Why ban ToB?

[JNAProductions]

Not liking something is a perfectly valid reason. It doesn't need to be a thesis defending the dislike.

I agree with that-but at the same time, usually one can pinpoint a few reasons. It is possible that you just don't like it, for no real reason, it just grates on you-but more often than not, you can figure out something more specific than a general feeling of dislike.

[Chaos Jackal]

I have two questions:

1. Why can't a valid reason be "because the DM just doesn't want it?"
Isn't the game master, like, in charge of setting those sorts of details for the particular campaign?

2. Why are the vast majority of replies to questions like these always greedy powergamers who try to bully game masters into using their pet supplement or "homebrew I found on the Internet" and call them stupid or inexperienced if they don't allow it?

1.It's a valid reason. Whether or not it rained yesterday might be a valid reason. "I just don't like it" is a valid reason. But usually there's something more to people's likes and dislikes.

2.Where are those greedy powergamers?

[Rater202]

Were you ever a kid and you asked your parents if you could do something? Something you thought was innocent and safe? Maybe something you saw one of your friends doing once?

And they said no, and you asked why not, and they said: "because I said so."

You got pissed off, didn't you? BEcuase, you see, that's not a valid reason... But you aren't allowed to argue. You don't have the power to argue in that relationship, and if you do argue they can ignore it becuase in their minds they've already given all the argument they need.

It's bad parenting. Instead of treating the child like a person, the parents are treating them as though they have no rights and using their authority as a club to beat them down. It is especially bad if the child is in late middle or high school when they're expected to start making adult decisions and be responsible but are still expected to obey their parents without question.

A GM saying "no" and not giving a reason is bad GMing for the same reason: Instead of giving a valid reason, they're just shutting you down and using their authority as a stick. Treating you as though what you want for the game doesn't matter.

If the GM doesn't give a valid reason--refuses to give any reason beyond "becuase I said so" or "I don't like that" then you can't be certain that they're going to respect you in-game.

Presumably,we're assuming a good GM not one who treats you like a small child.

[Unavenger]

If the GM doesn't give a valid reason--refuses to give any reason beyond "becuase I said so" or "I don't like that" then you can't be certain that they're going to respect you in-game.

Yeah, because everyone has to justify every preference they have all the time.

It gets tiring and sometimes you don't want to give your players an essay on why you don't like something each time it comes up.

"It's overpowe..." "YEAH WELL LOOK AT ME IF I DELIBERATELY BREAK A WIZARD THEN ITS STRONKER HOW BOUT THAT HUH!"
"Yeah right but I'm not talking about power cieli..." "THEN YOU MUST BE TALKING ABOUT POWER FLOORS WHICH IS A STUPID WAY TO MEASURE CLASS POWER!"
"No, I'm not talking about the power floor, I'm talking about my experience with real players..." "BUT ACCORDING TO THE FORUM IT'S COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT ALL WIZARDS ARE SUMMONING ARMIES OF [INSERT CREATURE THAT I GUARANTEE YOU MOST PEOPLE ON THE FORUM ACKNOWLEDGE AS BEING REALLY CHEESY HERE]"

No, it's a lot easier to say a blanket "No" without having to justify it every time. The only reason I'm allowing PoW at all is because dealing with balancing a borderline-immortal level 3 character against relatively ordinary characters is actually easier than getting into these sorts of arguments with every other player who wants to use the system.

[Rater202]

Yeah, because everyone has to justify every preference they have all the time.

It gets tiring and sometimes you don't want to give your players an essay on why you don't like something each time it comes up.

I never said that.

You only have to justifyprioritizing your preferences over those of the people playing the game.

"It's overpowe..." "YEAH WELL LOOK AT ME IF I DELIBERATELY BREAK A WIZARD THEN ITS STRONKER HOW BOUT THAT HUH!"
"Yeah right but I'm not talking about power cieli..." "THEN YOU MUST BE TALKING ABOUT POWER FLOORS WHICH IS A STUPID WAY TO MEASURE CLASS POWER!"
"No, I'm not talking about the power floor, I'm talking about my experience with real players..." "BUT ACCORDING TO THE FORUM IT'S COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT ALL WIZARDS ARE SUMMONING ARMIES OF [INSERT CREATURE THAT I GUARANTEE YOU MOST PEOPLE ON THE FORUM ACKNOWLEDGE AS BEING REALLY CHEESY HERE]"

Nice stawman.

