Revisionist game publishing

[blargney the second]

I was mucking about with a friend's copy of the character builder recently. I made the minotaur fighter I've been playing since 4e began to plan out his next level. I'm not a DDI subscriber, so I was dismayed to discover that minotaurs lost oversized somewhere along the line in a Dragon magazine. Honesty had a Pyrrhic victory over powergaming and I told my DM about it today to my detriment.

We haven't been using Dragon magazine as a source for player options, but we have bought the printed books and kept an eye on errata. If this change was so important that it supersedes the previous printing of the race, why was it buried in a different product that you have to purchase, rather than freely available in errata?

I'm not a big fan of revisionism at the moment.
-blarg

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Were this to happen to me- assuming it wasn't a typo/omission- I'd try to assert that the one with the different mechanics was a separate subspecies.

 

[The Little Raven]

If this change was so important that it supersedes the previous printing of the race, why was it buried in a different product that you have to purchase, rather than freely available in errata?

Because it isn't errata or revisionism. It's two separate write-ups with different intentions. The "oversized" minotaur was in the MM, with the explicit intention of being there for NPC creation, with PC use dependent on DM approval, since it wasn't intended to be balanced with other PC races. The Dragon minotaur (and the PHB3 one) are intended for PC use, and thus are balanced with other PC races.

 

[frankthedm]

Because it isn't errata or revisionism. It's two separate write-ups with different intentions. The "oversized" minotaur was in the MM, with the explicit intention of being there for NPC creation, with PC use dependent on DM approval, since it wasn't intended to be balanced with other PC races. The Dragon minotaur (and the PHB3 one) are intended for PC use, and thus are balanced with other PC races.

The Monster Manual racial descriptions were never intended to be the canonical mechanics for those races. As the MM itself states, those stats are for DMs to create NPCs. You can use them as PCs, but a DM allows them at his own peril.

Thus, you'll see things like giving monsters oversized weapons and not giving them to official PC races. As others have pointed out, oversized weapons in PC hands are simply too good. It makes those races strictly better with weapons. If a PC race somehow gets it, expect it to be errata'd as soon as I see it.

d-d-4th-edition-rules/244316-word-mearls-official-player-races-will-not-get-oversized-weapons

 

[Dragonbait]

My Warforged fighter was affected by revisionis. He used to be able to take 10s with Death Saves and now he can't. No more undying juggernaut. poo.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Because it isn't errata or revisionism. It's two separate write-ups with different intentions. The "oversized" minotaur was in the MM, with the explicit intention of being there for NPC creation, with PC use dependent on DM approval, since it wasn't intended to be balanced with other PC races. The Dragon minotaur (and the PHB3 one) are intended for PC use, and thus are balanced with other PC races.

So why have two vesions of the race? Gimped versions of races specifically designed for PC use just suck. If I want to play a minotaur then I want to play an actual minotaur. If the DM says no I'm fine with that decision and would rather play another race rather than play as a junior minotaur.

 

[amysrevenge]

My Warforged fighter was affected by revisionis. He used to be able to take 10s with Death Saves and now he can't. No more undying juggernaut. poo.

?

Warforged Resilience: You have a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage. Also, when you make a death saving throw, you can take the better result of your die roll or 10.

 

[catsclaw227]

So why have two vesions of the race? Gimped versions of races specifically designed for PC use just suck. If I want to play a minotaur then I want to play an actual minotaur. If the DM says no I'm fine with that decision and would rather play another race rather than play as a junior minotaur.

Kudos for the honesty. Though I expect most DMs would assume that their players would come clean about something like this if they found out.

There may be two versions of the race for DMs, but for PCs there is only one intended version, the version in the PHB2 and Dragon.

If you want to play a minotaur, you get to play a minotaur. The one in my game's PC party certainly isn't looked at as a "junior". He's a serious bad-a**.

The version in the MM wasn't intended for players, and it was made quite clear from in the MM, and was even followed up with clarification from Mearls (linked in a previous post).

I am not sure what the problem is...

 

[Dragonbait]

?

Warforged Resilience: You have a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage. Also, when you make a death saving throw, you can take the better result of your die roll or 10.

*phwah* You mean they want people to read pas the first sentence? Ridiculous!
...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Kudos for the honesty. Though I expect most DMs would assume that their players would come clean about something like this if they found out.

There may be two versions of the race for DMs, but for PCs there is only one intended version, the version in the PHB2 and Dragon.

If you want to play a minotaur, you get to play a minotaur. The one in my game's PC party certainly isn't looked at as a "junior". He's a serious bad-a**.

The version in the MM wasn't intended for players, and it was made quite clear from in the MM, and was even followed up with clarification from Mearls (linked in a previous post).

I am not sure what the problem is...

The race is the race. If there are substancial differences between what an NPC/monster member of the race can do and what a PC member of a race can do (as a result of racial traits) there is a difference and thus at least 2 different races. In this example we have the minotaur and the mini-taur who cannot handle the grownup weapons.

My point is that I would rather the DM tell me " no you can't play a minotaur" than offer mini-taur as an option.