Lactose Intolerance - A DM's Quandry

[Grinner]

Recently, I've been working on a megadungeon with the hope of running a PbP dungeon crawl in it.

There's a catch, however. I want to encourage the players to adopt "alternative" character concepts, and the corridors and monsters of the dungeon will be similarly designed. Think Fantasia.

There I face my conundrum. While I understand that players want to play characters and classes they find interesting, I have little patience for the use of cheese (:smallbiggrin:) in character building. It makes my job so banal and, done poorly, leads to contrived backgrounds.

On the other hand, if I disallow splatbooks, third party material, and homebrew, then I end up throttling character options. Thus, I implicitly discourage players from pursuing the stated objective.

I could label the game as "Low OP", but I have no idea of how to enforce it.

What I'm asking is: "How do better DMs than myself handle this?"

[shadow_archmagi]

I could label the game as "Low OP", but I have no idea of how to enforce it.


Well, given the very flexible definitions of Power that permeate D&D (Fly, for example, does no damage but can allow a character to gain a tremendous advantage in and out of combat) you're really forced to rely on your ability to eyeball it and the player's ability to adequately limit themselves.

Also, one thing I've always wanted to try is roll on a 1d100 chart to determine what books are available to a player. (What happens if someone needs to make a character using only Races of Destiny and Sandstorm??)

[Lonely Tylenol]

Recently, I've been working on a megadungeon with the hope of running a PbP dungeon crawl in it.

There's a catch, however. I want to encourage the players to adopt "alternative" character concepts, and the corridors and monsters of the dungeon will be similarly designed. Think Fantasia.

There I face my conundrum. While I understand that players want to play characters and classes they find interesting, I have little patience for the use of cheese (:smallbiggrin:) in character building. It makes my job so banal and, done poorly, leads to contrived backgrounds.

On the other hand, if I disallow splatbooks, third party material, and homebrew, then I end up throttling character options. Thus, I implicitly discourage players from pursuing the stated objective.

I could label the game as "Low OP", but I have no idea of how to enforce it.

What I'm asking is: "How do better DMs than myself handle this?"

I personally worked with every single player in my group to help them build their characters. They came to me with their concepts, independent of metagame abstractions (so instead of "I want to be a Fighter/Wizard", "I want to mix martial prowess with a smattering of magic"; some concepts included "I want a character with the need for speed", "I want a character who teleports through shadows and rains death from above", and "I want a character who grabs people with a massive chain and loves bears"), and I said, "yeah, OK, let's see how we can build that". Since I had more splatbook know-how than almost all the rest of my players combined (everyone is new or low-op except for two players, one of whom plays PF and the other, 4e), I worked with them to help them build their character from a number of options, each picked for their compatibility with their character concept, as well as power/balance. In each case, the players had the opportunity to choose which direction they best wanted to go (or reject all of them and go back to the drawing board for character classes), or combination of classes, etc., that suited them best. I then work with them at every level to see if they want to continue along the same path with their character, or work towards another concept. I also have a hand-written copy of every player's sheet, although this is mainly to be able to provide backups (in case players lose their sheets, or want extras on a whim).

I did this to scale up the optimization, of course, but presumably you can do the same to scale it down--if your players are very aggressive optimizers, you just have to be hands-on about it (you also have to be direct and up-front with the players; it would be ill-advised to try this behind their backs).

[Answerer]

Try banning Core itself. Core has by-far (by far; this really cannot be overstated) the highest concentration of absurd imbalance of any book ever printed for 3.5. It doesn't have the weakest class (Truenamer), but it has several that are among the weakest (Monk, and Fighter and Ranger suffer tremendously if kept to Core only).

Meanwhile, it does contain what are probably the 3 strongest classes in the game (Cleric, Druid, and Wizard; Archivist and Artificer challenge them but are probably not quite as powerful as, say, Wizard).

Core also has, for example, an enormous number of hideously weak feats in it (the various +2 to two skills feats, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Combat Casting, etc. etc.) while also having ridiculously strong ones (Leadership, mainly, though Craft Wondrous Item and Metamagic are certainly capable of serious abuse). More of the most-broken spells in the game are printed in Core than anywhere else (including the Spell Compendium, which has an enormous number of spells in it and yet almost none that are as broken as Core's). And so on.

