Why does everyone hate dandwiki?

[Empedocles]

As the title says: why does everyone on these forums seem to hate dandwiki? The quality of work is overall less than that on the forums but there's certainly a good deal of workable stuff on there. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Threat_(3.5e_Class)) base class is perfectly fine and there're some nice settings and concepts.

So why all the hate? I get that it's mostly inferior work but that doesn't seem like a good reason to shut it out completely.

[Madara]

I wouldn't say "hate", but the problem is shifting through all the mud(poor quality[broken/pathetically weak]) to find a few good ones. So, the community jokes about some ridiculous things. I'm sure someone can link you "The worst class ever", I believe it actually had a negative BAB.:smallamused:

[Tokuhara]

As the title says: why does everyone on these forums seem to hate dandwiki? The quality of work is overall less than that on the forums but there's certainly a good deal of workable stuff on there. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Threat_(3.5e_Class)) base class is perfectly fine and there're some nice settings and concepts.

So why all the hate? I get that it's mostly inferior work but that doesn't seem like a good reason to shut it out completely.

The builds are sub-par or unoriginal, the homebrew is garbage (99% of it at least), and generally, it's a badly designed d20srd.

[Grinner]

The problem is that it covers such a wide variety of tastes (low magic, high fantasy, etc.), and it has little organization. Throw in the lack of an accepted critique process like our lovely forum has, and you get a mountain of repetitious garbage with a few woefully ignored gems.

I've actually been toying with the idea of starting a thread in Homebrew Design dedicated to PEACHing D&DWiki material. :smallsmile:

Edit: Geez! Double ninja'd! :smalleek:

[Hirax]

Sifting through dandwiki is just like sifting through a garbage dump in real life. There's good stuff in there somewhere.

[Dancingdeath]

There are only a handful of balanced gems on that site. as already stated, 99% of it is either completely brokenly overpowered, or it is beyond uselessly weak.

[Yorrin]

Because some of us absolutely can't stand using any homebrew whatsoever in our games, and yet when one googles ANY DnD related thing- dandwiki always pops up with a result that looks promising before you look where its coming from >_>

[Silva Stormrage]

The main problem I have with the site is that it doesn't clearly mark homebrew from non homebrew. When I first started playing D&D I thought several of the things on the site were actual feats and classes. Several players in my campaigns have thought the same thing.

[Empedocles]

The main problem I have with the site is that it doesn't clearly mark homebrew from non homebrew. When I first started playing D&D I thought several of the things on the site were actual feats and classes. Several players in my campaigns have thought the same thing.

Hmm that's true. I had the same issue when I first started looking on there...

[hobbitkniver]

Because annoying people I play with see incredibly powerful things without realizing it's homebrew.

[sonofzeal]

The main problem I have with the site is that it doesn't clearly mark homebrew from non homebrew. When I first started playing D&D I thought several of the things on the site were actual feats and classes. Several players in my campaigns have thought the same thing.
THIS. I made that mistake when I first saw the site. Three different people from my IRL gaming circle made that mistake. Countless people on these forums have made that mistake. It's an obvious problem that's persisted for years, and they show no intention of ever correcting it.

[Tokuhara]

And they cannot get their Final Fantasy straight.

A blue mage is a freaking COPYCAT, not a time wizard, and a Red Mage isn't just a Bard with a FF brush-over!

sorry... Final Fantasy fails make me mad.

[eggs]

I don't mind it. It's got a lot of ideas that people have already had a lot of time put in. The final product is very rarely polished, but that's usually just a tweak or two of my own away - same as I do with most of my.

I like it because it's easier to crib and tweak someone else's ideas than it is to hash out something of my own.

I dislike it because it provides a semblance of democracy in its rating system, but the format obscures its discussion. This can be a bit of a problem if a player shows up at the table saying something is well balanced due to the votes of 4 or 5 invisible internet persons, when (as often as not) the class badly needs an overhaul. This isn't always a problem, because despite Lightning Warrior lampooning, when homebrew balance goes wrong, IME it's more often on the weak end than the strong (and buffng a character's class is rarely something that rubs its players the wrong way).

Essentially, I think it's a useful jumping-off point for players who know how the game works, what can go wrong with designs, and how to fix those errors, but it can be misleading for inexperienced players.

[Darth Stabber]

Summary
-Very low cool/crap ratio.
-Poor feedback and adjustment process.
-Looks official enough to throw off newbs.

Where as GiantITP's august body of homebrewers have a good eye for balance, and you can usually find a fair critique of the brew's thread. And most entries come with a little bit of a frame of reference as to what they are trying to achieve and at what power level. And since these brews are tied to the creator, you can check their "resume". I am not going to say that I am a great homebrewer, but just my stuff is better than 80% of danddwiki. Even 4chan's /tg/ board is better.

[Aegis013]

Even 4chan's /tg/ board is better.

That's some harsh criticism.

[Darth Stabber]

That's some harsh criticism.

Actually, that's not particularly harsh.

They have very little good D&D homebrew, but they have some really good stuff for a menagerie of other games. Especially on WH40K.

[KillianHawkeye]

And they cannot get their Final Fantasy straight.

A blue mage is a freaking COPYCAT, not a time wizard, and a Red Mage isn't just a Bard with a FF brush-over!

sorry... Final Fantasy fails make me mad.

FF's Red Mage is pretty similar to the Bard, though. It just lacks the musical abilities and has more offensive magic.

[Aegis013]

Actually, that's not particularly harsh.

They have very little good D&D homebrew, but they have some really good stuff for a menagerie of other games. Especially on WH40K.

That's probably true, I don't have any experience with most of the systems they do things with though, so I supposed I have a biased view point where I'm judging the one thousand piece jigsaw based on two pieces.

[lord pringle]

I'm probably a terrible person for this but I enjoy finding terrible homebrew and showing it to my friends. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Zombie_Blight) lovely player killing gem obviously created by the most sadistic DM ever. Note that you can catch it by just touching a corpse. Any corpse, no matter how long it's been one. Brutal. Granted, the DC is low but still, you always roll a one sometimes.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm probably a terrible person for this but I enjoy finding terrible homebrew and showing it to my friends. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Zombie_Blight) lovely player killing gem obviously created by the most sadistic DM ever. Note that you can catch it by just touching a corpse. Any corpse, no matter how long it's been one. Brutal. Granted, the DC is low but still, you always roll a one sometimes.

This is why when the zombie apocalypse comes, we burn the dead. Ashes don't count as a corpse except by the most sadistic DMs, but those guys could just destroy their players legally with that Adamantine Clockwork Horror from the MMII.

[Darth Stabber]

That's probably true, I don't have any experience with most of the systems they do things with though, so I supposed I have a biased view point where I'm judging the one thousand piece jigsaw based on two pieces.

/tg/ one of the few boards on 4chan where you can use a name/tripcode and not be called things I cannot repeat on this board. And for things other than homebrew (CharOP, Fluff appraisal, Encounter design), it will generate replies faster than anywhere else on the web, though there tend to be a bunch of crap replies, and given the anonymous nature and lack of memory of 4chan you can't tell anything about the person replying even if they have secure tripcode. Very frequently I will post things here and there and average the results. The only downside of this is that it is hard to censor myself when I comeback here.

[lord pringle]

This is why when the zombie apocalypse comes, we burn the dead. Ashes don't count as a corpse except by the most sadistic DMs, but those guys could just destroy their players legally with that Adamantine Clockwork Horror from the MMII.

It's not even related to zombies outside of the name. If Commener Bob's wife has a heart attack and he doesn't notice, the second he reaches over and touches her, BAM! Fort save time.

[Empedocles]

Ok. The zombie thing made me laugh :smallbiggrin:

So basically what it comes down to on the dandwiki is that the amount of good stuff there is covered in piles of crap and the crap is disguised to look official.

[Bard for Kicks]

This is why when the zombie apocalypse comes, we burn the dead.

And this is why danwiki is banned. All the noobs hate it when I revoke homebrew from them and/or they use danwiki as a credible source. It is quite annoying when small or medium sized noobs are somehow hauling gargantuan weapons at level 1 without a clear explanation or source book.

No danwiki use, no zombie blight. Problem solved.

[Grinner]

So basically what it comes down to on the dandwiki is that the amount of good stuff there is covered in piles of crap and the crap is disguised to look official.

Not quite. Because of the site's format, everything looks official, good and bad.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's not even related to zombies outside of the name. If Commener Bob's wife has a heart attack and he doesn't notice, the second he reaches over and touches her, BAM! Fort save time.

...Okay, now I see that.

But I'm assuming the creator did intend it as zombies, but it's more like the virus zombie where they're still alive, but their minds are animal and their bodies are decaying. I still don't get how they can't just be good, but dumb and weak unless they're unlucky or already dumb, since it's only 1d8 int damage. So yeah, we can safely say that the creator had no idea what the hell he was making, and thought the name would make the intent of it clear to everyone.

[tyckspoon]

Not quite. Because of the site's format, everything looks official, good and bad.

It's easy to tell when you understand the site: SRD material is official, EVERYTHING ELSE is homebrew (and you should either recognize SRD or see the fairly prominent SRD in the header/URL.) But it doesn't *tell* you that when you load it, so we get a lot of questions like "hey, I found this thing on D&Dwiki, but my DM only allows things where we can show him the book reference, where's it from?"

[ericgrau]

As the title says: why does everyone on these forums seem to hate dandwiki? The quality of work is overall less than that on the forums but there's certainly a good deal of workable stuff on there. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Threat_(3.5e_Class)) base class is perfectly fine and there're some nice settings and concepts.

So why all the hate? I get that it's mostly inferior work but that doesn't seem like a good reason to shut it out completely.

While I've seen worse... a Threat can't be hit and gets double strength bonus to nearly all his attacks by the time he hits mid to high levels, and likewise auto passes special attacks (trip/grapple/etc.) by level 10-15.

But basically random uncritiqued homebrew does that. I've seen unbalanced stuff here too but there's at least some level of reasonableness that comes from having other people look at it.

[Lappy9001]

It is a pretty great resource to draw ideas from, and implement them in your own way.

There is some quality material on the site, but there is far more poor material.

[The Glyphstone]

/tg/ one of the few boards on 4chan where you can use a name/tripcode and not be called things I cannot repeat on this board. And for things other than homebrew (CharOP, Fluff appraisal, Encounter design), it will generate replies faster than anywhere else on the web, though there tend to be a bunch of crap replies, and given the anonymous nature and lack of memory of 4chan you can't tell anything about the person replying even if they have secure tripcode. Very frequently I will post things here and there and average the results. The only downside of this is that it is hard to censor myself when I comeback here.

Yeah, when the fa/tg/uys mobilize to crank out some good homebrew, awesome can result. Dungeons: The Dragoning 40K 7th Edition is/was a /tg/ project.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Three words: Zero quality control.

Good stuff has an equally likely chance of being posted as bad stuff. With no accountability or peer review process, it also has an equally likely chance of getting good press/traffic.

It is different from en.wikipedia.org in this respect in that en.wikipedia.org's articles and pages are both peer reviewed and evaluated constantly by a dedicated staff to make sure that they uphold the site's criteria and fall within its limitations. dandwiki.com does not.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I like 4chan's summary of Exalted, especially the history. "So after one of the primordials went on a drunken binge and knocked the elemental pole of fire out of position again, the Unconquered Sun got fed up and..."

[JadePhoenix]

The quality of work is overall less than that on the forums but there's certainly a good deal of workable stuff on there. For example, this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Threat_(3.5e_Class)) base class is perfectly fine and there're some nice settings and concepts.


The only thing perfectly fine with this class is the picture. That man is very very interesting.

[Randomguy]

To summarise just about every other reply: Because of Sturgeon's Law (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SturgeonsLaw).

[Ravens_cry]

I think the ratio is lower than 1:10 non-crap. It's closer to fan-fiction levels.

[Voyager_I]

THIS. I made that mistake when I first saw the site. Three different people from my IRL gaming circle made that mistake. Countless people on these forums have made that mistake. It's an obvious problem that's persisted for years, and they show no intention of ever correcting it.

I had a similar problem when I first encountered the site. Fortunately, it has a giveaway in the terrible quality control on its content, which is saying something considering what it's being measured against.

The real kicker is that it still shows up on basically any D&D related search, and much of its terrible homebrew shares the exact name of official content.

[sonofzeal]

To summarise just about every other reply: Because of Sturgeon's Law (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SturgeonsLaw).
No. Poor quality control is one thing, but the site seems almost deliberately designed to fool unwary visitors into thinking its terrible homebrew is actually official rules. That goes beyond Sturgeon's Law and into the realm of either negligence or malice, depending.

[Gavinfoxx]

Sometimes stuff in dandwiki is homebrew. Sometimes it is illegally reprinted versions of feats from wotc splatbooks. Sometimes it is modified versions of feats from the splatbooks. Sometimes it is stuff that is just from d20srd. None of that wiki presents itself in an honest way, where it is from, in any way whatsoever. You have to actually know the real feats to figure out if any given feat is a real D&D feat, a modified D&D feat, or pure homebrew. The whole place does not have even the slightest twinge of honesty to it.

In other words... their quality control is nonexistent.

[eggs]

That's a really ugly class to use as a good example - it has weird rules (numb's bonuses), clumsy mechanics (super-damage strike) and unexplained class features (the bonus feats). With some dusting off, it could be a tough Tier 4 (its numbers are in line with a Totemist for what it does, but without the versatility), but it's really rough on its own.

...I actually really like it as a dandiwiki-in-a-page sort of an illustration.

[Grinner]

Sometimes stuff in dandwiki is homebrew. Sometimes it is illegally reprinted versions of feats from wotc splatbooks. Sometimes it is modified versions of feats from the splatbooks. Sometimes it is stuff that is just from d20srd. None of that wiki presents itself in an honest way, where it is from, in any way whatsoever. You have to actually know the real feats to figure out if any given feat is a real D&D feat, a modified D&D feat, or pure homebrew. The whole place does not have even the slightest twinge of honesty to it.

In other words... their quality control is nonexistent.

Hah! They've fooled you already.

Some users repost third party material, not WotC official material. Though some probably do that too...

[darksolitaire]

It has wiki in it. Of course it's official.

...Or that's what I though first few times it popped from google when I started playing 3.5. Really, people who make material to dndwiki are worse then 3.5 game designers.:smallfurious:

[Ravens_cry]

It has wiki in it. Of course it's official.

...Or that's what I though first few times it popped from google when I started playing 3.5. Really, people who make material to dndwiki are worse then 3.5 game designers.:smallfurious:
Yeah, whenever anyone says D&D 3.X wasn't play-tested at all or the developers were complete numbskulls, I merely point hither and all is resolved.

[Calanon]

Yeah, whenever anyone says D&D 3.X wasn't play-tested at all or the developers were complete numbskulls, I merely point hither and all is resolved.

Oh it hurts my soul how accurate this is... :smallfrown:

[Larkas]

I have a friend who created a whole build around an overpowered feat posted there. He is a veteran, but hadn't been playing for 8 years or more, and was rather upset when he found out it wasn't official.

It is fairly easy to know if it is homebrew you're viewing, IF you know what dandwiki is and how it is "organized". For anyone else who just stumbles on the site, it is pretty much a given they will mistake it for official material.

[Frog Dragon]

I've ran into the same thing. A few months ago, we were starting a new game with one guy who hadn't played before. Since some of us like to optimize, we just give the newer ones pointers on how to make powerful characters so everyone is roughly equal in power. Anyway, for this guy's concept, we pointed him at crusader.

A quick google search later.... (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Crusader_(3.5e_Class))

Stupid Dandwiki. :smallannoyed:

[brujon]

The only thing perfectly fine with this class is the picture. That man is very very interesting.

The Threat isn't as unbalanced as you may think. By the time the Threat is mid to high levels he auto-passes almost all grapple checks, yes... But so can a Psychic Warrior/Barbarian Goliath. You already count as 1 category larger due to powerful build, you grow another due to Goliath Barbarian ACF, and two more due to expansion, totalling 4 size categories growth (Only 3 of which are actual size increases, so you go from Medium to Gargantuan). The may difference is that the Threat doesn't actually need to grow, and as such is not subject to space constraints, but on the other hand, it doesn't get the Strenght increases that go with the actual size increases. That is not actually unbalanced in and of itself, and you can get *almost* the same benefits just by getting a Major Bloodline, that is, Titan bloodline.

In the end, the Threat is a very good grappler and melee'r, but he still lacks the versatility of the ToB classes, he lacks mobility, and most importantly, he lacks spells. Sure, he has a few very interesting tricks... But a Wizard or a Druid is still a better grappler. You can use Kelpstrand to grapple like a boss with a Druid, and wildshape into a Gargantuan Dire Bear and have better grapple modifiers than a Threat of the same level, and STILL have use of your spells to pump it *even* higher, by use of Personal Range buffs... Both the Wizard and Druid can also grapple by proxy, using Summons... A Malconvoker can get multiple Demons to grapple for him. A Necromancer can have a whole army grappling for him.... Etc... Etc...

