Why I Don't Ban Classes | Worldbreaking
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- The second installment of my series about the aspects of D&D that often get banned by DMs. This time, we talk about classes, everything from core classes to homebrew.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Homebrew, Third Party Products, and Unearthed Arcana
06:48 - The Artificer
09:30 - Banning Classes for Lore Reasons
13:29 - A Word From Our Sponsor
14:22 - Outro
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I played in a semi-historical campaign set in 900's England. The Romans had just vacated and the Norman invasion had just gotten underway. My DM didn't really want magic, but I wanted to play a Druid. He ruled that since the Romans had destroyed the Druidic holy sites which stored all their knowledge, I had learned from an old Druid who had managed to hide from the Romans with the help of the Celts in Wales. (It made sense since the Romans never truly conquered Wales, only occupied it.) I could not have higher than 4th level spells since all further magical knowledge had been destroyed by the Romans. It was very challenging but also very fun. We ended up doing a lot of research into to history of that time period so as to play our characters as real to the time as possible. I also did a lot of research into the role of the Druids of that time period, which actually ended up coming into play more than the magic. It was a great compromise that made the whole table have more fun (and one fighter had his demi-god status confirmed by an actual Druid because of a number of clutch roles.)
Laughed at your distinction between 3rd Party Sources and WoTC with play-test because I believe 3rd Party tests far more than Hasbro
in some cases reskinning stuff can work pretty well.
if the gods don't fit into your campaign, but a player really wants to use the cleric mechanics, you could just let them functionally be a cleric but reskin them into a wizard from the school of healing (assuming that you are cool with adding a healing school for wizards).
or if they want to play a warlock for the aesthetic, but you absolutely do not want to deal with warlock mechanics, just make them play a sorcerer who happens to look exactly like a warlock.
as with most things in dnd it's largely a question of talking to your player about what exactly they want to achieve and trying to figure out a way to make it happen that everyone's okay with
I mean you can also make them casters that draws power from the outer planes since lorewise the gods are not the one giving them magic but are gatekeeping the magic from those planes and the domains
As a DM I'd really rather not go back to the days of "it's in an official book so you have to allow it"
"I know that this part is only in the Ravinca setting, and this part is only from Ebberron, and this part is only from the oneshot from that convention, and this part is only from the Criticalrole setting, but I only do 4 times more damage per turn than everyone else. So like, when you add the other 4 players together, it's basically balanced. Also I can teleport, I have 30 as my passive perception, and can take 8 actions per turn."
@@DiscussToUnderstand I know it's a bit overblown for 5e, but that's really 3.5 without bans or expected power caps. Someone brings a Fighter with Power Attack and someone else brings a venerable half-fey loredrake kobold sorcerer that casts 20 spells a day at level 1
That's why I say "If it's in a book I have it might be allowed" worked great with keeping track of stuff that's out there and also not making the pool too big because I don't have the funds to buy every damn D&D book. What I did not anticipate was suddenly getting Tasha's dropped off at my post box anonymisly. I mean yey free book, but that was not part of the plan.
Sure, but that's not at all what Mike is arguing?
funnily enough I'm pretty sure all of the official books, and even WOtC, state you don't have to
I think it's fine for DMs to ban things. The PHB even lists several races as optional content (Dragonborn, Tiefling, Drow, the Halfs), and the DMG talks about building your own world. Each D&D game is meant to be a highly customised experience, so the DM trying to set a tone by allowing and disallowing certain things is a totally valid way to play, just as much as allowing all official content.
Following this: all content is optional. If a DM wants to run a human fighters only game, they are allowed to do that. It’s their responsibility to market their game to potential players with those details included, but there is no required content in dnd or any tabletop rpg.
Thank you. As the DM you craft the world. If you don't want warforged in your dark realistic fantasy world, then ban them. Say “no” it feels good. Don't let the internet force the current trend of “if you're a good DM then there are no rules” on you.
DM's should push back a bit and say "This my campaign setting" and players make characters to suit. Rather than making the DM cater to every players whim.Probably a reason that some people don't want to DM. Because players know the type of BS they expect players to do.
@@TheNanoNinja This is actually a pretty big cultural shift from 20 years ago. Back then everyone understood that the DM was setting the story and challenges and such, but these days it's become so player-focussed that it's basically community theatre with a few dice rolls here and there rather than an actual game. No one wants to DM any more because of this shift, and because of this lack of respect the DM's time and world. It's probably why modules/premade adventures have become the main way to play now, since it removes a lot of DM agency.
@@WandererEris I also think one of the least helpful things for the hobby is all the power builds. Some don't read the properly, then DM's have to fight against online content. Trying to break the game has become the norm. The D&D movie has also caused problems. The scene where the wizard sticks his finger out casts whatever spell is was. I've has players trying to do the same thing on a regular basis. If a player tries that again, I might make them reduce their HP Max and say they lost a finger.
As a DM I always permit all official materials, with UA and homebrew almost always approved on a case by case basis. Even when I can't convince myself to approve something, I make a point of working with that player to find a way where they can get some of what they want and I can still maintain balance. It's not that I think DM expectations of PC power and abilities are unimportant, I just REALLY enjoy being surprised by my players and saying "yes" as often as I can seems to increase the likelihood that they will surprise me.
I don't think homebrew is really ever "banned" from games. Saying something is banned implies that there was some assumed notion that it was allowed in the first place.
I really loved how my DM told me how in this Campain we only play humans only for me to find out in the first session that "half humans" (Tieflings, Half Elves and Half Orcs) were allowed as well. At least I got a Sentinel feat out of this miscommunication.
I decided to do a game, anything goes, race, class, home brew, ect, and it made the world building since it was all from a world a friend had made, and it made the game much more interesting. Party was curious about everything about the new players. And races were weird so had to world build around it and made a much more enjoyable experience
There is a lot of stuff that comes down to do your players have respect for you when making characters. If you let them know in advance about restrictions in a new campaign and they still come to you with a character that does not fit in the new world/setting you are going to be running, that says a lot about the amount of respect they have for the time put in to building a game.
