SS-style monster PCs...

[Lago_AM3P]

That reminds me. Do you remember when 3rd edition first came out and people were complaining endlessly that monks wrecked the 'flavor' of the campaign and that they should be BANNINATED?

If we pointed out the fact that monks were weak as pirates to these people and in fact needed an upgrade (before it became a halfway-fashionable design statement), do you think that these people would've ignored the fact that the monk was fucked up and rationalize it by saying that they didn't want people to play monks in the first place but if they did, this was a good compromise?

This seemed relevant to me for some reason.

[Maj]

The latest campaign I played in consisted of:

Half-devil gray elf (wanderer)
Cat "hengyokai" (druid)
Half-gold-dragon orc (fighter)
Pseudodragon (rogue)

The game was one of the best I've played in, and the humans didn't even blink when dealing with us. Why? Because the DM said so. Making a big deal out of having monstrous PCs is horrific to both the anti-monster DM and the player. If the DM doesn't want monsters in the party, then the player should never be allowed to get one past creation stage. If the DM does allow a monster in the party, then s/he needs to make accomodations for having a monster in the party and not make all the adventures into "die, die, die the ugly evil vile thing."

The fact that the game designers felt some overpowering need to create an ass product in the name of maintaining the realism of fantasy worlds is just inane. I'm supposed to get what I pay for, not less.

[Sma]

1093379510[/unixtime]]Because that applies to a hell of a lot of creatures. Trolls, ogres, hill giants.

As do humans, elves, dwarves and did I mention humans ? So characters should be reduced to coming from the next friendly village and never being Conan the raging barbarian from the far north ?
This is a campaign choice, not one of game balance and justifying one with the other simply does not work. If you don´t want your players to play Karate Kid you tell them Monks are banned and don´t give them asstastic stats, so the same should apply to Bugbears.
Role-playing Games are an excersise in imagination and fucking someone over, just because he´d like to play something different for a change sounds plain stupid to me.

Sma

[The_Hanged_Man]

1093380680[/unixtime]]The latest campaign I played in consisted of:

Half-devil gray elf (wanderer)
Cat "hengyokai" (druid)
Half-gold-dragon orc (fighter)
Pseudodragon (rogue)

The game was one of the best I've played in, and the humans didn't even blink when dealing with us. Why? Because the DM said so. Making a big deal out of having monstrous PCs is horrific to both the anti-monster DM and the player. If the DM doesn't want monsters in the party, then the player should never be allowed to get one past creation stage. If the DM does allow a monster in the party, then s/he needs to make accomodations for having a monster in the party and not make all the adventures into "die, die, die the ugly evil vile thing."

The fact that the game designers felt some overpowering need to create an ass product in the name of maintaining the realism of fantasy worlds is just inane. I'm supposed to get what I pay for, not less.

Maj, like Frank, you play in sophisticated, good campaigns w/ largely good players. So it works out. But I wouldn't recommend a newbie play in a campaign full of non-core race PC's.

My point isn't about the coolest way to play D&D, it's about the easiest way to play D&D. It's easiest if MM races are unusual and magical and something new, and core PC races are the players. LA is set up to make that easiest way the standard.

[Lago_AM3P]

What? How is having an intentionally unbalanced setup the easiest way to conduct D&D?

The people who it hoses the MOST won't even freakin' notice unless it gets really bad.

The fact that the DM was going to allow monstrous PCs into the game already indicates some willingness to allow them to contribute, so past that point the only reason to accomodate an intentionally unbalanced system is so that two-faced DMs who realize what their players don't can have something to gloat about.

I mean, the DMs who want monstrous PCs in their campaign will want something balanced (as no doubt the players, under any circumstance), and the DMs who don't want monstrous PCs in their campaign period won't allow them. That's fine.

But this crap about DMs who act like they want monstrous PCs in their game when really they hate them and are allowing the rules to get back at the PC ends. Now.

[rapanui]

One of the first D&D2e games I ever played had one charact as a minotaur and another as a doppleganger, and a few other oddities. The game was messed up, but it had nothing to do with the races. I was DMing, and when the minotaur went into town, I just assumed that the people had seencrazy stuff like a half man half cow before.

[Maj]

So it works out. But I wouldn't recommend a newbie play in a campaign full of non-core race PC's.

Actually, Locke and I were the only old players. Locke's sister has only played one game before, and his Russian girlfriend has never roleplayed in her life.

