Proof that PHB +1 is a completely unneeded rule

[Blue]

https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=321449

For over a grand you can get a certificate that allows PHB +2.

If he raises $500,000 Season 9 will be PHB +2 for everyone! Just for Season 9.

Guess what thu, if that is not going to break the game, then that means they know PHB +1 is completely unneeded and unwarranted, because they wouldn't make this offer if it was going to cause problems.

don't get me wrong raising money for charity is good and I hope he raises $500,000 either way, but the rule should be PHB +2 period, either way because if the rule isn't needed, that you can discard it without problems or concerns, means it's only exists to punish those of us who buy more then one product with player options. This makes no sense.

Again I hope he succeeds in raising the money, but it's time this bad rule goes, either way.

I think you are laboring under two misapprehensions.

First, that there is only one reason for the rule, balance. AL, where you don't need to know any existing gamers or pay to go to a convention and can just walk into any FLGS on the assigned night and give D&D a try, is the absolute easiest on-road to a new player trying out D&D. You don't have a barrier to entry that you need to have multiple books to create a competitive character. Keeping AL easy to join, and this keeps it that way in terms of financial investment needed to be a level playing field.

Second, having a few players who are allowed ONE extra source over the PHB +1 base is a whole different ball-game then allowing all player to have access to all sources. The designed have gone on record that they design around PHB + 1 - it is very possible for power combinations to come out of the ingenuity of the full player base when combining from lots of different sources that the designer missed. Is this just a truth, unless every source have a huge playtest like the D&D Next rules. And even there, they couldn't test the final set of rules without giving them all away "for free".

As a side note, the rule isn't a D&D rule. It's an AL rule. It can "go away" as easily as running/playing in any game that isn't AL.

 

[jasper]

Hey OP drop that $500K for you made from copy cat d20s and the illegal AL fight club. And then we see.

 

[gyor]

I think you are laboring under two misapprehensions.

First, that there is only one reason for the rule, balance. AL, where you don't need to know any existing gamers or pay to go to a convention and can just walk into any FLGS on the assigned night and give D&D a try, is the absolute easiest on-road to a new player trying out D&D. You don't have a barrier to entry that you need to have multiple books to create a competitive character. Keeping AL easy to join, and this keeps it that way in terms of financial investment needed to be a level playing field.

Second, having a few players who are allowed ONE extra source over the PHB +1 base is a whole different ball-game then allowing all player to have access to all sources. The designed have gone on record that they design around PHB + 1 - it is very possible for power combinations to come out of the ingenuity of the full player base when combining from lots of different sources that the designer missed. Is this just a truth, unless every source have a huge playtest like the D&D Next rules. And even there, they couldn't test the final set of rules without giving them all away "for free".

As a side note, the rule isn't a D&D rule. It's an AL rule. It can "go away" as easily as running/playing in any game that isn't AL.

Your right, it creates two tiers of players, and that sucks.

 

[Blue]

Your right, it creates two tiers of players, and that sucks.

If you're talking about the, at most, 10 players whom have a chance to do something extraordinary for charity - I think $10K for charity outweighs "sucks" of some small fraction of 1% of all D&D players who, for a single season, have a benefit.

Please note that there has been an already existing history of AL has been handing out certs give access to options you can never otherwise get as a player - access to DMG subclass (cleric (death)) and races (Aasimar & Eladrin, before there were player-available options for them), and even play Unearthed Arcana content (the Mystic). And other ones that allow, amazingly, access to some content without having to specify the book as "+1". These have occurred a lot more than 10 times.

In other words, you are focusing on an already existing process that hasn't harmed the game.

The only other thing I can think you might be talking about is how AL puts a limit on sources and home games ... well, "absolutely don't ever" would make two tiers, but it's really "differ by table" for sources, homerules, and such, so that's like 30,000 tiers or however many home games there are.

 

[delericho]

For over a grand you can get a certificate that allows PHB +2.

If he raises $500,000 Season 9 will be PHB +2 for everyone! Just for Season 9.

Guess what thu, if that is not going to break the game, then that means they know PHB +1 is completely unneeded and unwarranted, because they wouldn't make this offer if it was going to cause problems.

Alternatively, they think, but don't know, that PHB+2 won't cause problems. So they're building an experiment to test it.

If Season 9 does have PHB+2 and it works well, they can easily decide to make the change permanent. If Season 9 does have PHB+2 and it goes badly, they have a built-in escape - they can change it back without difficulty.

And as a side-effect of doing it this way, a lot of money is raised for charity.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As someone who plays and runs AL games, this. I find that for as straightforward as AL rules are, people still manage to mess it up. Having this solid baseline, though, generally makes for an even playing field where you don’t need to worry about someone showing up with some broken nonsense at the table. It provides that much more ease of character portability.

Or to put it another way, the potential number of combinations increases exponentially for each additional source allowed, and the chance of some odd overpowered combination slipping through the cracks does likewise.

 

[Eltab]

AL is designed to make it easy for new players to try out D&D. (In the beginning, anyways; I'm not so sure about that after the Season 8 changes to treasure and buying equipment.)

This means that experienced players must exercise self-discipline. No you can't combine every book to create The Most Powerful Character Possible, and bring it to an AL table.
Get some long-term-player friends and run TMPCP with them.

 

[Dausuul]

]Guess what thu, if that is not going to break the game, then that means they know PHB +1 is completely unneeded and unwarranted, because they wouldn't make this offer if it was going to cause problems.

Why do you assume that? More likely, they are trying it out to see if it causes problems. If it does, then they just allow the rule to revert to PHB + 1 at the end of the season. If it doesn't, they can make the change permanent.

 

[Mistwell]

Your right, it creates two tiers of players, and that sucks.

Yeah it's far better for charity to not have those $10Ks to help people's lives than it is for up to 10 people across the nation to do this for 6 months in one campaign. I mean if they go ahead with this we will have a tier of people, up to ten whole good people across the nation who all donated massive funds to charity, with slightly incrementally more options than 9.99999% of the other players. Those bastards!

 

[gyor]

Yeah it's far better for charity to not have those $10Ks to help people's lives than it is for up to 10 people across the nation to do this for 6 months in one campaign. I mean if they go ahead with this we will have a tier of people, up to ten whole good people across the nation who all donated massive funds to charity, with slightly incrementally more options than 9.99999% of the other players. Those bastards!

Nothing stops him from giving out tressyms and other minor certs. I do think the charity is good thing to do, but this makes it two tiers of players. And it's a lot more options, not a little more. And this is something that should have been an AL rule for day one. Trying to make out it as if I am against raising money for hospitals is a low blow and cheap shot.