This extreme disparity between good and bad in Core is the source of a massive proportion of 3.5's problems, in my opinion. You will have a much better balanced, and probably fairly "different" game, if you ban it, and rely on, say, the Expanded Psionics Handbook (ban or fix the Soulknife), Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic (fix the Shadowcaster; ban or replace the Truenamer), and Magic of Incarnum (ban the Soulborn). Use Spell Compendium for spells if necessary. Player's Handbook II (for the Beguiler) is a solid addition.

Mostly, what you want are things from the books that were printed later in 3.5's publishing history. They tend to be better designed and more thought out. By the same token, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, and Complete Warrior (the first "wave" of Completes, and the first splatbooks for 3.5) are possibly dangerous (though the Warlock is worth grabbing, and the Wu Jen, Spirit Shaman, and Shugenja might make better-balanced 'traditional' casters if you want), while the second wave (Complete Champion, Complete Mage, Complete Scoundrel), printed much later, are all pretty solid (Complete Psionics is complete garbage).

Exceptions do have to be made for prerequisites (especially in feats), probably, but a sort of "flexible ban" of Core is a really good start I think.


And if you think I'm misunderstanding the question by talking about imbalance, I really don't think I am: if you remove a lot of the sources of serious imbalance, then you don't have to worry overly about cheese. There's nothing you can do with a Binder, Totemist, or Warblade that is going to compare to a Batman Wizard or CoDzilla.

[The Dark Fiddler]

If you're running a PbP game, limiting the cheese is very easy. Simply state in your recruitment thread that it's a low-op game, and don't accept any cheesy characters. Most games, especially ones with compelling concepts, get at least twice as many players as are usually needed, so turning away a few potential players because they built too strongly shouldn't kill the game.

[Grinner]

Try banning Core itself. Core has by-far (by far; this really cannot be overstated) the highest concentration of absurd imbalance of any book ever printed for 3.5. It doesn't have the weakest class (Truenamer), but it has several that are among the weakest (Monk, and Fighter and Ranger suffer tremendously if kept to Core only).

Meanwhile, it does contain what are probably the 3 strongest classes in the game (Cleric, Druid, and Wizard; Archivist and Artificer challenge them but are probably not quite as powerful as, say, Wizard).

Core also has, for example, an enormous number of hideously weak feats in it (the various +2 to two skills feats, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Combat Casting, etc. etc.) while also having ridiculously strong ones (Leadership, mainly, though Craft Wondrous Item and Metamagic are certainly capable of serious abuse). More of the most-broken spells in the game are printed in Core than anywhere else (including the Spell Compendium, which has an enormous number of spells in it and yet almost none that are as broken as Core's). And so on.

This extreme disparity between good and bad in Core is the source of a massive proportion of 3.5's problems, in my opinion. You will have a much better balanced, and probably fairly "different" game, if you ban it, and rely on, say, the Expanded Psionics Handbook (ban or fix the Soulknife), Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic (fix the Shadowcaster; ban or replace the Truenamer), and Magic of Incarnum (ban the Soulborn). Use Spell Compendium for spells if necessary. Player's Handbook II (for the Beguiler) is a solid addition.

Mostly, what you want are things from the books that were printed later in 3.5's publishing history. They tend to be better designed and more thought out.

Exceptions do have to be made for prerequisites (especially in feats), probably, but a sort of "flexible ban" of Core is a really good start I think.


And if you think I'm misunderstanding the question by talking about imbalance, I really don't think I am: if you remove a lot of the sources of serious imbalance, then you don't have to worry overly about cheese. There's nothing you can do with a Binder, Totemist, or Warblade that is going to compare to a Batman Wizard or CoDzilla.

I get what you're saying, and it's quite valid. The thing is, it only exacerbates my problem. First, I don't own every book. It's just too damn expensive. Second, I *hate* Tome of Battle and Magic of Incarnum. They're dull to read and are a munchkin's dream. The Tome of Battle is quite handy for bumping up martial characters to a wizard's standard, but I'd rather just allow a couple of exceptionally powerful, non-core prestige classes.

