Nonlethal Force
First Post
Whisper72 said:
QFT. I personally love the Complete Series and use it liberally - including CD. However, I freely admit that if there is any part of the whole series that is likely to be "off" it is the spell selection. That doesn't mean all the spells are bad or even unbalanced. It does mean that the spells freely are "off" the boundaries established by the PHB. Need I mention the orb series of spells as an example? The orb spells may not be all that unbalanced, but they walk all over the evocation boundaries!
Herremann the Wise said:
Please don't hear what I am about to say as criticism of your decisions ... it is merely a statement of fact we all face.
When we do things for players (such as allowing access to other sources for spells) we must understand that at a fundamental level we violate the very principal of have a static set of rules. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is true.
Also - some groups are boundary testers, meaning that the DM has to be vigilant about keeping the boundaries of the static rules active. Other groups are the opposite. They are content with the same-old static game and the DM then has to search for ways to get them to think outside the box. In your case, the trick is knowing how to be the foil of the player who is testing the boundaries while not shutting down his enthusiasm for testing the boundaries. Try to be fair ... but at the same time understand that each time you "use another source as a reward" you are causing that static set of rules to develop a hole - a hole that someone will use in their favor one way or another. Again, in some cases that hole may lead to a good thing. In other cases it may be bad.
Good luck!
