With how quickly WotC releases material, I think it doesn't make sense to allow a class like the Assassin one month after it comes out in Dragon and not allow Hybrids for 8 months after they come out in Dragon, just because they have the word "Playtest" attached to them.
Like Errata-ed material, playtest material will generally be released as official material and it may or may not be modified.
So my proposal is that we allow any character building material one month after it becomes official material in either Character Builder or in hardback, not one month after it comes out only in hardback. In other words, once the material is no longer considered by WotC to be playtest anymore. In the case of Hybrids, it showed up as PHB 3 material at the beginning of February (IIRC).
This allows people who have Character Builder to start building a character with Character Builder hardback material and only wait a month to actually play that PC instead of waiting 2 to 3 months until a month after the hardback comes out.
From my perspective, material is material. The door is wide open at this point here, so why close the window when the door is wide open? It seems kind of silly to make such an arbitrary distinction when the material is just going to be allowed anyway.
The idea is to encourage people to have cool new character concepts and join in, not to discourage them with a "you must wait 3 months because this particular set of material has some caveat on it".
Note: I am not saying that we should auto-allow playtest material, I am saying that we should auto-allow Character Builder hardback material before it actually comes out in hardback form.
Like Errata-ed material, playtest material will generally be released as official material and it may or may not be modified.
So my proposal is that we allow any character building material one month after it becomes official material in either Character Builder or in hardback, not one month after it comes out only in hardback. In other words, once the material is no longer considered by WotC to be playtest anymore. In the case of Hybrids, it showed up as PHB 3 material at the beginning of February (IIRC).
This allows people who have Character Builder to start building a character with Character Builder hardback material and only wait a month to actually play that PC instead of waiting 2 to 3 months until a month after the hardback comes out.
From my perspective, material is material. The door is wide open at this point here, so why close the window when the door is wide open? It seems kind of silly to make such an arbitrary distinction when the material is just going to be allowed anyway.
The idea is to encourage people to have cool new character concepts and join in, not to discourage them with a "you must wait 3 months because this particular set of material has some caveat on it".
Note: I am not saying that we should auto-allow playtest material, I am saying that we should auto-allow Character Builder hardback material before it actually comes out in hardback form.