The reason why I hate these books is that, again, they make my job so boring. The time I could spend writing encounters, I instead spend leafing through these books, looking for unexpected, game-breaking synergies.

Plus, they also boost the power level of the game beyond what I'm comfortable with. I'm not a fan of wuxia.

Edit: Just noticed your edit. I agree that some Core feats are underpowered, but I've found a couple of third party feats that address the problem nicely. Instead of a static +2 bonus, they give a bonus equivalent to half the character's level.

[Answerer]

Tome of Battle and Magic of Incarnum [...] are a munchkin's dream.
I'm not going to argue over your personal preferences, but this is an incredibly false statement, particularly if we're comparing them to Core. All five of the base classes from these books (I'm ignoring the Soulborn because it's terrible) are very tightly balanced, and other than the Incarnate (who can be tricky and may end up feeling like he's got lots of little gimicks that don't add up to much), they don't really react strongly to attempts at optimization. You can make one better than another, but overall they're easy to build for competence, and very difficult to break.

As a result, neither book has much to offer a munchkin. There aren't any little tricks in them that are going to break the game; there are no obscure combos that are going to wreck things.

The strongest option in either book is probably the Ruby Knight Vindicator, but without Cleric it's not terribly good at all (a Paladin could technically enter but it would be ugly).

Iron Heart Surge is stupid if you attempt to make hard-and-fast rules for it, but perfectly sensible if you go with the apparent intent (namely, "BY CROOOOM!!!"). White Raven Tactics is problematic if you allow it to affect the one who initiates it. Other than that, neither book is capable of breaking your game.

You're welcome to your opinions on whether or not the books are interesting to read, but in terms of game balance, you are quite incorrect.


The Tome of Battle is quite handy for bumping up martial characters to a wizard's standard,
It doesn't do any such thing, not by any stretch of the imagination. By tier, the martial adepts are about halfway between traditional spellcasters and traditional melee.

[Grinner]

@Answerer: Yes, well I shouldn't claim to know altogether that much about optimization....Maybe I should start looking for another system?

Ever tried WR&M?

Edit: Nevermind. Just remembered that it's a rules-light system.....

I'd still prefer to allow martial characters a few exceptional prestiges classes in order to keep pace with spellcasters.

Then, I still have to contend with infinite loops...

[inexorabletruth]

I'm not a great DM, but I've played for some good ones. Here are some of the things they have tried to streamline the campaign and keep out the cheese.

Instead of restricting books, try restricting Tiers. Pick a tier and go with it. You want lo-op? Try a Tier 4-5 Lo-OP campaign.
Allowing more Tiers gives your munchkins a few options so they don't feel pigeon-holed, but the more tiers you permit, the more power-gaming you'll subject your game to.

Restrict material.
To limit the amount of homework you have to do as the DM, stick to only the materials that you own or that you are comfortable with. If you feel this restricts your players too much then only allow players to have races/classes/abilities that they can provide source material for.

No homebrews/house rules/or heresay.
Stick to RAW. Nothing against house rules and homebrews, but they tend to get cheesy. If you, or the PC, cannot find an official published rule (including source and page number) to explain why something can be done (unless it's obvious of course), then it cannot be done in your campaign, regardless of what other DMs have allowed in the past, or what everyone else thinks should be possible.

However, I'm not sure how you want to have alternative characters without homebrewing and such. I mean you could just refluff all the races, or use monsters as PCs I suppose.

Fantasia themed? We talking old school Fantasia?

Refluff concepts:
Mickey Mouse was a Sorcerer

Humans and Half-Elves are Sorcerers
Humans and Half-Elves are anthropomorphic mice.
Mushrooms danced in Fantasia

Bards dance
Gnomes preferred class is Bard
Gnomes are dancing mushrooms.

Nah... that's a stupid idea. Just go with monsters as PCs and save yourself the headache.

[Grinner]

Instead of restricting books, try restricting Tiers. Pick a tier and go with it. You want lo-op? Try a Tier 4-5 Lo-OP campaign.
Allowing more Tiers gives your munchkins a few options so they don't feel pigeon-holed, but the more tiers you permit, the more power-gaming you'll subject your game to.

