Players and exotic classes.

[kurashu]

By exotic classes I mean any class that uses a supplemental system than the core books. For example, I coul run a scout, a hexblade or a favored soul with little other content from Complete Whatever. But I need to learn more to run a warlock. I need to learn even more for a binder, a crusader or a psionic character, I need to learn a lot more for a totemist.

So, how often do you see these types of characters run by players in your campaign? Would you like to see more or less of them?

[ImperatorK]

I'm always happy to see more then just those old, uninteresting core classes.
And there are always balance issues. Most of the new classes are tier 3 or lower, with is a plus in my book.

[Shiki]

+1 to non-core classes because core classes are boringness incarnate most of the time. I say most because there are Alternative Class Features/Variants/Substitution Levels that might bring something more interesting to do than what's supposedly classied the "norm."

[kurashu]

I suppose anther question to be asked is how do you entice players to expand beyond the basic spellcasters and warriors to a psionic class or an incarnum class?

I sold my players on Tome of Battle when I ran Sunless Citadel and changed the paladin at the end to a Crusader. They were wanting to know what they just faced. However, it's been moved to the wayside because it's "too complex" to keep up with, or somesuch.

Currently, I'm trying to collaborate with one of my players to design a series of one-shot zombie apocalypse sessions that have different challenges that offer rewards for more XP, a special item, et cetera. One of them is Out of Your Comfort Zone, a bonus feat for playing an unusual class such as psion or incarnate.

[SneeR]

Actually, I always direct new players towards rogue, barbarian, or some other basic melee class with a good shtick like that. Things where making big choices beyond normal feats like fighters or spellcasters distracts from learning the core rules faster.

Even a bad shtick like the ranger or ninja is better than forcing the player to choose a strategy ahead of time for classes like fighter or sorcerer or favored soul. I also personally find cleric and cloistered cleric to be the absolute funnest classes to play!

[Bloody Initiate]

For me once the GM is on board with a piece of content the players' interest in it is mostly irrelevant. They can choose to take it or leave it, and if they're happy leaving it then I'm happy letting them.

The time to change that policy is when they're NOT happy ignoring it. For example, you get your typical paladin fan who gets frustrated because their favorite class takes it in all holes on a regular basis. THAT is when you say "Listen, this other class [Crusader] does what you want, and we'll set up a simple system so that you can learn it." If they want to keep sucking after that, you can let them and nature should will run its course.

The mistake to avoid is wanting them to want what you want for their characters. If you think "it would be really cool if you played this homebrew racial class from this source" and their disinterest frustrates you, it's likely that YOU are the one who needs to try out that homebrew racial class on your own character some time. I think all GMs live a little vicariously through their players because they don't get to play when they're GMing, but they fuck it up when they start saying "no, don't do that, because that isn't what I want" whether they use those words or not. Sometimes doing the same job gets old and you want to trade places. In those cases you should go for it.

What matters is that the other players are happy doing what they're doing and you are happy doing what YOU are doing. If they don't want to branch out, then that's just their taste. I personally hate undead and aberrations. I don't like any of the fluff that comes with them and I don't want to lord over a bunch of corpses or eat people's brains. I don't want to have tentacles and I don't want tentacles to touch me. So if my GM says "You should try playing a Dread Necromancer or a Thrallherd" I'm not going to be interested at all. I'm quite content within my box, and I'll branch out whenever it suits me. I'd expect no more from anyone else.

In my home games we've completely incorporated the Tome of Battle, the Tome of Magic (aka Binder), and Magic of Incarnum. Those new systems usually come with an idea from the developer of how to simplify it for your players.

Simple systems allow players to learn and use the new mechanics without reading every page of the originating books. For soulmelds and maneuvers we write all relevant text on a notecard. For soulmelds you lay out the ones you have shaped and you get a series of small objects (I use tiny d6s, but you can use the little melted marble gemstone things too) that represent your essentia. You move your essentia around and put it on the soulmelds so that it's clear where your bonuses are (I think this is how the soulmeld cards work in the back of MOI). For maneuvers you just shuffle and move the notecards around in the way you're using them (crusaders actually shuffle and draw randomly, other people don't even need to move the cards). For Binders once you know the vestiges (Which IS a pain in the ass) you're generally not binding a large varying quantity of them, you'll be using at most 2 or 3. You learn those, and you're done.

I have less experience with 3rd party supplements, but I liked using the Book of Erotic fantasy because it gave you an appearance stat. We didn't use anything else from that book (other than metaphysical spellshaper) because you wouldn't want to, but having a 7th ability score meant I had another dump stat so I could get better stats where it mattered (when you're rolling dice you get to roll more because you have another ability score, and when you're using point buy you should get more points because you have another ability score , dump it in both cases and suddenly your character gets a little better, if a lot uglier).