Of course, it's *unfair* to compare him to Tier 1 & 2 classes, but let's then compare him to good Tier 3 classes. A Warblade, for instance. A pure classed Warblade has access to all the same tricks that he gets, except for the massive grapple modifier, bonus to natural armor, and the immunity to nonlethal. Stone Dragon stances can ignore hardness. Diamond Mind gives him big strikes, and maneuvers that make it near impossible to fail a save (Moment of's). Iron Heart Surge can say f*** y** to anything that grapples him... Tiger Claw can boost his DPS to godly levels... Or a Psychic Warrior, for instance. Does anyone remember the good ole' King of Smack? It *can* be done as a *pure* psychic warrior.

At 20th level, the summary of what the Threat gets is as follows: Counts as 4 categories larger for grapples/trips/opposed strenght checks, weapons wielded counts as two categories larger, gains a +6 inherent bonus to strenght, +9 natural armor, immune to mind-affecting and non-lethal, and gains an insight bonus equal to his dexterity modifier whenever he's denied the dexterity modifier, and finally, a 40 times per day pool of Mighty Blows .

How is that any more unbalanced than the full suite of maneuvers a Warblade gets? Or the full suite of powers a Psychic Warrior has access to? You have to remember that at 20th level, MOST monsters the party will face will be Gargantuan or larger. The *Only* way to keep up on grapple modifiers and grapple these beasts *is* keeping up by means of size increases. *Any* effective grappler will have to keep up with size increases if he wants to use that option. The natural armor bonus is very very nice, but in the end not so much different than the AC bonus other classes get. Sure, it's quite a bit large, but the Threat was made to be a front-line fighter, and that is in line with the in-your-face type of engagement that is expected. The Barbarian gets DR & Constitution, the Crusader gets a delayed damage pool, etc... The weapon damage dice size increase is very nice, but in the end, not a very large increase if you think about it. a D6 goes to a d10. 2d6 goes to 2d12... At best that is a +6 damage overall increase on average, over the course of TWENTY levels. That is on par on what could be expected if, for example, a fighter burned his feats on the Weapon Specialization chain, or the Rage bonuses increases the Barbarian gets. The Mighty Blow/Double Damage thing is readily attainable by means of multiplying effects... Headlong Rush, Leap Attack, etc... The uber charger FUNCTIONS on that principle. And charges are unlimited times per day... At best that ability is on par with those feats, if you think about it. As for the +6 increase on Strenght, it isn't that much unbalanced... And by the time you get to level 20, EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHERS already has regeneration, so you can't feel too special about being immune to nonlethal... Especially since the immunity to nonlethal is specifically worded as such that it does NOT combo with regeneration to become immunity to damage. Finally, Immunity to Mind-Affecting is something very desirable and attainable by means of spells and items, and furthermore, many classes grant it, too, and at almost the same level.

Fact of the matter is, the class is in and of itself balanced, but it's balanced on the side of a Tier 3 melee. It's meant to be a front-line grappler, bruiser & damage dealer. The abilities it gets suit very well to that, and the progression of the abilities is well-spaced enough that the class isn't a dipping-only class. Natural Break-Up points come in 5th level (When you count as 1 category larger, 7th level (When you count as 1 category larger, weapons you wieled 1 category larger, 3 natural armor, and 2 bonus feats) 10th level (When you count as 2 categories larger, weapons you wield 1 category larger, and you get Improved Uncanny dodge, +5 natural armor and 3 bonus feats, and the all-important Double Damage Merciless ability).

The Threat isn't any stronger than any of the strong melee classes, and actually fills a much needed niche - that of a grappling focused base class. A Threat/Psychic Warrior/Black Blood Cultist would be a fearsome thing to behold in the battlefield, indeed...

That's my analysis of the class... As for the rest of dandwiki... It's like 4chan's /b/ board. You are in the ***hole of the internet. Most of it, is by definition, s**t, but sometimes, bits of undigested corn come through, and you can keep them. Doesn't mean i'm going to waste my time wading knee deep into that cesspool just to gather a few pieces of s**t-stained corn.

Doesn't mean i'm not going to use the corn if it's washed and handed to me, though. Like the Threat class. I really actually liked it.

[Empedocles]

The Threat isn't as unbalanced as you may think. By the time the Threat is mid to high levels he auto-passes almost all grapple checks, yes... But so can a Psychic Warrior/Barbarian Goliath. You already count as 1 category larger due to powerful build, you grow another due to Goliath Barbarian ACF, and two more due to expansion, totalling 4 size categories growth (Only 3 of which are actual size increases, so you go from Medium to Gargantuan). The may difference is that the Threat doesn't actually need to grow, and as such is not subject to space constraints, but on the other hand, it doesn't get the Strenght increases that go with the actual size increases. That is not actually unbalanced in and of itself, and you can get *almost* the same benefits just by getting a Major Bloodline, that is, Titan bloodline.

In the end, the Threat is a very good grappler and melee'r, but he still lacks the versatility of the ToB classes, he lacks mobility, and most importantly, he lacks spells. Sure, he has a few very interesting tricks... But a Wizard or a Druid is still a better grappler. You can use Kelpstrand to grapple like a boss with a Druid, and wildshape into a Gargantuan Dire Bear and have better grapple modifiers than a Threat of the same level, and STILL have use of your spells to pump it *even* higher, by use of Personal Range buffs... Both the Wizard and Druid can also grapple by proxy, using Summons... A Malconvoker can get multiple Demons to grapple for him. A Necromancer can have a whole army grappling for him.... Etc... Etc...

Of course, it's *unfair* to compare him to Tier 1 & 2 classes, but let's then compare him to good Tier 3 classes. A Warblade, for instance. A pure classed Warblade has access to all the same tricks that he gets, except for the massive grapple modifier, bonus to natural armor, and the immunity to nonlethal. Stone Dragon stances can ignore hardness. Diamond Mind gives him big strikes, and maneuvers that make it near impossible to fail a save (Moment of's). Iron Heart Surge can say f*** y** to anything that grapples him... Tiger Claw can boost his DPS to godly levels... Or a Psychic Warrior, for instance. Does anyone remember the good ole' King of Smack? It *can* be done as a *pure* psychic warrior.

At 20th level, the summary of what the Threat gets is as follows: Counts as 4 categories larger for grapples/trips/opposed strenght checks, weapons wielded counts as two categories larger, gains a +6 inherent bonus to strenght, +9 natural armor, immune to mind-affecting and non-lethal, and gains an insight bonus equal to his dexterity modifier whenever he's denied the dexterity modifier, and finally, a 40 times per day pool of Mighty Blows .

How is that any more unbalanced than the full suite of maneuvers a Warblade gets? Or the full suite of powers a Psychic Warrior has access to? You have to remember that at 20th level, MOST monsters the party will face will be Gargantuan or larger. The *Only* way to keep up on grapple modifiers and grapple these beasts *is* keeping up by means of size increases. *Any* effective grappler will have to keep up with size increases if he wants to use that option. The natural armor bonus is very very nice, but in the end not so much different than the AC bonus other classes get. Sure, it's quite a bit large, but the Threat was made to be a front-line fighter, and that is in line with the in-your-face type of engagement that is expected. The Barbarian gets DR & Constitution, the Crusader gets a delayed damage pool, etc... The weapon damage dice size increase is very nice, but in the end, not a very large increase if you think about it. a D6 goes to a d10. 2d6 goes to 2d12... At best that is a +6 damage overall increase on average, over the course of TWENTY levels. That is on par on what could be expected if, for example, a fighter burned his feats on the Weapon Specialization chain, or the Rage bonuses increases the Barbarian gets. The Mighty Blow/Double Damage thing is readily attainable by means of multiplying effects... Headlong Rush, Leap Attack, etc... The uber charger FUNCTIONS on that principle. And charges are unlimited times per day... At best that ability is on par with those feats, if you think about it. As for the +6 increase on Strenght, it isn't that much unbalanced... And by the time you get to level 20, EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHERS already has regeneration, so you can't feel too special about being immune to nonlethal... Especially since the immunity to nonlethal is specifically worded as such that it does NOT combo with regeneration to become immunity to damage. Finally, Immunity to Mind-Affecting is something very desirable and attainable by means of spells and items, and furthermore, many classes grant it, too, and at almost the same level.

Fact of the matter is, the class is in and of itself balanced, but it's balanced on the side of a Tier 3 melee. It's meant to be a front-line grappler, bruiser & damage dealer. The abilities it gets suit very well to that, and the progression of the abilities is well-spaced enough that the class isn't a dipping-only class. Natural Break-Up points come in 5th level (When you count as 1 category larger, 7th level (When you count as 1 category larger, weapons you wieled 1 category larger, 3 natural armor, and 2 bonus feats) 10th level (When you count as 2 categories larger, weapons you wield 1 category larger, and you get Improved Uncanny dodge, +5 natural armor and 3 bonus feats, and the all-important Double Damage Merciless ability).

The Threat isn't any stronger than any of the strong melee classes, and actually fills a much needed niche - that of a grappling focused base class. A Threat/Psychic Warrior/Black Blood Cultist would be a fearsome thing to behold in the battlefield, indeed...

That's my analysis of the class... As for the rest of dandwiki... It's like 4chan's /b/ board. You are in the ***hole of the internet. Most of it, is by definition, s**t, but sometimes, bits of undigested corn come through, and you can keep them. Doesn't mean i'm going to waste my time wading knee deep into that cesspool just to gather a few pieces of s**t-stained corn.

Doesn't mean i'm not going to use the corn if it's washed and handed to me, though. Like the Threat class. I really actually liked it.

Your welcome for cleaning the corn :smallbiggrin:

[Zale]

I think someone made a thread awhile back about horrid homebrew from Dandwiki..

Here it is! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228992)

[Ravens_cry]

I think someone made a thread awhile back about horrid homebrew from Dandwiki..

Here it is! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228992)
It's so bad I even wrote a 'song' (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12449275&postcount=20) about it.
I'd like to say its forced meter and rhythm are meant to be an ironic indication of the perceived value of Dandi Wiki material.

[shadow_archmagi]

Because some of us absolutely can't stand using any homebrew whatsoever in our games, and yet when one googles ANY DnD related thing- dandwiki always pops up with a result that looks promising before you look where its coming from >_>

Yep. Usually when I have a new player I just quick grab their laptop and tell google to ignore results from dandwiki. If I'm lucky, they don't find out it exists until years later, when they're mature enough to recognize it for what it is.


The main problem I have with the site is that it doesn't clearly mark homebrew from non homebrew. When I first started playing D&D I thought several of the things on the site were actual feats and classes. Several players in my campaigns have thought the same thing.

This.



A quick google search later.... (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Crusader_(3.5e_Class))

Stupid Dandwiki. :smallannoyed:

The best part is that the class appears to just be a paladin with the word "Arcane" pasted over divine.

[Telonius]

There is a way to tell immediately on dandwiki if the thing you're viewing is homebrew. If this line occurs near the bottom:

"Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew →"

... then you're in the homebrew section. Unfortunately it's way down at the bottom, right above any of the footer items (which nobody ever, ever reads), so nearly everybody glosses over it.

[Agent 451]

Are you telling me the Lightning Warrior is an unbalanced and unofficial class!?!? :smalltongue:

Edit: I can't actually find it on dandwiki now... although it is still up on the mythwiki. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/wiki/index.php/Lightning_Warrior)

[Howler Dagger]

Because everything on it is balanced and we all know that EVERY 3.5 players hate that. :smalltongue::smallwink:

Blue=Sarcasm, for the unenlightened.

[Ravens_cry]

Why blue?
Blue strikes my synaesthetic sense as a fairly sombre colour, not really a 'sarcastic' colour at all.

[Tengu_temp]

Those flaws (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Flaws). I dare anyone to find 5 of them that aren't awful.

[KillianHawkeye]

Why blue?
Blue strikes my synaesthetic sense as a fairly sombre colour, not really a 'sarcastic' colour at all.

What color would seem sarcastic to you?

Yeah, I can't think of one, either.

[Bastian Weaver]

I dunno, magenta seems pretty sarcastic to me...

[Zale]

What color would seem sarcastic to you?

Yeah, I can't think of one, either.

Certainly not Orange. It's such a serious and sombre color.

[Bavarian itP]

Those flaws (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Flaws). I dare anyone to find 5 of them that aren't awful.

From a CharOp perspektive, "Small Penis" is awesome.

[Ravens_cry]

I dunno, magenta seems pretty sarcastic to me...
When I mentioned it in another thread, I also thought of magenta. The trouble is it is quite painful to read on a white background.
I prefer HTML-esque 'tags'.

[Zale]

From a CharOp perspektive, "Small Penis" is awesome.

From an entirely different perspective, there's the Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw.

They make it hard to do backflips.

[Shadowknight12]

Those flaws (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Flaws). I dare anyone to find 5 of them that aren't awful.

I like luposlipaphobia, myself, only applied as a broader concept. Pick 4 to 6 random but common conditions to construct a nightmarish scenario, save vs. fear if you encounter one or more. Go into full-blown panic if all are encountered together.


From a CharOp perspektive, "Small Penis" is awesome.

Yeah, nullifies cumbersome feats such as Monkey Grip and the like.

EDIT: I like it how it specifies "humanoid." That means that other creature types (such as Fey and Outsider, but also Construct and Undead) cannot have small penises. Interesting data on the D&D world.


From an entirely different perspective, there's the Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw.

They make it hard to do backflips.

Why, obviously. It's hard to do backflips when your spine is broken.

[Fatebreaker]

From an entirely different perspective, there's the Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw.

They make it hard to do backflips.

...I find it weird that the negative modifier scale upwards, but the positive modifiers are static.

[OracleofWuffing]

From an entirely different perspective, there's the Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw.

They make it hard to do backflips.
Oh, look closer. There's a Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_Breasts_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw, a Lagre Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw, and a Large Breasts Character Flaw (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_breasts_character_flaw).

[Ravens_cry]

And a small breasts flaw.:smallmad:
No misogynistic flaw, not overtly anyway.

[Zale]

Oh, look closer. There's a Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_Breasts_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw, a Lagre Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw, and a Large Breasts Character Flaw (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_breasts_character_flaw).

Do they come with the magical +3 Brassiere of Spin Unbending?

[Agent 451]

No misogynistic flaw, not overtly anyway.

The misogynistic flaw doesn't come into effect until a suitably high level female character b*tchslaps St. Cuthbert (oddly enough he is the god of common sense, yet there are no male gods of love, only multiple godesses), and Heironeous for uttering overtly sexist remarks.

[Tengu_temp]

And a small breasts flaw.:smallmad:
No misogynistic flaw, not overtly anyway.

If you thought that one was offensive enough, then don't look at Limp-Wristed.

[shadow_archmagi]

Oh, look closer. There's a Large Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_Breasts_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw, a Lagre Breasts (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Lagre_Breasts) flaw, and a Large Breasts Character Flaw (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Large_breasts_character_flaw).

They're actually the same flaw that for some reason decided it needed three separate pages.

[Ravens_cry]

If you thought that one was offensive enough, then don't look at Limp-Wristed.
Wow.:smallsigh:
Dandi Wiki: Where good ideas go to die, and bad ideas spread like fungus in a bachelors fridge.

[Zale]

They're actually the same flaw that for some reason decided it needed three separate pages.

No wonder they impose a negative five penalty to acrobatic skills. :smallsmile:

[Roguenewb]

Because some of us absolutely can't stand using any homebrew whatsoever in our games, and yet when one googles ANY DnD related thing- dandwiki always pops up with a result that looks promising before you look where its coming from >_>

QUOTE FOR TRUTH.

QUOTE FOR TRUTH FOR TRUTH FOR TRUTH. This is exactly my problem with it. It's not overly clearly labeled homebrew, and any build on it using a certain feature inevitably soaks up google hits and shows up first. Or even worse, some stuff has the same name as real stuff, and you have to sort out what's real from what's fake. I wish it didn't exist, or was less popular, or both.

[KillianHawkeye]

EDIT: I like it how it specifies "humanoid." That means that other creature types (such as Fey and Outsider, but also Construct and Undead) cannot have small penises. Interesting data on the D&D world.

Perhaps they can, and it just isn't considered a flaw? Fey and outsider mating rituals must put an emphasis on personalities. :smallamused:

[Shadowknight12]

Perhaps they can, and it just isn't considered a flaw? Fey and outsider mating rituals must put an emphasis on personalities. :smallamused:

:smallbiggrin:

Sorry, I just had a giggle fit. If you knew the reputation Fey and Outsiders have in my games... :smalltongue:

[Malimar]

As for the rest of dandwiki... It's like 4chan's /b/ board. You are in the ***hole of the internet. Most of it, is by definition, s**t, but sometimes, bits of undigested corn come through, and you can keep them. Doesn't mean i'm going to waste my time wading knee deep into that cesspool just to gather a few pieces of s**t-stained corn.

Doesn't mean i'm not going to use the corn if it's washed and handed to me, though.

Fun fact: the kernels of "corn" that you might see in poop are just the indigestible skins of the corn kernels. The skins are actually just filled with more poop; the edible corn part has already been digested. It's still poop, it's just disguised as non-poop.

Making it the perfect metaphor for dandwiki, as far as I'm concerned!