No, it's a lot easier to say a blanket "No" without having to justify it every time. The only reason I'm allowing PoW at all is because dealing with balancing a borderline-immortal level 3 character against relatively ordinary characters is actually easier than getting into these sorts of arguments with every other player who wants to use the system.

It's only easier if you don't respect your players and they're spineless enough to put up with being treated like small children.

If you're not familiar with the system, say so. If you feel that Swordsages don't fit the theme of your setting and you've banned monks for the same reason, say so. If you have a reason, say so.

and if your players provides a reason for why you should allow it anyway, a good one, decent rhetoric, you let it in anyway.

A blanket no is at best childish and at worst disrespectful of your players.

[Unavenger]

I never said that.

You only have to justifyprioritizing your preferences over those of the people playing the game.

People's characters affect everyone in the game, and to be quite honest if there's no way to challenge the PoW character without murdering everyone else brutally, that does affect other players' enjoyment.

Nice stawman.

These are literal arguments I've got from actual players but whatever I guess.

It's only easier if you don't respect your players and they're spineless enough to put up with being treated like small children.

NiCe Ad HoMiNeM.

If you're not familiar with the system, say so. If you feel that Swordsages don't fit the theme of your setting and you've banned monks for the same reason, say so. If you have a reason, say so.

and if your players provides a reason for why you should allow it anyway, a good one, decent rhetoric, you let it in anyway.

A blanket no is at best childish and at worst disrespectful of your players.

Every time I give a reason, people treat that as a licence to come up with stupid arguments that I don't want to deal with and which won't help anyone's case anyway. Either I allow something that ruins the game and I don't have fun, or I don't and they've wasted both our time arguing.

Can you please stop acting like people who ban literally any content without opening themselves up to attack are dictators? It gets wearing.

[Rater202]

Every time I give a reason, people treat that as a licence to come up with stupid arguments that I don't want to deal with and which won't help anyone's case anyway.

See, this tells me that you're unwilling to be flexible.

Having to defend your intentions and opinions and have discussions where the group comes to a decision is part of being functional human being. If you and your players can't agree on something, putting your foot down and making a blanket ban without giving a valid reason is the wrong way to handle it.

[Aotrs Commander]

I mean, I can see a validity point in just saying "no, because I don't want to have that in my game as a DM for something."

Personally, I would get extremely annoyed at a player who came to my game and demanded "I want to have a class from Magic of Incarnum!"

"No."

"But-"

"Dude, there are 59 base classes before archetypes available, PICK ONE. If you can't find to something to pick from one of those, you're not trying, mate!"

"But I-"

"Would you like a Maximised Disintegrate to the face?"

"You can't threaten my char-"

"Sorry, what part of that sentence mentioned your character?"

"I'llplayasoulknifearmouredblade!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said..."



Of course, you can say in my case, there is something to be said for there already being a stupifying array of options, and for years there has always been an explict list of stuff that is allowed, with "if it's not on the lists, it's a pre-emptive no," and I do at least have a grasp on how stuff mechanically functions (in the particular paradigm I use) and so generally less inclined to knee-jerk ban (well, strictly, I don't 'ban' anything as that would first assume that anything that existed was permissable in the first place; better to say I 'do not allow') something for being "overpowered," when the general concensus would not concur; so perhaps you can say that it more justified, or at least more informed.

Though if you happened to be a particular super-special fan of MoI, you'd be, as they say, SoL.

I picked MoI as an example specifically for being a subsystem I simply have no interest in (to the point I never even glanced at the book); it is not, to my knowledge overpowered (I think Truenamer, the class notoriously opposite to that is from that book) but I simply don't want to port in anything MoI might to bring to the table.




(Now, I would also turn down requests about Spheres of Power (again, 59 base classes I've sorted and had a pass on) and for the immediate moment Path of War (because I don't want to have to arse about upgrading ToB to match - not least until we've actually played the stuff we have now yet...), but there are at least some stated reasons.)

[Unavenger]

See, this tells me that you're unwilling to be flexible.

Having to defend your intentions and opinions and have discussions where the group comes to a decision is part of being functional human being. If you and your players can't agree on something, putting your foot down and making a blanket ban without giving a valid reason is the wrong way to handle it.

Can you quit with the little insults, please? Insinuating that someone isn't a "Functional human being" isn't the hallmark of a great argument. It's just evidence that you'd rather hurt people than actually listen to them.

