Core is what is present at the game table

[mkill]

This post is an attempt to focus on the important things. I know there is a new edition on the horizon, and similar to shows like American idol, many classes are in the race but they will be voted off the island until only a small number will be left to appear in the PHB. And no matter what the selection is, there will be a big fuss by fans of class X and race Y that didn't make it in, and complaints by haters of class Y because it was included.

Then splatbooks and magazine articles will cover all the archetypes until the process is repeated for 6th edition. In the end, the difference is whether a certain archetype is abailable from the start or whether you'll have to wait for a year or two.

The interesting effect is that at the early stage of an edition, you'll see a group with an elven wizard, a dwarven fighter, a human cleric, and a halfling rogue, and towards the end, a party with a genasi artificer, a warforged swordsage (or swordmage), a goblin assassin and a githyanki psion.

So is it important whether something is "core" or not? As DM, I only ever have to worry about 5 races and 5 classes (if I have 5 players), because that's what is at my table. If my player wants a githyanki PC, then githyanki are core for that campaign. It's really kind of simple.

 

[Stormonu]

There's only so much space in the books, so the discussion of "core" is relevant. The designers have to find out what the most wanted, used material is and ensure that stuff makes it into the first round of books, because everything else will be 6 months to a year or more before it sees the light of day.

D&D has 30 years of various races, classes, magic items, spells and whatnot to cram into 400 pages or less (per book, if we're lucky). It's going to be brutal, but it has to be done.

 

[foolish_mortals]

I hope they can do it in 100 pages. Barbarians of Lemuria is an attractive game for its brevity not because it has 400 pages of mind numbing madness in it.

Core is the minimal amount of material you need to run a game. That might mean 1 class and 1 race and 1 monster. goodness...

foolish_mortals

 

[Li Shenron]

So is it important whether something is "core" or not? As DM, I only ever have to worry about 5 races and 5 classes (if I have 5 players), because that's what is at my table. If my player wants a githyanki PC, then githyanki are core for that campaign. It's really kind of simple.

Core is what everybody plays (more or less) when they play D&D of a certain edition. To me it is very important.

I have my own troubles when creating a setting for my adventures if the players want to play something unusual that I cannot fit with ease with the rest. I have my own issues with Monks, Psions, Warforged, Draconians... these characters IMHO give immediately a distinctive mark or flavor to the setting that I cannot simply drop into the game without having to think on how they fit with the world around. I understand that for many DMs this is a non-issue, they are happy to drag-and-drop a warforged psion or half-dragon monk into their game, but I just can't. Thus, I really appreciate not to have those in the core PHB.

Not even the Monk, despite the fact that I love oriental adventures, but I just hate to mix east and west, or at least I hate to mix only one eastern character with 10 western characters... if I want a mix, I want a balanced mix.

 

[Gundark]

I suspect the character builder may have some influence as they track that data. If they see lots of warforged being made as characters, then Warforged has a better chance of becoming core.

 

[foolish_mortals]

it's already been decided what classes and races will be in the game. They gave us the Dragonforged in the 4th edition. Next will be the two headed halflings. Please someone give some positive news.

foolish_underwear

 

[delericho]

Core matters, because it is what is available at the outset. If your favourite class is, say, the Runepriest, you're going to be out of luck for a good long time until WotC deign to re-implement your favourite for the new edition (if they ever do).

Core also matters, because that's the stuff that will inevitably get the most support. This is simple numbers. Pretty much everyone will get the Core, so the market for splatbooks for the classes in the core is large. A significant number (but also a significantly smaller number) may buy PHB2, and only that subset might be interested in splatbooks for classes presented in that book.

So, if the Ranger is in the Core Rulebook, there's a very good chance that there will be a "Ranger Splatbook" of some form. If the Ranger is instead relegated to the PHB2, the chances of a "Ranger Splatbook" are much lower. (And it's not just splatbooks, of course. For every DDI article a specific non-core class gets, expect to see at least 4 for an equivalent core class.)

The moral of this story is: don't like Runepriests.

The real moral of this story is that when WotC get around to presenting non-core materials, they should try, as far as possible, to do so in a one-and-done manner, because they probably won't be back. At it's most basic, this means that when presenting a core class in the Core Rulebook, they can present it with a fairly limited set of options; when presenting a non-core class in the PHB2, they should present it with many more options, because there's unlikely to ever be a major expansion from there.