Why NOT play Core only?

[GGambrel]

I've been following the "Why play Core only?" thread, and people clearly have differing preferences as to whether additional books be included in their 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder games. My own preference is to limit material outside the Core to specific sources which I am familiar with (I mostly DM) that (when taken together) seem to provide an equal number of options for various party roles. I'm very leery of player suggestions for additional material as it could have far-reaching consequences I do not perceive, and I'd rather withhold it than take it away later.

What I'm wondering then, is what 'legit' reasons do people have for preferring the use of additional sources?

I can see the greater control of character customization and the ability to design super-powerful (or at least competent) characters as possible draws, but are there others? What do you, as a player or DM, gain from including material beyond the Core Rules? Concise examples are encouraged! :smallwink:

[Thurbane]

I guess the most basic reason is someone has a character concept that is better supported by a non-core Class/PrC/Feat etc. than anything found in core...

[YossarianLives]

I guess the most basic reason is someone has a character concept that is better supported by a non-core Class/PrC/Feat etc. than anything found in core...
I would second this. What if you want to play a psionic character, or what about a more exotic race not included in core.

[Flickerdart]

When WotC wrote the core books, they had approximately zero idea of what they were doing. Core contains the game's most powerful spells next to Monk, Toughness, and Half-Orc. Every successive book has bridged the power gap by providing weaker alternatives for spells and stronger alternative for feats, races, and mundane class options.

In core, if someone wants to be a guy that turns into monsters, they either play a druid, play a wizard who casts polymoprh, or don't play at all. Out of core, they can use MoMF, Bear Warrior, the [Polymorph] spells, or build their own monsters with Totemist - all far more balanced options.

[rrwoods]

Two objective reasons:

1. The game is more balanced with more options, full stop. See previous thread for comments about needing to pick wizard/sorcerer/bard if you want an arcane caster, and having other more specialized-but-limiting options outside core. I could go on but it's not necessary.

2. A player never has the feel-bad moment of wanting to try a particular option (feat/spell/class/prc) but it being automatically declined because of the book it comes from, without regard *at all* to the text of the option.

Subjectively: I was introduced through Core-only games, and I've done them to death. I've had the feel-bad moment in #2 multiple times. I like playing melee and making a difference. I like options. I like customization. I like optimization. Lots of reasons; core-only just isn't my game.

[johnbragg]

Now I can argue the other side of the fence.

Core has a pretty severe martials vs casters gap, and splatbook support can reduce that gap. An optimized Fighter or Paladin is going to need sourcebook support. ("Or just use Tome of Battle", as I ninjaswordsage a poster or two) The fixed-list casters and the Warlock are widely agreed to be not as powerful as the Core caster classes, except for Bard, which gets a lot of stuff outside of Core.

[Eldariel]

Most of the strengths of 3.X really come onto their own with the additional sources. Being able to build basically any character concept, and in general being able bridge various combinations together and do all manners of things, it all really comes onto its own only with a wide array of sources. The only really mechanically interesting martial characters are also outside Core, as well as most of the useful non-caster feats. Really, if you play Core-only, there's very little in terms of a golden middle road to play (even Rogue, Bard, Ranger and Barbarian, all solid middle-of-the-pack classes, really rely on auxiliary sources) so you're stuck in either the very high end of the power curve in Wizard/Cleric/Druid (or Sorcerer, which is a weaker Wizard in Core), or in a variety of low- or no-option classes with few tools to truly let them shine (all the others barring perhaps the Bard). There's just a much richer variety of options outside the Core books, and more options for the DM and the group to tailor to level and taste outside it.

[Necroticplague]

1. Balance. Flat out, core is the most broken part of dnd. By using more material, you can dilute the brokeness of core until it reaches tolerable levels. The exceptions are generally well-known enough/stick out enough that you can spot them easily.

2. Sensibility. Whether a piece of material is appropriate is entirely independent of what book it is in. If there's a feat that lets you bull-rush someone when you hit them, does it matter whether its source is on the d20SRD or Races of Stone?

3. Variety. With a wider scope of books, you get significantly more interesting combinations, and vastly more feasible interesting conversations.