Here's the low-down: Literally 100% of the ToB/PoW characters I have ever seen played caused problems in games, for me and for the other players. Ditto SoP/SoM, just because apparently I like pain enough to invite another group of "This content can do no wrong!" types down on me, but never mind that. Contrariwise, I have never seen the mythical solar chain summoner, I have never known the pain of someone trying to play pun-pun at my table, never even seen someone honestly convinced that fleshraker-venomfire was a reasonable thing to do at a real table. Yes, I'm sure that you can make a vancian caster who can beat a ToB character. I've seen a sufficiently-optimised truenamer beat a ToB character. I've also seen a sufficiently-optimised truenamer chain wishes to take over the universe. And I have never seen anyone try to pull any of this crap in a real game.

Maybe, maybe your ToB character is different and will play nice-nice with other characters, but I'm not going to risk the parsimony of THE ENTIRE GAME on an event that I HAVE NEVER SEEN. The game I'm playing is the last game I'm ever planning to allow PoW and I'm still suffering from the decision to do so. There are literally many classes that can do the same concept just as well and I am not willing to allow any of this to be the jumping-off point for every player who's a diehard ToB fan to argue with me. It's easier to say "No" and trust players to have the common sense to realise that I do not, actually, want to deal with any more of this crap under any circumstances for as long as I live because EVERY TIME it has gone wrong, and no, no I don't trust that this time it will be different. And no, I do not want to open the door to shouting matches at the start of each new game.

[Rater202]

Atthat point, the problem isn't ToB.

The problem is the players.

Don't ban the book, ban the toxic players.

[Unavenger]

Atthat point, the problem isn't ToB.

The problem is the players.

Don't ban the book, ban the toxic players.

These aren't even players who are trying to break anything, most of the time, though. So it's very hard to say they're "Toxic" for picking something up, playing it the way it's meant to work, and accidentally being so good there's no point trying to balance anything against the party ever.

[Doctor Despair]

Atthat point, the problem isn't ToB.

The problem is the players.

Don't ban the book, ban the toxic players.

It sounds like they're used to playing with such unoptimized characters that ToB is just overpowering, in which case, their real reason for disliking it is "My players aren't skilled enough with optimization to compete with ToB characters using full casters."

I suspect this problem doesn't live and die with the players, however. Much of the strength of full casters comes from utility and versatility (while they can also solve combat encounters effectively, of course). If a party deals with 95% straight combat encounters, then the areas where ToB characters are weaker simply won't show up a lot of the time. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily wrong to run combatsimulator.campaign, but folks should be aware that when they don't have a diversity of encounters and challenges, certain classes and archetypes will seem overpowered while others seem underpowered. In the opposite direction, if you have combat encounters 5% of the time, you'd see a similar issue where any characters without a wealth of skillpoints or access to magic/psionics/etc feel entirely useless 90% of the time.

[Unavenger]

It sounds like he's used to playing with such unoptimized characters that ToB is just overpowering, in which case, his real reason for disliking it is "My players aren't skilled enough with optimization to compete with ToB characters using full casters."

I mean, I consider "EGDW casts a crapload of spells and some of them are polymorph" and similar things that didn't break the game to be relatively high optimisation, but I guess that on this forum that's indistinguishable from blasters and healbots?

(Also, do people just not notice gender markers or do they wilfully ignore them?)

[GrayDeath]

Expected the heated nature of the discussion as soona s I saw the title. ^^



Without wanting to add more heat, I ahve seen 3 valid reasons so far for banning it.

1.: (the one I always use if I ban it): it doesnt fit the setting. If the setting simply doesnt have "supernatural amrtial Arts" or "Traditions of MA of high power" etc (most of the time this means really old very specific settings, say Dragonlance following the original Plot).
Or its a Homebrew setting where the Brewer decided not to include it.


2.: The DM thinks he does not ahve sufficient knowledge about/skill witht he subsystem. There is NOTHING forcing a DM to elarn another Subsystem just because a Palyer wants to play a certain Class.


and lastly

3.: Bad personal experience.

Yes, it might not be a reason the player udnerstands, but the DM is allowed to ahve fun as well, and if using ToB reminds him of terrible experiences, and he does not want that, then thats that.


My 2 Denari.

[Rhyltran]

People's characters affect everyone in the game, and to be quite honest if there's no way to challenge the PoW character without murdering everyone else brutally

POW and Tome of Battle are two different things. I get that your experiences may be different than other people's experiences but I want to provide some anecdotal evidence on our side. If I was to ban Tome of Battle my players would really scratch their head. This thread here would seem alien to them as well. We had a Samurai last game, yes a samurai, who's average DPR by level 3 happened to be around 30-45 damage. He was pulling around 16-24 at level 1. I am not trying to sway you but this is a real character in a real game. We allow TOB alongside the core classes because honestly with the group's optimization level it really doesn't matter too much.

