How much attention do you pay to others' homebrew material?

[Endarire]

Making something for your group is one thing. Using Some Guy™'s homebrew off the internet is another.

I consider homebrew most often to fix what I dislike about the game. I like Frank & K's notion of scaling feats and various tweaks to increase the power of feats.

If as GM someone proposed an unknown homebrew to me, I'd consider it carefully. Still, much homebrew carries the connotation of, "Do Not Use."

[Animefunkmaster]

That's a fair assessment that has been used in all the games I have played/ran and often applies to 3rd party books and Dragon magazine(some dms this applies to any non core books as well).

Many "new" homebrew classes are often drastically overpowered that has only a minor defect "underpowered class that doesn't get a familiar"

Edit: the original lightning warrior thread seems to have been pruned, found this link which is pretty much the same... but i recall it had more channeling abilities to go along with it's d20 hd full bab, and wizard casting.

[true_shinken]

Many "new" homebrew classes are often drastically overpowered that has only a minor defect "underpowered class that doesn't get a familiar"

This.
Finding good homebrew is sometimes hard, but there is some very good homebrew on this forum, for example. I'm a great fan of Black Rain and Dread Crown.

[Psyren]

For brand new classes I tend to not be interested. I will read fixes to existing classes however (including versions that gestalt or theurge two or more very weak ones).

[Godless_Paladin]

Sturgeon's Law strictly applies.

[Psyren]

Sturgeon's Law strictly applies.

It applies to first-party material too. Or anything really.

When I think of how many PrCs are eclipsed by their more famous brethren...

[Flickerdart]

Fax's d20r is absolutely fantastic homebrew that I occasionally use. Any sort of fix (like Kellus' Truenamer or the Shadowcaster fix) is also worth looking at. Other than that...nothing has really caught my eye as "must use".

[Jarrick]

I keep a constant eye on the homebrew forum. There's always something cool there, and most of the people there produce good, useful hombrew (or, occaisionally, mostly-useful homebrew that works with minor alterations.).

On a personal note, I try to keep my hombrew simple and easily adapted. See the two classes in my sig for examples.

[Merk]

My philosophy as a GM for 3.P is that I allow all material (core, splat, or homebrew) on a case-by-case basis. That said, I love homebrew and use it very often, to the point where I've run entire sessions based entirely off of homebrew (either mine or from these forums or elsewhere).

[Tavar]

Personally, I look at the name of the person who made the stuff, then at the material. If I recognize the name, it's probably good, otherwise it really depends.

In addition to those already mentioned, Person_Man doesn't have much homebrew, but what he does have I consider to be very well thought out. My favorite is probably his Favored Soul fix, as it really makes the divine casters feel different from one another.

[Godless_Paladin]

Fax's d20r is absolutely fantastic homebrew that I occasionally use.

Why?

I didn't read absolutely all of it, but it struck me as more prolific than inspired.

Or anything really.

That is, in fact, what is implied by "Sturgeon's Law strictly applies."

[gorfnab]

The Blue Mage (link in my sig) was considered one of the best homebrews on 339. Sadly because of 339's new formatting the class chart and abilities have been lost but I had a copy saved on my computer so I reposted it here and over on BG.

[Mastikator]

I read some optional rules and class variants. But never new classes, imo they're usually cartoonish and ridiculous.

[Psyx]

Pretty much none of it. Certainly not if I'm not running the game either, as a rule.

I'll glance at other's homebrew, but 50% of any given homebrew is broken, unbalanced or fan-boy. Most of the rest is simply not necessary. Sometimes there's an idea worth using. Just not often. And then it's seldom worth the effort of talking the rest of the group into accepting it.

[Yora]

Actually I never bothered much with other peoples homebrew. But I never bothered with the PrCs and alternate base classes from official publications either, so it's not that there's nothing worthwhile out there.

[Duke of URL]

I'd say the community here is pretty top-notch in reviewing and evaluating homebrew. If something from these boards has been vetted and modified (if necessary) to reflect the critique, then it's probably worth at least considering.

The biggest concern would be to judge them based on the general power level of your game. Some homebrew is geared toward making everything tier 1 or 2, while other ideas are targeted closer to tier 3 and 4.

[2-HeadedGiraffe]

Disclaimer: I don't tend to play with groups full of optimized characters or anything like that.

Actual post: I tend to ignore homebrew mostly because I haven't seen, much less used, a tenth of the official material that's available. I still find abilities or information, even in the core books, that I didn't know about or had forgotten.