My first problem is that I have no freaking clue as to what classes these tiers are comprised of.

Sounds like a good idea though.


No homebrews/house rules/or heresay.
[SPOILER]Stick to RAW. Nothing against house rules and homebrews, but they tend to get cheesy. If you, or the PC, cannot find an official published rule (including source and page number) to explain why something can be done (unless it's obvious of course), then it cannot be done in your campaign, regardless of what other DMs have allowed in the past, or what everyone else thinks should be possible.

I know that these things can be exploited, but I've seen some really cool stuff. Like the Troglodyte Rock Band. :smallcool:


However, I'm not sure how you want to have alternative characters without homebrewing and such. I mean you could just refluff all the races, or use monsters as PCs I suppose.

Fantasia themed? We talking old school Fantasia?

I had been planning to allow animal and monster PCs.

As for the reference to Fantasia, I was thinking more the atmosphere and intent of the film than the film itself. Psychedelic might be a good way to put it.

[Answerer]

@Answerer: Yes, well I shouldn't claim to know altogether that much about optimization....Maybe I should start looking for another system?
I cannot recommend Legend highly enough for its combination of versatility/expansive options and balanced play. It may be higher-power than you're looking for though; this can be somewhat rectified by playing at low levels, but then the players won't get the opportunity to level up. There are a few options for improving this situation, though, if you're interested.

Anyway, back to 3.5...

I'd still prefer to allow martial characters a few exceptional prestiges classes in order to keep pace with spellcasters.
There are no prestige classes that are that good that martial characters can qualify for. Most that are that good are spellcasting PrCs to begin with, and can only be considered "that good" because they make spellcasting better.

And honestly, I really doubt you want anyone to be at the spellcasters' level, or at least potential level. They're all-but-unplayably powerful at high levels of optimization, and challenging them is extremely difficult and requires considerable optimization by the DM as well. Since you're admittedly not interested in or particularly good at optimization, you probably couldn't, or at least wouldn't enjoy doing so.

Also, as an aside...

Plus, they also boost the power level of the game beyond what I'm comfortable with. I'm not a fan of wuxia.
I'm pretty sure that any martial character who approaches spellcasters in power must, by definition, start to appear "wuxia" – that's simply how powerful you have to be to compete with spellcasters. It's just reality.

So the solution, to my mind, is to get rid of both the high and the low. inexorabletruth's suggestion of going by Tier is pretty solid, assuming you and your players understand the tiers and your players can be trusted to abide by said restrictions.

EDIT: But since you've said you don't know the Tiers, I recommend banning almost all spellcasters. Leave the Warlock, the Warmage, the Shadowcaster, and some sort of buffed Healer maybe. Shugenja might also work; I'm pretty sure they're pretty weak. Soulknives are OK from Psionics, but probably nothing else. Half-casters like Paladin or Spelltheif should be fine (but probably not the Bard). This should limit magic to being not much better than other martial characters.

You do have to ban an enormous amount of material to accomplish this, though.


Then, I still have to contend with infinite loops...
I can't think of a single infinite loop of any lasting significance that shouldn't be auto-banned in an actual game.


Restrict material.
To limit the amount of homework you have to do as the DM, stick to only the materials that you own or that you are comfortable with. If you feel this restricts your players too much then only allow players to have races/classes/abilities that they can provide source material for.
Personally, I figured that this went without saying.


No homebrews/house rules/or heresay.
Stick to RAW. Nothing against house rules and homebrews, but they tend to get cheesy. If you, or the PC, cannot find an official published rule (including source and page number) to explain why something can be done (unless it's obvious of course), then it cannot be done in your campaign, regardless of what other DMs have allowed in the past, or what everyone else thinks should be possible.
This I completely disagree with, however. RAW is not well-made or balanced. 3.5 really isn't that good a system, and basically every group ever must tweak it to suit their purposes (and basically every group does so, even if it's through the use of unspoken and possibly unconscious Gentlemen's Agreements). Houserules are a necessary part of the game.

