Am I the only one who is sick of endless stat blocks?

[Jürgen Hubert]

This is a pet peeve of mine with Silver Marches, but it is easily applicable for other d20 supplements as well.

See, Silver Marches is otherwise a really good sourcebook. It has plenty of interesting locations, and plenty of great adventure ideas.

But it could have been better - if the various stat blocks hadn't taken up so much space. Do I really need to know a listing of the number of people that belong to each class and each level for every community? Couldn't they have used that space to provide additional information on the nature of the community - or perhaps added a few new ones?

And while I am at it, what's up with all this prestige class inflation? Now don't get me wrong - prestige classes are an interesting concept, and can add a great deal of flavor to a campaign setting. But they should be rare - and it seems to me that these days no supplement can be considered "complete" without at least half a dozen prestige classes. If every book adds a slate of new ones, how special can they be?

When I'm purchasing a setting book, I want as much information on the setting as possible - about the people and monsters who live there, the geography, the environment, the political intrigues, and so on. And IMO that purpose would be served better with descriptive text rather than endless stat blocks and pages upon pages of additional rules.

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get this off my chest.

 

[redkobold]

I feel your pain.

I only want stat blocks for important personas.

As for templates and prestige classes, I agree they should be extremely rare, maybe the main protagonist and the primary henchman would be the exceptional templated or prestiged encounter.

Related to this are feats. I have seen very few outside of the core books that were useful, necessary, or even interesting.

The 3.0+ mechanisms are great and make the game flexible but some have become over enamored with them.

 

[Silveras]

The balance of stat blocks to other text is largely a matter of preference. For everyone who says "just stat out the big guys", there is someone else who replies "I need as many statted out as I can get, because I don't have time to figure out the Feats and Skills and Equipment and ... for all the little guys". There are as many people who want a roster of fully-described NPCs as there are people who do not.

As for PrCs, I seem to recall reading somewhere (can't recall exactly; might even have been here on ENWorld) a while back that the OGL or d20 license required a certain amount of "Open Game Content" in each product -- and that PrCs, Feats, and Spells were a quick and easy way to meet that requirement.

Actually, the plethora of PrCs is not a bad thing overall. It is important for DMs to be selective in what is allowed in the campaign, though. The Forgotten Realms are a BIG place, with lots of regions and nations. Even allowing for 1-2 elite organizations per nation, that probably allows 200-300 potential PrCs, scattered over the whole Realms. The key is for DMs to remember that a class like the Red Wizard of Thay is exclusive to Thay -- PCs from Neverwinter should not be able to qualify without going to Thay and spending a LOT of time there preparing. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, for other classes -- like the Guild Thief. A Guild Thief is the type of PrC that is not really identified with a specific locale, and is thus easily allowed in most places (even other campaign worlds).

 

[Desdichado]

Stat blocks that never end? Yeah, I can see how that'd make you sick.

 

[Nightfall]

*sings* This is the statblock that never ends!
*smirks* Yeah well that can get annoying...but this is why I don't bother with some regional suppliments from WotC. So far the ones from S&SS don't get THAT detailed unless extremely necessary.

 

[Emiricol]

PrCs ought to be flav-o-riffic. They can be a wonderful tool for setting the tone of a region or organization. IMC, I disallow any PrC not specifically tailored to my setting.

But yeah, stat blocks for everything could be a bit annoying after a while

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Related to this are feats. I have seen very few outside of the core books that were useful, necessary, or even interesting.

Actually, I think feats would often be a better way of giving people from some organisation or region special abilities instead of writing up whole prestige classes. Just require a particular region of origin or membership in a particular organisation as a prerequisite.

Ideally, I'd like to allow characters to be more unique and flavorful while still being a member of the core classes only - instead of throwing a couple of hundreds of prestige classes into the mix. Thus, being able to customize the characters with feats and the like should take precedence over adding prestige classes.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The balance of stat blocks to other text is largely a matter of preference. For everyone who says "just stat out the big guys", there is someone else who replies "I need as many statted out as I can get, because I don't have time to figure out the Feats and Skills and Equipment and ... for all the little guys". There are as many people who want a roster of fully-described NPCs as there are people who do not.

Well, that's OK for adventures IMO. Regional sourcebooks, on the other hand, should describe the region instead statting out the people.

As for PrCs, I seem to recall reading somewhere (can't recall exactly; might even have been here on ENWorld) a while back that the OGL or d20 license required a certain amount of "Open Game Content" in each product -- and that PrCs, Feats, and Spells were a quick and easy way to meet that requirement.

I dimly remember reading something like that, too. I think it was 5%, but I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a percentage of the entire text, or just the percentage of original material versus material that has already been published by someone else - and I'm also uncertain if that's a requirement, or just a guideline...

Actually, the plethora of PrCs is not a bad thing overall. It is important for DMs to be selective in what is allowed in the campaign, though. The Forgotten Realms are a BIG place, with lots of regions and nations. Even allowing for 1-2 elite organizations per nation, that probably allows 200-300 potential PrCs, scattered over the whole Realms. The key is for DMs to remember that a class like the Red Wizard of Thay is exclusive to Thay -- PCs from Neverwinter should not be able to qualify without going to Thay and spending a LOT of time there preparing. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, for other classes -- like the Guild Thief. A Guild Thief is the type of PrC that is not really identified with a specific locale, and is thus easily allowed in most places (even other campaign worlds).

I actually like these two PrCs - they have a real point and make for an interesting addition to the game.

But taking a look at Silver Marches, I found only one prestige class that I really liked - the Knight-Errant of Silverymoon. They have a real reason to exist. But the other ones...

Well, we have the Giant Killer ("I'm badass at killing giants!"), Hordebreaker ("I'm badass at killing orcs!"), Peerless Archer ("I'm badass at shooting while not being an arcane archer!"), Wild Scout ("I'm badass at hiding!") and Orc Scout ("I'm badass at hiding while being an orc!").

What do all these PrCs add to the game, really? Oh, sure, they might offer some nice bonus abilities for players to twink their characters - but from a role-playing point of view they add nothing that couldn't be emulated by a few new feats, which would have taken away much less space in the book...

 

[hong]

And while I am at it, what's up with all this prestige class inflation? Now don't get me wrong - prestige classes are an interesting concept, and can add a great deal of flavor to a campaign setting. But they should be rare - and it seems to me that these days no supplement can be considered "complete" without at least half a dozen prestige classes. If every book adds a slate of new ones, how special can they be?

One day, I will meet someone who understands the difference between rarity in-game and rarity out-of-game.

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get this off my chest.

M3 t00!!1!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Don't forget that one of the current marketing tools to sell d20 supplements to both players and DMs is to include a lot of "curnchy bits" that appeal to players -- most of the background material only appeals to DMs.

Silver Marches is one of the better setting sourcebooks, IMO -- it has a lot of setting material, and they put most of the game mechanics at the end of the book. Compare that to Unapproachable East, which had more game mechanics, placed in a player-friendly location at the beginning of the book, while the setting information was hidden at the back.

I recently reviewed a campaign setting that had 15 pages of setting information in a 128-page book -- but had 60 pages on race/class information alone.