Which is better in most games: dubious RAW tricks for moderate power, or homebrew?

[TuggyNE]

So, I was pondering my old PsyWar charger experimental build, and wondering whether to start up a new thread to get some more feedback on it, when I remembered some of the things I'd noticed already: the build as it stands uses a third-party feat (Ascetic Warrior) and some psicrystal homebrew written by me that never got very thoroughly critiqued. However, both of those could probably be solved with first-party materials only, at the cost of a bit more cheese and roughly the same power level. This led to the title question: is it more acceptable to DMs for PCs to use slight cheese responsibly to achieve a desired result, or instead to homebrew a more restricted form that just does what you want straight out? (Also, I suppose, the question of how acceptable published third-party material is.)

I'm mostly looking for experience or personal opinions, since I doubt there's any hard and fast truth here: some DMs will prefer one, and some the other, but I'd like to get an idea of how many of each.

[nedz]

Homebrew, but then I'm quite old school; which just means that I expect DM's to have to do this. Getting the balance right requires critique, which you ought to be able to do yourself — given that it's the integrity of your game which is in question. External opinions are always useful, of course, but you have to balance the encounters etc. anyway.

The problem with cheese is that the players will want to use it, and that can lead to a vicious circle.

[Quietus]

I prefer cheese, but that may be due to my personal tastes - I like to run for high-op groups, with players who are fully capable of bending the RAW to do what they want to accomplish, but who also have the maturity to do so only when it won't be outright disruptive.

Example : I once had an assassin vine that I added HD to until it was Gargantuan size, with a 30 foot reach. It still only had a 5' move speed, so I had it use its iterative unarmed attacks to grapple scenery and pull itself 30 feet at a time. RAW legal, mildly silly, but it wasn't disruptive. It made for a memorable encounter, because the players THOUGHT they were dealing with something they could run from easily. That's RAW-twisting cheese used well, to gain a desired effect, rather than "I planar bind a genie, and begin a wish loop".

[Emperor Tippy]

As a general rule, ask your DM how powerful he wants the individual players to be in his campaign and then build to that power level using as little or as much cheese as desired.

[Tvtyrant]

I tend to prefer homebrew over optimization when I DM, but either way works.

[eggs]

Characters for games, homebrew absolutely. It's easy, compact, usually directed and balanced specifically to the point, and for all the flak homebrew gets for its playtests, it's usually at least been designed with the specific usage in mind (as opposed to things like early entry tricks or technically-correct Versatile Spellcaster spellbook-users or full-casting Warsnakes, which probably weren't playtested, and whose implementation wasn't designed to be balanced in the first place). Plus, there's less rules-lawyering bickering about the specific phrasings involved in a trick.

For out-of-game fiddling and internet nerding out, dubious RAW tricks give concrete pieces of a puzzle to play with when trying to put a character of some concept together, which is much more fun for me than googling a concept and seeing what works specifically.

[Answerer]

I was totally gonna post, but then I saw that eggs said everything I could say.

[Wings of Peace]

RAW. But that's just because I find assembling my character as much fun as playing it.

[TuggyNE]

Quite a few responses so far, awesome!


The problem with cheese is that the players will want to use it, and that can lead to a vicious circle.

Well, I was asking mostly from the perspective of a player, not so much a DM. Still, it can go both ways.


As a general rule, ask your DM how powerful he wants the individual players to be in his campaign and then build to that power level using as little or as much cheese as desired.

Well, yes, OK. But I'm interested in more general trends, partly because I want to know which is more sensible to focus on perfecting, and partly just to see.


Characters for games, homebrew absolutely. It's easy, compact, usually directed and balanced specifically to the point, and for all the flak homebrew gets for its playtests, it's usually at least been designed with the specific usage in mind (as opposed to things like early entry tricks or technically-correct Versatile Spellcaster spellbook-users or full-casting Warsnakes, which probably weren't playtested, and whose implementation wasn't designed to be balanced in the first place). Plus, there's less rules-lawyering bickering about the specific phrasings involved in a trick.

For out-of-game fiddling and internet nerding out, dubious RAW tricks give concrete pieces of a puzzle to play with when trying to put a character of some concept together, which is much more fun for me than googling a concept and seeing what works specifically.

