Variant Class Features question-- Something for Nothing??

[Amazing Mumford]

Question about Variant Class Features-- seems like a lot of material that came out toward the "end" of 3.5 introduced Variant Class Features. These were for the most part pretty cool, i.e. for someone who likes to play a Druid but doesn't want anything to do with an animal companion, you have a couple options.

Here's my question/dilemma-- I'll pick on the Ranger for a second-- some Variant Class Features give the Ranger new abilities and take old abilities away. For example, in the Complete Warrior, the Variant takes away the spellcasting ability (for the Ranger this starts at 4th level) and grants Fast Movement at 6th level and Nature's Blessing at 11th level. That's all well and good, and for the character to see any benefit from this option at all they must at least play the Ranger class to 6th level, and would want to play the class until 11th level to gain the whole benefit.

Now, here is where it gets dodgy-- In Dragon #347 there is a Variant Feature called Solitary Hunting, taken at 1st level, which gives the Ranger your favored enemy bonus on attack rolls (as well as damage) in exchange for giving up the Animal Companion feature. The bonus of this Variant takes effect at 1st level, but the drawback doesn't come into play until 4th level for the Ranger. So, what do you do for the player who "dips" into this class, takes this Variant ability, and then doesn't take Ranger to the 4th level?? In essence I think this creates a "get-something-for-nothing" situation. Even if the player wasn't trying to be cheesy and legitimately wanted to take 2-3 levels of Ranger, they could still get this bonus without giving something up?

Another example, this time the Monk-- from Dragon #351, a Variant Monk feature "Bane of the Clockwork", taken at 3rd level, gives you benefits against Constructs. The feature traded doesn't come in until 4th level, where the Monk then at that time wouldn't get the Slow Fall ability, and would also lose the bonus feat granted at 6th level. This particular feature states that the Variant is taken at 3rd level, but again, what if a player only takes the Monk to 3rd level? Once again, the "something-for-nothing" situation comes into play.

So I'm asking, is there a rule anywhere that a feature MUST be given-up in order to be able to choose the Variant feature? or would this be more of a house-rule thing, stating basically that you can't "get something for nothing", for example in the Ranger example above do you think it's fair to say that "If you want this Variant Ability (Favored Enemy bonus added to hit as well as damage) then you MUST take your Ranger to at least 4th level??

What do you guys think?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I consider those examples to be poorly thought-out. In particular, my group's ruled Solitary Hunting doesn't kick in till level 4, when you would get the animal companion. Because otherwise, it is a rather nice dip. I could see the argument that it doesn't mean much if you're only dipping ranger and thus won't have many creaures to gain the benefit against, though.

As for monk, I guess you could houserule it to not be gained until level 4, when the first loss occurs (making them wait till level 6 when both are lost seems too harsh). That being said, how good are these benefits? If it's not all that game-breaking, I wouldn't even bother with a houserule, IMO. Besides, everyone who dips monk stops at 2 (evasion, second bonus feat) if not 1 anyway. Anyone who goes in 3 or more deep may as well stick with it or find a related prestige class.

 

[Amazing Mumford]

Juuuust to clarify; do you mean the examples themselves are poor or the the examples involve poorly thought-out variant abilities from the sources??

I am intrigued by the house-rule that "no benefits can be gained until a loss occurs"-- are there any others out there that concur or disagree? That way, it greatly discourages "dips" for the sake of just wanting to gain powers. Do you guys think that this rule makes more sense (fairness, balance) then being able to take the Variant feature (for example Solitary Hunter at 1st level), gain the benefits (in this case right away), but in return agree that the character MUST be taken to the level where the other ability is given up? Kind-of like a verbal DM-Player contract??

Stream, I am also curious to know how you rule situations like the very first example, like when the "losses" (in the first example, spells at 4th level) occur before the "benefits" (also in this case, Fast Movement at 6th level and another benefit at 11th)?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I meant I think the variants that do these things are poorly thought out, not your examples.

And yes, I was going to bring up the flip-side: "nothing for something" where you lose a class feature but gain nothing for it until a later level. Yeah, great to stop dippers, but from the viewpoint of the honest guy who just wanted to go straight 20 in that class, it really bites having to wait to see anything for it. Which means that, yeah, I'm also not a big fan of the spell-less variants.

 

[irdeggman]

So I'm asking, is there a rule anywhere that a feature MUST be given-up in order to be able to choose the Variant feature? or would this be more of a house-rule thing, stating basically that you can't "get something for nothing", for example in the Ranger example above do you think it's fair to say that "If you want this Variant Ability (Favored Enemy bonus added to hit as well as damage) then you MUST take your Ranger to at least 4th level??

What do you guys think?

Nope.

No "official rule" out there that know of.

Now I as a DM will not allow things that do not have such a trade off in them.

Remember that all "new" variants require the DM's permission to be inserted in the first place.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Alternatively you can enforce a penalty of *some* sort at the indicated levels. The guy who dips into ranger doesn't get his ability increase at 4th level, or loses an ability of whatever class he *is* in at 4th level. Similarly for other classes.

When the bill comes due, they have to pay with something, even if they aren't in that class anymore.

 

[Herzog]

Do you have any examples that are NOT from Dragon Magazine?
Otherwise, my advise would be: don't use material from Dragon Magazine.

My, and all my DM's, first reaction to anything from Dragon magazine is 'no'.
I have yet to see any of us actually allow something from Dragon Magazine in a campaign.
I'm not sure the people who wrote those alternate class features had a balanced trade in mind. Anyone could come up with the basic premise: don't give anything untill the price has been paid. That they didn't makes me assume they didn't fully comprehend the basics of the trade-off.

 

[MichaelK]

My, and all my DM's, first reaction to anything from Dragon magazine is 'no'. I have yet to see any of us actually allow something from Dragon Magazine in a campaign.

My reaction to Dragon Magazines is to treat them like I were converting 2nd edition material. It may have some really good ideas and be expressed in a very familiar set of terms, but it may need a lot of modification to fit into a balanced 3.5 game.

I don't usually include them as written, but I'll take the basic idea and then write it myself.

 

[Shin Okada]

First of all, you should expect that rules in Dragon Magazines are less well-balanced comparing to the rules in supplement books. Some rules in supplements are broken, too. But so many rules in Dragon Magazines are much broken.

But in the cases you have mentioned, I don't think them to be "too broken".

Some improvement in Favored Enemy and you worry that the player takes only 3 levels of ranger? Will it really give him big advantages? Ranger needs more levels to take better Favored Enemy bonuses and wider selections.

Some improvement against a specific creature type. For a Monk? And you worry that some PC take only 3 levels of Monk class? How often people take exactly 3 levels of monk?

I can think of some rather popular prestige class builds such as Monk 1/something/something or Monk 2/something/something, or Monk 5+/something/something. But Monk 3? Is that popular enough to worry about?

Also, monk is not a strong standard class anyway, isn't it? I rarely worry that something slightly improves monk class break game balance.

 

[zendruid]

What Mumford has not mentioned is that he has a master list of allowed source material. Dragon Mag is on that list (he is also an avid collector and has used it in the past for his own characters).

I fully support his decision as DM to require the exchange for the feature to be gained. It just makes sense. The problem arose as I am trying to make a captain america analog. Some of the variant features found in the crystalkeep.com base class material list were a perfect fit for this character.

So I wrote a character spread sheet and included all the variants and their sources. So here we are with the question at hand. Even as the player of this potential character I still can not argue for 'something for nothing'. In my defense I do not own the Dragon Mags in question so I deferred to my DM.