We didn't give the girlfriend any books. We looked at her and said, "You are in a fantasy world. You can be anyone and anything you wish. Who do you want to be?" We found the cat race to match, and modified the druid a little bit so it fit her desire to play a character with some of the traits of Storm (from X-Men).

The sister wanted to play something inquisitive, small, and cute. She looked through the SRD and found the pseuodragon and tacked on some rogue levels.

Given that both the newbies had LA, Locke and I pulled out the books and created characters with different races, too. Purely min/max from both our POVs, but our choices were set by the new players.

The point of the game was to get Locke's girlfriend interested in roleplaying, and speaking from the perspective of a woman who was handed the books and told to build a character from what she read, I can tell you that reading the books is definitively not the easiest way to play D&D. Having an old-hand and good DM help you create what you want is the easiest way to play - and it doesn't matter whether you're playing a monstrous race or not.

Now, if you're speaking of an entirely new group of players, where not one of them has experience with the game rules - not even the DM - I can see how "easy" sticking to the rules makes the game. By the time SS was published, though, most of the players were not new to the game, and there still was little call for the deliberately crappy mechanics that were contained within that tome.

[User3]

1093381914[/unixtime]]
My point isn't about the coolest way to play D&D, it's about the easiest way to play D&D. It's easiest if MM races are unusual and magical and something new, and core PC races are the players. LA is set up to make that easiest way the standard.

I'm prepared to make the assertion that, if you're going to play D&D the easiest way, you don't buy Savage Species.

You buy the PHB, the DMG, and the MM. If you do go ahead and buy Savage Species, you have essentially agreed that you no longer feel you have to restrict yourself to playing by the basics.

If WotC wants to put rules in the core books such that monster PCs are possible but get completely jacked over -- okay. When you reach the point that you're paying actual money for a supplement whose entire purpose is that it allows you to play D&D in a non-basic way, you should not have to deal with that supplement being written in a deliberately crippled manner.

--d.

[Username17]

It's easiest if MM races are unusual and magical and something new, and core PC races are the players.

Huh? It's easiest if you plain don't worry about and move along with the rest of the story. That's easy. Coming up with some convoluted rubric for people noticing your character's special race, figuring out the context of what that means, and having a hizzy or not is complicated - it's not easy.

It's easy if you just shrug and grunt when people ask how the villagers react to the party Couatl. If you are having the 10th level party be largely ignored in the metropolis, it is easier to not get your underwear up your crack just because one of the party members happens to be a stone giant.

To claim that it is easier to single out players for persecution than it is to just not worry about individual racial preferences amongst the populace is puzzling. We don't especially worry about the fact that a lot of people probably don't like Gnomes that much, so I can't imagine why it would be easier to suddenly start worrying about such prejudices as soon as a goblin comes in to play.

It's easiest to treat all PCs the same in social situations. It is easier to treat the elf the same as a the dwarf, and it is easiest to treat the hobgoblin the same way. And anyone who says different is being intentionally difficult.

-Username17

[User3]

Monsters make terrible PCs not for the obvious RP problems, or for the SS LA problem, but because monsters are designed to have too much power for their CR, as well weaknesses that are too prominent.

Since they have powerful abilities, it feels like they are powerful when you fight them. Since they have huge weaknesses, it makes them weak like pirates.

They don't fit into the level system at all, which is why my original point was: "if you are making a monster PC race, why would you cripple it by following the standard monster formats?"

[RandomCasualty]

1093386754[/unixtime]]
Huh? It's easiest if you plain don't worry about and move along with the rest of the story. That's easy. Coming up with some convoluted rubric for people noticing your character's special race, figuring out the context of what that means, and having a hizzy or not is complicated - it's not easy.

Well, it's even easier for you not to bother rolling dice at all and the DM just to invent what happens rules wise. That way you don't need to buy a book that tells you how to run things. Any moron can walk in there, produce an incoherent story and a bunch of other crap and call it a done deal. Simply ignoring everything is pretty stupid.

When you have a monster PC, the guy expects people to single him out, that's probably why he chose it. You don't pick a character like Drizz't and then not expect people to be anti-drow, it's part of the role. It's part of the cool aspect of being a half-fiend paladin or whatever that people are initially thinking you're evil. OTOH, if he's chosen it merely as a min/max tool, then to hell with him, just have him play a human or some other class. Because he's going to be one of those people who think that him being a monster eliminates any need for personality or background.

