Core+1

[cbwjm]

It's not the true believers that you need to convince, it's WotC since they are the ones who set the AL rules.

 

[Yaarel]

I've said and proven its a bad and illogical rule for awhile now and have dismantled all the arguements on favour of the rule, but that does not diswade true believers in PHB +1 sadly.

I didnt come across this. What is the gist of why Core+1 doesnt work?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Mearls and/or Crawford have stated multiple times that Core+1 is their design philosophy for 5E in general, not just as an AL rule. They have said they want people to feel that they do not HAVE to buy more than the PHB to keep up with other players and to have fun They do not want it to be like 3.X or PRPG where it feels like you have to buy 20 different books just to build a character that feels equal to other PCs.

And as for AL play, just to remind those who have forgotten, or never played AL, the Core+1 was for each season of AL play, where you chose an origin for your character. So it was Core+Tyranny of Dragons or Core+Princes of the Apocalypse, etc. I think they changed the +1 equaling an origin to the +1 being for a specific supplement after Volo's was released and they realized origin was now meaningless.

And even when they finally release a book that contains new, full character classes, such as the Mystic and Artificer, I doubt they will change their philosophy. But the AL may have to change their rule again to account for those new classes. And for all we know, any new, full classes may just be declared a part of Core, regardless of which future book they are in.

 

[CapnZapp]

Mearls and/or Crawford have stated multiple times that Core+1 is their design philosophy for 5E in general, not just as an AL rule. They have said they want people to feel that they do not HAVE to buy more than the PHB to keep up with other players and to have fun They do not want it to be like 3.X or PRPG where it feels like you have to buy 20 different books just to build a character that feels equal to other PCs.

I am sorry but this is somewhat of a strawman.

Nobody is questioning WotC's attempts to us never seeing "To use this Halfling Pie-Baker, you need the rules for Trade (Bakery) found in Forty Fantastic Small Races" or similar.

That aspect of PHB+1 is entirely great, and I don't think anyone has argued otherwise.

However, that still does not excuse reprints etc.

And it most definitely does not give WotC the green light to not design and test their stuff all together. The overwhelming majority of gamers use all crunch together, and not balancing subclass A in one supplement with feat B in another is wholly unacceptable.

So while everything you say sounds (and is!) reasonable, it is also not what's controversial with PHB+1.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And it most definitely does not give WotC the green light to not design and test their stuff all together.

To what end? It's been proven countless times that it is impossible to balance an ever-increasing list of options. Attempting such an impossible task would be a poor use of their limited resources.

That's not even going into sheer amount of work it would require. I don't know if you've ever worked in testing, but there's a certain point where it simply becomes infeasible. Given the nature of the material, even asking every designer to be aware of all other content would be daunting.

The overwhelming majority of gamers use all crunch together, and not balancing subclass A in one supplement with feat B in another is wholly unacceptable.

Are you sure of that? I've played in three campaigns, and none of them used any supplements. I feel like you would have been correct if you were talking about 3E or 4E, but I'm really not sure about 5E.

 

[CapnZapp]

To what end? It's been proven countless times that it is impossible to balance an ever-increasing list of options. Attempting such an impossible task would be a poor use of their limited resources.

Just stop it. Your persistent attempts to justify whatever WotC is doing with zero admission they could ever be wrong doesn't do your credibility any favors.

You clearly have never heard of the concept "an ideal".

Just because perfect balance is indeed an impossibility does not mean they shouldn't even try.

You're letting them off the hook doing essential balancing work under the guise of being newbie friendly. Why so gullible?

Why can't you still love 5E while admitting not everything about it is perfect? I know I can.

 

[Yaarel]

Core+1 is such a mix of benefits and difficulties. Whichever policy one prefers, it helps to grant a grain of truth to the opposing view.

For myself, I feel it is reasonable for WotC to request the DM becomes responsible for quality control if combining multiple noncores.

On the other, I still expect WotC to vet a new rulebook with regard to how it is *likely* to combine with rules from other books. Especially if a known problem becomes apparent later, I would like them to give an erratum at some point in the future.

Or at least, WotC can compile a list of known disruptive combos, with popular recommendations for how a DM might houserule to remedy them.

Maybe framing this kind of quality control errata as ‘suggestions for house rules’, makes it more palatable for players who want the official rules to look the same as the ones in the physical books that they paid for?

In that sense, combo errata might resemble the Unearthed Arcana, in the sense of being semi-official?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why can't you still love 5E while admitting not everything about it is perfect? I know I can.

You might be thinking of someone else. I'm the first one to admit that 5E is intrinsically flawed, because they simply didn't care, and the players deserve better from a company that's supposed to be professional.

The difference is that I don't actually like 5E. It is... tolerable. It is worth discussing. Actually fixing it would require extensive house rules, and the one thing I'll say in favor of the designers is that they recognize this.

 

[Blue]

I've said and proven its a bad and illogical rule for awhile now and have dismantled all the arguements on favour of the rule, but that does not diswade true believers in PHB +1 sadly.

I don't remember seeing any "slam dunk" against it. Would you mind reposting?

The primary point I want to see addressed is keeping the barrier to entry for new players into AL as low as possible. Because AL, with the ability to show up and sit down to play is the easiest way for new players to try out the game.

Specifically in the "real world" environment - rules books aren't released for free so requiring a new player to own several to be on an even paying field just to try the game isn't reasonable.

Also that even with a much larger D&D team during 3.x and 4e eras there were still "power combinations" that worked particularly well, so we can't assume that there won't be power creep from allowing full range of products together, which again isn't an even playing field.

I would honestly love to hear a solution that addressed those points as well as PHB+1 - there's so much griping about it that it's hurting the game for veteran players. But not at the expense of increasing the barrier of entry to new players.

 

[delericho]

Since I don't play AL (or tournaments, or similar), PHB+1 doesn't affect me much. I do wish they wouldn't reprint material - given the extremely limited release schedule, I'd rather not see 'wasted' pages. But it's not a big deal.

I don't think I'd ever implement PHB+1 in one of my home games. IMO, 5e just doesn't need it. That may change as more books are published.

However, if I ever run 3e again, I think I probably would implement PHB+1, simply to keep a lid on the options at the table.