Creating a Ban-List for a new Campaign

[Stille_Nacht]

My friends and i have decided on starting a D&D 3.5 campaign for fun, and i have been given the task of DMing.

Reference: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293

We are aware of class tiers, and are toying around with the idea of either banning several classes or severely restricting spell choices for classes like the wizard, the artificer, etc.

our mentality: So, to be honest, we don't care much about DnD. Not that we don't think it'll be a lot of fun, but for many of them, this is their first experience playing. We are not attached to the core classes. Our sense of nostalgia is almost nonexistent.

However, we are all strategy game buffs. We are part of the starcraft team at our university, we play MtG at states, etc. If we get into something, we really get into it. We're the type of people who read 4 pages of stats and skills for fun. So as far as characters go, they're going to be pretty damn optimized. The pleasure we derive from optimization, in this case, exceeds the pleasure from picking a particular class (because we really don't have preferences).

This combination is why we decided that we're either going to have to nerf some classes or ban them. Because we know that the first thing that's going to happen is a bunch of googled spreadsheets and advice pages.

Addendum: we love optimizing for its own sake, but we dislike what is referred to as "degenerate".
EX: in the card game MtG, there is a format called vintage, which hosts the most powerful decks in the game. We dislike this format. Because while things are balanced, while things are dangerous, while things may even be skill intensive (though often aren't particularly), the decks all win or establish a definite winning position by turn 2 or so.
Better EX: It's moderately fun to play a game with cheat codes on in the short run, but we enjoy it way more when cheat codes are off in the long run.

We don't want classes that solve encounters with a wave of their hands. We dont want classes that necessitate encounters that can cause instantaneous wipes. We'll strive to reach the limits given certain parameters, but we prefer to parameters to feel "fair" or at least "fair-ish".

Our first choice is for the players to consult me every time they level up and i can veto "broken" abilities (like, say, "polymorph" for the wizard) Unfortunately, i'm not really knowledgeable enough to know which skill, feat, specialization, or spell is actually broken. I've not DMed for years, so i also doubt i can shape encounters such that the classes balance out.

i'd like the characters to be around tier 3 ish

-Are there some general guidelines that could be set out to stop classes from doing too much, too easily?
-Are there classes so inherently broken that i cannot limit them without extreme measures that gimp the class?
-Are there perhaps a set of source books i should stay in to limit the classes?
-- Could those source books be found online?
-Are there any general guidelines for buffing weaker classes?
-Is it really feasible for a new-ish DM to do this? should i just ban tiers 1 and 2?
-Is there a short-ish list of spells that are clearly broken for arcanes/divines?

[Roguenewb]

Uh, test of might and spite and some very general "these things are unapologetically broken". After that, we need some more info:

-What is the target tier of the party? Usually this is somewhere between 2-4, most DMs aren't really trying for tier 1 party, and t5 parties have problems accomplishing the task.
-What level of power do you wish the party to have? Are people teleport spamming mid combat to dodge rockets while tagging back with metamagiced kill spells? Or summoning a monster and casting hasting on the monster and the party? Or applying cunning teamwork to trick a monster into a bad spot so they can smash it with circumstantial modifiers? This informs what you want combat and the world to feel like.
-How gritty? Generally, less spells available=grittier. Since there is a spell solution to every problem, less freedom in spell choice equals less chance of trumping encounters. See: SHIVERING TOUCH
-Where on the LotR->Superheroes spectrum do you wanna fall? High power D&D tends to get pretty superhero-y pretty easily.

My general recommendation is ban tier 1. The game is just better without them. All Sorc/Wiz and Cleric/Druid spells are still in the game, through their respective spont casters. Turn undead should be granted by classes that progress it (so people can actually get into classes), wild-shape still exists through ranger, and wild cohort makes animal companions still exist.

[PaintByBlood]

I'm not as experienced as many around here, and to DMing specifically I'm quite new, but I've had a lot of good results so far with the Rebalancing Compendium (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2096.0) in a game I am running.

It basically seeks to put every class that they felt was most necessary to keep right around tier 3, and I think they've done a fairly good job. Certainly not perfect, but good. They also made certain expected archetypes more viable, such as the dedicated healbot Cleric, or the blasting Wizard, which I think is really good for new players.
If you don't use it, then it should still be a good source for getting a look at what things are considered unbalanced.

Further, if you don't use it, I would put my recommendation forth that you don't ban Wizards or the like outright. Rather, the Tiers were intended as a guideline for how close the party should be to one another, not a strict rule on power or party makeup either. A DM should have the easiest time challenging the whole party if they're not vastly far apart, but I don't think it is reason to outright ban the top tiers. If someone wants to play a Wizard and someone wants to play a Swordsage that isn't too bad (especially if you keep an eye on the Wizard, preempt some stuff, and handle issues that do crop up cleanly) - you just will have a harder time, probably, if a Wizard and a Monk are both in the party at once.

EDIT: Also, on the subject of source books, if you stick to the SRD you'll have a lot fewer powerful feat combinations and such, but the spell list still puts the casters really high - and you don't have beautiful things like the Tome of Battle to help dedicated meleers keep up. If you're low on book resources, you could look towards Pathfinder. They've got a much wider selection of OGL content, I believe, and many people consider their changes to be good fixes for a lot of the most major problems in 3.5.

