I agree, I'm going to try to make this short.
6421 that time
lol. I dread how long mine is.
Some people believe that D&D should be a "generic fantasy game generator" where it's a huge toolkit of anything a DM could ever want to put in their game. I believe that the more stuff you put into D&D the worse it becomes at doing its "core" job. Which is, IMHO, to run games in worlds similar to Lord of the Rings, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk. In all of these worlds the idea that anyone would be traveling and adventuring with a Bugbear strains disbelief, nevermind a giant or a dragon. It simply doesn't fit with the theme and background of these worlds.
Covered by Kobold Stew and Dausuul.
Could it be interesting when used extremely rarely in those worlds? Probably. Do I think the game should be changed or a single page wasted to allow a small percentage of people to do it? No.
Where is it a small percentage? What number do you define as small? A minority is probably the best thing you can say about it. A popular minority is probably what I would say about it. Either way, there is very little space needed to be "wasted" by allowing monster PCs. You don't need a monster as PC section for every monster, you just need simple comprehensive rules to allow monster PCs. Pathfinder has something that works very well already and the section of the book that has the rules for it is a page. One. PCs as PCs takes a whole book.
I don't. I believe they should be attacked nearly everywhere they go.
Then we agree.
Which is precisely why I don't like it.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean anything in my calculation of how worthwhile it is. You don't like wizards with spellbooks (bookkeeping) and yet that seems a pretty popular choice.
I don't want to roleplay villagers attempting to kill them off 5 times a session.
Then don't allow that particular monster-PC in your game. I'm not going to try and fight the "5 times a session" bit, except that I think it is a crock.
I agree for the races most likely to be in question. Humanoid creatures, sure, I'd like to see stats for and be able to decide that Orcs are rather peaceful in this particularly game and allow them as PCs. I think it is a waste of time and effort that designers could spend elsewhere by going to the (considerably large) effort to try to make dragon PCs work for the 5% of people who might allow it.
I don't know where you are getting these figures.
The stat in the article was something lower than this number (iirc), and that related to how many builds were made on character builder about monster PCs. It seems to me then if 5% want to play dragons that might actually be pretty high. How many people wanted to play Shadar Kai? I want a link to whatever you are using that says 5% of people want dragons. I then want a link to the survey that shows exactly how many people want EVERY humanoid race. Every single one. If there are 20 humanoid races then I'm betting some are lower than 5%.
The same thing is true in D&D. In 1e and 2e(which had NO rules for playing any PCs other than the basic races and some subraces of them) and 4e(which has no rules for playing PCs more monstrous than Orcs) are all fairly balanced in their own ways. They all have ways they could be improved, but for the most part you end up with PCs who don't completely overpower anyone else.
Meanwhile, 3e/3.5e tried to become too generic a ruleset, putting rules in for playing all sorts of monsters(albeit none of them in core rulebooks and all of them optional) because a hot mess of imbalance and powergaming. The more things that were allowed, the worse it got in terms of balance...and time spent arguing rules at the table. Since PF pretty much copied 3.5e whole cloth, it still has almost all the same issues.
I don't want to see D&D go down that road again.
4e good on balance, ergo 3e bad. Got it. You could have started with this in your first post and saved us some time.
For my money, toolbox = good. Always. 3e's got it. PF has it. Any RPG I play right now has it. Unless WotC wants 0% of people who like toolboxes, they had better put some effort into it.
Tovec said:
What I go further is to say that you SHOULD eventually get wish/miracle and you should eventually be allowed to be a dragon if you want.
This is the key. I believe you should never get any of these things.
Again, could have said that last time too.
Replace wish, in my last post, with .. disintegrate? That still too good of a spell? Fireball then. I hope that works.
Then replace dragon, with minotaur.
My argument was about power levels and when people should be able to play things. They should eventually have that power and option just as wizards should have powers and options in spells. Just as fighters have feats or combat ability. Just as rogues have tricks and clerics have divine powers. It is a power level thing, not the specific spell. Dragon is just an example, I'm using it as a placeholder for similarly powerful monsters; ie. Not-humanoids.
Dragons have a similar effect on the game. There is no good way to balance them. So they shouldn't be allowed.
They CAN be balanced. They can be allowed. You never would and that is fine. I again have no interest in making a game solely for your consumption or based on your goals, just as they should have no interest in making one that only adheres to mine.
I don't like playing with dragons because they are way too powerful and it makes me feel like I'm playing a worthless character until I join them and also play a dragon.