4.Fantasy. Games incorporating more sourcebooks actually feel more like high fantasy, while the Core dnd is barely fantasy. A game where a three-headed ball of tar fights against giant 4-armed lampreys vs. a game where skinny people with pointy ears fight thick people with green skin.

5. Concepts. Staying within core, there are many concepts that simply can't work, or can't work feasibly, that are supported outside core.


As for the part about understanding the rules: I find that to be not a very good argument. Even the most complex of dnd rules are fairly easy to understand if you actually bother to read them. The infamous "grappling"? 'Roll touch attack, roll grapple, you're both limited in what actions you can take'. Natural weapons+ MWF? 'As normal MWF, natural weapons become secondary despite normal status'. Psionics? 'Mana pool system from every video game ever, except thunder, thundara, and thundaraga are one spell with different amount of MP tossed into it'

[johnbragg]

As for the part about understanding the rules: I find that to be not a very good argument. Even the most complex of dnd rules are fairly easy to understand if you actually bother to read them. The infamous "grappling"? 'Roll touch attack, roll grapple, you're both limited in what actions you can take'. Natural weapons+ MWF? 'As normal MWF, natural weapons become secondary despite normal status'. Psionics? 'Mana pool system from every video game ever, except thunder, thundara, and thundaraga are one spell with different amount of MP tossed into it'

Personally, I find the "argument from understanding" is more about spells than feats or ACFs etc. Just because there are so many more spells per book than ACFs/feats/magic items/etc; if you get suprised by something broken and poorly thought out, or easy to misread, it's more likely a spell than a martial option. (Count maneuvers as spells for this purpose, I think.)

[rrwoods]

Personally, I find the "argument from understanding" is more about spells than feats or ACFs etc. Just because there are so many more spells per book than ACFs/feats/magic items/etc; if you get suprised by something broken and poorly thought out, or easy to misread, it's more likely a spell than a martial option. (Count maneuvers as spells for this purpose, I think.)
It's waaaaay more likely to be a spell than a maneuver.

[Knaight]

Sometimes some concepts are better handled with a non-core class. Sometimes the non-core mechanics are more fun. Sometimes you want to play a caster character who is thematic, but without accidentally ending up stupidly overpowered. Core is by far the worst balanced set of books in D&D 3.5, to the point where it's a reasonable balancing option to flat ban every core class. Then there are the splat-books for games of a particular focus. If the game is explicitly set entirely in a desert, Sandstorm makes sense. If it's a naval game, Stormwreck makes sense, so on and so forth.

Basically, if you know the game well enough or are doing something specialized, it's going to be the splats that will serve you best. If you have the books, might as well use them.

[johnbragg]

It's waaaaay more likely to be a spell than a maneuver.

Well, yes. There are thousands of spells out there, and maybe 100 maneuvers. But by the same token, if something is broken/poorly worded in Tome of Battle, it's more likely to be a maneuver (Iron Heart Surge, I think) than a stance or a ToB feat or a class feature or ACF.

[nyjastul69]

When WotC wrote the core books, they had approximately zero idea of what they were doing. Core contains the game's most powerful spells next to Monk, Toughness, and Half-Orc. Every successive book has bridged the power gap by providing weaker alternatives for spells and stronger alternative for feats, races, and mundane class options.

In core, if someone wants to be a guy that turns into monsters, they either play a druid, play a wizard who casts polymoprh, or don't play at all. Out of core, they can use MoMF, Bear Warrior, the [Polymorph] spells, or build their own monsters with Totemist - all far more balanced options.

I don't think it's that they had approximately zero idea what they were doing. Rather, I think they were working off some flawed assumptions/presumptions. How these imbalancess's weren't caught during playtests is another matter. Many of them should have been caught. Also, I believe that they were told to make the game compatible with 2e. The designers of 4&5e weren't.

I like to allow things outside of core for a myriad of reasons. One is that core options can seem limiting after several years of play. I buy a lot of books. I like to support a game I've enjoyed for decades, regardless of edition. If the players don't buy books the game doesn't thrive, it may not even survive. I also like more options for characters. I think more options is a good thing. If I can see the broken bits in core, I can probably figure out the broken bits from a splat.

