I DM'ed Princes of the Apocalypse this summer. I have patiently waited to play my Fire Genasi character, in the next season, only to read that characters from the Elemental Evil Player's Companion are not on the list of allowed resources. Our store will be starting at level one with one table playing out of the Abyss and another playing DDEN3 encounters. If a new guy shows up with a perfectly legitimate Goliath Barbarian, are we to shoo him away, or present him with one of the vanilla pre-gens? If this is so, ...I have to know, what exactly is this breaking? I understand some of the AL rules are used to facilitate a sort of game balance. I just don't understand what is going on here?
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Elemental Evil characters not allowed in Season 3?
- Thread starter Luxas
- Start date
GMforPowergamers
Legend
it's a gimic to sell more stuff... it's based off of magic... "Hey this season use only the newest"
tsadkiel
Legend
My understanding is that you pick a story origin for your character, and that determines which resources you can use to create the character, but not which adventure you're allowed to play it in. So you could use an Elemental Evil character in Rage of demons, and vice versa. See this bit of the FAQ: http://dndadventurersleague.org/tag/story-origin/
The rules are in the Player's Guide, but I've got a handy reference for creating D&D Adventurers League characters on my site:
http://merricb.com/2015/08/27/creating-a-rage-of-demons-character/
Here are the basics:
* Each character in the D&D AL has a Story Origin. The Story Origin limits what books & supplements you can use to create and advance your characters. At present, there are three story origins: Tyranny of Dragons, Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons
* Story Origins do not limit what adventures you can play. A Tyranny of Dragons character can play Out of the Abyss.
* Story Origins do limit what sources you combine. You can't use the new spells & races of the Elemental Evil Player's Companion with the new background features from Appendix A of Out of the Abyss.
* When you create a new character, you can choose any Story Origin. You don't have to use the one from the current season. (At some point, some may be retired, but this hasn't happened yet).
* One interesting point: Story Origins don't limit Wizards from learning spells from scrolls. If you found an EEPC spell scroll, your Tyranny Wizard could learn it. However, he couldn't choose it when gaining a level normally.
Cheers!
http://merricb.com/2015/08/27/creating-a-rage-of-demons-character/
Here are the basics:
* Each character in the D&D AL has a Story Origin. The Story Origin limits what books & supplements you can use to create and advance your characters. At present, there are three story origins: Tyranny of Dragons, Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons
* Story Origins do not limit what adventures you can play. A Tyranny of Dragons character can play Out of the Abyss.
* Story Origins do limit what sources you combine. You can't use the new spells & races of the Elemental Evil Player's Companion with the new background features from Appendix A of Out of the Abyss.
* When you create a new character, you can choose any Story Origin. You don't have to use the one from the current season. (At some point, some may be retired, but this hasn't happened yet).
* One interesting point: Story Origins don't limit Wizards from learning spells from scrolls. If you found an EEPC spell scroll, your Tyranny Wizard could learn it. However, he couldn't choose it when gaining a level normally.
Cheers!
No. You could use older stuff if you wanted.
It's actually the way of limiting broken combinations. As new D&D material is produced, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of unintended combinations. By limiting what material one character can access, it should reduce the possibility of completely broken characters (see Pun Pun).
This is a huge consideration in Organised Play, where DMs don't have the freedom of just saying "No, I don't think you should use that."
Cheers!
Hi! thanks everyone for the awesome responses!
Ok, are you saying that if I play a race from the EE Player's Handbook, I'm stuck with either the core phb/ basic rules backgrounds or the assigned backgrounds for the origin story. Basically what we are saying is that If I choose a race from the EE handbook, I cannot use the Hillsfar Backgrounds. I understand the restricting some races and spells (the mechanical stuff) with newer season options. Why restrict the cross pollination of backgrounds?
I know my DM wanted to use the bonds and adventure hooks from Out of the Abyss, (she wanted to put them on index cards and pass them out randomly to those that agreed) am I not allowed to use those either?
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
You are not allowed to use those since those backgrounds are not allowed in your Story Origin.
The idea is to keep characters tied to the storylines that go with them. If your character is a race from the EE Player's Handbook, your race has a reason to get involved in the story because those races are extremely rare but have a tie to the Elemental Evil storyline. Plus, the theme of their race fits with the theme of that season. Maybe those races are more common in and around the area that the EE storyline takes place in.
I can't speak for the Admin's decision to restrict things the way they did but I can speculate. I'm guessing part of it is what I said above, to keep storylines "contained" and to keep a coherent "theme" in the story line. I'm guessing at least part of it was that the Admins weren't sure what options would come out and how well they'd be balanced when mixed together. That way if a new feat or spell comes out 5 years from now, it might not be overpowered if you can just take stuff from the PHB and from that new book. It might be overpowered if you were allowed to mix and match every player option released in the next 5 years.
In this way, you can constrain the power level of a character by "locking" them into the power level that season was designed for without worrying what future books might let them do. Season 3 doesn't have an new options other than Backgrounds so that doesn't necessarily apply this time, but it might in the future. So best to create a general rule and stick with it.
Plus, it's partially to encourage people to make up new characters that fit in well with the adventure you are playing. If you want a close tie to the storyline of the season, then you also get to play a race and class that is designed to fit into that season. In this way, they encourage players to always make up new characters which is good for the long term health of the campaign.
But, of course, we don't want to discourage someone from playing a character they like, so they can continue to play characters from past seasons and even make up characters from past seasons. Especially if they want to play those characters IN those seasons(since the adventures from any season can be played at any time). But, I think it is implicit that the "ideal" is that people are playing characters designed for the season they are in.
Tony Vargas
Legend
They've been doing that at Encounters since the beginning. It's always trying to showcase the latest thing. Makes sense from a sales/promotion standpoint. Keeps things fresh.
And, it shields AL events from the pernicious effects of 'bloat' and 'power creep.'
And, it shields AL events from the pernicious effects of 'bloat' and 'power creep.'
Story origin was a stupid idea and one reason why I don't get invovled on AL.
The only Story origin worth doing right now is Elemental Evil, because the other story origins have so little player support, so Rage of Demons and Tyranny of Dragons is silly to take.
This will change and things will get worse. The story origin idea needs to die.
The only Story origin worth doing right now is Elemental Evil, because the other story origins have so little player support, so Rage of Demons and Tyranny of Dragons is silly to take.
This will change and things will get worse. The story origin idea needs to die.
tsadkiel
Legend
They just announced that every story origin *except* Elemental Evil gets to use the Sword's Coast Adventurer's Guide.
Similar Threads