If you are the DM then that is your choice, to disallow them. If you are the player then talk to the DM and make sure that you don't feel this way; hopefully getting that DM to ban the monster choice. As Dausuul says this should be exclusively the option of the DM. Just because they want to take it doesn't mean it should always be available. But if they want to play it and the DM is okay with it then why should we care if you think they are balanced or not? I want to have dragons as an option in my campaign going forward. If 5e can allow me to do that with no fuss then it will gain my favour. If not, then as I repeatedly say, it breaks my game and makes it not fun for me. If you don't want it you don't have to use it. If you don't want to use feats or skills or magic there is nothing saying you have to use it - and those are (not sure about magic) 5e's design goals. Modules of options.
Plus, there is a limited amount of space in the books. Each page devoted to playing dragons is one that isn't dedicated to something I'll use more often. Each book that comes out explicitly about monster PCs is one that isn't produced about something else.
Dragons as monsters are pretty common. It would no more be wasting space as a monster to fight than if a monster to play as a PC. Like I said, the best rules I've seen so far require a single page to use.
In fact, the entire idea of playing races other than basic humanoid ones pretty much entirely came from 3e/3.5e.
Then I'm glad it came out then. A nice innovation that they should not simply ignore because it doesn't fit in your sensibility.
Tovec said:
I have a hard time that ANY power shouldn't be something the PCs can do.
This I can't disagree with more. There NEEDS to be a limit. The ability to snap your fingers and change the universe makes for a really boring game with no risk at all. Risk is what creates tension. Tension drives stories.
DM: "So, the evil Wizard appears in the sky and says 'HAHAH...I now control this land and you are my slaves...you will bow be-"
PC: "Yawn, I snap my fingers, the evil Wizard and all his henchmen stop existing. Wait...no, they continue to exist, but now they are all fanatically devoted to me."
DM: *throws out a 50 page book of notes on the adventure he had planned* "Well, that's done."
Wow. Okay. Where to start.. more or less in order I guess.
'The ability to snap your fingers and change the universe' is not a power than any monster has (that the PCs don't). Wish has limits and PCs can do wish too. What you describe above doesn't exist and shouldn't exist for either party.
If I reverse the DM and PC tags (and slightly modify) in that back and forth it doesn't make it make any more sense. See (my changes in bold):
PC: "So, the good Wizard appears in the sky and says 'HAHAH...I now control your land and your slaves are free...you will bow be-"
DM: "Yawn, I snap my fingers, the good Wizard and all his henchmen stop existing. Wait...no, they continue to exist, but now they are all fanatically devoted to the evil wizard."
PC: *throws out character sheet and notes on the adventure he had played* "Well, that's done."
It is silly for the PC (playing the good wizard) to have that power just as it is for the DM playing the evil wizard. In that case the problem is with the power itself. Flying is a problem on both sides of the screen. Having sight in a world of blind people is the problem.
However, having sight isn't a problem when sight exists in the world. It is a problem when only one person (especially a PC) has it. If dragons are broken for PCs then dragons are broken for DMs to play. That is my point of contention here. Yours is sided only on the PCs have power side.
You can say "A god doesn't like you. You all die, roll up new characters" any time you want. A monster with the ability to do something really powerful isn't going to suddenly break the game. You'll likely use it responsibly because you want the players to have fun.
But the gods having that power is something that I would fully allow the PCs to have if they became gods. That is exactly the thing. You wouldn't probably allow your PCs to get there, but I have. The problem is balance and expectations. PCs wanted to be gods, but the whole game had to be geared for that. They went on a god killing game and I made sure the rules and campaign expectations worked with them god killing. There were other gods and they only did things that were on par with the power they weilded. The PCs however never went to Greyhawk and never tried to be normal once they got divine rank. That is the step you are missing.
Though, I'd like to state for the record that abilities should be remotely balanced for monsters as well. Still, there is a difference between an ability controlled by the DM which can realistically get used 2 or 3 times in an encounter before the monster with it dies and giving it to a PC who will use it hundreds of times during a campaign.
Agreed. But my point is that if such a monster is a party member and he has the ability to turn people into stone, or whatever that monster can do, then that is ALL they do. The wizard can fly, fireball, cloudkill, and so on. The dragon can only fly and
fireball err.. breath fire. Those should be balanced. But it is still the ONLY thing the dragon is doing. Also, during his off time he isn't just another member of the team; he is a dragon that everyone can see and who will provoke townspeople by existing (and certainly by coming to town).
