New "Dead Levels"

[Set]

Finally, as a side note, if these special abilities are designed to have "an imperceptible impact on game balance while remaining thematically consistent to the flavor of each character class," then why bother to bring them up?

Lots of stuff has no impact on game balance, but adds flavor. Your character's hair color, height, gender, regional background, family ties, raging dislike of goblinoids who burned down his whole village, etc, etc. Sure, you could name all of your characters 'Bob the Fighter' or 'Bob the Wizard' and not bother with all that silly non-combat stuff like characterization or role-playing, but I think you'd be remiss to forbid the rest of us the chance to play our little games the way we like to, with characters that have names and families and appearances, sometimes even lovingly drawn pictures from those with artistic talent. Sure, there's no mechanical benefit to having a picture of your character, or knowing that he has an antagonistic relationship with his step-father, but some of us enjoy creating stuff, and just because *you* don't care for creative little details that don't add to your kill rate, doesn't mean that the rest of us can't enjoy more of the game than how fast the character can burn down every Orc in the room.

A Duskblade learning his trade from the elves, and picking up tips of elven etiquette during these interactions with his ageless mentor is flavorful, and not terribly important to the game. But it's *flavorful.*

If you don't want anything in the game that doesn't have a noticeable mechanical benefit, role-playing games might not be your ideal hobby. You've made it clear that you don't see any reason to introduce anything to the game that doesn't directly benefit your character and make him noticibly mechanically better in a fight. That's cool. Sometimes I like power-gaming too, and I've played with plenty of people who'se idea of 'role-playing' is to whip up a Spiked-Chain-wielding Goliath named 'Bob' and go to town. It's a big hobby, there's room for that, but I don't think that's *all* that D&D is allowed to be.

I think that there is *also* room for stuff that isn't mechanically crunchy and geared around letting your Bard kill Orcs faster than ever before, but in fact simply makes him a little bit better at being a Bard.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Lots of stuff has no impact on game balance, but adds flavor. Your character's hair color, height, gender, regional background, family ties, raging dislike of goblinoids who burned down his whole village, etc, etc. Sure, you could name all of your characters 'Bob the Fighter' or 'Bob the Wizard' and not bother with all that silly non-combat stuff like characterization or role-playing, but I think you'd be remiss to forbid the rest of us the chance to play our little games the way we like to, with characters that have names and families and appearances, sometimes even lovingly drawn pictures from those with artistic talent. Sure, there's no mechanical benefit to having a picture of your character, or knowing that he has an antagonistic relationship with his step-father, but some of us enjoy creating stuff, and just because *you* don't care for creative little details that don't add to your kill rate, doesn't mean that the rest of us can't enjoy more of the game than how fast the character can burn down every Orc in the room.

A Duskblade learning his trade from the elves, and picking up tips of elven etiquette during these interactions with his ageless mentor is flavorful, and not terribly important to the game. But it's *flavorful.*

If you don't want anything in the game that doesn't have a noticeable mechanical benefit, role-playing games might not be your ideal hobby. You've made it clear that you don't see any reason to introduce anything to the game that doesn't directly benefit your character and make him noticibly mechanically better in a fight. That's cool. Sometimes I like power-gaming too, and I've played with plenty of people who'se idea of 'role-playing' is to whip up a Spiked-Chain-wielding Goliath named 'Bob' and go to town. It's a big hobby, there's room for that, but I don't think that's *all* that D&D is allowed to be.

I think that there is *also* room for stuff that isn't mechanically crunchy and geared around letting your Bard kill Orcs faster than ever before, but in fact simply makes him a little bit better at being a Bard.

Set, I think you may have hit upon why the 'old folks' don't like it and the 'new folks' might. -
*WARNING THE GENERALIZATIONS THAT FOLLOW ARE JUST THAT, THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO BE A PERSONAL ATTACK ON ANYONE!!!*
Back in the day it was 'assumed' that DMs and player's would work on that 'flavor' to round a character on their own and frankly, we did. It was the job of the DM to give the players small non-adventure hooks to help them flesh out their characters and when a player bit on one the DM would puch it to help them make that character become a little more 'real'.

The 'Dead Level" stuff is basically the same thing, but, unfortunately, gives everyone the SAME backstory. /Again a generealization, but hopefully, you can see where I'm going with this./ Having played with a group of 'old schoolers' my entire life this next statement is more of a question, but is this still happening?. When I was younger and more immature, I cared only for 'kill, take stuff' and started getting into the role playing aspect of RPGs about my sophmore year in HS. As the years have passed I came to that 'balance' thing the original designers ntended - kill things, take stuff, interact with others, emote about it.

