Material allowed ingame by a DM

[cross ofth carpenter]

I thought this thread topic was of useful and interesting material to digest so I bumped it.

 

[Greenfield]

Well, we get to see this in action again.

One of our newer players is out for an extended period. Work conflict, I believe. Se we have another new player coming for a visit this weekend.

I told him: 32 point buy, 15th level, D&D 3.5 not Pathfinder.

Allowable sources are: PHB (I and II), DMG (I & II), MM (I, II, and III), the Completes, and the three environment books (Frostburn, Stormwrack and Sandstorm.)

Limited material from MIC, Spell Compendium and Savage Species might be accepted, on a case by case basis.

I'll let you know what he brings.

 

[Greenfield]

There may be hope.

The player wanted to run either a Badger-Monk or a Turtle-Monk from Races of the Wild, but at least he asked.

He should have his character for the next game, and we'll see what it looks like.

 

[Grogg of the North]

There may be hope.

The player wanted to run either a Badger-Monk or a Turtle-Monk from Races of the Wild, but at least he asked.

He should have his character for the next game, and we'll see what it looks like.

Like an anthropomorphic turtle that happened to be a monk? Something like this:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/TMNT-112199617

Cause that would be awesome!

Or is a turtle monk some weird ACF and thus ruins my dream of an all turtle party.

 

[Greenfield]

Yeah, he wants to name him Leonardo. (i.e. Turtle as race from Races of the Wild, and Monk as class.)

There might be campaigns that are campy enough for something like that to work. Ours really isn't one of them.

He likes the Badger idea because it comes with Rage as a racial ability. Never mind that Rage is the essence of Chaos, and a Mon has to be Lawful. His story on it is that the character studied to try and control the rage, hence the class choice. What I see is someone who wants to play a Barbarian Monk, a combination that the authors specifically ruled out.

Since both of these depend on a book that is not one of our approved sources, I'll vote against either one. Mine is one vote among many, so I may not prevail, but if we end up with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle running around our classic Greek/Roman campaign I think I will be physically ill.

 

[Oryan77]

He likes the Badger idea because it comes with Rage as a racial ability.

Let me guess, this characters name will be either Logan, or just flat out Wolverine?

It's so refreshing to know that I'm not the only DM that gets a headache during character creation. By the sounds of it, the things I've had to deal with pale in comparison to a lot of you guys.

 

[Grogg of the North]

After being asked to run builds straight off character optimization boards and handbooks, I think I'd rather have to deal with Leonardo the Turtle Monk.

Though really, he should be forced to take levels in Ninja. It's in the name of the series.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

and enforce age penalties for "teenage"

 

[Greenfield]

As promised, an update on the new player.

In his defense, he did get advice from our "problem child". That said...

His race is Anthropomorphic Leopard/Jaguar from Savage Species (Not on the approved list).
He took the "Quick" trait from Unearthed Arcana (Not on the approved list.)
He included a magical tattoo from a Faerun book (Mentioned in passing in Complete Arcane.) We'd actually have no problem with this, in that they act like potions, but he thought it was permanent and always active. In his case, it gave a Haste effect.
Gear from Magic Item Compendium (Not on the approved list, though some items have been allowed).

Oh, he'd bought a Ring of Three Wishes, without letting any of the DMs know. It's from an allowed source book, I'll give him that, but good form says you always let the DM know when you're bringing Wish effects into a game.

We met today and went over his character. I cast a very gentle Dispel BS on it. He ended up chucking Hero Forge in the tashcan (though I think that was more the frustrations of that spreadsheet under OS 8), and plans to try again.

 

[Impeesa]

Personally, I like working with absolutely everything, as a player and a DM. I see the breadth of material available for 3.5 as its main selling point. I like dipping to make mechanically interesting characters, I can still wrap a coherent concept around it without being constrained by a single class. Does this make for dangerous waters when optimization is involved? Sort of. I think there's a good distinction to be made between "potent" and "gamebreaking." Character optimization is about system mastery, so a good optimizer is aiming towards "potent" at whatever it is that character does, using all sorts of interesting tools, working within the constraints of campaign setting and style. If they chose, they should also be capable of reaching "gamebreaking" pretty much no matter what sources are used. The only way to fully prevent that proactively is with exhaustive point by point ban lists, but some things may be broken in one context but totally fine and cool in another. Being familiar with character optimization is a good way to recognize what category material falls into, but I think the bottom line is that 3.5 runs mainly on a gentleman's agreement no matter what you do. So I guess what I'm saying is, embrace the whole game, show your players a little trust and guidance, and try to play with people who won't abuse that trust.





For con games, limit everyone to Experts and CW Samurai.