That ... makes a lot of sense. An awful lot of sense. :smallsmile:


RAW. But that's just because I find assembling my character as much fun as playing it.

Hmm, I feel like I'm missing something in the reasoning here, since I too like making characters, but have so far found I prefer homebrewing things whenever I'd otherwise need iffy tricks or extremely convoluted builds to get by.

[huttj509]

Characters for games, homebrew absolutely. It's easy, compact, usually directed and balanced specifically to the point, and for all the flak homebrew gets for its playtests, it's usually at least been designed with the specific usage in mind (as opposed to things like early entry tricks or technically-correct Versatile Spellcaster spellbook-users or full-casting Warsnakes, which probably weren't playtested, and whose implementation wasn't designed to be balanced in the first place). Plus, there's less rules-lawyering bickering about the specific phrasings involved in a trick.

For out-of-game fiddling and internet nerding out, dubious RAW tricks give concrete pieces of a puzzle to play with when trying to put a character of some concept together, which is much more fun for me than googling a concept and seeing what works specifically.

I think a large part of the flak homebrew gets is when people find it online and use it without realizing it's homebrew, thus leading to arguments those times when it IS over the top.

Sort of like when people find Theoretical Optimization builds online and use them without realizing the often puzzle-solving purpose, or fitting it to the game at hand.

Homebrew and cheese, two tools that can either be used for evil, or awesome. (Personally, I just love the image of that assassin vine. As long as it wasn't a "kill you all no chance at all" grudge monster, rule of cool wins on that one.)

[Esgath]

Hmm, I feel like I'm missing something in the reasoning here, since I too like making characters, but have so far found I prefer homebrewing things whenever I'd otherwise need iffy tricks or extremely convoluted builds to get by.
Homebrew does taste like "make a wish"-building. It's the challenge to go through every book and make it work with the resources the system gives you that's satisfying, at least for some of us.

[Wings of Peace]

Homebrew does taste like "make a wish"-building. It's the challenge to go through every book and make it work with the resources the system gives you that's satisfying, at least for some of us.

This. Unless it's something very specific I don't find using homebrew to build a character satisfying because I like the challenge of taking all the published material and making it do what I want. If I use homebrew then (aside from keeping things balanced) most of that challenge is removed as I can just homebrew the gaps in my build away.

[nedz]

Quite a few responses so far, awesome!
Well, I was asking mostly from the perspective of a player, not so much a DM. Still, it can go both ways.

It was your last paragraph which caused me to interpret your question that way.



I'm mostly looking for experience or personal opinions, since I doubt there's any hard and fast truth here: some DMs will prefer one, and some the other, but I'd like to get an idea of how many of each.

Really it comes down to play style, and there are no right or wrong answers here.

Do you like to solve your problems by talking. The ideal here is no combat.
Do you like to solve your problems tactically, using whatever resources are to hand. The ideal here is minimal resource usage.
Do you like to solve your problems by creativity. The ideal here is rule of cool.
Do you like to solve your problems by system mastery. The ideal here is TO.


Your question relates, I think, to a choice between 3 and 4.

In a real game though a mix of styles are probably in play.

[Snowbluff]

Like most things from the internet, homebrew is 90% crap and 10% good stuff. I have yet to find the 10% that is worth it.

I prefer RAW stuff, and then I use 'homebrew' nerfs to balance things (Example, Boomerang Daze's save is 10+Str Mod+ 1/2 HD when used with an Aptitude melee weapon).

[Larkas]

Usually, I go by RAW, but that's simply because I tend to play in groups that are VERY weary of wrecking "balance", that is, groups that think that a Fighter is equivalent to a Wizard, ToB is overpowered and "Core Only" is a good thing. In that scenario, it is quite difficult to convince anyone to let you use any "obscure rulebook" (i.e.: non-Core), let alone 3rd-party books and homebrew.

As a GM, I tend to run along with it, but I always check the proposed homebrew before allowing it at the table: not only to see if it won't do anything crazy, but to actually see if the player didn't choose anything subpar, and if s/he did, point them towards good and well made homebrew that might do what they're trying to accomplish.

Overall, I think both are valid, but "RAW only" tables seem to spawn an awful lot of rules lawyers.