As a DM I potentially allow all sources, including 3.0, 3rd party and homebrew. The caveat is that I need to be given, or be able to review, the source material prior to playing. I love when players find cool synergies for their characters. I don't like when a player tries to break a game. There is no winning D&D, it's all about fun (for me).

All that said, I can understand why a DM might not allow things they are unfamiliar with. I especially think this applies to subsystems. I don't find it difficult to judge a few feats, spells, classes, etc. from a spalt book. Subsystems on the other hand need to be understood well by me before I will allow them. I can understand why psionics, ToB, Incarnum and such are dissallowed in a game.

I'd also like to add that just about every group I've played with uses an unwritten understanding of table dynamics. Don't try and break the game and rocks won't fall. If things are found to be broken, there will be changes made. Whether it be a modification of the broken bit, or the allownce of a rebuild, it's usually the player's choice of which one, we have had very few problems over many years of gaming.

[rrwoods]

maybe 100 maneuvers
207. I'd bet even money that a randomly selected spell has more than a 1/207 chance of being broken.

[ImperatorV]

It's waaaaay more likely to be a spell than a maneuver.

This. There are very few maneuvers that can be misread. Of course the ones that can get ridiculous (Iron Heart Surge the strong nuclear force being the worst offender).

As to the OP: people have said it before, balance. In core, you have the wizard, easily the most overpowered class in the game baring extreme shenanigans like StP Erudite with arcane fusion, vs the fighter, one of the most underpowered classes in the game. Outside of core, you have the beguiler (a solid tier three caster) vs the warblade (a solid tier 3 melee).

Essentially, if you play in core there will be a power gap, end of story. You can have as many bans and gentleman's agreements as you like, but the casters will always be better then the rest; even if they don't use their full potential they still have it. Outside of core, you can have balanced parties without making any modifications at all.

Also I hate the "I don't understand it" argument. Most of this stuff is not hard, much of it more intuitive then core. Well, not Incarnum, but Incarnum was designed to be weird. You can read most classes for about ten minutes and get a basic understanding, and look up handbooks online if you don't. Obscure spells, yes, can slow the game down and wreck a encounter if you aren't prepared for them, so just make sure your players give you a complete list of spells, or just ban the spells from a splat. Casters have enough good stuff already.

[squiggit]

My reasons: More options, better balance and ease of expressing certain concepts is all improved with non-core access.

[nyjastul69]

It's waaaaay more likely to be a spell than a maneuver.

This is likely objectively true. The likely subjective element is that it is easier to gauge a specific game element such as a spell, rather than an entire subsystem. The subsystem requires that I read it in its entirety, the spell requires reading a lot less text and applying to a know system. I find the latter much easier. YMMV.

Ha! Likely objective vs. likely subjective. Sorry, couldn't think of a better way to parse that. ;)

[GilesTheCleric]

I think there are some important non-rules reasons to include material from outside core. Even if you're running your own custom campaign, splatbooks include a whole lot of material that can help flesh out a world, a small town, or even wilderness. There's all sorts of factions to join, environmental risks to confront, more otherwordly or specialized foes to fight, detailed planes to travel to, strange and foreign gods to be wary of, and subsystems that can dramatically change how a game feels (Gw, HoH).

Even within the rules in splats, there are options for PCs that are more fluff-related than anything else, like rules for building castles, driving and fighting vehicles, hiring or leading troupes or troops, for being a subrace with a slightly different appearance or backstory, for new and silly types of booze and poisons, all sorts of rituals and teamwork-based abilities.

The rules that do impact things can be beneficial as well, and not necessarily always in the PCs' favour. There are elder evils to confront, chances to be sent to layer NI of the abyss, Lolth making trouble in the demonweb pits, a strange feeling emanating from white plume mountain, cities gaining the level of danger of dungeons, and weapons becoming something more akin to a friend rooted in family history and tradition.

Personally, my favourite aspect of splats is what folks above had already said -- it makes it easier to create specific concepts that might otherwise take homebrew or additional work on the part of the GM. Refluffing core to match a concept can only go so far.

