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Is there a happy medium?

And, no, this has nothing to do with a psychic character. What I’m referring to is the amount of choices that we have when we create characters. Exactly how much is too much?

I’ve seen multiple complaints posted across multiple boards on the lack of choices for character creation in 4E. I’ve heard, from my own players, how frustrating it is to be so limited on the choices available to them.

Granted, I understand where the frustration is coming from. By the time 4E hit the shelves, we had a plethora of sourcebooks for 3E.

Players Handook
Players Handbook 2
Book of Exalted Deeds
Cityscape
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Champion
Complete Divine
Complete Mage
Complete Psionic
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior
Dragon Magic
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Heroes of Battle
Heroes of Horror
Magic of Incarnum
Races of Destiny
Races of Stone
Races of the Dragon
Races of the Wild
Sandstorm
Tome of Battle – Book of Nine Swords
Tome of Magic
Unearthed Arcana
Weapons of Legacy

And those are only some of the official supplements published by Wizards for D&D 3.5 since 2003.

So now all the players who were used to spending hours poring over supplement after supplement trying to create “the perfect character” spend less time figuring out how to develop their PC.

Personally, I like the limited scope of character creation from both a DM and a player perspective. As a DM, it makes it easier to manage the characters without having to look at infinity plus one source books. As a player, I find it forces me to be creative with the choices I’m given, even if I can’t make the exact kind of character I want to make.

And therein lies my question; is there a happy medium? How many supplements are too many? Would you be happy with just the PHB or do you want to run the gamut of options using, for example, the Advanced Players Guide or Fang, Fist, and Song that are available now?

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Posted in: 3.5, 4E, Advice, Characters, RPG

8 Responses to “Is there a happy medium?”

greywulf October 15th, 2008 at 5:53 PM

I like the choices we’ve currently got in 4e D&D, and think that a lot of the additional choices we got in 3e just served to muddy the waters. Certainly in our games, 90% of the characters came straight from the PHB.

With 4e there’s loads of potential for divergent characters from the the Core Rules alone with all of the Classes, Multi-class options, Races and different Powers. I won’t be looking any further than just those books any time soon.

Swordgleam October 15th, 2008 at 6:23 PM

A lot of the options added in the later books were kind of silly, and/or not the sort of thing people would actually play. Many classes, especially prestige classes, work better for NPCs. As for the choices in 4e, I wish there were a couple more controllers, just so the party wouldn’t have to either force someone to play a wizard, or do without. Aside from that, I’m happy. If I want to make “the perfect character” with stats exactly where I want them, I’ll play a classless game like d6. If I want to min-max, I’ll play 3.5. If I want to pick up something shiny and go blow stuff up, 4e is great.

Geek Gazette October 15th, 2008 at 8:26 PM

Generally I just stick with the PHB and the campaign setting we are playing in for usable classes/races. I can deal with the core classes and races being spread over 2 PHBs, more than that and I will probably not buy them and since we are likely sticking with one setting this shouldn’t be a huge issue for my group. We haven’t decided whether Eberron is making the jump to 4e or is we will continue using 3e for that setting, yet.
So having an insane amount of PC options isn’t a big priority for my group. Almost everyone sticks to Fighters, Theives, Magic Users(Sorcerers are preferred) with the occasional Ranger thrown in for good measure. So really the extra options are a waste for the players because they like the more iconic classes. They do like being able to play things other than the standard races. I get a lot of vampire, werewolf, demon and dragon influenced PCs in game so Dragonborn and Tieflings were welcomed with glee. Other than wanting more race options my group is pretty happy with core stuff, which saves us a lot of money in the long run.
I would like to see a race only book, something for new or formerly unusable races… that would be cool. Though with 4e that would not be likely as most races seem to work best with a few specific classes and the race book would have to go under the assumption that everyone owns the PHB 1 & 2 to make that work well.

Geek Gazette´s last blog post..Which D&D Charater Are You?

Zachary October 15th, 2008 at 9:45 PM

I think part of the problem is there are a lot of gamers who equate mechanical choice with character differentiation.

I actually think a bit of limited mechanical choice can be a good thing for character development: ideally, it gets people playing their characters more and differentiating them *through play*–and not worrying so much about going over hundreds of pages of material for the perfect build, which is something that frustrated me sometimes when running 3.5.

Zachary´s last blog post..The Case For Castles & Crusades

Kiashu October 16th, 2008 at 7:49 AM

KISS

Anarkeith October 16th, 2008 at 11:38 AM

The deluge of 4e books is darkening the horizon even as we speak. Within two years, we’ll probably be in the same state with 4e that 3e achieved: rules overload.

For me, that was what burned me out of D&D. I turned to a homebrew based on the d20 SRD. 42 skills (several of the d20 feats, and class features were rolled into this list) divided into the categories of warrior, rogue, spellcaster, ranger and sage. You buy everything with experience points, so you can “build” just about any kind of character you want.

Granted, it’s geared towards experienced players who have an idea of what they want to play. But it works for the kids we’ve included in the play group as well. Zachary’s point about differentiating characters through play is key. I’ve told my players that we’re not playing a combat simulation, we’re playing a role-playing game. This particular group seems happy with that.

Ambrose December 22nd, 2008 at 6:03 PM

That’s the main reason I developed the STTRPG on my site the way I did. Everything is computed using skills, and all the skills can be contained in one descriptive volume, however, the skills are defined in terms of combinations and fields of study if the occasion to use them in new ways arises(As it so often does).

I’m kind of a big class-less skill-based system evangelist in that way. Classes and Feats especially seem to do things that skills could easily account for in a well-run skill based system.

Ambrose´s last blog post..House Rules Season 1 Pilot: d20 Superpowers Drop-In Module

Ambrose December 22nd, 2008 at 6:07 PM

So I rambled a bit there, yeah, I’ll sum it up…

Accounting for special abilities and building the perfect character can be done with one volume if one really wishes it, as long as the system is flexible enough and the GM competent enough.

Ambrose´s last blog post..House Rules Season 1 Pilot: d20 Superpowers Drop-In Module