[KillianHawkeye]

:smallbiggrin:

Sorry, I just had a giggle fit. If you knew the reputation Fey and Outsiders have in my games... :smalltongue:

Yeah, I wasn't really buying that one, either.

[dgnslyr]

Fey and outsiders are both very magical peoples, known for their use of magic. Some are capable of shape-shifting, to some degree. Don't outsiders pretty much just appear however they want to appear? I don't think body form is a problem for the concerned outsider.

[Shadowknight12]

Yeah, I wasn't really buying that one, either.

I'm sure nymphs find the "nymphomaniac" flaw hilarious, too.


Fey and outsiders are both very magical peoples, known for their use of magic. Some are capable of shape-shifting, to some degree. Don't outsiders pretty much just appear however they want to appear? I don't think body form is a problem for the concerned outsider.

Oh, yes, selective shapeshifting. The answer to ANY problem.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Those flaws (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Flaws). I dare anyone to find 5 of them that aren't awful.

I tried to do just that. But, needless to say, I lost motivation terribly quickly...


And a small breasts flaw.:smallmad:
No misogynistic flaw, not overtly anyway.

Well, there's a fear of women (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gynephobia_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw. Close enough?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Perhaps they can, and it just isn't considered a flaw? Fey and outsider mating rituals must put an emphasis on personalities. :smallamused:

Faerie Mysteries Initiate. :smallamused:

[Volthawk]

Why blue?
Blue strikes my synaesthetic sense as a fairly sombre colour, not really a 'sarcastic' colour at all.

Pretty sure someone (I think it was Seerow) started using blue for sarcasm around here, and it just caught on.

[Tengu_temp]

I think I have it all figured out. Between all the rule fail, writing fail, and not being offensive fail, dandwiki is a project that aims to convert FATAL into the DND 3.5 ruleset.

[enderlord99]

Yeah, when the fa/tg/uys mobilize to crank out some good homebrew, awesome can result. Dungeons: The Dragoning 40K 7th Edition is/was a /tg/ project.

I have no idea what most of that means, but I am over weight, and I don't use 4chan.:smallconfused::smalltongue:

[Tengu_temp]

Fa/tg/uys is how /tg/ users are called. People from all 4chan boards have similar nicknames.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Fa/tg/uys is how /tg/ users are called. People from all 4chan boards have similar nicknames.
Of which "fa/tg/uys" is probably the least offensive.

[Agent 451]

I apparently have the inattentive flaw, since I would have NEVER noticed that!

[Studoku]

Those flaws (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Flaws). I dare anyone to find 5 of them that aren't awful.

I'm actually going to go through the list. The sheer number means there should be 5 half-decent ones, right?

[Thurbane]

Wow.:smallsigh:
Dandi Wiki: Where good ideas go to die, and bad ideas spread like fungus in a bachelors fridge.
As a bachelor, I find that offensive...and disturbingly accurate. :smallbiggrin:

To echo what people have said above, my problems with dandwiki are that:

A.) It does not clearly label what is homebrew and what is official SRD content - this extends to people using names for their homebrew that are identical to existing official content, and also copy/pasting 3rd party content without crediting or accurately labelling it.
B.) That the vast majority of the homebrew on there is poorly written, unbalanced and not edited or reviewed. Many of the homebrewers that contribute seem to have little grasp of balance, playability and the finer points of the 3.5 rules; while others appear to be pubescent boys who contribute almost FATAL worthy material for the "snigger" factor.

New pet hate, after reading through the flaws. Trivialising real world mental disorders and basically mocking sufferers. :smallyuk:

[erikun]

I'm actually going to go through the list. The sheer number means there should be 5 half-decent ones, right?
You'd certainly think so, wouldn't you?
This, however, is DanDwiki. It exists to impress. Or unimpress, depending on how you read it.

[Voyager_I]

And you know what else? DanD is not an acceptable acronym for Dungeons and Dragons.

The whole thing is a piss take from top to bottom.

[Empedocles]

And you know what else? DanD is not an acceptable acronym for Dungeons and Dragons.

The whole thing is a piss take from top to bottom.

To be fair, D and D is a normal acronym; they just stylized it as dand to be...uh,............................


Cool? :smallmad:

[Madara]

Darn
Angry
Nerd
Dance?
:smallbiggrin:

Let's have some fun

[Studoku]

I'm actually going to go through the list. The sheer number means there should be 5 half-decent ones, right?

I actually found 6 that I'd consider usable. This required going through the entire list and should give some idea of the crap to mostly-playable content on the wiki.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Arrogant_(3.5e_Flaw)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Coward_(3.5e_Flaw) - Admittedly, this needs a rule that prevents the character from becoming immune to fear or removes the feat when he does.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hemophobia_(3.5e_Flaw) - Same as above.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Impatient_(3.5e_Flaw)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Sadness_(3.5e_Flaw) - Has a lame sounding name but it's simple and balanced.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Uncontrollable_Spell_Resistance_(3.5e_Flaw) - An honourary mention for being interesting, even if it is probably easy to break.

[Ravens_cry]

Ye might wantest to check on yonder links, they be as broken as . . . my 'ye olde' English.

[OracleofWuffing]

They're actually the same flaw that for some reason decided it needed three separate pages.
They're still different pages and different names... I wonder how they... :smallcool: stack.

Oh, check out the Exhibitionist (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Exhibitionist) feat. You need a lawful good character to tell you to put your clothes on. Any other alignment doesn't matter.:smalltongue:

[Ravens_cry]

*jaw drops*

will not put clothing back on until one of the following happens: . . . the character is paid 1 gp per effective character level (if perform: striptease is accepted as a benefit)
What the flaming flatulent flamingo flambé?!:smalleek:
It takes a very special kind of person to write this.
Very special.:smallsigh:

[Shadowknight12]

*jaw drops*

What the flaming flatulent flamingo flambé?!:smalleek:
It takes a very special kind of person to write this.
Very special.:smallsigh:

I'm going to take a wild, unprecedented guess and claim that I'm pretty sure whoever wrote that never considered the idea of a male taking that flaw. What with so many flaws dealing with breasts... :smallsigh:

[Akisa]

I'm going to take a wild, unprecedented guess and claim that I'm pretty sure whoever wrote that never considered the idea of a male taking that flaw. What with so many flaws dealing with breasts... :smallsigh:

Actually the author did have male in mind he made the feat.


xhibitionist [General]
A character with this flaw suffers the compulsive need to remove all of his/her clothing whenever encountering new people.

[Shadowknight12]

Actually the author did have male in mind he made the feat.

Well colour me surprised. Between all the breast flaws and "Limp-Wristed" I was kind of hoping that saying "Now imagine this flaw you created... on a male" would cause their minds to melt.

That's not the worst part, though. The worst part is that you can have a group of 4 adults and a child and the will save DC will get a +2. Which means that, add enough adults to the mix, and this character WILL get naked in front of children.

Now I like the idea of eyecandy in my games as much as any other mature adult, but that's just... no. :smalleek:

[Akisa]

Don't get me wrong, I still gag when I read the text.

[Empedocles]

...

You could say we're getting off topic.

But I'd be lying if this wasn't making me laugh...except...the last part. Too far.

[Ravens_cry]

I'm going to take a wild, unprecedented guess and claim that I'm pretty sure whoever wrote that never considered the idea of a male taking that flaw. What with so many flaws dealing with breasts... :smallsigh:
That isn't my problem with it. . . :smallconfused:

[OracleofWuffing]

I mean, mechanically, it's just a problem with using the Wiki format to support anonymous homebrew, so you can't actually expect everything to be compatible with each other, but, well... It has come to my attention that taking the Small Breasts flaw does not necessarily prevent you from taking any of the Large Breast flaws. Likewise, the Exhibitionist flaw could have some really silly applications with the Never Nude flaw. (Though, I guess if you do take Exhibitionist, you might as well milk it for what it's worth and take the Playground's own Vow of Nudity.)

Headless would be hilarious for longer, though.:smalltongue:

[Sutremaine]

You could also take both the Necrophobic and Necrophiliac flaws for roleplaying hilarity.

[Agent 451]

I'd probably let someone who was reincarnated during the course of a session take the Reincarnated Misfortune (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Reincarnated_Misfortune_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw.

[Ravens_cry]

I'd probably let someone who was reincarnated during the course of a session take the Reincarnated Misfortune (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Reincarnated_Misfortune_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw.
That's so vague that travelling with the party would likely give them that penalty at all times. Not to mention not understanding how the spell Reincarnate works at all.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'd probably let someone who was reincarnated during the course of a session take the Reincarnated Misfortune (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Reincarnated_Misfortune_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw.

...Did you read that flaw? It has nothing to do with the spell Reincarnate. It's for campaigns where Chinese-style reincarnation exists.

[Marnath]

I'd probably let someone who was reincarnated during the course of a session take the Reincarnated Misfortune (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Reincarnated_Misfortune_(3.5e_Flaw)) flaw.

Isn't that basically word for word from the bodak monster entry?

[Agent 451]

I did read the flaw. Notice how there is no prerequisite of "Must be taken at 1st level"?

It is vague, yes, but it falls on the DM to set the circumstances that would actually trigger it, otherwise it would be ridiculous. Particularly if you had been with the same party for several levels. And how does it demonstrate
not understanding how the spell Reincarnate works at all?

As per the SRD:


A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged.

All in all it is nowhere near as broken as many of the flaws on that page, and it does provide an interesting avenue for some to roleplay if they desire to do so.

Marnath, the bodak entry says it retains fleeting memories but there is nothing beyond that.

[Ravens_cry]

"Recalls the majority of its former life and form" is quite different from "Oh, there is there is something that I think reminds me of a past life. I think I'll go angst now."

[Empedocles]

I agree. That's actually quite a good plot hook of a flaw (and frankly is one of the best on the site...which isn't saying much :smallconfused:)

[OracleofWuffing]

I did read the flaw. Notice how there is no prerequisite of "Must be taken at 1st level"?
You can't take flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) after first level unless you have a friendly DM.

A player may select up to two flaws when creating a character. After 1st level, a character cannot take on additional flaws unless the game master specifically allows it (for examples of times when doing this might be appropriate, see Character Traits).
Then again, I guess if the flaw's even on the table, it's pretty safe to assume it'll be allowed anyways.

[Agent 451]

"Recalls the majority of its former life and form" is quite different from "Oh, there is there is something that I think reminds me of a past life. I think I'll go angst now."

Yeah, but what is former life and form? To me it is perfectly reasonable for that to mean:

A) You were a cleric, and the smell of the near-by swamp where you honed your combat skills against rats reminds you of your cloister.

B) You see a glimpse of a githyanki in a sea of humans and it tugs at a memory of being a githyanki in a sea of humans.

For that matter what would you call "majority"? You lived your whole life as an exile, oh look, there's an exile over there! It's open, vague and subjective to a fault, and that lends it to have determining factors attributed to it in game as a roleplaying aid.

Edit: Oracle, in the UA it also refers you back to the traits portion, which states that you can gain traits (and subsequently flaws) after sufficient roleplay or a traumatic event within game.

[Empedocles]

Yeah, but what is former life and form? To me it is perfectly reasonable for that to mean:

A) You were a cleric, and the smell of the near-by swamp where you honed your combat skills against rats reminds you of your cloister.

B) You see a glimpse of a githyanki in a sea of humans and it tugs at a memory of being a githyanki in a sea of humans.

For that matter what would you call "majority"? You lived your whole life as an exile, oh look, there's an exile over there! It's open, vague and subjective to a fault, and that lends it to have determining factors attributed to it in game as a roleplaying aid.

It's flavor and I'd assume primarily a plot hook. For example, here's something off the top of my head:

A wizard is invited to a party thrown by a royal and famous aristocrat. When he meets the aristocrat, he has a flashback to his own murder several lifetimes ago...and since it was several lifetimes ago, how can the aristocrat still be alive? And if he was a murderer then, what is he now?

[Agent 451]

Exactly. As DM you can take it where you wish in order to advance the plot and character development.

Originally I was advocating the past life as your previous deceased body, but who's to say that resurrection didn't trigger deeper memories?

[Calanon]

You could also take both the Necrophobic and Necrophiliac flaws for roleplaying hilarity.

"Its my first time... be gentle..."
-Kotaro, Sexy Half-Dragon Ninja with the Large Breasted, Necrophobic and Necrophiliac Flaws

"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINZZZZ!!!!!"
-John the Zombie Call Boy

[Empedocles]

"Its my first time... be gentle..."
-Kotaro, Sexy Half-Dragon Ninja with the Large Breasted, Necrophobic and Necrophiliac Flaws

"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINZZZZ!!!!!"
-John the Zombie Call Boy

Too much.

But still funny!

[Ravens_cry]

@Agent 451:
But it's so gosh darn open to interpretation it's more like "Hey, here's a 'free' feat. But in return, I can screw over your character when I feel like it."
The -2 will become almost irrelevant eventually,though will still sting, 10% is 10%, but the 'no take actions'? Harsh dude, harsh.
It may very well be one of the better ones, it almost certainly is given the dreck and detritus that site attracts, but it still isn't that great.

[OracleofWuffing]

Edit: Oracle, in the UA it also refers you back to the traits portion, which states that you can gain traits (and subsequently flaws) after sufficient roleplay or a traumatic event within game.
The line you're referring to in the Character Traits section is also preceded by "If the DM allows it, characters may add traits to their characters after 1st level." You need fiat to get either Character Traits or Flaws after 1st level.

And to reiterate, yeah, fiat isn't too much of a concern when we're talking homebrew, but the rules for Flaws and Traits are still rules until houseruled otherwise.

E: Come to think of it, using the Character Flaws rules as written, all of the Dandwiki flaws that say "Benefit: Bonus Feat" are actually giving you two bonus feats, because Flaws give you a bonus feat without using that line.

[Thiyr]

Despite all this wonderful conversation on flaws and how the Wiki That Shall Not Be Named makes my head want to explode whenever I'm trying to think up fitting flaws for characters, I have yet to see the single greatest example I have ever found of why said wiki is worth nothing but mockery at best.

Someone felt the need to homebrew...matches (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Sure-Strike_Matches_%283.5e_Equipment%29). No, not the tindertwig (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#tindertwig), but matches. Because clearly it was needed.

[Voyager_I]

Matches that could outright kill an ordinary person who singes their fingers.

[Milo v3]

Strangely I don't think I've had any of the problems the rest of the playgrounders have had...
I go on the site all the time, and sometimes I put some of my homebrew there. I also have a setting on the site which I am slowly completing and balancing.

As for it doesn't tell if it is homebrew or not, it will say SRD if it is SRD, (3.5e Class) if it is a homebrew class. Is that hard? I realised this on my first vist to the site as did my players.

But I can't really comment on the Traits or Flaws sections as I don't use them in my games. They do seem to have a theme though...

[Ravens_cry]

And it's not even *good* homebrew of matches as, by RAW, each box will do 2d6, no matter how matches many are inside as long as there is at least one.
♪Oh, the Dandi Wiki . . .♫

[Milo v3]

And it's not even *good* homebrew of matches as, by RAW, each box will do 2d6, no matter how matches many are inside as long as there is at least one.
♪Oh, the Dandi Wiki . . .♫

It isn't as if the people on Dand wiki didn't notice the problems. But they can't delete an article just because the person who made it didn't think.

Edit: Just fixed that problem.
♪Ah, the Dandi Wiki . . .♫

[ScionoftheVoid]

The lack of differentiation between homebrew and official material is why I don't visit the site often. Kind of annoying.

Five flaws which are usable? I'd pick these: Naive (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Naive_(3.5e_Flaw)), Misanthrope (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Misanthrope_(3.5e_Flaw)), Coward (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Coward_(3.5e_Flaw)) (assuming a quick-fix prerequistie of not having immunity to fear), Haemophobia (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hemophobia_(3.5e_Flaw)) and Impatient (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Impatient_(3.5e_Flaw)). Wow, I didn't check nearly every entry, but I didn't have to, really. They really have a thing for rolling Will saves, which is not good for something that's supposed to consistently inconvenience you. It's open to simply boosting the save and it means rolling saves often, which is annoying. Not to mention the ones with several modifiers to keep track of. Those are awful.

[Acanous]

It isn't as if the people on Dand wiki didn't notice the problems. But they can't delete an article just because the person who made it didn't think.

Edit: Just fixed that problem.
♪Ah, the Dandi Wiki . . .♫

there should at least be a discussion page followed by edits. If it's a wiki, people can edit.

[Ravens_cry]

Let's see, 4000 gold for a sure 200 (no save is mentioned) points of damage?
Interesting.

[Milo v3]

there should at least be a discussion page followed by edits. If it's a wiki, people can edit.

There is a Discussion page for that example. As for the edits, I just made one for those matches? I'm actually willing to try and balance nearly everything on that site if I had enough time.

[Ravens_cry]

Sometimes it's not just balance, it's the concept.
Like a flaw that makes people strip and give stripteases for cash.
Or Small Breasts. Or Limp Wristed. Or Large Breasts in all three of its iterations.
Crimes against Balance is not that sites only crime.

