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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 7967546" data-attributes="member: 6750908">I love Player's Option. A lot has already been said about how potentially unbalanced it is in the unsupervised hands of players-- looking at you, Specialty Priests-- but less has been said about the virtually unlimited potential these books offer the Dungeon Master for tailoring their game and their world. For instance, I've made repeated reference to my ongoing project to redesign nonhuman PCs from the ground up in AD&D, starting by changing the assumptions that nonhuman PCs use the same classes as human PCs and that every nonhuman race should have access to Fighter, Cleric or Druid, and Thief by default... with access to any Mage class and other Warrior/Rogue subclasses being rare.So, instead:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">PHB Classes are Human classes. Humans may multiclass in almost any two-class combination that isn't prohibited by the classes themselves.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elves are always multiclass Warrior/Mage or Warrior/Priest. They have a "champion type" warrior and a "guerrilla type" warrior; a "light elf" and a "dark elf" mage; and an "eladrin", "wood elf", and "dark elf" priest.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dwarf Fighters, Clerics, and Thieves are all tougher than their PHB counterparts, with more HD, more weapons and armor, and so forth. Battlerager is a separate class from Fighter, Dwarves can be Paladins, Dwarves can multiclass Fighter/Cleric and Fighter/Thief. Practically no changes here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gnomes are always spellcasters, always have access to Illusion and Mentalism (as Priests) and Animal and Plant (as Mages), may multiclass as Mage/Priest, Mage/Thief, or Priest/Thief.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Halflings are a mess. Let's not talk about Halflings today.</li> </ul>But you can also wring a whole lot of definition out of simply replacing the Mage and Priest classes:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In Rokugan, all Mages and Priests are replaced by what is essentially four different Shugenja classes. Each element gets a list of Spheres, each class gets all of them minus the ones for their prohibited element, each class gets the Mage school for their favored element. This can also reflect Athasian Clerics, or Dragon Shamans.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In a more traditional D&D setting, using a limited number of religions allows you to design a Specialty Priest for each and every one of them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic doesn't have to be divided between Arcane and Divine. Maybe all spellcasting traditions are built as Custom Specialty Priests, differentiated by their different spell lists and different casting methods from Chapter 6 of Spells & Magic. I'll admit, I never did a lot with this because these rules weren't obviously not player-facing and my friends at the time barely played spellcasters at all.</li> </ul>Remember, as the Dungeon Master in this scenario, you're not limited to strict accounting of CP or which abilities come from which class.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The book recommends allowing players to add abilities to an unmodified class for a 30% XP penalty plus 1% per point of extra abilities. You can use this as a guideline, but also remember that you're in control of whether or not your classes have certain prerequisites or whether or not they can synergize with other abilities. Also remember that the classes are only loosely balanced in the first place, so this is a loose guideline.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Thieves and Bards aren't allowed to take Combat Bonus or Increased HD abilities like Mages and Priests because they use the Thief XP table.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the Monk AC Bonus costs 15 of a Priest's 120 Character Points, it is entirely reasonable that it can cost 10 of a Fighter's 15 or a Thief's 80, replacing the ability to have a -2 AC bonus for 10 points.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Likewise, Priestly Wizard costs 15 of a Mage's 40 CP, more than a third, to allow the Mage to learn spells from a single Sphere the way the Mage learns spells from his normal Schools. Wizardly Priest costs 25 of a Priest's 120 CP, less than a quarter, to allow the Priest to prepare any and every spell from a much larger and more varied Mage School. Unless you're changing how these rules work, be generous with the former and stingy with the latter.</li> </ul>I didn't mention racial customization because I hate subraces. I think most of them are a waste of space and they lead to incoherent worldbuilding. All too frequently, especially in 3e and 5e, their primary purpose seems to be making sure there's an Elf perfect for every class... hey, wait, that's not a bad idea...</blockquote>

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