The Tyranny of Choice

[Nightfall]

Why can't I play a ninja? Because ninjas have to fight pirates! That's why!

 

[danzig138]

and then you go crunch some numbers to come up with the best possible (or most powerful) solution. That's what I usually do.

Normally, what I do is roll some ability scores (in order), see what I have, and pick some things that just seem right or interesting, and see what I end up with, and figure out what I can do with it. I used to think about my characters more, but at some point, I became more interested in seeing what I could do with more randomly designed things.

 

[Faraer]

Make a swashbuckler or a warlock with the core rules. The most popular non-core choices -- the ones DMs will deal with the most -- are the most popular precisely because the core rules cover some tropes less well than others.

I'm not familiar with the warlock, but you can make a perfectly good swashbuckler with a fighter and the right feats.

But sure, I'm not saying everything except core is extraneous, by no means. The gap between what the core rules legitimately don't cover and the bulk of redundant feats and prestige classes indicates, though, that that stuff is published in large part for powergaming and rules-fetish rather than world-building reasons.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not familiar with the warlock, but you can make a perfectly good swashbuckler with a fighter and the right feats.

We have severely different visions of the "perfectly good" concept, I guess.

You can certainly play a wildly suboptimal fighter as a swashbuckler. That's not really satisfactory to the folks who want to play a swashbuckler, however.

But sure, I'm not saying everything except core is extraneous, by no means. The gap between what the core rules legitimately don't cover and the bulk of redundant feats and prestige classes indicates, though, that that stuff is published in large part for powergaming and rules-fetish rather than world-building reasons.

Oh, I won't argue that the world was crying out for the Hexblade or Dragon Shaman, but I think it's a major overstatement to say that every concept can be created from the core books. I think there's at least five or six arguably iconic character classes that the core books don't emulate well at all. Either they should be added in 3.6E or (my preference) but into a single discrete PHB2-like tome next time around.

 

[Storyteller01]

We have severely different visions of the "perfectly good" concept, I guess.

You can certainly play a wildly suboptimal fighter as a swashbuckler. That's not really satisfactory to the folks who want to play a swashbuckler, however.

This depends on what is considered sub-optimal, and how the DM runs the game. Then again, I'm still stuck on 3.0...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This depends on what is considered sub-optimal, and how the DM runs the game. Then again, I'm still stuck on 3.0...

Take two fighters of the same level and with the same cash allowance for gear. Let them have at it. If one is beating the pants off the other every time, that's suboptimal.

I am the first to say that character choices should be made based on what's fun, but since the game is designed around certain expectations (like fighters not dying horribly when someone comes at them with a butter knife), having major player archetypes be equally viable is important to me. The baseline should be that a "standard" fighter and a swashbuckler/swashbuckler-style fighter should be equally successful as melee combatants, even if their succss is reached in different ways.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

For the OP I have a simple, dare I to say, perfect, solution, which works in almost every game:


Use core rules only.

Not as the DM to limit you players. As the player. DM has a (literal) ton of d20 books and allows them all? Ignore them and stick to the PHB. Others seem to have fun going through 73 books to choose their race, before realls going through books for the fine tuning? Let them. You don't have to.

The choice is always yours. And that includes the choice not to choose.

 

[wayne62682]

Use core rules only.

Not as the DM to limit you players. As the player. DM has a (literal) ton of d20 books and allows them all? Ignore them and stick to the PHB. Others seem to have fun going through 73 books to choose their race, before realls going through books for the fine tuning? Let them. You don't have to.

The choice is always yours. And that includes the choice not to choose.

Excellent advice, although I don't agree with it (I'm the one who goes through 73 books). The issue, I think, comes up when someone does just this and then complains/gets upset BECAUSE someone else goes through 73 books and ends up with a character which can do more (not necessarily better) and/or different things than the person who chose Core only. At least, that's the problem I always face in my group.. I'm really the only person to look at other books besides just the PHB, and I end up getting dirty looks for it because Prestige Class X lets me do Special Ability Y and Player Z doesn't like it because she chose to only use the Core Rules, so of course what I'm doing seems overpowered. Not saying the OP is like that, just making the point that it can be a problem.

 

[Henry]

One solution someone came up with that I like:

-Each player gets ONE extra source book to choose from, plus the Core rules. (Me, I'd exclude the Spell Compendium from this list, but only because it's lopsided, having spells only, instead of a mix of spells, feats, and abilities.)

This way, the DM has a lot less material to comb through, each player gets a pretty large range of choice, and they tend to stick mostly within their chosen "trope" for the life of the character. Plus, most sourcebooks are balanced with respect to themselves, andthe core book and less so balanced versus the huge number of alternate sources available. Not a bad middleman.

 

[Gargoyle]

I'm frustrated over choice. Not the limited scope of it, but rather the preposterous scope of it. Hundreds of 1-20 classes with hundreds of prestige classes, thousands of spells and races, and who knows how many bloody feats.
The information overload actually makes it harder for me to make a character. Each race choice must be carefully mulled over. Each feat must be carefully picked for relative power now, relative power later, how it will gel with my character's other feats and skills and class abilities, what it will let me qualify for, taking weaker feats and skills to get into a coveted prestige class sooner, etc. Spell upon spell to pick for optimum damage, utility, group synergy blah blah blah blah blah.

Some people in my group love "agonizing" over these choices, others don't care for it and roll up characters with just core options. None of them feel they have to worry about all the options, even though I allow many, many of the non-core books. Then again, if a player in my campaign wants to swap a feat out to qualify for a prestige class or just because he finds something that suites him better, I almost always allow it. Sounds like your DM is allowing lots of options but no respeccing of characters. I can see where that might feel tyrannous.

Nowadays people just assume enough googly eyes and potato chips and they can con...vince the DM into allowing any crazy ass thing as long as it has WOTC slapped on it. As a DM everything must be combed over for balance, and flavor, and power to the other kabajillion choices you could reccomend to the player. I'm burnt out on all this frigging choice. I'd like to be in something I've loathed for years...
A CORE ONLY GAME!
Gasp!

No, everything need not be combed over for balance, at least I don't. I have had players con me, but not often. If I find something is more powerful than it should be, I talk to my players about it and we compromise to make it work. Many times something that looks too powerful on paper is actually just fine in actual gameplay, or even weak.

As far as flavor, I try to design campaign worlds that don't exclude a big part of D&D. But yeah, I do think a DM should only allow options that suite the world. I'm not allowing psionics in my current game for instance, but I don't have anything against psionics per se. I just want to focus on magic.

I will say one thing regarding the proliferation of classes, feats, spells, etc: I wish it were better organized. Products like the Spell Compendium are nice because it put the best of the non-core WOTC spells in one place, updated to include errata. A feat compendium would help, and so would a class compendium. I like options, but I don't like flipping through more than a couple of books.