[Agent 451]

@Agent 451:
But it's so gosh darn open to interpretation it's more like "Hey, here's a 'free' feat. But in return, I can screw over your character when I feel like it."
The -2 will become almost irrelevant eventually,though will still sting, 10% is 10%, but the 'no take actions'? Harsh dude, harsh.
It may very well be one of the better ones, it almost certainly is given the dreck and detritus that site attracts, but it still isn't that great.

Yeah, I suppose a flat 5% chance is harsh, despite the fact that they get a second feat out of it. Should probably be house-houseruled as a Wisdom/Intelligence or Will save. Although if you and the DM allow it for roleplaying sake I don't see the "screw you" portion factoring in too much, unless you have a major dink as a DM.

Ravens_cry, maybe you and I should collaborate on a concisely worded Reincarnated Misfortune Mk. II :smalltongue:

[Milo v3]

Sometimes it's not just balance, it's the concept.
Like a flaw that makes people strip and give stripteases for cash.
Or Small Breasts. Or Limp Wristed. Or Large Breasts in all three of its iterations.
Crimes against Balance is not that sites only crime.

Which is why I said nearly every article. I am fully aware that balance isn't always the problem, but I can't change the concept of an article. Nor do I want to be linked to such articles, so I wouldn't bother to try change them.

Also I added in the Reflex saves and made the page look "slightly" better.

[kardar233]

The only DanDwiki material I've ever used in a game is the Compulsive Maniacal Laughter flaw.


What? I've been practicing. I've got a "mad scientist" one, an "evil overlord" one, a "completely insane maniac" one....

[JadePhoenix]

The Threat isn't as unbalanced as you may think.

I just wanted to say the guy in the picture was hot.

[Larkas]

After reading all this, I have a question for you, Playgrounders. Why don't we have a homebrew wiki? I mean, okay, we do have a board put aside only for that, with lots of good homebrew and indexing threads, but the wiki presentation style is much more appealing, as the DanDwiki unfortunately shows us. Make it so only approved writers can post (i.e.: registered users of minimum X rank), only the author and a few selected contributors can edit the article, the homebrew has to be presented and approved in the forums before being posted on the wiki, and the "Talk" page always redirects to the original thread in the forums and BAM, we have a good quality, concise encyclopedia of homebrew, with the added benefit of that "History" feature wikis have.

...Okay, am I being too utopic? :smalltongue:

[lord pringle]

"Its my first time... be gentle..."
-Kotaro, Sexy Half-Dragon Ninja with the Large Breasted, Necrophobic and Necrophiliac Flaws

"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINZZZZ!!!!!"
-John the Zombie Call Boy
And that's how you get zombie blight. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Zombie_Blight)

After reading all this, I have a question for you, Playgrounders. Why don't we have a homebrew wiki? I mean, okay, we do have a board put aside only for that, with lots of good homebrew and indexing threads, but the wiki presentation style is much more appealing, as the DanDwiki unfortunately shows us. Make it so only approved writers can post (i.e.: registered users of minimum X rank), only the author and a few selected contributors can edit the article, the homebrew has to be presented and approved in the forums before being posted on the wiki, and the "Talk" page always redirects to the original thread in the forums and BAM, we have a good quality, concise encyclopedia of homebrew, with the added benefit of that "History" feature wikis have.

...Okay, am I being too utopic? :smalltongue:
'Cause we have a homebrew section already...?

[Larkas]

'Cause we have a homebrew section already...?

Yeah, I covered that in my post. But nevermind, you shouldn't touch that which is working.

[lord pringle]

Yeah, I covered that in my post. But nevermind, you shouldn't touch that which is working.


Oh, sorry. I skimmed.

[OracleofWuffing]

After reading all this, I have a question for you, Playgrounders. Why don't we have a homebrew wiki?
We got this one (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Main_Page), which is kinda close to that.

[Larkas]

We got this one (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Main_Page), which is kinda close to that.

Hey, interesting! That deserves more advertising. Myself, I'm bookmarking it right now :smallcool:

[Empedocles]

After reading all this, I have a question for you, Playgrounders. Why don't we have a homebrew wiki? I mean, okay, we do have a board put aside only for that, with lots of good homebrew and indexing threads, but the wiki presentation style is much more appealing, as the DanDwiki unfortunately shows us. Make it so only approved writers can post (i.e.: registered users of minimum X rank), only the author and a few selected contributors can edit the article, the homebrew has to be presented and approved in the forums before being posted on the wiki, and the "Talk" page always redirects to the original thread in the forums and BAM, we have a good quality, concise encyclopedia of homebrew, with the added benefit of that "History" feature wikis have.

...Okay, am I being too utopic? :smalltongue:

That's vaguely what I was thinking of when I started this thread, and the reason I did was mostly to see if the issues that dandwiki had would be fixable in a giantitp homebrew wiki. Of course, 3000 views later and 5 pages in we've gotten slightly off topic...:smalltongue:

[Shadowknight12]

I just wanted to say the guy in the picture was hot.

Well NOW I have to find it.

...

...

Huh. May be the ONLY good thing in that wiki. And it's from Deviant Art, judging from the filename.

[JadePhoenix]

Well NOW I have to find it.

...

...

Huh. May be the ONLY good thing in that wiki. And it's from Deviant Art, judging from the filename.

I like the way you think. :smallamused:

[Larkas]

That's vaguely what I was thinking of when I started this thread, and the reason I did was mostly to see if the issues that dandwiki had would be fixable in a giantitp homebrew wiki. Of course, 3000 views later and 5 pages in we've gotten slightly off topic...:smalltongue:

It's a good idea, nevertheless :smallsmile:

[Shadowknight12]

I like the way you think. :smallamused:

Found the author (http://sandara.deviantart.com/). There, we have found something good thanks to dandwiki, even if it's purely incidental. :smallcool:

[Kish]

Having read some of the posts in this thread, I find myself wondering why anyone would not hate D&Dwiki.

[Ravens_cry]

Found the author (http://sandara.deviantart.com/). There, we have found something good thanks to dandwiki, even if it's purely incidental. :smallcool:
Which fits the theme considering it is likely used without permission.

[TheFallenOne]

I stumbled upon dandwiki stuff couple times when googling. Each and every time I noticed in short order
1) it is Homebrew
2) the writers had absolutely no idea what they were doing.




I go on the site all the time, and sometimes I put some of my homebrew there. I also have a setting on the site which I am slowly completing and balancing.

I have to ask... why bother? Never heard of Guilt by Association? Or in this case Bad Homebrewer by Association?
Knowing you publish stuff there makes me instinctively want to dismiss your Homebrew out of hand. Is that a fair judgement? No. But when it's all I know about your homebrew it's a rational judgement, just by virtue of knowing the odds.

Dandwiki is broken beyond repair. Instead of trying to fix the many many problems, the more economic choice would be to find the few good homebrewers there and show them better places to publish their creations.

[JadePhoenix]

Found the author (http://sandara.deviantart.com/). There, we have found something good thanks to dandwiki, even if it's purely incidental. :smallcool:

Oh
my
GOD!!!
This is amazing! You are my new hero, Shadowknight12.

[Milo v3]

I have to ask... why bother? Never heard of Guilt by Association? Or in this case Bad Homebrewer by Association?
Knowing you publish stuff there makes me instinctively want to dismiss your Homebrew out of hand. Is that a fair judgement? No. But when it's all I know about your homebrew it's a rational judgement, just by virtue of knowing the odds.

Dandwiki is broken beyond repair. Instead of trying to fix the many many problems, the more economic choice would be to find the few good homebrewers there and show them better places to publish their creations.

Firstly because for my players it is a quicker way to see my homebrew without having to go into the forums, then find a post I've done, then go to my homebrew signature, simply to find details on one tiny detail. It is a lot faster to put homebrew in one area which is sectioned properly and I actually feel as though I have more freedom.

As for Guilt by Association, I don't feel as though my work is worse simply for being on that site. A good amount of my homebrew is actually on both sites. Does that mean it is good and horrible at the same time. You can't use Guilt by Association as a proper argument as it represents ignorance, and expecting that every part of the site is that same is a stupid idea.

Also while you may see dismissing all material from that site immediately as rational, it does result in you missing some great things. I do realise that the crap severely outweighs the good on DanD wiki, so more often then not the stuff linked to is bad.

But strangely everytime I asked to use my homebrew from that site on these forums or asked people to PEACH it, people looked at the material and I generally got praise, with one person saying to me that I shouldn't trust anything on the site.

So people are obviously fine with looking at the site if the person's work is good.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Firstly because for my players it is a quicker way to see my homebrew without having to go into the forums, then find a post I've done, then go to my homebrew signature, simply to find details on one tiny detail. It is a lot faster to put homebrew in one area which is sectioned properly and I actually feel as though I have more freedom.

...You could just make a thread for your setting, reserve about ten posts, and include links in the original post. Anything beyond the ten posts can still be linked to.

[Milo v3]

...You could just make a thread for your setting, reserve about ten posts, and include links in the original post. Anything beyond the ten posts can still be linked to.

I've done that sort of thing before with my Binder of Souls project, it takes a long time to get it really long time for me to get it done also their is the problem with it getting old and stopping me from posting because of thread necromancy. I'm not the fastest at adding to my setting so it would likely decend into thread necromancy teritory rather quickly, then I would have to never post in that thread again.

Which means I will only be able to edit my previous posts. But they will eventually get full and will make the whole thing less ordered.

I could make new threads but then it ruins the order. But I could edit whole threads and rearranged them, but that would take far to long for such minimal gain.

[HunterOfJello]

As I'm sure many people have already pointed out, D&D Wiki is a huge pain in the ass for us DMs. Players often come across the website when searching for information about the game's specifics on google. They will click on the website and see character options that they assume is official. The information may be official or may be homebrew, but they end up showing up to the table with it printed out with a big smile on their face super excited to use some new option for their character that we have to then shoot down because it's badly created homebrew.

"You found a feat on d&d wiki that lets you take your Attack of Oppurtunities at 100ft away by throwing your greatsword at them repeatedly? No, sorry. That's badly made homebrew."

~~

Ruining player's time because of a retarded site that doesn't post a HOMEBREW disclaimer is a really ****ty way to start a session.





(Note: It's even worse when the character concept is based around a concept that they thought was legal which isn't and is badly unbalanced too.)

[The Glyphstone]

I've done that sort of thing before with my Binder of Souls project, it takes a long time to get it really long time for me to get it done also their is the problem with it getting old and stopping me from posting because of thread necromancy. I'm not the fastest at adding to my setting so it would likely decend into thread necromancy teritory rather quickly, then I would have to never post in that thread again.

Which means I will only be able to edit my previous posts. But they will eventually get full and will make the whole thing less ordered.

I could make new threads but then it ruins the order. But I could edit whole threads and rearranged them, but that would take far to long for such minimal gain.

*coughcough*


Thread Necromancy
Bringing a thread back from "the dead." If a thread hasn't been posted in within the last six weeks, don't reply to it. Start a new topic, if you want to discuss the subject (you are welcome to link to the old thread). If you think it would be better to resurrect an old thread, PM a moderator for that subforum and wait for approval. The original poster of a creation in Homebrew (and only that poster) may revive a creation beyond the six-week threshold without prior Moderator approval.


So, what were you saying again?:smallcool:

[Milo v3]

As I'm sure many people have already pointed out, D&D Wiki is a huge pain in the ass for us DMs. Players often come across the website when searching for information about the game's specifics on google. They will click on the website and see character options that they assume is official. The information may be official or may be homebrew, but they end up showing up to the table with it printed out with a big smile on their face super excited to use some new option for their character that we have to then shoot down because it's badly created homebrew.

"You found a feat on d&d wiki that lets you take your Attack of Oppurtunities at 100ft away by throwing your greatsword at them repeatedly? No, sorry. That's badly made homebrew."

~~

Ruining player's time because of a retarded site that doesn't post a HOMEBREW disclaimer is a really ****ty way to start a session.





(Note: It's even worse when the character concept is based around a concept that they thought was legal which isn't and is badly unbalanced too.)
Is it really that hard for people to read the title? Or maybe the section at the bottom of every page where it says Homebrew? I am really surprised about how many times this has happened to other groups.


*coughcough*


So, what were you saying again?:smallcool:

I didn't remember that rule, this will help with my larger projects thank you.

But their still lies a problem, I don't want to bump a thread after it died long ago. It just seems like I would be taking up space other new homebrew which is currently being discussed should have.

But this is more a part of my mentality so it isn't a problem with this site or anything.

[TheFallenOne]

As for Guilt by Association, I don't feel as though my work is worse simply for being on that site. A good amount of my homebrew is actually on both sites. Does that mean it is good and horrible at the same time. You can't use Guilt by Association as a proper argument as it represents ignorance, and expecting that every part of the site is that same is a stupid idea.

Also while you may see dismissing all material from that site immediately as rational, it does result in you missing some great things. I do realise that the crap severely outweighs the good on DanD wiki, so more often then not the stuff linked to is bad.

I never said everything posted there is inherently bad. I never said everything posted in the giantitp homebrew section is inherently good. Your reductio ad absurdum rests on two false assumptions.

It's quite simple: there's so much homebrew out there you have to sort out which ones even to look at. A quick assessment on the likelyhood of it being good or bad using limited evidence. Does it cause me to miss some gems? Yes. But it also saves a whole lot of time and lets me focus on brews where the initial assessment suggests they might be good.

Bad typo in thread title? Won't even look at it.
I know the creator to previously have made things that are bad or simply not my style? Same.
I open the thread and at a first glance see messed up formatting? Backspace button.
Posted on dandwiki? Get. Out.

[OracleofWuffing]

Which is why I said nearly every article. I am fully aware that balance isn't always the problem, but I can't change the concept of an article. Nor do I want to be linked to such articles, so I wouldn't bother to try change them.
A tiny little evil voice in my head is begging me to go through and create a whole bunch of seemingly-innocent pages with something incredibly stupid hidden halfway through each one, just to make the job you're doing more interesting. It's being stopped by another voice in my head that's imagining that people doing exactly that is the reason why the site's in the state as it is right now, which means I could potentially be the reason why people hate the site... And then the bigger voice just wants some pie.:smallwink:


Is it really that hard for people to read the title? Or maybe the section at the bottom of every page where it says Homebrew? I am really surprised about how many times this has happened to other groups.
Something I'm wondering here, is that a lot of the people involved when this point gets brought up, are folks that are new to the game and are looking for information. Such players may not necessarily know what "homebrew" actually means in this context, or even what "SRD" means for that matter. Granted, it is more likely a fault of the DM and players than it is of the wiki, but not everybody's hate is logically founded.

[Thurbane]

I'm surprised the "flaws" that Minmax from the Goblins comic has don't pop up on dandwiki.

"You have Improved Unarmed Strike?"
"I got it by trading away my ability to rhyme on purpose!"

[Empedocles]

Okay, on a another note, does anyone else think a Giantitp homebrew wiki would be a good thing?

[Sturmcrow]

Because some of us absolutely can't stand using any homebrew whatsoever in our games, and yet when one googles ANY DnD related thing- dandwiki always pops up with a result that looks promising before you look where its coming from >_>

EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE!

Been trying to look up stuff occassionally for the last year because my friend was running a game where he told us break it as much as you want (I only sorta broke it with my Artificer but I played more support lol). So many times would end up there and find out I was looking at something made up. One of the other players had a feat from there too, when I pointed out it was homebrew he dropped it immediately even though the DM would let him keep it.

[Darth Stabber]

Okay, on a another note, does anyone else think a Giantitp homebrew wiki would be a good thing?

Eh, it would be marginally useful, but I have no issues with the current format (other than searchability). I probably would convert a few of my homebrews to it, but I really don't much care to do so. Infact I haven't even converted my stuff over to fax's wiki, nor have I finished fleshing out the campaign setting I was working on over there.

[Empedocles]

Eh, it would be marginally useful, but I have no issues with the current format (other than searchability). I probably would convert a few of my homebrews to it, but I really don't much care to do so. Infact I haven't even converted my stuff over to fax's wiki, nor have I finished fleshing out the campaign setting I was working on over there.

So you don't think it'd be worth the effort?

[Darth Stabber]

So you don't think it'd be worth the effort?

It would probably be worth it if we could get everyone to do it. There would be some slight issues with moving other people's stuff for them (future modification rights being the most obvious), and without that, I don't see it getting enough buy in and/or not lazy from a good chunk of the brewers themselves to get great swaths of them to put in the effort. I would be happy to be wrong, and this isn't a slam on any one, just a statment on human nature.

If we're going to do this, I would like to also see build handbooks (which aren't homebrew) given a place. I know that brilliant gameologists is sort of the current repository (at least via links), but they would look sharp in wiki format. But with that idea multiply the amount of pain it would be to convert by 10, since handbooks tend to be quite long.

[Larkas]

If we're going to do this, I would like to also see build handbooks (which aren't homebrew) given a place. I know that brilliant gameologists is sort of the current repository (at least via links), but they would look sharp in wiki format. But with that idea multiply the amount of pain it would be to convert by 10, since handbooks tend to be quite long.