This amounts to the same thing for me. Under VERY controlled circumstances, PC vs PC conflict can be fun. But more often than not it escalates as someone decides to do something that makes one of the other PLAYERS angry. Then it becomes a player conflict with one player saying "Look, I'm just roleplaying my character" and the other player saying "You can hide behind that defense all you want, but you attacked my character and you CHOOSE the personality of your character and the decisions he makes so anything your character does is ultimately your decision. Why didn't you choose to play a character who would work WITH us instead of against us?"
That is what I would be asking too. NOT ALL monsters are the problem. Some monsters are going to be, especially if they can't work with the other party members but not all monsters are going to be that way. If a PC chooses to play a monster that will be an issue, either with the world or with the party, then they are making the active choice. The other PCs are perfectly justified in asking "Why didn't you choose something that can work with us?"
Right, I understood. This kind of roleplaying can be fun for some people and not so much for other people. When we did it, we found it amusing for the first time.
We found it to be amusing every time. Glad we had this talk. I'll keep playing monster PCs then. Your bad experiences after those first few times do not colour mine at all.
It's a matter of focus. When you sit down and watch Game of Thrones, you expect it to be a medieval story about empires rising and falling with a hint of magic everywhere. If suddenly someone with Q(from Star Trek) level power showed up and started turning people blue and teleporting them to random places on the planet, it would change the focus of the story dramatically.
SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: And yet, in game of thrones there ARE dragons. The world accepts and understand that they exist. If those "characters" were PCs then the world has the understanding that they exist and can make preparations against them. They are tiny now, but can easily kill a full grown man by themselves, faster than any other fighter in the show. They will eventually grow so large that they can conquer kingdoms - we have been told that has happened before.
The guy with Q level powers is the wizard with spellcasting. Those are still allowed by you however.
When I sit down to play a D&D game, I expect the focus to be on adventuring, killing monsters, and acquiring magic items. When the focus instead becomes "trying to find ways into cities without dying and explaining culture to our ogres" it's a very different game. One, that I agree, can be fun in the right circumstance, with the right people, and only once in a while.
Sigh, the game doesn't have to become logistics. It can, especially the first time, bog some things down but it really doesn't have to. If you have bad experiences then I recommend not using the ruleset. That doesn't mean anything about how fair or balanced the ruleset is nor whether I should be allowed to use it. Your experiences here are moot.
Savage Species, I believe. It's been a long time. It might have been a nearly equally powerful giant.
Still 3.0 and irrelevent to the conversation, except to note that Savage Species was broken. Not all monster suppliments are, and monster PCs don't have to be. But savage species was broken and I'll admit it.
Tovec said:
The people who play them now are the same ones who played them before. They enjoy the fluff that goes with the race, not the stats.
It definitely sounds like you've found a group of roleplayers above all else. This clouds your opinion. Trust me.
Lol, not at all.
No, if anything, the people who play the "powerful" races before are the same ones who do it now. The ones who play the fluff play the fluff either way. I'm saying the motivations are the same. But, given PF's new model, those who play power and those who play fluff BOTH play the same as they did before. People are no more likely, in my experience, to play a dragon or a minotaur or anything; including Tiefling, more now than they were before.
We played 4e until recently and it was considered a cardinal sin that would get you made fun of every couple of minutes until you changed your character to play a race that didn't get a +2 stat bonus to the primary stat for your class. As far as we were concerned, there was no such thing as a Dwarven, Elf, Halfling, or Half-Orc Wizard. They didn't get bonuses to Int, so they were(as far as anyone in my group was concerned) barred from taking Wizard entirely.
That kind of thing happens/ed a lot in my group, except that it wasn't a sin. It was considered sub-par and so people rarely did it. They would do it for fluff purposes, or to get different bonuses or build different kinds of characters but it was never a sin and certainly never expected for every character.
Wait, how did a group whose composition was mandated by the DM manage to get away with breaking those rules?
I guess it was a combination of things.
No group of my extended group of players and friends would ever accept a DM specifically specifying their race/class combo. We usually rebel when limited to too fine a selection of books.
The closest we've ever had are usually something along the lines of "Core only" games; of which I've been in two. In the first I played a Catfolk (because it was PHB only with some extra races) monk in a party with a wizard (I forget race) and a rogue.. or was he a fighter. That game didn't last very long, but it certainly wasn't stock 4 classes nor stock PHB only races.
