"Dumpster-diving" through splatbooks; I want to minimize this

[archangel.arcanis]

Hell a Kindle can do it too. You could recompile your own PDF of stuff and port it over onto your Kindle. That like a $79 dollar pirate every book ever device with D&D support. Hells yeah.

Well not exactly. The kindle only has 2gb of internal storage and no SD card slot, at least the $79 one doesn't. By no means do I have all D&D books and my collection is over 13gb, this does include some other systems though.

A bit more detailed explanation of what I do for games. Feats are fair game from pretty much anywhere, with a few exceptions. Spells are limited to PHB, PHB2, and SC. That is plenty of diverse options to do almost anything you want, if you want a spell from another book ask me about it and it may end up in treasure at some point if I approve.

[veekie]

For book access, I agree, split by category:
Systems(usually magic) - If I'm not familiar with it you'd better know it like the back of your hand and convince me. But defaults to no for entire systems(so Incarnum, Shadowcasting, Truenaming, etc). Psionics and ToB get a waiver because I'm personally familiar with them. All calls on systems related feats and equipment get the same condition.

Spells - Core and SpC.

Feats - Any source I'm familiar with(no Dragons, setting specific stuff or web articles for example). Include feat fulltext somewhere(you can crop it out as an image or scribble it on your sheet, whatever)

Mundane Equipment(non-alchemical/drugs/poisons) - Default acceptance from any source I'm familiar with.

Magic Items - Core & MIC.

Races - Individual negotiation.

Monsters - No.

Then throw in as a rough estimate, three special requests(for anything except systems) per player, for which the full text of the whole ability should be provided.

[Libertad]

I really like Veekie's idea.

Alright, I think that I'm fine now.  Thanks for all the help, guys!

[Nachofan99]

I think limiting splatbooks has perverse effects.  It helps out characters whose abilities are self-contained in a single book or two, and hurts those builds who are, coincidentally, spread out all over the place.  A side effect is that it also hurts spellcasters less (I know we're all shocked) -- nearly everything they need is in the Spell Compendium, PHB, and maybe another book or two. Other abilities are often essentially randomly distributed among books.

One solution is to have a decent gentleman's agreement about how good your characters need to be.  Then, you know you can stop diving after you've reached that point.  I know I always have a temptation for more diving, often of books I already know well, to find some fun and interesting options, but I find that having a decent sense of when to "stop" helps whittle things down a lot.

Super agree.  Particularly the bolded section. I would count the Spell Compendium as just that; not a splat book, just a "repository" for spells culled from OTHER sources - if it's been reprinted in the Spell Compendium it's source is NOT the Spell Compendium.  However, as is well known, most of the best spells are in the basic PHB anyways.  So that basically just complicates things.

Another idea could be that if someone wants to use "A" thing from "A" source, you tell them "You can use that if you use something else in that source as well.  Take a class or PrC from that source" (or if they already are, tell them to take Feats/Spells etc from the same source as well.)

Tell them that builds should more resemble Barbarain 10/Frenzied Berserker 10 than Barb 2/Fighter 2/Cleric 1/Rokogan Ninja 1/Factotum 8/Wizard 1/Bard 1/Spellthief 1/Druid 3.

And the gentleman's agreement part is too true.  Works EZ.

[Basket Burner]

SC usually does nerf the problem spells though. And some non problem ones.

Having to take more than one thing from a source or nothing just screws over mundanes. It's quite possible Lion Totem Barb is all you want from CC as you're not Lawful, and you don't have the setup for Knowledge Devotion but you are melee.

It's quite possible all you want from the PHB2 is Greater Mirror Image, as nothing else is relevant to your interests.

[Nachofan99]

Not only is it "quite possible" that you only want 1 thing from 1 sourcebook, it's 100% true.  However, the OP said he wanted to limit dumpster diving.

Personally, I allow my players to dumpster dive but I think it's dumb.  I find it stretches my suspension of disbelief when PC's somehow know *exactly* the best Feats/Skills/Classes/PrC's/ACFs/Spells/etc in all the lands - much more so than Magic usage does. 

I mean to me, Feats that have pre-requisites show you that characters *have* to know what's coming up - or how else would they ever qualify without having taken the pre-reqs?  But still, I don't know the best lawyer in all the land the same as I don't know the best mechanic in all the land.  I don't know the best High School Football player in my area, let alone all the land.  Yet the PC's know the "tricks" that make them "that guy".

Also, you can use SC errata and so on without counting it as a singular source.  EZ.

[Jackinthegreen]

Depending on campaign, Dungeonscape has a lot of good advice.  Having the Factotum makes it ever better.

[Basket Burner]

The problem with that is it is largely necessary, due to some things being scattered.

[SneeR]

Not only is it "quite possible" that you only want 1 thing from 1 sourcebook, it's 100% true.  However, the OP said he wanted to limit dumpster diving.

Personally, I allow my players to dumpster dive but I think it's dumb.  I find it stretches my suspension of disbelief when PC's somehow know *exactly* the best Feats/Skills/Classes/PrC's/ACFs/Spells/etc in all the lands - much more so than Magic usage does. 

I mean to me, Feats that have pre-requisites show you that characters *have* to know what's coming up - or how else would they ever qualify without having taken the pre-reqs?  But still, I don't know the best lawyer in all the land the same as I don't know the best mechanic in all the land.  I don't know the best High School Football player in my area, let alone all the land.  Yet the PC's know the "tricks" that make them "that guy".

