The final shift

[drengnikrafe]

At what point of stacking on more and more house rules, does it no longer become "Dungeons and Dragons" but "d20: Your party"?

[Chokuto]

I always thought that was the beauty of DnD. That if I don't like a rule, or if it doesn't make sense to me, I can throw it out or tweak it till it suits my needs.

Like playing a really awesome videogame, that has one thing I can't stand, except I can change it.

[drengnikrafe]

You have a point, for minor tweaks, but I'm talking about major shifts.
You don't slightly alter feats, you put them into feat trees.
You don't just limit magic, you write a whole new system for it.
You don't just be lenient with encumberance and grappling, you write totally new rules for them.
You don't just limit prestige classes, you throw them out and write new ones that are then playtested.
ect.

Where can you draw the line? I'm not about to go about introducing new people to a magic point system, feat trees, and all new rules for just about everything and calling it "D&D with a couple tiny house rules"...

/rant

[Atticus Bleak]

Well I have never heard of anyone banning ALL prestige classes in favor of their own. And power points have always existed in psionics. I think what you're saying is "changing dnd to much makes it not dnd" but thats what DnD is, a game where people make up stuff and play. The rules can't make everything, and in earlier editions this was especially true to the point of common combat strategies being without rules. Changing DnD is PART of DnD as much as magic missile and beholders. Heck, other companies make content for DnD, why can't I? guys besides Gary Gygax make books now, make new classes and prestige classes, how is us, the gamers, making things different?

I suppose it is true, i play a very strange edit of Ravenloft for my campaign, not DnD. But...Really, i roll a d20 to attack my ogres just like Gary did for so many years.

Also...How is this homebrew?

Your's,
Atticus Bleak

[Chokuto]

Also about prestige classes, the DM's Guide itself tells you that you should make your own prestige classes. Most of the generic prestige classes, while cool, are just that. Generic.

[drengnikrafe]

I guess I never technically played D&D without lots of homebrews and houserules, so I have nothing to base it off of, but... It's a lot more balanced when wizards and sorcerers cap at 6th level spells for non-epic, and they have to choose what kind of spells they want to be good or bad at using their seed points, and you can actually only take 15 levels in a class before you've capped that class, and fighters and barbarians (along with everybody else, though more slowly) gets combat maneuvers based upon BAB...
Almost everything has been rewritten in one way or another.

All that being said, it's actually really fun to play. But, I guess you're right, it's still D&D.
Speaking of "other people writing books", who gave Skip the right to write that Elves mature at 25?

[Atticus Bleak]

Haha! Thats right, i forgot elves mature at 25 XD "Oh yes, I'm 200 years old, I hit puberty over a century ago." Well, I apologise if i was a bit severe last night, i was running on zero sleep.

Yours,
Atticus Bleak

[drengnikrafe]

That's one flavor text that almost needs to be houseruled out. I mean, if you have something that lives 600 years, and it matures at 25, there's no reason in the world that all the elves aren't level 20.

You didn't seem severe, just firm and very good at making your point. Seeing as how I frequantly shirk off what people say passively unless I'm feeling really open, and based upon my question, I was obviously feeling very close minded.
Your words are exactly what I needed, so thank you.

[Atticus Bleak]

O.O Wow. I thank you for the compliment about my skills...of course levels in bard increase your monologuing and persuasiveness with speeches, so its to be expected. Anyway, glad i could...help?

Yours,
Atticus Bleak

[drengnikrafe]

Yay for maxed ranks in "Useful Rant".
You helped because you cleared up my indecisiveness. Now it won't wander in to my free thought, and I'll get more stuff done.

[TheGrimace]

Has an official version number been given yet?

I think we settled on something like
3.78125

is that right?


And my dear friend, the shift isn't final, merely y pluribus, unum.

[The Necroswanso]

Don't forget D&D's humble origins. Before it sold out and became all emo, it too, was nothing more than one giant homebrew.

[Jayngfet]

You can play D&D with no homebrew, weird.

[Tequila Sunrise]

It really depends on who you're asking. Some gamers can't recognize it as d&d if you so much as ignore the "healing by drowning" rule. I myself call it d&d so long as there are d20s, wizards and halflings involved. And then there are the many people like my friends who play "d&d" but have never so much as touched a PHB of any edition.

TS

[drengnikrafe]

Has an official version number been given yet?

I think we settled on something like
3.78125

is that right?


And my dear friend, the shift isn't final, merely y pluribus, unum.

You know as well as I do, sir, that you change that number every time you say it. Although, 3.78125 is close to what you usually pick. Although you do have a point.
How'd you find this thread, anyway? I usually don't see your posts in Homebrew or D&D discussions, if at all.

[drengnikrafe]

It really depends on who you're asking. Some gamers can't recognize it as d&d if you so much as ignore the "healing by drowning" rule. I myself call it d&d so long as there are d20s, wizards and halflings involved. And then there are the many people like my friends who play "d&d" but have never so much as touched a PHB of any edition.

TS

You know, your explaination technically means that you wouldn't recognize AD&D (2.0) as D&D, simply because what are called "Halflings" are totally different, and what one would recognize as "halfling" are called "Kender"....

[TheGrimace]

You know as well as I do, sir, that you change that number every time you say it. Although, 3.78125 is close to what you usually pick. Although you do have a point.
How'd you find this thread, anyway? I usually don't see your posts in Homebrew or D&D discussions, if at all.

I am all places at all times, my dear drengnikrafe (whatever that means).

Truly, in my mind's eye, D20 and DnD and synonymous. Whether it's Wheel of Time D20, Dungeons and Dragons, Starwars whose-a-what's-it, or D20 modern, it's all the same thing.

[Tequila Sunrise]

You know, your explaination technically means that you wouldn't recognize AD&D (2.0) as D&D, simply because what are called "Halflings" are totally different, and what one would recognize as "halfling" are called "Kender"....

Yeah halfings went from Hobbits to Halfings and DL has Kender, but they're all variations on the same concept.

TS

[TheGrimace]

Kender drive me nuts, because that darn campaign setting tries to convince people that every halfling in the world is a chaotic good rogue.

[drengnikrafe]

I am all places at all times, my dear drengnikrafe (whatever that means).

Truly, in my mind's eye, D20 and DnD and synonymous. Whether it's Wheel of Time D20, Dungeons and Dragons, Starwars whose-a-what's-it, or D20 modern, it's all the same thing.

You honestly didn't even pick up on that, Grimace, when we had our old D&D site, back in the PvP days?

Drengnikrafe. When you spell the first 2/3rds backwards, you get....
King Nerd. The "Rafe" part... that was my first RPG name (I change it every couple of months), but I got so used to typing it I never bothered to change it to Drengnikspence, and Drengnikfenik, and all that.

In any case, you have a good point there.
I honestly didn't think my good DM would swoop in here to prove an odd point nonexistant.