[Metahuman1]

Personally, I'd Ban Tier 1, Tier 5, Tier 6 And the Truenamer.

From there, if it's not in a tier, but someone wants to use it, ask the playground. For example,Dragonfire Adept isn't officially listed, but the playground put's it at tier 4 to tier 3 depending on build and stats.

Also, while tier 4 to 2 tend to work well enough together, encourage players to try and pick a tier and all run characters in that tier. Often you can find lower tier variants for something, or higher tier variants. An unarmed Psi-warrior or Swordsage is a solid Tier 3 Monk replacement, and a Wildshape (Possibly also Mystic.) ranger is a Tier 3 swap out for a Druid.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Ban all Tier 1 Templates (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7044). Limit Tier 2 templates to Tier 3 and lower characters, Tier 3 templates to Tier 2 and lower characters, Tier 4 and lower templates are available to anyone who wants them.

Be aware of the Tier System for Prestige Classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5198.0). Limit characters in what prestige classes they may take based on the tier if their base class(es). Make a net total Tier 1 the upper limit, so a Wizard or Cleric cannot take Up One Tier or Up Two Tiers prestige classes. A Sorcerer could take an Up One Tier prestige class, but not an Up Two Tiers prestige class. Exceptions could be made for multiclass characters, for example a Cleric who wants to take Radiant Servant of Pelor (Up One Tier) could take an equal number of levels in a Down One Tier prestige class like Warpriest or Hospitaler.

An easier way would be to just make sure every player makes a character whose capabilities are within two tiers of any other character. Any tricks the PCs use, opponents will also be able to use, for example Shivering Touch (add a Fort negates instead of banning it). You can also make sure encounters are varied enough that every character has an opportunity to shine. If you ban anything, ban the Tier 5-6 classes for anything but a dip.

Just keep in mind that economies are self-regulating, so Wall of Iron > Sell Iron or Buy a Cow > Flesh to Salt > Sell Salt isn't really going to work because there are no buyers for that volume of those goods at standard prices. Trying to get rid of something like that on short notice will get you arrested and the goods seized until the guards can figure out which merchant has disappeared. Let's say they do sell something like that, Bob the Blacksmith stands up his usual supplier because the PC will give him a discount on the Walls of Iron. His usual supplier has to find another buyer and it will end up costing him time, transport, and getting rid of Bob's iron order at a discount. The PC won't be around the next time Bob the Blacksmith needs iron, so he has to go back to his regular guy who he now has a bad reputation with and Bob has to make up the losses he caused them the last time. Bob the Blacksmith knows that it will end up costing him more down the road to take the PCs' Walls of Iron, so he'll just pass on that and keep getting it from his regular guy as scheduled. This isn't a video game where you can sell any quantity of any goods you have to a merchant for a flat rate, they'll only buy what they think they can flip for a profit and they'll always pay the PCs the lowest amount that they can get away with.

[Firechanter]

Well first off, I don't really like the idea of _banning_ iconic classes such as Wiz or Clr, but they sure as hell can use some rebalancing. There are more concepts of rebalancing T1s than there are grains of sand at the beach.

For example, I recommond putting a hard cap of _one_ active Summoned or Called creature per Caster at any time. If you don't ban these spells outright.

Likewise, you might want to put the kibosh on the entire Polymorph line of spells. It's really a bit silly that level 2 Alter Self is a better source of Flight than level 3 Fly.

--

However!
I advise _strongly_ against converting the Cleric to a Spont Caster class as per the UA variant. Reason is simple: too few spells known. The Cleric needs about 3-5 restorative spells per level in order to function as Healer. If these have to come out of your Spells Known, you can only heal and do nothing else, which is an incredibly boring job. If you fill the Spells Known with different stuff, you are dependent on items to heal, which gets expensive and defeats the purpose or taking a full caster along.

You might, however, try to give a Spontaneous Cleric all restorative spells (Cure, Restore, Remove X, Heal etc) for free, in addition to the usual Spells Known table.

[JusticeZero]

Well first off, I don't really like the idea of _banning_ iconic classes such as Wiz or Clr, but they sure as hell can use some rebalancing. There are more concepts of rebalancing T1s than there are grains of sand at the beach.Unfortunately, there are so many ways of "rebalancing" them because they typically don't work out very well. It is not a trivial problem, and most of the fix attempts go after odd non-issues, leaving the problem mostly untouched. It seems to work best to just ban them outright and find a newer class to serve the function that was lost; newer classes tend to avoid the extreme ends of tier systems better.

[ArcturusV]

I'm going to hit upon two things, one that you want to hit Tier 3, and two, that you are looking towards buffing lower tier/"weaker" classes. I mention this because as near as I can understand the tier system, and everything I read, that's probably one of the bigger mazes that you're stepping into.

The thing is... tiers aren't just "power". I know it gets talked about like it's power. Clearly a level 20 wizard is more powerful than a level 20 Paladin, etc. But it's not always the case. The level 2 Paladin is probably stronger than the level 2 wizard. The level 5 Fighter is probably going to lose to the level 5 Rogue in usefulness, etc. But not always.