[druid91]

I like homebrew, if only because otherwise it's hard to get far-realms stuff. seems to be the least used option in 3.5.

[dsmiles]

I'm always willing to consider homebrew, especially off of the homebrew forum here. Most of the Playgrounders who hang out over there do a pretty good job of PEACHing stuff.

[Aotrs Commander]

Some, but mostly I use my own. I do have a few bits and pieces that are now standard parts of our campaigns (the Rebalanced Paladin, the Sublime Marshal, Tempest Stormwind's Falling Star). As primary rules-balancey-fiddly-guy of our groups, most of the other players and DM trust my judgement enough they often use my sets of modifications.

[Curmudgeon]

I ignore it all, pretty much. Perhaps I'm just overvaluing my extravagant expenditures on gaming books, but I've found so little of value in the homebuilt stuff I've previously seen that it's not worth my time to even look at anything new in that category.

[SurlySeraph]

I read a fair amount, but don't think of many builds based around it. I mostly prefer homebrew that plugs easily into existing material, like extra schools of martial maneuvers, new alternate class features, or PrCs based around existing mechanics.

I haven't actually seen that much truly broken homebrew; most of the bad homebrew I've seen is just overly complicated and/or redundant with existing options. There are so many generically fluffed holy warrior classes, fairly effective gish-classes, etc. in the official rules that there's no reason I'd want to take an unofficial one that gets two or three complicated class features at every level instead of an official one that's straightforward and clearly explained.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think I've ever used third-party homebrew. I don't need it for extra options because existing books offer plenty of options already; and I don't need it for balance fixes because I am less bothered by imbalance than the consensus on these forums (and the worst of it is removed by rule-zero'ing things like Polymorph Self out of existence).

I've occasionally paid attention to third-party homebrew either to give feedback on it, or because it's famous homebrew and I'm curious; an example of the latter is d20 Rebirth (which, personally, I find overly complicated).

I do, however, love the Lightning Warrior

[Tyndmyr]

Pretty much none of it. Certainly not if I'm not running the game either, as a rule.

I'll glance at other's homebrew, but 50% of any given homebrew is broken, unbalanced or fan-boy. Most of the rest is simply not necessary. Sometimes there's an idea worth using. Just not often. And then it's seldom worth the effort of talking the rest of the group into accepting it.

Pretty much this.

I tell my players in advance that homebrew is essentially never accepted, and in the rare instances where it is, I'll certainly ensure it's balanced, no matter how much nerfing is required.

It keeps the expectations low, which is great, because the vast majority of homebrew is not worth using at all.

[AstralFire]

Depends on the size of the homebrew. The larger it is, the less use it sees. A feat is more likely to get integration than class fixes.

Of course, I just plain came to the conclusion that with the amount of homebrew certain systems need, I should just stop playing them, period.

[Psyx]

It also opens floodgates. Say 'yes' once, or convince the GM to say 'yes' once, and there'll be a constant string of 'can I..?' and more work for the GM, most of which is wasted because the stuff is borked in the first place.

Although there seems to be an acceptance of any Dragon material in one group I play with.

In the case of 3.5... there's already what... 30+ books for Players to pull blag from. If there's not enough 'flexibility' and complication there, then there never will be!

[akma]

I don`t think I ever used homebrew metarial of other people. Variant classes don`t realy intrest me, and I know I won`t play any of the classes posted in the forum. I might adopt house rules of other people, but that`s about it.

I find it odd that there are a lot more class related homebrew then monsters here. Why is that?

[Akal Saris]

I like most homebrew that I see - Jarrick's Summoner is a good example of a homebrew class that I wish I could play someday. Vorpal Tribble also makes a lot of excellent homebrew monsters and settings that I enjoy. But even though I read through the homebrew section occasionally, I almost never use it in my games

[AstralFire]

Personally speaking, monsters are boring. I usually use humanoids as enemies.

Beyond that, it's easy to make or alter a monster to suit your needs, since it only has to be tailored for a small number of encounters.

Beyond that, there are many more PCs than DMs, and many DMs wish they could be PCs, but they're the only ones willing to ever do the job.

[Person_Man]

I personally try to read through the Homebrew forums at least once a week, giving priority to anything written by the regulars - Fax, AstralFire, Vorpal Tribble, and many others.

When I write homebrew (which is pretty rare, since I can usually build what I want with RAW) I always aim for Tier 3, because the games where I've had the most fun have been dominated by Tier 3 classes (or Tier 1/2 classes where they didn't choose game breaking spells). But your mileage may vary (widely).