Is there a lack of this goiong on in the current 'gamersphere'? Have people lost some of the basic arts of RPing that they now have to be dictated to be 'associate rules' then I am FOR "dead Level" bonuses just in order for people to 'grow' (for lack of a better term) in figuring this stuff out on their own. Reading over many of the "skills" granted by the "Dead Levels" article, I must admit that these are things as a DM that I have "rule 0'd" over the years, because they don't really affect game play much.

I personally and the group I play with, doesn't need this, we have for many years, done it 'the old fashioned way'. If a younger, less expierenced or whatever lable group needs this to interject a little 'fluff' into the campaign, then absolutely do it. Until Set made the comment about crunch versus fluff, I strictly looked at this as a 'level-up - cookies" issue and frankly thought it was a little inane and stupid, but seeing that last post I realized that there are things I assumed all role-players did (because it was always done that way before), that I am unsure now are being put into practice at every table. Hopefully this post made sense to everyone, If not, I'll be doning my flame-retardant suit now.

 

[Set]

The 'Dead Level" stuff is basically the same thing, but, unfortunately, gives everyone the SAME backstory.

I see your point, and especially appreciate the care taken to phrase said point in such a way as to not insult the holy living crap out of anybody who thinks differently!

Along those lines (and agreeing with your basic premise that the more you define a class, the more you limit it's potential), one thing I didn't like at the beginning of 3.0 was the Sorcerer = Dragon-blooded assumption that began creeping in. By making the subtext text, with classes like the Dragon Disciple, the *options* of having Fey-touched or Fiend-touched or Angel-blooded or Far Realms-tainted Sorcerers was all-but abandoned, save for some 3rd party publishers and a lonely Dragon magazine article.

I've always preferred the notion of options, and you're right, these Dead Level abilities *are* potential pigeon-holers.

If *my* Bard isn't an entertainer or a musician, but a travelling scribe and scholar of the arcane and esoteric, then the Dead Level ability presented is gonna look pretty pointless to me. [Sure, I could wank that he does some calligraphy / document illumination / storytelling / geneological research for money, but it doesn't fit the theme as well and I'd be rationalizing it.] However, I see the Dead Levels as *options,* and it's quite possible that my DM and I might come up with a different, and equally non-game-wrecking Dead Level feature.

My point here is that the idea itself is interesting and flavorful, even if the *specific examples* might not suit every single character.

If my Wizard uses something other than a traditional spellbook (say he's from Nyambe and uses a Mjuju bag or something), then the animated spell-book text is particularly useless, but giving him the ability to cast Prestidigitation *only on his Mjuju bag,* allowing him to float it around or make it jingle like a heavy coin pouch or teleport from one hand to the other or something, would be a suitable variation.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I see your point, and especially appreciate the care taken to phrase said point in such a way as to not insult the holy living crap out of anybody who thinks differently!

Along those lines (and agreeing with your basic premise that the more you define a class, the more you limit it's potential), one thing I didn't like at the beginning of 3.0 was the Sorcerer = Dragon-blooded assumption that began creeping in. By making the subtext text, with classes like the Dragon Disciple, the *options* of having Fey-touched or Fiend-touched or Angel-blooded or Far Realms-tainted Sorcerers was all-but abandoned, save for some 3rd party publishers and a lonely Dragon magazine article.

I've always preferred the notion of options, and you're right, these Dead Level abilities *are* potential pigeon-holers.

If *my* Bard isn't an entertainer or a musician, but a travelling scribe and scholar of the arcane and esoteric, then the Dead Level ability presented is gonna look pretty pointless to me. [Sure, I could wank that he does some calligraphy / document illumination / storytelling / geneological research for money, but it doesn't fit the theme as well and I'd be rationalizing it.] However, I see the Dead Levels as *options,* and it's quite possible that my DM and I might come up with a different, and equally non-game-wrecking Dead Level feature.

My point here is that the idea itself is interesting and flavorful, even if the *specific examples* might not suit every single character.

If my Wizard uses something other than a traditional spellbook (say he's from Nyambe and uses a Mjuju bag or something), then the animated spell-book text is particularly useless, but giving him the ability to cast Prestidigitation *only on his Mjuju bag,* allowing him to float it around or make it jingle like a heavy coin pouch or teleport from one hand to the other or something, would be a suitable variation.

Yep, I think you've finally illuminated this thing. Good Job!