It's easiest to treat all PCs the same in social situations. It is easier to treat the elf the same as a the dwarf, and it is easiest to treat the hobgoblin the same way. And anyone who says different is being intentionally difficult.

Yup, it's easy to destroy suspension of disbelief and create a crappy storyline that everyone thinks sucks. I don't agree.

[Username17]

Drzzt clones are annoying and stupid. People want to play a hobgoblin because they want to have gray skin and sharp teeth. Is that such a fvcking problem?

There are lots of cool characters that can be made out of people with sharp teeth, and there is absolutely no reason why all of them have to center around "my mother was raped by a rampaging barbarian dude" - because that's completely played out.

V:ta style angst over the fact that your species is misunderstood is boring. Being a half-breed outsider who hates one or more of his criminal parents is boring. Being a guy who happens to have sharp teeth and is otherwise a normal adventurer is kind of cool. It's not the same old shit we've had heaped on us since Tolkien and that's good.

-Username17

[Maj]

When you have a monster PC, the guy expects people to single him out, that's probably why he chose it. You don't pick a character like Drizz't and then not expect people to be anti-drow, it's part of the role. It's part of the cool aspect of being a half-fiend paladin or whatever that people are initially thinking you're evil.

Dude, get a life. This doesn't have anything to do with roleplaying monsters, it has everything to do with roleplaying melodrama. You don't need monsters to do that, you just need a player who loves to be hated.

OTOH, if he's chosen it merely as a min/max tool, then to hell with him, just have him play a human or some other class. Because he's going to be one of those people who think that him being a monster eliminates any need for personality or background.

And again, you totally rip on people out there who love their character's history and personality, but who also happens to be min/maxed. If your issue is with lousy players, say so, but don't blame monstrous races because people can't roleplay.

Yup, it's easy to destroy suspension of disbelief and create a crappy storyline that everyone thinks sucks. I don't agree.

If you haven't done it, don't go there. Worlds like the one Frank suggests may not be the norm among players, but they are possible and they are fun. Oddly enough, they're also based on the DM's idea of what's realistic given the materials on-hand.

Regardless of all this someone-is-suffering-from-a-lack-of-adequate-imagination-and-thus-can't-play-a-monster crap, there remains no good reason why those people who actually wanted a world where PCs are monsters should have been offered such a crappy rule-set as was presented in Savage Species. We wanted it, we paid for it, and there is no reason at all that my games should have their rules determined by people who wouldn't want to buy and use the book to begin with.

[RandomCasualty]

1093394304[/unixtime]]
And again, you totally rip on people out there who love their character's history and personality, but who also happens to be min/maxed. If your issue is with lousy players, say so, but don't blame monstrous races because people can't roleplay.

I am talking about the average player here, not you or Frank. And the average player perfectly feels that being a monster PC is ample enough reason to disregard things like personalities or backgrounds. "Dude I don't need a story, I'm different cause I'm a troll."

The average DM can't handle it, and the average PC will abuse it. That's why savage species is written the way it is. It isn't written for you or Frank. It's written for Joe Average.

If you haven't done it, don't go there. Worlds like the one Frank suggests may not be the norm among players, but they are possible and they are fun. Oddly enough, they're also based on the DM's idea of what's realistic given the materials on-hand.

Right. And I don't doubt Frank's ability to pull that off, but we are talking about average PCs and average DMs, and they run Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or some simple world and in those worlds as you said it is not the norm. That's my point.

YOu're arguing your own special circumstances to try to defend the average people. You are not average.

Regardless of all this someone-is-suffering-from-a-lack-of-adequate-imagination-and-thus-can't-play-a-monster crap, there remains no good reason why those people who actually wanted a world where PCs are monsters should have been offered such a crappy rule-set as was presented in Savage Species. We wanted it, we paid for it, and there is no reason at all that my games should have their rules determined by people who wouldn't want to buy and use the book to begin with.

And you are also smart enough to figure out your own LAs for whatever world you want to run. You understand the ramifications of making the ogre race the best fighter in the game, and you know if you want to do that or not. You know how to have enemies deal with a troll's regeneration and not have it break the game. The average PC however does not.