That's a good idea too. Anyways, the hardest/most boring part of posting stuff in wikis is making tables; thankfully the table formatting used by GianITP forums is pretty much the same as most wikis', so it would be pretty much a copy-paste work, with minor editings. I think that any wiki with a WYSIWYG editor would speed the process of posting stuff a lot too, so much so that it would be even easier to post stuff on the wiki than on the forums. Bottomline, I think it would be worth it.

[Gavinfoxx]

If we're going to do this, I would like to also see build handbooks (which aren't homebrew) given a place. I know that brilliant gameologists is sort of the current repository (at least via links), but they would look sharp in wiki format. But with that idea multiply the amount of pain it would be to convert by 10, since handbooks tend to be quite long.

There is a wiki where some build handbooks lair, though, isn't there?

[Darth Stabber]

There is a wiki where some build handbooks lair, though, isn't there?

Not to my knowledge, but then again I haven't looked because I just use BG. If you want a list of handbooks here you go (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0).

[Gavinfoxx]

I mean some of the handbooks linked there are hosted at a wiki somewhere.

[Ravens_cry]

I never said everything posted there is inherently bad. I never said everything posted in the giantitp homebrew section is inherently good. Your reductio ad absurdum rests on two false assumptions.

It's quite simple: there's so much homebrew out there you have to sort out which ones even to look at. A quick assessment on the likelyhood of it being good or bad using limited evidence. Does it cause me to miss some gems? Yes. But it also saves a whole lot of time and lets me focus on brews where the initial assessment suggests they might be good.

Bad typo in thread title? Won't even look at it.
I know the creator to previously have made things that are bad or simply not my style? Same.
I open the thread and at a first glance see messed up formatting? Backspace button.
Posted on dandwiki? Get. Out.
I'm pretty sure you're attributing the quotation the wrong person, mate.:smallconfused:

[Triscuitable]

Yeah, when the fa/tg/uys mobilize to crank out some good homebrew, awesome can result. Dungeons: The Dragoning 40K 7th Edition is/was a /tg/ project.

I love those books. I remember The-Mage-King obsessing over those, and linking me to them half as often as I linked him to Katawa Shoujo. :smallamused:

[Larkas]

Not to my knowledge, but then again I haven't looked because I just use BG. If you want a list of handbooks here you go (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0).

It would be nice to save all of those before the old boards go offline, but then again, it would be nice to have the author's authorization :smallfrown:

[nyjastul69]

So you don't think it'd be worth the effort?

This is why I don't use DanD Wiki. It's not not worth my time to parse them. I don't want to wade through a ton of crap to come out with a 1/4 ounce of gold. Your good home brew will never be found by me if it only exists there.

[killem2]

Because some of us absolutely can't stand using any homebrew whatsoever in our games, and yet when one googles ANY DnD related thing- dandwiki always pops up with a result that looks promising before you look where its coming from >_>

You can block it :)

[Rubik]

You can block it :)That's what I did.

[Man in Black]

As the title says: why does everyone on these forums seem to hate dandwiki? The quality of work is overall less than that on the forums but there's certainly a good deal of workable stuff on there. For example, this base class is perfectly fine and there're some nice settings and concepts.

So why all the hate? I get that it's mostly inferior work but that doesn't seem like a good reason to shut it out completely.
Possibly because it's the most obvious, legal, free way to find stats and rules, and it's riddled with things that are not actually rules. Sometimes it takes forever to dig through things that are actually D&D rules and things where someone just said "the actual rules suck so I'm remaking this".

If Homebrew and D&D had separate Wikias, that would be fine. As it is, explaining to someone that they have to use THIS Sorcerer, because the other one is not allowed in the campaign we both play in, makes DandDwiki equal parts help and frustration.

[Milo v3]

Possibly because it's the most obvious, legal, free way to find stats and rules, and it's riddled with things that are not actually rules. Sometimes it takes forever to dig through things that are actually D&D rules and things where someone just said "the actual rules suck so I'm remaking this".

If Homebrew and D&D had separate Wikias, that would be fine. As it is, explaining to someone that they have to use THIS Sorcerer, because the other one is not allowed in the campaign we both play in, makes DandDwiki equal parts help and frustration.

Or you could write Sorcerer into the search bar...
Or you could click the open content section....
Or when you put it into google add SRD: to the front...
Or you could remember the name of the article...

You don't need to dig to find the rules. If you are digging through homebrew you are looking in the homebrew section, that is your fault not the sites.

[Shadowknight12]

Oh
my
GOD!!!
This is amazing! You are my new hero, Shadowknight12.

OMG indeed, the art is frankly breath-taking! You're quite welcome, glad we could salvage something awesome out of that forsaken place. :smallbiggrin:

[Solaris]

Strangely I don't think I've had any of the problems the rest of the playgrounders have had...
I go on the site all the time, and sometimes I put some of my homebrew there. I also have a setting on the site which I am slowly completing and balancing.

As for it doesn't tell if it is homebrew or not, it will say SRD if it is SRD, (3.5e Class) if it is a homebrew class. Is that hard? I realised this on my first vist to the site as did my players.

But I can't really comment on the Traits or Flaws sections as I don't use them in my games. They do seem to have a theme though...

I'm guessing you and I are the only ones who've never had the problem of mistaking DanDwiki for anything but what it is. Huh. Here I thought the sheer number of typos, completely different styles, and myriad other in-text clues would have given it away even without reading anything else on the site.

I don't think I've used anything from that site without massively overhauling it to the point that it's not even recognizable from where it started, but it's provided me some interesting ideas... and I could have come up with worse ways to spend the hours upon hours it took for me to find them.

[Man in Black]

Or you could write Sorcerer into the search bar...
Exactly the problem I had. I typed Sorcerer into the search bar, and then I realized that this site functions differently from every other Wikia because the "Sorcerer, 3.5e Class" article was not the about the 3.5e class titled Sorcerer.

Or you could click the open content section....
This doesn't work if you're searching.

Or when you put it into google add SRD: to the front...
Works only if you know the exact name of the article, in which case, why would you be typing it into a Search? You would know the name of the article.

Or you could remember the name of the article...
As above.

You don't need to dig to find the rules. If you are digging through homebrew you are looking in the homebrew section, that is your fault not the sites.
The vast majority of search results for anything (unless you know the name of the article and type it in as SRD: without a space in between, meaning the wrong order of the words would preclude an example) are homebrew. You don't really get to choose a certain section.

Searching for SRD often makes it harder, for example, searching for Elf subraces typing in SRD into the search bar, you get none of the SRD Elf subraces. (http://www.dandwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=0&search=SRD%3A+Elf+subraces&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&ns100=1&ns102=1&ns104=1&ns106=1&ns160=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext=Advanced+search)

[Milo v3]

Exactly the problem I had. I typed Sorcerer into the search bar, and then I realized that this site functions differently from every other Wikia because the "Sorcerer, 3.5e Class" article was not the about the 3.5e class titled Sorcerer.
Thats why I said Sorcerer. Not Sorcerer (3.5e Class).


This doesn't work if you're searching.
If want to find sorcerer. You can quickly go to the site and hit the 3.5e Open Game Content section. Then you get to choose SRD or Unearthed Arcana.
From there you can see every page of non-homebrew material on the site.

As for it not working with Searching. Their is a section at the top of every search which gives you categories to focus your search. Hit check None and then select SRD. Afterwords every search you ever do that site afterwords only searches through SRD.


The vast majority of search results for anything (unless you know the name of the article and type it in as SRD: without a space in between, meaning the wrong order of the words would preclude an example) are homebrew. You don't really get to choose a certain section.
As I said above you can choose a certain section.


Searching for SRD often makes it harder, for example, searching for Elf subraces typing in SRD into the search bar, you get none of the SRD Elf subraces. (http://www.dandwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=0&search=SRD%3A+Elf+subraces&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&ns100=1&ns102=1&ns104=1&ns106=1&ns160=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext=Advanced+search)

That is wrong. The first result of that had all the subraces in it. You've might want to look at the result before you said that.

[Man in Black]

Thats why I said Sorcerer. Not Sorcerer (3.5e Class).
That is wrong. The first result of that had all the subraces in it. You've might want to look at the result before you said that.
That first option is for an encounter, and doesn't give you options for creating characters, outside of extrapolating your own rules, which works if you run the campaign, not if you're attempting to create a character.

[eggs]

Scroll down.

[Solaris]

Why would you be using DanDwiki for the SRD when you have the hypertext SRD? For me, at least, the hypertext comes up first on searches for the SRD.

[Larkas]

Why would you be using DanDwiki for the SRD when you have the hypertext SRD? For me, at least, the hypertext comes up first on searches for the SRD.

Mainly a newbie's mistake. Compare D&D SRD Elf (https://www.google.com/search?q=D%26D+SRD+Elf) to D&D Elf (https://www.google.com/search?q=D%26D+Elf).

[Clawhound]

I can tell you the exact reason that the SRD is on D&D wiki. It's because I thought it belonged there. It's a basic resource. Why not have it there? It's a no-brainer. Back then, D&D wiki was brand new and had no reputation, and I was having fun. I had a long history of writing, gaming, programming, and working on literary magazines. Mashing them all into one big pile was exactly the kind of project that I needed.

Getting it there was far more work than you know. The formatting in the original RTF documents was horrible. I ended up going OpenOffice -> HTML -> Perl. I worked hard at making it useful. Structuring something that size was a challenge.

Other wiki sites have found the wiki version of the SRD useful enough to copy off for themselves. (Yay. Go them.) A quick search yielded 4-5 other sites, mostly non-english, that have copies. You know what? That makes me proud.

Given the chance to do it again, I would. My work has traveled around the world.

[Larkas]

It was a worthy effort. The SRD part of the Wiki is nice, it is the (mostly unlabeled) homebrew part of the wiki that makes people wary to use it. If a person isn't paying attention, homebrew can easily slip in as official material.

[Clawhound]

Yeah.

Occasionally people put stuff in as (SRD). I used to fix that pretty quick.

I've been inactive for a while. Been doing other stuff. Don't really know how it's maintained anymore.

From the nature of the wiki, it always seemed self-apparent that this was a home-brew site. How do you put in enough disclaimers without it looking stupid? I don't know.

[Solaris]

Mainly a newbie's mistake. Compare D&D SRD Elf (https://www.google.com/search?q=D%26D+SRD+Elf) to D&D Elf (https://www.google.com/search?q=D%26D+Elf).

I see your point, and raise you this one: The DnDwiki's page for the SRD elf has labels all over it telling you that it's genuine D&D. Everything homebrew has labels at the bottom telling you that it's homebrew material. The site has different sections for finding homebrew and SRD material. Exactly how 'new' do you have to be to make this mistake?


From the nature of the wiki, it always seemed self-apparent that this was a home-brew site. How do you put in enough disclaimers without it looking stupid? I don't know.

People... to put it diplomatically, do not pay attention. See, I thought the steam coming out of the cup would be warning enough, but clearly that isn't. Not in today's society. Thus, when you buy coffee, it needs to have a warning on it telling you that it's hot. Heaven forfend you take the time to ascertain whether or not it is before trusting some random website you found through a Google search.

What can I say? I'm a big fan of caveat emptor, and think that gullibility is asking for it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Actually, the coffee thing isn't like people on the internet who use it as an example tend to say.

For that actual case, that McDonalds coffee that the person got the lawsuit money from was unreasonably hot; she had severe 3rd degree burns over a large part of her body, and had to have extensive plastic surgery.

[Solaris]

Actually, the coffee thing isn't like people on the internet who use it as an example tend to say.

For that actual case, that McDonalds coffee that the person got the lawsuit money from was unreasonably hot; she had severe 3rd degree burns over a large part of her body, and had to have extensive plastic surgery.

Oh, not just on the Internet. I use it as an example offline, too. When I say it, you know exactly what I mean: People seem to think they can't take care of themselves, and will take every opportunity to prove it.

Want a better example? I have to wear a reflective belt when I go outside after dark while on base because someone might hit me. We're ignoring that it's (technically) a warzone, we're ignoring that in the civilian world you wouldn't walk down the middle of the road anyways. If you let a multi-ton diesel going about ten-fifteen miles an hour sneak up on you, you deserve to get run over.
I have to wear this reflective belt even while in PTs, which were designed specifically to be reflective and visible in the dark.
Why? Because someone, somewhere, was run over in the dark. Rather than take it as an example of "Don't be an idiot", instead there was a massive over-reaction. I'm seeing hating DanDwiki because you couldn't tell the difference between homebrewed crap and the SRD... well, crap as pretty much the same thing.

[Larkas]

I see your point, and raise you this one: The DnDwiki's page for the SRD elf has labels all over it telling you that it's genuine D&D. Everything homebrew has labels at the bottom telling you that it's homebrew material. The site has different sections for finding homebrew and SRD material. Exactly how 'new' do you have to be to make this mistake?



People... to put it diplomatically, do not pay attention. See, I thought the steam coming out of the cup would be warning enough, but clearly that isn't. Not in today's society. Thus, when you buy coffee, it needs to have a warning on it telling you that it's hot. Heaven forfend you take the time to ascertain whether or not it is before trusting some random website you found through a Google search.

What can I say? I'm a big fan of caveat emptor, and think that gullibility is asking for it.

You answered the question yourself: some people just won't pay attention. But on the newbie part, keep in mind that people who have just started to play, or even veterans that care only for their books, may have no idea what SRD even stands for. If you tell them to "google it", they might end up in the wrong section of the internet :smallbiggrin:

My problem with said wiki isn't so much about homebrew posing as official material: mostly, it doesn't. It is the sheer lack of quality there. You can always find pearls, but for the most part, it is just really bad material. It COULD, however, have something to set homebrew apart more readily, something like a pretty "D&D Wiki Homebrew" header. You can always check the footer, but it can be easily missed after some walls of text. But, again, this isn't even a problem, just a minor inconvenience.

[Clawhound]

Functionally, there's just no culture on the D&D Wiki for improving material. Folks come in, post, and abandon. The only way to improve so much of of that material was to just rewrite, and nobody had any real desire to do that.

Some of us tried rewriting, but the flood coming in overwhelmed the improvement projects. In the end, it usually wasn't worth the fight to redo all that work. Some ideas just aren't worth saving.

I like to think my stuff is among the good nuggets. Look up the Evil Sucking Thing of Doom that Evilly Sucks All Cats to their Doom. That was an April 1 post of mine some years back. (The illustration is a vacuum cleaner. That's all you need for the joke.)

[Solaris]

You answered the question yourself: some people just won't pay attention. But on the newbie part, keep in mind that people who have just started to play, or even veterans that care only for their books, may have no idea what SRD even stands for. If you tell them to "google it", they might end up in the wrong section of the internet :smallbiggrin:

Honestly, even ignoring the TLA, you can tell the difference most of the time. The SRD stuff has things like complete sentences and the mechanical parts look like a lawyer wrote them. My first time there, I knew what I was getting into even before I'd heard the term 'homebrew'.


My problem with said wiki isn't so much about homebrew posing as official material: mostly, it doesn't. It is the sheer lack of quality there. You can always find pearls, but for the most part, it is just really bad material. It COULD, however, have something to set homebrew apart more readily, something like a pretty "D&D Wiki Homebrew" header. You can always check the footer, but it can be easily missed after some walls of text. But, again, this isn't even a problem, just a minor inconvenience.

That's a legitimate problem, and the reason I tell my players to never even contemplate maybe someday using stuff they find on DanDwiki.
If you've seen my homebrew, you'll realize just what that says about the site.
But complaining about suckering newbies and not making more of an effort to separate their homebrewed from their SRD stuff? Ha!



Functionally, there's just no culture on the D&D Wiki for improving material. Folks come in, post, and abandon. The only way to improve so much of of that material was to just rewrite, and nobody had any real desire to do that.

Some of us tried rewriting, but the flood coming in overwhelmed the improvement projects. In the end, it usually wasn't worth the fight to redo all that work. Some ideas just aren't worth saving.

I like to think my stuff is among the good nuggets. Look up the Evil Sucking Thing of Doom that Evilly Sucks All Cats to their Doom. That was an April 1 post of mine some years back. (The illustration is a vacuum cleaner. That's all you need for the joke.)

I've gone through rewriting a handful of things there. I may or may not have asked for permission first. But fixing the deluge of crap just ain't gonna happen.

[JadePhoenix]

I see your point, and raise you this one: The DnDwiki's page for the SRD elf has labels all over it telling you that it's genuine D&D. Everything homebrew has labels at the bottom telling you that it's homebrew material. The site has different sections for finding homebrew and SRD material. Exactly how 'new' do you have to be to make this mistake?




Occasionally people put stuff in as (SRD).

Now isn't that funny?

[Voyager_I]

Honestly, even ignoring the TLA, you can tell the difference most of the time. The SRD stuff has things like complete sentences and the mechanical parts look like a lawyer wrote them. My first time there, I knew what I was getting into even before I'd heard the term 'homebrew'.

I guess the fundamental attitude breaks down to this; DanDwiki has the SRD, and it has a mountain of terrible homebrew. We don't need it for the SRD, because we already have plenty of places to go for that, and we certainly don't want the homebrew we find on it since it has no quality control whatsoever...so...what reason does it have to exist?