Glad you talked about Critical Role. That is my only experience with seeing a homebrew class, and for the first half of this video I kept thinking about the gunslinger until you mentioned it. The way they weren't afraid while streaming to talk about needing to tweak parts of the class, and how Matt would sometimes make announcements about how the new modifications were up and they wanted feedback from the community.
I always find it odd when certain things are considered 'out of keeping' with a pseudo-mediaeval setting, but that having rapiers and chainmail at the same time is fine.
It’s all completely arbitrary, and also dictated by decades of genre conventions.
It's that they mean sword and scorcery without knowing what the subgenre is more oft than not.
Another thing is the guns themselves as players envision them as a wild west era firearm, rather than the early renaissance ones (even when using words like musket to describe them it's pointed bullets, quick reloads and cartridges)
While the two did overlap in use historicaly, in theme there separate.
Banning stuff is the quickist way to get every one on the same page theme wise.
Oh my god UA mystic was extremely busted. When I ran my first campaign I had no idea just how powerful the Mystic was I had no frame of reference of what or what not to allow in my adventure. So I ended up having a problem player playing a problem character who was a problematic class. That guy pretty much ruined my first dming experience.
Mystic does have a lot of fun concepts, but I think they tried too hard to reinvent the wheel by making it function like a caster class without a way to use standard spells. It also has a weird power curve, peaking noticeably around levels 7 to 10 before falling behind due to lack of damage scaling.
Third party content is still homebrew, their home is just fancier
I usually don't do bans (not for thematic reasons anyway), but I present consequences. So like if I were doing a low-magic campaign, and one of the players still wanted to play a magic-user I would be up-front with them that they will be hated, feared, and persecuted by the ordinary citizenry almost everywhere they go. Great topic, great video.
I do that with all exotic races.
Homebrew/3PP/Unearther Arcana things are never "banned" since they're not part of the game as a default. But a GM/DM/ST can choose to allow or add things to the game. "Banned" and "wasn't added" might ultimately have the same effect, but it removes the adversarial tone. I think that whoever is running the game should be open to allowing nearly anything, as long as the player knows that it can be modified/removed at nearly any time if it becomes an issue.
Saying that homebrew thing are not the same as published by 3rd party is tricky.
With online self-publishing, the line between "this a company that does playtesting competent" and "this just someone who made an account called {whatever} Games" is harder to parse. You sometimes need to do some heavy searching to figure it out.
There's also an issue of what the intent of the material is.
Owen KC Stephens is one of the original designers behind Starfinder as well as Starwars SAGA. He has done lots official work for D&D and Pathfinder. If you've played D&D3.5, something he wrote was probably on a character sheet at your table. He's also won 6(!) ENNIEs.
So anything he makes is safe to play at the table, right? Nope, not at all.
He sometimes puts out things that are way overpowered for a normal game. Sometimes as an April fools joke, and sometimes as a way for a 2 player party to be able to run pre-written adventures without the GM/DM needing to re-math every encounter. If you read the description, the first page, -or sometimes even just the title, it will tell you that it's designed with a different power-level in mind.
So whoever's running the game should still be going over every unofficial thing that players want to bring to the game. If you have 5 players, that amount of work can be daunting. I can see GM/DM/ST's who just say that they aren't allowing any outside homebrew/3pp just because of the amount of work it can be to vet.
There's also sometimes issues of things from campaign settings/pre-written adventures being mixed and matched in ways that were never really play-tested together. If you have one mix-maxing player, and the rest of the party doesn't find that fun, it can wreck party dynamics. I had a player who made a character on D&Dbeyond and ended up with over 30 as passive perception because they took a little from several different settings and campaigns. Another PC was a detective/sleuth, and because they only used the books they owned, they were now basically useless as a detective compared to this random druid. It really took the wind out of the sails of most people at the table.
TL;DR:
Everything depends on the people at the table. Some things that are not an issue for some people, will make people other stop playing TTRPGs for years.
Never cut classes, education is important ☺️
i will never ban anything official outside of two specific subclasses
Let me guess:
Two specific cleric subclasses?
only one is cleric
@@TDay-uk6dq a figures. Twilight and Peace are my only 2 bans (twilight because it’s just overpowered, and Peace because 2d4 added to every roll at level 1 is insane)
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the specific subclasses? I’m interested in what the non-cleric one is.
@@walliam5506 wild magic sorcerer
Im currently playing a Blood Domain Cleric from the Tal'Dorei Reborn book in a Exandria Campaign. Yes it homebrew but it exists in the world we play in. Not sure where i wanted to go with this but still (The group actually found itself on your discord)
Excited for the subclass discussion.
The reason I ban the Gunslinger and the Bloodhunter is because I hate that they have built-in mechanics that hurt the player: either through the misfire mechanic or the bloodhunter damaging themself to use their abilities. It's the same reason nobody plays a Berserker Barbarian because of that accumulative exhaustion.
I would allow basically anything as long as I see it in the player that they thought the character concept through and didn't just chose something that seemed cool for the moment. I actually enjoy the 'you're being the first to discover this' approach to integrate classes or subclasses originally established in other settings, for example Artificers or the Chronurgy wizard on the Sword Coast.
I'll be starting my second campaign in just a few weeks. I've been meeting individually with each of my players to help them build their characters specifically because I allow and even encourage homebrew.
One of my players will be playing LaserLlama's class the Savant. It's an intelligence-based, support-focused martial class, kind of like a less sneaky more tactical rogue. She and I are both excited to see this class at the table but we both agreed that I, as the DM, would monitor how it interacts with the game. I will absolutely be willing to berg or boost it as we see fit throughout the campaign.
Really, the key to any homebrew (and really most things at your D&D table) is constant communication with your players and helping everyone to keep an open mind. Let them know that you want them to have fun and if this new class, subclass, spell, or rule will make things fun, we'll make sure it works!
Savant is cool and well written I personally prefer the scholar by benjamin huffman but it is entirely due to preference Of how it is written as it fulfills the same roll
I have been running D&D since the original game came out in the late 70s, and currently run fairly house-ruled 3.5 campaigns. I homebrew every campaign setting, with each campaign having its own unique flavor. I have a couple groups of players who have been playing with me for decades, some going all the way back to my first original D&D games at MIT at Baker House, our dorm. So what works for me and my players wouldn't necessarily work for others - we have decades of shared fun and trust that allows us to deviate from what might be best practise for folks just starting out.