Savage species just wasn't written with you in mind. It was written wtih the average gamer in mind. The DM who has no idea shapechange is so horribly broken and who never thought of a single infinite wealth combo. And to this guy, he wants monster PCs to be rare and special, he doesn't want to put the book on the table and suddenly have everyone wanting to play a monster.

[Lago_AM3P]

I am talking about the average player here, not you or Frank. And the average player perfectly feels that being a monster PC is ample enough reason to disregard things like personalities or backgrounds. "Dude I don't need a story, I'm different cause I'm a troll."

So?

Ou're arguing your own special circumstances to try to defend the average people. You are not average.

So?

Savage species just wasn't written with you in mind. It was written wtih the average gamer in mind. The DM who has no idea shapechange is so horribly broken and who never thought of a single infinite wealth combo. And to this guy, he wants monster PCs to be rare and special, he doesn't want to put the book on the table and suddenly have everyone wanting to play a monster.

I should ask the word 'so', again, but I already made my damn point in previous posts (about how doing this is massively dishonest), twice, and I'm going to ask everyone to read it again.

[Maj]

RC, if you are telling me that Savage Species was written for the average player in an average game with average DMs and average rules that allow monster PCs in the game, despite the fact that they are often horribly disruptive, then you don't qualify as who the book was written for, either. You don't want the players to be disruptive monsters. You don't want them to roleplay badly. You don't want to have to change your world from ugly = evil/pretty = good.

So where are these average players? Where is the average DM? Where are the people this book was designed for? How many people from these boards actually paid for this book with the intentions of using it? How many of them actually do?

There are those DMs who will allow no players to be monsters. They won't buy the book.

There are those DMs who will allow one player (maybe two) to be monsters. They'll buy the book.

There are those DMs who will allow any player to be monsters. They'll buy the book.

Yet, Savage Species was written only for one group of people - in order to screw one class of player (you, yourself, said that average players will be using this book, and they're not [effective] min/maxers, right? So why bother with the screwed LA?).

That's flat-out ass marketing. If they had done it right, they would have had the full weight of two classes of gamer buying that book, and they could have just written it the balanced-in-line-with-the-rest-of-the-races way and done just fine. For some reason, though, they got it in their heads that they needed to boost the LA in order to accomodate the realism of fantasy worlds. Everyone is paying as a result.

[Sma]

RC from my end of the table, that stuff you're spouting about the average gamer is a bunch of hogwash. None of the people I met during my years of gaming were stupid, or unable to speak their mind when someone on the table was pulling a fast one with his character. More often than not they had an opinion about everything under the sun and weren´t shy of telling anyone who wasn´t busy rolling the dice. Munchkins either get shot down, or if possible accomodated. Never has been a problem.

But even if there was this Joe Average, and he walks up to his DM and says "Know what ? I´ve been reading this book and there was this guy who looked really wicked, mind if I play someone like him ?" And the DM - knowing the his players son has been showing him MM pictures again - says "Sure go ahead think up a background and I´ll go look up the stats in that Savage Species book I just bought". And they start playing and meet the goblin sorceror who proceeds to color spray the ninth level party, and oh boy will the gargoyles player ever be sad when he´s out of the fight.

Again.

Well, at least he can fly.

Sma

[RandomCasualty]

1093396696[/unixtime]]
Yet, Savage Species was written only for one group of people - in order to screw one class of player (you, yourself, said that average players will be using this book, and they're not [effective] min/maxers, right? So why bother with the screwed LA?).

Well, no they're not necessarily ineffective, they're just not super aware of everything. Simple stuff, like a cheap +6 bonus to strength won't get past them, but complex stuff like planar binding loops, gate assassination and fabricate wealth schemes are not things they'll think of right off the bat. Simple spells like 3.0 harm, that tell you how to abuse them are likely to be abused by this type of gamer, and consequently be game breaking spells. And these guys are generally aware enough to find a low LA deal and take it.

Generally this kind of player plays a stat whore archetype anyway, and giivng them a cheap way to get more strength for thier barbarian is something they'll jump on in an instant. I'm talking about the same players who readily consider the half-orc to be an awesome race because it grants a +2 to strength and no real disadvantages. And this sort of player is going to be the kind that will flood your game with monstrous warrior types. I mean if the half-orc is awesome for a +2, what about a full blooded orc for +4 or an ogre for +8, and so on.

[GhostWhoTalks]

SS was advertised as being the book FOR people ready and willing to include monstrous characters into their campaign or even as the focal point for it.