Compound that with the fact that it shows up constantly in searches and confuses new players, and I think it's pretty easy to see how it becomes an active annoyance. A cancer on the game's community, if you will, rather than a mere benign tumor.


Also, not all official material available online is part of the SRD, and therefore wouldn't have the clearer SRD labels, and DanDwiki is happy to include content that has the exact name of official non-SRD online content.

Compare;

The actual Marshal class, available for free online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b)

DanDwiki's Marshal class, which is the top result from searching "3.5 Marshal" in Google (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Marshal_%283.5e_Class%29)
The actual Marshal class does not appear on the Google search

[Larkas]

The actual Marshal class, available for free online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b)

An unrelated question: is it legal for anyone to copy this Marshal and post it somewhere else, like, for example, in a Wiki, citing sources and referencing back to the original article? It isn't SRD, but it IS free material. I have no idea if this would be a violation of intellectual property.

[Darth Stabber]

An unrelated question: is it legal for anyone to copy this Marshal and post it somewhere else, like, for example, in a Wiki, citing sources and referencing back to the original article? It isn't SRD, but it IS free material. I have no idea if this would be a violation of intellectual property.

Very much so. The SRD has a special license (OGL) that allows anyone to republish it, or modify it for their own game without gaining the permission of hasbro. The free stuff not in the srd lacks that license.

[Larkas]

Very much so. The SRD has a special license (OGL) that allows anyone to republish it, or modify it for their own game without gaining the permission of hasbro. The free stuff not in the srd lacks that license.

So you could conceivably organize all this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1109.0) content in wiki form, while, of course, citing the source and referencing back to the original article at wizards.com? Neat. This alone would be an awesome a reason to make a wiki :smallsmile:

[Darth Stabber]

So you could conceivably organize all this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1109.0) content in wiki form, while, of course, citing the source and referencing back to the original article at wizards.com? Neat. This alone would be an awesome a reason to make a wiki :smallsmile:

You miss understood me. You very much CAN'T publish this content elsewhere, because it's not OGL.

[Larkas]

You miss understood me. You very much CAN'T publish this content elsewhere, because it's not OGL.

Oh, it is very much a violation, not very much legal. Bummer.

[Solaris]

@ Voyager: Yahoo search gives up your exact link as the first result for "Marshal 3.5" (minus quotes).
I don't see it as a tumor. I see it as yet another website with material that only rarely looks like it might, maybe be official, and the rest of the time looks like a bunch of kids slapped it together without trying even a little bit. I think I've established what I think of the "Newbie didn't know better" reason.


Now isn't that funny?

See my "If you're not bright enough to pick up that the horribly-written material isn't WotC's SRD, you deserve what you get". Just because it's happened a few times doesn't mean you can blame the mis-labeling for any confusion. I mean, it's not like WotC didn't have the actual SRD published on its website or anything.

Another tact: Why would you be upset about attempting to build something without actually verifying with your DM as to whether or not he's allowing material you found on the internet and don't remember seeing in a book into the game? I wouldn't put something I found on the 'net into a research paper without independently verifying it through another source. Heck, I wouldn't quote it in an online debate without independently verifying it through another source. Why is the site to blame because our newbies didn't bother double-checking their sources?

I would like to reiterate that I don't have much use for DanDwiki. I just don't much like some of the reasons given for disliking it.

[Stubbazubba]

@ Voyager: Yahoo search gives up your exact link as the first result for "Marshal 3.5" (minus quotes).
I don't see it as a tumor. I see it as yet another website with material that only rarely looks like it might, maybe be official, and the rest of the time looks like a bunch of kids slapped it together without trying even a little bit. I think I've established what I think of the "Newbie didn't know better" reason.



See my "If you're not bright enough to pick up that the horribly-written material isn't WotC's SRD, you deserve what you get". Just because it's happened a few times doesn't mean you can blame the mis-labeling for any confusion. I mean, it's not like WotC didn't have the actual SRD published on its website or anything.

Another tact: Why would you be upset about attempting to build something without actually verifying with your DM as to whether or not he's allowing material you found on the internet and don't remember seeing in a book into the game? I wouldn't put something I found on the 'net into a research paper without independently verifying it through another source. Heck, I wouldn't quote it in an online debate without independently verifying it through another source. Why is the site to blame because our newbies didn't bother double-checking their sources?

I would like to reiterate that I don't have much use for DanDwiki. I just don't much like some of the reasons given for disliking it.

You're asking an awful lot of people playing a game that they don't understand very well.

And this whole, "People who don't understand warning signs deserve to be hurt" angle is really inapplicable. When it's true IRL is debatable enough, but for an entertainment product where the better solution already exists? There's no justification for its continued existence, so a single misinterpretation, no matter the cause, is grounds enough to say it's a net loss for the community.

I suppose that some of the reasons people are citing for their dislike of dandwiki offend you, but the logical argument that because it doesn't accomplish anything that's not better accomplished by a different existing resource, and contains so much crap content that a single mishap justifies said dislike stands independent of how anyone feels about it.

[eggs]

I won't lie. I'd rather play that dandwiki Marshal than the MH Marshal.

[Soranar]

The overlapping name thing is really annoying.

On top of it, I don't know if you're aware of how Google works, but basically:

-you do a search
-you get a list of links ordered by the number of times they were clicked in result of this search
-every time you click the wrong link (dandwiki's homebrewed version of a class that happens to have the same name as the real thing) you reinforce its google credit as the ''right'' answer, thus leading more people to the same mistake as the link ranks higher and higher in searches...

And since the dandwiki is full of classes that have the same name has obscure ones (say boneknight) you get a lot of misdirection because of it

In short, I don't hate dandwiki itself, just the danwiki links I get in google searches

[Clawhound]

Check on when the D&D Wiki marshall was created, and compare it to when the Marshall was published. My bet is that the D&D Wiki version predates the Wizard's version.

As for name collisions, you can't prevent that. It's functionally impossible to keep folks from giving two things the same name. We tried this on the Wiki and it just doesn't work. I can name a page "Fred" and fill it with Marshall text, and Google will list it under a search for "Marshall."

[Milo v3]

Check on when the D&D Wiki marshall was created, and compare it to when the Marshall was published. My bet is that the D&D Wiki version predates the Wizard's version.

As for name collisions, you can't prevent that. It's functionally impossible to keep folks from giving two things the same name. We tried this on the Wiki and it just doesn't work. I can name a page "Fred" and fill it with Marshall text, and Google will list it under a search for "Marshall."

Actually the WotC version predates the D&D Wiki version by 6 years, but the rest of your points are sound.

[Thurbane]

As for name collisions, you can't prevent that. It's functionally impossible to keep folks from giving two things the same name.
Like the Beguiler (SS) Beguiler (PHB2), or a Mountebank(DrC) /Mountebank (CS). :smallsmile:

[Calanon]

I won't lie. I'd rather play that dandwiki Marshal than the MH Marshal.

Not gonna lie. That Dandwiki Marshal is a crappy homebrew... Needs moar balance :smalltongue:

EDIT: But I will admit this... I'd LOVE to have one in any party that I play :smallbiggrin: (LOL "Stoned")

[JadePhoenix]

Not gonna lie. That Dandwiki Marshal is a crappy homebrew...
I hate the names of those class features.

[eggs]

Not gonna lie. That Dandwiki Marshal is a crappy homebrew... Needs moar balance :smalltongue:
Eh. As a DM, I'd rather deal with encounter balance with one of these in the party than a Sorcerer or Wilder past ECL 8 or so. Or a MH Marshal in a party with anything other than Fighter/Monk/Warlock or similar.

[Hiro Protagonest]

See my "If you're not bright enough to pick up that the horribly-written material isn't WotC's SRD, you deserve what you get". Just because it's happened a few times doesn't mean you can blame the mis-labeling for any confusion. I mean, it's not like WotC didn't have the actual SRD published on its website or anything.

Oh right. Because all newbies TOTALLY know about the SRD, and about how they should look for "official" tags rather than "homebrew" tags, especially considering that wikis for things other than tabletop RPGs only have official material. Also, White Wolf is very good at this "official and homebrew" thing on it's wikis, so if they're familiar with WW games, they're STILL going to be confused. Seriously, I know you said in another thread you're not usually nice, but the comparison to walking in the middle of the road at night without a way for a person in a car to always see you is not even fair.

[eggs]

Especially considering that it's not always easy to tell the difference between WotC variants and uninspired dandwiki homebrews. Paladin variants are an easy example - Leaving out smaller ACFs, WotC has Paladins of Tyranny/Freedom/the crappy one; Dragon has a full suite of WotC-approved variants of various alignments, all following the same general structure; homebrew sources are glutted with other slightly-tweaked "new" classes like that Crusader linked earlier. The wording on the official materials is easy enough to ape that there's really no indication from the quality of materials whether it's WotC written/approved or homebrew.

And really, with WotC's treatment of certain areas (cough*melee*), high quality should probably be a warning sign for Hasbro-loyal players.

[Olfgar]

Before they purged some of thier Homebrew, there was a Baseclass or PrC that was called the Anti Christ...basically you got to use wail of the banshee like 5 times a day as a spell liek ability, full divine and arcane casting, full BAB, controll Hundreds, if not thousnds of undead minions, anything you touch would die and become these minions etc.

[Empedocles]

Before they purged some of thier Homebrew, there was a Baseclass or PrC that was called the Anti Christ...basically you got to use wail of the banshee like 5 times a day as a spell liek ability, full divine and arcane casting, full BAB, controll Hundreds, if not thousnds of undead minions, anything you touch would die and become these minions etc.

That sounds very balanced. :smallamused:

[Calanon]

That sounds very balanced. :smallamused:

Fix'd that for ya :smallbiggrin:

[Milo v3]

That sounds very balanced. :smallamused:

Which is probably why they deleted it.

[Thurbane]

Which is probably why they deleted it.
I know you're eager to defend the site you contribute to, but lets face it, there is still a metric ton of very badly balanced material on there. From the time I've spent looking through it, I'd say it about 30% underpowered, 20% in the sweet spot, and 40% overpowered.

[Drelua]

I know you're eager to defend the site you contribute to, but lets face it, there is still a metric ton of very badly balanced material on there. From the time I've spent looking through it, I'd say it about 30% underpowered, 20% in the sweet spot, and 40% overpowered.

And the other 10%? :smalltongue:

Edit: I feel like I didn't contribute enough, so here goes. In case your google-fu is even weaker than mine (unlikely but possible), your best friend if you hate dandwiki as much as me is the phrase "-site:dandwiki.com", without the quotes. If I want to sift through a bunch of crap looking for gold, I'll go there. I'm sure the gold is there, but I'm gonna get dirty finding those rare nuggets. No, not that kind of nugget. :smallwink:

[Milo v3]

I know you're eager to defend the site you contribute to, but lets face it, there is still a metric ton of very badly balanced material on there. From the time I've spent looking through it, I'd say it about 30% underpowered, 20% in the sweet spot, and 40% overpowered.

I never denied most of it being complete and utter crap.

[Thurbane]

And the other 10%? :smalltongue:
Me fail math, that's unpossible! :smallbiggrin:

[Zaranthan]

And the other 10%?

Unquantifiable and broken stuff. In terms of the Wizard/Rogue/Fighter balance point system, this stuff would be ranked "Truenamer".

[Riverdance]

The main problem I have with the site is that it doesn't clearly mark homebrew from non homebrew. When I first started playing D&D I thought several of the things on the site were actual feats and classes. Several players in my campaigns have thought the same thing.

Wow, I did not know this. Thank you.

[Solaris]

You're asking an awful lot of people playing a game that they don't understand very well.

What you call "an awful lot", I call "bare minimum". I'm not asking someone to know everything ever published. I'm asking that they ascertain whether or not the DM allows something in his game before making a character out of it. I'm asking that they verify whether or not something is true - and just because you saw it on one website doesn't make it true. That last, really, is for more than just D&D.


And this whole, "People who don't understand warning signs deserve to be hurt" angle is really inapplicable. When it's true IRL is debatable enough, but for an entertainment product where the better solution already exists? There's no justification for its continued existence, so a single misinterpretation, no matter the cause, is grounds enough to say it's a net loss for the community.

There's a metric butt-load of better solutions, but for those people who made it DanDwiki was apparently the best solution. I'd say that's justification enough for its continued existence.


I suppose that some of the reasons people are citing for their dislike of dandwiki offend you, but the logical argument that because it doesn't accomplish anything that's not better accomplished by a different existing resource, and contains so much crap content that a single mishap justifies said dislike stands independent of how anyone feels about it.

They don't offend me, they annoy me. Offended looks a lot different. On this site, it looks like me clicking the "Report Post" button. I've seen a few good reasons for disliking the site, including the mass of lousy homebrew, but "Confuses newbies" just doesn't qualify.


Oh right. Because all newbies TOTALLY know about the SRD, and about how they should look for "official" tags rather than "homebrew" tags, especially considering that wikis for things other than tabletop RPGs only have official material.

Why not? I did. I don't think it terribly absurd to expect at least the majority to be capable of what I'm capable of.


Seriously, I know you said in another thread you're not usually nice, but the comparison to walking in the middle of the road at night without a way for a person in a car to always see you is not even fair.

How so?

[Darth Stabber]

What you call "an awful lot", I call "bare minimum". I'm not asking someone to know everything ever published. I'm asking that they ascertain whether or not the DM allows something in his game before making a character out of it. I'm asking that they verify whether or not something is true - and just because you saw it on one website doesn't make it true. That last, really, is for more than just D&D.

Some GMs are not very explicit (and some are as n00by as the players), and there is a reasonable (if generally bad) assumption amoungst n00bs that official material is fine. Now GMs can, and should, verify characters for play begins, but sometimes that's not completely practical, nor completely effective, as the GM is not neccessarily learned enough on these matters, and stuff that he would have put the brakes on is slipping into play.

Personally I use a specific list of allowed materials (phb1-2, dmg1-2,mm1-5,completes,races of X, frostburn, storm wrack, sandstorm, draconomicon, BoVD, BoED, ToM{binder section only},ToB,MoI,rules compendium,MiC,SC,XPH,SRD,fiends folio,deitied and demigods, planar handbook, manual of the planes, dragon magic,ghostwalk,Libris Mortis,lords of madness,Savage species{with heavy oversight},HoH, HoB, Fiendish codex1-2 ,dungeonscape,cityscape,UA{ACFs, flaws, and traits},DotU,epic level handbook, miniatures handbook, OA, and ebberon campaign setting for the purposes of warfoged only. No kobolds, tier 1-2 by special permission only {and mandatory lost casterlevels, at least 3, by PRC or Fiat, except for newbs who get a free pass on this point}, no monks, homebrew/forgotten realms/dragonlance/ebberon/dragon mag materials except by special permision only, no LA and/or RHD without explicit special permission). I think that covers it, though it's very long winded.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why not? I did. I don't think it terribly absurd to expect at least the majority to be capable of what I'm capable of.

Well, if we're using anecdotal evidence, nobody in my group knows that the SRD exists. Or, if they did, bothered to tell people.

Nearly every group that's not a member of this, MinMax, rpg.net, or something similar, doesn't know about the SRD.

People who are not familiar with tabletop RPG wikis are reasonable to expect everything to be official. People who are familiar with non-D&D tabletop RPG wikis expect the fact that it's homebrew to be marked in the title. For example, on the Exalted wiki, there's "Isidoros" "Isidoros (FrivYeti)" "Isidoros (JiveX)" "Isidoros (Mockery)" and "Isidoros (TheDementedOne)". If you put "Isidoros" in the search bar and press enter or the "go" link, rather than the "search" link, it leads to the official one, then has the others as user interpretations linked on that page. Same thing with "Ma-Ha-Suchi" and "Ma-Ha-Suchi (FrivYeti)". DanDwiki is confusing for both those unfamiliar and those familiar with other games alike.

[Solaris]

Well, if we're using anecdotal evidence, nobody in my group knows that the SRD exists. Or, if they did, bothered to tell people.

Nearly every group that's not a member of this, MinMax, rpg.net, or something similar, doesn't know about the SRD.

Their ignorance is not my problem, nor does it gain my sympathy. This is the age of the internet; ignorance and knowledge are separated only by a five-second Google search. Most of your arguments claim that ignorance and sloth are good reasons. They are not. If it were some obscure, difficult-to-acquire information then you'd have a place to stand - but this is common knowledge among the D&D gaming community that a new player can very easily acquire.


People who are not familiar with tabletop RPG wikis are reasonable to expect everything to be official. People who are familiar with non-D&D tabletop RPG wikis expect the fact that it's homebrew to be marked in the title. For example, on the Exalted wiki, there's "Isidoros" "Isidoros (FrivYeti)" "Isidoros (JiveX)" "Isidoros (Mockery)" and "Isidoros (TheDementedOne)". If you put "Isidoros" in the search bar and press enter or the "go" link, rather than the "search" link, it leads to the official one, then has the others as user interpretations linked on that page. Same thing with "Ma-Ha-Suchi" and "Ma-Ha-Suchi (FrivYeti)". DanDwiki is confusing for both those unfamiliar and those familiar with other games alike.