That said, one of the things I do for every campaign is select a subset of races and classes to be available at the start of the campaign. Rather than seeing that as an unfair restriction, my players always rise to the challenge of creating characters that fit the setting and that they want to play. After all, 3.5 has a LOT of potentially playable races and classes when you include all the splatbooks etc., and some of them are designed for different cultural flavors - allowing anything might work for something like the Forgotten Realms where there are a huge diversity of cultures across the land, but for more isolated settings, too many races and classes from too many cultures can make the flavor of the setting kind of muddy.
So I select a subset of races and classes and build the flavor up using those and specifying how they fit together. I may also tweak the races and classes to specifically fit the flavor of the setting even better. But the players have those restrictions within which they can build their initial characters.
Where they have more flexibility is that 3.5 makes multiclassing easy and I make it even easier - and 3.5 has prestige classes that characters can work towards, acquiring feats, skills, etc., in order to qualify for them. Many such classes can be entered as early as 6th level. And I don't preselect prestige classes, nor do I ban any. Instead, if a player has a character concept that leads mechanically towards a particular prestige class, whether or not that class fits the flavor of the campaign as written, I work with the player to figure out what about it they like, and then work to adapt the prestige class to the campaign. So they can use the basic race and class building blocks I provide to work towards something special and possibly unique from the start.
Perhaps there is no artificer base class - but there may be a prestige class which captures the inventor nature of the class, and we can make it happen. If a prestige class is built for a particular core deity which I am not using, we can tweak it to fit a deity I am using - for example, in Tome of Battle the Ruby Knight Vindicator is a prestige class basically designed for crusader/clerics who serve Wee Jas, the LN Goddess of Death and Magic, and includes adding Hide skill and the Shadow Hand discipline of maneuvers to the character's capabilities - for my Forsaken Lands campaign that got reskinned to become the Dragon Knight Vindicator, which can be taken by followers of both Bahamut (LG) and Tiamat (LE), with Hide/Shadow Hand stuff replaced by Balance/Iron Heart stuff.
So prestige classes are one way for the player to come up with something I didn't expect but am happy to fit into the campaign setting, without changing the flavor of the setting. In addition, if a player has a character die, or needs to retire a character after some period of play for whatever reason, I allow greater flexibility with their replacement character - as a consolation for having to move on from one character, the next character will have more options, and may be someone from outside the setting as envisioned, an outsider rather than a native of the setting. For example, if there were no warforged in the world before, but the player has always wanted to play a warforged, then perhaps they crash landed in an escape pod from a space-faring ship, or stumbled through a portal of some kind. By limiting the more outlandish (literally) character concepts to replacement characters, I don't start with a group of all oddities totally out of place in the setting - but someone whose character died gets the option to be something completely unique with their new PC.
One thing to talk about is that you can just propose reflavoring a class.
For example, I don't think playing a Wizard in a modern-day nonmagical setting is completely impossible. I'd just ask that the player come up with some kind of nonmagical explanation for every "spell" they cast and not change their mechanics. If we can't figure out a way to make the spell work we don't use it, but otherwise, Create Bonfire can just be a molotov cocktail.
I think this is especially relevant for Artificer, the controversy around I don't really get. Even if you ignore things like the player's handbook already endorsing advanced machinery in D&D, _(rock gnomes)_ and insist that's not welcome at your table, the core of the Artificer is really just creating basic magical items that, I presume, still exist in your setting. You can simply ask the player to not stray from stuff that feels like it breaks the setting, and stick to making swords that glow and helms of waterbreathing.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
first second of the video but I can't stop myself : I love your tee shirt, I have the same, and I think you have a great taste in tee-shirts, and maybe also in youtuber-DMs ;)
I don't ban official content when I DM, I feel bad saying one of my players can't use something they paid for or were excited to try out.
I will ask them to justify why odd choices might exist in the world, like an Artificer or a Warforged in a relatively low tech setting. I'm willing to help out with that justification, and I'm willing to work any NPCs or areas that their backstory requires, but I'd like some explanation/lore for their existence. I'm fine with something as simple as "There was a super smart/lucky Gnome at Gnomengarde that cracked the secret, and I'm their apprentice/creation", to something as out there as "I fell into/out of Mechanus, and my abilities are due to the exposure to that area and its knowledge". Just something that explains the oddity of their nature compared to the rest of the players/world
For another example (Critical Role spoilers, ancient episodes but still!)
Something like Percy and Orthax is just fine with me too, where the knowledge of how to craft and maintain firearms was a deal with the Devil.
Homebrew is slightly more complicated. If I have the time, I tend to quickly cook up my own character with that class/race/whatever, run them against some of the significant enemies of the campaign, and see how they do. Similarly, I'll throw one together and see how they compare to example builds of the other players. If it makes the enemies an utter joke, or makes the other players obsolete, I'll have a chat with the person who brought the homebrew up and ask them if we can play around with it a little and tone it down.
Likewise, maybe tone it up if the homebrew underperforms.
With homebrew and UA though, I'd advise that the DM and players understand that it will probably be a constant work in progress, being buffed or nerfed as required. I'm not a master game designer by any means, but I like to make the party as even as I can.
Multiclassing is generally banned at my table, because that's the biggest source of broken balance.
Classes i've banned are Bards (in general, i dont like their skill monkey aspect and i think it takes more away from other players than it adds for the bard player),eldritch knights, oath of vengeance paladins, gloomstalker rangers, circle of the moon druids, clockwork soul sorcerers, hexblade and genie warlocks, chronurgy wizards, peace and twilight domain clerics.
Races i ban are aaracocra, yuan-ti pure bloods, tortles, harengon and hadozee.
I also dont allow variant humans and custom lineage.
I've yet to see compelling arguments why i would need to keep these things in my games or why someones character needed to be exactly those races and those classes to make a compelling character. It's 99% of the time power considerations that guide those choices first and everything else comes second. A lot more variety of choices becomes available, when you ban out the most obvious (and certainly strongest) choices and it makes for a much more interesting experience to work within new limitations.
