Core+1

[The Crimson Binome]

I disagree, have you read anything on balancing games exponentially?, I have, and I know that it isn't unreasonable to ask WotC to attempt to balance all options available.

But that isn't relevant, what is relevant is that balancing 5e is something WotC is equipped to do, and i think they've done well so far.

I'm not really sure what to make of that. If you think they've done a good job of keeping everything balanced so far, such that core+1 would be a superfluous restriction, then you and I have vastly different standards for balance.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not really sure what to make of that. If you think they've done a good job of keeping everything balanced so far, such that core+1 would be a superfluous restriction, then you and I have vastly different standards for balance.

<shrug>
5e barely has a coherent community standard on what actually qualifies as an encounter, or how many of them you're supposed to have, in a game based on resource attrition to defeat those encounters. It's a game where the referee is encouraged to bypass or neutralize encounters if a player creates a logical rationale in the fiction to do so even with minimal or no expenditure of resources. Balance is loose, man.

The only really compelling place for balance is intra-niche balance between similar options, and I don't see any PHB+X combinations obviously better than PHB+0 or PHB+1.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not really sure what to make of that. If you think they've done a good job of keeping everything balanced so far, such that core+1 would be a superfluous restriction, then you and I have vastly different standards for balance.

I would say that they have done a good job of keeping everything balanced so far, and that the restriction is still good for design sanity.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

This is an overly burdensome rule

What burden?

An AL GM asks, "What is your +1?". The player tells them. It takes less than a minute at the start of play. No time burden.

An AL player has to buy at most two books. No financial burden.

 

[Henry]

Funny enough, my Pathfinder group has implemented a rule very similar to it in our home games - each player gets the Pathfinder CRB + APG + UM, plus one “vanity book” to dip options from for their character. This was done after we realized the same thing, that throwing all the floodgates open was folly because there were just too many broken spells, feat combos, etc. that interacted with one another. It along with our other house rules made it much easier for the GM to challenge us as a group instead of watching the best minmaxers shine.

 

[Sunseeker]

Maybe this is true. Maybe it isn't.

I feel like if it is true, it's a pretty shameless way to imply there's a wrong way to play the game by saying "We didn't really bother to thoroughly test this. Play the game the wrong way at your own risk."

 

[jgsugden]

What burden?

An AL GM asks, "What is your +1?". The player tells them. It takes less than a minute at the start of play. No time burden.

An AL player has to buy at most two books. No financial burden.

How coud you possibly think I was arguing there was a time or finacial burden?

The burden is that we cut out many different non-offesive character concepts.

The burden is that a player that has happened to not take any options outside the PHB can choose to multiclass into something fun in a new book whil his friend that took one spell from a previously released book can't... unless that spell happens to be reprinted in the new book. It is a non-story limitation that limits the story.

They used a cleaver to perform surgery on the game. They should have used something more precise in order to preserve the most otions for players.

 

[Li Shenron]

The burden is that we cut out many different non-offesive character concepts.

It's a necessary evil. They want to prevent organized play from being too competitive. Making 5e in general non-competitive is one of the reasons why it has succeeded at attracting millions of new players.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not really sure what to make of that. If you think they've done a good job of keeping everything balanced so far, such that core+1 would be a superfluous restriction, then you and I have vastly different standards for balance.

PHB+1 IS a superfluous restriction (in that I am aware of zero OP combinations it would have prevented), even assuming it is a restriction, which it is not (except for the AL)...?

 

[The Big BZ]

I'm not sure it's competitiveness they're trying to avoid rather than complexity. DMing for 7 strangers isn't easy and the Phb+1 streamlines the process. Added to that is that our AL community, for example, has 200+ members varying from people who are playing their very first session to people who have been playing 30 years, Phb+1 agains limits the complexities of organisation with rules and rulings etc.

AL isn't aimed at the guy or gal who owns every book and wants to play an Eladrin Forge Cleric/Swashbuckler with Elven Accuracy, the Haunted One background and Spells from 4 different books. It wants to avoid complexity and barriers to entry. Ultimately companies don't support organised play for virtuous reasons any more than drug dealers who give the first one free do, they're looking to develop customers, drive sales. They want to turn the player who turns up with the free basic rules into the committed customer who owns everything. They can't do that if the Organised Play is too complex for players or organisers.