make non-core characters for the next campaign as an experiment? If they're the types to go along with what the DM says without complaining, banning can work, but otherwise, it's pretty risky.

[BobVosh]

Because maybe what they want to play happens to fall within the limits of his game, and thus they can play what they want to play? He's not going to be chaining his players down to the table with PHB classes tangling out of their reach like Tartarus.:smallcool:

This feels more like being pecked by an eagle over and over type of situation. Or possibly if you bring the book to him on the top of a mountain so he can look over it he would allow it. Then each time they make it he chucks out off the cliff.

[The Glyphstone]

This feels more like being pecked by an eagle over and over type of situation. Or possibly if you bring the book to him on the top of a mountain so he can look over it he would allow it. Then each time they make it he chucks out off the cliff.

Sisyphus would be a great analogy if we were discussing a core-only game where the DM kept throwing the non-core books off the mountain. I'm not sure it works as well when it's just one specific book's classes that are off-limits. I can understand the Prometheus analogy though - A DM whos players just keep making the same PHB-class characters over and over probably does feel like an eagle is devouring his liver each day.

[Kurald Galain]

Because maybe what they want to play happens to fall within the limits of his game, and thus they can play what they want to play? He's not going to be chaining his players down to the table with PHB classes tangling out of their reach like Tartarus.:smallcool:


Tantalus, actually.

[The Glyphstone]

Tantalus, actually.


Correcting a mod?!? *waves banhammer threateningly*
...
...
...
My bad, not really up-to-date on Greek mythology.:smallbiggrin: I knew it started with a T, but now I can't rememember who/what Tartarus was...

[WarKitty]

As long as your players are cool with it, having different classes can help. Assuming they have at least some interest in roleplaying, that is. Don't ban anything other than core classes though, it's too integral to the game.


For Glyphstone:
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt79/Jese_Cabron/hammer.jpg

[Ichneumon]

Tartarus was the underworld prison where the titans (the generation of gods before Zeus, Poseidon and the others) were imprisoned.

[Skjaldbakka]

I ran a game once that was tome of magic, tome of battle, and magic of incarnum only classes. It was pretty cool.

[Curmudgeon]

Banning core isn't likely to be a great idea. Banning Wizards, Clerics and Druids is probably a great idea
I'm with Yuki on this. Knock off all the Tier 1 core classes and you'll do a lot to improve the game. You'll still have a lot of ways to get at similar abilities, if with greater difficulty (and thus reduced character power). But I can't see a good reason to throw out classes like Ranger and Rogue.

I think you could ban all the core spells, though.

[Psyren]

I would ban lowest and highest tier:

Wizards, Clerics and Druids

and

Fighters, Monks, Paladins.

Maybe Rogues and Sorcerers too, depending on the supplements available to replace them.
Bards and Rangers have unique niches so I'd leave those alone.

[absolmorph]

Correcting a mod?!? *waves banhammer threateningly*
...
...
...
My bad, not really up-to-date on Greek mythology.:smallbiggrin: I knew it started with a T, but now I can't rememember who/what Tartarus was...
I didn't know new stories were being released :smallamused:

[The Shadowmind]

I'm with Yuki on this. Knock off all the Tier 1 core classes and you'll do a lot to improve the game. You'll still have a lot of ways to get at similar abilities, if with greater difficulty (and thus reduced character power). But I can't see a good reason to throw out classes like Ranger and Rogue.

I think you could ban all the core spells, though.

Banning all core spells seems like a bad idea:
Just from level 0 and 1.
Detect Magic
Light
Endure Elements:
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law
Comprehend Languages
Magic Missile
Silent Image
Feather Fall.

This are some of not abusive spells, and finding replacements become harder the more unique the spell is. (Silent Image on it own isn't abusive to anything that has an int score/commander).

[Eloel]

I think you could ban all the core spells, though.
That kills all casters but Archivist & Wu Jen. Chances are, you don't want that.