I've also made dropping to 0 hp cause 1 level of exhaustion everytime and failing death saves give a 20% chance to cause lingering injuries. This increases the importance of actual in-combat healing and gets rid of the "its only optimal to heal people when they drop to 0".
Every resurrection spell in the game got also shifted 1 spell slot level up.
im running my first game rn, and the idea behind it is like wizard of oz/ fallout 4/ new vegas/ dune/ western, where the party is on their way west towards an emerald city, the only place on the continent that is not covered in desert, for various reasons, but I disallowed casters for the first couple of levels, with an exception, but as they continued on their journey i allowed them to multiclass if they want, and i told them beforehand so they could prep for it, because as they got closer to the city, the magical aura around it was getting stronger and influencing them, so they are tapping into that energy seeping from the west
I had such an unpleasant experience playing in a game with someone running an Illrigger that it put me off Colville entirely.
That’s a bummer! He’s got a lot of good advice, even if you don’t agree with his/his team’s design sensibilities
What's interesting is that in my current campaign I didn't allow artificers but it had nothing to do with the flavor of the artificer not fitting in the world. I'm just a relatively new DM and I'm currently experimenting a lot with homebrew items and the artificer's extra attunement slots would have to be factored into treasure allotment/magic item allotment and I just don't have a good enough sense of tuning yet to feel comfortable having both homebrew items and "a guy with extra attunement slots" in my game.
(editing to add) I also think whether you have one, permanent, long-running campaign setting, or if you run multiple campaigns in distinct worlds from each other probably affects a lot when it comes to banning races or classes for certain campaigns for flavor reasons. My fiance (who is also the usual DM at the table) has a long-running homebrew campaign setting he runs everything in, so most things are allowed there because that's really the only setting where he runs and he wants the players to get to play the thing they want to play. Meanwhile, I run distinct campaigns in different settings from each other, and often what is or is not allowed in a campaign is part of making that setting distinct from previous ones. It's a lot easier to sell players on a no-full-casters setting (or whatever) if they know full casters will be back on the table a few months down the line.
This is a really good point that should probably be touched on more in this kind of conversation. Similarly, an experienced DM might ban a couple classes (like Wizard and Druid) if they know they're running a short beginner campaign for people who are completely new to the game, because those classes are a) relatively difficult to get up to speed on and b) likely to end in people taking looooong turns while sifting through all their possible actions. It's perfectly valid to say that you're running a campaign that prioritizes getting the hang of basic mechanics and keeping things moving, so the more 'advanced' material is not going to be in play.
I am notorious for banning classes and subclasses from my games and the main reason other than worldbuilding or campaign theming is balance.
To me balance isn't about raw power level, I always make the PCs at my table overpowered with magic items and special abilities, the issue of balance is twofold: across class and within class. Across class is when a class is way stronger than another leading to the weaker player feeling like they dont need to be there or that they picked the wrong class to fulfil the fantasy of their character. Think when a sorcerer goes super metamagic on a spell and the wizard sits there wishing the magical researcher was able to research magic to do anything other than exactly what the spell does. Within class is when a class is too singular, when they are useless outside of their narrowly defined function. Barbarians have no social skills and are often designed by players to lack for example hunting knowledge or an intimidating personality. If either of these axis are not accounted for then the class is unbalanced in a way that makes the game less fun for the player and for others.
I am confident that, for the most part, the classes in the PHB were playtested. There are a few discrepencies that came from not adequately comparing the classes to each other or clumsy fixes to minor problems but for the most part they work together fairly comfortably.
Unearthed Arcana has explicitly not been playtested and as such usually suffers from serious balance issues. Homebrew from reddit has also not been playtested and is often written by players (not dms) which is a big red flag since players don't usually consider things from the necessary top-down perspective.
Subclasses published in XGtE and TCoE have allegedly been playtested and edited from their Unearthed Arcana versions but it is clear that WotC are unafraid of power creep or perhaps even encourage it (see the new lvl1 feat rule). Also the playtesting really doesn't seem as rigorous as in the PHB or perhaps the faults in their method of playtesting are just more obvious. This has led to the newer subclasses (especially in TCoE) being remarkably unbalanced in comparison to the PHB subclasses. They are either too focused on a single fantasy or they are just weaker or stronger versions of another class wrapped up in a subclass.
I have not spent much time with the artificer but from what i have seen and experienced that disconnect between the idea of a magical inventor and the existing fantasy world is exacerbated by the disconnect between the class and the idea of being an adventurer. Why is a fantasy inventor adventuring? Why arent they in their workshop? The class assumes your game contains a bunch of downtime in order to fulfil the inventor fantasy but many game lack downtime. Think level 1-8ish Crit Role C2, next to no downtime, if anyone had been an artificer they would have had a combined maybe 3 weeks of artificing up until they get the house in Xhorhas. Again, there is clearly a flaw in WotCs playtesting, they are playing a very different game from what we are playing (assuming most modern games follow a Crit Role formula which is a dodgy assumption, sure). Remember the six-encounter-day balancing fiasco from a few years back?
I am an MCDM supporter and know for a fact that their classes were heavily playtested however the Illrigger is absolutely dreadful in terms of balance. Within class it is entirely built around combat except for 2 abilities which are both very strong and very boring. Across class the painkiller compares fine to a paladin but the shadowmaster blows rogues and similar style characters out of the water. Additionally it has several mechanics that have obvious overpowered combos with each other which go completely unacknowledged by the text. Surely during playtesting someone thought to increase the necrotic damage of infernal conduit by breaking a seal a on hit? Why does it not clarify whether the 2d6 is added to the 1d10 to calculate health restored? Was the +3 dmg to infernal conduit from treachery fighting style intended? Treachery + free two-weapon fighting = +9 dmg a round as shadowmaster? If all of this is true then the class should be illegal at every table just for how strong it is in combat but even then it is then boring to play outside of combat since it has no other abilities except never failing charisma checks.
If these massive balance issues can come from something with the esteem of MCDM let alone the stuff in TCoE from WotC then it is no wonder you have dms saying "no homebrew that I didnt make myself". These kinds of imbalances ruin games, they are a hassle to fix and they are almost not worth the trouble to find the few decent ones that do exist.