Then again many of my players have told me horror stories about being banned from other tables due to their characters being considered too powerful. Point is there are different tables with different levels of power. People are going to feel strongly about certain books being banned when their experiences are very different from your own.

You are going to be hard pressed to convince them just as they are going to be hard pressed to convince you. I am sure (actually I know for a fact) there are groups who would view my group as underpowered.

[Unavenger]

POW and Tome of Battle are two different things.

I am aware. I have played with both of them. Both have routinely ruined people's experiences. I generally avoid both.

[Rhyltran]

I am aware. I have played with both of them. Both have routinely ruined people's experiences. I generally avoid both.

Fair enough. My entire post was mostly discussing different power levels and how this argument isn't going to end well on either side. It's the same reason why there are endless debates on here regarding which classes are useless or too powerful. People feel very strongly because there isn't a universal truth when these conversations boil down to player experience.

[Gusmo]

As I pointed out earlier, I've ruined people's experiences with a core barbarian using power attack. "Overpower! Broken! Stop being a jerk!" Don't be surprised if using the experiences of unskilled players to back your position doesn't get taken seriously.

[Nifft]

As I pointed out earlier, I've ruined people's experiences with a core barbarian using power attack. "Overpower! Broken! Stop being a jerk!" Don't be surprised if using the experiences of unskilled players to back your position doesn't get taken seriously.

I, uh, once accidentally ruined someone's experience by having a PC who was taller than his PC.

So yeah, it's not necessarily meaningful.

[Unavenger]

As I pointed out earlier, I've ruined people's experiences with a core barbarian using power attack. "Overpower! Broken! Stop being a jerk!" Don't be surprised if using the experiences of unskilled players to back your position doesn't get taken seriously.

"Unskilled players" is not remotely the kind of player I have. I have already explained this and will refrain from doing so again at length.

I, uh, once accidentally ruined someone's experience by having a PC who was taller than his PC.

So yeah, it's not necessarily meaningful.

Right, but there's a difference between someone crying because your character is taller than theirs and being frustrated because someone swinging a sword and setting everyone on fire is doing better than their reasonably-optimised wizard. The difference is a bit too obvious to bear stating in full, I think.

[Gusmo]

"Unskilled players" is not remotely the kind of player I have. I have already explained this and will refrain from doing so again at length.

I still don't understand. I'm looking at your longer explanation a few posts back, and you could insert the name of darn near any class or supplement in there.

[Unavenger]

I still don't understand. I'm looking at your longer explanation a few posts back, and you could insert the name of darn near any class or supplement in there.

I said that I'd seen "Elven generalist domain wizard cast[ing] lots of spells and some of them are Polymorph" not breaking the game in my games, which somehow turned into "Fighters and rogues on the frontlines backed by healbot clerics and fireball wizards" when someone wanted to strawman it. Obviously you can feel that ToB never breaks REAL GAMES with REAL OPTIMISATION if you assume that EGDWs turning into hydras are the same thing as fireball wizards and therefore them getting curbstomped by out-of-the-box initiators is inconsequential, but that's not what I've seen.

[CIDE]

It sounds like they's used to playing with such unoptimized characters that ToB is just overpowering, in which case, their real reason for disliking it is "My players aren't skilled enough with optimization to compete with ToB characters using full casters."
.

This was a big part of the problem of the only table I played at where ToB (and a few other things) was banned. Most of the DM's experience playing and DM came from people playing the classic archetypes. Sword and board fighter, glass cannon wizard, healbot cleric, etc. Then again, this was a DM that was so scared of the zero dead levels of a Monk that he was inches away from banning the class because it was "op plz nrf". Which, even at the low level of optimization, made Monk unplayable since you literally couldn't have nice things. For "Balance" sake.

Without knowing that my first mistake for pitching a Swordsage character was "It's just a stronger monk". He made up his mind right there.

Expe
1.: (the one I always use if I ban it): it doesnt fit the setting. If the setting simply doesnt have "supernatural amrtial Arts" or "Traditions of MA of high power" etc (most of the time this means really old very specific settings, say Dragonlance following the original Plot).
Or its a Homebrew setting where the Brewer decided not to include it.

This is the one explanation that I feel only warrants a single question. If the answer to that question is "yes" then the discussion is over and everything's peachy.

Are monks (and a few other classes/PrC's) also banned?

If the answer is "no" then the above point is simply incorrect.