I have yet to find the 10% that is worth it.

Dunno. I've seen plenty of good stuff. One of the best is certainly this Marshal fix (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Marshal_(Sublime_Way_variant)).

[shortround]

I'll admit that I haven't looked hard to find good homebrew, but I'll still say I prefer RAW cheese. I'm in the same camp as the other people in this thread in that a lot of the appeal to cheese for me is the use of neat and interesting mechanic interactions to do neat and interesting things using an established set of neat and interesting tools. If I just made my own tools, it would sort of defeat the point for me. I figure that if I wanted to get creative with homebrew, I'd play a system that wasn't so deeply invested in splat books and book delving and rules management.

[Mithril Leaf]

I use homebrew for campaigns that are heavily invested in a system other than the standard, such as an E6 game. In such campaigns, I shall use things like Gnorman's E6 compendium. In standard games, I traditionally am a fan of all WotC material with some homebrew as needed, such as a single class to fit the mechanics and flavor of something such as the Evolutionist. As far as power is concerned, I typically play a high powered character and it somewhat feels like cheating to go right ahead and use something tier 0 rather than working to that through established channels. Playing a Druid into Planar shepherd with Mechanus and going into Modron form is more fun to me than just straight up playing a lightning warrior. The rush of being able to put the pieces together is a better feeling than the actual playing of the strong character for me.

[Flickerdart]

Example : I once had an assassin vine that I added HD to until it was Gargantuan size, with a 30 foot reach. It still only had a 5' move speed, so I had it use its iterative unarmed attacks to grapple scenery and pull itself 30 feet at a time. RAW legal, mildly silly, but it wasn't disruptive. It made for a memorable encounter, because the players THOUGHT they were dealing with something they could run from easily. That's RAW-twisting cheese used well, to gain a desired effect, rather than "I planar bind a genie, and begin a wish loop".
Haha, yes, I remember this. Good times.

Personally, I prefer RAW when building because using homebrew to me is like cutting and painting your own puzzle pieces. I also encourage official content in my games because I know the books quite well, and understand the interactions between things. Throwing a random homebrew class in disrupts that state, mostly because it requires me to read and approve even more stuff (which usually presented in a format that deeply offends my aesthetic sensibilities as a graphic designer - anime pictures from dA? Papyrus? No thank you!). At least with RAW stuff it's pretty clear what people are doing (1 level in 2 casting classes + Versatile Spellcaster? I know what you're up to) as opposed to homebrew where an innocuous-looking "Dudefighter 20" might provide three abilities per level, any of which can interact very unpleasantly with any number of things, even if they're tested against one another.

Plus, homebrew tends to have really dumb names, and often has extremely specific fluff that players fall in love with and try to shoehorn into games. Some official things have this problem as well (warforged, I'm looking at you) but not nearly as often as homebrew.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Like most things from the internet, homebrew is 90% crap and 10% good stuff. I have yet to find the 10% that is worth it.

Gaze upon this, and be enlightened. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3865485&postcount=2)

Also, this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205213)

[Delwugor]

Homebrew can be tailored to the group and the desired play. It may fail for 90% of other groups but that same amount works for the group it was made for.

[toapat]

Like most things from the internet, homebrew is 90% crap and 10% good stuff. I have yet to find the 10% that is worth it.

Homebrew falls into 3 categories:

Homebrew that was so Offensive to some person that it became highly visible

Homebrew that doesnt understand the error that it is making.

Homebrew that is good and no one saw ever. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259330) (im not plugging myself here, im irritated that i got 2400 views and 3 responses. I did spend 5 attempts to do it though.)

[mattie_p]

I have a player who wants to be a swordsage/manifester. There is no WoTC class that pulls that off (not even adaptation notes, that I have seen). Therefore, homebrew is sometimes necessary, in my opinion, to meet a player's goals. Where possible, I use official material, but sometimes that isn't really possible.

[Flickerdart]

I have a player who wants to be a swordsage/manifester. There is no WoTC class that pulls that off (not even adaptation notes, that I have seen). Therefore, homebrew is sometimes necessary, in my opinion, to meet a player's goals. Where possible, I use official material, but sometimes that isn't really possible.
Swordsage/Ardent, alternating levels. You end up with IL15 and ML20.