Sorcerer is the base class that I have banned by the way because I think being a sorcerer is a race option not a class option. If you want to cast big spells sorcerously then we can homebrew your innate racial spellcasting increasing in power as you level like the Drow Magic feat. You will just also have an actual class that you also level in. This is balanced in my games because, as mentioned, everyone is equally overpowered. The higher power level gained from your sorcery is mirrored in the human fighter's magic items and stronghold abilities.
The other problem with homebrew classes from the internet is that they always, without fail, could be made simpler, better and more balanced by just editing the new fantasy into an existing class as a subclass. Whatever the new fantasy is it is usually a homebrew druid, paladin or warlock that the player just hasnt realised is possible yet. Every time it can be made so easily by tweaking the base abilities of an existing class or even just by using a subclass the player didnt know about which you can do now there are so many books. Theres a reason artificer and psionics are the only additional classes with any legacy or longevity; there isnt much else that can't be done with the base 12.
Anyone bothered by the Artificer's "feel" in a campaign only has to re-flavour the class. Nothing about the mechanics of the class are outright coded as techno-magic. Magic items and golems, summons, or other automata exist in many low tech settings.
Agreed!
honestly, I never understood the artificer example.
"high fantasy disrupted by a player having a robot"
Its not a robot, its a golem. Stone golem, clay golem, flesh golem, brain golem... Or an animated armor. Or a helmed horror. Do all of those disrupt the concept of high fantasy as well?
An artillerist doesnt have a "gun". It has something that fulfills the function of a gun. A staff, a wand, a rod with specialized runes. We have an artificer who made a tiny metal pony as a gift to a PC. That PC died. The artificer repurposed the tiny metal pony into the cannon.
Not 5e, but in a game I run there are only 3 allowed classes. Warrior, thief, and wizard. Humans only as well. Just how the setting works and it's genuinely pretty fun.
Nice!
I think eliminating classes/species/subclasses is essential for certain settings as is adding those things.
Maybe you can't play an artificer, but you can play a mystic.
I have to say I don't side 100% on this. I get where it's coming from, and in that perspective, perhaps it is applicable. But I am not from a background, regional location where I do play with my friends. I play with people with whom it would be great to become friends, and some have. But I seek groups online, as so many others do. That opens the path for a lot more, and you can find games where the DM and the players, have equal amounts of fun, rather than serve the players. And the main reason I cut classes or races and similar content, isn't even covered here: resources. Simple as that. I cut the content I am not very familiar with, because it would be hard to manage, especially if the player needs guidance, and I'm in no situation where I can offer it. I cut it because sometimes in pug, you get those that push the envelope, and "try to win" a bit too much, and I'm both powerless to stop it... or even detect it. Then the whole party suffers. Life can be busy, and I just don't have time to study ALL the contents out there, not to mention, buy ALL the books the moment they come out.. or at all. So I prioritize and advertise the game that I want to play. Do player always want to break the mold? Yeah, it's frequent. But just like there is a "Yes, and", you can use the "No, but". Homebrew in feat replacement, work on background adjustment. If I worked with the player to create it, with the agreement that it gets tweaked as needed, it's a lot easier to manage... and players usually appreciate being a part of that creation process. Just an extra to it.
One of the people I play with has some sort of gun slinger homebrew. I feel a little weird about it since they are able to do 30 damage with one attack at level 5, but I know they have a chance of miss firing. Ultimately though, them doing super high damage doesn't really make me have less fun, but jealous though.
Plus we're playing through Saltmarsh so it isn't crazy that the navymen have guns
30 is definitely high but it isn't out of reach for level 5s even without homebrew. But most PC's will need a crit to get that high, is 30 like an average turn for this gunslinger?
I have a fighter PC in the campaign I'm DMing who has a pistol that does 2d10+mod force damage, and has had it since level 1. But the limiting factors are that the pistol only has two shots max, and requires the use of another item, a level 1 spell slot, and an hour to reload. The end result is the gun only comes out in the most critical moments, feels epic as hell, and the player isn't detracting from the rest of the table's fun.
I think I know the homebrew you are talking about, it is from dandwiki right? It is absolutely busted, ridiculously overpowered, puts any other martial to shame, it shouldn't be allowed at any table.
I never really forbid players from trying out the solid variety of classes and subclasses that exist throughout published D&D work from WotC, be it from FR, Eberron, Strixhaven, etc. You can always flavour a class to operate in a way that could feasibly work in a setting. I do however advocate for putting some restrictions on character races and only due to conflict with settings. Sometimes it's just way too difficult and sometimes even impossible to justify a certain race in a setting or location. A great example that comes to mind is that if I'm running Rime of the Frostmaiden for a group of players, a module that's set in the Frozenfar where it's incredibly cold; a PC being a Yuan-Ti just won't fit. It breaks from immersion that a cold-blooded reptilian would be present in Icewind Dale. In circumstances like that, a Race ban makes sense to me and I totally get why a DM might rule out the possibility of certain PCs in a setting.
At this point, I allow classes from official materials but adjust subclasses if necessary, and will introduce other subclasses - I have a Monk subclass which is like Cobalt Soul, but alas - as needed. If I want a class to be restricted or unavailable in a setting, I'll propose that before the players commit to character generation, and we can discuss it.
When anything goes NOTHING MATTERS. Make choices.
I think that’s more true of actions than it is of, like, character creation.
There are about 50 classes that I allow in my games. I treat all character options(even "official") as third-party products.
By and large I allow anything thats from a WoTC book I own.
One exception to this is one specific campaign that I've been building. It's geared for magic to feel much rarer than it does in 5e overall, and so has explicit lists of races, classes and sub classes that are open to be played.
Now i need to make a charcter named Holden MaGroin
Geezer here. ..
Dropped the "classes" from my table some time back.
Gaming on.
I think for now I won't suffer from that since I'm newb at DMing and try not to create a hardcore worldbuilding to avoid complications and try to improve from there.
That’s a great way to start out :)
As a first time DM, running a game with 8 players, some of whom are first time players, I restrict them to official WotC material (not even UA) simply because I have enough on my plate right now. I am practicing homebrew in a lot of other aspects of the game which won't affect the players every session, and after I feel a bit more comfortable with it, I would be open to my players doing stuff outside of the WotC body of work.
