Running D&D 3.X, Pathfinder, or 4e

>>running D&D 3.X, Pathfinder, or 4e
>>"We're using core only for balance's sake."
>How did this stupid idea ever arise?

It's a lie a tell my players for several reasons. Firstly, there's too many books. Even using the D20pfsrd it's opening a fucking thousand tabs to have rules at hand.

Secondly there's too many fucking options. Do we need fifty variants of 'Guy who casts spells'? Won't the core casters suffice? Or bloody hundreds of Half-Human Half-Not Human races? I mean fucking hell. Just look at D20pfsrd.

You can't expect people to want to use every fucking supplement, and memorize what rule comes from what book and pertains to what region, just because you want to play a snowflakey race. The moment the GM lets you play that the precedent has been set and everyone trawls through the supplements. Supplements are Pandora's fucking box.

I don't allow unrestricted access to the supplements in my games. If you want to play something from one, great, let's discuss it, but that's counter to the norm. I tell my players it's for balance to end the conversation there most of the time.

>significantly more than cleric
555-OH-COME-ON-NOW
There's a reason they are called CoDzillas.
Clerics are just as strong as druids if not outright *better*.
Clerics have access to better buffs, better healing and better spell list.
>b-but muh shapeshifting!
Doesn't matter.

>Hope you like paladins being completely unplayable.

Wat? I played 4e for a few years and this is the first time I've heard this. Please explain yourself.

I was just thinking the same thing. Of the core classes in 4e the most wonky and difficult to play would most likely be the Warlord but even it is not hard to get running with...

On-release 4e paladins totally suck because of MAD.

Don't forget that without natural spell, druids get to choose between shapeshifting and spells. Knocking out Complete Divine takes away divine metamagic shenanigans, but it also takes away natural spell.

I think druids are somewhat above the cleric. Not much, but slightly, and mostly earlier in the curve. The spell lists are geared differently; it's worth noting they both get very good shinies there, for all that there's a fair number of shared spells. Clerics do get more options, especially with creating an undead bodyguard unit, if you're into that. They are both very much behind the wizard later in the curve; they just don't get the awesome spells, which isn't to say they don't get powerful options themselves. But eventually they just don't have the overall power and flexibility that the wizard brings to the table.

Core-only paladins are terrible

You are straight up required to build str/cha with a 16/16 split because you NEED to use both stats for attacking. Which means you can barely use lay on hands at all and the majority of your rider effects are useless

You have only one paragon path that's any good, and it is very, very good, it gives you the best single-target lockdown in the game. But the problem here is what you're competing against. Core-only fighter, who, even after level 11, is almost as good as a paladin at single-target lockdown, and is far better at multi-target lockdown

You're just worse than a fighter in almost every regard, and the one tiny area in which you're better than a fighter, the fighter is almost as good

>paladins being completely unplayable
I'm fine with this.

Clerics need the non-core Divine Metamagic to really break shit. Core buffs are mediocre (outside of Divine Power and Righteous Might), core healing is not even worth talking about. Their core spell lists are pretty much the same.

Natural Spell is a core feat, dude.

Doesn't strike me as unplayable bad, and I don't care enough to argue. Thanks for the clarification.

Nothing in 4e is "unplayably bad" not even the infamous vampire class

The core paladin is just bad compared to everything else. It can do it's job, but it does it worse than the fighter.

The closest thing to "unplayably bad" in 4e is the bladesinger, and that's only if you do as the book tells you and build it as an int/dex class and try to use it as a controller. Instead of building str/dex and using it as a striker

What's wrong with the vampire? I thought it was really well designed.

Bad scaling, no real choices to make (hence kinda MAD), and the whole healing surge fuckery is a net loss.

Anyway, ask it in the 4e thread, a Touhou will be dispatched to answer your query.

Mechanically? Pretty much everything

They're forced to go 16/16 due to having both charisma and dexterity based attacks with no option to swing fully towards one or the other. They're an implement-based class with access to only the worst implements. They have 2 healing surges maximum and have to take healing surges from other players or enemies via hitting with a melee attack or having the surges donated during a short rest, which means they can often be caught unable to heal, despite being classed as a striker they have no real "striker feature" to boost their damage, most of their attacks deal average damage at best without viable ways of boosting it higher. They have very limited paragon path options, none of which really cover their glaring weaknesses, and their attack power pool is both shallow and boring, even discounting the low damage mentioned above.

They are, in practice, worth about 80% of any other striker class, including oddball strikers that aren't classed as "strikers", like offensive-focused fighters, blaster wizards or, as I mentioned above, bladesingers. They're not totally useless, but, well, if you want to play a vampire, you're far, far better off either taking the dhampir feat or playing a vryloka, and then just playing a monk or sorcerer

>despite being classed as a striker they have no real "striker feature" to boost their damage
Bullshit, they get Cha to damage.

>Non-casters get far, far less from splatbooks, typically.
Holy shit are you completely fucking braindead? In what world does making certain that the only options that work even a fraction as well as they're intended to are 2H Power Attacking without Pounce, the only thing that puts a stop to the garbage mechanic that is full attacking, or a flask rogue do wonders for non-spellcasters?

