The Power of "NO". Banned Races and Classes?

[The Human Target]

It is not because I am a control freak DM. after 12 years of powergamers in 3rd ed a few weeks in 4E before I binned it I got sick of the min maxing and most of it was due to player options. Feats, powers, ability to easily aquire magical items and combo them with feats and/or powers. Just makes DMing a pain in the ass. Basically you spend hours developing a world and story and the players like turning up with some cheeseball combo and ruining it IMHO.

What about dragonborm makes DMing a pain?

Or monks?

 

[Zardnaar]

What about dragonborm makes DMing a pain?

Or monks?

I run a Eurocentric game+ demi humans for the most part. A monk should be an educated cloistered cleric, a Dragonborn would appear to be a monster.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Because Western monks actually tended to have military training as strictly not part of their ascetic lives. They were rather well known for it. Friar Tuck is so famous because he is known as an exception, not the rule.

The Knights Templar were a Monastic order, as were plenty of other orders. In D&D terms they are probably closer to Paladins but, frankly, so what? In a fantasy game we can draw sources from anywhere we want, regardless of historical or cultural source, and integrate it into our own worlds.

Christianity has only been around for 2000 years or so, anyway, and most Fantasy worlds rarely include it. If you can have polytheistic religion as the norm in your pseudo-western-medieval fantasy world, then you can include fighting monks too, surely?

I like Monks because a) Friar Tuck is indeed a cool archetype to want to play, and b) I like that there is some outlet towards playing a Class that has asceticism as their ‘power source’. In this respect, I actually see Monks like an alternative magical class, rather than a warrior as such - it’s just the martial abilities are the way in which they express this power.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

The Knights Templar were a Monastic order, as were plenty of other orders. In D&D terms they are probably closer to Paladins but, frankly, so what? In a fantasy game we can draw sources from anywhere we want, regardless of historical or cultural source, and integrate it into our own worlds.

Christianity has only been around for 2000 years or so, anyway, and most Fantasy worlds rarely include it. If you can have polytheistic religion as the norm in your pseudo-western-medieval fantasy world, then you can include fighting monks too, surely?

There's a large difference between "monastic order" and "monk." Monastic orders often had large numbers of members who were actually not monks; the monks themselves tended to be people who had taken vows of poverty, celibacy, nonviolence, etc. A monk was ultimately defined as someone choosing to live the closest to what was considered the most pious life, which typically came with some pretty heavy standards.

And, yes, we can have fighting monks... but the only sources to model those on are Eastern sources. Otherwise, the closest you come is the holy knights, and those are modeled by paladins.

Thus, why DnD monks are Eastern-themed.

Edit: Also, look up the original stories; Friar Tuck didn't actually do much fighting. That's a modern addition to the story.

 

[TrippyHippy]

There’s a large difference between “monastic order" and "monk."

Edit: Also, look up the original stories; Friar Tuck didn’t actually do much fighting. That's a modern addition to the story.

The fighting Knights Templar were monks, by definition. The only difference between a ‘monastic order’ and a monk is that the former term refers to an organisation of monks.

The stories of Robin Hood were folklore. There wasn’t any original written tales to refer to.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

The fighting Knights Templar were monks, by definition.

The stories of Robin Hood were folklore. There wasn’t any original written tales to refer to.

In order to be a monk, one had to be an ordained priest. The Knights Templar were not priests. So, no, they were not monks. They never could be monks because they didn't meet the basic requirements.

And the earliest surviving records of the tales of Robin Hood that were written down are from the 1400s.

 

[Lanefan]

RACE:
At campaign start I'll sometimes force the race, based on where they're starting out; and other races can join in later.

Barbarian in my game is a sub-race of Human, not a class, and always will be.

There are no Halflings in my games. There are, however, Hobbits.

Otherwise, for races I don't tend to outright ban things but if you want something uncommon (this includes Gnomes) you have to risk rolling on a racial abundance table and being stuck with what you get; you're most likely going to end up with one of the basic races anyway but (un)lucky rolling can get you into a Leprechaun, Hobgoblin, Dryad, Sylph, or a bunch of other quasi-playable races. You can also get into some unusual versions of standard races here - Gray, Arctic and Dark Elves, for example.

I can't see myself ever allowing Dragonborn or Tieflings in any game or system, ditto Warforged unless I for some odd reason was running a steampunk campaign.

CLASS:
I have 14 classes in my game - Cleric (War. Normal, Nature-a.k.a.-Druid), Fighter, Cavalier, Paladin, Ranger, Magic-User, Illusionist, Necromancer, Thief, Assassin, Bard, Monk. That's it. A few specific race-class combinations are banned - there are no Dwarf Wizard-types, for example - but I'm way more lenient than RAW 1e ever was; and most of the old racial level limits are long gone too. That said, I think if I ever start another campaign I'm going to put a few restrictions back in.

Paladins aren't banned but they are somewhat discouraged by...

ALIGNMENT:
...any alignment being allowed, and played. In my current campaign PC Necromancers in total have outnumbered PC Paladins 3-1 (and there's been about 6 PC Assassins as well, mostly multi-classed with something else); and if the party want to fight each other instead of the enemy it's all fine with me.

PSYONICS:
After years and years of trying to make them functional but not broken, I finally ditched them for PCs and most monsters. Some iconics e.g. Demons, Mind Flayers, etc. still have them, and are thus even more dangerous.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I like Monks because a) Friar Tuck is indeed a cool archetype to want to play, ...

Except Friar Tuck is not a Monk. In game terms he's almost the archetype of the Cleric in how he fights and so forth, he just doesn't have the spellcasting (then again, nobody in Robin Hood does).

In fact, Robin Hood's merry band hits a bunch of class archetypes. You've got lots of Fighters (e.g. Little John), lots of Rangers (including Robin Hood himself), some Thieves (can't think of any specific names but some of those guys have to be Thieves), a Cleric (Tuck), and a Bard (Alan a-Dale). There's probably a Druid somewhere in there as well.

Lanefan

 

[TrippyHippy]

In order to be a monk, one had to be an ordained priest. The Knights Templar were not priests. So, no, they were not monks. They never could be monks because they didn't meet the basic requirements.

And the earliest surviving records of the tales of Robin Hood that were written down are from the 1400s.

No. The earliest surviving written records of Robin Hood come from the 13th century - but only as the occasional reference here and there. The stories were spread by word of mouth, and then written about later as poems and verse (15th century and after), before becoming formalised as written stories much later - 19th century or so.

And sorry, you are mistaken about the Knights Templar. They were not just fighting men that happened to hang around a monastery. They were, by definition, an order of monks that were fully ordained by the Church. Some of them, in fact didn’t have any martial training either.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Except Friar Tuck is not a Monk. In game terms he’s almost the archetype of the Cleric in how he fights and so forth, he just doesn’t have the spellcasting (then again, nobody in Robin Hood does).

In fact, Robin Hood's merry band hits a bunch of class archetypes. You've got lots of Fighters (e.g. Little John), lots of Rangers (including Robin Hood himself), some Thieves (can't think of any specific names but some of those guys have to be Thieves), a Cleric (Tuck), and a Bard (Alan a-Dale). There's probably a Druid somewhere in there as well.

Lanefan

Friar Tuck is not a Cleric. That’s why he’s called ‘Friar’.

In game terms - it’s a moot point because in D&D the Monk is a legit Class already - he’s a monk as he fights and doesn’t cast Cleric spells.

Everybody has their own perspectives on archetypes, as you can see.