Tier 3 however is this weird place where it seems the definitions between Power and Versatility are crossed. For example, Crusaders are tier 3, but they don't seem very versatile, from what I've seen. Crusaders hold their tier 3 status just because they're really good "tanks", the best perhaps short of summoning up some horror beyond PC status... But the Beguiler is also tier 3, and not because it's the best at some niche, but because it has a lot of versatility.

As you dip below tier 3, it's defined less by versatility and more in direct power. Though some times the lines blur there too. Rogues as far as raw power, I wouldn't put too much higher than a Paladin or a Fighter. But they're a higher tier because even though they are directly weaker in most situations, they are more versatile.

So when you decide to buff up a Lower Tier/Weaker character, you need to be aware of that and figure out which way to go. Do you buff the Paladin by making them more powerful in the direct combat arena... or do you give them more options than Summon Mount, Buff Up, Chargesmite? Knowing which way you want to go will tell you which way to "fix" classes.

[molten_dragon]

My friends and i have decided on starting a D&D 3.5 campaign for fun, and i have been given the task of DMing.

Reference: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293

We are aware of class tiers, and are toying around with the idea of either banning several classes or severely restricting spell choices for classes like the wizard, the artificer, etc.

Our first choice is for the players to consult me every time they level up and i can veto "broken" abilities (like, say, "contact other plane" for the wizard) Unfortunately, i'm not really knowledgeable enough to know which skill, feat, specialization, or spell is actually broken. I've not DMed for years, so i also doubt i can shape encounters such that the classes balance out.

i'd like the characters to be tier 3 ish

-Are there some general guidelines that could be set out to stop classes from doing too much, too easily?
-Are there classes so inherently broken that i cannot limit them without extreme measures that gimp the class?
-Are there perhaps a set of source books i should stay in to limit the classes?
-- Could those source books be found online?
-Are there any general guidelines for buffing weaker classes?
-Is it really feasible for a new-ish DM to do this? should i just ban tiers 1 and 2?

I would really recommend against just banning things up front. It almost never works out well, and most of the time it really isn't needed.

Just make a gentleman's agreement that no one is going to break the game or make it not fun for anyone else. Go into it with the understanding that if someone is causing problems, they may get asked to change their character so it doesn't cause a problem any more. You said you guys are friends, so that should really be all that's needed.

Don't set too much store in the tier system either. Whether a character will cause a problem or not depends far more on the player playing it than the tier it's in. Some players can play a wizard and be the weakest member of the party, and others can play a fighter and be the strongest.

[Firechanter]

@JusticeZero: Yeah, I agree with the first half of your statement -- most of them don't really work well, or do what you'd hope they'd do.

Also, I want any such fixes to be quick and easy, not complete rewrites requiring you to learn the whole damn thing from scratch. That's really where most homebrew rulesets fail for me.

I'm currently working on such a ruleset myself. The core elements being:
- only 7 spell levels instead of 9 (just like in the good old days). So spells come online later, and the most powerful spells simply aren't in the game. This alone should knock all full casters down a notch (Low T2 / High T3).
- all classes being Spont casters, with Spells Known identical to their Spells per Day allotment (including bonus spells). In addition, Clerics get all curative/restorative spells for free. This is mainly to avoid those "I've prepped the wrong spells, let's Recall and come back tomorrow" situations.
- Spellcasting stat is split up. Unlocking spell levels and bonus spells are governed by Int for Arcane and Wis for Divine casters, while Save DCs are globally set by Cha. This is supposed to make full casters a little more MAD.
- Partial Casters (Ranger, Paladin) get +2 Slots for every spell level.

That's really pretty much all there is to it. Some current Spontaneous Casters like Sorcerer kinda lose their niche, but to that I say screw it.
Some very specialized casters like Beguilers may keep their 9 level progression; not quite sure yet.

Oh, and magic item cost would need to be reworked; for the time being, I'd just stick to the normal (9 spell level based) caster levels.

[A_S]

Getting rid of level 8/9 spells is a good start, but I'd do a few additional laser-guided spell bans. Off the top of my head:

Polymorph
Celerity
Planar Binding/Ally
Contingency (maybe)
Holy Word and its counterparts
Maybe some of the more broken divination spells that let you make the DM tell you whatever you want

This isn't going to make full caster classes tier 3, but it'll make playing with them in the party a bit less problematic.

[Roguenewb]

The thing is... tiers aren't just "power". I know it gets talked about like it's power. Clearly a level 20 wizard is more powerful than a level 20 Paladin, etc. But it's not always the case. The level 2 Paladin is probably stronger than the level 2 wizard. The level 5 Fighter is probably going to lose to the level 5 Rogue in usefulness, etc. But not always.

Doesn't this fallacy have a name? If not, I wanna name it the Bachelor's fallacy. It's been demonstrated multiple times that a well designed, well played wizard is king from day zero. The gap only widens. Hell, with the crappy AC level 1 melees have, the wizard has almost identical staying power to the fighter. And the wizard's offense is waaaaay better.


