Why all the homebrew hate?

[Lord_Gareth]

No, seriously, what the hell? Why do DMs ban homebrew out of hand without giving it even a once-over to check the balance?

[Fax Celestis]

Because checking for balance is work, and people hate work. Also people have little faith in their own capacity to judge balance.

[arguskos]

Same question can be asked of Dragon Magazine, splatbooks, or anything else at all: because some of it makes the rest look bad, and knee-jerk reactions are easy.

Dragon Magazine has some bad content, sure, but it's not the majority. Splatbooks have some bad content, sure, but it's not the majority.
Homebrew has some bad content, sure, but it's not the majority.

*shrug* As responsible players, it's our job to help change hearts and minds in regards to this issue.

[BRC]

No, seriously, what the hell? Why do DMs ban homebrew out of hand without giving it even a once-over to check the balance?

For the exact same reason we use published rule systems vetted by professional playtesters.

Homebrew is a gambit, it's an unknown quantity. You can't determine it's balance and the consequences of using it just by reading it over. You need to actually use it in a game, multiple games to get a good idea, any of which could be thrown totally out of whack due to the inclusion of said homebrew.

Now, it's one thing if you're playtesting, but many DM's may not want to use their game as a testing ground.

Yes the published material frequently isn't much better, but it seems safer.

You also have the fact of familiarity. If a player brings in some homebrew, the DM won't be as familiar with it, which can lead to problems when they forget what an ability does, or forget to factor a certain class feature into their adventure planning.

Now, obviously this is all a judgement call. A homebrew feat that, say, makes Spot and Listen class skills isn't much compared to a new base class with a unique spellcasting system, and class features that take pages to explain. But in the end it's up to the DM's judgement, and it's alot easier to say "No Homebrew" than to consider each homebrew players bring individually, and then explain why they accept some and deny others without making it look like they're playing favorites.

[Shenanigans]

As a DM, most of the homebrew I get from players is rather on the overpowered side. When I suggest a way to tone it down a little, they tend to get resentful; if I let them play it as is, the other players tend to get upset.

I've seen some stuff in the Home Brew forums here that is much more balanced and which I'd have no problem letting someone use in a campaign I ran.

I think the other thing is that it can be hard to know how much a certain homebrew will affect a campaign that hasn't been designed for it. As was said above...work. :)

[Starbuck_II]

Because Homebrew created the Lightning warrior!

[ffone]

Because studying 99 horrible overpowered Ultimate Katana Master prestige classes - and then arguing endlessly with salivating players about why no, it's not balanced - is not worth finding the 1 good one.

DMs: how to evaluate homebrew your players want:

-Playtest it on their PCs by having them face NPCs with it first (possibly w/o telling them). See if they whine about the encounter.

[Thinker]

No, seriously, what the hell? Why do DMs ban homebrew out of hand without giving it even a once-over to check the balance?

Because most homebrew is awful.

[LibraryOgre]

I'm pretty much with BRC on this point... homebrew generally means extra work for a DM. In limited doses, most DMs don't mind it... I've made some tweaks to characters and classes in C&C, both at player's requests and at my own... but someone else's homebrew generally means going through the paper work, working it into the adventure, and adding its distinctiveness to our own.

Locutus don't play that.

[Awnetu]

Because Homebrew created the Lightning warrior!

Hey! The lightning warrior OBVIOUSLY sacrificed power for flavor when it gave up the familiar.

[ffone]

Also, let me just rant about how much I hate dandwiki.com. It gives (sorta) the appearance of a mirror of d20srd.org, or another official site, but is chock full o' bad homebrew. I wish all my players' ISPs blacklisted it from 'em!

Fortunately, as a wiki, there are often feedback/comments/ratings about how godawful the stuff is.

While we're on the subject, though, anyone have an Epic Swashbuckler progression they figured out? Apparently there's no official one.