Players can be so annoying sometimes. In a game I played a DM banned a few races including Changelings for story reasons, they did exist in the world but he didn't want anyone playing one. We ended up with 3 out of 5 of the players playing as Changelings. Its like they do it to spite the DM. Not only that but two were "secret Changelings" and didn't tell the other players (though it became obvious). People join a campaign and then just don't buy into what the DM is doing after all the effort they put in. I dont ban classes but if I did and a player insisted ln playing that class then I'd take that as a red flag.
Something that I think could help in some of these lore based situations is looking at other ttrpg systems. Like magic is pretty ingrained in dnd, so if you want a setting and game where magic simply does not exist, there's probably a system out there that fits your needs better than dnd does. Obviously there's room for adjustment and homebrew, but if you find yourself fighting against like half of the rules in any system to try to get the game you want, it's probably just not the right system for that game.
Man do I feel what he said 10:48 here. As soon as you try and set a limit or restriction (no matter what reason) players will automatically try to be the one exception to the rule
I think you hit uppon the fairest way to ban classes and races from your campaign. In my game I dont allow Dwarves to be wizards because i come from a warhammer background and thats what I based my dwarves off of, this also used to be true of older D&D editions too. But I also know exactly how Dwarven wizards would work in the context of my setting if a player wanted to play one. I think the fairest way is set the standard you want but also know how a person can and should break that standard correctly
Usually, i permit all official modules + Critical role. That is a lot of classes and subclasses 😛 For artificer, i do the same thing. It's rare, but in a magical epic world, yeah, some gnome and humans made black powder and higher lvl of tech. Flintlocks and muskets are a thing yet rare. All other more special firearms need to be invented by the player. AND i am willing to homebrew with the player so it fits more the theme they want to play. In the end, a session 0 + a bunch of text messages is the key.
Looks at my compiled list of hundreds of third party and homebrew subclasses, and dozens of classes. I am a DM mostly and look at things and judge them on case by case basis. I allow almost everything, except the WotC Twilight cleric.
The only thing that brough me back to play D&D was because of the Mystic class. It was so amazing the way you can personalize your own psychic class.
I've cooled on the idea of homebrew and UA classes since running a game where 3 out of the 5 characters are custom classes. Not for balancing or thematic reasons, but because two of my players simply don't understand their class and will never, under any circumstances, learn them. I'm okay with this when it comes to PHB classes because I have a pretty good grasp on them, but I feel it's an unnecessary pressure on me as a DM to expect me to explain how a player's homebrew class is supposed to work every time combat rolls around.
Mike, I'm only 5 minutes in, but I want to say you are singing the song of my people. I want more people to embrace third-party published content.
No restrictions on the condition the player is open to tweaking things and changing if something is just blatantly unbalanced 👍
My rule as far as classes go is as follows: If I have the physical rule book for it, then it's free game. If I don't, then I have to approve it beforehand and my player has to provide me a physical copy of the rules for the class/subclass.
My rules for homebrew are: I allow Blood Hunters, Rune Knights, and Gunslingers. Everything else is on a case-by-case basis, and a player-by-player basis.
As I allow homebrew/third party and it becomes more established, as with the Blood Hunter and such, then it will be allowed carte blanche.
When we played Curse of Strahd, i asked my DM if i could play a Ghostslayer Blodhunter and they agreed
The campaign sadly ended at lvl5 early, but at that time i personally felt bad for being overpowered and started ronplay more reclessly so it could die and i could change to a supporting character
I built a world where the starting area of all of the character's backgrounds had no crime, no lies, and no need to learn how to defend yourself (thus explaining why everyone started at Level 1) Just like Mike said: One player said, "Yeah, but can I play a dishonest criminal?" And another said, "Yeah, but can I play a soldier?"
THANK YOU.
It's so obnoxious to me that people parrot the idea that UA is "unofficial material"....
When it literally is.
And as of now it's especially egregious with how much, if not most, of the UA subclasses have wound up being published with little to no changes.
Mystic not withstanding because of how poorly it was designed.
They really just threw everything and anything into it.
Atm am working on my first ever campaign, first time playing D&D in general and I am the DM(This is because me being the DM is the only way my friends and I could get a game going), so since this'll be the first campaign in the world I create I'm using what they choose to play to help build the world, and without them even knowing story beats I have planned they've chosen stuff that can work into the story very well. Future campaigns in the world if all goes well will be more rigid, but for this first one nearly anything goes. Classes can be any of the 14 classes on D&D beyond, but in regards to races, anything goes even races not generally playable so long as their racial traits are easy enough to determine. Though so far they've been nice and worked with me to make things easier on me in the sense that more of the world can be left vague.
i only allow the base classes, as for races and subclasses i only allow from books i have and some homebrew on the condition that if it is new for that campaign i can tweak it as we go if it becomes too unbalanced
I have to disagree to a certain degree.. But first I don't say "ban" I say "do not include in this setting". I unashamedly prefer human-centric settings so most of my games the players are human. I rarely run class based systems but if I do then I do option some of them. I am looking forward to running a Hyperborea 3e game and will let everything class-wise go in that setting (you can play various flavours of human in that setting) . If you have not seen it check it out - it is amazing.
I run a high fantasy world so I explained that Artificers use the magic of my world to create constructs instead of creating robots and other tech
For me it is races I limit, not really classes. the majority of exotic races are generally unreasonable in most game settings.
I think it's good for DMs planning a big campaign to have a few one shots for players to test out and discover their character idea at a few levels and test group cohesion and interest alignment. You could even have these as echoes of the character to come in history and so build a little collective lore for the game. But importantly it lets you and them see how homebrew or 3rd party classes fit or fail before investing in a larger campaign. And over time DMs can build up a list of their approved extra classes and subclasses.
"when you create a world where something doesnt exsist, the players want to be the exception"
Can confirm, on 2 separate campaigns.
1: high religion, low magic. We had a paladin, a druid who left early, another druid as a 1 time guest, a blood hunter who left later than the druid, a sorcerer, a warlock, an AT rogue, and later joined a gloomstalker ranger.