[Amphetryon]

Because playing Core only, one is often unable to even be the Specialist Wizard one would like to be, effectively; outside of Core, one can find the spells and ACFs to support the Specialist concepts, or even the List Caster that emulates the concept you brought to the table.

[nyjastul69]

I think there are some important non-rules reasons to include material from outside core. Even if you're running your own custom campaign, splatbooks include a whole lot of material that can help flesh out a world, a small town, or even wilderness. There's all sorts of factions to join, environmental risks to confront, more otherwordly or specialized foes to fight, detailed planes to travel to, strange and foreign gods to be wary of, and subsystems that can dramatically change how a game feels (Gw, HoH).

Even within the rules in splats, there are options for PCs that are more fluff-related than anything else, like rules for building castles, driving and fighting vehicles, hiring or leading troupes or troops, for being a subrace with a slightly different appearance or backstory, for new and silly types of booze and poisons, all sorts of rituals and teamwork-based abilities.

The rules that do impact things can be beneficial as well, and not necessarily always in the PCs' favour. There are elder evils to confront, chances to be sent to layer NI of the abyss, Lolth making trouble in the demonweb pits, a strange feeling emanating from white plume mountain, cities gaining the level of danger of dungeons, and weapons becoming something more akin to a friend rooted in family history and tradition. ...

How did I forget to mention these things as well. :/ Well said. Splats aren't always about stats.

[OldTrees1]

Why not play Core only?

The DMG makes a good case for DMs adding more content both as player options and to improve the game world.

Why include supplements?

Some of the supplementary material fits and saves me time inventing from scratch.

[lsfreak]

I'll add another one that hasn't been mentioned: there's almost nothing to do in Core except as a spellcaster. As a fighter, rogue, paladin, or ranger, you actions are generally pulled from the same 2 or 3 options every round. The only real way around that is either a) choosing to do less effective things like bull rushing because otherwise you'd be bored to tears or b) throwing in more freeform stuff. If you want a rules-based way of doing something more varied than charge, power attack, full attack, that's all outside of Core.

As a DM, going outside of Core also means you can throw a lot more things at your players that will still surprise them, without having to spend the time to come up with it on your own. Sticking to Core, there'll come a point where surprises start getting further and further apart. Outside of Core, you could probably go an entire campaign without any of the players ever having fought whatever it is they just fought before.

And as a third point, handbooks are wonderful resources for players, but if you're sticking to Core, much of it is of limited usefulness. Advice about a ranger is going to look quite a lot different with SpC spells, swift hunter, and devotion feats available, and looking at a handbook that takes those as available isn't going to give you the information you need. Building a decent Core-only character ends up much more reliant on individual system mastery (granted, of a much smaller set of rules, but still), as opposed to going outside of Core where you've got a lot more advice available.

[danzibr]

Although it's been said, I want to voice my opinion: OPTIONS!

Oh, and I don't think it makes anything more balanced. I mean, there's broken stuff in core and outside core. Of course adding stuff outside core will give people more ways to break the game, but also more ways to make viable melee or whatever.

[Vizzerdrix]

Why NOT play Core only?

Because the tolkien races make me want to put my head in a vice, and I like giving melee nice things.

[Kurald Galain]

Because core doesn't have a decent Gish build.

[Sam K]

Again, balance (both in power and flexibility).

Sure, T1s get lots of nice things in splats too, but those things mostly matter when compared to other T1s. Wizard with incantantrix is more powerful than plain wizard, but they both get to tell reality to sit down and shut up. You have contingencies and miracles and shapechange and the polymorph line - at that point, you're just adding on a bigger pile of infinity by giving them more power.

On the other hand, splatbooks give the less flexible classes some real options; with the right splat support, paladins (one of the worst classes in core) can become bringers of righteous wrath and even fighters and barbarians can be fearsome combatants (if only through the use of intimidation tricks :)). The bard, one of the less popular core classes (still T3, just not very inspiring, which is funny considering their mechanics), actually get options to develop into a somewhat competent melee or a great buffer.

Finally, splats actually give some rewards for limiting yourself from being a T1 caster. If you want to make a wizard that focuses on mind manipulation (rather than just breaking the world and reforming it so that people always acted like you wanted them to) you can make a beguiler and actually get something in exchange for giving up some of your power.

