D&D 5E Does your group allow homebrew or 3PP material?

[Ace]

I'm answering no as our D&D 5e campaign is by the book using WOTC material only. I' allow the arcane archer feat myself but its unpublished WOTC material not homebrew

We've been fooling around with the D20 Modern conversion though , its 100% homebrew so yes for other games

 

[Maxperson]

Of the 3PP you have bought or downloaded for 5e, what percentage of the material would you say is more broken and unbalanced than WotC's content?

I haven't touched 5e third party content for lack of time and ability to spend sifting through it. I was just correcting your misstated position. People here aren't claiming WotC is perfect with regard to balance.

 

[Jester David]

I haven't touched 5e third party content for lack of time and ability to spend sifting through it. I was just correcting your misstated position. People here aren't claiming WotC is perfect with regard to balance.

So... if you haven't even touched 3PP, how do you know there's a higher concentration of broken and unbalanced things?

Couldn't there be *less* broken things?
Or a higher percentage of unbalanced things that are less broken than official content?

Not to mention lumping all 3PP together is casting a very, very, very wide net.
It's not only including Junior McDesigner whose in middle school and posting his first feat on the Guild, but also including Kobold Press or Sasquatch Games, which are staffed by ex-TSR designers, any one of their name designers probably have more professional design experience than Mearls and Crawford... combined.

 

[Zardnaar]

Mearls was also a 3pp guy back in early 3.0 there is an interview with him in one of the old Dragons. Later on he published for Dungeon.

There is some dribble on with 3pp stuff but being blunt there was some crap in SCAG as well mechanically. Hell I would say most of SCAG was average with maybe 2 monks and the mastermind being half decent/interesting.

 

[Maxperson]

So... if you haven't even touched 3PP, how do you know there's a higher concentration of broken and unbalanced things?

Couldn't there be *less* broken things?
Or a higher percentage of unbalanced things that are less broken than official content?

I have already acknowledged more than once that things might be different from the 3e days. The thing is, I'll never know, because even if I find the time, third party stuff isn't generally in stores for me to leaf through and they don't put the entire product out free on PDF for me to look at.

 

[Sacrosanct]

We are saying that there is a much higher concentration of broken and unbalanced things in third party products. .

I haven't touched 5e third party content for lack of time and ability to spend sifting through it.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, really. I referenced 3e imbalance in third party products more than once, as well as having said that WotC has put out broken things. That's why I included myself among those saying imbalance,. I have been consistent in my position and my statements.

Congrats on thinking you caught me at something, though.

 

[One_Shots]

I am always amused that so many people are down on homebrew and 3PP content as "broken" or "unbalanced" compared to official content when every other thread on the boards is about the beastmaster ranger or sharpshooter & great weapon fighting. To say nothing of the moon druid.

Actually that's a further reason not to trust 3PP. Here you have thoroughly play-tested material which still isn't without issue and yet you want people to trust someone's back-of-the-napkin math (on a good day) product?

Most 3PP's don't have the time or resources to implement even a small amount of play-testing. I'm not about to introduce such imbalances when I'm busy trying to fix the imbalances of the core system. I only have so much time in the day myself and if my trust is to be placed in a 3PP's product, then it better be something I can insert without creating even more work for me as a GM.

Since that's not likely, then I'm not likely to buy 3PP.

 

[Jester David]

I have already acknowledged more than once that things might be different from the 3e days. The thing is, I'll never know, because even if I find the time, third party stuff isn't generally in stores for me to leaf through and they don't put the entire product out free on PDF for me to look at.

That's just an excuse you tell yourself. If you really didn't have free time, you wouldn't be on these message boards every day. And it's not like a magic temporal fairy will appear and give you the extra time to required sit in a game store physically flipping through a book to evaluate it.

A huge number of 3rd Party Products on the DMsGuild are Pay What You Want. Basically free. So you can download freely and flip through, evaluating like a book. Only you don't need to do that in a store. You can do it on your phone while on the bus, using the toilet, during a commercial break, etc. It works to your schedule more than being in the store.

Most of the paid products have a preview, which can also be used to evaluate a product. (All my products feature a full text preview, so you can look at the entire book to decide if it's worth your $0.50.)

The DMsGuild has been out since January 12th. If, on average, you evaluated a single page of content every day, you could have examined 291 pages of content. If you instead looked at one product each week, that would be over 40 different products. Just one a week...

 

[Maxperson]

That's just an excuse you tell yourself. If you really didn't have free time, you wouldn't be on these message boards every day.

ROFL

And it's not like a magic temporal fairy will appear and give you the extra time to required sit in a game store physically flipping through a book to evaluate it.

Precisely.

A huge number of 3rd Party Products on the DMsGuild are Pay What You Want. Basically free. So you can download freely and flip through, evaluating like a book. Only you don't need to do that in a store. You can do it on your phone while on the bus, using the toilet, during a commercial break, etc. It works to your schedule more than being in the store.

For you, maybe. Broken down into a few minutes here and there doesn't work for me. I lose track of things that way.

Most of the paid products have a preview, which can also be used to evaluate a product. (All my products feature a full text preview, so you can look at the entire book to decide if it's worth your $0.50.)

Previews don't work for my needs. You can't tell about the entirety of a product by a preview.