Homebrew is trickier, because the DM has to be a good judge of balance to use it well. However, there are a number of homebrewers who understand 3.5's mechanics and balance much better than WotC ever did.

[Coidzor]

On the other hand, if I disallow splatbooks, third party material, and homebrew, then I end up throttling character options. Thus, I implicitly discourage players from pursuing the stated objective.

And you wouldn't really be accomplishing anything, what with the most broken **** being in Core.

[Grinner]

I can't think of a single infinite loop of any lasting significance that shouldn't be auto-banned in an actual game.

I can't think of any infinite loops period. :smallfrown:

Edit: The root of my problem is that I know D&D well enough to participate. I don't know it well enough to break it. This puts me at a disadvantage when DMing for powergamers.


And you wouldn't really be accomplishing anything, what with the most broken **** being in Core.

I get the impression that this is true primarily at low and high levels.

[Answerer]

I edited my post after you posted, so you should recheck it. I have some more suggestions that might fit you better.

[Eldan]

I get the impression that this is true primarily at low and high levels.

Not really, no. In the hands of a player who knows what he is doing, full core casters are insanely versatile pretty much from the start, and they start to outdo anyone else from about level 5-8. The fighter is just never that good to begin with, and starts to seriously lag behind more and more every level .

[Grinner]

EDIT: But since you've said you don't know the Tiers, I recommend banning almost all spellcasters. Leave the Warlock, the Warmage, the Shadowcaster, and some sort of buffed Healer maybe. Shugenja might also work; I'm pretty sure they're pretty weak. Soulknives are OK from Psionics, but probably nothing else. Half-casters like Paladin or Spelltheif should be fine (but probably not the Bard). This should limit magic to being not much better than other martial characters.

You do have to ban an enormous amount of material to accomplish this, though.

And that is concerning.

Judging by your sig, I take it that you're a fan of Legend. Why would you recommend it so highly? Given the theme of the game, I'm not afraid to allow wuxia-esque abilities. I just won't like it.

[Answerer]

Legend was designed by some of 3.5's best optimizers to prevent the absurdities that they had found in 3.5. The lead designer described himself as killing off his own kind in designing it: they wanted to make sure that no one could twist their game the way they had with 3.5.

But they also didn't want to put people in straitjackets. They wanted to a multitude of options, trying to get as much awesome and cool as they could from the game.

And, well... in my opinion, they succeeded at these things. I have to run, but that's the gist of it. There are some really good reviews of the game out there that might give you a better idea of how it works.

[inexorabletruth]

My first problem is that I have no freaking clue as to what classes these tiers are comprised of.

Sounds like a good idea though.

This is the Tier system all of my DMs and I go off of. There are probably different ones out there, but I don't know where to find them:
Tier System for Classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=qfj36nnfbsjmq271nre8t85nn7&topic=5293)

I'm sure the Playground can help you find a more exhaustive list.


This I completely disagree with, however. RAW is not well-made or balanced. 3.5 really isn't that good a system, and basically every group ever must tweak it to suit their purposes (and basically every group does so, even if it's through the use of unspoken and possibly unconscious Gentlemen's Agreements). Houserules are a necessary part of the game.

It's hard to disagree with you there, since I could publish my own book of house rules by now. But house-rules need at least some game testing and experimentation before they are truly fair and balanced. And it requires a fair-minded, experienced DM as well as relatively fair-minded players for the house-rules to be written, agreed upon, and executed in game. The RAW system isn't perfect, but it's still usable, and everyone knows what to expect with RAW. Some of my favorite games had a full ban on house-rules, while the worst game I ever played was a rules-light house-ruled frankengame. It remains, to this day, the only game I was in where the DM was kicked out and the players took over. We just got tired of DM fiats being explained away as a house-rule that he swore he told us about before session 1.

[sonofzeal]

Since I didn't see anyone else post this:



Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium Variant)

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command available)

Also, the PrC Tier Rankings (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5198.0). Limiting people to PrCs of "equal" or lower might also help.