[Gwendol]

Because there aren't enough good feats in Core. Seriously, if you want to play a non-caster (or minimum caster) character, your options in core are severly restricted.

[Vhaidara]

Because core doesn't have a decent Gish build.

FTFY.

Seriously, look at core classes.

The best Spellblade you get is Eldritch Knight, which can't wear armor, an iconic image for gishes, even if it is the less effective one

The only class with Trapfinding is the Rogue, so no one else, regardless of training, can find and disable magical traps. Remember, this is the class that they forgot to give a level 20 class feature.

Fighters have no new feats to take after level 12. And, if I'm not mistaken, after level 6 the only new feats are Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization.

There is nothing to allow for an intelligent fighter to take advantage of his intelligence (Warblade, Swashbuckler, Factotum)

The iconic blasting is all crappy spells that do low damage, with saves, SR, and energy resistance, encouraging the use of BFC exclusively.

[atemu1234]

OPTIONS!

This. This. THIS. THIS.

This is why we play non-core games. We want more options, and by jove, we'll get them.

[KillingAScarab]

What I'm wondering then, is what 'legit' reasons do people have for preferring the use of additional sources?Because Magic of Incarnum is pretty cool and I want to play with soulmelds.

[Felyndiira]

First of all, I'm the type of player/DM that prefers inclusiveness. If I run a game, I would allow everything, with the caveat that I have to audit character sheets first (and running homebrew by me first). Heck, as a player, I completely refuse to play a pure physical attacker if I can't at least build some sort of versatility into it; whether it's through a gish build, a DMM cleric, ToB, Incarnum, Warlock, or whatever.

That being said, I have far less experience with optimization and DnD/PF in general than most of the forums, so I can still remember when I struggled to actually learn all of the subsystems in question. From there, I could understand some of the concerns from the perspective of a less experienced GM - and want to discuss some of the points raised on this thread. (EDIT: I do realize this would better go in the other thread, but the two points I mentioned below are brought up in this thread as well, so I feel that it's appropriate to reply here.)

First, on the topic of understanding subsystems - subsystem understanding is much more than just reading the text of a spell or a maneuver and knowing what it does in a vacuum; it's also about knowing what would happen when you add two levels of warblade on top of some other class and how it would interact with two feats printed in two other sourcebooks. Take Assassin's Stance, as an example; the text is pretty darn simple - 2d6 sneak attack damage. On a swordsage using only ToB and core feats it's not that remarkable. What happens, though, when you combine it with Craven? With SA feats? Leaving out the swordsage levels altogether and putting the stance in a martial item? It becomes a pretty potent buff for a completely different physical attacker. Not broken, certainly, but for a party of mostly inexperienced players it can easily push damage up above what anyone else could do - and something the DM needs to know about and account for.

That doesn't even include the mess of rules that can easily be involved in this, like "okay, so you're using ruby nightmare blade on a eldritch claw-beast claw unarmed attack, with sneak attack and craven, with power attack and a +1 corrosive AoMF and shadow blade and a level of the drow fighter ACF and a +1d6 fire desert wind boost. Give me a moment and let me look up which of those should be doubled and/or quadrupled in which step of the process."

Let's look at another, more famous example in Divine Metamagic. If an inexperienced GM just reads the feat itself for the first time, it's also pretty unremarkable - burning a bunch of TU to maybe quicken two spells a day? Pretty nice, for sure, but hardly game-breaking in any way. He probably won't make the connection to Persist Spell (from a different book), or realize how this feat combines with multiple TU pools from different sources (which also multiplies the power of extra turning - also, Dread Necro is also printed on a different book) allow for persisting 10+ spells a day. This isn't even going into shaky territory like nightstick abuse or adding in variant turning from domains.

Sure, most people would argue (and be correct) that Assassin's Stance, at least, isn't broken, but as a DM it becomes exponentially more difficult to balance the game when you aren't experienced enough to be able to, say, look at "Sneak Attack" and instantly recognize all the things that a player can do with this. Something that is totally fine with hellfire glaivelocks and ocular MM gish builds is a completely different story when placed with a blaster wizard and a monk, and without care and experience, people are prone to kneejerk reactions, and what becomes "let's try a game with everything" becomes "I just saw what a RKV can do. ToB is overpowered. No ToB."

