races of destiny --has D&D 3.5 jumped the shark?

[mearls]

The problem is, flavor is much more subjective than rules balance (which is hardly an objective science in itself). What looks strange, funny, out-of-place or ridiculous to one person may be the height of coolness to another.

Exactly. There's no one right answer about what's good or bad when it comes to story material. As a designer, you just have to hope that at the end of the day a majority of people think whatever you created fits into the game.

The beholder is a good example. I used to think that hook horrors were lame, but I really like how the D&D mini for them came out. Now, they see use in my game. Same with manticores - I thought the 1e version looked a little lame, but I like the feral, monstrous ones in 3e. I'm sure there are people who disagree.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Many years ago, the first time I read about a spherical monster with a huge central eye and ten smaller eyes on eyestalks, I thought it was a ridiculous creature, and proceeded to make many jokes about beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

Exactly. Everytime I see criticism that some new race/item/monster for D&D looks stupid, it always makes me wonder why so many of the "classic" monsters like beholders, rust monsters, or owlbears are accepted with nary a batted eyelash.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

On the other hand, as a consumer you have to ask, "Why should I pay money for something that I have to change for it to work in my campaign? If the designer is so much smarter than me that he gets paid to write this stuff, he should at least do it right."

I can understand why people think this way, but I can't understand how that attitude survives contact with the real world.

I doubt that there is any single person in the world who receives every word and concept coming out of Renton with ecstatic glee - any creative endeavour for profit is a balance between appealing to the consumer base and exercising one's own imaginative powers.

Perhaps illumians, or the green star adept prestige class, or Eberron's lightning rail are indeed a significant and even shocking departure from the kind of fantasy that defines "traditional" D&D. On the other hand, there are also a not-insignificant number of people for whom the tropes and ideas of "traditional" D&D fantasy are stale, or even simply not what they're interested in right now.

I recall Rich Baker attributing the green star adept, for example, to the influence of the kind of strange sorcery you encounter in Robert E. Howard's stories - representative of a subgenre of fantasy no less interesting or vital to its own group of fans as Tolkienesque epics are to theirs. Given that D&D does a poor (at best) job of mimicking the Tolkienesque genre, and was in its early days influenced easily as much by Howard and Moorcock as Tolkien at any rate, I can see no reason for the designers of D&D to try a broadening of the definitions of what D&D is like, since "traditional" D&D fantasy is only part of what D&D has historically been anyway!

Anyone expecting everything Wizards of the Coast publishes to match what they want from a game of D&D is a fool, near as I can tell. Pick and choose, people! I like a great deal of what Wizards has published for Third Edition since the revision - crazy races and classes and monsters - but even I wouldn't expect that one campaign could reasonably contain it all. DMs have historically been great adaptors - if you can take an idea from your favourite fantasy decalogy and make it fit into your D&D game, why not bend your imagination towards adapting the bits of official D&D books that you only kind of like and making them fit better with your game?

As I say often, I'm glad to see Wizards publishing things I don't care for in their books - because it means that someone else whose game is nothing like mine is picking it up and enjoying the game in a completely different way from myself, and that diversity is great for the hobby - and good for the company, when it means that both of us are buying the same book.

Reasonable diversity is an unambiguously good thing - and illumians and their ilk don't even come close to exceeding the bounds of what's reasonable.

 

[shilsen]

Exactly. Everytime I see criticism that some new race/item/monster for D&D looks stupid, it always makes me wonder why so many of the "classic" monsters like beholders, rust monsters, or owlbears are accepted with nary a batted eyelash.

Because people tend to define "normal" and "acceptable" on the basis of what they've always been used to, and something which looks weird today starts looking fine (to the majority of people) once it hangs around for a bit. Habit is a scarily powerful influence on the supposedly rational perceptions of the human species.

 

[Gez]

WotC jumped the shark with the warlock.

I have no need for illumians, and when I read the WotC sales pitch for them...

1. Illumians: The new race introduced in Races of Destiny is a DM's best friend. With their penchant for secrets, their love of magic, and their easy integration into existing cultures, illumians enhance a campaign with their presence.

... I can't help but think "hey, it reminds me, I already have a race with a love of magic and a penchant for secrets who is already integrated in existinc cultures, they are known as gnomes; and I have also the various sphinxes who play an important role IMC, to say nothing of the dragons."

Then I remember about the kobolds, the medusas, the abastele (if you have MCAU, picture a sort of cross between alabast and verrik, with magic rather than psionics), the gith races, and others, more anecdotical.

So, they're heavily redundant. Does that mean they're useless? Not really. They could find an use IMC. But... It will depends on other factors than their "penchant for secrets", their "love of magic" or even their "easy integration into existing cultures" because this niche is overcrowded already.

 

[woodelph]

Oh, the irony.

I was not going to convert to 3e until I saw the monster manual.

Not that it really has any relevance to the actual point of your post or the thread, but that's unclear, and i'm curious what you meant:

You were planning on not converting, and then the D&D3E MM changed your mind.

or

You had decided to wait until you saw the D&D3E MM to decide whether or not to convert.

 

[woodelph]

But to a certain point, that's the case with the Races of Book no? I mean there are only like seven PrCs and there are like 30 pages devoted to them. Information on background, organization, using the material in the campaign... What type of details are you looking for?