From the blurb at the back of the book "Traveling alongside other intrepid characters these heroic creatures carve their places into legend with sword, spell, tooth and claw." and "This supplement for the D&D game provides everything you need to play a monster as a character or to make the monsters your heroes fight even more formidable."

Lets just repeat a bit of that "everything you need to play a monster as a character".

The book includes a (massive 4 page long) section on advice for including monsters in your campaign, stuff like actually saying that even in a "standard" setting with the assumption that minotaurs are feared or hated in "normal" villages it only takes a "couple of levels" before the minotaur becomes accepted in the village with fame for good deeds already spreading to surrounding settlements.

It THEN goes on, in that same tiny section, to describe a bunch of campaign formats/changes/interpretations supposedly for those who WANT monster characters to be more common in their setting, and how to set up the attitudes and such to support that in various "interesting" ways.

So how the heck does an assumption that in "standard" settings monstrous characters suffer a role play penalty for at least a "couple of levels" mesh with an ADDITIONAL penalty in mechanical terms?

Is it a mechanical discouragement to prevent people facing the role play penalty?

Does that really provide for those of us who ARE up to the role play "challenge"?

How does the additional mechanical penalty, apparently there for the reason of convincing you NOT to risk the additional role play penalty in any way mesh with the officialy presented campaign models where the role play penalty is changed or outright removed?

If the book was really intended for people doing things "easy" way because they don't have the experience or abilities they would have EXTENDED the advice on how to include monsters to a much larger, better, section. And then dropped the awfully difficult poorly explained mechanical penalties.

People who don't WANT to include monsters as characters in their campaign, who can't justify it, who find a character group with a pixie in it buying ale in an inn somehow a bigger challenge to suspension of disbelief than a group with a three foot tall hairy footed halfling simply have NO business buying a book supposedly dedicated to including monstrous characters, let alone setting the agenda of the writers.

If people WANT to include them they are either ready and capable for rules to do so or not.

Those who are ready expect the book to provide for them.

Those who are not would surely expect an entire handbook on the subject to you know, tell them things that might help them become at least a little more ready and capable.

And then proceed to provide for them when they are ready.

[Maj]

Generally this kind of player plays a stat whore archetype anyway, and giivng them a cheap way to get more strength for thier barbarian is something they'll jump on in an instant. I'm talking about the same players who readily consider the half-orc to be an awesome race because it grants a +2 to strength and no real disadvantages. And this sort of player is going to be the kind that will flood your game with monstrous warrior types. I mean if the half-orc is awesome for a +2, what about a full blooded orc for +4 or an ogre for +8, and so on.

Hon, I started the last game with a 26 Int. I know stat whoring. The best bang for your buck in 3.0 was either a half-celestial (who is pretty!) or a half-dragon (who can also be pretty!), not anything in Savage Species.

[Lago_AM3P]

And this sort of player is going to be the kind that will flood your game with monstrous warrior types. I mean if the half-orc is awesome for a +2, what about a full blooded orc for +4 or an ogre for +8, and so on.

Are you trying to tell me that we shouldn't accomodate these people?

Gee, maybe it wouldn't be a problem if we gave them balanced rules. That way, being a dwarf fighter wouldn't be any better or worse than a minotaur fighter.

Or, again, if your objection is purely aesthetic you could exercise DM veto power if for some reason you didn't want to explore this avenue. It's not even that hard.

[canamrock]

Wow.... three pages... way too much rambling. Here's what the design process for SS looked like, from what I could pull from the old Redman statements:

At first, the SS design crew started working during 3.0E to make a system for letting more of the races in the MM be playable in normal campaigns. At some point during the first part of the design for the book, a statement came down from the lead development team. The SS team was told that they were to deliberately make non-standard races inherently inferior to the PHB races. The reasoning was that in the published settings, allowing other races to be balanced power-wise would create the problem of trying to explain why those races did not have an equal level of civilization in the settings. Therefore, rather than have to modify their settings and storylines to accomodate the possibility of new races being equitable choices, the SS team was expected to make them weaker on average by default, so this problem could not come to pass.

As such, balance was set internally amongst the non-standard races, all set weaker than the normal races, entirely because of a theoretical problem with the interaction of that book and published storylines. It's basically a matter that FR and the RPGA (using Living Greyhawk) were more important to the lead WotC design team than making a 'fair' book.