In terms of the tier stuff and banning, I try to ask myself, what does wizard do that's unique? Add all available spells. That's a pure upside mechanical interaction, so, I should penalize the mechanic. Give a wizard a bard's spells per day. Is the class tier 1? No, it is probably still tier 3 though. If they play weak on a couple playtests, let them get 1 slot/day of the higher levels starting at the levels they'd normally get those spells. Or, let them cast like a factotum, so they have much higher total spell levels.

What do clerics do uniquely? Get domains and turn undead. One is upside, one is situational. Leave turning alone, its probably okay in a vacuum. For domains, make them Evangelist clerics from Dragon. Very, very small core class list, casts spont from that and their chosen domains, makes god choice *very* important and clerics of different gods feel quite different.

Archivists? Divine Wizards, same fixes, leave them their class features because in a void, cleric spells are weaker than wizard ones. Rule that "divine spells" only refers to spells on a divine caster's list. PrCs don't count, divine magician doesn't count, and so on.

Druid? Hardest of all the tier 1s. They are flavor powerhouses with cool abilities. My fix? Give Spirit Shaman Wild Cohort as a bonus feat, and let them take wild shape as a feat chain. Probably the best class in this fixed game, but whatever.

Artificer? Crafts items awesomely. List what spell lists they can craft off. No more Trapsmith haste's. Second, minimum cost to create 25% gold, 1/50th XP, no super reduction stacking. Being very careful and specific about custom item rules, being generally harsh. There is enough awesome stuff printed.

Find a polymorph fix you like and go with it. One bound, one summoned creature at a time (2 dudes total). Being cryptic and meager with divination answers. Make black onyx very, very rare.

[RFLS]

I seem to be in the minority on this one, but I'm generally against ban lists. I simply talk to my players, and encourage them to keep the rest of the group in mind in terms of what they do. It's worked very well, and I find that placing restrictions on players can occasionally make them...ornery.

[A_S]

I seem to be in the minority on this one, but I'm generally against ban lists. I simply talk to my players, and encourage them to keep the rest of the group in mind in terms of what they do. It's worked very well, and I find that placing restrictions on players can occasionally make them...ornery.
I've been in one campaign where this worked really well. It had mostly people who had a pretty good grasp on the metagame and mechanics of 3.5, and had good attitudes about wanting to tell a collaborative story rather than "beat" the DM or other players. If you're lucky enough to have a group like that, I think it's a great way to run a game.

I've also been in one campaign where the same approach did not work well, about which the less said the better.

It's very easy to accidentally stumble upon something broken if you have anything less than excellent system mastery, and it's very tempting to try and one-up the DM or your fellow players if you're even a little bit competitive. I think ban lists have a place in many campaigns.

*edit*
Doesn't this fallacy have a name? If not, I wanna name it the Bachelor's fallacy. It's been demonstrated multiple times that a well designed, well played wizard is king from day zero. The gap only widens. Hell, with the crappy AC level 1 melees have, the wizard has almost identical staying power to the fighter. And the wizard's offense is waaaaay better.
I think "well designed, well played" is the key phrase here. In high-optimization play, Wizards start off with an advantage and it gets bigger at higher levels. At sufficiently low optimization, Wizards start off with a disadvantage, and it narrows before meeting somewhere around level 5, after which they have an advantage again.

Basically, a level 1 Barbarian with no ACF's who took TWF as his feat (i.e., low-op) is stronger than a Wizard who took Combat Casting and filled his spell slots with Magic Missile and 1-hour duration Mage Armor.

[ArcturusV]

I dunno. I think it's not really a fallacy outside of idea situations. I mean the wizard at level 1 is going to have a high impact on a single, maybe two, encounters (Barring history). The Level 1 Fighter/paladin/Barbarian has more endurance. And either they're going to carry the early encounters (Wizard saving for later ones in the day) or they're going to carry the later encounters (Wizard blew his wad early). Once you start getting around level 4 that stops being a thing as the Wizard will have the endurance to last out an adventuring day.

[danzibr]

As long as your friends don't research the real cheese, there's probably no need to ban anything. I don't ban anything when I play with my family because they're not hardcore optimizers.

Still, up to you of course.

[jedipilot24]

Druid already has a built in nerf; it's called the Shapeshift ACF from PHB II. It's a nerf because Natural Spell doesn't work with Shapeshift and the Druid's physical ability scores are now actually relevant. Not sure if its enough to drop it to Tier 2 but it's a start at least.

The Spontaneous Cleric variant is really little more than the precursor to the Favored Soul as there is very little to distinguish the two.

In any case, my groups never had anything banned because we were all lousy at optimization and probably didn't even know what that was.

[Roguenewb]

I dunno. I think it's not really a fallacy outside of idea situations. I mean the wizard at level 1 is going to have a high impact on a single, maybe two, encounters (Barring history). The Level 1 Fighter/paladin/Barbarian has more endurance. And either they're going to carry the early encounters (Wizard saving for later ones in the day) or they're going to carry the later encounters (Wizard blew his wad early). Once you start getting around level 4 that stops being a thing as the Wizard will have the endurance to last out an adventuring day.

Have you ever tried to run 4 level 1 encounters in a day? It goes terribly.