The second time, more recently, I played a grey elf wizard. We were limited to core 3 books (MM ftw), but it eventually opened up to more as the game progressed. In that game, for a time, we lacked a rogue and for another bit we lacked a pure arcane caster.
In a third game, the DM tried to pen them in and specified that the party MUST have the "core four" role filled. He even went as far as specifying what each of the four (starting) players must play. He allowed all books, but you had to fulfill your role. The "rogue" was a spellthief. The healer (who absolutely hated being stuck in his role) was an amazing healing-bard (who maxed out his healing abilities and was better than your standard cleric at healing).
I'm just saying that I have NEVER seen a standard party actually ever play, even by DM mandate. If a DM had given us the example characters we would have simply not played, no question. So to answer your question.. never broke the rules, never had to. Just bended it.
The evoker casts a couple of spells, causes significant damage and then is tackled by random guards when he doesn't have any spells left, imprisoned and sentenced to death.
Again, the lowest dragon I can play in PF is a CR 6 so.. by that point the wizard isn't getting taken down. He just flies away and cackles.
A dragon continually flies over a city at high speed roasting people forever without really worrying.
At same level as the at wizard? The dragon is CR 6 and has 66 HP, no DR and a weakness to fire. So, yeah not so much with the "without really worrying." Really, he seems equally able to be brought down as that equal level wizard.
A Fire Giant likely has a bunch of powers he can use at will as well. As well as the ability to just step on buildings. It's the difference between Godzilla attacking a city and some guy with a flamethrower.
A Fire Giant is CR 10 and is size type Large. He is able to step on buildings as much as I am. His punches don't do fire damage. It is the difference between a guy in a jeep vs a guy with a flamethrower. Oh except that guy with a flamethrower is level 11, has access to 6th level spells.
If you're forced to deal with people and these situations come up, your DM is left with 2 options: Kill your character or Not. If your DM wants the fun to continue, he'll purposefully use encounters weak enough to defeat or have people get angry but never to the point of actually attacking you. That just gives you more XP and more attention. It's not a disadvantage.
Option of attacking, not necessarily killing. And that is if you are "forced" to deal with people. The only people I would force the giant to deal with are party members and if he can't deal with them then he can't really be a PC.
Tovec said:
I'm going to convert this into
pathfinder, as I can't easily compare similarly leveled "PCs" in 3.5. A CR 14 adult silver dragon (I'll use any other CR/dragon combo you want if you choose - just let me know, this was the first one I happened to open up in the pdf) has the spell casting ability of.. a caster level 7th. Their most powerful spells, which are per day btw, are dispel magic and wind wall. Those spells are 3rd level. A CR 14 cleric's (thank you NPC codex!) most powerful spells are: fire storm and unholy aura and caster level 15. Both of which are 8th level. So, having an insane CHA and a spell list of 8 levels lower doesn't seem like a huge issue to me.
I'm sure their hitdice, bonus to a bunch of stats, ability to fly, use a breath weapon, have a large amount of natural armor, and a bunch of other abilities more than makes up for the difference in those spells.
Actually no. When you consider than dragons are colour coded and that by the time you hit CR 14 you aren't targeting AC anymore; the natural armor does basically nothing. The first wizard you come across is going to have a chance to kill you. Any well prepared party you come across will have a certainty of killing you.
The other abilities they get are mostly useless against a level 15 party. Some might have strategic value but that's about it. Then again, they need those abilities to try and keep them on par with parties; which they still really aren't.
I can't speak to Pathfinder. But keep in mind that CR is a balancing mechanic for monster, not for PCs. A CR 14 cleric isn't a level 14 cleric(who can only cast 7th level spells, not 8th). A CR 14 dragon isn't a 14th level dragon.
I can understand that you don't know pathfinder and so part of what you said here isn't correct. I'll explain how.
CR is balancing mechanic for monsters; but it is also used as the primary way to introduce monsters as PCs. It is also used to define power levels of PC classes. Any PC class is CR equal to their level-1. So, 15th level cleric (which has 8th level spells not 7th) is CR 14. They are then comparable to a CR 14 dragon. At least as far as "you can come in with either CR 14s at level 15".
This is entirely edition/specific spell power dependent. I agree, in some games that different might be acceptable. In other, it might not.
Right, it is edition specific. But as Pathfinder is the only edition I'm using for my example. The conclusion of allowing a monster AS IS with 8 levels lower in abilities seems pretty even to me.