Really though, your best bet is always going to be "gentlemen's agreement". I can pull from the most unbalanced books in the game, using high-Tier material, and end up with something that plays nice with Tier 4's. The only hard part is communicating what you mean by "low Op". Perhaps a couple sample characters that are around the balance point you like? Then people can look at them, compare their own characters, and rebalance accordingly.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Not really, no. In the hands of a player who knows what he is doing, full core casters are insanely versatile pretty much from the start, and they start to outdo anyone else from about level 5-8. The fighter is just never that good to begin with, and starts to seriously lag behind more and more every level .

Yeah. Wizard needs some protection at level 1, even a 20 int gray elf with Spell Focus (Illusion) can't get full chance of surviving even two encounters a day with Color Spray/Grease spam and using Mage Armor before entering the dungeon. However, it can still just pay a couple gold to some NPC warriors so they act as meatshields that stand right beside the wizard, then charge in after a Color Spray/Grease. And this is assuming that the fighter player just leaves, rather than rolling up a cleric or druid or sorcerer or second wizard. Sorcerer uses the same tactics, cleric and druid can hold their own in melee, especially a druid's animal companion, and druid also has Entangle, and they both have healing spells.

By the upper low-levels, wizards and sorcerers can cast Protection From Arrows and Levitate, then go in and spam Color Spray/Grease again, safe from practically all enemy attacks. Clerics and druids can use things like Bull's Strength (useful at this level), and druid can use Spider Climb to a similar effect as Levitate, although they don't have protection spells against arrows, or they can just remain within five feet of their animal companion and use Share Spell to get twice the effect out of their heals.

By level 5, the first step into mids, the wizard and druid can fly. The sorcerer can fly starting at level 6, the cleric can use Air Walk at 7. Also at level 7, wizard gets Polymorph. Sorcerer gets it at level 8. At the upper mid-levels, Cloudkill and Contingency come into play.

That's just a few of the options in core.


As for Legend, I think it's meh. 3.5 fanatics who hate the balance problems will love it, but I'm currently at the phase where I'm thinking of almost ditching 3.5 entirely except for the couple of games I'm in, and buying HackMaster Basic and GURPS 4e.

[Urpriest]

It's a PbP. I have to echo what other posters have said: describe the game as low and/or mid-op, depending on what you want. People likely won't be *****, and if they are you can vet characters before accepting them like every PbP on this board does. If you need help vetting characters, ask the community. You don't have to do anything as sophisticated as adding houserules or banning tiers for something like this.

[shadow_archmagi]

It's a PbP. I have to echo what other posters have said: describe the game as low and/or mid-op, depending on what you want. People likely won't be *****, and if they are you can vet characters before accepting them like every PbP on this board does. If you need help vetting characters, ask the community. You don't have to do anything as sophisticated as adding houserules or banning tiers for something like this.

Yeah, as far I can see it, this is the worst case scenario:

Scotchland: I'd like a low-OP game
Problem Player: I have this half-dragon half-zeppelin rogue with the dual-progression Dragon-Zeppelin Mage class so that I can gain levels in every class at once...
Scotchland: That sounds pretty complicated. Are you sure that's going to fit in in my explicitly low-OP game?
Problem Player: Sure sure
Scotchland: So you encounter a zombie..
Problem Player: I hit it with Broken Attack for 900 damage and a save-or-die.
Scotchland: I feel like that's outside the boundaries of low-OP. Your posts are no longer welcome.
Problem Player: :-(
Not A Problem Player: I drink the zombie.
Scotchland: Sounds psychedelic to me. Let's do it!

If you've got Steam, you can friend me and ask me for a second opinion on any build, at pretty much any time since I'm online a good twelve hours a day one way or another.

[Grinner]

Yeah, as far I can see it, this is the worst case scenario:

Scotchland: I'd like a low-OP game
Problem Player: I have this half-dragon half-zeppelin rogue with the dual-progression Dragon-Zeppelin Mage class so that I can gain levels in every class at once...
Scotchland: That sounds pretty complicated. Are you sure that's going to fit in in my explicitly low-OP game?
Problem Player: Sure sure
Scotchland: So you encounter a zombie..
Problem Player: I hit it with Broken Attack for 900 damage and a save-or-die.
Scotchland: I feel like that's outside the boundaries of low-OP. Your posts are no longer welcome.
Problem Player: :-(
Not A Problem Player: I drink the zombie.
Scotchland: Sounds psychedelic to me. Let's do it!