'Cept... we're not talking about those games, we're talking about D&D.
Furthermore, given the fact that we homebrewers (no, I'm not on DanDwiki 'cept as a random editor - I run most of mine through GitP) outnumber WotC, and that WotC doesn't often allow anything official outside of the SRD posted off-site, it would stand to reason that any given thing you find on the internet that's not found in an official site would not be official. I mean, hell, most of your arguments work against the homebrew forum on this site itself. Most of those posts only have some little, easily-missed label indicating that they're homebrew.

[Empedocles]

Nearly every group that's not a member of this, MinMax, rpg.net, or something similar, doesn't know about the SRD.

That's just not true. I have lots of friends who aren't members of any forums but are very aware of, and actively use, the SRD.

[Fatebreaker]

Their ignorance is not my problem, nor does it gain my sympathy. This is the age of the internet; ignorance and knowledge are separated only by a five-second Google search.

The problem with this attitude is that ignorance and knowledge are not separated by a five-second Google search. You require some level of knowledge to even be aware of the things you don't know about. If you do not know what SRD is, you do not know what to look for. Moreover, the internet is a place where misleading, biased, disingenuous, or flat-out wrong information can easily appear to be legitimate. A new player who is proactively trying to learn about our hobby can easily be led astray by misinformation, especially information which looks legitimate. By definition, the people who don't know better are the same people for which any disclaimers or warnings should be most accessible.

If you don't know enough to know what not to trust, then you are going to be deceived by a system which is neither clear nor honest. That is the fault of the system for lying to you in the first place, not your fault for trying to learn.

[Solaris]

The problem with this attitude is that ignorance and knowledge are not separated by a five-second Google search. You require some level of knowledge to even be aware of the things you don't know about. If you do not know what SRD is, you do not know what to look for. Moreover, the internet is a place where misleading, biased, disingenuous, or flat-out wrong information can easily appear to be legitimate. A new player who is proactively trying to learn about our hobby can easily be led astray by misinformation, especially information which looks legitimate. By definition, the people who don't know better are the same people for which any disclaimers or warnings should be most accessible.

If you don't know enough to know what not to trust, then you are going to be deceived by a system which is neither clear nor honest. That is the fault of the system for lying to you in the first place, not your fault for trying to learn.

Barring those rare instances where someone's tried to pass homebrew off as SRD material, where has that wiki tried to pass its own material off as anything but homebrew? It has the labels on the page, admittedly at the bottom rather than at the top.

And, bluntly, if you don't start off trying to learn about D&D starting with the actual website (God forbid we use the core rulebooks), you're doing it wrong.

Your arguments are invalid. You continue to plead that ignorance and sloth are worthwhile excuses. It's not hard to find something, hit up Google to find out whether or not it's legit, and continue right on your merry.

[Empedocles]

Barring those rare instances where someone's tried to pass homebrew off as SRD material, where has that wiki tried to pass its own material off as anything but homebrew? It has the labels on the page, admittedly at the bottom rather than at the top.

And, bluntly, if you don't start off trying to learn about D&D starting with the actual website (God forbid we use the core rulebooks), you're doing it wrong.

Your arguments are invalid. You continue to plead that ignorance and sloth are worthwhile excuses. It's not hard to find something, hit up Google to find out whether or not it's legit, and continue right on your merry.

That's a little harsh. I'm with you most of the way here, but it's perfectly reasonable to say that most people probably don't know what the SRD is, they don't double check since the D&D wiki looks so official, and many, many people learn with other people teaching them rather then with the websites.

[Taelas]

I've seen a few good reasons for disliking the site, including the mass of lousy homebrew, but "Confuses newbies" just doesn't qualify.
On the contrary, it most certainly does.

If you read through this thread, it should be obvious that, yes, DanDWiki does confuse newbies. Precisely what you think of that is honestly irrelevant. Fact is, it happens, and it sucks.

That reason alone is more than enough to fuel my hatred of that site. The fact that 90% of it is utter tripe is just the nail in the coffin for me.

[Cidolfas]

On the contrary, it most certainly does.

If you read through this thread, it should be obvious that, yes, DanDWiki does confuse newbies. Precisely what you think of that is honestly irrelevant. Fact is, it happens, and it sucks.

That reason alone is more than enough to fuel my hatred of that site. The fact that 90% of it is utter tripe is just the nail in the coffin for me.

tl;dr - There are multiple wikis that look the same as a result of a schism with the original, please do not dismiss one due to the poor reputation of the other. Plus, Wiki's don't run in the same fashion as message boards, so they can't be blamed for all their problems regarding content and quality control. I'm also not going to make any secret of the fact that I contribute to one of those wikis (DnD-wiki.org, since I fear the consequences of not being specific).

They used to have author boxes for homebrew content, which I would personally think would be sufficient to mark it as not official material since it's directly tracing to a Wiki user instead of a publisher. Sure, it may still have occasionally evaded the eyes of certain unobservant viewers, but it was at least there. Its removal makes everything a lot more ambiguous as to authorship, and removes a great deal of the credit for the person who actually authored it (whether that product was good or bad).

On a similar note, that author-centric attitude is why things are not supposed to get edited by other people as normal Wiki-style editing would dictate. Without such indicators present, however, negative changes can be made just as easily as positive ones.

Lastly, as far as quality control is concerned, the first red flag should be the presence of yet-to-be-deleted spam. Forget anything else, that's a problem.

The reason I'm saying this is that there are multiple wikis, which share certain common features (and problems) but have different administrations and different (in one case, much better) oversight of quality and such. Of course, on a wiki, protocol prevents poor articles from getting immediately deleted, so yes, some poorer stuff is going to be present. Wikis don't have the same luxury of allowing un-viewed (I may have made up a word) articles to disappear behind newer content, and deleting such things right off makes the community come across as abrasive douche bags, which is hardly desirable.

[Havvy]

Can I hate the wiki in the title because they refuse to delete content at the original author's request?

[Fatebreaker]

Barring those rare instances where someone's tried to pass homebrew off as SRD material, where has that wiki tried to pass its own material off as anything but homebrew? It has the labels on the page, admittedly at the bottom rather than at the top.

And, bluntly, if you don't start off trying to learn about D&D starting with the actual website (God forbid we use the core rulebooks), you're doing it wrong.

Your arguments are invalid. You continue to plead that ignorance and sloth are worthwhile excuses. It's not hard to find something, hit up Google to find out whether or not it's legit, and continue right on your merry.

Your presumption that I am pleading is amusing. I am simply stating the truth of things: that people do not know the things they do not know. This is so self-evident that I am surprised you continue to argue against it.

In this case, the people new to our hobby are not inherently aware of "SRD" and all that it entails. It is a random string of letters. Clarity of information is simply honest and helpful. It is especially important considering that those who need it most are the same individuals who are most vulnerable.

This is especially true given than the ability to evaluate sources is a learned skill in and of itself. While we are told not to believe everything which we read or are told, it is not uncommon for a source which maintains all the hallmarks of authenticity to be taken at face value. Legitimacy is easy enough to masquerade, particularly if all of the warning labels are themselves out of the way and written in such a way that they are not actually warning labels to the uninitiated.

Additionally, your accusations of "ignorance and sloth" are ill-suited. At best they are presumptive accusations with little basis in fact; at worst, they are attempts to distract legitimate criticism with falsehood. After all, a desire to learn fairly easily negates the accusation of willful ignorance. And as for sloth? Certainly, some subset of dandwiki searchers are slothful. But a new hobbyist searching for information on their hobby hardly strikes me as a slothful attitude. That is, in fact, a proactive attitude, a positive feature for a new hobbyist which should be encouraged and not subjected to misplaced ridicule.

The short of it is simple: a person attempting to learn about a subject will not inherently understand poorly-conveyed (or intentionally marginalized) warnings or disclaimers. The fault for miscommunication lies, in this case, with the website and not with the reader. Certainly, a more experienced or more responsible reader will seek to confirm information, evaluate sources, and so forth. However, considering that this is not a scholarly arena, but a hobby attempting to involve children and adults of a variety of ages and backgrounds, it is a simple truth that a very real subset of readers will not possess the training or experience to know better. As such, evaluating a source as a poor one for its misleading presentation is a very legitimate criticism.

[Solaris]

This is probably the last time I'm going to defend my position in this thread because, frankly, I'm posting and re-posting the same things because y'all are saying the same things. The past couple of pages really have not produced anything new. The sensible ones have tacitly agreed to disagree. I'm answering Fatebreaker 'cause he took the time to write out a page, and Szar Lakol 'cause I think it might help to understand my position just a bit more. The short version? I'm a jerk and almost completely without sympathy.


On the contrary, it most certainly does.

If you read through this thread, it should be obvious that, yes, DanDWiki does confuse newbies. Precisely what you think of that is honestly irrelevant. Fact is, it happens, and it sucks.

That reason alone is more than enough to fuel my hatred of that site. The fact that 90% of it is utter tripe is just the nail in the coffin for me.

I did read the thread, actually. And if you've read my posts, you'll find I don't care that it confuses newbies. You might think what I think is irrelevant; I feel much the same about opposed opinions, but at least take the time to explain myself and have tried to avoid dismissing someone out-of-hand simply because I disagree with them.

What might have been lost is that I have next to no use for the site, myself. I would much prefer it have a homebrew forum like ours so that there would be a peer review stage - then I might actually allow some of its material in play. I have a 'live and let live' policy with regards to that, much like I do all the rest of the internet that I dislike and don't visit. Sometimes it turns up on a search, but that doesn't mean it irritates me.


Your presumption that I am pleading is amusing. I am simply stating the truth of things: that people do not know the things they do not know. This is so self-evident that I am surprised you continue to argue against it.

Dictionaries are free, amigo.
plea |plē|
noun
1 a request made in an urgent and emotional manner : he made a dramatic plea for disarmament.
• a claim that a circumstance means that one should not be blamed for or should not be forced to do something : her plea of a headache was not entirely false.
2 Law a formal statement by or on behalf of a defendant or prisoner, stating guilt or innocence in response to a charge, offering an allegation of fact, or claiming that a point of law should apply : he changed his plea to not guilty.

I'm not being presumptive. I'm using a wee bit of poetic license. Presumptive would be me doing something like saying "I'm so right, and you're so wrong that I'm not even going to explain to you how you're wrong".

You're tautologically (hee, big words) stating they don't know the things they do not know. I don't dispute that - it is, after all, self-evident. I simply dispute your conclusions. I'm stating that their not knowing is their own fault, not the site's.


In this case, the people new to our hobby are not inherently aware of "SRD" and all that it entails. It is a random string of letters. Clarity of information is simply honest and helpful. It is especially important considering that those who need it most are the same individuals who are most vulnerable.

Again, I come back to the "If you believe everything you read on the Internet, you deserve what you get". You allow newbies to be overly gullible. I require them to not be, in this and in all else. You allow newbies to be, pardon the insult for none's intended, stupid. I require them not to be.


This is especially true given than the ability to evaluate sources is a learned skill in and of itself. While we are told not to believe everything which we read or are told, it is not uncommon for a source which maintains all the hallmarks of authenticity to be taken at face value. Legitimacy is easy enough to masquerade, particularly if all of the warning labels are themselves out of the way and written in such a way that they are not actually warning labels to the uninitiated.

Yes, it is a learned skill. One you generally get taught in school, actually, beginning about the same time you start writing essays in middle school. If you're on the 'net sooner, you really should learn the skill sooner. My claims of ignorance and sloth pretty much hinge on that.
Or are you going to claim "I didn't pay attention in school" as anything but willful ignorance and sloth?


Additionally, your accusations of "ignorance and sloth" are ill-suited. At best they are presumptive accusations with little basis in fact; at worst, they are attempts to distract legitimate criticism with falsehood. After all, a desire to learn fairly easily negates the accusation of willful ignorance. And as for sloth? Certainly, some subset of dandwiki searchers are slothful. But a new hobbyist searching for information on their hobby hardly strikes me as a slothful attitude. That is, in fact, a proactive attitude, a positive feature for a new hobbyist which should be encouraged and not subjected to misplaced ridicule.

To your mind, perhaps. Allow me to elucidate my reasoning. I claim ignorance because they have not researched the basics needed to play D&D. Ignorance is in and of itself neither morally wrong nor right; it is simply a lack of knowledge. While not something to condemn someone for, it is not a basis for a defense plea. They are ignorant because they do not know whether to assume everything they see is legitimate or not. The next part of it, sloth, is because when they see something they immediately snatch on it without first doing the research to ascertain whether or not it's legitimate. I'm not talking about a full-length dissertation on the subject, just a quick search about the material. If they see something, fail to ascertain the legitimacy of it, and then get burned... they have nobody to blame but themselves. Falling for a con happens to the best of us, but not so often when it's an accidental con. If the site were deliberately attempting to pass itself off as legit, 100% official WotC material, that would be one thing. It's really not. It could put more effort into separating homebrew from official, as it once did, but the separation is still there.


The short of it is simple: a person attempting to learn about a subject will not inherently understand poorly-conveyed (or intentionally marginalized) warnings or disclaimers. The fault for miscommunication lies, in this case, with the website and not with the reader. Certainly, a more experienced or more responsible reader will seek to confirm information, evaluate sources, and so forth. However, considering that this is not a scholarly arena, but a hobby attempting to involve children and adults of a variety of ages and backgrounds, it is a simple truth that a very real subset of readers will not possess the training or experience to know better. As such, evaluating a source as a poor one for its misleading presentation is a very legitimate criticism.

I've never understood D&D to be a hobby for the elementary school set. I simply refuse to simplify what should be a hobby for those mature enough to handle fantasizing about crawling around a dungeon and killing people because younger kids might get unsupervised access to it. Anyone should be at their most suspicious when attempting to learn about a new subject precisely because that's when they're at their most vulnerable. See above for my opinions on falling for DanDwiki's 'accidental con'.

[Foxwarrior]

What might have been lost is that I have next to no use for the site, myself. I would much prefer it have a homebrew forum like ours so that there would be a peer review stage - then I might actually allow some of its material in play.

It's too bad there isn't any website that combines the benefits of peer review with the sorting and searching benefits of a non-forum format, huh.

"Our homebrew section is author centric, built around aggressive quality control, and focused on providing content for many different styles of play." (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:About#This_is_a_place_fo r_user_created_material)

Oh wait, there is. GiantitP is an inferior place for finding homebrew. Classes, feats, and spells are scattered everywhere, and if you want to find out whether something is good, you have to read through pages upon pages of critique. Sort of like DanDWiki, where you have to go to the talk page of a creation in order to determine whether anybody has noticed its (probably crippling and hideous, unlike most things on GiantitP, luckily) flaws yet.

Have you noticed how people on GiantitP occasionally make metathreads, where they post collections of links? Well, most of those collections are unnecessary when every class is automatically put into a handy-dandy table, the same is done for feats, spells, powers, etcetera, and you can use Semantic Mediawiki (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Special:Ask) for more complicated searches.

[Voyager_I]

The short version? I'm a jerk and almost completely without sympathy.

I'm glad you're confident enough to state it plainly. The problem stems from the fact that you think this is an acceptable attitude. You have the right to be who you are, but this is simply counterproductive.


I did read the thread, actually. And if you've read my posts, you'll find I don't care that it confuses newbies. You might think what I think is irrelevant; I feel much the same about opposed opinions, but at least take the time to explain myself and have tried to avoid dismissing someone out-of-hand simply because I disagree with them.

Again, thank you for stating your opinions clearly. Please understand, though, that just because something is not a priority for you, personally, does not mean other people are objectively wrong for considering it to be important to them.

People who would like new players to have a smoother introduction to the game have every right to be concerned about a website that the uninitiated can easily mistake for official material which has little to no quality controls.


What might have been lost is that I have next to no use for the site, myself. I would much prefer it have a homebrew forum like ours so that there would be a peer review stage - then I might actually allow some of its material in play. I have a 'live and let live' policy with regards to that, much like I do all the rest of the internet that I dislike and don't visit. Sometimes it turns up on a search, but that doesn't mean it irritates me.

This seems to reflect an essential point in your opinion. From your perspective, everyone should just know better, and if they don't, it's their own fault. The implication here is that "knowing better" means knowing not to touch DanDwiki in the first place.

If the site serves no purpose other than confusing the ignorant, what justification is there for its existence? This goes from lack of sympathy into outright malice.


You're tautologically (hee, big words) stating they don't know the things they do not know. I don't dispute that - it is, after all, self-evident. I simply dispute your conclusions. I'm stating that their not knowing is their own fault, not the site's.

I disagree. It's not their fault for not knowing. Everyone starts out knowing nothing about the hobby. You weren't born with a set of 3.5 core rulebooks tangled in your umbilical cord. They have to start from the ground up, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a guided introduction.


Again, I come back to the "If you believe everything you read on the Internet, you deserve what you get". You allow newbies to be overly gullible. I require them to not be, in this and in all else. You allow newbies to be, pardon the insult for none's intended, stupid. I require them not to be.