Well, because D&D dragons have traditionally been twice as smart and twice as powerful as the average mortal. Reading through Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk novels, setting books, and adventures will give you plenty of examples of the way dragons are treated by people in those worlds. NO ONE rides dragons in them except for in extremely rare cases. In Dragonlance it was a big deal when the Dragons let people ride them because the entire world was in peril. But the riders were never in charge. The dragons were often WAY more powerful than their riders. There's only a couple examples where some of the most powerful people on the planet managed to become powerful enough to actually be equal to a dragon and gain its respect enough to be considered equals.
The only time I've had a dragon in my party was when the dragon was a companion (leadership feat) I had for an epic level favoured soul. As I keep saying; the assumption of "dragons are always more gooder than PCs" is a wrong one. If the dragon is appropriately leveled there is no issue and a low level dragon (CR 6) is size medium. By the time they are large enough to be .. large.. the party has other ways of riding around and so no one needs to ride him - making it a non-factor.
I use the standard baseline of Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk. Angels would probably have equally bad problems. Which is why I don't allow them either. In these worlds pretty much all the standard races are considered close to equal. Everything else is up in the air.
Well it isn't up in the air. It is campaign dependent. If a campaign is set where humans ARE the only people, then elves are going to be a problem. If elves are normal then aasimars are exotic. Aasimars are common place angels can be rare. If the world exists such that a dragon can be in the party in the first place, then it exists such that the world can accept the dragon in the party. If not then there should must be a reason why this dragon is there.
Either way, any race (all races) should be cleared with the DM to make sure they work. I had a game where no one had heard or seen catfolk or snakefolk. They were from another continent and so when a PC came to me wanting to play one I had a choice. I could disallow it because it didn't fit in my game or I could allow and make it so it did. I didn't have another continent for her to be from UNTIL she came to me wanting to play it.
This appears to be the main difference. It sounds like you play in mostly player driven campaigns. What adventures you go on are decided by the players or at least heavily influenced if not written around them. In most of our campaigns, our DM buys an adventure from the store, says "Ok, I'm running this, everyone roll up 12th level characters". Then when the first session comes along and he says "You are famous adventurers and you have all had a messenger deliver a message from the king inviting you to his court and are standing around waiting for him to enter.." and the player of the dragon says "Umm, they let me in? How did I fit through the door? Why did I get a note from the king? I've never adventured before. I'm level 1."
No, I don't play player driven games.
But in this case, the case of a dragon PC, then it requires a bit more thought by both the PC and the DM to work out minor things like; how did they find you, etc. I'm saying it is a really minor thing, it requires as much effort to say how the dragon got through the doors as it does for a medium size PC to exist in a small size .. kobold/goblin .. cave. That also assumes the dragon is significantly larger than the other PCs and that it can't shapeshift in someways; neither of which would be overly true in PF's example.
Either way the issue of "how do I get inside" seems REALLY minor and not the huge issue you are making it out to be.
Therefore, as a DM(especially when you are planning an adventure in advance of knowing who the PCs are or running a purchased adventure), you can be assured that the PCs can all complete the adventure and won't have to be left behind.
If you know what the PCs are running then this becomes a non-issue. You can just allow or factor in how a (we're assuming huge? size) dragon will fit in.
If you don't know what the PCs are then that might be more of an issue. In such a case, like if you are just expected to show up without any communication between the player and DM then I would assume a dragon is probably not the right fit anyway.
This works fine in a movie where you can write a character out of a scene and they won't complain. In a game, I would never tell a player to "live with it".
Except it is the same scenario where (in 3e) the party is fighting a golem which is immune to crits (rendering the rogue inoperable) and magic (rendering the wizard inoperable). "Live with it" is a correct response in those cases. If this happens constantly, because the DM isn't willing to make the adjustments so that every time the dragon can gets screwed DOES get screwed then that still falls under the "deal with it" response as the player should have known what he was getting himself in for. If he is a pure combat tank and posses ZERO interaction ability then he knows this and "deal with it" should apply. If the DM just decides to arbitrarily screw him then that is different, and is an issue of the DM .. not the monster PC. The DM can screw any class/race combo for any reason he likes - doesn't mean he should.
Over time, I've developed a rule of thumb that says NEVER split the party for ANY reason.
Good for you. I have no such rule. I advise the PCs against splitting the party but they still can and will do it for any number of reasons. It isn't my job to babysit their choices, advice against it perhaps but not dictate.
There's a difference between an ability that is limited and one that is infinite. Being able to cast a spell once per day that lets you fly for 5 minutes is horribly different from one that allows you to fly over an entire country.