Also, yeah official stuff can be bad, but usually you can Google the name of an official class or feat, and find threads from this site, EnWorld, etc. where smart people like you guys have dissected it and figured out if it's overpowered or wonky. I do this with almost anything non-core my players ask to use.

I even ran across a thread at the old CharOp boards where a guy literally used 'the Google number' - the number of google 'hits' within he char-op board for each prestige class - as his metric for what to ban about a threshold. Nice and objective. (With some downsides, like Cavalier being ridiculously high in part b/c it had a 3.0 version by the same name, and can be an inspecific term for a paladinic or mounted char of any class, but it quite was clever I thought.)

[Lysander]

I'm guessing a lot of the time saying "no homebrew" is a way of politely avoiding having to say "Your homebrew class is terrible! It is vomit and I hate it forever!"

[Tyndmyr]

Because checking for balance is work, and people hate work. Also people have little faith in their own capacity to judge balance.

This. I admit that my default answer for non-official stuff is no, and I'm quite lenient about official stuff(no book is banned). The reason for this is simple...homebrew stuff varies wildly in quality, and I don't really want to go through every possible combination they come up with. I'll happily help them find an official variant that does what they like, or review it if none exists, but very rarely is the latter the case.

I suggest reviewing more popular sources of homebrew, such as D&D wiki, and you'll quickly understand why people tire of wading through it to find the few gems.

Actual things brought up by players in the past: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Sphenis...ia_(3.5e_Flaw)

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Samurai_2_(3.5e_Class)

Both are of questionable quality, IMO. They are sadly not the worst things I have had requested by a long shot(including blatantly broken classes written by the player himself), but they're easily linkable.

[FMArthur]

Also, let me just rant about how much I hate dandwiki.com. It gives (sorta) the appearance of a mirror of d20srd.org, or another official site, but is chock full o' bad homebrew. I wish all my players' ISPs blacklisted it from 'em!

Fortunately, as a wiki, there are often feedback/comments/ratings about how godawful the stuff is.

While we're on the subject, though, anyone have an Epic Swashbuckler progression they figured out? Apparently there's no official one.

Rules for playing an epic Swashbuckler: continue being useless.

And yeah, dandwiki.com contains legendarily bad homebrew and honestly must have a large number of incredibly stupid contributors from what I've seen of their typical character builds and homebrew rules.

[ffone]

I'm guessing a lot of the time saying "no homebrew" is a way of politely avoiding having to say "Your homebrew class is terrible! It is vomit and I hate it forever!"

That too. In the age of political correctness, saying 'no homebrew' is a lot less personal or subject to accusations of favoritism than hammering down one particular thing.

Rules for playing an epic Swashbuckler: Keep being useless.

lol, I'd agree generally....in this case it's on a daring outlaw build (feat to stack sneak attack with rogue levels)....though the consensus at giantitp seems to be that ToB stuff will still be much better....and that prepared primary casters will kick the pants off them in turn.

[Tyndmyr]

Also, let me just rant about how much I hate dandwiki.com. It gives (sorta) the appearance of a mirror of d20srd.org, or another official site, but is chock full o' bad homebrew. I wish all my players' ISPs blacklisted it from 'em!

Yeah, I think that's my main beef with them. It's sometimes not obvious that stuff is homebrewed to newer players, who frequently just google for what they want, and are confused by the resemblance to d20srd.

[LibraryOgre]

Another answer, tied more to my group and 4.x: It's not in the Character Creator. Having the character creator makes flipping through tons of books for powers unnecessary, and makes it easy for the DM to keep track of what you can do. Homebrew, not being in the CC, is a pain... unless it's of a very limited scope.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Because it's very hit-or-miss with most homebrewers.

I have seen games that will name a couple of homebrewers, and say outright "Anything by this person is fine, just run it by me first."

Normally, however, it's a lot of work on the DM.

[jiriku]

Because studying 99 horrible overpowered Ultimate Katana Master prestige classes - and then arguing endlessly with salivating players about why no, it's not balanced - is not worth finding the 1 good one.