Then again, what would you expect from the team that let the half-orc remain janked because it was 'easier' for some players.

[Username17]

Generally this kind of player plays a stat whore archetype anyway, and giivng them a cheap way to get more strength for thier barbarian is something they'll jump on in an instant.

Like polymorphing into a Giant at a lower level than you could possibly play one, or in some other way? As long as polymorphing into whatever you want whenever you want is street legal, actually playing whatever you want doesn't even matter from a game balance perspective.

Sure, stat whoring up your strength to a very high number is, I suppose, impressive. Heck, it'll evenb be useful sometimes. But when Shapechange can let you stat whore your strength whenever you need it, and allow you to be fast, small, invisible, or teleporting if you decide you need that instead, for free, who gives a crap?

-Username17

[User3]

Like polymorphing into a Giant at a lower level than you could possibly play one, or in some other way? As long as polymorphing into whatever you want whenever you want is street legal, actually playing whatever you want doesn't even matter from a game balance perspective.

Sure, stat whoring up your strength to a very high number is, I suppose, impressive. Heck, it'll even be useful sometimes. But when Shapechange can let you stat whore your strength whenever you need it, and allow you to be fast, small, invisible, or teleporting if you decide you need that instead, for free, who gives a crap?

Well, since Polymorphing requires at least ninth level Wizard to use an action in combat and blow one of his good spell slots, that actually seems like a big balance issue when compared to a dude who is hardcore all the time at little to no costs and has Spell-like, Supernatural, or spellcasting stats boosted beyond normal PC limits. It doesn’t even seem like the same argument.

I mean, if people only wanted to be giants, your argument would make sense. Since they want to be orc half-dragons with +12 Str and natural armor and an “I win” power vs low-level enemies for an LA of +3(something that Polymorph won’t do), its an entirely different issue.

-----------------------------

Shapechanging only works for 17th level wizards and druids, so even worrying about the potential effects is kinda pointless as most players will never get access to it.

And, for a ninth level spell, its only broken in that you can take poorly described Supernatural abilities(like Phoenix reincarnation, Barghest Feeding, and Balor "having a pimp sword" ability) and break the game with them if your DM is not paying attention. It still doesn’t give you broken spell-like abilities, so its still not as bad as just being an MM monster(like being an Efreet and just granting Wishes all day long).

If the MM just had a spell section in the back of the book with a write-up of all the unique monster effects, I'd bet that none of the forms allowed by Shapechange would be broken.

----------------------

Honestly, monsterous PCs are for people who want to break the level system by using crazy stats or crazy abilities. Until the monsters better conform to the level system, monstrous PCs will always be unbalanced.

I mean, starting the game with an Int of 26 is not roleplaying. Its called "I want to break the skill point system so that I get more skill points than a rogue" or "my wizard is never going to have anyone ever make a save vs the crazy DCs of my spells."

If people really wanted to play a guy “with gray skin and fangs,” then they could easily take one of the races, scratch off the “human” or “elf”or whatever and write in “hobgoblin.” Catgirls can easily be humans who have a hook-up feat or enhanced reflexes, and your “half-dragon” could just be an elf that we changed the type to dragon and not elf.

But no, people want natural armor to stack with regular armor or spell-like abilities that they could never get until much much later in the level system (like the Pixie spells, which has a once per day 8th level spell in the set). They see the brokenness of the monsters and they want some brokenness for their character.

Until the MM is fixed, monster PCs shouldn’t be allowed to break the game. Its not balanced game when you do say “I’m going to give myself this crippling weakness that’s never coming up and in return I want vast power.”

[RandomCasualty]

1093445676[/unixtime]]
Like polymorphing into a Giant at a lower level than you could possibly play one, or in some other way? As long as polymorphing into whatever you want whenever you want is street legal, actually playing whatever you want doesn't even matter from a game balance perspective.

Like that, only something that doesn't require them to think.

See the average player never uses polymorph. He read the first paragraph, figured the spell was too complex to give a bother about and ignored it. He then read fireball and said (wow 10d6) and proceeded to memorize that.

So the average player doesn't even use that stuff, you can tell really, because they never bothered to balance it. I mean I find the number of people who actually use polymorph to be a very low number, just because the rules are so complex. Similarly I've had druids that have never wildshaped.

And they weren't stupid players by any means, they just didn't dedicate themselves to totally learning the rulebook and the spell list as some of us have.