Normal, Mid-Op wizard: Specialist Conjurer with abrupt jaunt. Has grease, sleep and color spray prepared. Equipped with a light crossbow. Assuming he has normal, competent cleric, fighter, rogue for team mates, he's going to (statistically) make two encounters laughably easy. Grease *is* gonna flat foot someone, who is then going to get wrecked with charge/power attack and a sneak attack shot. Even more crazy if he fails the save and fall down. One of the other fights during the day, someone is going to fail a save against either Sleep or color spray and be irrelevant and murdered. He can do some of this himself by just plunking away. None of the tier 5 meleers, are gonna wreck 2, maybe 3 encounters in a day. Hell, most of the THF or TWF fighters have so low defenses that they need to rest in the middle of the second fight, and have a scary end to that fight. The wizard has a 12/13 AC, and 4 times per day, totally immune to an attack. I know who I'd rather be from a power perspective.

Crazy oped wizard: Focused Specialist Conjurer with Animal companion riding dog, improved initiative traded for scribe scroll, Precocious Apprentice (glitterdust) and cloudy conjuration. Prepares grease, wall of smoke, blockade, and color spray. He has a better fighter than the fighter in the riding dog, and 4 of his 5 spells are going to ruin encounters, when carefully coupled with cloudy conjuration, can make a fight a cake walk for him and his animal. He's usually going first. Grease is essentially guaranteed 1 free win. Statistically two of the remaining three ruin an encounter, and one is wasted. 3 smashed encounters, and he strongly contributes in the third with the dog plus xbow plan. Do you know *any* first level nonsense beside "DFA nukes the world", that competes?

Wizard is broken, assuming basic system proficiency, from 1-20. If you have good gentlemen players, like I am lucky enough to have, I haven't felt the need to ban wizard, but don't let anyone who's out for blood play wizard in a group with a T4/5, and frankly, don't let anyone play a tier 5 if anyone is t2 or higher.

If you wanna make rebalances, see my post above. If you wanna make bannings, ban all the T1s but artificer (and still nuke spell access), and point all the T5 wannabes at the fixed t3 versions of their classes (almost all have one). No 1s, no 5s, works well.

[Calimehter]

Having a gaming group that is all on the same page as far as power levels and what constitutes 'unacceptable' is a big plus no matter how experienced you are.

That said, there is something to be said for ban lists as (among other things) a simplifying tool for a new DM, enabling him or her to focus more on storylines and less on mechanics.

My current fave is to limit players to the Generic Classes from Unearthed Arcana, with the two major modifications being allowing more skill points for each class (4 each for spellcaster/warrior and 10 for expert) and restricting the spellcaster to one spell list (sorc/cleric/druid). I run this mostly in E6 . . . if I was to run it in a full 20 level system I would further consider restricting spellcasters to bard progression (which would suck for the first few levels but get better quickly as time goes on) to keep things on par at higher levels.

Warriors with more skills and the ability to choose their class skills/saves (and the ability to access ToB via feats) are pretty close to T3, and the restricted spellcasters provide a lot of power and have access to iconic abilities without the "I solve anything" utility that the unmodified Tier 1's provide. You get a good group of adventurers, but you have a much simplified structure when it comes to planning an adventure - i.e. what options the players have and what options you have to consider when generating NPCs and even societies as a whole. Its more restrictive than I think many 3.X players would consider, but at least for all the reasons the OP gave I can recommend it.

[Mnemnosyne]

One thing I strongly recommend is to make all the players plan their builds out right from level 1. Don't force them to stick to it, mind you, but have them make the plan. Then have them explain the plan and what they hope to accomplish with it. This will do far more for making sure everything runs smoothly than any sort of ban list ever will, because you'll understand what your players want to do, since they will be explaining it themselves.

Once you understand what all your players want to do, you can look at their builds and see if some of them are considerably weaker than the others. If so, try and help them figure out how to bring those builds up to the level of the others. Once everyone's plans are roughly on the same level, you shouldn't have much need for a ban list. As long as you know what your players really want to do and are excited about getting to do when they reach the appropriate level, they probably won't be particularly upset if something outside the scope of their plan comes up and needs to be adjusted mid-game. At that point it's easy to talk it over with the players, and since everyone knows they're going to get to do what they really want to do, the side-things that may bring up situations where part of the party feels useless are easily removed.

[Firechanter]

Druid already has a built in nerf; it's called the Shapeshift ACF from PHB II.

Actually I'm toying with the idea of ripping out Wildshape completely and without compensation; the Druid is still powerful enough as it is.
Hell, you could probably build a melee class just with Wildshape and it would be a Tier 3 in its own right. Which I might do.

Even if the Druid gets to keep Wildshape, I'd still nix Elemental Shape (b/c that has nothing to do with the Druid theme imho) and stretch out the remaining WS progression a bit accordingly.

[TuggyNE]

Hell, you could probably build a melee class just with Wildshape and it would be a Tier 3 in its own right. Which I might do.

Wildshape Ranger is basically that (plus full BAB, d8, and 6 skill points with a good list).

[Firechanter]

Wildshape Ranger is basically that (plus full BAB, d8, and 6 skill points with a good list).

Yah, except iirc the Wildshape Ranger is limited to Medium-sized shapes, no Large or let alone Elemental Shenanigans.

[kkplx]

I would really recommend against just banning things up front. It almost never works out well, and most of the time it really isn't needed.