[Not the original poster]
Info on backgrounds, organizations, and campaign material that *doesn't* involve new classes/feats/etc.

Let me use an example, from a slightly different area: classes. The Player's Guide to Arcana Unearthed has the coolest, most-useful thing i've seen yet in a D20 System product, where classes is concerned. It has a section that explores the interaction of classes and roles. Classes are, for the most part, mechanical tools. Rather than give me a prestige class to make an arcane archer, how about some discussion of how to make one with the existing tools (feats, classes, skills, etc.)? Or, at least, if the classes are suitably generic/functionalist, this should be possible.

For those who haven't read it, and therefore don't maybe understand what i'm talking about, it has two sections to it. First, he looks at each class in turn, and gives 3-4 examples of common archetypes that fit that class. so, frex, magister describes "doomspeaker", "priest", and "teacher", while oathsworn discusses "avenger", "the chosen one", "guardian", and "questing knight". The few that might not be self-evident from name would probably be recognizable if you read the brief description. Then he moves on to common archetypes, and how to build them. Archer, assassin, berserker, knight, sailor, thief, etc. My players took one look at that and went "damn! i wish i'd had that when i was making my character." And, while Monte prefaces this with "these are new options, and you might need a hand getting a handle on them" [paraphrased], i think it's as much that they are complex components (classes and feats). I, for one, would love a similar thing for D&D3E rules: "you wanna play a Noble Savage? do this. You wanna play a Knight in Shining Armor? do this. You wanna play an assassin? o this. you wanna play a shaman? do this." Of course, it wouldn't work as well with D&D3E. Too many of the classes are pretty specialized already--how many distinct archetypes are well-supported by a single-classed druid, frex?

As an example of this, i just put together a players' handout for my Al Qadim game. I've got ~2 dozen archetypal roles (mostly swiped straight from the kit selections of the original gamebook), and for each one i discuss at least a couple different ways to represent the role in terms of class, race, feat, and skill selection. For all of these, using Arcana Unearthed as my mechanical foundation, it took me a grand total of half-a-dozen new feats--and most of those were just to support one concept, the magejackal--and 0 new classes. Tons of new options, in terms of character building, almost no new mechanical complexity.

 

[woodelph]

[about the D&D3E MM]

I still remember how I first browsed through mine... Pretty illustrations, not to mention lots of crunchy monster stats.

And lots of absent descriptions, illustrations that don't match the descriptions, and illustrations that might or might not be representational (vs. stylistic). And a paucity of game-world info (like the ecology/habitat stuff in the previous edition).

 

[Darkness]

[about the D&D3E MM]


And lots of absent descriptions, illustrations that don't match the descriptions, and illustrations that might or might not be representational (vs. stylistic). And a paucity of game-world info (like the ecology/habitat stuff in the previous edition).

True. Especally the game world info would be cool to have.

'course, I just use my 2e books if I need it but still.

 

[JoeGKushner]

[Not the original poster]
For those who haven't read it, and therefore don't maybe understand what i'm talking about, it has two sections to it. First, he looks at each class in turn, and gives 3-4 examples of common archetypes that fit that class. so, frex, magister describes "doomspeaker", "priest", and "teacher", while oathsworn discusses "avenger", "the chosen one", "guardian", and "questing knight". The few that might not be self-evident from name would probably be recognizable if you read the brief description. Then he moves on to common archetypes, and how to build them. Archer, assassin, berserker, knight, sailor, thief, etc. My players took one look at that and went "damn! i wish i'd had that when i was making my character." And, while Monte prefaces this with "these are new options, and you might need a hand getting a handle on them" [paraphrased], i think it's as much that they are complex components (classes and feats). I, for one, would love a similar thing for D&D3E rules: "you wanna play a Noble Savage? do this. You wanna play a Knight in Shining Armor? do this. You wanna play an assassin? o this. you wanna play a shaman? do this." Of course, it wouldn't work as well with D&D3E. Too many of the classes are pretty specialized already--how many distinct archetypes are well-supported by a single-classed druid, frex?

As an example of this, i just put together a players' handout for my Al Qadim game. I've got ~2 dozen archetypal roles (mostly swiped straight from the kit selections of the original gamebook), and for each one i discuss at least a couple different ways to represent the role in terms of class, race, feat, and skill selection. For all of these, using Arcana Unearthed as my mechanical foundation, it took me a grand total of half-a-dozen new feats--and most of those were just to support one concept, the magejackal--and 0 new classes. Tons of new options, in terms of character building, almost no new mechanical complexity.

The problem with this is many people find such advice useless because it's either too specific or too general. Read some reviews about the Hero Builder's Handbook, an early official D&D book that does a lot of what you noted that the AU book did.

Read some of Bad Axe Games Heroes of High Favor. They have a concept, show you how to do it with multi-classing, and then provide a PrC for those looking for unique abilities.

Some fairly recently (last two years) Dragon Magaziens did this as well. They'd take a concept, show you how to multi-class to do it, note the pros and cons in terms of skill points, hit dice, bab, and abilities compared to single class of each class and the benefits.

The Quintessentail II line does this as well showing character concepts that multi-class to do something different.

I'm not seeing the real lack of help on this issue here.