Sure. Agreed. But mechanically being able to fly at will might be comparable to teleport. So, then restrict that ability until the caster would have the teleport option. (I mean I don't think they're equal but that might be a solution for you.) Keep in mind, however, that the caster is going to have MANY other options in addition to teleport/fly that the dragon simply will not. The dragon is a one trick pony and those are generally poorer choices than people who have versatility. One dominates Tier 1, the other is maximum Tier 3. Tier 3 doesn't seem like a problem to me.
Or, there's a 3rd option: Don't print it in a book so I don't have to disallow it.
How would we know what you are going to allow and what you are going to disallow? Are we using your standards? Mine? Anyone else's? How about we just print everything and let individual DMs and games to figure out what their limit is. Instead of one person on the internet who doesn't want us to upset his sensibilities and style.
What if 95% of DMs are too lazy or disinclined to worry about the disadvantage because it simply didn't fit in with the game they wanted to run? Would it be easier for them to run a game that didn't have that disadvantage or to have to create a list of disadvantages they don't want in their games.
Also, this is creeping in on Stormwind Fallacy territory. If you don't know it, it's the fallacy that says "Just because a DM can fix a problem doesn't make the rule bad". If the disadvantage causes problems when D&D is run as a standard hack and slash dungeon crawl game...then it is a bad disadvantage.
Those aren't the same things. I'm not creeping toward it, they are different things entirely.
One is saying that if you don't LIKE something you don't have to use it.
Another is saying if something is BROKEN then it should not be playable.
Don't confuse them. You might dislike something because it is broken. You might like something because is broken. Others will contest if something is broken in the first place. Again, I don't see why you are so special here as to dictate what should be allowed, made, released/sold, or otherwise available in my game. That takes one hell of an ego.
Except that all my games(and the games of most people I know) include a "no PC fighting" clause. The PCs MUST work together and may not attack or steal anything from each other. This is to prevent bad feelings, see above.
Cool. Except that rule is (I'm certain) a houserule. I don't care why it was put into place - though I could guess. What it means is that you are treating PCs special in the category of what a character is. If something offends and actively provokes characters, I don't specify if those characters are PCs or NPCs. You do and that's cool, but it is not the rules as written.
Probably the same reason I allow my friend Jim to play with us. He's belligerent in real life. He complains constantly and he likes to say things that would be horrifying to normal people but I'm used to at this point so we ignore. He's my friend and has been for a long time and he stuck up for me when other people wouldn't. So, I return the favor.
If Jim was constantly and viscerally offending you. Insulting you with your senses and with his words, then I'd be surprised if you could stand being in the same room as him, let alone playing with him.
Some people can look past a horrifying appearance. Especially adventurers who are often already outcasts, weirdos, slightly insane, orphans. They tend to find similar oddballs and accept them into their "family". Once they are in, there tends to be a lot of loyalty.
There's those assumptions again.
We don't play games where people kill each other simply for being ugly and annoying.
Apparently you do. The NPCs did it to your friend when he had that character. The PCs don't do that, and that's cool, but the GAME clearly does. Not adhering to those rules is NOT using them properly. You might like it more that way but I don't really care if you do that is not how the game is written. The game might still be broken (and that brokenness we can talk about) but it has nothing to do with the overall effectiveness of the option.
Tovec said:
Which is a non-nebulous disadvantage. As I suggested.
Because it isn't a roleplaying disadvantage. It's a physical one.
No. Stop. Go back and read those last two posts. Do it now. I'm serious. Go back and read the part you specifically quoted here (and the last time). I NEVER SAID NON-NEBULOUS
ROLEPLAYING DISADVANTAGES. I said I thought you could make them (for me) but never said that the non-nebulous disadvantages are, were, or should be roleplaying ones.
I specifically said twice.. now three times, NOT TO make them nebulous. If that means non-roleplaying disadvantages then so be it. Three times to make them non-nebulous. Never, not once, to make them non-nebulous ROLEPLAYING disadvantages. I quoted myself with your post last time in my reply just to make sure you could read it and I'm quoting my post this time too.
Tovec said:
If the only disadvantages you accept are non-roleplaying ones. (I'm sure I'd allow roleplaying ones on my list but that is beside the point at the moment) then make sure they all have this level of combat(?) disadvantage.
The problem is that by definition roleplaying disadvantages don't HAVE combat disadvantages. That's what makes them roleplaying disadvantages. Which is why you can't balance around them.