If you've got Steam, you can friend me and ask me for a second opinion on any build, at pretty much any time since I'm online a good twelve hours a day one way or another.

Yeah, that's pretty much what worries me about the Gentlemens' Agreement. :smallredface:

I'm okay with asking for advice on DMing, but when it comes down to game decisions like accepting players, I don't feel that I can leave that up to others.

[sonofzeal]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm worried about. :smallredface:
Don't be so worried. One of the advantages of pbp over irl games is that you can boot players politely and without too much drama. That's harder irl because you're probably friends, and it's hard to find irl gaming groups. Neither of those burden you here.

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/00000/1000/900/1902/1902.strip.sunday.gif

[ericgrau]

Allow splatbooks, disallow cheese. It's a bit of work but you have to ban the 2% of things that are silly exploits and maybe nerf the power creep. The key thing is to keep all the players on a level playing field so even if there is some power creep it's fine as long as it's equal for all players.

If you're inexperienced I can see you limiting the book list to what you're more familiar with and banning a couple complicated ones to make your life easier, but that's more a matter of practicality with your free time than anything.

In theory it could be a major headache to dig through character sheets with a fine tooth comb and a stack of books next to you, but in practice players tend to be civil and don't try to break the game so the worst you get even if you're lazy at checking sheets is a small power difference between the more experienced and less experienced players. Often you can ask the veterans to help the others.



If you've got Steam, you can friend me and ask me for a second opinion on any build, at pretty much any time since I'm online a good twelve hours a day one way or another.
And then you go online and get people like this willing to do the work for you. A scanner may be helpful.

[Phaederkiel]

I'm not going to argue over your personal preferences, but this is an incredibly false statement, particularly if we're comparing them to Core. All five of the base classes from these books (I'm ignoring the Soulborn because it's terrible) are very tightly balanced, and other than the Incarnate (who can be tricky and may end up feeling like he's got lots of little gimicks that don't add up to much), they don't really react strongly to attempts at optimization. You can make one better than another, but overall they're easy to build for competence, and very difficult to break.

ahem. As much as I love ToB, that cannot be said to be true. Sure, if you actually STAY in your classes, they are fine. But they are all very much front loaded, which means dipping them is very powerful, and you can dip multiple classes of ToB to devastating effect (one fullfilling prereqs for the others). Still not as powerful as casters are, but here you go. Heck, Most ToB classes need dipping, because of the borked tables and the borked stance progression.


it is a very fun book to play with, though.

Oh, and Paladins make better RKWindicators than clerics (at least without mucho additional cheddar), since they can cast their spells as swifts with some feat.

[Answerer]

ahem. As much as I love ToB, that cannot be said to be true. Sure, if you actually STAY in your classes, they are fine. But they are all very much front loaded, which means dipping them is very powerful, and you can dip multiple classes of ToB to devastating effect (one fullfilling prereqs for the others). Still not as powerful as casters are, but here you go. Heck, Most ToB classes need dipping, because of the borked tables and the borked stance progression.
Not... really. Low level martial adepts are fairly strong for their level (what with having options; most classes at those levels don't), but you're not really gaining that much by bouncing around. The Initiator Level rules allow you to multiclass without ruining yourself (unlike Spellcasting rules), but you're still going to be a better initiator without doing it.

There are particular combinations that work out somewhat better than a singleclassed adept. For the most part, they are not game breaking.



Oh, and Paladins make better RKWindicators than clerics (at least without mucho additional cheddar), since they can cast their spells as swifts with some feat.
Clerics get many, many more, and better, spells. Even without DMM, they get more buffs they can put on themselves, which is more useful to a gish who wants to use his maneuvers in combat. Swift-action spells are nice, but a martial adept already wants/needs those for his Boosts and Counters, so they're hardly free. A spell you cast long before the encounter, however, has no action cost, and therefore is effectively free.

So, no, Paladins are not better for RKV.