That's without getting into semantics about how certain feats actually look stacked together on a Fighter and what qualifies as supernatural martial arts.

2.: The DM thinks he does not ahve sufficient knowledge about/skill witht he subsystem. There is NOTHING forcing a DM to elarn another Subsystem just because a Palyer wants to play a certain Class.


and lastly

3.: Bad personal experience.

Yes, it might not be a reason the player udnerstands, but the DM is allowed to ahve fun as well, and if using ToB reminds him of terrible experiences, and he does not want that, then thats that

The last two I'd lump into a single category of "The DM is uncomfortable using it". Which is entirely okay. If a DM is uncomfortable using another sub system (there's a few I have zero experience with) then it's not unreasonable for him to simply not include them.

As I pointed out earlier, I've ruined people's experiences with a core barbarian using power attack. "Overpower! Broken! Stop being a jerk!" Don't be surprised if using the experiences of unskilled players to back your position doesn't get taken seriously.

I once had a Scout that was considered OP because I was good at positioning myself for extra damage and, due to a high dex, had a great modifier to hit.

I, uh, once accidentally ruined someone's experience by having a PC who was taller than his PC.

So yeah, it's not necessarily meaningful.

It wasn't my table but I heard a similar story because one person's character of X race was allowed to have a hair color that a character of Y race couldn't have (I want to say silver?)

[Nifft]

I dunno, my first experience with ToB was a game with two Wizards (both blasters, one of them a gish blaster... yeah, that level of optimization), and one character who was a multiclass Paladin / Monk.

Nobody really knew how to break the game, and the two ToB characters didn't cause any particular rancor.

So, my experience says that even in a low-op game with people who generally don't know what the heck they're doing, it's possible for a ToB character (or two, as was this case) to not stomp on everyone's feelings.

[Gusmo]

Living with the reality of optimization is a tricky thing for all tables, now that search engines are entrenched as a source of information, and legitimate novices might do this and be breaking the game by accident. I used Bing to make sure none of Google algorithm nonsense is coloring the results, Bing *I think* shouldn't have any relevant connections to me. I take my BIG DATA obfuscation very seriously. Anyway, to me it's a picture of good internal consistency that matters. At a given table, banning anything that table historically can't control well, in terms of power or whatever else makes total sense, ToB or otherwise. Theory is one thing, but real table experience within a group is rightfully a good decision making factor within that group. So if for whatever a table can never handle ToB well, give it the axe, sure.

The people who bug me the most are the ones who ban only one supplement for whatever reason, overpowered, flavor, doesn't really matter, but then don't apply that same reasoning to other supplements. It makes sense to take the chainsaw to MoI, Psionics, ToB, and so forth altogether. The only people who I've seen make plausible bans or heavy restricitons of ToB based on flavor also banned the entire monk class and/or Complete Warrior as well, for instance. At the outset, I wouldn't necessarily enjoy that decision as a player, but I'd sit down and shut up and play one of the zillion options that does work because at least the given restrictions are internally consistent.

[Rhyltran]

I said that I'd seen "Elven generalist domain wizard cast[ing] lots of spells and some of them are Polymorph" not breaking the game in my games,

The problem is that this isn't saying much about a wizard. I would argue a wizard loaded up with save or dies, save or suck, and save or lose spells alone would keep up with the TOB classes if not surpass them without any additional work.

1. Grease
2. Web, Fog Cloud
3. Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm, Wind Wall
4. Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, Wall of Ice
5. Wall of Stone, Wall of Force
6. Acid Fog

To make my point I just grabbed the first list I found from typing "wizard battlefield control spells." There are some choices I would add to this but it showcases the point well. This alone should allow a wizard to control most encounters.

I also find it difficult how such a wizard (not even fully optimized) would fail keeping up with the TOB classes as is. This isn't getting into turning into hydras and the like.

As mentioned, it is possible to have a Samurai pulling off 30-40 damage on average by level 3. This keeps up handedly with the damage potential of a TOB class (though the TOB is likely to still have more versatility).

This is where the disconnect happens. A wizard casting spells with the occasional polymorph doesn't tell a story. Without knowing what those spells are it's hard to gauge it's power.

Note the spells chosen above would break some people's games or could be normal in others. It doesn't, however, require shenanigans.

[AntiAuthority]

I have two questions:

1. Why can't a valid reason be "because the DM just doesn't want it?"
Isn't the game master, like, in charge of setting those sorts of details for the particular campaign?

