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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6883239" data-attributes="member: 6775031">The important thing is that the in-game explanation comes first, and then the rules follow directly from that. If this creature has a few extra HD and a bonus feat, then it's because is has been blessed as the chosen champion of Handwavia. If it has a few more racial Hit Dice, with all of the bells and whistles that go along with it, then it's because it's a bigger and tougher thing through the natural methods in which the creature grows.I agree with you, in spirit, and it is how things work in practice, in either 3E or 5E. An orc god should grant different blessings than an elf god, but the mechanic for representing that is just in the domain selection.In 2E, they could get away with some unique abilities for evil humanoids, because they were making the assumption that those evil humanoids would never be playable. So some of them could have cool tricks that were balanced as monster abilities, and that's just the way the world worked - this evil race was special, and they had a powerful ability, and they would still have that powerful ability if they were PCs (but we're going to assume that they'll never be played as PCs, for whatever reason).Of course, they changed their mind on that in time to churn out The Complete Book of Humanoids, and by the time 3E came around it was probably assumed that most evil humanoids would eventually need to be playable as PCs, so they just avoided handing out abilities that would be broken for the PCs to have. (And when that was insufficient, they had the whole Level Adjustment mechanic to keep things in line, which didn't work out so well due to various reasons that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand.)They never entertained the idea that it would be okay for an NPC to have a spell or ability, but that the same individual would lack that ability merely by virtue of becoming a PC. That would be ridiculous.Yeah, they did reverse course pretty quickly on their idea that prestige classes were supposed to be an entirely optional way for a DM to customize their setting by adding unique organizations and here are some examples. I think what happened was that they realized that feats and prestige classes were the easiest content to create, so they pursued the line of greatest profitability. Of note, though, that was one of the first supplements for 3.5 - by that point, their course had been pretty well-set from 3.0, so they knew where they were headed long before Complete Warrior came out.And it still wasn't a core product. You could play the game just fine with the three books, and only add supplements if you really wanted them. The Eye of Gruumsh isn't there unless you really want to add it.It's also directly responsible for the rise of players who are only focused on gaining a new ability at the next level, or a few levels down the line, instead of focusing on the game-at-hand which is what their character is going to do now. People say they want this, but they don't understand the cost associated with it. And so you end up with shiny abilities at each level, and at-will magic, and fast-healing; heedless of the costs associated with these, in making NPCs too complicated to play, and making magic less effective over all, and requiring six-to-eight combats each day in order to provide a challenge.</blockquote>

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