I've got you covered.

[Nero24200]

Because studying 99 horrible overpowered Ultimate Katana Master prestige classes - and then arguing endlessly with salivating players about why no, it's not balanced - is not worth finding the 1 good one.

DMs: how to evaluate homebrew your players want:

-Playtest it on their PCs by having them face NPCs with it first (possibly w/o telling them). See if they whine about the encounter.

This. If you're happy with something is it really worth alot of extra reading on the off-chance it may improve it by a minor amount?

Now if theres a particular element your group doesn't like (say hypothetically...a specific class like fighter) then it may be worth looking for a homebrew fix, but otherwise it's not really worth the effort to search, read, then convince your gamming group as well (especially since your idea of an "ideal fighter class" could differ greatly, and once you throw the possibility on homebrew on the table they might start looking/stating up their own versions and comparing).

[averagejoe]

Because checking for balance is work, and people hate work. Also people have little faith in their own capacity to judge balance.

Yeah, pretty much this, especially with newer DM's. Heck, I've disallowed official books just because looking up the parts the characters wanted seems like too much work. I'm a pretty lazy DM, though.

Also, the players inevitably bring homebrew along the lines of the ninja class that gets rogue skills, full BAB, d12 hit die, instant death attacks, monk abilities and so on. Because it's a realistic depiction of ninja abilities.

[Ravens_cry]

Yeah, Home-brew follows Sturgeons Law to the letter. That doesn't mean there isn't good stuff, I am fairly proud of some of the stuff I have homebrewed, but it takes a lot of work to sort the wheat from the chaff. Unlike a splat book, it often really hasn't gone through even minimal play-testing and all too often doesn't seem to realize the implications of what changes it makes, as well as incorrectly using defined terms.

[DragoonWraith]

Honestly, on these forums I don't see that much homebrew hate. Most games I look into are willing to look into it, and several even say that "homebrew from GitP is probably OK" - because we have some really quality stuff here.

That said, I expect DMs to work with players to make a character happen. DMing does take work; that's not going to change. Yes, there's such a thing as going too far, drowning a DM in requests, but I consider working with players regarding their characters to be one of the most important jobs that the DM has, so that should mean at least some willingness to consider unofficial classes, feats, spells, and disciplines. Any DM who blanket bans things is not really someone I'm personally interested in playing with, and I have withdrawn interest from games because of DMs who have banned too much material - even material I wasn't personally interested in using. Just because I like playing with DMs who are amenable to doing unique and interesting things, not with DMs who (seem to) feel that "saying no" is an important part of their job.

This is, of course, a massive over-simplification; there are innumerable completely good reasons to ban anything. And I have no problem with that; any DM who has explicit reasons for a ban, I have no issue with. It's when DMs just say "no" without even considering it, or worse, say "no" just because it's not personally something they like ("I don't like Tome of Battle's fluff, so you can't use it" is distressingly common), then I'm not interested. I'd never tell a DM that they can't run the game that way, of course - that's none of my business nor my place - but I will decide to move on to a different game.

Also, the social dynamics between Internet play and face-to-face play are obviously heavily involved. On the PbP forum, I can read the 16 questions, decide it's not for me, and move on. If instead you're over someone's house and the group is looking to play, compromise instead of agreeing to disagree becomes necessary, and as a result I'll be more willing to accept a DM's position even if I disagree with it. At the same time, I'd also be more willing to express my opinion, and if I'm honestly being more amenable to compromise, on some level I would expect the DM to be, as well.

It largely comes down to Umael's signature, which I've always considered excellent advice:

1. Have fun. It's only a game.
2. The GM has the final say. Everyone else is just a guest.
3. The game is for the players. A proper host entertains one's guests.
4. Everyone is allowed an opinion. Some games are not as cool as they seem.