And this is the challenge of learning a subsystem - being able to gauge what it can do when combined with all the other subsystems and feats you have yet to understand. Most of us who want inclusiveness (myself included) do not want it for the sake of playing a straight Totemist 20; we want it for the sake of dipping multiple options to get our vision of a final build, and you can't honestly tell me something like that is immediately and easily understandable for an inexperienced DM and a relatively inexperienced party.

Regarding balance, it is true that non-core includes some of the more balanced options in the game. It is also true that some of the most powerful options for wizards and clerics - two of the big three (actually, druids too, now that I think about it) - are also outside of core. Sure, IotSV is not Gate or Shapechange, but it's an upscale in (defensive) power for wizards. Incantatrix and dweomerkeeper are both in the completes. Celerity? No-save-just-die spells? MM reducers? Arcane Disciple? DMM? Greenbound Summoning? All of those are non-core. I would actually argue that aside from level 9 spells and maybe some offenders like Planar Ally, the cleric received most of its sheer power from sources outside of core (possibly even more so depending on which side of the line cloistered cleric falls on).

On the other hand, alongside ToB, Binder, and Totemist, non-core has also brought us the soulknifes (3.5 version - the DSP version is awesome), the CW samurai, the soulborn, and the assortment of other classes that are right down there with the paladin and the monk.

Rehashing a previous point, balance is always going to depend on the table. While many of us on GitP are used to pretty well-optimized characters, there are plenty of tables in the real world consisting of friends that just play casually and still build blaster wizards (without orbs or unicorn arrow, I should add). For those tables, most of the stuff we come up with are probably going to put their supposed T1 casters to shame; the correct solution for those tables is certainly not to "make them have fun the right way! I'll build their characters for them."

Ultimately, I fully understand why people want inclusiveness. I'm one of them, and in most tables I still miss (and sometimes not miss) the fun of character building in 3.5. The thing is - many of us underestimate the amount of experience that we have, that allows us to actually understand additional material - including being able to correctly judge balance and realize some interactions with well-known sources from other books - on first reading. There is plenty of merit in GMs not wanting the additional complication of dealing with that, and just running their simple pre-built modules for a circle of fighter/rogue/blaster/healbot friends.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I'm not into "inclusiveness" as a justification for non-core. A good game and setting is defined as much by what it does not include as it is by what it does include and how it includes it. For example, the excellent Arcanis setting was partially defined by its Val and dark-kin races, its inclusion of psionics (but only for Val characters). It was also defined by not having published alignments for its deities and to some degree or other keeping the players guessing about what was really going on in the heavens based on what happened in game. There are more than a few concepts, mechanics, and creatures that would just not fit in that setting. Likewise, a game that is designed to emulate the legends of the Knights of the Round Table should have much more focus on martial characters with minimal (though not necessarily) non-existent wizardry. (Sure, there are systems that probably do that kind of game better than D&D, but that doesn't mean you can't tell that kind of story in a D&D framework. For my part, I've never played the other systems so reworking D&D vs figuring out a new system--it's not clear what I would want to do). The Midnight setting seemed interesting (if a little dark for my tastes), but it wouldn't work well with clerics, favored souls, inquisitors, etc running around everywhere. And I'm old enough to remember advertisements for the Talislanta setting in Dragon Magazine. "No Elves!" was their tagline. Whatever the Talislanta experience was, it could not include elves without becoming something else.

In short, I don't want every game to include everything. If it does, I would be disappointed.

Thus one of the best reasons for non-core items IMO, is to replace rather than supplement elements of core in order to change the setting. Dark Sun (IIRC) had preservers, defilers, and templars, but no ordinary wizards or clerics. That's how it should be done.