You're looking at it the wrong way. Feats are just a natural part of the path that a character has chosen. For example, if a guy has figured out how to cleave, first by swinging really hard and inaccurately (power attack), then by letting his blow go through guys as they drop rather than stopping (Cleave), it is only natural that he will figure out how to let his blow go through lots of people (great cleave).

Or if a guy specializes in shields and spikes, it is only natural that he will develop the techniques of Blood-Spiked Charger all on his own.

I think that more specific feats is actually better than more general ones because it characterizes your character's techniques more clearly.

[LordBlades]

Not only is it "quite possible" that you only want 1 thing from 1 sourcebook, it's 100% true.  However, the OP said he wanted to limit dumpster diving.

Personally, I allow my players to dumpster dive but I think it's dumb.  I find it stretches my suspension of disbelief when PC's somehow know *exactly* the best Feats/Skills/Classes/PrC's/ACFs/Spells/etc in all the lands - much more so than Magic usage does. 

I mean to me, Feats that have pre-requisites show you that characters *have* to know what's coming up - or how else would they ever qualify without having taken the pre-reqs?  But still, I don't know the best lawyer in all the land the same as I don't know the best mechanic in all the land.  I don't know the best High School Football player in my area, let alone all the land.  Yet the PC's know the "tricks" that make them "that guy".

Also, you can use SC errata and so on without counting it as a singular source.  EZ.

Dumpster diving actually helps the classes at the low end of the power spectrum (non-casters) rather than casters. And if you're worried about power level, a gentleman's agreement about what's fun and not breaking the game is much more effective in that field rather than limiting the number of sources available (as an extreme example I believe you can make the Egoist 12  version of Pun Pun with just core+XPH+Serpent Kingdoms).

As for it breaking suspension of disbelief, I disagree. First of all, there's no D&D books in the game world. There's no way to tell in character if the 7 feats of the 6th level Fighter guard you just met are drawn from a single book or 7 different ones. There's no direct connection between how much your abilities fit in your backstory and the number of splatbooks they come from.

I do agree that the forethought needed to qualify for certain things does break the immersion a bit, but I've learned to accept that the world of D&D is a world where kids that know exactly what they want to be when they grow up end up much better than those who don't.

[veekie]

Dumpster diving is less an issue of power inflation and more of being able to consider everything they're asking for properly. The more sources, the less likely you are personally familiar with the impact.

[RobbyPants]

Personally, I allow my players to dumpster dive but I think it's dumb.  I find it stretches my suspension of disbelief when PC's somehow know *exactly* the best Feats/Skills/Classes/PrC's/ACFs/Spells/etc in all the lands - much more so than Magic usage does. 

Personally, I look at the character as the sum of their abilities. Classes and feats are just meta concepts to make it easier to get those abilities and write them on your sheet.

Your character has no concept of "fighter", "barbarian", "lion totem", or "power attack". In your character's point of view, he's just a guy who's favorite approach is to run up to stuff and hit it really hard.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

If I tried to limit books severely, my group would probably play 3 druids and a rouge1/wizardX or something similarly ridiculous.

[LordBlades]

If I tried to limit books severely, my group would probably play 3 druids and a rouge1/wizardX or something similarly ridiculous.

To further elaborate on this, if you're not playing some really low power level, some classes require dumpster diving to be functional(try building a core only fighter).

EDIT: melee fighter, not archer

[X-Codes]

I would also like to revive something from earlier... I consider Luck feats to be incredibly important in the war against Iterative Probability.  The only issue is that you have to use feats up getting them.

[archangel.arcanis]

I would also like to revive something from earlier... I consider Luck feats to be incredibly important in the war against Iterative Probability.  The only issue is that you have to use feats up getting them.

Make a feat called lucky mother****** it works just like vow of poverty but instead of screwing you over it grants you a luck feat every few levels. If you players want free feats from a decent but narrow list they will get it. If they want to focus on something else and those luck feats won't likely help them then they keep their normal feat.

[X-Codes]

Luck feats are generic enough to help everyone, though.  Treat a natural 1 save as a natural 20 save?  Yes, please.

[archangel.arcanis]

Luck feats are generic enough to help everyone, though.  Treat a natural 1 save as a natural 20 save?  Yes, please.

I'm sure they are. The issue is does the player think getting several of them is worth more than 1 feat toward a specific build. For instance does a DMM cleric take the lucky MF feat and delay when they can get Persistant spell or get persist asap?

[Basket Burner]

Luck feats are generic enough to help everyone, though.  Treat a natural 1 save as a natural 20 save?  Yes, please.

I'm sure they are. The issue is does the player think getting several of them is worth more than 1 feat toward a specific build. For instance does a DMM cleric take the lucky MF feat and delay when they can get Persistant spell or get persist asap?

Of course not, because they can use their spells to prevent themselves from being haxxed to death.

The luck feats end up really bad because it takes several of them just to start doing anything meaningful. Why use 3 feats for a save reroll when a 6k item does the same thing? Even if you make it one feat, why bother?

[X-Codes]

If you're into IP proofing, then you go for the save-reroll feat as opposed to the nat 1->nat 20 feat.  If you also pick up Lucky Start (reroll Initiative, no pre-req, another great feat), you can get the latter with a cheap Legendary Site (similar to Otyugh Hole).

That's 1 feat + minor gold investment = awesome right there.