D&D 5E So Where my Witches at?

[Flamestrike]

Talk to @Flamestrike about that one. If flying is so overpowered, then it seems strange to let one player have it, with the argument that more of them would break things.

Ive never had flying breaks anything personally, and IME pretty much the whole party can fly anyway from T2-3 anyway.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When I think of something like a class or race being rare in the world I also think of it being rare in play; that somehow the odds of being able to play one are quite limited.

Otherwise, for play purposes they're not rare at all, and what's the point of calling them rare if they're not?

They're rare if the PCs don't encounter many of them. Whether that means they aren't in the party (in which case their rarity doesn't matter much) or that the PCs are 90% of the occultists in the region/world/whatever, the occultist is rare either way.

So replace that with aarakroca, and it makes a touch more sense.

No, it doesn't. It makes or doesn't make exactly the same amount of sense.

Or a paladin, if you make it class-based instead of race-based.

Mark: I'm playing a paladin, a holy warrior the likes of which have been unseen for generations, whose coming was foretold to mark the fall of the demon king-
Simon: Oh, actually I'm playing a paladin too. I was born with the God of Justice's holy symbol as my birthmark, and was trained by clerics since birth to put an end to the lich lord-
Elaine: Wait, my character is a paladin who traveled here from a distant land after receiving a vision from her god that her blade would be needed to stop the arrival of the Old Ones-
Jim and Steve: Hey, we're playing paladins too! Destined holy warriors, represent!
Beth: My character's a bard, but according to what I got on the rumor tables, a group of paladins just passed through here last week.

Great! A party of Paladins with one Bard sounds like a great campaign. Why have they all come to the same place at the same time from completely separate origins, different gods, different goals, etc? What is coming that needs these disparate divine champions to be together?
Awesome.
And they aren't any less special. If you want to remind them that paladins are rare, have NPCs occasionally remark upon having never seen two Paladins in the same year, much less more than two together at the same time, or just...have the PCs be the only Paladins they meet for most of the campaign. This is how I deal with Jedi in Star Wars, for instance. If the party has several force users, then why the force has brought them together is a question the campaign asks, and when they meet someone who understands what they are they are shocked to learn that 4 force adepts are even in the sector at the same time, much less traveling together.

Nah, it's about keeping special things special.

Not something that benefits from mechanics.

Besides, an entire party of flying PCs? Might as well toss any adventure module or guidelines right out the window...

Having run a game where all PCs could fly....nope.

 

[Alzrius]

And they aren't any less special.

 

[Mind of tempest]

gods that is an old meme.

 

[Alzrius]

gods that is an old meme.

 

[Remathilis]

Not something that benefits from mechanics.

What mechanics? I'm discussing my house rule for how many of a certain PC option is allowed per campaign. There are hundreds of PC options in the game, not everyone has to be the same exact option.

You want a game where everyone is aarakroca artificer/artillerist with the haunted one background? Be my guest. I'd prefer to keep some of the rarer options as a one-per-campaign to keep them feeling rare.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You want a game where everyone is aarakroca artificer/artillerist with the haunted one background? Be my guest. I'd prefer to keep some of the rarer options as a one-per-campaign to keep them feeling rare.

Again, if your players agree with you then that's great. You don't actually need a rule, or a mechanic, because the players will naturally tend to keep their characters unique.

And if they don't agree with you, then a rule or a mechanic might cure this particular symptom, but not the underlying disease, which will probably manifest in other ways.

What's needed to keep rare PC options rare? Shared aesthetic preference. That's all I'm sayin'.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You know that the reason he says that is because he's wrong, right? He's the villain of the movie, so he has to have a questionable (at best) moral stance. That quote's like saying, "When everyone's healthy, no one is". It's just plain BS. When everyone is healthy and no one is dying of Covid-19, diabetes, or heart attacks, everyone is healthy. The same thing applies to being "super", or "powerful", or "being special".

 

[Alzrius]

You know that the reason he says that is because he's wrong, right? That's like saying, "When everyone's healthy, no one is".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]