What is official and what is not?

[Sergio]

Referring to D&D manual cityscape

and these pages:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a

Talking with my dm he is not ok with using the stuff contained here. Given that I won't be able to use them anyway, I am still wondering if these are thoughts to be official sources or not.

[PhantasyPen]

It was made by WotC staff members and is hosted on their website, heck, the cityscape one as far as I know is official content they just weren't able to publish in time and released as a form of "errata" later. (probably not the word I'm looking for.) I have no idea why your DM wouldn't allow it, since it matches all the same criteria as other "official" material, it just never got printed physically.

[KillianHawkeye]

I could definitely imagine more DMs allowing a useful web enhancement than some random article that gives a few extra BS abilities to the core classes, but no DM is required to allow anything into their game that they don't like regardless of whether or not it was made by Wizards of the Coast.

[Crake]

It was made by WotC staff members and is hosted on their website, heck, the cityscape one as far as I know is official content they just weren't able to publish in time and released as a form of "errata" later. (probably not the word I'm looking for.) I have no idea why your DM wouldn't allow it, since it matches all the same criteria as other "official" material, it just never got printed physically.

The phrase you're looking for is "web enhancement", that's what they're referred to as.


I could definitely imagine more DMs allowing a useful web enhancement than some random article that gives a few extra BS abilities to the core classes, but no DM is required to allow anything into their game that they don't like regardless of whether or not it was made by Wizards of the Coast.

I would hardly call the extra abilities from the dead levels article BS, they're fairly mediocre, just little things to tide you over until the next level.

[KillianHawkeye]

I would hardly call the extra abilities from the dead levels article BS, they're fairly mediocre, just little things to tide you over until the next level.

By BS, I meant that they're sort of pointless and not particularly noteworthy, so we're just arguing semantics.

[Psyren]

I don't view paper as being particularly sacred. What matters to me is that the material is vetted, either by the designers themselves during a playtest or by a sufficiently large audience to catch problems I might miss. So I'm fine with online material, either first-party or from a trusted subgroup of third.

[Bohandas]

So, do levels of Mystic Theurge (etc) advance your familiar's abilities, are they tied directly to caster level and not class level? Because I notice the note "sorcerers lose nothing by taking a prestige class granting +1 level of arcane spellcasting at every level"

[venturer]

there are many schools of thought on what is official,

1) just the books published by WotC that say 3.5, excluding the campaign/ setting books.
2) anything published by WotC, all the books
3) the wizards articles on the web site
4) anything with the D&D logo, Dragon magazine and dungeon magazine Kalamar books
4) anything with Wotc Logo, Dragonlance

but all are up to what DM of game says. The only items which always 100% are the players handbook Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual one. The ultimate decider is the DM.

[Psyren]

So, do levels of Mystic Theurge (etc) advance your familiar's abilities, are they tied directly to caster level and not class level? Because I notice the note "sorcerers lose nothing by taking a prestige class granting +1 level of arcane spellcasting at every level"

The familiar you get for free, no - that is tied to your levels in the base class, so taking a PrC will not advance it unless it specifically says it does.

However, if you take an ACF to dump your familiar (e.g. that metamagic one) and then get the familiar back later via the Obtain Familiar feat, that familiar is based on your caster level and so MT will advance it.