Min/Max Boards

Nobody ever truly hated half-elves. When people rate things low in handbooks, they aren't saying this is not cool, they are saying this is mechanically worse than other options. Unearthed Arcana even recommends just outright improving them, by giving them bonus skill points like a human. In fact, with that in mind, you could turn Half-Elf into a 1st level racial feat for humans.

Half-Elf [Racial]
Your mixed heritage gives you some of the abilities of an elf.
Prerequisite: Human, must have significant elven heritage (usually a parent)
Benefit: You gain low-light vision, immunity to sleep spells and similar magical effects, and a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against enchantment spells or effects. In addition, you gain a +1 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks and a +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks. You age as a half-elf instead of a human. For all effects related to race, you are considered an elf.
Special: This feat may only be taken at 1st level.

Voila! The half-elf is no longer a bad race and is instead a pretty good feat. Problem solved.

If you want to see a race people hate, you'll have to go to Dragonlance and look up the Kender.

Yes Zook, it is. That is why I compared it to drowning-as-healing. Like the former example, a RAW reading of the text would lead one to conclude an absurdity. However, the designers are aware that the people reading the rules are other people, and not robots. There is no need for errata to state the obvious, whether it is that drowning does not heal you or that Winter Witchcraft does not give spellcasting levels on top of those given in the "spellcasting" column.

So yes, the printed text is an error. The reason they do not correct it in the errata is that they assume you are not stupid and can figure out what they mean. The Rules aren't a programming language, so it does not have "bugs" in that sense. As long as the reader can understand the meaning, it has done its job.

@ I.K., he's probably referring to how they're rated red in handbooks, i.e. they are a poor choice for every class.

Thank you, Necro, for the research. Looks like Pathfinder is still king after all.

I am not certain if 3.5 and Pathfinder are still more popular than 5e, since I have not seen any stats for 2016. To be honest, they probably probably are not: from what I've seen (anecdotes, but who cares), 5e has caught on. However, there are still a significant number of people who prefer 3.5 or Pathfinder over 5e, and I do not think that it is because they're unwilling to change. "Resistant to change" has always been a slur from those who like newer things at those who like older things, and it is hardly ever true. After all, people who play RPGs also do other things that are much more different than switching from one RPG to another. If they stick to one tabletop RPG, they always have reasons for doing so.

For me, 5e is okay and I can get behind some of the ideas in it. However, I prefer 3.5's skill system, feats and magic, and I've never been fond of advantage/disadvantage as a mechanic, or of 5e's proficiency system. Furthermore it would take years for 5e to have the breadth of content that 3.5 players enjoy, and I don't think WotC even wants to do that.

On top of that, any new game has to compete not only with the printed version of an older game, but also with all the mods people made to it. Too much has been made of the so-called Oberoni Fallacy; I think "it can be houseruled" is a valid answer because people do houserule, and some things are easier to change than others. Edition wars are pointless because there is no way to compare two games until you sit at one another's table and see how they play the game, not just compare books. This does not only cover houserules, either: the handbooks on this board, Giant in the Playground, and the late WotC boards all affect how D&D is played, as people can obtain "system mastery" quickly and without cost.

In the digital era, it is hard to track what is most popular. Book sales can no longer be used to track a game's spread, because Pathfinder is almost entirely given away for free with its SRD. 3.5 gets similar treatment with D&Dtools, 4e has its character builder, and for any game (D&D or otherwise) the number of pirates exceeds the number of book buyers. A way to stat games is to track which are played online using the virtual tabletops and hope it is a representative sample. Apart from that, I don't know. But I do know that each edition has its own fans and, instead of reuniting the fanbase, 5e has created just another branch.

There's stolid and austere OSR, with its limited rules and distinct playstyle. There's the constantly-morphing chimera of AD&D, with its disunited mechanics and decades-long hodgepodge experimentation. There's the gargantuan 3.PF, with relentless growth built around a single core mechanic. There's firm and dependable 4e, with its separation between fluff and mechanics and its single pattern. And now there's 5e, with some of the limits of OSR with some of the style of 3.PF, forging its own path for those that want an easy-to learn fantasy game with heroic scope. The winner is the player, the loser is anybody who hopes to make money off this industry where the niches are too small and every purchase is an act of charity.

Short version: you have nothing to worry about.

