Options, not Restrictions? Is that supposed to be a good thing?

[MeepoTheMighty]

I'm not affraid of powergamers/munchkins/whatever.

and so on...

I don't really have anything to add to the conversation, but you instantly gain about a million credibility points just for the dancing banana.

It's peanut butter jelly time!!!!

 

[Harlock]

I have never fully understood the point about something being to powerful. If it is, don't allow it. Or my favorite option is to allow it, but then do it right back to the player. If you want to allow Half Ogres as CR2 for example, then slap a meanly-templated, decked-out Half ogre into your game as a villain. It's all in my sig - In an arms race, the DM always wins. I do tend to agree that there may be some sort of arms race between publishers but honestly, the majority of RPG books are bought not by players but by DMs. The chances of any of my players buying Savage Species right now is slim to none. One possibly might, but I kind of doubt it. Of course, that player happens to DM as well, but my players that do not DM won't even bother. If they want to read it they *might* borrow mine. They are more interested in just playing our game on Saturday afternoon and only buy a new book if it is pertinent to the current campaign(s). So, what am I saying? It all relies on DM fiat? Pretty much, some story for D&D since day one.

 

[jgbrowning]

power creep

I'll have to wait til 3.5 to see if this happens. I have the feeling that the general power level will be upped a little bit vrs standard 3.0. They'll at least be some higher level feats that will up the power level for fighters i imagine (ie. +12 BAB feat stuff).

What this means to me is that it will progressively (im talking years perhaps even a decade) become harder and harder to scale down the power. Since the game is admirably balanced this means that it will require more tinkering to lower the power level as it creeps upward.

I've never, ever in my life had any difficulty increasing power level... This, of course, is just my experience. I'll have to wait and see. I wonder how 3.0 characters (core books only) will fair against the 3.5 monsters?

joe b.

 

[Sholari]

Hardhead, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

[Spatula]

I noticed that they've adopted "options, not restrictions" as the sort of motto of 3.5e.

Actually, that was one of the mottos of 3E's design. I guess it's just getting trotted out again for the revision.

Is it just me, or is that possibly bad?

You're taking it out of context. The "restrictions" being talked about are the 2E and 1E style restrictions that say, "you can't do that." 3E says, "maybe you can do it, and here's how." FireLance illustrates the point perfectly (and I mean perfectly) in his post.

Balance restrictions (you can't have this feat before this level, or whatever) are very much a part of 3E. And that seems to be what you're talking about. (and yeah the half-ogre should be a +2 race)

I mean, just look at the editing of the recent WotC products.

Recent??? Heck, let's look at some older ones like Sword and Fist, which was extensively errated, or Defenders of the Faith, which has all kinds of crazy editing errors in it. But editing has nothing to do with options or restrictions.

 

[Eridanis]

FireLance: Great post. I think I'll copy-n-paste that one for later use.

And, like Rachel said, the DM should only allow what s/he wants in the game. There are many, many d20 products out there, but only use the ones that fit the concept of the campaign. Don't be afraid to say "no." (A lesson I learned about three girlfriends too late, but it was a lesson worth learning.)

 

[Petrosian]

Ita a slogan and has as much weight and importance as any catch-phrase, buzz word or mission statement.

At work, we now "deploy" our software instead of "installing " it because at the last MS training they used that. You don't use our software you consume it.

options, not restrictions??? Like say the OPTION of having haste provide an MEA instead of an attack action or even keep its old Partial action?

options not restrictions like whether a +1 sword will be able to bypass a werewolf silver/dr or not?

After all the catch phrases are done and after "making dnd play the way YOU PLAY not the way WE WANT YOU TO PLAY" is done, after the "options not restrictions" and after they have synergized their core comptencies to leverage their intellectual assets in the most harmonious methods... then we will come down to one simple reality...

The pit fiend is in the specifics...

the precise details and specific changes will determine the good and bad elements of the new version. Not the buzz word or catch phrase used to stoke interest.

Neither designer-DR nor the haste-attack action seem to me to be blazing examples of "make it play the way you want to play" or "options not restrictions" to me.

Do they to you?

 

[Psion]

Saying "Options, not restrictions" does not dismiss balance. Sure, I could play a character with 1 level in each of 5 classes, but the 20% rule forces my hand into selecting the low level powers of each class first, so I can only play a tepid representative of each class.

When they say not restrictions, they are typically speaking of the kind of thing that folks on some more pro-1e forums*cry crocodile tears over -- like "how can you play a dwarf wizard?" If dwarves in your game are not wizards, let the DM make that call. But I rather prefer that the game doesn't tell me what classes various races can or cannot be.


* - Do I have to name it?

 

[JohnClark]

As sort of an aside, I think alot of people are wrong on the ECL of the half-ogre. I think ECL one is appropriate, considering that yes you do more damage on average than a human of one higher level, but you also sacrifice one hit die and you're a half-ogre! If you dont choose a combat focused class you're going to be pretty well below average, and even if you do you'll be a total social outcast. I think at an ECL 1 half-ogres are defenitely balanced, and I think as has been said before, it's really up to the DM to decide what he thinks is appropriate for his game. Some DM's may want to allow everything in, and just adjust encounters to factor in PC's increased power, others may want very low-power games with no PrC's and such, but since the options are out there it's all up to you. There's no reason to build in artificial restrictions, those sorts of things are up to the individual group.

 

[Hardhead]

As sort of an aside, I think alot of people are wrong on the ECL of the half-ogre. I think ECL one is appropriate, considering that yes you do more damage on average than a human of one higher level, but you also sacrifice one hit die and you're a half-ogre! If you dont choose a combat focused class you're going to be pretty well below average, and even if you do you'll be a total social outcast. I think at an ECL 1 half-ogres are defenitely balanced, and I think as has been said before, it's really up to the DM to decide what he thinks is appropriate for his game. Some DM's may want to allow everything in, and just adjust encounters to factor in PC's increased power, others may want very low-power games with no PrC's and such, but since the options are out there it's all up to you. There's no reason to build in artificial restrictions, those sorts of things are up to the individual group.

Savage Species specifically says that a creature should be balanced by what it's *best* at. So, if being a fighter is the best thing a Half-Ogre is good at, then it should be balanced assuming the player takes levels in fighter. It even says that if they *do* take levels in some other class they're suboptimal for, then yo may want to consider lowering the ECL for that player.

So I don't think that argument holds weight at all, if you beleive Savage Species' way of rating what an ECL/LA should be. In fact, if you follow the instruction in SS for assigning LAs, H/Ogres should be LA +2!