2. Why are the vast majority of replies to questions like these always greedy powergamers who try to bully game masters into using their pet supplement or "homebrew I found on the Internet" and call them stupid or inexperienced if they don't allow it?

1. That's actually a perfectly valid reason. People don't need to justify their preferences, but they should just say, "I don't like it." My problem is the DM OP was talking about didn't basically say that from the beginning and started listing reasons like "too anime like" or some such. If the DM wants to play a traditional Sword & Sorcery game where normal dudes with swords are fighting fantastic beasts, that's cool, the DM just needs to say so. Trying to justify reasonings for why ("It's too much like anime") tends to look bad when they're easily refuted ("Anime is a medium, and the stuff in TOB is more in line with what you'd see in wuxia/mythology, it's not like anime invented the concept of insanely skilled warriors") is where things fall apart, as the DM hasn't just communicated they don't want to play that type of thing and needed to justify why to players instead of just saying, "I don't want to do this type of thing." It'd be like you having a friend, and you invite your friend to do something... The friend just says they don't want to do because "I don't have the equipment" or "I can't afford it" or some such, so you tell them what they're worried about isn't true, then they come up with another reason... And another... This seems needlessly convoluted instead of the friend just saying, "That isn't something I'm interested in", which would save both parties time and energy instead of being evasive and coming up with reasons for why they should/shouldn't try this thing.

2. I'm sorry, I'm not a power gamer or anything and I don't see any of that here. I also haven't seen anyone suggesting they use their pet homebrew and calling anyone stupid for not doing so in this thread either?

[Rater202]

zero dead levels of a Monk

This always makes me laugh.

A Dead level is a level that 1: does not give you anything meaningful but the advancement of HD, saves, and "level dependant" abilities.

A Monk's capstone is a dead level. It makes you count as an outsider instead ofa humanoid when it comes to spells, without actually changing your type to outsider, which basically amounts to being vulnerable to certain weapons and spell. Dr/10 Magic is completely useless at level 20, becuase everything you encounter is going to either have magical weapons or use damage types that DT doesn't apply.

And Timeless Body is another dead level, becuase it doesn't stop you from dying of old age, doesn't remove penalties you already have, and in 99% of campaigns age categories aren't going to matter unless you're playing a race that only lives for a couple of years.

considering how disproportionately high leveled you get some minor abilities and how many Monk class features are situational/role play only/vaguely worded you could argue that the monk class is mostly dead level.

[Lord Raziere]

As for me, my opinion on ToB should be obvious given my liking of anime and my avatar.

and your free to ban and not like it

BUT.

if you come into a game that is about ToB, or Path of War, or one GM'd by me allowing such things...don't expect me to do the same or be sympathetic when you protest in that game. this kinda preference thing applies in reverse: you can't expect a fan of it who wants to use ToB to get rid of it because you don't like it, and a perfectly valid answer to the question of the thread for ToB fans is "None. don't ban it, just don't play with guys who do, you probably won't get along with them anyways."

there is something to be said about the downsides of setting purity and not setting your standards of suspension of disbelief too high, but that is probably neither here nor there for this thread. though considering that someone having silver hair or being tall is mundane compared to the character concepts I usually come up with.....hm. lets just say I hope I don't encounter players like that, because if someone thinks my weirdness stops there, they're in for some nasty surprises. and I personally don't really care about internal consistency, I just want to find a game where I can play what I love, and sometimes what I want to play is highly specific, so if someone starts talking internal consistency like that in response or before I can even say my character concept or that they're not interested in anime, thats usually my cue to not join the game or bother them in the first place if I'm in a martial arts mood.

[CIDE]

This always makes me laugh.

A Dead level is a level that 1: does not give you anything meaningful but the advancement of HD, saves, and "level dependant" abilities.

A Monk's capstone is a dead level. It makes you count as an outsider instead ofa humanoid when it comes to spells, without actually changing your type to outsider, which basically amounts to being vulnerable to certain weapons and spell. Dr/10 Magic is completely useless at level 20, becuase everything you encounter is going to either have magical weapons or use damage types that DT doesn't apply.

And Timeless Body is another dead level, becuase it doesn't stop you from dying of old age, doesn't remove penalties you already have, and in 99% of campaigns age categories aren't going to matter unless you're playing a race that only lives for a couple of years.

considering how disproportionately high leveled you get some minor abilities and how many Monk class features are situational/role play only/vaguely worded you could argue that the monk class is mostly dead level.

I'd agree. But my friend, this DM, happened to read the WotC articles on the topic and bought the idea hook, line, and sinker.