See directly above.
Now I'll move on.
This is the same discussion I had with one of my friends once about why he didn't consider 3.5e broken. He said that it was perfectly fine because the DM could disallow anything I could think of that was broken. I asked him whether he wanted to spend the time and effort disallowing my character over and over and over again. He told me that if that happened, he's just blame me for being a jerk than blaming the rules for being allowed.
You were being a jerk. If you purposely go looking and take the game breaking options then you are being a jerk. Your friend was right. You say you had that discussion with him, did you ever convince him? Rhetorical question, I don't care if you did as it does not convince me.
Options are good. Toolboxes good. Not everything in them are good. Not everything in them should be allowed. And I'm certain you can break the game using certain (unforeseen) mixtures of options. That does NOT ever invalidate the options themselves.
In other words, I'd prefer that you'd need to smash the lamp in order to cut or electrocute yourself rather than having one with exposed wire and broken glass. Even if the lamp without exposed wires was a little bit dimmer.
By in large the options available aren't the ones that will electrocute and cut you right off the bat. They can be made to do that but they don't do that on their own. You really took the analogy in directions that didn't make sense.
What I'm saying is: "weaker" dragons are unsatisfying and Dragons are over powered. Therefore, there is no option but to disallow them. Especially if it gives us space for something I'll use 100% of the time.
Weak monsters are unsatisfying IFF they are different from the base creature. If there is a weak form of that creature that IS that creature then I see no problem taking the weaker vs the stronger version. I think weak forms are unsatisfying when you have to come up with a special case to make it work. Ie. The weakest dragons are CR 6 when playable; finding one you can play at first level would be unsatisfying.
Otherwise, the CR 6 dragons EXIST IN THE BOOK ALREADY. They exist as monsters to fight and they take up NO more space than they would if they were unplayable as PCs.
I think I'll stop you there.
You really shouldn't have. You should go read the rest as it kind of makes your point better than what you actually use here. But let me continue.
Gestalt doesn't work fine and may be the most broken mechanic introduced ever. It creates a random assortment of characters with no baseline of power at all. If you allow ALL your PCs to take it, it is slightly more balanced.
Which is what I said when I said..
Tovec said:
with different assumptions that everyone else has the option
However, it throws all assumptions of power in a campaign out the window and makes it impossible to choose enemies who aren't either extremely overpowered or underpowered for the PCs.
Right, except that that is the point. It works when everyone has the option. If only one person were to be gestalt then it is broken. If the dragon is a full grown, adult, size dragon of huge size and everyone else is level 1 then the game breaks.
However, if everyone is allowed the option. (Ie. If the dragon is CR 14 and all other characters are CR 14.) Then the problem is elminiated.
So, I find your problem to be in the assumption.
I think you had the correct reaction. You understand. It was stupid. He ended up with a character who cast spells as if he was a 1st level cleric and 1st level wizard, had all the rogue skills, 1d12s for hitpoints and THAC0 of a Fighter. He could still wear full plate while using all his spells. All he had to do was keep taking roleplaying disadvantages to keep taking better powers.
This is a problem because no one else had those things. He was a god in a world of men. If everyone had access to those powers, or if those powers were as good as anything they did choose then those powers are fine. If he had d12s for HP, THAC0 of a fighter, spells and all the rest.. of a character 8 levels lower than everyone else I doubt it would have been so much an issue.
Here's my main concern. I like the world to make sense. Which means that the difference between the "average" guard and a PC shouldn't be SO great as to be undefeatable until much higher levels.
Agreed. DnD has never been particularly good at that because of HP inflation but I do agree in principle.
However, the step you are missing is that your world - when the one PC defeated the village full of guards - didn't make sense. It was both the player's fault and yours. He made something too powerful and you decided to try and defeat him by making NO adjustments and then crying fowl. Yes he was over powerful but he wouldn't have been nearly as over powerful if others had the same kinds of powers OR if they had the expectation that such people exist.
If the players are the only wizards in the world - it doesn't matter what kind or what level - then that changes the game. The world ether needs to make adjustments to make them normal or needs to be the same where they are VERY extraordinary. You ran with the second and then complained that he was the only one and should have been normal.
I'd get annoyed if people showed up with an all fighter or all wizard party as well. Because I'd likely have to modify my adventure to make up for it. I don't have the time or inclination to do that.
No, you don't have to. You should because they're going to run into troubles, but you don't have to. Just as you don't have to make adjustments for the dragon-PC, you should because it will be less problems when the party enters town, but you don't have to. If you don't then "live with" the ramifications.