Other than that, there are some non-core elements of 3.5 and Pathfinder that I really like:
1. Additional feats (primarily for martial characters). Bounding Assault, Elusive Target, etc are excellent feats and make more interesting characters. That's true in Pathfinder too though I think the 3.5 tactical feats and especially some of the PHB 2 feats opened up more interesting options than Pathfinder non-core feats generally do.
2. Additional support for non-core concepts such as fighting magic users. It took them a while to get better at this in 3.5 (I'm not sure they ever got it quite right though between Abjurant Champion, Spellsword, and Eldritch Knight, you could make it work very well with sufficient system mastery), but spells like whirling blade and bladeweave make the concept work a lot better (Wraithstrike did too--but that's another story; it worked so well as to IMO be entirely broken).
3. In Pathfinder, I'm a lot less impressed with the non-core feats and prestige classes are not really a big deal in Pathfinder, but I think that some of the new base classes add a lot to the game. I would miss Inquisitor, Oracle, and Magus in a standard D&D type game and I'm coming around to Cavalier as a fun and flexible option (especially for as a DM).

[Maglubiyet]

The "more balance" argument is only when it's used to balance blatantly underpowered core options. However, I suspect that the real reason some people want options is to overbalance/optimize with PrC/feat combinations unimagined by the creators.

A lot of the supplements have nice flavor when used on their own or in conjunction with other same-world settings (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, etc.)

[Flickerdart]

The "more balance" argument is only when it's used to balance blatantly underpowered core options. However, I suspect that the real reason some people want options is to overbalance/optimize with PrC/feat combinations unimagined by the creators.
Given the popularity of Beguiler (nerfed Enchanter), Dread Necromancer (nerfed minion Cleric), and similar options, it's safe to say your suspicion is incorrect.

[Maglubiyet]

Given the popularity of Beguiler (nerfed Enchanter), Dread Necromancer (nerfed minion Cleric), and similar options, it's safe to say your suspicion is incorrect.

I said some people, not all people.

[icefractal]

I like more variety, both in flavor and mechanics. Some people have made claims like "There are an infinite number of personalities and histories you could give a Human Fighter, so needing more books just means you're boring." But that's missing the point. Having a wide variety of food for breakfast doesn't mean I want to eat a plain cheese sandwich for lunch every day. Flavor and crunch are both things I enjoy, and I want variety in both of them, simple as that. And if I didn't care about the crunch, I wouldn't be playing D&D in the first place - Dungeon World does the same flavor with a hell of a lot less prep-work required.

[killem2]

If you have experienced players, who have seen most of the world and some of it twice, you don't want your players getting bored.

[Optimator]

When WotC wrote the core books, they had approximately zero idea of what they were doing. Core contains the game's most powerful spells next to Monk, Toughness, and Half-Orc. Every successive book has bridged the power gap by providing weaker alternatives for spells and stronger alternative for feats, races, and mundane class options.

In core, if someone wants to be a guy that turns into monsters, they either play a druid, play a wizard who casts polymoprh, or don't play at all. Out of core, they can use MoMF, Bear Warrior, the [Polymorph] spells, or build their own monsters with Totemist - all far more balanced options.

The entire argument can be summed up with this. QED

[Milo v3]

And I'm old enough to remember advertisements for the Talislanta setting in Dragon Magazine. "No Elves!" was their tagline. Whatever the Talislanta experience was, it could not include elves without becoming something else.
Note: Talislanta has like 30 different kinds of elf that just happen to not be named elf. :smalltongue:

As for the actual thread, Core doesn't really have much in it if you want to do something more than just tolkien rip-off or Only Humans.

[GGambrel]

Lots of stuff.

I think this post accurately reflects my concerns about additional material. Many of the other posts here emphasize the desire to build a character that fits the concept of the player (while still being a useful asset to the party), and I find that an excellent reason to include more books. However, I agree it is the unforeseen combination of classes and feats which can affect the suitability of the challenges which I provide the party, and the comparative usefulness of PCs whose players don't want to spend the time time looking for such combinations.

Ultimately, I think the direction I took with my last campaign did a reasonable job of addressing both my concerns and those of players seeking a given character concept; I allowed each player to choose one additional book, resulting in about 5 additional sources. Though some of my players would have enjoyed even more options, others probably would have been fine with Core-only. Obviously different groups will have their own preferences.

Thanks for the great input, everyone!