[mattie_p]

Swordsage/Ardent, alternating levels. You end up with IL15 and ML20.

But in a world with JPM and RKV, why is there no published manifester/initiator class? Subsystems have very little support outside of their books. Also why you see no initiator/warlocks (glaivelocks), or anything else similar.

[Quietus]

Haha, yes, I remember this. Good times.

Personally, I prefer RAW when building because using homebrew to me is like cutting and painting your own puzzle pieces. I also encourage official content in my games because I know the books quite well, and understand the interactions between things. Throwing a random homebrew class in disrupts that state, mostly because it requires me to read and approve even more stuff (which usually presented in a format that deeply offends my aesthetic sensibilities as a graphic designer - anime pictures from dA? Papyrus? No thank you!). At least with RAW stuff it's pretty clear what people are doing (1 level in 2 casting classes + Versatile Spellcaster? I know what you're up to) as opposed to homebrew where an innocuous-looking "Dudefighter 20" might provide three abilities per level, any of which can interact very unpleasantly with any number of things, even if they're tested against one another.

Plus, homebrew tends to have really dumb names, and often has extremely specific fluff that players fall in love with and try to shoehorn into games. Some official things have this problem as well (warforged, I'm looking at you) but not nearly as often as homebrew.

That assassin vine was a fun combat. You guys had it under control fairly quickly, of course, but for a moment there, there was a threat from something no one expected a threat from. That made me incredibly happy.

As to homebrew, I feel the same way as you do. I know so much of the books, I can make most ideas work in some way. When something comes up that doesn't really exist - the initiator/manifester combo, as an example - I'm not averse to working with a player, but I really dislike when someone comes to me with homebrew. I'm far more comfortable saying "Sure, use Jade Phoenix Mage, but raise Manifester level instead of Caster level. Done."

[kardar233]

Most of the time, I prefer to use RAW or what I would call "small" homebrew (say, the aforementioned Psionic JPM) to accomplish what I'm looking for. I like taking an archetype or mechanical style that interests me and building it to the best of my abilities as I like building characters and looking for interactions. For example, I'm currently working on building a high-mobility melee character that only makes one attack per round and likes it that way.

I can make pretty much any character I would normally imagine under the 3.5 rules. When I look at homebrew, I'm looking for two things: either an interesting mechanic that promises fun gaming, or a really cool archetype that I haven't thought of or wouldn't normally play. This is why I particularly like homebrew disciplines, as they tend to be based on interesting mechanics that define a style of play, like The Demented One's Dancing Leaf discipline.

[nedz]

Yes, preferably small homebrew, if you are going to do this.

Whether it's just refluffing, pinching something from another class or tweaking something that already exists but doesn't quite work in the way that you want.

It's also a lot easier to balance.

[Snowbluff]

Haha, yes, I remember this. Good times.

Personally, I prefer RAW when building because using homebrew to me is like cutting and painting your own puzzle pieces. I also encourage official content in my games because I know the books quite well, and understand the interactions between things. Throwing a random homebrew class in disrupts that state, mostly because it requires me to read and approve even more stuff (which usually presented in a format that deeply offends my aesthetic sensibilities as a graphic designer - anime pictures from dA? Papyrus? No thank you!). At least with RAW stuff it's pretty clear what people are doing (1 level in 2 casting classes + Versatile Spellcaster? I know what you're up to) as opposed to homebrew where an innocuous-looking "Dudefighter 20" might provide three abilities per level, any of which can interact very unpleasantly with any number of things, even if they're tested against one another.

Plus, homebrew tends to have really dumb names, and often has extremely specific fluff that players fall in love with and try to shoehorn into games. Some official things have this problem as well (warforged, I'm looking at you) but not nearly as often as homebrew.

Ugh. Yes, exactly.

Also, I take offense at Warforged as well.


Homebrew falls into 3 categories:

Homebrew that was so Offensive to some person that it became highly visible

Homebrew that doesnt understand the error that it is making.

Homebrew that is good and no one saw ever. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259330) (im not plugging myself here, im irritated that i got 2400 views and 3 responses. I did spend 5 attempts to do it though.)