2: low religion, high magic. We had a cleric, a paladin/warlock, a barbarian, an artificer, and a bard. We had a monk and a paladin early, but the monk left, and the paladin switched to the barb. I was toying around with a ranger/cleric character.
You can always adjust things as needed while playing. As long as everyone communicates in advance this should be understood.
Oh ha you said this at like 5:40
Most DM's ban stuff because we got enough work running a campaign. PHB + some homebrew rules is good enough.
I groan when I hear about 'yet another book WotC shat out this month'. It's like unofficial homework for DMs.
I ban all kinds of official stuff depending on the setting (looking at Twilight and Peace cleric), but I also allow a whole bunch of 3rd party/homebrew classes to fill out. I run a lot of games with strangers online, so I’d rather remove the chance that they try to break my game. 3rd party content is often more balanced and well-made than a lot of official content anyways.
Eric Penn, the water genasi blood hunter of my Curse of Strahd campaign, who grew up in Barovia, has a backstory that there was a village of water genasi built on top of Lake Zarovich, and it was pillaged by kraul native to the village surrounding it. His sister was murdered in front of him. To this day, he carries with his grief the spear that was used to do it. There was not supposed to be kraul or water genasi in Barovia, but my brother (May I add, this kid is 12.) wrote a backstory that added to both the lore and the map of Curse of Strahd. I say, if they're creative enough with their explanation, then I'll allow my players to be whatever race or class they want.
I cut paladins, warlocks and clerics as starting choices for my players for my newest campaign for story reasons BUT they are welcome to multiclass into it if they want. The reason is that I want my players to undergo some experimental drug trial which unlocks their potential. And the banned classes just don't feel like they are based of of potential, rather than their relationship with some more powerful entity. However if any of them really really wanted to play any of those classes I would try to figure out how to work around that.
Something I liked in campaign 2 of Critical Role, is that Matt created a subclass for Marisha that fit into the setting and for her character; BUT as things went on, and as they played, they tweaked the mechanics a bit to have it flow and work better. I believe this is partially because he was working on the Wildemount book, which is officially licensed by WoTC. But it was also probably worked on with Marisha, so then she as the player, could still play a subclass that is tbh kind of awesome, but nerf some things that needed to be nerfed. And I don't think (I may be wrong), that Marisha complained about this at all (in a legitimate way, and not a joking way). I think that it's because they probably talked behind the scenes about the subclass; and it's not even that the "nerfed" things were removed, they just either got shifted a bit or that she got them at a slightly higher level. And I think it was a really cool way for Matt, as the DM, to see that the thing he created was a bit unbalanced in some ways and then corrected them.
If I run another D&D 5e game any time soon. I've been thinking about only PHB Classes and species and no Warlocks. I might even go as far as base Sub-classes only. Fighter-Champion, Rouge-Thief, Wizard-Illusionist or maybe Diviner etc.
Session 0: The DM makes clear the range of what they wish to run or the specific setting they plan to run along with what they're comfortable portraying and adjudicating. The players get to share their expectations, desires and their limitations. They come to agreement or they don't play; doubly important if this game will involve real world money changing hands.
Players need to understand very quickly that the DM has "No" in their vocabulary, means it, and is empowered to do so. What is the saying? "No" is a full sentence? Certainly the player would expect their no to be respected, that's why safety tools were invented.
Following "No", a kind gesture would be to help the player understand why that doesn't work in the setting the DM is running.
Reasonably, the DM works with a player to find a character concept and class that is appropriate, thematic, and a suitable power level to play together with the rest of the group.
I never ban classes, I do ban races though, but that's primarily because some of these races just do not exist (or at least not in the way they're presented as playable races) in my group's world. We allow all OFFICIAL classes and subclasses for D&D fifth edition, not counting unearthed arcana, because that's just sparkly corporate homebrew (and none of it is ever balanced, they just throw ideas at websites and throw websites at players and see what happens). If someone brought like, Grimhollow books and wanted to play a subclass from that or something, I'd look it over and tell them whether or not it works/fits/is fair for the game.
I am cautious about banning classes and there are none of the official material that I ban straight out.
Like many DMs, as you mention, I do not allow artificers in my Orbis setting. But this is mostly for mechanical reasons: while Orbis is an early modern setting with plenty of firearms and machines, I have a completely overhauled magical items. Key abilities of the artificer relate to making magical items - including specifically listed items they can make. It's easiest just to discount the class rather than rewrite key rules.
My other thing is the hexblade warlock subclass, but that is more because I have homebrew rules that give most hexblade abilities as options for regular pact-of-the-blade warlocks (as I firmly believe they should always have been).
I generally initially cut classes, then open them up as options once players get deep enough into the game. Player death is relatively common in OSR games, so players should have something new to look forward to once their characters inevitably bite it or retire.
I understand bending the rules a little for a pc but they should understand that this is your world too. You also are a player and came here to have fun. So if an idea you have doesn’t work with the campaign setting most of the time it’s better to drop it and respect your dms wishes.
I call bull on an official WotC product being somehow more in line with other WotC products. Ie, Vistani in curse of straud are in tone, but make no sense on a Horde of the dragon Queen campaign.
Ironically, there is one problem that doesn't come up that does on occasion, what happens when the homebrew or base class is completely under-powered compared to everything else? I've seen this a few times with homebrewed classes. There's also the problem that that one player feels like they getting all the DM's attention because their class needs to be tweaked for what ever reason. It's strong balancing act, and can be extremely difficult to manage. I ban classes and races all the time if it does make sense for the setting, as a DM there comes a point in time where you have to dig your heels in and say no.
As a DM, I don't use Psionics in my homebrew games. It's all just magic.
I definitely agree that DM's should work with players to see how they might fit the player's desired goals into their character build/concept. But still, I think boundaries are necessary to running a fun, healthy game for everyone. I mean the table of COURSE needs to agree on the terms. If the DM wants to run a low-magic campaign and the party agrees, it's not fair for one player to slide into the DM's dms and be like "actually wouldn't it be cool if I was a wizard, and the only one?" Like it's ok to pick a concept and lean into it, and sometimes that means telling a player "no". But this should be hashed out on session 0. The DM shouldn't host a low-magic campaign if *none* of the players want that.