Just make a gentleman's agreement that no one is going to break the game or make it not fun for anyone else. Go into it with the understanding that if someone is causing problems, they may get asked to change their character so it doesn't cause a problem any more. You said you guys are friends, so that should really be all that's needed.

Don't set too much store in the tier system either. Whether a character will cause a problem or not depends far more on the player playing it than the tier it's in. Some players can play a wizard and be the weakest member of the party, and others can play a fighter and be the strongest.

This man is what it comes down to. Banning classes and spells is just extremely invasive on the player experience. They want to be a Wizard and know a lot of spells. Let them. Throw one of those guardians in when he tries to do a gatespam or persist a timestop.

Keep the rule that you want to talk wiht thme when they level up about their choices, and remove a (very, VERY small) number of spells that are clearly broken. Dalamar's Lance, Cloud of Bewilderment, etc.

I play an Artificer in nearly every campaign - and I'll run every single spell I craft or want to spellstore by my DM first. I've never broken a game, and have no intention to. (I guess me not taking persist, ever, might help)

[Stille_Nacht]

Thanks for all the input. I feel i need to explain our mentality a bit more:

So, to be honest, we don't care much about DnD. Not that we don't think it'll be a lot of fun, but for many of them, this is their first experience playing. We are not attached to the core classes. Our sense of nostalgia is almost nonexistent.

However, we are all strategy game buffs. We are part of the starcraft team at our university, we play MtG at states, etc. If we get into something, we really get into it. We're the type of people who read 4 pages of stats and skills for fun. If one of us plays football, you can be sure he knows the names and formations. If one of us plays poker, you can be sure we know all the probabilities. So as far as characters go, they're going to be pretty damn optimized. (i'm predicting semi-optimized level 1s, optimized level 2, then powergaming from level 3 on) The pleasure we derive from optimization, in this case, exceeds the pleasure from picking a particular class (because we really don't have preferences).

This combination is why we decided that we're either going to have to nerf some classes or ban them. Because we know that the first thing that's going to happen is a bunch of googled spreadsheets and advice pages.

Ok so far i'm thinking:
Ban tier 1 and Tier 5. Most tier 1 have a replacement that is lower, and more manageable. Most tier 5 have a replacement that is stronger.
Regulate spells chosen: do not allow cloud of bewilderment, multiple summons before encounters, etc.

Can anyone post a list of spells that are very clearly broken? We'll probably have at least one Divine and one Arcane.

[Dusk Eclipse]

If all people in the gaming group have that kind of mentality I see no reason to ban things, everyone will be in the same level of power which means that you (or whoever is DM'ing) can bring out the big guns from level 1, Tucker Kobold's, That damn crab, etc. That sounds like one hell of a game for me.

[danzibr]

Thanks for all the input. I feel i need to explain our mentality a bit more:

So, to be honest, we don't care much about DnD. Not that we don't think it'll be a lot of fun, but for many of them, this is their first experience playing. We are not attached to the core classes. Our sense of nostalgia is almost nonexistent.

However, we are all strategy game buffs. We are part of the starcraft team at our university, we play MtG at states, etc. If we get into something, we really get into it. We're the type of people who read 4 pages of stats and skills for fun. If one of us plays football, you can be sure he knows the names and formations. If one of us plays poker, you can be sure we know all the probabilities. So as far as characters go, they're going to be pretty damn optimized. (i'm predicting semi-optimized level 1s, optimized level 2, then powergaming from level 3 on) The pleasure we derive from optimization, in this case, exceeds the pleasure from picking a particular class (because we really don't have preferences).

This combination is why we decided that we're either going to have to nerf some classes or ban them. Because we know that the first thing that's going to happen is a bunch of googled spreadsheets and advice pages.

Ok so far i'm thinking:
Ban tier 1 and Tier 5. Most tier 1 have a replacement that is lower, and more manageable. Most tier 5 have a replacement that is stronger.
Regulate spells chosen: do not allow cloud of bewilderment, multiple summons before encounters, etc.

Can anyone post a list of spells that are very clearly broken? We'll probably have at least one Divine and one Arcane.
First of all, I find it cool you're on the Starcraft team :P

As for broken spells, go here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002) and scroll down to "Stinky Cheese: spells that are broken, broken, broken." It might not be a bad idea to ban all of those.

[Mnemnosyne]

Thanks for all the input. I feel i need to explain our mentality a bit more:
Given the (snipped) explanation, I wholly agree with Dusk Eclipse. This isn't a situation where you need to ban things in general. Just do one ban: any situation or interaction of rules whereby an arbitrarily large and/or infinite number of effects could take place is disallowed and functions for only one iteration of the loop.

That could probably be worded a bit better, but the idea of the rule is simple: if it's any sort of infinite situation, it's out, everything else goes. Because if everyone in the game is as interested in optimizing and has fun with it as you say, then there is no reason to ban anything. The players will be balanced against each other because if any of them start falling behind, they will correct that themselves, and they will find it fun to do so. The DM has no problem because the DM has unlimited resources at his disposal; he can challenge them no matter how hard they optimize. The idea of creating a ban list when the entire group is this kind of player seems to me to be wholly counterproductive as far as fun and interesting characters go. The only time to be worried is if one or more of the players is not as interested in spending time and effort in improving their character as another, at which point the ones who don't optimize become useless next to the ones that do. This sounds unlikely to happen with your group.