Yep. Also, it's be nice if your table wasn't so cluttered. Personally, 2.3 casting like a bard seem and the PF Smite/LoH like a better option for a better paladin than loading a bunch of other class features.



As to homebrew, I feel the same way as you do. I know so much of the books, I can make most ideas work in some way. When something comes up that doesn't really exist - the initiator/manifester combo, as an example - I'm not averse to working with a player, but I really dislike when someone comes to me with homebrew. I'm far more comfortable saying "Sure, use Jade Phoenix Mage, but raise Manifester level instead of Caster level. Done."

Yeah, this is my general approach to thigns as well. I do the same thing with Warlocks. I actually have my own warlock homebrew as well, mostly for this reason.

[toapat]

Ugh. Yes, exactly.

Also, I take offense at Warforged as well.

Warforged are both a very good, and exquisitely bad race.

they are one of the few PC races that actually justify themselves as PC races.

on the other hand, almost everything about them, and the setting they are in, is terrible. Its like Keith Baker had just read a collection of good ideas and had a nice sitdown with shadowrun before he wrote the campaign, and couldnt decide which ideas he wanted, so he threw them all in. Instead of making a strong setting, it made the most rank, weakest setting of all.

Paladin comment in PM

[TuggyNE]

Ugh, I came down with some bug today, so my thinker is not in the best of shape.


Really it comes down to play style, and there are no right or wrong answers here.

Do you like to solve your problems by talking. The ideal here is no combat.
Do you like to solve your problems tactically, using whatever resources are to hand. The ideal here is minimal resource usage.
Do you like to solve your problems by creativity. The ideal here is rule of cool.
Do you like to solve your problems by system mastery. The ideal here is TO.


Your question relates, I think, to a choice between 3 and 4.

I suppose that's true, although I can't help but think there's a little more to it than that. Perhaps it's that, while I have a decent command of Core rules, and a broad smattering of knowledge of where to look for most other things, I don't have the details of most books readily available, so that's obviously a point for homebrew (my own or others') enhanced by system mastery to ensure it works right.


As far as power is concerned, I typically play a high powered character and it somewhat feels like cheating to go right ahead and use something tier 0 rather than working to that through established channels. Playing a Druid into Planar shepherd with Mechanus and going into Modron form is more fun to me than just straight up playing a lightning warrior. The rush of being able to put the pieces together is a better feeling than the actual playing of the strong character for me.

Hmm, fair enough. I'm not much into high power myself (chiefly because all my RL D&D friends prefer lower power than me, even), but I guess that's reasonable.


Personally, I prefer RAW when building because using homebrew to me is like cutting and painting your own puzzle pieces.

Full disclosure: trying to actually solve puzzles has long seemed to me a bit of a waste, as there are perfectly good and genuine challenges that require more mental effort than simply pattern-matching shapes and hues that are designed to be as artificially confusing as possible.


I also encourage official content in my games because I know the books quite well, and understand the interactions between things. Throwing a random homebrew class in disrupts that state, mostly because it requires me to read and approve even more stuff (which usually presented in a format that deeply offends my aesthetic sensibilities as a graphic designer - anime pictures from dA? Papyrus? No thank you!). At least with RAW stuff it's pretty clear what people are doing (1 level in 2 casting classes + Versatile Spellcaster? I know what you're up to) as opposed to homebrew where an innocuous-looking "Dudefighter 20" might provide three abilities per level, any of which can interact very unpleasantly with any number of things, even if they're tested against one another.

Plus, homebrew tends to have really dumb names, and often has extremely specific fluff that players fall in love with and try to shoehorn into games. Some official things have this problem as well (warforged, I'm looking at you) but not nearly as often as homebrew.

Hmm. Well, I'm not usually a fan of homebrew classes (except fixes for certain ones, like Ranger), much less larger subsystems — I prefer concise and small things, like feats or spells.


Most of the time, I prefer to use RAW or what I would call "small" homebrew (say, the aforementioned Psionic JPM) to accomplish what I'm looking for.

Basically, this.


I can make pretty much any character I would normally imagine under the 3.5 rules. When I look at homebrew, I'm looking for two things: either an interesting mechanic that promises fun gaming, or a really cool archetype that I haven't thought of or wouldn't normally play. This is why I particularly like homebrew disciplines, as they tend to be based on interesting mechanics that define a style of play, like The Demented One's Dancing Leaf discipline.