Oh right

The worse version of a sorcerer striker feature

I forgot it existed

You mean the worse version of a Genasi Wizard feat.

yeah, probably more accurate

>When you start adding in all that crazy shit the idea of "I'm a former guard who swings his weapon and knows the streets pretty well" becomes flat-out strange and useless next to the half-dragon half-kitsune soulknife/rage mage and the quarter-elf quarter-minotaur quarter-mermaid quarter-dwarven arcane fist.
He also becomes flat-out useless next to the Cleric or Druid.

Everything broken in 3.5 is in the core.
People should be banning that.

>I want you guys to play martial characters
>Im banning monk and barbarian for setting reasons
>I dont like splats, I might let you multiclass into classes from them as we go
>I know I made you keep track of all your items and gold, but it fits my story if you loose your gear for the third time this campaign
>I never said your enemies were not all going to be magic users
>I do not like how knowledge skills work, I am transferring your points out of them
>You have run from too many encounter, your horses must roll vs 30 to not die of exhaustion
>Your magic items all break. I know, im clever right
>No crafting feats, too much math for you

Seriously, fuck you if you run 3.5 and want it to be something else. I know the game is a complete shit show but do not use it as a platform to run something else. So many of you fuckers who transferred out of oDnD and 2e that wanted it to be something else, fuck you. I would rather learn 2e again, or re-memorize gurps instead of you making your own game out of 3.5 if you are going to just rule against the game at every opportunity and make it worse.

That's what happens with games centered around balance.

Hell no. It's just the worst offender.

Yeah, right. The splats just made it all worse.

I like you, when I let my players make characters I give them one requirement.
"You can be whatever you want, so long as your characters personality or backstory doesn't involve there race."
You'd be surprised how many people have there sue races shut down by that. And then they either go to the core races (which I don't require anything from) or create a really interesting character.
Resulted in some really interesting characters like a Tiefling who was raised by his mother and father and in game he just assumed his horns was because he learned magic. The party had to explain to him what a tiefling was. There was a really fun scene where the party met his parents and his mother and father had to sit him down and tell him mommy slept with a demon.

>so long as your characters personality or backstory doesn't involve there race

>write generic human backstory

>and write "P.S. Everyone in this backstory is actually a sexy monsterboy/girl" at the end

I don't you could even play a human character without violating these rules.

Nah. Full casters are already terribly broken in core, it doesn't matter how much more broken they get with splats. They don't belong in the same game with martials either way. The splats give you classes on a significantly narrower power band so you might as well ditch core alltogether and just use the new ones.

You can very easily do that
>"My character is a noblemen of high birth whose lived a sheltered life and wants to venture out and see the world."
You don't need to add the fact its a human city or anything like that because things like that should be worked out with the GM anyway

Then say that instead of claiming that it's for balance.

Natural Spell is core.

Bullshit, no one ever says core only for 4e. That doesn't even make sense!

>people not getting the wookie rule
In a game of oddballs, you need one normal dude.
In a game of all normal dudes, you need one oddball.
This creates wonderful group dynamics.

>Playing 3.5
>Not screwing around with no regards to class tiers
>Not having a warblade, a druid, a rogue and a warlock in the same party and still having fun
They have no idea

I've seen it happen. Only God knows why. And if you think about it, core only makes the least amount of sense in 3.5, where in Core there's boring classes like Fighter while in supplements there are fun classes like Warblade.

You have it completely backwards.
Core only puts very little limits on casters except "no free metamagic". They'll still dominate the game.
Non-casters in core only are basically restricted to 2H + Power Attack. Without Pounce. Your only choices are attack or trip.
Archers, 2 weapon fighters, sword & board and throwers pretty much need splats to function in a meaningful way, and without ToB melee is generally restricted to "i charge", "i full attack" or "i trip", which is boring as fuck.

This is also bullshit. Humans are still one of the best races for any class even with all splats, simply because bonus feat > some strength bonus.
And everyone with the slightest clue knows Soul Knives and Rage Mage suck harder than vanilla fighters.
Seriously, learn to build a proper fighter before you start bitching.
Or just play a Warblade for easy, fun melee without having to trawl to 5+ books to even marginally keep up with a core wizard/cleric/druid.

Starlocks completely worthless until the very last few bits of splats as well.

Oh look! It's another martial vs. caster thread in disguise.
>pf in op's post
check
>the words core and balance
check
>derogatory terms implying everyone else is stupid/and or ignorant
check
>picture of an anime girl
check

What was that global rule again? Something about quality? Is it even there any more?

That literally wouldn't work.

If mommy slept with a demon, the character wouldn't be a tiefling. Would be half-fiend, or at least "fiendish template" of whatever race she was.

Tieflings are explicitly further down the generations. At the LATEST, it's grandpa or grandma that slept with a demon, and mommy or daddy is half of one.

Also trip doesn't work against anything other than humanoids, because without the splats you can't get its CMB or its allowed-targets improved enough to do fuck-all; CMD goes up too fast.