[Felhammer]

Just ban classes and races if you want. Banning all the feats and spells would be a big deficit for your campaign. :smallbiggrin:

[Curmudgeon]

That kills all casters but Archivist & Wu Jen. Chances are, you don't want that.
Huh? That's not right. The Cleric and Wizard spell lists will still exist, minus the core spells. The Favored Soul can find plenty of Cleric spells in Spell Compendium, and the Sorcerer still has plenty on their list.

[Psyren]

That kills all casters but Archivist & Wu Jen. Chances are, you don't want that.

Nah, that still leaves everything from Tome of Magic and MoI as well. Plenty to choose from. (Especially if you patch the Truenamer up with a fix from these boards.)

[JaronK]

I'd leave the Ranger and Bard in, just because there's not many classes like them. Otherwise, sure, it's a good idea. You might even consider allowing the Wild Shape variant Ranger, just in case someone wants to play a shape shifter... it's a lot more balanced than the Druid.

JaronK

[faceroll]

I say go for it. Constraints often lead to interesting and imaginative results. At the very least, the flavor of the game will change. If someone starts playing a psion, then it could be a psionic themed game with aboleths or illithids or other aberrant starspawn. If someone decides to go dragon shaman, it could be dragon themed, or someone playing a binder can do so many weird things they're playing a swiss army knife of a character. A heretical, swiss army knife that is also a witch.


Bad idea. Non-core does not mean "interesting" characters. Just because a beguiler or warblade has different class abilities doesn't mean that your players will have different playing styles or different ideas on how to develop characters.

You'll want to put some more thought into what you mean by "interesting" characters. The mechanics of D&D chargen do not encourage "interesting" characters. If you want characters with deep internal conflicts, or dynamic weaknesses they can strive to overcome, then you may want to consider some other RPG systems.

I disagree. We have a party fighter that has a big stick and a few skills. Outside of hitting things, he can't do anything well. When he tries, he has to make a roll, and lacking the positive modifiers, he rarely succeeds on that roll.

I am playing a druid. I can fly. I have a pet dinosaur. I wade into battle as a four armed ape that can shoot grappling strands of kelp at my enemies. Out of battle I can shape wood & stone to whatever shape I desire, commune with animals, breathe water, spy on enemies from miles above, travel through swamps, deserts, and jungles alike with ease and speed, and I rarely fail a listen or spot check.

The fighter basically tags along until it's time to roll initiative.

[archon_huskie]

I didn't know new stories were being released :smallamused:

I'll help the mod out.


It's called Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess.

[Kallisti]

I didn't know new stories were being released :smallamused:

Yeah, hadn't you heard? Apparently they're caught up through modern day.

Just further proof that Greek Mythology wasn't even loosely based on reality--I think people'd have noticed if Daedalus animated all the statues in New York to fight off the armies of Kronos before he reaches the Empire State Building.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Ways to get people to make fun characters that I've seen:

- Let them help you decide on a setting and/or theme for the campaign itself to help get the creative juices flowing. This can also get a general direction for what the players want their characters to be doing, and what their motivations are going to be. This also helps you gauge what is going to make for a fun campaign for the group.

- Ask them come up with character concepts before giving them the books or telling them which level you'll be playing. This is simple, though unfortunately the resulting concepts usually end up in one of three categories: ones that don't work, ones that work but inevitably end up with a lot of mechanical aspects that don't quite go with them, and ones that the players made around the mechanics anyway because they memorized them or something.

- Come up with some off-the-wall mechanic for how the campaign works and allow anything that a player can re-fluff to fit into it. ("All of your characters are getting their powers from monsters or space-time anomalies. You get to tell me which anomstrocities. Go.") This is relatively easy for the DM, and surprisingly fun - I recommend trying it at least once.

- Give them enough detail about the setting, recent history, what's going on, and where the story is likely headed that the players actually want to make their characters fit into it somehow. This is hard.