Duct Tape for the PvP minded dungeoneer

[GhengisConrad]

Alright. My table disbanded. After reading on the internet, we found garbage like 'pun pun', and realized just how effective polymorph or even alter self can be....

and it was devastating.

Now, we are simple people. With simple tastes. This is why we never realized how broken the game was ourselves.

and, I do not want to ban any books.

In fact, I'd like to open up Unearthed Arcana somehow if I could with the restricting rules.

So.. what's the simplest and easiest way to fix the game in such a way that would make a kind of arena style PvP game more... balanced...?

I'd like to go back to them and propose a simple rule change.

minus points if your proposal would nix anything on the build in my sig..

[Nohwl]

here's a link to the test of spite. it was a high powered pvp arena for level 13 characters. the ban list in it is a pretty good place to start.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7503776

[Kelb_Panthera]

Can't be done.

The balance between mundane characters and spell casters is irrevocably tilted in favor of the casters and there's nothing short of overhauling the entire system that can fix it. I understand that Legend is a system built on the OGL to accomplish this very thing.

If you just want to make it a bit harder for the casters to shatter your campaign world you only need to nerf or ban certain shatteringly powerful spells.

Ban these. polymorph line (starts with alter self) summon monster/nature's ally lines planar binding/ally lines celerity line

Alter or ban these. Fabricate Minor/Major creation wall of <potentially valuable material; salt, iron, etc>

Alter these only if you don't know how to deal with them properly. Extreme range teleports Long duration flight (really?) Divinations that directly answer questions Scrying Dimensional Travel (blink, shadow walk, plane shift, etc)

[Mutazoia]

Can't be done.

The balance between mundane characters and spell casters is irrevocably tilted in favor of the casters and there's nothing short of overhauling the entire system that can fix it. I understand that Legend is a system built on the OGL to accomplish this very thing.

If you just want to make it a bit harder for the casters to shatter your campaign world you only need to nerf or ban certain shatteringly powerful spells.

Ban these. polymorph line (starts with alter self) summon monster/nature's ally lines planar binding/ally lines celerity line

Alter or ban these. Fabricate Minor/Major creation wall of <potentially valuable material; salt, iron, etc>

Alter these only if you don't know how to deal with them properly. Extreme range teleports Long duration flight (really?) Divinations that directly answer questions Scrying Dimensional Travel (blink, shadow walk, plane shift, etc)

Personally I would also ban meta-magic.

[Eldan]

Metamagic by itself isn't usually that bad. Ban metamagic reducers. And maybe Quicken.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Metamagic by itself isn't usually that bad. Ban metamagic mitigation. And maybe Quicken.

This, minus the note on quicken.

Without mitigation, quicken is a +4 adjustment. If a player wants to burn through his best spell slots to quickly cast spells from 8 levels previous it shouldn't cause problems.

[Zanos]

summon monster/nature's ally lines
celerity


Unless you build around the summon creature line the creatures usually aren't particularly overpowering. You have to dedicate a lot of build resources to summoning to make it as effective as other strategies.

I don't typically like summoning in my campaigns because it bogs down combat a lot, but there are far worse things a caster could be doing.

Celerity is only broken if you can remove the daze effect. Many classes/spells published later have immediate action cast times or counters that don't daze you on the following round.

Agreed on pretty much everything else, although I'd argue that Contact Other Plane/Commune are bigger offenders than Overland Flight, Greater Teleport, and Plane Shift.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The summon X lines;

Nature's ally isn't -as- problematic as monster but it's still generating more actions for the caster than any non-caster can ever have. The fact that they're -mostly- reserved for melee combat is just adding insult to injury.

Monster is -far- worse in that many of the creatures summoned have SLA's of their own essentially multiplying the caster's casting ability. The same is true for -some- of the creatures available to SNA.

Celerity;

Any spell you have prepared as an immediate action in a game where many threats can be reduced to negligible by a single spell. Daze immunity is just making a bad thing worse.