Though, I'd still have to modify it LESS than if they had a dragon.
Boo hoo. Don't allow the dragon if he is too much work.
I know I'll make the adjustments I need to. I'm already making them as I have never encountered a "standard" group. Making the adjustments needed for a centaur taught me how to do it for dragons.
Hmm, not sure what PF rule prevents anyone else from detecting secret doors. There certainly isn't one in 3.5e. The rogue's only power was to find traps above DC 20.
I don't remember exactly. And it was some time ago in the podcast. If you want to go listening (which I recommend - it is a fun game to listen to) then they are the strand gamers and doing kingmaker (rpgmp3.com).
I do know that the DM just said that they found the secret doors, he didn't have them roll. It worked fine. It was probably stupid design to have soo many secret doors in the first place but that isn't the real point. The point is that there were soo many and they were necessary to pass, that the party without the rogue simple did find and pass them. If they didn't have the rogue then NO adjustment was necessary as the game could have worked fine - but in that case they would have had a harder time progressing.
If anything, the adjustment made the game work more easily than if the DM hadn't made the VERY minor change.
Tovec said:
If I understand correctly, he wasn't just walking past. He was pissed off, ugly and unnerving. He was provoking them by being.
True, but as he pointed out...his character had no control over being in existence.
The character had no choice. Correct. I wouldn't penalize the character for being in my game. Then again I can't really penalize the character, but I wouldn't want to if I could. No I can penalize the PLAYER who makes an active choice to make and play that character.
They knew, accepted, and even specifically picked out the roleplaying penalties and so they should be made to live with those penalties when they come up in play.
This entire paragraph is just too rooted in 3e philosophy. The answer to everything in 3e is: Give the monsters everything the PCs have and increase their level to counter any power the PCs have.
Well, no that's not what I said. I said they were incapable of challenging the PCs. If they are supposed to and first level warriors isn't going to do it then for the sake of internal consistency there had better be stronger or maybe some casters to take them down. Not doing this is a lacking of DM consistency - no matter what his motive.
I prefer a world where nearly every guard in the world is 1st through 5th level and the PCs are considered to be extremely special because they are some of the only people in the world who ever saw enough combat to get above that level. Where powerful spellcasters are EXTREMELY rare.
Then again, I suggest making it so that PCs never advance to the point that threatens this. I recommend E6 if playing PF or 3e. In those systems the guards easily be 1-5 and dragons will NEVER be playable - as established CR 6 - lvl 7 - is the lowest a dragon can be.
However, the PCs WILL (by default) have the ability to excel FAR behind those limits. Dragons also have that similar capability. So long as things are balanced I don't see the problem if they are a dragon or a PC. Again, if flying is a problem for monsters then it is a problem for PCs and vice-versa.
My assumption is that any character you can make with the rules is the same power. If the rules let you make a character who is more powerful than everyone else, they are bad rules.
More or less agreed.
There technically wasn't a LA there. The monster is considered to be 10th level without taking a class. The monster gets nearly every benefit that a 10th level character in D&D next would have gotten except class features and he gets flight, better stat bonuses, a breath weapon, and permanent weapons and armor that can't be taken away in addition. If anything, it's extremely overpowered. Though I was making the numbers up on the fly, I don't expect them to be balanced. The only thing the 10 levels thing does is prevent people from playing Dragons before 11th level and prevents there from every being a dragon with higher than 10th level in a class.
How balanced or over powered it is would certainly need testing. At first glance it looks fine, and I said as much. It is a LA in that you have to be 11th level before doing anything else. That is how LAs work, it is LA by a different name. Just as CRs in PF are LAs with a different name.
I'm not sure how they could be permanently huge simply because they have money. I can see the flight with a couple of magic items.
I don't have any specific idea either. I'm sure some form of polymorph or maybe a lesser known magic item
could do it. My point was more along the lines that by the time the dragon is huge and could carry the whole party around, the whole party has flight by other means and doesn't need it.
Tovec said:
What you are really saying is that having a dragon, of at level at any time, might ruin your game and you don't like them.
Correct.
And that because you don't like them that I shouldn't be allow to play them either; as they shouldn't spend any time on something you disapprove of.
I disagree that everything someone wants in a game should be put in. It's apparent that over 80% of people don't want the ability to play dragons in their game.
Where is that from exactly? Also, 20% of people who do seems large enough to work on it.