Forgoing concepts, some things are just imbalanced, including official content! Tasha's Twilight Cleric is game-breakingly strong. Like just absurdly good. As a DM, I do not allow that subclass, I think it trivializes encounters, and is just unhealthy amounts of powerful.
i love the r-tif-icer, maybe its just me but like the simplest solution when not agreeing to whatever cuts or whatever is to just agree that maybe thats not the game for them, theres like no shame in not playing lol
If I were in a low magic campaign, I’d play a warlock who made their pact to be able to cast magic (possibly to prove a point, or to save a loved one from a curse). I’d consider Mephistopheles, Vecna, a powerful hag, or some other dark being who has intelligence/wisdom (celestial could work for any of these, as the character could be a witch doctor, fitting the “I gotta save a loved one from a curse” backstory).
I am a new DM for Pathfinder 1e and I have been struggling with having not enough resources for ideas and lore for a gunslinger PC because so many people think it's anathema to put guns in their high fantasy game. Nevermind that I am setting it in Alkenstar, literally the capital of Guns. Nevermind that the Numerians exist in the setting. Nevermind that despite cries of being unbalanced for hitting touch AC it will never do as much damage as a composite longbow with the same feats. This sort of provincialism is actively hurting my ability to help my players have fun because I spend every week trying to figure out how to help our gunslinger feel like they're doing better than the other characters, instead of searching online and just getting grognards complaining about the existence of guns in their high fantasy setting.
It is even more egregious because it's a first party class. I like running renaissance-era games - it's why I chose Alkenstar as a setting - but there is a lack of player support for it. I can only do so much with first-party support.
"The rules don't require a cleric or paladin to worship a god." Doubly so for the Paladin as they get their divine power from the sanctity of their oath. As far as clerics who don't worship any gods go, that one's a little harder for me to wrap my mind around.
I’ve struggled with that as well, for sure
Eh it's honestly not that hard, you could go with the same explanation of the paladin and say that their geniune believe in a god gives them power even if there arent any gods, or maybe that their power comes from somewere that no one really knows but it's not a god or at least maybe not one of the clasical ways we see the gods
Hell interesting idea, a setting where people don't know if the gods are real or not, clerics still exist and they have real power but no one has ever seen or interacted with a god not even the most powerful clerics so no one is really sure if they geniunly exist and are just shy or the clerics get their power from the believe on the gods or something like that
@@carso1500 Okay, but the sentence is "The rules don't require a cleric... *to worship* a god," not "the rules don't require god(s) to exist." If the cleric believes in a nonexistent god, wouldn't he/she/they probably be worshipping said god?
I don't play D&D, but I can relate to this video pretty well. There is a single class in Pathfinder, both first and second edition, that I ban at the table. The Summoner. This has nothing to do with balance, however. I ban the class because it increases the time it takes for a player to complete their turn by drastic amounts. Now that player has to make a decision for themselves, and each thing they summoned, and potentially a familiar as well. It's almost like handing the player between three to four NPC's and telling them to go play with themselves for a while. If that player is the type that does not typically read their spells in advance, or they get distracted and react in the moment, then it can take even longer. So this one class will never see the light of day at my table because combat is already long enough.
My problem with Artificer isn't anything regarding it not fitting into DnD, I just think it is pretty poorly designed. I personally think that the current Artificer is designed worse than the fixed Ranger, and the only Class that is designed worse than even Artificer is Monk.
May I introduce you to the Rune priest and Seeker, they have such sights to show you.
If they had something resembling a Flame Thrower, almost like the Greek Fire from History/Myth at the Siege of Malta in 1565, I think you can suspend disbelief well enough to say an artificer could construct something that could fire a single projectile using a mechanism in a Late Middle Ages genre.
Agreed!
One point I may make - if you ban something not for a particular campaign-related reason (I mean, if it's for a particular campaign-related reason - it's usually obvious), tell me, why (of course, "I'm uncomfortable with it and I'm uncomfortable with discussing details" is a valid option). I just want to know what in particular you don't like and if I can find a way around it. Like, I basically accidentally found out that my DM didn't like artificers because players treated them as regular magic users (while all the artificers' vibe was the main thing I was interested in, and I was totally fine with making a forge cleric if I could still flavor her spells as some mechanisms) and because of one particular infusion I didn't even want.
I recently started running a Monster Hunter campaign where the players have Monstie companions similarly to the Monster Hunter Stories spinoff games. To accommodate this I had to ban a few subclasses, namely Cavalier, Beast Master, Drakewarden, and Battlesmith as their core mechanics clash with what I wanted to run.
Balance and flavor are difficult to discuss in any edition. Especially during 2E with it numerous splat books. For any new DM regardless the amount of experience as a player, I give the advice of PHB races and classes only for the first 120 hours of game play.
I am an Adventure League DM and the artificer stills feels clunky.
As to Guns back in 3E I talked with my gun nut friends and we decide all guns were breech loading and the rounds were basically modern rounds.
I have DMed a lot of DnD 5E and I can assure you anything made by Kobold Press is much more balanced than WotC’s most recent offerings.
My rule for homebrew/UA anything is that I have to look over and approve of it first and foremost, and I always warn that should it be too broken or something interacts differently then I initially thought, it will be subject to change if need be.
I also have a stipulation where if anything homebrew/UA is used before I see and approve it, I am outright banning it from my game. I know this may be harsh but I've had players constantly using homebrew things without telling me first because "Well I figured you'd be fine with it". I put this in place so I know I won't have to deal with reading entire feats/spells on the fly and it prevents any future attempts at springing random homebrew stuff on me. (I also have warnings in place if it happens multiple times but that's a different rant)
i made a narcissist cleric he essentially worshipped himself to the point he gave himself powers
10:37 I proposed a stealth based dnd game to my RPG community. Literally the only people who expressed interest wanted to wear heavy armor. No one, and I mean no one, wanted to be a illusionist, a rogue/thief, or anything of the like. Everyone who mentioned interest, did so to say they wanted to be the exception... I might as well have proposed we did a heavy armor knight campaign, maybe then they'd make stealthy characters... I don't ask those people to play in my games anymore, we come to the table for different reasons.
Lol yeah that does seem like kind of a big misalignment
I banned like... So much content and I don't regret it at all.
Fair enough!