[Roguenewb]

Ummm....if that's your philisophy...D&D 3.5 might not be for you. The game is broken, badly, all over the place. You can't fix it, don't even try.

Can I recommend 4e or Legend? Both will work way better for strategy gaming.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by molten_dragon
I would really recommend against just banning things up front. It almost never works out well, and most of the time it really isn't needed.

...Don't set too much store in the tier system either. Whether a character will cause a problem or not depends far more on the player playing it than the tier it's in. Some players can play a wizard and be the weakest member of the party, and others can play a fighter and be the strongest.

I have to agree entirely with this, especially on the pivotal issue of personalities. How someone approaches the raw materials of the game is almost always the key issue.


Originally Posted by Roguenewb
...if that's your phil[o]sophy...D&D 3.5 might not be for you....Can I recommend 4e or Legend? Both will work way better for strategy gaming.

It grieves me to say it, but I have to agree with this. I've found that strategy gamers don't always take well to 3.5, and much as I personally dislike 4E, sometimes that kind of player discovers they prefer it.

[Stille_Nacht]

Ummm....if that's your philisophy...D&D 3.5 might not be for you. The game is broken, badly, all over the place. You can't fix it, don't even try.

Can I recommend 4e or Legend? Both will work way better for strategy gaming.

eh, we don't particularly need it to be a strategy game, i'm just saying we'll research anything we do quite thoroughly.
To be honest, the reason we came up with the idea was because a couple starcraft personalities are bumbling their way through an extremely un-optimized 3.5 campaign, and it seemed really fun.

Additionally, we love optimizing for its own sake, but we dislike what is referred to as "degenerate".
EX: in the card game MtG, there is a format called vintage, which hosts the most powerful decks in the game. We dislike this format. Because while things are balanced, while things are dangerous, while things may even be skill intensive (though often aren't particularly), the decks all "win" by turn 2 or so.
EDIT EX 2: imagine a strategy game with the cheat codes on. Sure, it's kinda fun to play absurdly broken things for a short time. It may even take a lot of skill if both players have the cheat codes on. But the thing is, it's just not as fun as playing "normally" in the long run. That's the best parallel i can draw

We don't want classes that solve encounters with a wave of their hands. We dont want classes that necessitate encounters that can cause instantaneous wipes. We don't want power levels so high that each encounter is decided in a single turn.


what are the general differences between 3.5 v 4e? i was under the impression that 4e was poorly received :O. I've read some rules, but it doesn't really give me a feel for the game.

Is it really impossible to maintain a semblance of balance with house rules in 3.5?

[Firechanter]

what are the general differences between 3.5 v 4e? i was under the impression that 4e was poorly received :O. I've read some rules, but it doesn't really give me a feel for the game.


Man, you're stinging in the hornet's nest. =D
There are tons of "general differences", to the extent that you should regard 3.5 and 4E not as two versions of the same game, but as different games.

Main Feature of 4E are "Powers", or as we also say, "kewl p0werz". ;) There are At-Will Powers, Encounter Powers and Daily Powers, which signifies how often you can use them. Once you expend an Encounter power, you can't use it again in the same encounter. A standard attack is an At-Will Power.

Character building is rather straightforward, as you normally don't multiclass (though there is a thing called "Hybrid"), so you just pick feats and powers as you level up. Rather different from 3.5 with its thousands of classes, PrCs, feats and spells.

4E Pro:
Class balance is really good. Each class fills one of four "roles" (Leader, Striker, Controller, Defender), and they are designed in such a way that no class can displace another of a different role. (Leader means "buffs and heals, grants actions to allies")
You don't have to have four players, though; typically you should fill the roles in the order Striker > Leader > Defender > Controller.
The only way you could _possibly_ have competition between characters is if you fill one role twice, but still most classes of a given role are of comparable power level.

4E Con:
Power level is rather low, when you're used to 3.5 standards. Okay, this isn't a Con for everyone, but for me it is. Referring to the Tier system, 4E classes would be low-ish T4, some even T5. For instance, in our party we had a Defender who was just ignored by the enemy, so I'd rate that as "not doing your job", i.e. T5. There are not really any T3 classes, much less any higher up.

To give a direct comparison:
In 3.5, one excellent T3 class is the Warblade. He is primarily a Striker, and one of the best there is, but _also_ a Leader. He can switch between these two roles on the fly. With the right feats, buffs and maneuver selection, _and_ tactical decisions like positioning, he can one-shot pretty much _any_ opponent that the DM might conceivably toss at him. And if necessary, repeat that stunt every couple of rounds because you just need a short breather to refresh those maneuvers.

In 4E, otoh, par of the course for a Striker is "Once per day, you can one-shot one Standard opponent". You may figure that I wasn't too impressed with that. Even a 3.5 Paladin can do more than that, and that's a T5.