[veekie]

Generally I don't mind, and heck, I'd encourage it if the player can be trusted to know the ability details and generally mention what it does when they use it, rather than sticking to often uninformative ability names. Handling a large breadth of systems with little in common can be fairly taxing when you're already running many aspects of an encounter.

[kurashu]

The mistake to avoid is wanting them to want what you want for their characters. If you think "it would be really cool if you played this homebrew racial class from this source" and their disinterest frustrates you, it's likely that YOU are the one who needs to try out that homebrew racial class on your own character some time. I think all GMs live a little vicariously through their players because they don't get to play when they're GMing, but they fuck it up when they start saying "no, don't do that, because that isn't what I want" whether they use those words or not. Sometimes doing the same job gets old and you want to trade places. In those cases you should go for it.

Been there, done that, regret it still. :/ I basically created my girlfriend's character for a solo campaign and she hated it because it wasn't what she wanted but rather what I thought would have been cool. I learned my lesson from that.

Yes it would be cool to see a totemist pop up among my players but since that isn't likely to happen, we've started a PvP arena after game where we can beat the tar out of each others characters without repercussion on the main campaign and maybe it can be seen as a sort of exhibition for new systems and spark another "What was that" moment, ala my Sunless Citadel ending.

[Rejakor]

Yeah, player control of their crunch is really important.

It personally irks me when there is someone playing a concept that would greatly benefit from a simple change... for example, in my current game-as-a-player, the GM is new to DnD so i'm helping out him and the other new players with crunch.  I helped a new-new player to create her character.  Which is a Dark Human Rogue 2 with absolutely nothing not involved somehow in assassination/stealth.  I tried to sell her on Ninja because I felt it suited what she was going for better, but she would have none of it, so, a rogueing she will go.

Also a while ago I built a character for a guy and out of the group he was basically the only one who didn't understand/felt disconnected from his crunch.



As a GM I reward non-standard systems.  And as a player I chafe when classes are banned for basically no reason/classes are treated like professions (you only get one, no multiclassing).

[RobbyPants]

By exotic classes I mean any class that uses a supplemental system than the core books. For example, I coul run a scout, a hexblade or a favored soul with little other content from Complete Whatever. But I need to learn more to run a warlock. I need to learn even more for a binder, a crusader or a psionic character, I need to learn a lot more for a totemist.

So, how often do you see these types of characters run by players in your campaign? Would you like to see more or less of them?

I'd say it was 1:2 or 1:3 of the PCs in the games I ran had non-core classes. A lot of my players would get wide eyed any time I'd get a new book, and they'd want to try different things out.

I'm encouraging it now, as I'm running a Tome game for the first time. I encouraged the player to try one of the Tome classes instead of something published.

[b100d_arrowz]

When I started DMing many of my players wanted to bust out obscure source books and their random classes because our old DM was one of those fools who think the PhB is perfectly balanced and outside material makes characters way to OP  So when I came and said you can be whatever you want as long as your character can justify it and I can fit it into the world (so sadly one guys plan for a 1000 yr old lich sorcerer/knight got shot down  ) but I had plenty of ninjas (because their so "flavorful"), warlocks, scouts, spirit shaman, 3.0 prestige classes (not the fun ones like shifter, random ones like the chain fighter  or ooze master), and a Quintessential Collection prestige class for monk (the blind monk!). Once they got that burn out of their system though, most of my players settled into a few class niche, and they only ventured out of that to find some snazzy prestige class or extra uber feats.

[Tenebrus]

I've had luck introducing new classes and material in 2 ways.  The first is to intro something new as an NPC and when the pcs ask "How does he do that?" you say "He's a Warblade" and hand them the book to browse.  Another way, currently running, is to devise a scenario of whatever length you need and pre-generate characters.  You need to know play styles fairly well for it to work.  In my current game, the paladin is a binder, the rogue is a beguiler, the fighter is a warblade, the ranger is a warlock, the monk an assassin; the sorcerer and cleric stayed with their ol' faithfuls; and the new person is a fighter because its the easiest intro to the game. 

Everyone seems happy, except, of course, the fighter because, well, they're a fighter, albeit a 1/2 troll goliath fighter (Any recommendations to multiclass or PrC her, btw?).  There was a good amount of "Wow, I didn't know you could do that."  We're working on getting the binder and warlock modest boosts of power (I think both classes needs some help, and these boards are very helpful) but no one seems very unhappy with their characters.

[Unbeliever]

For the Fighter, I always like tactical options.  Knockback + Dungeoncrasher for example is a fun intro to tactical combat.  You can also go something like Bear Warrior of Frenzied Berserker for more of a "no one can take and dish out hits like I can, even with all your fancy pants martial adepts." 

What fixes do you use for Warlock and Binder?  I do agree that both classes need a little bit of help.

[bkdubs123]

I'm encouraging it now, as I'm running a Tome game for the first time. I encouraged the player to try one of the Tome classes instead of something published.