I'd add one thing to this: the category of fixes or tidiers of various sorts (such as Psionic JPM, psicrystal manifesting, improved baseline Paladin, and so forth) where there's a certain aesthetic benefit to reducing the number of moving parts.

[NichG]

I'd say there's really three options here, rather than two:

1. RAW tricks
2. 'External' homebrew: Player brings homebrew to the DM, says 'I want to play this'
3. 'Internal' homebrew: Player says to the DM 'I want a character that plays like this, can you help?' and the player and DM create new homebrew on the spot customized to the situation.

Generally as a DM my preference is 3 over 2, and 2 over 1. The reason for the first is basically that option 3 is the most mutually controlled scenario - both the player and DM are creating the rules that the player will end up using, so the DM can make sure there aren't bad interactions, and the player can make sure that they actually want to play what they end up with (e.g. no stealth nerfs, nerfs later on, or 'traps' built into the material). Having both the DM and player author the material also makes sure that they're both on the same page about how everything in the class or feat or whatever works, whereas its a bit harder to ensure that with an external source (you might skim it, or interpret bits of it differently, or whatever).

The reason for the second (homebrew over RAW tricks) is that I prefer to run a game where the players can think both in character and out of character about tactics, about what various things mean in the world, about how they want to advance, etc, and I want those two to be as much in sync as possible. If your trick requires you to drown-heal, or use a peasant railgun or something like that, it works mechanically but it adds a strong dose of meta to the campaign, which is problematic unless thats what you're trying to do. Some tricks are better or worse for this particular problem, and I don't mind the ones that aren't quite so visible in-world. Homebrew at least has the ability to just be written to do what its supposed to do without awkward weirdness. A guy who is supposed to be transcendentally good at, say, dodging doesn't have to be built with e.g. a wizard dip for Abrupt Jaunt, he can just have a class ability that says 'spend an immediate action to dodge an attack' and be done with it.

[nedz]

Yeah 2 is definitely bad, but I prefer
4) Show it to the whole group and get their feedback.
If you don't then they may end up thinking your playing favourites and letting someone play a mary-sue.
Besides your changing the rules — so they may want to use the material.
The two of you may have missed something which another player might spot.
The only exception here is plot related stuff, but that should be seperate from the rules anyway.

[NichG]

Yeah 2 is definitely bad, but I prefer
4) Show it to the whole group and get their feedback.
If you don't then they may end up thinking your playing favourites and letting someone play a mary-sue.
Besides your changing the rules — so they may want to use the material.
The two of you may have missed something which another player might spot.
The only exception here is plot related stuff, but that should be seperate from the rules anyway.

Yeah, this can work well, but sometimes its also good for PCs to have secrets up their sleeves (depending on the style of campaign of course). I find its good to just create a culture of 'new stuff comes into the game regularly' at the table, so everyone has a chance for something unique. For instance, right now I'm running a campaign that heavily involves spell research, invention of new martial techniques and styles, invention of new feats, invention of new items and item enchantments, etc, so every single PC is not only using homebrew that was introduced at the start of the campaign in the campaign guide, but also a number of things that they themselves uniquely created.

[Quietus]

I'd say there's really three options here, rather than two:

1. RAW tricks
2. 'External' homebrew: Player brings homebrew to the DM, says 'I want to play this'
3. 'Internal' homebrew: Player says to the DM 'I want a character that plays like this, can you help?' and the player and DM create new homebrew on the spot customized to the situation.

I should clarify, I don't allow silly RAW tricks. Dead people don't get up and start walking again just because "Dead" isn't defined. Sticking a dying person's head in a bucket won't make them any better. But abusing the grapple rules and a large base attack to move beyond your usual 5 foot limit? Handing off weapons each round via Disarm attacks? I like that creativity in my players, I like seeing the system stressed a little but not outright broken. That's why I would prefer 1-3-2.

[toapat]

I should clarify, I don't allow silly RAW tricks. Dead people don't get up and start walking again just because "Dead" isn't defined.

As far as i know, Dead is defined as being unable to take physical or verbal actions. so technically you can throw anything not V/S in spells and alot of manifestations.