4E Encounters have 3 types of opponents: "Minions" who have 1HP, regular opponents who have relatively many HP, and "Solos" or Bosses who have piles and piles of HP.
Regular encounters are usually scaled so it doesn't take long to finish once the Encounter powers are expended. Still, you can expect a few rounds of At-Will spamming before the last enemy folds up.
Boss battles, however, get _really_ mind-numbing because even after they have leeched all your powers, the boss may still have hundreds of HP, which then have to be whittled down by At Wills, while you hope you still have enough healing to avoid dying.

So, long story short, I tried 4E and was underwhelmed. (we played till level 8 )
From people who have played it longer, I've often heard fights get even more boring over time because it's always the same. So not really much of a "tactical challenge" once you know in which order you have to spam your powers.

I just hope this post isn't perceived as "edition war" by anyone - I'm just trying to convey my personal experiences with 4E. I'm certainly not trying to spoil anyone's fun they may be having with 4E.


Is it really impossible to maintain a semblance of balance with house rules in 3.5?

No, for a single campaign / group it is quite possible. Just convince your players that everyone wants to play a T3 class. Also T1 classes can be made to work without being broken on a case by case basis.
The real difficulty lies in balancing the _entire game_ so that any group would get a balanced game at any time, without specific DM intervention.

[Person_Man]

DM "Feel free to use anything you want. Expect encounters with a mix of difficulties. Some will be easy, some balanced, and others challenging. If you want to use Polymorph to turn into a Pyrohydra, go ahead. But the player who Polymorphs into a Pyrohydra can expect to be targeted by spellcasters using similarly or more ludicrous spells from time to time. So decide on how dangerous and deadly of a world you want to play in, and choose your abilities accordingly."

Problem solved.

[Stille_Nacht]

Man, you're stinging in the hornet's nest. =D
There are tons of "general differences", to the extent that you should regard 3.5 and 4E not as two versions of the same game, but as different games.

Snip



No, for a single campaign / group it is quite possible. Just convince your players that everyone wants to play a T3 class. Also T1 classes can be made to work without being broken on a case by case basis.
The real difficulty lies in balancing the _entire game_ so that any group would get a balanced game at any time, without specific DM intervention.

Hrm... 4e does sound quite boring, especially the boss fights, now that i'm comparing numbers. I think we'll be sticking to 3.5

Well, that's good then. Seeing as this is a small group, and they are ok with me literally making up rules/feats (though this is less likely) as well as outright saying "no that spell doesn't exist" (of course i'm going to be reasonable).
We aren't creating an entire ruleset, just heavily house-ruling a self-contained campaign


DM "Feel free to use anything you want. Expect encounters with a mix of difficulties. Some will be easy, some balanced, and others challenging. If you want to use Polymorph to turn into a Pyrohydra, go ahead. But the player who Polymorphs into a Pyrohydra can expect to be targeted by spellcasters using similarly or more ludicrous spells from time to time. So decide on how dangerous and deadly of a world you want to play in, and choose your abilities accordingly."

Problem solved.

that's the thing though, we'd prefer it not get to the degenerate stage of "ludicrous vs. ludicrous". Sure it might be fun for a bit, but we want "fair vs. fair" in the long run. (it's hard to define "fair", but i'm using the word as a comparative term)

[ArcturusV]

Well, with your background it shouldn't be too hard for you to pick out degenerate things and say "no". Also if you are DMing, stick to your guns. Don't let players tell you something like "Well the rules say..." when you've said no to something. They want to buy a scroll of Polymorph, and you rightly assessed that was stupidly broken? Tell them there aren't any. When they bust out the DMG rules that say the town's population is high enough to have scrolls of Polymorph floating around... pick up said DMG and throw it at them. Or something slightly less dramatic if you think it'd get the point across.

Another thing you might consider doing is making people play a wide range of levels. This is a natural balance that prevents things from being degenerate. For example, at level 1 there's almost no reason NOT to pick a Specialist Wizard (Or Elven Generalist I suppose), as you're adding anywhere from 50%-100% of your "I end an encounter" firepower per day at the cost of never learning a few spells you probably weren't going to use.

But at higher level when people made the "Right" choice about banning schools, they may realize that they made a mistake. Evocation is seen as worthless for example, but it has highly useful spells like Contingency, Wall of Force, etc. And thus when you're at high level you wish you didn't have a banned school(s) necessarily and being a Generalist Wizard is more appealing as an extra 5 or so spells isn't anywhere near as important (Being more like 10% of your spell slots) than having access to anything you could want.

But part of that is also that you have to nix loopholes. Shadow ____ spells in Illusions basically allow an Illusionist to ban whatever they want because they can cast it anyway. Sometimes even better than if it was the normal version of the spell they were copying. Conjuring creatures which can cast the spells of the school you banned is the other big one. I've houseruled it before where Summons (Because they don't really exist, are just a copy formed of your own power) also have your spell limitations. Calling like Planar Bindings does not (But they're more dangerous in their own way). Worked fine for that.

Another is taking a more logical stance on spell schools, particularly if you have Specialists. Like making Healing/Inflict spells Necromancy. Or making the "Orb of ____" spells Evocation.

It's a lot of little things that you kinda have to do on a case by case basis. But if you do, you shouldn't have any problem running Wizards of any ilk. Or really any Tier 1 class I'd think. Divine casters are only a slightly bigger bug because they have the "I know all spells at all times" thing going on. But it's not an insurmountable problem.