Yes, the DM is in charge of adjudicating what is and isn't allowed. That is a responsibility as much as a privilege, however, and that can mean work. You cannot expect to have a decent gaming experience without acknowledging the fact that the DM, more than anyone else, is going to have to work to make that happen. It's not fair. And there has to be limits. But ultimately, "it adds work for the DM" is not, to my mind, in and of itself sufficient grounds for blanket bans.

YUnlike a splat book, it often really hasn't gone through even minimal play-testing and all too often doesn't seem to realize the implications of what changes it makes, as well as incorrectly using defined terms.

You have far more faith in WotC than I do.

[WarKitty]

It is a lot of work. As a DM I run with mostly-homebrewed classes. It's great fun and it works well, but it takes forever!

Totally worth it for making my players happy though!

[Ravens_cry]

You have far more faith in WotC than I do.

Wizards of the Coast can be bad, but hoembrew can be far, far worse.

[Sewercop]

{Scrubbed}

[Tyndmyr]

Oh, WoTC does mangle some things horribly. However, it's not so bad as homebrew, and not even as bad as some people here make it seem sometimes.

One homebrew trap for even experienced players is unanticipated combinations. See, every homebrewer wants their products to be useful. Perhaps not incantatrix or Planar Shepard strong, but viable choices to people whipping up a char with splatbooks available. This means they are balancing against perhaps the top 10% of PrCs available, since most PrCs are junk. This is a very small window to hit accurately.

Now, you also frequently want to make your PrC available to a variety of builds. If a PrC is only really good for one specific build, that really limits the use you can get out of it. So, most of them are at least useful for a few different builds, even if it's a fairly specific theme.

There's a *lot* of potential builds out there, and a lot of potential synergy. It's rather difficult to anticipate every possible combination. Someone'll come up with a build idea you hadn't thought of, and suddenly bam, balance can go out the window. This is true of everything. For instance, imagine any spell that reduces a players actions. Powerful on it's own, but what happens if used with Slow? If it's written such that it stacks, you suddenly have a killer combo.

So, even good homebrewers have a challenge to work with, given the volume of stuff out there. And certainly not everything I've been handed rises to that level.

[DragoonWraith]

Oh, WoTC does mangle some things horribly. However, it's not so bad as homebrew, and not even as bad as some people here make it seem sometimes.

One homebrew trap for even experienced players is unanticipated combinations. See, every homebrewer wants their products to be useful. Perhaps not incantatrix or Planar Shepard strong, but viable choices to people whipping up a char with splatbooks available. This means they are balancing against perhaps the top 10% of PrCs available, since most PrCs are junk. This is a very small window to hit accurately.

Now, you also frequently want to make your PrC available to a variety of builds. If a PrC is only really good for one specific build, that really limits the use you can get out of it. So, most of them are at least useful for a few different builds, even if it's a fairly specific theme.

There's a *lot* of potential builds out there, and a lot of potential synergy. It's rather difficult to anticipate every possible combination. Someone'll come up with a build idea you hadn't thought of, and suddenly bam, balance can go out the window. This is true of everything. For instance, imagine any spell that reduces a players actions. Powerful on it's own, but what happens if used with Slow? If it's written such that it stacks, you suddenly have a killer combo.

So, even good homebrewers have a challenge to work with, given the volume of stuff out there. And certainly not everything I've been handed rises to that level.

But all of that is just as true of official material as it is of homebrew. And undoubtedly there are many gamers, brewers or not, who know the game far better than WotC does.

[Kallisti]

To be fair, there's some doubt as to whether all splatbooks were adequately playtested (Lexicon of the Perfected Map, I'm looking at you)...

[DragoonWraith]

To be fair, there's some doubt as to whether all splatbooks were adequately playtested (Lexicon of the Perfected Map, I'm looking at you)...

This is what I meant when I said Ravens_cry had far more faith in WotC than I do. I'm quite certain a rather large proportion of official material never saw actual testing.