How is this going by the way? Are your players (or is your player as it sounds) using Tome classes? In what ways does the game feel different and how has this effected your job as DM?

[Tenebrus]

What fixes do you use for Warlock and Binder?  I do agree that both classes need a little bit of help.

For Warlock, I'm starting small and granting 1 invocation per level.  I have toyed with getting Eldritch Blast at (Level) d6 = CHA bonus per day, at 1/2 (level) d6 for 2xCHA bonus, and 1/3 (level) d6 forever.  It gives them a big punch a few times a day and has penalties for balance; I don't like the book-keeping right now and will see if more invocations does the job.

For Binders, I let the player see the situation before calling his vestige, essentially granting all binders the Rapid Pact Making for free.  Otherwise, there's nothing to be done but invent more vestiges.  A few are here http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11512.0 but no one seemed too excited about them (zero replies since March!  Woo-hoo!).  I have to see them played to figure out if they're any good.  I'm happy to trade ideas.

As I've written elsewhere, I love The-Tome-of-Poorly-Executed-Good Ideas but they all need work to become viable.  Except Truenamer, which is a lost cause.   

[Sinfire Titan]

For me, I've yet to have my (current) players do more than play the Bo9S/Completes/Core classes simply because they don't understand some of the other options. I've been doing everything short of forcing them to use stuff outside of that demographic, but the only luck I've had was with one of my older players (in terms of time he's been in the group) and his tendency to play Psions/PsiWars.

At least two of my current players quite simply refuse to read the other splats, even though I've told them that there are decent feats for their concepts in some of them. I'd love to see my players use more of the MoI, Binders, or even a Dragon Shaman. Something other than Ninjas, Rogues, Barbarians, and effing Sorcerers that do nothing but whine when they can't "win" an encounter.


At least then I wouldn't have to put up with all of the bitching when their hideously bad plans to assassinate my veteran player's characters end in disaster (quite the story behind these).

[ShadowViper]

I vote we have a little story time then!

[weenog]

I helped a new-new player to create her character.  Which is a Dark Human Rogue 2 with absolutely nothing not involved somehow in assassination/stealth.  I tried to sell her on Ninja because I felt it suited what she was going for better, but she would have none of it, so, a rogueing she will go.

Treat her well, she's a keeper.  Ninja sucks donkey balls even at being a ninja, she was right to reject it.  You might try talking her into a very brief monk or swordsage dip if she wants some minor quasi-magical help at sneaking or killing.

even a Dragon Shaman

Don't push this one too hard unless you're talking a heavily modified version that you've balance tested.  I've been using the class in a game that's lasted nigh on to two years of weekly sessions; even in a party of players that can't find their own ass with both hands, you wind up feeling inept and pointless.  I even got a homebrew magic item to boost the class as a quest reward (amulet, breath weapon +2d6 damage, Draconic Aura increases by 1, enhancement bonus to natural armor equal to draconic aura bonus) and it's still pretty wimpy.  If a player goes along and has a bad experience they might distrust new mechanics more.

[kurashu]

even a Dragon Shaman

Don't push this one too hard unless you're talking a heavily modified version that you've balance tested.  I've been using the class in a game that's lasted nigh on to two years of weekly sessions; even in a party of players that can't find their own ass with both hands, you wind up feeling inept and pointless.  I even got a homebrew magic item to boost the class as a quest reward (amulet, breath weapon +2d6 damage, Draconic Aura increases by 1, enhancement bonus to natural armor equal to draconic aura bonus) and it's still pretty wimpy.  If a player goes along and has a bad experience they might distrust new mechanics more.

:/ My girlfriend is playing one of these currently. I tried to sell on Dragonfire Adept instead but she wanted some melee and dragon combined. Maybe next time I'll just whip out Dragonborn instead. Dragonborn Dragon Shaman//Dragonfire Adept. I just hurt my head. @_@

So far so good, but there's a paladin, duskblade and swift hunter (well, almost, if she ever gets around to taking more levels in scout) that I have a feeling will begin to out damage here. I'm considering boosting her BAB up to full and maybe granting some breath effects (ala DFA).

Also, our little PVP sparked interest in Bo9S again and I think my character's soulmelds caught Incarnum some traction. Especially after they saw the Essentia tracking page for the character sheet. They're enamored by character sheets and who has the biggest and best...it's odd.

[Tenebrus]

If you can get people to do a 1-off or a 3 session min-campaign ("Time for a change!" "I need a break"  "A friend asked me to see if this module is any good".  "My horse threw a shoe" -- pick your rationale), then provide them with characters that use the new rules.

If I had to start my campaign over, I would probably ban the core book for classes.  You get better fighters from ToB and better balanced magicians like Warmages, Beguilers, Dread Necros, etc.  And I share every DM's frustration in good (i.e., fun) players who insist on running crappy characters.