Mixing core-only and splatbooks-allowed

[delericho]

Our group (even before he joined) are pretty powergamy and we tend to allow just about anything.

But I'll likely be starting a new game in a few months and expect to have a number of newbies and some of the same folks. I'd hate to run core-only as the powergamers will perhaps feel things are a bit too vanilla. But I want people to be able to design their own characters and not be too hosed.

Ah, in that case, I suspect that your problem is not Core vs non-Core, but rather power-gamed vs non-power-gamed. Switching to Core Rules Only wouldn't actually help anyway, since you'd just get a bunch of Dwarves and Druids from your power-gamers, and they'd still be considerably more powerful than the non-power-gamed characters.

And, I don't think giving an extra feat, or even level, to the Core-only people will really help... a well-optimised character is likely to wipe the floor with a non-optimised character even of a level or two higher, whether the characters are built with Core-only or not.

What I suggest is one of two things:

1) Speak to the optimisers, and ask them to tone it down for this campaign, for the good of everyone else.

Or

2) Speak to the non-optimisers, and offer to give them some pointers to keep their characters competitive.

A combination of the two is probably the best solution, although #2 is likely to be more readily accepted that #1.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

And brehobit's solution seems to me to suffer from much larger problems.

1) More options doesn't translate into more power, only effective use of those options does.
2) Being restricted to choices you wanted to make anyway is no disadvantage.
3) It's still not fair to the people without the supplements.

Couldn't have said it better, which is exactly why I didn't say anything! But since bre has chimed in on the situation...

I've currently got a group where one player doesn't have the time or desire to do anything outside of core. Our group (even before he joined) are pretty powergamy and we tend to allow just about anything. So I've got a warlock with the fey feats from PHBII (very very powerful. DR 5 is huge at level 6), a cleric with divine metamagic and a well-optimized barbarian/swordsage. His ranger is pretty weak. I've compensated by handing out a powerful weapon (+1 holy long sword) that really bumps his damage (almost everything is evil in RHoD). But I'll likely be starting a new game in a few months and expect to have a number of newbies and some of the same folks. I'd hate to run core-only as the powergamers will perhaps feel things are a bit too vanilla. But I want people to be able to design their own characters and not be too hosed. So I thought I'd give a core-only option (less for the new players to learn) and a non-core option that are fairly balanced.

Then my question is this: if you have three players who are willing to put a fair amount of effort into their characters, how far out of your way are you willing to go to compensate the fourth player who is not willing to put effort into his character?

It's one thing if he doesn't have access to the sources; it's another if he doesn't care. I can tell you with a lot of certainty that unless you continue to hand out major boons to this player, he's not going to be equal to the others using splat books.

When comaring a small group of books with limited options vs. a larger group with many more options, the latter will always be better.

I completely agree with the sentiments about power creep. But you can't balance core vs. non-core. As I said in the other thread, as soon as you start adding a bunch of options to Core, it's not Core anymore. It's house-ruled or homebrewed or whatever you call it.

I'm of the opinion that, no matter how great the DM, the game can't be great without the players' efforts either. I think this applies to character creation too. I'm happy to offer suggestions and provide sources for my players and their PCs. But I need them to put the actual effort in; I just don't have the time to browse all my books for each player.

Hope I'm not sounding too harsh. believe me, it isn't meant to. I just think you shouldn't bend over backwards for someone who doesn't have the inclination anyway. If he's happy with core, then let him stick with it. if he's suddenly displeased by his character's performance because he's seen how core-only matches with a wider variety, tell him the options are available to him, but he's got to put the effort in as well.

 

[rowport]

Meh. This is all correct of course, but being all tolerant and saying "whatever works for you" doesn't make for a very interesting exchange of ideas.

I do not have more to add on this discussion, but thought it was worth pulling this out... take one laugh point, Jasin!