These are the base classes with a d8 hit die: Cleric, Battle Sorcerer, Death Master, Mystic, Favoured Soul, Druid, Spirit Shaman, Binder, Duskblade, Psychic Warrior, Totemist, Dragonfire Adept, Ranger, Marshal, Healer, Monk, Factotum, Swordsage, Savant, Scout, Battle Dancer, Warrior, Aristocrat, and Noble.

  • The Cleric, Battle Sorcerer, Death Master, Mystic and Favoured Soul have this to say about their HP total:



  • If Druid or Spirit Shaman, see above but replace "skeletons" with BEARS.  • Same with the Binder, except the bears are pseudonatural.

  • The Duskblade and Psychic Warrior can tank thanks to armour and buff spells/powers. The Totemist has some good defensive soulmelds to choose from.
  • The Dragonfire Adept is chilling out on the edge of the field breathing fire and spamming invocations: no need to go into melee.
  • The Ranger could be a Mystic Ranger and/or wild shape variant and thus be Druid #2: Electric Boogaloo.
  • The marshal's job is to stand there and wait while the rest of the party does the actual work, and maybe make a ranged attack now and again to pretend he's participating.
  • The Healer is protected by the Geneva Convention.
  • With the right alternative class features, the monk is invisible all the time.
  • The Factotum has Cunning Defence, Cunning Dodge, and a bit of magic: he'll be fine.
  • The Swordsage has AC bonus and neat manoeuvres and stances to keep him safe in combat, while the Savant, Scout and Battle Dancer will at some point realize they're mistaken and were actually Factotums and Swordsages all along.
Meanwhile the Warrior, Aristocrat and Noble figure out that they are NPCs and aren't in this party at all.

So in summary: you'll be fine. Generally, the d8 classes have more going for them than d10 classes. You have enough hit points to take a couple of hits, and enough other things to protect you that you don't need more hit points.

ADMG's suggestion is sound, but I'd recommend a slight variation: instead of labelling the books with their acronym, label them with a broader category. For example, the Monster Manual already has "Monster Manual" on its spine so there isn't any need to put MM on it, though it would be good to place it with other monster books (like Fiend Folio).

The way to sort them depends on how you use them. How open are you to using 3rd party material? If you are very open to it, then it is better to place them with their nearest 1st party equivalent,  while if you are less open to it then the books should be sorted by publisher.  Likewise, how often do you port Pathfinder material into 3.5 and vice-versa, and how often you use setting material outside of its setting. If your goal is more to serve your borrowers, then instead substitute their preferences for your own: for example, if you use a variety of 3rd party material but your borrowers almost always stick to 1st party or a narrow group of publishers, then it is best to divide it by publisher, or if you use Eberron material only in Eberron but your borrowers all use homebrewed settings it would make more sense to place Races of Eberron beside the other Races books rather than beside the other Eberron books.

There is the Spell Points variant from Unearthed Arcana. It is not fire-and-forget, and therefore it is not Vancian. Then there is the Recharge Magic variant, which is sort of un-Vancian. Since both variants have access to the same spells as core spellcasting, they are as versatile (or more) than Vancian casters.

If you chose a high estimate of feat = 2nd level spells, the fighter line's height is obviously doubled. This puts fighters' progression just below the wizard one at level 8. Does anyone feel the need for me to recreate such a picture? I can imagine it very easily. The shape doesn't change, just the f(x) = g(x) point.

That covers part of my original point, but not all of it. The first feat in a typical feat chain is about equivalent to a second level spell, yes: however, the higher feats in the feat chain are worth more. Even in a low-optimization environment, fighters tend to pick feats higher up in the same feat chain rather than the start of another feat chain, if possible. So the first feat a fighter takes would be equivalent to a 2nd level spell, but the second and third would be higher. This continues until he completes the feat chain and must start another one. Thus the shape would be an upward-rising curve, followed by a plateau and then another upward-rising curve.

I think the real problem with using "steel pieces" is that the D&D Piece is not so much a coin as a unit of weight: 1/50th of a pound. Gold pieces are gold pieces only for ease of counting: as explained on page 112 of the Player's Handbook, a pound of gold is worth 50gp regardless of what form it takes, whether 50 coins or a bar. So if steel were used as currency like pieces, it would be traded directly as weapons, and those weapons would be weighed. Furthermore, the cost of any weapon would be proportional to how much steel it contains, as the steel itself would be the most valuable part of the weapon. This is not reflected in Dragonlance's weapon prices.