They aren't being stupid. They are being ignorant. They can't help being ignorant because this is the first chance they've ever had to learn. In fact, the entire reason they're stumbling into the site is because they're making an active effort to learn. The only problem is that one ignorant of the culture surrounding D&D is quite likely to stumble upon DanDwiki before they have learned what is necessary to recognize it for what it is.

This isn't their fault. They aren't doing anything wrong. There is a trap on the road to knowledge, and without a guide it's quite easy to fall in.


To your mind, perhaps. Allow me to elucidate my reasoning. I claim ignorance because they have not researched the basics needed to play D&D. Ignorance is in and of itself neither morally wrong nor right; it is simply a lack of knowledge. While not something to condemn someone for, it is not a basis for a defense plea. They are ignorant because they do not know whether to assume everything they see is legitimate or not. The next part of it, sloth, is because when they see something they immediately snatch on it without first doing the research to ascertain whether or not it's legitimate. I'm not talking about a full-length dissertation on the subject, just a quick search about the material. If they see something, fail to ascertain the legitimacy of it, and then get burned... they have nobody to blame but themselves. Falling for a con happens to the best of us, but not so often when it's an accidental con. If the site were deliberately attempting to pass itself off as legit, 100% official WotC material, that would be one thing. It's really not. It could put more effort into separating homebrew from official, as it once did, but the separation is still there.

They could maybe have an indication that their content is unofficial other than a single instance of "homebrew" at the bottom of the page in the menu path.

They could also do a better job of weeding out the unofficial content that gets put into SRD section.


I've never understood D&D to be a hobby for the elementary school set. I simply refuse to simplify what should be a hobby for those mature enough to handle fantasizing about crawling around a dungeon and killing people because younger kids might get unsupervised access to it. Anyone should be at their most suspicious when attempting to learn about a new subject precisely because that's when they're at their most vulnerable. See above for my opinions on falling for DanDwiki's 'accidental con'.

We aren't talking about simplifying the hobby. We're talking about presenting the information surrounding it in a clear and unambiguous matter.


It's too bad there isn't any website that combines the benefits of peer review with the sorting and searching benefits of a non-forum format, huh.

"Our homebrew section is author centric, built around aggressive quality control, and focused on providing content for many different styles of play." (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:About#This_is_a_place_fo r_user_created_material)

Do you actually believe what you're touting? Because it takes about five minutes on that website to realize that the given claim is not true at all.


Oh wait, there is. GiantitP is an inferior place for finding homebrew. Classes, feats, and spells are scattered everywhere, and if you want to find out whether something is good, you have to read through pages upon pages of critique. Sort of like DanDWiki, where you have to go to the talk page of a creation in order to determine whether anybody has noticed its (probably crippling and hideous, unlike most things on GiantitP, luckily) flaws yet.

Have you noticed how people on GiantitP occasionally make metathreads, where they post collections of links? Well, most of those collections are unnecessary when every class is automatically put into a handy-dandy table, the same is done for feats, spells, powers, etcetera, and you can use Semantic Mediawiki (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Special:Ask) for more complicated searches.

DanDwiki is well-sorted in a wiki format. That is essentially the only good thing to say about it. It's easy to find content on it, but that's not especially helpful when the vast majority of said content is terrible and there is no effective system of peer review.

On GitP forums, it's a bit harder to find exactly what you're looking for, but when you do get something there's a much better chance that it will actually be usable.

[Foxwarrior]

Do you actually believe what you're touting? Because it takes about five minutes on that website to realize that the given claim is not true at all.

Which website? Spelling is important, unfortunately.

I had hoped that calling out DanDwiki as being filled with creations that had crippling and hideous flaws would have made it obvious that I wasn't trying to promote it, for those who don't like to read URLs or are dyslexic.

Edit: Isn't it neat how forums don't have a "view history" feature?

[Darth Stabber]

I followed the dndwiki.org link and read a few of the classes there. Almost as bad as the other. The homebrew posted has nothing happeining in the talk pages, which would be the key for a good homebrew wiki. I didn't see one class of quality (though I only thoroughly checked out 6 of them), and I am afraid to check out the other stuff.

I think the big problem is trying to do homebrew via wiki. Wikis don't generate the kind of discussion that forums do. I was considering posting some of my content to one of the wikis, but I really don't want that kind of hit to my credibility.

[Foxwarrior]

You wound me to the core, Darth Stabber. You would thoroughly check out and disapprove of six classes without giving them a Dislike template or at least derisive comments in their talk pages?

[Solaris]

Edit: Isn't it neat how forums don't have a "view history" feature?

That's what you're going for with your spin-off wiki as opposed to this forum? That's the selling point?
I think I'll stick with the forum, thanks. Forums are much better for generating, reviewing, and polishing homebrew. Wikis are better for storing it. That's why I have my own wiki that I stick my stuff on - after I've put it through the wringer here.

[Milo v3]

Again, thank you for stating your opinions clearly. Please understand, though, that just because something is not a priority for you, personally, does not mean other people are objectively wrong for considering it to be important to them.
Which was kind of his point. You say that other peoples opinions matter, but then you latter start to disargree with his opinion with your own opinion. So that starts to show that you respect other people opinions if they are the same as yours. Which does show that you do discount peoples opinions if you aren't yours. Which was his point.


This seems to reflect an essential point in your opinion. From your perspective, everyone should just know better, and if they don't, it's their own fault.
He is saying that if they don't know something, that isn't the problem of the site. Its them not knowing something. Should every homebrew page say THIS IS HOMEBREW MATERIAL in big letters throughout the article simply because some people are ignorant of the fact that the site isn't just WotC material.


If the site serves no purpose other than confusing the ignorant, what justification is there for its existence? This goes from lack of sympathy into outright malice.
I put my setting on that site as I can't access the other wiki's and it is too much of a hassle for putting it on this forum. I find that it is a easier place to store my homebrew than this forum and it is more accessible for my players to find my homebrew and the SRD.

So it does have a purpose. Also even if one method has a the same purpose and might do it better in some ways to another method that doesn't mean that the second method is pointless and wrong. It just means they have different ways of doing the purpose.

[Mystic Muse]

Personally, I think it's good to be clear that what somebody is looking at is not official material. Having a little footnote at the bottom that says "This is Homebrew" isn't a very effective way to go about that. There are hints in some areas, but if nothing else it'd be nice to have the category at the top rather than at the very bottom where a lot of people might not even look.

Just my two bits.

[Voyager_I]

Which was kind of his point. You say that other peoples opinions matter, but then you latter start to disargree with his opinion with your own opinion. So that starts to show that you respect other people opinions if they are the same as yours. Which does show that you do discount peoples opinions if you aren't yours. Which was his point.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my point. He's entitled to have his own priorities. However, just because he, personally doesn't care about something, doesn't mean that everyone else in the world is wrong if matters to them.


He is saying that if they don't know something, that isn't the problem of the site. Its them not knowing something. Should every homebrew page say THIS IS HOMEBREW MATERIAL in big letters throughout the article simply because some people are ignorant of the fact that the site isn't just WotC material.

Yes.

If a site contains both official and non-official material, common sense and common courtesy dictate that it should be made as difficult as possible for the uninitiated to confuse the two of them.

DanDwiki makes practically no effort.

[Cidolfas]

I followed the dndwiki.org link and read a few of the classes there. Almost as bad as the other. The homebrew posted has nothing happeining in the talk pages, which would be the key for a good homebrew wiki. I didn't see one class of quality (though I only thoroughly checked out 6 of them), and I am afraid to check out the other stuff.

I think the big problem is trying to do homebrew via wiki. Wikis don't generate the kind of discussion that forums do. I was considering posting some of my content to one of the wikis, but I really don't want that kind of hit to my credibility.

I'm sure I could not even get through the first page of the Homebrew Design forum without finding six classes I disapprove of, so without specifics that example means nothing.

As for discussion, we do quite a bit via IRC chat at least amongst the more active members of the community, since it's more time-efficient for all concerned provided both parties are actually present. When that's not the case, however, we post on talk pages.

It seems rather unfair to judge an entire site by only a few representative examples that you won't even share with others.

[Knaight]

Their ignorance is not my problem, nor does it gain my sympathy. This is the age of the internet; ignorance and knowledge are separated only by a five-second Google search. Most of your arguments claim that ignorance and sloth are good reasons. They are not. If it were some obscure, difficult-to-acquire information then you'd have a place to stand - but this is common knowledge among the D&D gaming community that a new player can very easily acquire.

I doubt that most D&D groups have much connection to some broader "D&D gaming community". Sure, the terribleness of the wiki is known by those of us in a broader community, such as most everyone on this forum, but what about some people who have a few of the books, are a self contained group with no connections to the "D&D gaming community"?

Ultimately, from a position of total ignorance, dandwiki looks legitimate. It's unclear what "homebrew" even means, and while it is trivial to check the veracity of the site if one has either the actual books or knows someone who is in the community, it isn't otherwise.

Then there's the matter of large scale efficiency. Dandwiki could be usable if they conveyed information well, and it is far more efficient for them to effectively convey information than for everyone who ever uses it to sift through it to sort the material. That they don't even do that is indicative of how completely terrible it is.

[Thurbane]

Personally, I think it's good to be clear that what somebody is looking at is not official material. Having a little footnote at the bottom that says "This is Homebrew" isn't a very effective way to go about that. There are hints in some areas, but if nothing else it'd be nice to have the category at the top rather than at the very bottom where a lot of people might not even look.

Just my two bits.
Agreed, 100%.

[Darth Stabber]

You wound me to the core, Darth Stabber. You would thoroughly check out and disapprove of six classes without giving them a Dislike template or at least derisive comments in their talk pages?

I am not a member of the site, and were I to join the amount of derisive comments I would leave about poor design and juvenalia present would have me quickly (though incorrectly) labeled as a troll. I seek to offend no one, merely to offer my honest impressions that are germain to the discussion at hand. I really don't know the protocol for that website and it's really not worth my time and energy to go through and do that when I can contribute to here and there is much more discussion.

The classes I used for my review
Blackmage - warmage with different class ability, bad and boring. The worst part is that it is labeled as wizard level, and it would be lucky to be as good as fighter.

Bloodcloud Mage - if I were a dragonborn mongrelfolk, I would still not have enough hp to be comfortable with this class. And the abilities are not strong enough to make them worth it. Random BAD class abilities that cost a ton of damage to yourself, no thanks.

Dark Knight - again lots of HP sacrifice, though a couple of useful abilities. Still bad, and class feature names are aweful.

Dragon shaman - BRUTALLY over powered at low levels and still over powered at high levels. Bestow curse @will at 6th level (1 level after cleric 1 before wizard, and AT WILL)? Free commune daily at 7 (two levels before cleric)? Breathweapon that deals class level d6, and you can pick the energy type each time) and you can switch which save it targets?

Elemental blade - sickeningly underpowered. Converts your melee weapon damage into energy damage with lackluster bonuses, blech. A couple of random energy related abilities that are sum total worse than a bonus feat every level.

Iaijutsu master - amazingly overpowered. Let's add class level d6 damage to attacks in an abusable and repeatable manner. Oh wait, let's make it not precision damage! The rest. is pretty rediculous, but that's the one that stuck me.

[GhostwheelZ]

Figured I'm chime in on two things...

Before saying if things are overpowered/underpowered, you should give this (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/BP) a read; wizard-level corresponds to tier 1-2 classes, rogue-level to tier 3 classes, fighter-level to tier 4 classes, and monk-level to tier 5-6 classes according to the JaronK's rating system, more-or-less. In context, nothing is overpowered or underpowered, since it's all in a range with various things to compare. Not much is overpowered compared to a planar shephered, and not much is underpowered compared to a monk or commoner, so it's good to get some sort of framework or place of perspective before saying things are underpowered or overpowered.


The classes I used for my review

<snip>Iaijutsu master - amazingly overpowered. Let's add class level d6 damage to attacks in an abusable and repeatable manner. Oh wait, let's make it not precision damage! The rest. is pretty rediculous, but that's the one that stuck me.

Just wanted to comment on this one, since I think he was referring to my PrC (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Iaijutsu_Master_(3.5e_Prestige_Class)).

Couple of things--first, you'll notice that this PrC is rogue-level. This means that it is compared to classes such as the warblade, swordsage, and the like. Now, even at 2d6 + 1d6 per class level, that's 10d6 at level 10--you're getting 12d6 from 10 levels at a class, at earliest at level 16, which is one level away from where the warblade would get their level 9 maneuver, "Strike of Perfect Clarity". Now sure, +12d6 is a lot... but that's 42 damage on average, and doesn't really compare to +100 damage--and that's not comparing it to some of the far stronger level 9 maneuvers like Time Stands Still or the save or die of Feral Death Blow.

Second, rogues easily get around the "precision damage" thing themselves, able to pick up Penetrating Strike from Dungeonscape to get much of their damage through even on enemies without discernible anatomies.

Third, you'll notice that there are multiple limitations, not just on how many times it can be used per round (ONCE), but also the limiter of how many iaijutsu points are generated by a single draw. And if the Iaijutsu Master spends them all on damage, he's not going to be able to proc any of his status effects, some of which are pretty useful.

While the rest of his abilities are pretty strong, they give up the flexibility of a martial adept who has a large repertoire of different abilities that they can use in specific situations and are still outperformed by specific builds since this Iaijutsu Master can't take advantage easily of, say, Stormguard Warrior combined with Avalanche of Blades to get +50 damage to every attack they made during their next round.

But yeah, the important thing is... tl;dr - understanding balance points (or ranges, rather,) is key to understanding how this specific wiki works, and why quality control is so important to its community.

Edit: Got cajoled into posting thoughts/explanations for the others.

Blackmage - warmage with different class ability, bad and boring. The worst part is that it is labeled as wizard level, and it would be lucky to be as good as fighter.Wizard-level spells make this class wizard-level, with the ability to effetively end encounters in one round. Black Tentacles, Deep Slumber, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Scorching Ray (+metamagics), and Solid Fog are all fairly low-level examples of wizard-level spells.


Bloodcloud Mage - if I were a dragonborn mongrelfolk, I would still not have enough hp to be comfortable with this class. And the abilities are not strong enough to make them worth it. Random BAD class abilities that cost a ton of damage to yourself, no thanks.With how easy it is to regain HP after each encounter, and not having to use abilities if you don't want them, I'm not sure what's so bad about this class...


Dark Knight - again lots of HP sacrifice, though a couple of useful abilities. Still bad, and class feature names are aweful.Notice the FIGHTER balance range--the useful abilities are balanced by the HP sacrifice. It's supposed to be weaker than rogue-level classes.


Dragon shaman - BRUTALLY over powered at low levels and still over powered at high levels. Bestow curse @will at 6th level (1 level after cleric 1 before wizard, and AT WILL)? Free commune daily at 7 (two levels before cleric)? Breathweapon that deals class level d6, and you can pick the energy type each time) and you can switch which save it targets?Note that rogue-level rating again. Which part do you find overpowered? Is it the breath weapon? If so, I'd like to introduce you to my little friend (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Basic_Blaster_Wilder_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bui ld)) ;-)

And again, that's all pure damage there, so it could very well be rogue-level since it doesn't have the awesome capability of wizard-level abilities to end the majority of encounters in a single round.


Elemental blade - sickeningly underpowered. Converts your melee weapon damage into energy damage with lackluster bonuses, blech. A couple of random energy related abilities that are sum total worse than a bonus feat every level.

What's underpowered at this? He gets a 10' radius AoE at will that deals 1d6 per 2 levels he possesses, fast healing or DR from 2nd level, can have a minor haste ability at level 8, and can teleport a short distance as a move action every round. While it's on the low level of rogue, it still is far better than the Fighter, and passes (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Talk:Elemental_Blade_(3.5e_Class)#Level_10_SGT) the SGT (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SGT) quite readily.

[GhostwheelZ]

Bloodcloud Mage - if I were a dragonborn mongrelfolk, I would still not have enough hp to be comfortable with this class. And the abilities are not strong enough to make them worth it. Random BAD class abilities that cost a ton of damage to yourself, no thanks.

Just a note - it's not impossible to sway people on the wiki. The creator of this class, after reading your concerns added a self-healing ability to the class that probably makes it a lot more viable and valid.

Seriously, if you have concerns about a class, please speak up. People are willing to talk and listen, and if the concerns are valid then they *will* change things if they'll make the classes better overall. We're all in this together to make the very best homebrew that we can :smallsmile:

[Milo v3]

Just a note - it's not impossible to sway people on the wiki. The creator of this class, after reading your concerns added a self-healing ability to the class that probably makes it a lot more viable and valid.

Seriously, if you have concerns about a class, please speak up. People are willing to talk and listen, and if the concerns are valid then they *will* change things if they'll make the classes better overall. We're all in this together to make the very best homebrew that we can :smallsmile:

Also if people actually said the problems with some of the pages on DanD wiki then it would probably be a much better site.

[GhostwheelZ]

Also if people actually said the problems with some of the pages on DanD wiki then it would probably be a much better site.

I... don't know about that. Every time someone speaks up, GD usually either gives them a warning, deleting their text, or bans them outright :-/

Plus there's no sense of ownership on that site ever since he stripped author boxes, and... well, let's just say that there are other problems :smallfrown: