Odd stuff your DMs have banned

[paperarmor]

I once had a DM ban the Lawful Good alignment. what about you guys? what's the strangest thing your DMs ever said wasn't allowed?

[Devronq]

Not my dm personally but I've heard people say there dim banned things for fluff reasons. I heard someone here say there DM wouldn't allow toughness on a sorcerer because fluff reasons a sorcerer isn't tough and can't take it.

[geekintheground]

Not my dm personally but I've heard people say there dim banned things for fluff reasons. I heard someone here say there DM wouldn't allow toughness on a sorcerer because fluff reasons a sorcerer isn't tough and can't take it.

wuh-HUH!?!!?

[LordBiscuit]

The weirdest thing I recall being banned is backstories, or rather the backstories had to be the most basic that you could come up with. Given it was a level 1 campiagn it made sense, but I found it jarring that my choice of heratige was so limited. Though then it was probably more that I felt I didn't need the training wheels that my rpg buddies had. XD

[Vanitas]

As a DM I once banned halflings and gnomes as PC races, because the fluff of the setting was that they were extinct following the great wars.

That's not really odd, it's perfectly acceptable.

[SamsDisciple]

One of my DM's banned the monk class. Not from a single campaign but forever. Reasoning was that monks were way overpowered and he didn't want anyone to completely overshadow everyone else... But he allowed one of my other friends who also typically DM's to play a wizard........

[geekintheground]

As a DM I once banned halflings and gnomes as PC races, because the fluff of the setting was that they were extinct following the great wars.

i have several friends who would like to thank you for exterminating the gnomes :smallbiggrin:

[Vhaidara]

My DM limited us to humans, with no arcane casters. I talked him into letting me play a Sorcerer, and when I was found out, i was actually almost killed by the party paladin.

There was the campaign where We agreed we would all have 20ft movement.

And then there was my cousin's dungeon run. 2 players, 2 characters each, backstories were explicitly banned.

[claypigeons]

I've had a DM ban ban fighters. Mainly (apparently) because people don't "play fighters, just dip them for feats." But he allowed early entry cheese...

I also had a different DM ban all special materials.

[Eldan]

I will ban the Divine Mind in everything I DM. If people insist in using it, I will be tempted to punch them.

Is that odd? Probably not, the internet tells me.

[Crake]

My DM banned ToB in it's entirety, then later played a swordsage in a different game, then started throwing swordsages at us in the game where he banned ToB.

[Brookshw]

As a dm I've banned gnomes, kender and kobolds. Guess this has been partially covered.

[LordBiscuit]

I will ban the Divine Mind in everything I DM. If people insist in using it, I will be tempted to punch them.

Is that odd? Probably not, the internet tells me.

It seems curious, but not inherently odd. Why though? I feel theres a reason behind it.

[Eldan]

It seems curious, but not inherently odd. Why though? I feel theres a reason behind it.

It's fluff is utter crap of the highest degree. I find it offensive.

[LordBiscuit]

My DM banned ToB in it's entirety, then later played a swordsage in a different game, then started throwing swordsages at us in the game where he banned ToB.
Lol. Any idea why that is? Though I imagine he just wanted to keep the "uberpowered fighters" as DM devices to force the party to work together. Maybe.


It's fluff is utter crap of the highest degree. I find it offensive.

Ahhh, I haven't read the fluff of the class, though I am half inclined to write my own fluff as far as how the class abilities are named. I will have a quick glance anyways to see what you mean.

Edit: I see what you mean now. With the "Devine Mind powers, not granted by god but inspired by god in a round about house manner that really doesn't change the fact that isn't a devine power at all, but still a manifestation of ones own will. Plus I make raiding dungions holy, WOOOHOOO"

So lacking in structure.

[nedz]

Well I suppose in the Dwarf game I ran I implicitly banned non Dwarf PCs but then used non Dwarf NPCs all of the time. But this was more the flavour of the campaign than anything. This was a group decision anyway.

[Crake]

Lol. Any idea why that is? Though I imagine he just wanted to keep the "uberpowered fighters" as DM devices to force the party to work together. Maybe.

It was because he was too lazy to read the rules on ToB until it actually related to a character he wanted to play, and now I think he has a thing for swordsages and their Ex teleports, so he uses them at every opportunity available. Kinda annoying to see the abilities that he banned be used against you simply because he was too lazy to read some stuff when you asked. He also banned incarnum as well, for the same reason.

[CTrees]

Whistles. Signal whistles in particular. This was before I was DM'ing for our group, but anyway. One of our players seriously abused his whistle privileges, and it kinda spiraled out from that.

[Bigbeefie]

I've had a DM ban arcane magic. It was in a world with laws against it. Was actually fun.

[Kelb_Panthera]

One of my DM's banned the monk class. Not from a single campaign but forever. Reasoning was that monks were way overpowered and he didn't want anyone to completely overshadow everyone else... But he allowed one of my other friends who also typically DM's to play a wizard........

........ :furious: *angry rant about stupidity of this decision*


The only reason that's an action tag instead of an actual angry rant is because I don't have the energy to type out three or four pages worth of text.



Anyway.

As a DM I've made a few bans that got curious looks but never as a purely arbitrary decision; always for the creation of certain themes and tones in a given adventure or campaign.

Things like banning clerics for a zombie survival game, banning most casters for a low magic game, banning all PC classes for a one-shot commoner heroes game, banning humanoid races for a monstrous adventurers game, things of that sort.

Oh, and time travel. Any and all things time travel that move you more than a minute or two from the present are auto-banned and you get a book to the head if you try to bypass this ban in anyway. That's not hyperbole. I've hit someone with a DMG over this one.

[Vizzerdrix]

I ran a game once and banned most of the PHB. I allowed feats if they where specifically needed for a PrC but that was it. Everything else had to come from a non PHB source. It went rather well.

[awa]

i had a dm ban a fighter cleric paladin combo

[AuraTwilight]

Not a game I was in, but I once encountered a DM through a mutual friend who banned Fighters. Their reasoning? "Bonus feats are overpowered."

[Hangwind]

Humans, Elves, and Dwarves were banned in one campaign. The DM said he was tired of them.

[Milo v3]

I ran a game once and banned most of the PHB. I allowed feats if they where specifically needed for a PrC but that was it. Everything else had to come from a non PHB source. It went rather well.

Must have been hard to play without most the skills. :smalltongue:

[georgie_leech]

I managed to get a DM to ban his own "backstab" house rules by OHKO-ing the BBEG during a cutscene (he was kind of railroady). He fiated it away immediately ("Suddenly his master appears and revives him!" Seriously, word for word), but he immediately revoked his own house rule.

[Karoht]

Anything that boosted initiative. Anything except Dex bonuses that is.
The DM constantly "rolled 20's" for his initiative. Behind a screen. For all of his dudes. Yeah.

Celerity.
Polymorph.
Pretty much the bulk of the Transmutation or Conjuration schools.
True Seeing-DM liked using illusions but wasn't terribly good at it.
Wall of Stone. Seriously. Wall of Stone.
Wishes that didn't come from Genies. Shortly followed by Wishes that did come from Genies. Miracle got a pass somehow.

Soundstriker Bards [PF]. Because how dare Bards do anything other than buff the melee? How dare Bards compete with a blasty sorceror who only had enough brain cells to spam fire spells in a fire resistance heavy campaign.
Bewildering Koan [PF]. Wasn't banned so much as everything suddenly had +40 to it's Sense Motive. Including Goblins. The party was level 2's and 3's.

Anything that can see through smoke or fog. Shortly followed by anything that can see through Snow or storms.
Earthglide. Followed shortly afterwards by both Wall of Ice and Iceglide.
Blink.
Magic Jar.
Astral Projection.
Project Image and Mislead. Trickery Devotion was promptly banned as well.

Fighters. Figure that one out. Our Barbarian wanted to do a 2 level dip into Fighter to pick up some feats. Big fat NOPE! was slapped on Fighters.
Cleric Domain Powers [PF]. Seriously. They don't get them. And it was an uphill battle to allow them getting their Domain Spell Slots.
Paladin Lay on Hands [PF]. Considered too powerful for a Swift Action.

[Tegannie]

The first DnD game I played, our DM banned humans.

It fit his setting, though (the last human kingdom had been trapped for 1000 years in between planes).

[MesiDoomstalker]

Game thats starting this Friday, we started pre-work on it back in November. During Thanksgiving, I had submitted a preliminary character sheet with a detailed backstory. I had listed all the things I had in the build (including future items) with page numbers and explanations and everything. A really thorough walk through of the character, inside and out.

I mentioned that as is, I was using 2 Flaws and as optional rules, if the DM was ok with this. He said "No" in so many words much to my unhappiness. I retooled the build to be 2 feats late and wasn't really happy but hey, thats life.

2 weeks ago, finally got stat generation rules and was rolling stats with the DM when he said. "OH hey, my brother said he needed 2 more feats, so everyone gets 2 free Bonus feats at level 1." I stopped rolling, looked him dead in the eye for a solid straight minute. "Ok" I haven't had the heart to tell him how stupid that sounded after Flaw banning.

[Krobar]

Leprechauns. Somebody played one once and that character was a horrible distraction.

[geekintheground]

im surprised "back stories" has appeared so much... do the characters just pop up randomly out of nothing?... actually, that could be a pretty neat idea...

[The Trickster]

I ran a game once and banned most of the PHB. I allowed feats if they where specifically needed for a PrC but that was it. Everything else had to come from a non PHB source. It went rather well.

I have had this happen before as well. Actually, it wasn't that bad. It helped with balance a little bit, and it made us play other classes we would have never thought to play (my group always plays PH characters).

As for weird bans, someone banned a scythe, because a player critical hit and auto-killed his BBEG in a previous game.

[Coidzor]

My DM banned ToB in it's entirety, then later played a swordsage in a different game, then started throwing swordsages at us in the game where he banned ToB.

The weird thing is that he did that, didn't rescind the ban, and no one called him on it or nothing came of calling him on it. :smallconfused:


Beguiler is almost universally banned in our group, mainly because they upstage Rogues, but also because of previous game issues with spamming confusion and such.

Yes yes, Wizards and Sorcerers can also spam Confusion, plenty of immune opponents blah blah :smallbiggrin:

What about Beguilers? :smallamused:


As a dm I've banned gnomes, kender and kobolds. Guess this has been partially covered.

Kender isn't particularly weird, I'd even argue that not banning them is weirder. Kobolds are a bit weirder since usually it's just Dragonwrought Kobolds. Gnomes, though, well, I guess banning gnomes is a little bit weird, maybe. :smalltongue:

[Craft (Cheese)]

I can think of two reasons to ban backstories:

- This game is going to be super, duper, ultra, hyper lethal, and I don't want anyone to even begin to become attached to their characters.

- I'm too lazy to read whatever you come up with.


Edit: I see what you mean now. With the "Devine Mind powers, not granted by god but inspired by god in a round about house manner that really doesn't change the fact that isn't a devine power at all, but still a manifestation of ones own will. Plus I make raiding dungions holy, WOOOHOOO"

So lacking in structure.

The sad part is it would have been fine if they just went with "It's a gish-ified version of the Ardent, like the Psychic Warrior is to the Psion. Just go with it, okay?"

[pwykersotz]

im surprised "back stories" has appeared so much... do the characters just pop up randomly out of nothing?... actually, that could be a pretty neat idea...

A good...backstory?

[Seerow]

A good...backstory?

Which is now banned.

[elonin]

Why are dm's banning back stories? I can see a dm saying no to specific overpower granting or artifact giving stories, but at the least a backstory gets you more invested in your pc and gives plot hooks.

I can see plot reasons for banning races or classes ala not allowing jedi in starwars during the rebellion era.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why are dm's banning back stories? I can see a dm saying no to specific overpower granting or artifact giving stories, but at the least a backstory gets you more invested in your pc and gives plot hooks.

I can see plot reasons for banning races or classes ala not allowing jedi in starwars during the rebellion era.

I could see doing that for an old-school, hyper-lethal, game. The kind of game where the characters are just pieces on the board and the adventure is played in the meta. Real meat-grinder stuff, ya know?

[Vhaidara]

My specific case was because it was a one off dungeon run. Basically a night of my cousin the DM rolling for our random encounter, then my other cousin and I fighting it. Every three rooms we got a full heal and checkpoint.

Final tally
2 empty rooms (legit rolled no encounter)
2 traps (1 we beat, the other was from Grimtooth's traps and it killed us)
2 combats (1 victory, 1 loss).

[Sir Chuckles]

I could see doing that for an old-school, hyper-lethal, game. The kind of game where the characters are just pieces on the board and the adventure is played in the meta. Real meat-grinder stuff, ya know?

I do that from time to time, but I don't ban backstories. Then again, I mostly targeted my players who wrote bad backstories or really bad characters (I don't mean unoptimized, I mean barely functional) to give them harsh practice.
I have one player who still writes "Ragnarok 'Boomer' Duskblade the Chaotic Good Drow Sorcerer, with backstory involving dead parents, people hating him for being a Sorcerer, etc." type characters. That's almost word for word one of his characters, actually.

I usually review my player's backstories, banning bad ones.
But at the same time, I don't really have to ban anything because of it.
My players don't know what a Chaos Shuffle is, and probably wouldn't realize what it means if they were shown a guide on it.

But one time I got Monks, Fighter dips, Large anythings for PCs, Grappling, Sundering, Charging, and myself all banned in one session. That group of players largely looks at two people as their guides, and both of those people don't like me anymore.

[12owlbears]

I had a DM who banned rogues. When I asked him why he went on this big rant about how wrong stealing is and how rouges should be required to be evil aligned. And yet he had no problem with the (somehow LN)paladin of tyranny that one of the players made. Also halflings, gnomes, and swashbucklers because "hobbits, gnomes, pirates are silly and having them would ruin the gritty and serious nature of my campaign". In fact the only character concept that he let me play was a wildshaping ranger variant with the aberrant wildshaping feet(because turning into a mimic or a flump isn't silly at all)
edit: woops spelled rogues as rouges

[geekintheground]

But one time I got Monks, Fighter dips, Large anythings for PCs, Grappling, Sundering, Charging, and myself all banned in one session. That group of players largely looks at two people as their guides, and both of those people don't like me anymore.

what did you DO!?

[ryu]

I had a DM who banned rouges. When I asked him why he went on this big rant about how wrong stealing is and how rouges should be required to be evil aligned. And yet he had no problem with the (somehow LN)paladin of tyranny that one of the players made. Also halflings, gnomes, and swashbucklers because "hobbits, gnomes, pirates are silly and having them would ruin the gritty and serious nature of my campaign". In fact the only character concept that he let me play was a wildshaping ranger variant with the aberrant wildshaping feet(because turning into a mimic or a flump isn't silly at all)

I find it odd that banning makeup would even com up.

[nedz]

Anything that boosted initiative. Anything except Dex bonuses that is.
The DM constantly "rolled 20's" for his initiative. Behind a screen. For all of his dudes. Yeah.

Celerity.
Polymorph.
Pretty much the bulk of the Transmutation or Conjuration schools.
True Seeing-DM liked using illusions but wasn't terribly good at it.
Wall of Stone. Seriously. Wall of Stone.
Wishes that didn't come from Genies. Shortly followed by Wishes that did come from Genies. Miracle got a pass somehow.

Soundstriker Bards [PF]. Because how dare Bards do anything other than buff the melee? How dare Bards compete with a blasty sorceror who only had enough brain cells to spam fire spells in a fire resistance heavy campaign.
Bewildering Koan [PF]. Wasn't banned so much as everything suddenly had +40 to it's Sense Motive. Including Goblins. The party was level 2's and 3's.

Anything that can see through smoke or fog. Shortly followed by anything that can see through Snow or storms.
Earthglide. Followed shortly afterwards by both Wall of Ice and Iceglide.
Blink.
Magic Jar.
Astral Projection.
Project Image and Mislead. Trickery Devotion was promptly banned as well.

Fighters. Figure that one out. Our Barbarian wanted to do a 2 level dip into Fighter to pick up some feats. Big fat NOPE! was slapped on Fighters.
Cleric Domain Powers [PF]. Seriously. They don't get them. And it was an uphill battle to allow them getting their Domain Spell Slots.
Paladin Lay on Hands [PF]. Considered too powerful for a Swift Action.

Well Celerity, Polymorph and Astral Projection are reasonable things to ban but the rest is a bit strange.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I had a DM who banned rogues. When I asked him why he went on this big rant about how wrong stealing is and how rouges should be required to be evil aligned. And yet he had no problem with the (somehow LN)paladin of tyranny that one of the players made. Also halflings, gnomes, and swashbucklers because "hobbits, gnomes, pirates are silly and having them would ruin the gritty and serious nature of my campaign". In fact the only character concept that he let me play was a wildshaping ranger variant with the aberrant wildshaping feet(because turning into a mimic or a flump isn't silly at all)
edit: woops spelled rogues as rouges

I.... What.... That...... urk! *head asplodes*


It's threads like this that make me thankful for the DM's I've had.

[Karoht]

Oh, I forgot, Alter Self + Disguise. The spell and the skill, both banned, in one session. Why?

For an entire month I had the party fooled that I was a Dwarf Cleric of a Neutral Deity, mostly by using the False Priest Archetype [PF] and a few clever bluffs to convince people that the odd spell that looked suspiciously arcane was in fact on my (nonexistant) Domain spell lists or was in fact not a spell and was in fact a (nonexistant) Domain power. Then one day, some stuff happened that I won't get into, suffice to say that the fact that I was in fact a Half Elf Sorceror sort of blew some people's minds. The idea that most of the time people weren't even interacting with me and were in fact interacting with a surrogate (I love the Illusion school) almost got me into more trouble.

[The Fury]

I had a DM that banned alignments altogether. I guess he felt that they hamstringed roleplay or something. He also didn't allow Paladins as a starting class, then again nobody likes Paladins.


I can think of two reasons to ban backstories:

- This game is going to be super, duper, ultra, hyper lethal, and I don't want anyone to even begin to become attached to their characters.

- I'm too lazy to read whatever you come up with.



What's really weird is that I've had DMs like this, (they were the types that loved super-lethal play and they didn't actually read backstories,) that required me to come up with a backstory.

[Deophaun]

Had a DM that banned Totemists and Dragonfire Adepts because he didn't want classes that gave characters monster-like abilities. Naturally, Druids and polymorphing Wizards were completely acceptable. ToB classes were banned not because he was unfamiliar with the material, but more fundamentally because he didn't understand how standard actions and full-round actions worked.

[Naanomi]

I've had a GM ban multiclassing before when 3.0 first hit the scene. Another GM once banned 'not taking all the levels of a PRC once you took the first level'.

The silliest though is a GM who I played very briefly under who banned Knowledge skills 'without access to a library or mentor to teach it'; on the grounds that it was too easy to spoil the details of his homebrew settings with Knowledge skills.

[Curmudgeon]

The weirdest thing I recall being banned is backstories, or rather the backstories had to be the most basic that you could come up with.
There's nothing odd about that, because back stories aren't associated with any game mechanics: i.e., they don't matter at all from a RAW perspective.

My DM banned spell component pouches and Eschew Materials. Spellcasters had to acquire every material component individually, keep track of where each one was stored, and use the standard "retrieve a stored item" (move action) for each one. It made spellcasting a lot grittier. For a low-to-mid-level game, I liked it. (Of course I was playing a Ranger, and spells were just an occasional thing rather than my only tool.)

[Crustypeanut]

I'm personally not a fan of banning things as a DM - If I find something that another might ban, I would probably 'fix'.

However, I do have a general preference to ban the CE alignment for player usage. While I love evil characters, even in non-evil campaigns (Many times, I'm said evil character in a non-evil campaign), CE characters have a hard time playing nicely with others. That being said, I allow exceptions should they crop up.

Of course, in an evil campaign I'm not going to ban that alignment.

DMs who ban things like the Monk, Fighter, Rogue, or certain low level spells (Like Disguise and Alter Self as previously mentioned), need to go back to DM-School for a while. A long while.

Seriously, how are Monks overpowered? I'm considering buffing them substantially in my games! (Being able to flurry and move up to his speed before, during, and after his attacks, for example. Needs testing.)

[awa]

There's nothing odd about that, because back stories aren't associated with any game mechanics: i.e., they don't matter at all from a RAW perspective.

My DM banned spell component pouches and Eschew Materials. Spellcasters had to acquire every material component individually, keep track of where each one was stored, and use the standard "retrieve a stored item" (move action) for each one. It made spellcasting a lot grittier. For a low-to-mid-level game, I liked it. (Of course I was playing a Ranger, and spells were just an occasional thing rather than my only tool.)

from a logic perspective it makes a lot of sense to me i don't see why logicaly pulling out an item should be faster just becuase you are planning n casting a spell with it.

[SowZ]

True Neutrals.
3.5 Monks.

[Dalebert]

All item crafting feats other than those for spell trigger items.
Most teleportation and other travel abilities like flight beyond short-term.
Maybe bags of holding and similar items.

[Vanitas]

I find it odd that banning makeup would even com up.
Heh. A typo while making fun of someone else's typo.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I had one DM ban Monty Python references. We took TheTimeitTakestoGetBackonTrackinSecondsd6 damage every time there was a MP reference. Thats how we TPK'd before restarting the session. Twice.

[ericgrau]

One of my DM's banned the monk class. Not from a single campaign but forever. Reasoning was that monks were way overpowered and he didn't want anyone to completely overshadow everyone else... But he allowed one of my other friends who also typically DM's to play a wizard........
Mine banned monk for being overpowered too. Looks like I'm the 3rd person here.

[Randomocity132]

Anything that boosted initiative. Anything except Dex bonuses that is.
The DM constantly "rolled 20's" for his initiative. Behind a screen. For all of his dudes. Yeah.

Celerity.
Polymorph.
Pretty much the bulk of the Transmutation or Conjuration schools.
True Seeing-DM liked using illusions but wasn't terribly good at it.
Wall of Stone. Seriously. Wall of Stone.
Wishes that didn't come from Genies. Shortly followed by Wishes that did come from Genies. Miracle got a pass somehow.

Soundstriker Bards [PF]. Because how dare Bards do anything other than buff the melee? How dare Bards compete with a blasty sorceror who only had enough brain cells to spam fire spells in a fire resistance heavy campaign.
Bewildering Koan [PF]. Wasn't banned so much as everything suddenly had +40 to it's Sense Motive. Including Goblins. The party was level 2's and 3's.

Anything that can see through smoke or fog. Shortly followed by anything that can see through Snow or storms.
Earthglide. Followed shortly afterwards by both Wall of Ice and Iceglide.
Blink.
Magic Jar.
Astral Projection.
Project Image and Mislead. Trickery Devotion was promptly banned as well.

Fighters. Figure that one out. Our Barbarian wanted to do a 2 level dip into Fighter to pick up some feats. Big fat NOPE! was slapped on Fighters.
Cleric Domain Powers [PF]. Seriously. They don't get them. And it was an uphill battle to allow them getting their Domain Spell Slots.
Paladin Lay on Hands [PF]. Considered too powerful for a Swift Action.

That's a big ****in red flag, right there.

[Gemini476]

One reason I see for banning backstories (beyond kick-in-the-door hack-and-slash dungeon crawling) would be if they're too long.
Or just bad, admittedly.

But honestly? If you can't fit your backstory into three reasonably-sized paragraphs, change it. A backstory can give plenty of hooks for DMs, but they don't have infinite time, y'know? Also, "show, don't tell".

[Angelalex242]

My DMs started banning the book of Exalted Deeds after my Paladins relied on the fist of raz prestige class (and a 1 level cleric dip) too much. It's not like, ya know, the Paladin needed help up from his poor tier 5 status. At least he got to tier 3 with Fist of Raz.

[Somensjev]

battering rams
10ft poles
bluff checks

all in one campaign, but only for the remainder of that campaign (it was a one man campaign with a DMPC almost 3 times my effective level :smallannoyed: )

[Craft (Cheese)]

...Banning 10 ft. poles?

Okay, I find and carry around a sufficiently long branch that's fallen off of a tree: Any forest should have thousands of suitable ones. What now, DM!?

[Crustypeanut]

I once was playing a Life-oriented Oracle (PF) in this one campaign.. and it turns out, the campaign was heavily undead-based. I wasn't aware of this at the time of character creation. In our first session, we were going through a crypt with a ton of undead.. and needless to say, my Channel Positive energy was blowing through stuff. 1 HD skele's and 2 HD zombies? No problem!

My allies were actually enjoying this, as they felt the 'trash' undead were best blown through. The DM, on the otherhand, had different ideas, and suddenly the crypt was protected by some sort of 'anti-positive energy-field' for the latter half of the crypt.

Considering that, until I grabbed Sorcerer (I was going Sorcerer/Oracle/Mystic Theurge), I had only healing.. I was all but useless for the remainder of the dungeon.

Then we leveled up twice after the dungeon was done. It was maybe 5 encounters total?

>.<

At least my other DM, who only banned evil alignments, allowed us plenty of shenanigans. While throwing 5x more shenanigans at us. It wasn't that bad of an issue that "Favored Enemy: Evil Outsiders" and similar things (Like bane weapons) required you to pick a specific type of evil outsider. We were in Hell (Which was, in fact, more chaotic than the Maelstrom in his campaign), and apparently had a wide variety of evil outsiders beyond devils.

Heh.. that was a wierd campaign. Was still fun, though. I was a goblin cleric of the elven goddess of lust, so it was already a wierd run.

[Somensjev]

...Banning 10 ft. poles?

Okay, I find and carry around a sufficiently long branch that's fallen off of a tree: Any forest should have thousands of suitable ones. What now, DM!?

no, i went a couple steps up, hence why the battering ram was banned :smallwink:

[Craft (Cheese)]

"Okay, I get myself a sufficiently long tree branch."

"There are no trees in this setting."

"Okay, I get a large bone from a dead animal then."

"There are no animals bigger than humans that would have bones big enough."

"Okay, I get some stone and whittle it down into a nice 10-foot pole."

"The entire world is a desert and there are no stone quarries anywhere."

"Okay, I heat up some sand to make some glass..."

"Fire has not yet been invented."

"..."

[Kalaska'Agathas]

im surprised "back stories" has appeared so much... do the characters just pop up randomly out of nothing?... actually, that could be a pretty neat idea...

Run it as a PbP here and I'll play a Sorcerer in it - "Holy crap! Did I do that?" will be my catchphrase.

[SiuiS]

One of my DM's banned the monk class. Not from a single campaign but forever. Reasoning was that monks were way overpowered and he didn't want anyone to completely overshadow everyone else... But he allowed one of my other friends who also typically DM's to play a wizard........

Wizard isn't inherently broken. If the guy focuses on blasts and such... Although there's no excuse for thinking monk is overpowered.


I've had a DM ban a ring of the darkhidden. Paying only that much gold for constant invisibility to dark vision was broken in an under dark campaign. The rigs of constant greater invisibility and invisibility to blindsight & sense were fine! But specifically overcoming dark vision was not.

[TuggyNE]

I had a DM who banned rogues. When I asked him why he went on this big rant about how wrong stealing is and how rouges should be required to be evil aligned.

Digital Piracy Is Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DigitalPiracyIsEvil), I guess. :smallamused:


from a logic perspective it makes a lot of sense to me i don't see why logicaly pulling out an item should be faster just becuase you are planning n casting a spell with it.

My justification is that spell components are almost all very small and the SCP can be organized to make retrieval quick enough.

Of course, I dislike the SCP for other reasons, so I rewrote it anyway, and since the new version only has a) 8 foci instead of free material components and b) space to store a valuable grainy substance instead of the usual expensive material components, it's even easier to accept, I think.

[Rift_Wolf]

Odd things I'd ban myself from doing if I GMed again...

Monster Monks (PF). Especially Oni Monks. If I seriously have to go there to beat touch spells with no saves, chances are I've done something wrong.
Any magic system I don't own the books for.
Young Harpy Sorcerers (PF)
Proteans (PF)
Anything that damages or drains Wisdom. Because all some people need is an excuse.
NPCs with the Bluff skill. Or 'how to derail your own campaign'.
Human PCs (PF). Because the temptation to create a bane-weapon wielding ranger is sometimes TOO STRONG.

On the subject of backstories, I was recently in a Traveller game which helps generate backstories during character creation. The GM then got annoyed that we hadn't written every detail of our generated backstory down, and made us go over it again. I then went away and wrote up a detailed story, naming the rivals and enemies the system had generated.
When the campaign started, nobody's backstory was referenced except for one guy. The plot revolved around his Ally (and making Allies in Traveller is really hard) dying, and we were tasked with solving his murder. Unfortunately that same person's character had the 'Jack of all Trades' skill, which translates to 'all your characters are obsolete'. The GM would also arbitrarily punish 'not being in character' by stopping the game dead and belittling the player. This experience put me on rping hiatus, to put some distance between myself and that horrible, horrible game.

[Randomocity132]

battering rams
10ft poles
bluff checks

all in one campaign, but only for the remainder of that campaign (it was a one man campaign with a DMPC almost 3 times my effective level :smallannoyed: )

I'll bet this has a great story behind it.

[Somensjev]

I'll bet this has a great story behind it.

depends, do you consider a campaign with a level 2, strong sorcerer PC, and a level 2 half-dragon nymph were-tiger DMPC, interesting?

as for the poles, i kinda used one to bury a portion of a goblins brain 7-10ft underground, DM used house rules that rolling three nat 20's in a row while attacking was an instant kill, it's not my fault the dice gods love me :smallamused:


also, a different DM:
attacks of opportunity
and, within the same encounter, he banned me from both physically harming my enemies, and magically harming my enemies

[Sith_Happens]

My first DM banned the Grasping Hook, because it was a Legend of Zelda-themed campaign and he somehow thought it would steal the thunder of the Hookshot (which he wanted to keep semi-special). The annoying part was that even after telling him about the Rod of Ropes which basically is a Hookshot and therefore much more ban-worthy by that logic, and reminding him of the many Hookshotty things a grappling hook will never accomplish no matter how high your Use Rope check, he still wouldn't let us have the hook.:smallannoyed:


the SCP

I assume this wasn't on purpose, but now I'm imagining a spell component pouch as being an SCP object and it makes perfect sense.

[Bogardan_Mage]

I assume this wasn't on purpose, but now I'm imagining a spell component pouch as being an SCP object and it makes perfect sense.
SCP-130 appears to be a small leather pouch. However, anomalous items may be removed from SCP-130 without limit, and without altering SCP-130's perceived weight. Observed items include:
- A pinch of bat guano
- Pieces of crystal
- A bit of pork rind
- A live chicken

[Raezeman]

ToB classes were banned not because he was unfamiliar with the material, but more fundamentally because he didn't understand how standard actions and full-round actions worked.

Personally, i would say that a person that doesn't understand how standard and full-round actions work is not ready to DM. Were there are basic things that he didn't know? Like haw to calculate your attack role? how saving throws work?

After reading all this about the spell component pouch, i have DM that is strict on the use of components, but reasonable. He told me that my pouch only contains the components for the spells i know so far, so if i learn a new one, i don't have the components until i go to a shop and buy a new pouch. Makes sense to me, so i didn't went against it. Also made me pay more attention to the spell component entries when choosing new spells.

[Totema]

One of my past DMs banned Changelings, on account of them being too cheesy. Curious considering that earlier, this same DM gave my Druid a second animal companion for free. :smallconfused:

[Kennisiou]

I had a DM ban the rogue's sneak attack from working on flanked opponents. "They're aware of your presence so you're not sneak attacking them!" It was kinda cool, though, because my character was built around using camo to sneak around in plain sight and then pop out and stab people in the back with two weapon fighting (using vestment of many styles to copy camouflage netting, both referenced on my sheet and shown to the DM ahead of time to get approval for using it), so I'd just walk around spending 2-3 turns setting up the combo so I could get off three sneak attacks (still better than spending those turns attacking without sneak attack). It was then that sneak attacking became a full round action, meaning I could only sneak attack once a turn.

I'll also take this moment to mention I was the only rogue in a three-person party with a druid and a sorceror. The blaster sorc had completely ended the first two encounters by himself in a single turn with fireballs. But my character being effective at single target damage against tougher foes was apparently out of line since "Sneak attacking is too strong because it costs you nothing. The Druid and Sorceror are spending spells per day to do their job, you don't give up anything to sneak attack," which basically led to me sitting on my hands against the final boss of the adventure while the fight dragged on since the druid and sorc weren't optimized for single target damage at all.

[Chadamantium]

So this is all from the same DM

My DM banned Gold Half-Dragon Human during character creation. His reason: He didn't want to deal with all the special powers gold half dragons got. I was new to the game at the time so not knowing any better said alright and made a copper half-dragon human which he was fine with.

Planes. It was more of a campaign setting thing where the material plane was locked from accessing the Planes and the Gods were not able to access the world so Clerics couldn't get domain spells from gods.

Vampiric enchantments. Apparently they are too overpowered and ruin his combat encounters. Which of course we can't win against unless we bring ten or twenty of his NPCs with us.

He later banned my character from retelling the story thus far in his own words. this telling included my back story and about a year's worth of weekend campaign twice a month. I can't imagine why he banned that.

Eventually I learned the proper rules and realised he was full of it.

[Sir Chuckles]

what did you DO!?

Fighter 4/Monk 10 Large Human, with minor abuses to the fact that he x5'd our WBL. My two (now unfortunately one) groups generally see a +5 Vorpal as the pinnacle of weaponry. It's both a good and bad thing.
It didn't help that he wanted to use a 4.0 module as a 3.5 campaign, meaning ACs and DCs translated as faaar below what a high strength character with access to putting Epic enchantments on his fists could do. He also allowed Flaws. Grappling wasn't entirely my fault, that group just always said "Grapple rules are too complicated, so no grappling." I ruined three non-combat encounters by going in character and stating "I hate this devilish magic, I'm breaking it over my knee", and then doing so.

Though honestly I need to get into more sessions. For one thing, I don't really have any craaazy banning stories. For another, my normal group barely plays. And I'm the DM 80% of the time.

[TuggyNE]

I assume this wasn't on purpose, but now I'm imagining a spell component pouch as being an SCP object and it makes perfect sense.

Originally it wasn't, but I've been amusing myself with the little double meaning for some months now. :smallbiggrin:

[yougi]

One of my DM's banned full attacks, because "come on, you can't swing your sword 4 extra times in the time it takes you to travel 20ft".

One of my DM's banned knowing how to aim AoE spells. We had to roll a d% to know how much we were off, and then he subjectively decided who would be affected. (This is not really a ban, but still, had to complain)

I've also had a DM who wouldn't officially ban stuff, but would make it so incredibly complicated to do it that it was in effect banned. The best example was the Druid in our 1E game. In 1E, Druids must find and charm their animal companion, and have a limit on how many HDs of companions they have. After coming into the campaign with a wolf (who died quickly), the Druid, who was wild shaped into a falcon, with one month to spare and an incredibly large forest where we commonly fought animals, was incapable of finding more than a single Boar. Then, after my Wizard learned Polymorph Other (which was permanent), I polymorphed a Fire Giant into a Bear for him to charm. The DM then insisted that we carry fresh food for the bear, because for some reason we couldn't hunt/gather food (and neither could he, because since the beast was not born a bear, he was never taught how to do it), and so the next quest is obviously 3 months of travel away, and so the Druid has to fill his HD quota with goats to feed his one useful companion. Obviously, every night we'd lose a goat or two, until we were attacked by trolls, and I slinged a Fireball, and the DM decided that ALL of our 20+ goats were in the blast radius, no matter how I placed it.


...Banning 10 ft. poles?

I've had multiple DMs ban the 10ft pole: not its existence, but the idea of carrying it around all day, in cramped corridors. One of them told me I could have my character carry one if I carried one IRL for a weekend vacation at his chalet. I could barely get it inside. It's quite annoying, let me assure you.

[Kaveman26]

Flight. Only creatures that had wings could fly. PC's were not able to get wings. This actually became a persistent house rule for nearly all games we ran.

Lyre of building.

Not an outright ban, but wagons became incredibly hard to find after some extensive abuse.

[Garagos]

My DM bans level dipping for prestige classes. He thinks you should have to finish one before starting another. You can stop part way through the PrC to go back to a base class if you like.

[Vedhin]

"Fire has not yet been invented."

"I cast Burning Hands and invent fire."

"You don't know that spell."

"I research it."

"There are no libraries."

"I build one, and fill it one book at a time."

"Nobody is literate."

"I teach people how to write."

"There is no written language."

"I make one based on the spoken language."

"That doesn't exist."

This could just go on forever! :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:
Also, could I sig the quoted portion?

[Threadnaught]

t*D created a horribly long backstory quite a bit longer than my typical post for his first character, in a game I played in. He'd thinly disguised all the nearby locations in and around his home by rearranging the letters and attempting to make them sound more medieval. He'd created nearly a dozen NPCs who were set to give him Magic Items or a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character. Oone of these NPCs was a Druid who was supposed to find him later on and be another Cohort. It was all very messy and we forgot about it for the entire campaign that followed that one session, the first campaign that I ran.

Current Campaign, oh boy all the crap about the backstory came back with a vengeance. He renamed several countries, cities and an entire continent while I described the setting, making me lose track of where and when they were. He kept demanding a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character and at one point, tried to integrate the Male Elf Ranger's backstory, into his Female Human Druid character. With all the benefits it would grant.

Needless to say, backstories are banned unless, they can write something simple enough for me to understand after a quick scan and don't receive any immediate benefits outside of whatever their Character's Class, Feats, Race and Skills gives them.

[MesiDoomstalker]

In a 4e game, I got Immediate Interrupts banned. Was a Mul Battlemind with the Lightning Rush Power, which I used at most opportunities to kill opponents before their attacks connected. It was quite effective. Until an encounter with a bunch of Kobold minions. After 2 rounds of Rushing, they all ganged on me, and took 3 crits and 12 regular hits to finally take me down and the DM told me after that I'm no longer allowed to interrupt turns because "A Dwarf should not be moving around more than a Kobold." Never mind I'm only Half-Dwarf. Or that my build revolved around an Immediate Interrupt Power. And that I was targeted for the stupidest reason and was out of the session for the rest of the night (cause like hell any of them had mutli-target attacks for minion hordes).

[Sian]

t*D created a horribly long backstory quite a bit longer than my typical post for his first character, in a game I played in. He'd thinly disguised all the nearby locations in and around his home by rearranging the letters and attempting to make them sound more medieval. He'd created nearly a dozen NPCs who were set to give him Magic Items or a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character. Oone of these NPCs was a Druid who was supposed to find him later on and be another Cohort. It was all very messy and we forgot about it for the entire campaign that followed that one session, the first campaign that I ran.

Current Campaign, oh boy all the crap about the backstory came back with a vengeance. He renamed several countries, cities and an entire continent while I described the setting, making me lose track of where and when they were. He kept demanding a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character and at one point, tried to integrate the Male Elf Ranger's backstory, into his Female Human Druid character. With all the benefits it would grant.

Needless to say, backstories are banned unless, they can write something simple enough for me to understand after a quick scan and don't receive any immediate benefits outside of whatever their Character's Class, Feats, Race and Skills gives them.

In that case i wouldn't ban backstories, but rather the player :smallamused:

[Reinkai]

The only thing my DM has banned thus far is Paragon Surge (at least in PF). He's pretty paranoid though, and constantly thinks we're trying to pull fast ones on him. I blame the guys he played with in high school...

[Threadnaught]

In that case i wouldn't ban backstories, but rather the player :smallamused:

Well there's a problem with that.

1: He's one half of my players.
2: The other player doesn't exactly want to go solo.
3: He's actually toned down his whiny munchkin ways. He's actually putting more effort into optimization... Sometimes.
4: I'm going to get him and the other player to DM alternating weeks. I've already tested the waters with a Grey Elf Domain Elven Generalist Wizard with a Custom Elf Bloodline. And a Dragonborn Dragonwrought Kobold Druid with a Custom Kobold Bloodline. They're quite difficult to swim in, even with an additional Human Artificer with all 16s. I'm hoping he'll DM it again and let me use a Dragonborn Dragonwrought Kobold Cleric with a Custom Kobold Bloodline, the Druid's egg twin. Or this nicely balanced race (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Saiyans_(3.5e_Race)) and class (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ki_Master_(DnD_Class)).
Maybe I should keep reminding him that Clerics are a Tier 1 Class and Homebrew has no set Tier. :smallamused:

Actually, for his Campaign it is pretty balanced. :smallannoyed:

[Raezeman]

i love long backstories, wether i am player or dm. When first i read 'banning back stories' i thought why the frick would you do that? then it all made sense when people explain how some players abuse it. I never encountered that myself.
My backstories just contain why the character is adventuring, where he came from, some family maybe. Only interesting-to-know-but-doesn't-change-anthing stuff. (well interesting depends on who you ask :p)
In the campaigns i am a player, the DM has occasionally used stuff from ones background, and i intend to do the same for my players. Few of them have made a backstory and i truly intend in incorporate characters from that into the game.
The thought of using a backstory to gain magic items or something seems abusive and i would never allow it.
At one campaign where i am a player, i intertwined my raptoran sorcerer's backstory with the half-elf bard's backstory. Ofcourse after i proposed it to the guy, including reasons and a possible how they first met, and the guy really liked it and we went for it, sometimes referring back to it in game. All fun.

So, i guess my point is: i think banning backgrounds is unnecessary. Worst case, don't take a backstory into account (best to tell the player if you do) and maybe mention they won't be able to get special benefits from it (something i never thought anyone would actually do)

[maximus25]

My current DM 'bans' gnomes and bards because, "Only annoying people play them just to disrupt the game."

By 'bans' he means, "I'm going to kill your character if it's a bard or a gnome."

He also thinks that monks are overpowered and that clerics are bandaids, so there's that.

[Ansem]

My DM banned ToB in it's entirety, then later played a swordsage in a different game, then started throwing swordsages at us in the game where he banned ToB.

Sounds hypocritical and the latter is straight-out being a ****.

[Randomocity132]

I've also had a DM who wouldn't officially ban stuff, but would make it so incredibly complicated to do it that it was in effect banned. The best example was the Druid in our 1E game. In 1E, Druids must find and charm their animal companion, and have a limit on how many HDs of companions they have. After coming into the campaign with a wolf (who died quickly), the Druid, who was wild shaped into a falcon, with one month to spare and an incredibly large forest where we commonly fought animals, was incapable of finding more than a single Boar. Then, after my Wizard learned Polymorph Other (which was permanent), I polymorphed a Fire Giant into a Bear for him to charm. The DM then insisted that we carry fresh food for the bear, because for some reason we couldn't hunt/gather food (and neither could he, because since the beast was not born a bear, he was never taught how to do it), and so the next quest is obviously 3 months of travel away, and so the Druid has to fill his HD quota with goats to feed his one useful companion. Obviously, every night we'd lose a goat or two, until we were attacked by trolls, and I slinged a Fireball, and the DM decided that ALL of our 20+ goats were in the blast radius, no matter how I placed it.


Sounds like your DM just wanted to flat-out ban druids from having animal companions.

[Tengu_temp]

I met many DMs who banned or limited level-dipping: you had to either have at least 4 levels in every class, or have them evenly split. Because playing a fighter 19/rogue 1, or taking a single level dip in wizard for your fighter in order to qualify for arcane archer are examples of extreme munchkinery and the opposite of real roleplaying. Yes, those are real examples they gave.

Rangers are banned from spellcasting, because they're not supposed to be a supernatural class. They get nothing in return.

Paladins are not allowed to loot fallen enemies, because it's dishonorable.

Clerics are banned from wearing heavy armor and using heavy weapons, because the role of a cleric is to play healer, not stand on the frontlines.

Adamantine weapons are banned, because adamantine is made by drow elves, can only be found in Underdark, and falls apart in sunlight. No amount of pointing out that he's mistaken could change this guy's mind.

Note: In pretty much all of those cases, I went "nope, not gonna play with you" and/or called them out on being idiots. Because seriously.


SCP-130 appears to be a small leather pouch. However, anomalous items may be removed from SCP-130 without limit, and without altering SCP-130's perceived weight. Observed items include:
- A pinch of bat guano
- Pieces of crystal
- A bit of pork rind
- A live chicken

Downvoted for just being a magic item with no twist.
(Also, 130 already exists (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-130).)

[Craft (Cheese)]

One of my DM's banned full attacks, because "come on, you can't swing your sword 4 extra times in the time it takes you to travel 20ft".

Show him this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIE6s4rSrI). Count how many attacks he makes against that trash can within 6 seconds.

That's right! According to your DM, a 16th-level Fighter makes attacks more slowly than a pet turtle. who probably doesn't even have proper hit dice.


I've had multiple DMs ban the 10ft pole: not its existence, but the idea of carrying it around all day, in cramped corridors. One of them told me I could have my character carry one if I carried one IRL for a weekend vacation at his chalet. I could barely get it inside. It's quite annoying, let me assure you.

Bags of holding. Make one that disassembles/folds up. Besides, you also have to remember that crawling down into a trap-filled dungeon is a very real lethal risk, and that 10-foot pole will save your life.


Also, could I sig the quoted portion?

Sure, go ahead.

[Ionbound]

Downvoted for just being a magic item with no twist.
(Also, 130 already exists (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-130).)

Obviously, it's SCP-130-J, which is not currently declassified.

[Evandar]

Show him this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIE6s4rSrI). Count how many attacks he makes against that trash can within 6 seconds.


I love how one of the comments is "The poor thing is standing still and the rest of the world is moving."

[MesiDoomstalker]

Show him this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIE6s4rSrI). Count how many attacks he makes against that trash can within 6 seconds.

I count 9 headbutts in the first 6 seconds. Maybe 8, if you want to be conservative. So a lot.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's 9, and it gets the 10th in just before the 7th second is full.

[Jgosse]

I can't think of any thing odd that has been banned though every game I have played had psionics banned and I followed suit.

I tend to not so much ban things (though I have to trust you to play a paladin) but just give a list of of books my players can use. i run both full and limited access depending on the book.
right now the players can use all races and complete books as well as PHB1 and PHB2. they have limited access to ToB, Unearthed arcana, Spell compendium, and Dragon magazine.

[iceman10058]

played in a game where the dm banned edged weapons.......
he did this for no reason but a whim.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Not so much a Ban but a ruling. If you cannot explain something from a non-Core source reliably without referring to the book (Note cards and the like are acceptable), you may not use it. Its mainly to cut down on "book time," the time it takes to look up something obscure in a book. The group goes through a pack of 150 note cards a month.

[Vhaidara]

Adamantine weapons are banned, because adamantine is made by drow elves, can only be found in Underdark, and falls apart in sunlight. No amount of pointing out that he's mistaken could change this guy's mind.

That I believe was a thing in 2E Forgotten Realms. Or at least in Baldur's Gate. To be fair, I think those weapons also got like +3 untyped bonus to hit and damage.

Actually, your DM sounds like someone who never updated from 2E

Fighter 19/Rogue 1 I can kind of see the objection to, but dipping to qualify for a prestige is different.

Solution for the paladin: let the party loot the enemies, then, once it is "party treasure" you have claim to it. Kill the party (they acted in a vile and dishonorable fashion by looting those bodies!) and claim the party treasure as your own.

[ryu]

That I believe was a thing in 2E Forgotten Realms. Or at least in Baldur's Gate. To be fair, I think those weapons also got like +3 untyped bonus to hit and damage.

Actually, your DM sounds like someone who never updated from 2E

Fighter 19/Rogue 1 I can kind of see the objection to, but dipping to qualify for a prestige is different.

Solution for the paladin: let the party loot the enemies, then, once it is "party treasure" you have claim to it. Kill the party (they acted in a vile and dishonorable fashion by looting those bodies!) and claim the party treasure as your own.

But then you'd be looting THEIR bodies...

[Kajhera]

Spell points. I'm not even sure why we've banned them, or how they were an issue in the first place, or why they're banned rather than just not used, but there they are on the houserules page.

[RustyArmor]

It was because he was too lazy to read the rules on ToB until it actually related to a character he wanted to play, and now I think he has a thing for swordsages and their Ex teleports, so he uses them at every opportunity available.

Do we play in same group? Our one DM is same way. Totally obsessed with the whole DBZ anime type teleporting thing and tries to do it in every game he is playing in, and when DMing nearly every important DMPC and NPC of even slight importance can teleport (some even doing it as free action each round, or impossible to hit cause they "teleport out of way just in time".

Other ban things include magical items like travel cloak, bag of holding, decanter of endless water, immovable rods
A lot of spells. I'm not talking the ones people hate like gate, ice assassin, shapechange. I mean like comprehend language, tongues, grease, ---->detect magic<-----, etc.

[Vhaidara]

But then you'd be looting THEIR bodies...

Yes, but your looting their bodies for what is rightfully your property. Since it is property of the party, and was before you killed them, and you are now the sole representative of the party.

[ryu]

Yes, but your looting their bodies for what is rightfully your property. Since it is property of the party, and was before you killed them, and you are now the sole representative of the party.

The silly house rule made no provisions about such exceptions.

[KnotKnormal]

I recently Banned the Monkey Crushes Peach Feat after I read the description. Not because of what it implies it does, (hilarious btw) but what it could be misconstrued to what it does.

[Zombulian]

If I were ever to DM again, I'd have to ban CE alignment. I'm tired of it being an excuse to effectively play someone with a 1 in Wis. At the same time I would ban the excuse for doing stupid stuff as "Well I play this game for fun, I don't know what you play it for."

And while I do love the Drunken Master PrC, it gives an actual legitimate excuse to play a character extremely stupidly, because you actually have 2 Wis.

[Tengu_temp]

That I believe was a thing in 2E Forgotten Realms. Or at least in Baldur's Gate. To be fair, I think those weapons also got like +3 untyped bonus to hit and damage.

That's adamantite. Adamantine has always been something different. Not that this guy cared, he made no arguments other than "my game, my rule" and "if you don't like my rule, you don't have to play". And since that was far from the only stupid ruling he did and he never was very good at running the game to begin with, the game started to lose players like crazy. Wonder how that happened!

[AKA_Bait]

My first 3.5 DM prohibited everyone in the group from even reading anything but the PHB.

[SiuiS]

Rangers are banned from spellcasting, because they're not supposed to be a supernatural class. They get nothing in return.

Note: In pretty much all of those cases, I went "nope, not gonna play with you" and/or called them out on being idiots. Because seriously.


Does this person know that the Ranger gains their favored enemy skills and wilderness lore from the gods of humanity to aid them against humanity's enemies, and that is why they were supposed to be chaotic good and had a paladin-esque code?


Show him this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIE6s4rSrI). Count how many attacks he makes against that trash can within 6 seconds.

That's right! According to your DM, a 16th-level Fighter makes attacks more slowly than a pet turtle. who probably doesn't even have proper hit dice.


Just about ten. Because he falters. Because he looked into the eyes of the trash can and allowed himself a moment of pity.

And then he went back to dominating.


That I believe was a thing in 2E Forgotten Realms. Or at least in Baldur's Gate. To be fair, I think those weapons also got like +3 untyped bonus to hit and damage.

They weren't adamant. They were a drow metal with identical properties and free +3 bonus specifically so they could be the Evil Party without doubling the party's loot.

[Ansem]

My first 3.5 DM prohibited everyone in the group from even reading anything but the PHB.

Something I advice new players actually, just use the PHB boob, once you know how it works expand.

[urbanwolf]

As a DM I have banned

non-theistic Clerics
theistic Clerics( in a different game)
The wealthy trait
being a radically different alignment from the rest of the party
and Leadership if there are more then 5 players

As a DM I have been banned by my players from using Assassins, Harpys, Succubi, and Vampires. Except for Assassins' I have only used them once.

[Sian]

I have a couple of rulings

1) unless i have access to the book or is able to read it at the board, its banned

2) No Dragon Magazine, extemely limited access to Unearthed Arcana, unless you make a very good case for why you one exactly this or that

[Coidzor]

I recently Banned the Monkey Crushes Peach Feat after I read the description. Not because of what it implies it does, (hilarious btw) but what it could be misconstrued to what it does.

Where is this feat found?


Run it as a PbP here and I'll play a Sorcerer in it - "Holy crap! Did I do that?" will be my catchphrase.

Will your character's name be Ir'Qell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya2xifdO_l0)? :smallamused:


...Banning 10 ft. poles?

Okay, I find and carry around a sufficiently long branch that's fallen off of a tree: Any forest should have thousands of suitable ones. What now, DM!?

Or lash two quarter staves together with straight lashings. Or attach a club to a quarter staff with a straight lashing. Or even two quarter staves straight lashed together with a club square or diagonal lashed onto the tip.


There's nothing odd about that, because back stories aren't associated with any game mechanics: i.e., they don't matter at all from a RAW perspective.

Disregarding them is one thing. Not using them is one thing. Banning them is quite another. :smalltongue:


My first DM banned the Grasping Hook, because it was a Legend of Zelda-themed campaign and he somehow thought it would steal the thunder of the Hookshot (which he wanted to keep semi-special). The annoying part was that even after telling him about the Rod of Ropes which basically is a Hookshot and therefore much more ban-worthy by that logic, and reminding him of the many Hookshotty things a grappling hook will never accomplish no matter how high your Use Rope check, he still wouldn't let us have the hook.:smallannoyed:

I assume this wasn't on purpose, but now I'm imagining a spell component pouch as being an SCP object and it makes perfect sense.

And then he probably went apoplectic when Link got a grappling hook as an item. :smallamused:

Yep.


Sounds like your DM just wanted to flat-out ban druids from having animal companions.

That was the idea, I believe.


Not so much a Ban but a ruling. If you cannot explain something from a non-Core source reliably without referring to the book (Note cards and the like are acceptable), you may not use it. Its mainly to cut down on "book time," the time it takes to look up something obscure in a book. The group goes through a pack of 150 note cards a month.

What, just at the table or during character creation as well? :smallconfused:


Do we play in same group? Our one DM is same way. Totally obsessed with the whole DBZ anime type teleporting thing and tries to do it in every game he is playing in, and when DMing nearly every important DMPC and NPC of even slight importance can teleport (some even doing it as free action each round, or impossible to hit cause they "teleport out of way just in time".

Other ban things include magical items like travel cloak, bag of holding, decanter of endless water, immovable rods
A lot of spells. I'm not talking the ones people hate like gate, ice assassin, shapechange. I mean like comprehend language, tongues, grease, ---->detect magic<-----, etc.

Why don't one of you guys learn how to DM then? Sounds like you can't make a bigger mess of things than you've already got in front of you. :smalltongue:


Something I advice new players actually, just use the PHB boob, once you know how it works expand.

Worlds away from the level of implied power trip of prohibiting people from visiting the WOTC website & books. :smalltongue:

[ksbsnowowl]

I once had a DM tell us that a Ring of Protection didn't stack with armor. After pointing out the rules said otherwise, I was soon after asked to not return.

That's probably the only weird thing I've had a DM ban.

I've been the DM for the last several years. I have a few "bans" that pertain to the flavor of the world I'm currently running, but most all of them would go away and the rules would return to default 3.5 D&D were I running any other setting. Among them:

No monks: Not because of their power (they are weak), but because I'm running a world that is almost completely Norse in theme. In fact, no "oriental-themed" classes are allowed.

No subsystems: Not because I dislike them (I actually quite enjoy ToB, and have no issue with Psionics), but rather because I wanted this world to not use them. I DON'T then turn around and use them against my players.

I double the caster level prerequisites for all the item crafting feats (ie - Craft Wand can't be taken until 10th level, instead of 5th). In Norse myth even the gods couldn't craft magic items; it was purely the purview of the dwarves. This merely takes a step in that direction.

Only humans and half-elves for PC races (at least initially): I wanted the campaign to be one of discovery. Were one of the PC's to die right now, they could make a new character of any races they've met since then (Goliath "half-jotuns" being the biggest example). If they ever travel to Alfheim, they could then make "elves" (I actually use Killoren, not PHB elves, as elves).

Anything not setting-appropriate: I'm fine with probably 90% of the generic "brown books" as well as a large chunk of Forgotten Realms material. Flavor pre-req's of feats and PrC's are mutable, etc. But anything that requires me to have some large organization (Mage of the Arcane Order) that I don't intend to have in my world isn't going to fly.

Right this moment our group is deciding how we want to handle Mordenkainen's Disjunction (we're not going to use it as printed in the PHB)... but that's a group decision (they don't want to risk auto-losing all their wealth from an enemy caster; the party is 17th level).

That's about it as far as 'banning' goes, and as I said, all that would go away were I running any other setting but this one.

[The Fury]

Show him this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIE6s4rSrI). Count how many attacks he makes against that trash can within 6 seconds.

That's right! According to your DM, a 16th-level Fighter makes attacks more slowly than a pet turtle. who probably doesn't even have proper hit dice.



That's an easy enough fix. A tortoise now has the special quality of being permanently Hasted. That's why they hit trash cans so blindingly quick, see?

There! Your DM's game is now realistic and not ridiculous in the least!

[TechnoWarforged]

Something I advice new players actually, just use the PHB boob, once you know how it works expand.

In one game, the party feature an all male cast. No female characters were allowed. So technically we banned boobs.

Our current DM banned ToB because he said manoeuvres doesn't fit with 3.5. Either all class should have manoeuvres or no class should. I'm fine with the decision but I still have the occassional urge to play Rogue/SwordSage, Crusader, or Fire-Elf build with Warblade.

After some shenigans with a player in another game taking down a dragon almost single-handedly, the DM banned Shivering Touch.

[Somensjev]

In one game, the party feature an all male cast. No female characters were allowed. So technically we banned boobs.


this made me laugh more than it should have

[hymer]

So technically we banned boobs.

All the good ones, anyway.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of 3.5 DMs, so I don't have a lot of weird bans to tell about. Though one DM was upset by my druid. Can you guess why?
Because she could use Wild Empathy and Knowledge (Nature) to avoid combat encounters with natural animals.
Weird inclusions, on the other hand...

[MesiDoomstalker]

What, just at the table or during character creation as well? :smallconfused:

Character Creation for level 3 took about 300 note cards between 5 PCs, but thats noting EVERYTHING. Class abilities, racial abilities, spells, magic items, mundane items, etc, etc, etc. During play most of the note cards we use at the table is new spells (mostly casters who got their whole list like Clerics and Warmages) and magic items. The DM just handed out note cards with magic items stuff listed on them for us. Its surprisingly effective, especially since all the stuff that is used a lot is organized for easy access (or at least mine are).

[Zombulian]

In one game, the party feature an all male cast. No female characters were allowed. So technically we banned boobs.
Haha. That's awesome. Do you have an all male playing group or did the girls of the group just decide to play men?


Our current DM banned ToB because he said manoeuvres doesn't fit with 3.5. Either all class should have manoeuvres or no class should. I'm fine with the decision but I still have the occassional urge to play Rogue/SwordSage, Crusader, or Fire-Elf build with Warblade.

That's actually a very popular opinion here in the Playground. Of course the ToB characters are going to outshine the regular mundanes. They were put in to replace them, not stand with them.
Though I do agree that at times ToB can get that sort of video-gamey feel similar to 4.0



After some shenigans with a player in another game taking down a dragon almost single-handedly, the DM banned Shivering Touch.

As he should.

[CTrees]

Or lash two quarter staves together with straight lashings. Or attach a club to a quarter staff with a straight lashing. Or even two quarter staves straight lashed together with a club square or diagonal lashed onto the tip.

Boy Scouts in your backstory, I'm guessing?

[Kennisiou]

Boy Scouts in your backstory, I'm guessing?

Well it was until his backstory got banned, anyways.

[Kraklen88]

The first 3.5 game I every played had the following rule changes by the DM:

1) No such thing as small weapons, because they are stupid and make no sense for a smaller weapon to do less damage.
2) No STR bonus to damage.
3) No magic items
4) No Monk, ToB, Incarnum, etc. Just PHB base classes.
5) No Wizard

That's all I can remember but I feel like there were a few more.

[Sith_Happens]

Spell points. I'm not even sure why we've banned them, or how they were an issue in the first place, or why they're banned rather than just not used, but there they are on the houserules page.

This definitely wins the award so far for "just plain oddest."


In one game, the party feature an all male cast. No female characters were allowed. So technically we banned boobs.


All the good ones, anyway.

Hymer beat me to it.


No STR bonus to damage.

And how was he expecting you to, you know, kill things then?:smallconfused:

[Zombulian]

The first 3.5 game I every played had the following rule changes by the DM:

1) No such thing as small weapons, because they are stupid and make no sense for a smaller weapon to do less damage.
2) No STR bonus to damage.
3) No magic items
4) No Monk, ToB, Incarnum, etc. Just PHB base classes.
5) No Wizard

That's all I can remember but I feel like there were a few more.

When I saw the first rule I was like "Well that's kinda nice, let the halfling be a barbarian I say!"
Then I saw the second rule and realized that the only reason he made the first one was because he doesn't understand how force works.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Downvoted for just being a magic item with no twist.
(Also, 130 already exists (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-130).)
I picked the number based on the PHB page on which it's described, rather than just picking a random number.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Not so much a Ban but a ruling. If you cannot explain something from a non-Core source reliably without referring to the book (Note cards and the like are acceptable), you may not use it. Its mainly to cut down on "book time," the time it takes to look up something obscure in a book. The group goes through a pack of 150 note cards a month.

I actually have a similar rule.

Either on your character sheet or on a separate sheet note the book and page number for -everything- your character can do other than basic combat actions that -all- characters can do so we can look it up quickly when necessary. It has saved -gobs- of time when we've needed to look things up. Between this and the rule that I will make a ruling within approximately 3 minutes if there's a dispute things stay pretty smooth.

I always double check my rulings between sessions to try and cleave pretty close to RAW.

[Maginomicon]

I banned the Diehard feat, because the campaign setting broke it.

Seriously.

(It makes sense in context.)

[Eldan]

But then you'd be looting THEIR bodies...

Nonono. You confiscate it before killing them.

[ryu]

Nonono. You confiscate it before killing them.

Wouldn't it be much simpler and less dangerous to just do that to the non-murderhobo enemies if you're going that far anyway?

[Starbuck_II]

Duskblades because full bab and full spells (up to 6th) is overpowered to him.
Yes, normal spellcasters can destroy armies, but a spellcaster that can fight decent? Parish the thought.

[Zombulian]

Duskblades because full bab and full spells (up to 6th) is overpowered to him.
Yes, normal spellcasters can destroy armies, but a spellcaster that can fight decent? Parish the thought.

Perish*. Only correcting because otherwise you just nominated that thought to be a territory owned by the church.

[Zytil]

I had a DM ban the dragonborn template on the grounds that the gods had left the campaign setting and were not interested in mortals. He then allowed clerics. I was very confused.

[Zytil]

Were they Cleric of Deities, or Clerics of ideals?

Deities. He wasn't aware of the concept of clerics of ideals at the time.

[Seerow]

Duskblades because full bab and full spells (up to 6th) is overpowered to him.
Yes, normal spellcasters can destroy armies, but a spellcaster that can fight decent? Parish the thought.

Duskblade's only go up to 5th level spells.

[Necroticplague]

Deities. He wasn't aware of the concept of clerics of ideals at the time.

Meh, clerics of dieties don't necessarily need dieties to work. It could just be that they derived their power from their idealized version of the god without realizing it. So two people worshiping the same god might get different domains based on their own view of the diety.

*Starts writing notes for campaign ideas*.

[Cofniben]

I have a DM who bans the Summoner class from pathfinder. His rational is that it's just digimon and thus he will not allow it. I was originally thinking of it because I was playing in Rise of the Ruin Lords and it was just two of us and we nearly got a tpk, so I was going to have them have a "3" person party that way, but he said no and just found more people to play.

[Hangwind]

I did have one DM that banned whales. Yes, I do mean the animal.

[Randomocity132]

I did have one DM that banned whales. Yes, I do mean the animal.

Any particular reason?

[georgie_leech]

I did have one DM that banned whales. Yes, I do mean the animal.

The GM from this story (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275152) banned dolphins among other things*, so they're not alone in their hatred for aquatic mammals at least.

Among other things, including but not limited to most swords, trees, the assembly line, and basic physics.

[Zombulian]

Any particular reason?

Yea. F**k whales.

[Hangwind]

A few "incidents" involving Anthropomorphic Whales, Psuedo-natural whales, and rampaging land whales.

[Coidzor]

Character Creation for level 3 took about 300 note cards between 5 PCs, but thats noting EVERYTHING. Class abilities, racial abilities, spells, magic items, mundane items, etc, etc, etc. During play most of the note cards we use at the table is new spells (mostly casters who got their whole list like Clerics and Warmages) and magic items. The DM just handed out note cards with magic items stuff listed on them for us. Its surprisingly effective, especially since all the stuff that is used a lot is organized for easy access (or at least mine are).

That's a lot of paper to waste during Char Gen. :smalleek: Are you able to at least reuse note cards or does the process repeat itself each time despite having a note card with the exact same information already in your possession? :smallconfused:


I banned the Diehard feat, because the campaign setting broke it.

Seriously.

(It makes sense in context.)

Go on...


Boy Scouts in your backstory, I'm guessing?

Where else are you going to get a trait that allows you to actually Use Rope without investing skill points? :smallamused:


Perish*. Only correcting because otherwise you just nominated that thought to be a territory owned by the church.

Or a subdivision of land in Lousiana.

Edit: Whoa, scrolling in this thread just killed my mousewheel. But it still works as a button. :smalleek:

[Randomocity132]

A few "incidents" involving Anthropomorphic Whales, Psuedo-natural whales, and rampaging land whales.

Reminds me of this 4chan story about Wailords everywhere

http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+ll+just+leave+this+here+_5f713995cc4b324705e2236 1fc12319d.jpg

[MesiDoomstalker]

That's a lot of paper to waste during Char Gen. :smalleek: Are you able to at least reuse note cards or does the process repeat itself each time despite having a note card with the exact same information already in your possession? :smallconfused:

To a certain degree. They were all written in individual player's short hand, so for example my friend's note card for the Dark Way spell (SpC) isn't too much use to me because I don't understand his shorthand. Of course simpler spells like say Cure Light Wounds, are easily exchangeable between players because of the simplicity of the spell making the shorthand version easy to understand. The game that's coming up I'm playing a Cleric and only making cards for spells I have prepared and have yet to make cards for. I haven't played a Cleric yet, so spells at the very least are getting fresh cards. But I've played Raptorans (which I'm playing) and a few other things. I'm reusing about a dozen cards for this character, out of (besides spells), 24 cards at start. We do recycle (both in the literal and reused sense), don't worry.

EDIT: I, at least, try to conserve space. Spells that are alike, like Cure line, get one or two cards for each. Cure line, for example, has 2 cards using both sides (one side usually just the name for easier organization). (Greater) Dispel Magic is on one card.

[Maginomicon]

Go on...
Here you go:
In the Death And Dying variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/deathAndDying.htm) (which the campaign setting uses but isn't part of my normal house rules), Diehard is "broken" (as in it doesn't work) since you never are at -1 to -9 HP. Even if I assume that the RAI for the Diehard feat is to allow you to act "as if" disabled even when in the dying condition and clarify that the Diehard feat does that, that doesn't change the fact that you auto-stabilize when you would enter the dying state (leaving you at 0 HP but stable and with the choice to act "as if" disabled). This makes Diehard not just broken, but overpowered, since the only way to die then is to either fail the fortitude save by 10 or more initially or to succeed on the initial save but then fail on a later hit (when disabled), as succeeding on the later hit's save would allow you as-written to remain disabled when you would enter the dying state again.

I thus rewrote it and renamed it "Dieharder" (kudos if you get that reference). Now it instead makes the Death And Dying variant's reacting fortitude saves start at DC 5 instead of DC 10, which is a much more elegant solution than futzing around with what happens when you enter the dying condition in various circumstances.

[jedipotter]

I had DM Dave, and his banning of the Half-Humans. We had all made half-elves from a classic ''town on the border between the elves and humans''. As we were ''more human'' then elf in actions and such....we called ourselves ''Half-Humans''. Poor Dave just went crazy about us ''using a non standard race''. He would rant and rave each time one of us said something like ''I am Blorn Half-Human'' and he would say something back like ''the NPC hears you say Half-Elf''.

Afterwards, ''you may not play the race known as ''Half Humans'' was always near the top of his ban list.

[jaybird]

I'm reusing about a dozen cards for this character, out of (besides spells), 24 cards at start. We do recycle (both in the literal and reused sense), don't worry.

Does your table have something against online character sheets and references? :smallconfused:

[Naanomi]

Someone in my playgroup told me their last GM banned using healing spells, since it 'took all the danger out of the game'

[MesiDoomstalker]

Does your table have something against online character sheets and references? :smallconfused:

More the tech necessary to view and use one. We had issues of people not paying attention when their sheets were purely digital. Once we banned computers, phones and tablets while in session, the game improved dramatically. And so did our note card usage. Its a trade. We actually have a collection for things like stationary and pizza. Mostly pizza.

[lunar2]

''the NPC hears you say Half-Elf''

this would have gotten me off the table immediately. if i said half human, than goddamnit i said half human. the DM does not control PCs' thoughts, speech, or actions, barring NPC magic, period.

i once had trouble with a DM who kept trying to talk for my character, and every time i told him directly "no, Peristo did not say that. you worry about your NPCs. if i have the character sheet, i control the character." since i was the only competent character builder of the group, and basically co dm running all the NPCs following the party around (this was one of those DMs who loved adding new characters to the party. to the point that one time i ended up running 10 characters at once, and the other two players were each running 3), he really didn't have any choice in the matter, so i was able to keep him under control, otherwise he would have gone crazy.


anyway, as for odd bans, one group i played with banned flight almost completely. even if a monster could fly, it would always land and fight on the ground. monsters that couldn't effectively do that simply were not used.

[The Random NPC]

I have a GM that baned the Agile enchantment (Dex to damage). He would later regale me with tales of this awesome new system that fixed a lot of things wrong with 3.5, the key piece of which I caught was a feat that let you replace attack and damage with 1 stat of choice. Fortunately, when I called him on it, he said that he changed his mind on the Agile enchantment.

[Elkad]

I once had a DM tell us that a Ring of Protection didn't stack with armor. After pointing out the rules said otherwise, I was soon after asked to not return.

That's probably the only weird thing I've had a DM ban.

That's just an old rule floating to the top again.

In 1st/2nd a Ring of Protection didn't stack with magic armor bonuses for AC. You did still get the saving throw bonuses though, and you got the AC bonus if you had mundane armor.

Having just switched to 3.5, when I got my first Ring of Protection, I just assumed I knew how it worked and added a +2 to all my saves. Several levels later our Wizard (Fire focused Evocation specialist...) was gaily fireballing an area with a bunch of monsters in it. And my L8 Rogue, who was invisible in the area of effect. I was beating DC:23 with a roll of 2, plus Evasion for none, and the DM asked me to run the numbers for him.

Me: "Rogue +6, halfling +1, dex +7, cloak of resistance +1, ring of protection +2, ring of fire resistance +4, Boots of..."

DM: "Whoa, wait. Ring of protection is armor only. And fire resistance is just resistance:10 to fire, there is no saving throw bonus."

Yeah, the party tripped over my invisible smoldering corpse while looting the monsters.

[BWR]

I had DM Dave, and his banning of the Half-Humans. We had all made half-elves from a classic ''town on the border between the elves and humans''. As we were ''more human'' then elf in actions and such....we called ourselves ''Half-Humans''. Poor Dave just went crazy about us ''using a non standard race''. He would rant and rave each time one of us said something like ''I am Blorn Half-Human'' and he would say something back like ''the NPC hears you say Half-Elf''.

Afterwards, ''you may not play the race known as ''Half Humans'' was always near the top of his ban list.

This could actually be excused, with correct reasoning.
The idea of half-X and their names really show the sort of origin bias in D&D: Man is the measure and the base of everything. Humans think of an elf-human mix as half-elf, because the human is a given. So even if you call yourself a half-human humans will see you and think 'half-elf'. If you think like a human, you will also most likely think of yourself as a half-elf because the human bit is the base on which the elf bit has been put.

On the other hand, why shouldn't elves think of the same person as a half-human? From their point of view, the elf is the natural state, the given, and whatever half is thrown on there is the qualifier.

[Calinero]

As a DM I banned Teleportation and Plane Shift myself, just because they provided some solutions to the plot that were a little too easy for my taste. A little lazy, I know, but when the campaign started I didn't think the party sorcerer would ever get high enough level to take those spells. 9 levels later...

[BWR]

There's nothing wrong with that. That's not even very odd. It would be odder and questionable if you tried to ban such effects in settings that canonically have them, like Forgotten Realms

[Tengu_temp]

Yea. F**k whales.

Is that you, Deceased Crab?

[Calinero]

Actually, I only banned Planar Shift. I just remembered I had an NPC use Teleportation, so it was available. Actually, it would have made a few plots a lot easier if they could teleport. Lots of saved travel time.

[killem2]

this would have gotten me off the table immediately. if i said half human, than goddamnit i said half human. the DM does not control PCs' thoughts, speech, or actions, barring NPC magic, period.


As a DM myself, I would never change what a player says, but if a listen check is needed, and the checker fails, I would have zero issue with a mishearing of what you said.

Granted, I would also never tell you oh, btw this npc hear you wrong. They wouldn't know they heard you wrong. Until whatever it mattered had some sort of cause and effect.

Like:

General: Kill all the orcs!


Peon who is in the middle of a war waging just out side the wood fort walls rolls a listen check and fails by 5 or more.

Peon goes down and has all the Dwarfs killed.

I would not do this very often though, because it is not very likely.

[Coidzor]

I had DM Dave, and his banning of the Half-Humans. We had all made half-elves from a classic ''town on the border between the elves and humans''. As we were ''more human'' then elf in actions and such....we called ourselves ''Half-Humans''. Poor Dave just went crazy about us ''using a non standard race''. He would rant and rave each time one of us said something like ''I am Blorn Half-Human'' and he would say something back like ''the NPC hears you say Half-Elf''.

Afterwards, ''you may not play the race known as ''Half Humans'' was always near the top of his ban list.

I don't get it. Was he having a hissy fit over calling it something else or did you somehow get him to approve your characters despite not knowing that you were using half-elf mechanics for the race? :smallconfused:


This could actually be excused, with correct reasoning.
The idea of half-X and their names really show the sort of origin bias in D&D: Man is the measure and the base of everything. Humans think of an elf-human mix as half-elf, because the human is a given. So even if you call yourself a half-human humans will see you and think 'half-elf'. If you think like a human, you will also most likely think of yourself as a half-elf because the human bit is the base on which the elf bit has been put.

On the other hand, why shouldn't elves think of the same person as a half-human? From their point of view, the elf is the natural state, the given, and whatever half is thrown on there is the qualifier.

OTOH, there's a *lot* more varieties of half-human, half-X than half-elf, half-X.

I just wrote and read half so many times, my eyes began to sorta glaze over and it started to lose all meaning to me. :smalleek:

[Yawgmoth]

t*D created a horribly long backstory quite a bit longer than my typical post for his first character, in a game I played in. He'd thinly disguised all the nearby locations in and around his home by rearranging the letters and attempting to make them sound more medieval. He'd created nearly a dozen NPCs who were set to give him Magic Items or a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character. Oone of these NPCs was a Druid who was supposed to find him later on and be another Cohort. It was all very messy and we forgot about it for the entire campaign that followed that one session, the first campaign that I ran.

Current Campaign, oh boy all the crap about the backstory came back with a vengeance. He renamed several countries, cities and an entire continent while I described the setting, making me lose track of where and when they were. He kept demanding a Silver Dragon Cohort/Familiar/Pet/Animal Companion/Secondary Character and at one point, tried to integrate the Male Elf Ranger's backstory, into his Female Human Druid character. With all the benefits it would grant.

Needless to say, backstories are banned unless, they can write something simple enough for me to understand after a quick scan and don't receive any immediate benefits outside of whatever their Character's Class, Feats, Race and Skills gives them. I too ban basic parts of any good game instead of just telling ted to stop being a jackass.

[The Random NPC]

*lot* more varieties of half-human, half-X than half-elf, half-X.

I just wrote and read half so many times, my eyes began to sorta glaze over and it started to lose all meaning to me. :smalleek:


Human: Hey elf, you look like a girl.
Elf: To a human, everything must look like a girl.
Human: What?
Elf: Half-orcs, half-ogres...
Human: ... shut up.
Dwarf: Half-dragons, half-kobolds.
Human: I said shut up!
Elf: ...
Dwarf: ...
Human: ...
Elf: Centaurs.
Originally posted by Randel in the Gameworld racist insults (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61404) thread.

[Karoht]

In one game we had to ban... breeding. Why?
We had a player (I'm going to call him C) who was extremely new to DnD. I don't think he quite got what was going on, at least not until his 4th character death. But basically, he would spend most of the session telling us things his character was going to do when he could. Now, I'm not talking about forced breeding programs to build the Emerald Legion or anything like that. He just enjoyed pairing up anything with pretty much anything else.

IE-In the party was a crow. It was an NPC, but for a while it might as well have been a serious cohort to my character. We were in the middle of a combat, very quickly researching how Sleight of Hand worked so that the Crow could steal a weapon out of someone's hand. And right about that time, C blurted out that he wanted his animal companion (a bear) to have babies. With the crow.

We stopped combat, and gave him a great big WTF. So he explained that he wanted a crow of his own, but a crow would be not so good for a second animal companion, so a baby bear-crow would be better.
Now, to be fair, such conversations had already taken place, but with more sensible pairings. Like a Drow and a Human for example, and conversations like the post above. He seemed really focused on the 'pairing' aspect of the game for some reason. I'm not sure why exactly, he wasn't roleplaying it or anything, it was just that thing he would talk about randomly.

Without getting into too much detail about the conversation we had next, 'breeding' was just banned from the game until further notice.

Turns out that C does have a few mental issues, and a few odd things blurted out like that were not uncommon. As a group we've learned not to pay them much notice, but the fact that it even came up...

[BWR]

OTOH, there's a *lot* more varieties of half-human, half-X than half-elf, half-X.

Are there really that many more half-humans than others? And is this because they can't exist or because, as I mentioned, humans are the default?
Most of the half-X templates can be put on elves as well as humans, and is there any reason other than poorly, thought out mechanics that a half orc couldn't be half-elf instead of half-human?

[Sian]

Fluff that Elves would be to frail to carry to term? ... and that Orcs would probably just kill it instead ...?

[Sith_Happens]

This could actually be excused, with correct reasoning.
The idea of half-X and their names really show the sort of origin bias in D&D: Man is the measure and the base of everything. Humans think of an elf-human mix as half-elf, because the human is a given. So even if you call yourself a half-human humans will see you and think 'half-elf'. If you think like a human, you will also most likely think of yourself as a half-elf because the human bit is the base on which the elf bit has been put.

On the other hand, why shouldn't elves think of the same person as a half-human? From their point of view, the elf is the natural state, the given, and whatever half is thrown on there is the qualifier.

Relevant (last four panels). (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0555.html)


In one game we had to ban... breeding.

[Snip]

Check his 3DS. If it has Fire Emblem Awakening or any Pokémon game in it, then there's your explanation.

[Axinian]

The GM from this story (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275152) banned dolphins among other things*, so they're not alone in their hatred for aquatic mammals at least.

Among other things, including but not limited to most swords, trees, the assembly line, and basic physics.

Basically that entire thread (and its sequel) serves as a complete answer to this one.


Yea. F**k whales.

Nuke the whales! Have you seen the size of those things?

[Karoht]

Check his 3DS. If it has Fire Emblem Awakening or any Pokémon game in it, then there's your explanation.Actually, as I understand it, he does this with people as well. As in real life people. Apparently it is related to the reason he is in therapy. I think someone said it is a type of Autism? Whatevs, he's got it under much better control now, a year later.

[ryu]

Incidentally I'm permanently banned from starting new in-game religions based on figures that don't exist in-game. It was kinda warranted considering at the time of banning I had no less seventy-five active religions, but such is life.

I remember my personal favorite at the time was the church of Exodia the Forbidden One.

[Threadnaught]

I too ban basic parts of any good game instead of just telling ted to stop being a jackass.

I just told him to stop trying to take advantage, told him I wasn't using that backstory and decided to create a more basic one for him. The other player hasn't created their backstory, so I've left a few crumbs for them. They don't visit their past anyway.

Next campaign I run (the Gestalt one), they'll be required to write a short backstory featuring some NPCs I can introduce as whatever I decide they've become since last seeing the PCs.

I'll try to find a BBEG from each. :smallamused:

[Coidzor]

Originally posted by Randel in the Gameworld racist insults (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61404) thread.

That's what I was thinking of, yeah. Thank you. :smallsmile:

[Axinian]

Check his 3DS. If it has Fire Emblem Awakening or any Pokémon game in it, then there's your explanation.

To be fair, he probably just wanted all his guys to have Galeforce, and I don't blame him.

[Karoht]

Fun.
We all know at least one DM that's banned it.
Be honest.

[LordBiscuit]

Actually, as I understand it, he does this with people as well. As in real life people. Apparently it is related to the reason he is in therapy. I think someone said it is a type of Autism? Whatevs, he's got it under much better control now, a year later.

Indeed, I afflicted with the condiction as well, though the exact effect it has on the person tends to vary. Its sounds rather like terrets, where he litrally can't help but blurt out something with a shock factor.

For me, I find incredably stupid actions (stupid as defined by being prohibitative or completely unproductive to the party), largely because the idea of playing from the ground up again changes the sarroundings and means I would have to adjust to another character and that it often takes several sessions to actually get into the role. I am not a terribly flexable thinker.

[Seerow]

Looting.

I played in a Shadowrun campaign where looting was banned. Attempting to loot things resulted in said things blowing up. Literally. Unless them blowing up would be beneficial to us, in which case they became unusable through some other random means.

[Yawgmoth]

Next campaign I run (the Gestalt one), they'll be required to write a short backstory featuring some NPCs I can introduce as whatever I decide they've become since last seeing the PCs.

I'll try to find a BBEG from each. :smallamused: As well you should! A word of advice, though: be careful which backstory NPC turns into a bad guy (if any). I've had both first and secondhand bad experiences with giving my DM a detailed history and having it used as a weapon instead of a way to bring the players/characters into the game world.

Maybe tell them to include a possible BBEG in their histories just to avoid such a problem?

[Coidzor]

Looting.

I played in a Shadowrun campaign where looting was banned. Attempting to loot things resulted in said things blowing up. Literally. Unless them blowing up would be beneficial to us, in which case they became unusable through some other random means.

Oh, man, I remember you talking about that ages ago. :smalleek::smallbiggrin:

[Seerow]

Oh, man, I remember you talking about that ages ago. :smalleek::smallbiggrin:

Yeah that campaign was years ago now, but it's still a fun anecdote nontheless. It all started because I wanted a truck. QQ


Sadly most things in our campaigns that get banned are for typical reasons (ie "I don't have that book, you can't use it" or "No, you are not bringing in Forgotten Realms material to this Eberron game"), so I don't have anything more recent I can think of that qualifies as "odd".

[Karoht]

Yeah that campaign was years ago now, but it's still a fun anecdote nontheless. It all started because I wanted a truck. QQ
"Hey cool guys, the truck those thugs rolled up in is still in tact."
*truck- splosion*
"Huh, that was weird, must have had a bizarre anti-theft device. Well, at least there are still all these guns on the bodies"
*gun-splosion*
"Weird, they must have really been paranoid about not leaving evidence. Hey, this guy has a boot-knife"
*Knife-splosion*
"...wow, really paranoid. Well, at least we can collect some money out of their wallets."
*wallet-splosion*
"...seriously? Fine then, maybe I should take their body armor, looks kind of--"
*body-armor-extreme-splosion*
"K, someone else try this. Maybe take their pants?"
*pants-splosion*
"A lock of hair maybe?"
*hair-splosion*
"...I give up. Lets just get out of here before we have to explain all these explosions to the police."
*police-splosion*

[FinnDarkblade]

I had a DM basically ban magic item crafting. I say basically because you could still do it, but there was only a 5% chance of the item working. Thankfully I asked about it before taking item crafting feats.

[Vknight]

I've banned the following

-Talking about Op, Munchikin, being Overpowered etc.
-A specific player
And here is the detailed reason.
Had a player, I believe I've mentioned him a few times. He played the warforged in the 4e Floating City Fortress game. He had this annoying thing too complain when things didn't go well. Or someone did more damage then him, or was effective, or wouldn't bring them into their side-quests(personal story quests) and would be obstinate when others were in scenes without him.
This included laughing with a loud shrill HAH! and looking at things on his phone and shoving said phone into others faces and loudly declaring look at this...
Now if you are aware he left about 2 and a half years ago blaming me for things I did not do. He came back about a year ago with this behavior.

So yeah you can already see troubles brewing.
As he wanted too control or be in every social encounter and declare his greatness basically strutting like a peacock at someone.

Now add in that whenever someone did higher damage then his last attack(Say he did burning hands hit 4 guys for 8 each; a total of 32 damage) and the next person did 15 damage.
Did damage that would one shot anything including mooks.
Did something involving class features/skills better then his sorcerer.
Beat his Bluff check, which he had no training in...
He would do the following
'That is so OP, your stuff is so OP this is not fair too my character your being OP!'
'I want this and this so its fair because of how OP they are!'
'Your a OP, Powergamer, whose cheating the system too be OP!'
then it would start too change but that was the effective rant. So once a round that would happen as he would wait until the end of the round too air his 'grievances'

I asked him too not complain as its a group game. Everyone is involved working together.
'I know that! But as I'm *insert his name here* I know I'm better than them and deserve special treatment and should be afforded the proper respect as such.'

Yes he said that. So since that rant happened at the second session after he came back I kicked him. In other news he stole a book and his sister returned it.

A personal favorite of mine. He house-rolled that the 0 on a d10 counted as 0 not 10

-Any character with less than a paragraph of back-story
-Divine classes in the floating fortress game
-Trolls in a Shadowrun one-shot
-Certain Wizard builds(Tippy one's)

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

Things Banned in Other Games Were I Was Not the GM
(* means I was the cause of this ban)

-Any build I made*
-Monks
-Any character background I made*
-Fire*
-The knowledge of fire*
-Druids animal companion
-The Druid's ability too Wild Shape*
-Working with the party too have effective tactics
-Mounts*
-Monkey Weapon because those large sized weapons on medium sized characters are terrifying*
-The ability too lock doors*
-The ability too make a deal with a devil/demon*
-Killing the GMPC, the Pet DMPC, or Pet*
-Thunderstones*
-Alchemist Fire*
-Flaws
-Non-PHB sources
-PHB sources
-Seduction rules
-Recording the sessions*

[Eldest]

I've banned the following

-Talking about Op, Munchikin, being Overpowered etc.
-A specific player
And here is the detailed reason.
Had a player, I believe I've mentioned him a few times. He played the warforged in the 4e Floating City Fortress game. He had this annoying thing too complain when things didn't go well. Or someone did more damage then him, or was effective, or wouldn't bring them into their side-quests(personal story quests) and would be obstinate when others were in scenes without him.
This included laughing with a loud shrill HAH! and looking at things on his phone and shoving said phone into others faces and loudly declaring look at this...
Now if you are aware he left about 2 and a half years ago blaming me for things I did not do. He came back about a year ago with this behavior.

So yeah you can already see troubles brewing.
As he wanted too control or be in every social encounter and declare his greatness basically strutting like a peacock at someone.

Now add in that whenever someone did higher damage then his last attack(Say he did burning hands hit 4 guys for 8 each; a total of 32 damage) and the next person did 15 damage.
Did damage that would one shot anything including mooks.
Did something involving class features/skills better then his sorcerer.
Beat his Bluff check, which he had no training in...
He would do the following
'That is so OP, your stuff is so OP this is not fair too my character your being OP!'
'I want this and this so its fair because of how OP they are!'
'Your a OP, Powergamer, whose cheating the system too be OP!'
then it would start too change but that was the effective rant. So once a round that would happen as he would wait until the end of the round too air his 'grievances'

I asked him too not complain as its a group game. Everyone is involved working together.
'I know that! But as I'm *insert his name here* I know I'm better than them and deserve special treatment and should be afforded the proper respect as such.'

Yes he said that. So since that rant happened at the second session after he came back I kicked him. In other news he stole a book and his sister returned it.

A personal favorite of mine. He house-rolled that the 0 on a d10 counted as 0 not 10

-Any character with less than a paragraph of back-story
-Divine classes in the floating fortress game
-Trolls in a Shadowrun one-shot
-Certain Wizard builds(Tippy one's)

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

Things Banned in Other Games Were I Was Not the GM
(* means I was the cause of this ban)

-Any build I made*
-Monks
-Any character background I made*
-Fire*
-The knowledge of fire*
-Druids animal companion
-The Druid's ability too Wild Shape*
-Working with the party too have effective tactics
-Mounts*
-Monkey Weapon because those large sized weapons on medium sized characters are terrifying*
-The ability too lock doors*
-The ability too make a deal with a devil/demon*
-Killing the GMPC, the Pet DMPC, or Pet*
-Thunderstones*
-Alchemist Fire*
-Flaws
-Non-PHB sources
-PHB sources
-Seduction rules
-Recording the sessions*

While that is far less than fun, the '0' on a d10 is, in fact, the 10. The die goes from 1 to 10.

[The Trickster]

I've banned the following

-Talking about Op, Munchikin, being Overpowered etc.
-A specific player
And here is the detailed reason.
Had a player, I believe I've mentioned him a few times. He played the warforged in the 4e Floating City Fortress game. He had this annoying thing too complain when things didn't go well. Or someone did more damage then him, or was effective, or wouldn't bring them into their side-quests(personal story quests) and would be obstinate when others were in scenes without him.
This included laughing with a loud shrill HAH! and looking at things on his phone and shoving said phone into others faces and loudly declaring look at this...
Now if you are aware he left about 2 and a half years ago blaming me for things I did not do. He came back about a year ago with this behavior.

So yeah you can already see troubles brewing.
As he wanted too control or be in every social encounter and declare his greatness basically strutting like a peacock at someone.

Now add in that whenever someone did higher damage then his last attack(Say he did burning hands hit 4 guys for 8 each; a total of 32 damage) and the next person did 15 damage.
Did damage that would one shot anything including mooks.
Did something involving class features/skills better then his sorcerer.
Beat his Bluff check, which he had no training in...
He would do the following
'That is so OP, your stuff is so OP this is not fair too my character your being OP!'
'I want this and this so its fair because of how OP they are!'
'Your a OP, Powergamer, whose cheating the system too be OP!'
then it would start too change but that was the effective rant. So once a round that would happen as he would wait until the end of the round too air his 'grievances'

I asked him too not complain as its a group game. Everyone is involved working together.
'I know that! But as I'm *insert his name here* I know I'm better than them and deserve special treatment and should be afforded the proper respect as such.'

Yes he said that. So since that rant happened at the second session after he came back I kicked him. In other news he stole a book and his sister returned it.

A personal favorite of mine. He house-rolled that the 0 on a d10 counted as 0 not 10

-Any character with less than a paragraph of back-story
-Divine classes in the floating fortress game
-Trolls in a Shadowrun one-shot
-Certain Wizard builds(Tippy one's)

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

Things Banned in Other Games Were I Was Not the GM
(* means I was the cause of this ban)

-Any build I made*
-Monks
-Any character background I made*
-Fire*
-The knowledge of fire*
-Druids animal companion
-The Druid's ability too Wild Shape*
-Working with the party too have effective tactics
-Mounts*
-Monkey Weapon because those large sized weapons on medium sized characters are terrifying*
-The ability too lock doors*
-The ability too make a deal with a devil/demon*
-Killing the GMPC, the Pet DMPC, or Pet*
-Thunderstones*
-Alchemist Fire*
-Flaws
-Non-PHB sources
-PHB sources
-Seduction rules
-Recording the sessions*

I am interested in how a DM can ban...fire.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I am interested in how a DM can ban...fire.

Right?

It's largely been my experience that fire tends to crop up near adventurers even when they don't use it themselves, like some sort of perverse natural phenomenon.

I once saw an entire small town get razed to cinders by unfortunate turns of the dice and nearly sheer coincidence because of a bar fight. That was..... something.

[Marlowe]

Currently, I'm banning:
Kender (because a homebrew deity wiped them from the multiverse several thousand years ago for "being annoying")
Spellthieves (just because I don't like them. I'll go back on it if anyone actually wants to play them. But for now it's "They say I have a Spellthieves' hands. It's not true. We had to feed those to the dogs")
Being Lina Inverse (Not Playing Lina Inverse. Being.)

My current DM is banning (effectively) transplanar travel. The campaign, after three false starts, hasn't actually started yet, so we don't yet know how he's going to react we point out that this also effectively bans Positive energy channeling (no healing), negative energy channeling (no undead or necromancy), non-Druidic summoning and calling, outsiders, elementals, and anything shadow-based.

This is somebody whose idea of an encounter is "A Bone Devil turns up and attacks you".

We're looking forward to the hissy-fit.:smallsmile:

He's also making (not letting, making) us play level 20 monster races with all LA and RHD disregarded as far as ECL is concerned. I'm a Yuan-Ti Abomination with 20 levels in Battle Sorceror. Gods can't punch through my Spell resistance.:smallconfused:

This is going to be bad. And not in a good way.

[Silva Stormrage]

Currently, I'm banning:
Kender (because a homebrew deity wiped them from the multiverse several thousand years ago for "being annoying")
Spellthieves (just because I don't like them. I'll go back on it if anyone actually wants to play them. But for now it's "They say I have a Spellthieves' hands. It's not true. We had to feed those to the dogs")
Being Lina Inverse (Not Playing Lina Inverse. Being.)

My current DM is banning (effectively) transplanar travel. The campaign, after three false starts, hasn't actually started yet, so we don't yet know how he's going to react we point out that this also effectively bans Positive energy channeling (no healing), negative energy channeling (no undead or necromancy), non-Druidic summoning and calling, outsiders, elementals, and anything shadow-based.

This is somebody whose idea of an encounter is "A Bone Devil turns up and attacks you".

We're looking forward to the hissy-fit.:smallsmile:

He's also making (not letting, making) us play level 20 monster races with all LA and RHD disregarded as far as ECL is concerned. I'm a Yuan-Ti Abomination with 20 levels in Battle Sorceror. Gods can't punch through my Spell resistance.:smallconfused:

This is going to be bad. And not in a good way.

How does banning transdimensional travel stop healing? Isn't it more likely he is simply stopping creatures from traveling across planes? That doesn't sound so unreasonable if he is trying to do a plane hopping campaign.

The level 20 monster race HD and ECL disregardment is insanity though. Black Ethergaunt for the win.

For things my DM has banned, Infernal Healing (Pathfinder), figments (Okay they still exist but everyone automatically can see through them), and magical sleep causes people to fall asleep standing up and still holding their weapon. Still helpless though...

[Marlowe]

Healing is channeling Positive energy from the PE plane to another. It's still a form of things (energy, in this case) moving across planes. You might call that pedantic, but we are going to have to call him on his decisions at some stage, and we need to give him as many examples as possible of what problems his rulings imply.

And he didn't let us choose what monster races we actually are. Hardwired it to our chosen class. The Rogue (spelled Rouge, of course) is a Doppleganger/ Yuan-Ti Halfblood because said DM didn't understand that Yuan-Ti Halfblood is an creature type, rather than a template.

This is going to cause havoc with the Doppleganger's changing form ability, because it works like Alter Self and now we don't know if he counts as Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Healing is channeling Positive energy from the PE plane to another. It's still a form of things (energy, in this case) moving across planes. You might call that pedantic, but we are going to have to call him on his decisions at some stage, and we need to give him as many examples as possible of what problems his rulings imply.

And he didn't let us choose what monster races we actually are. Hardwired it to our chosen class. The Rogue (spelled Rouge, of course) is a Doppleganger/ Yuan-Ti Halfblood because said DM didn't understand that Yuan-Ti Halfblood is an creature type, rather than a template.

This is going to cause havoc with the Doppleganger's changing form ability, because it works like Alter Self and now we don't know if he counts as Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid.

By that logic, shouldn't evocations that call on fire be pulling fire from the elemental plane of fire and the same for cold/water, electricity/air, and acid/earth?

Not all conjurations call material from elsewhere. The entire creation subschool is a series of examples this.

Meh. logic doesn't hold that much weight with some people, I guess.

[Marlowe]

I understand that Fire (and water, cold, acid, electricity, sound et cetera) exist on the Prime material plane already. :smallconfused: At least, it certainly wasn't a Positive-Energy storm I got caught in two days ago.

More importantly, I forgot to mention that he also banned (for PCs) any classes other than "Rouge", Ranger, Fighter, Barbarian, and Sorceror.

Have fun spotting what's wrong with that list.

[TuggyNE]

Currently, I'm banning:
Kender (because a homebrew deity wiped them from the multiverse several thousand years ago for "being annoying")

BOOYAH.

I have no further contributions at this time, being cursed with perfectly reasonable and flexible DMs in my rather short history of playing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I understand that Fire (and water, cold, acid, electricity, sound et cetera) exist on the Prime material plane already. :smallconfused: At least, it certainly wasn't a Positive-Energy storm I got caught in two days ago.

So do positive and negative energy. They're the animating force of living and undead creatures, respectively. At least canonically that's the case.


More importantly, I forgot to mention that he also banned (for PCs) any classes other than "Rouge", Ranger, Fighter, Barbarian, and Sorceror.

Have fun spotting what's wrong with that list.

Is it the ranger? *makes cross-eyed moron face*

Yeah, no way is the sorcerer going to cause problems. Right? *rolls eyes*

[Ansem]

I can actually recall my first DM somehow banning over half of my Cleric spells, as things like "air walk" or speak with dead" are retarded and completely unnecesary to the game...... probably because it meant I could slap his harpies in the face and uncover plot information from the right dead people but it got a lot crazier as well, I was luckily still allowed to use healing spells.

[Marlowe]

So do positive and negative energy. They're the animating force of living and undead creatures, respectively. At least canonically that's the case.



Is it the ranger? *makes cross-eyed moron face*

Yeah, no way is the sorcerer going to cause problems. Right? *rolls eyes*

Yeah, like I said the bit about healing is more an argument that we're going to concede than something we take seriously.

The thing that's annoying us is he's only using this ban of Transplanar travel to keep us locked into his...perfectly balanced and well-thought out intricate worldbuilding, and he doesn't appear to have thought about the ramifications at all.

Oh, he's making us all be evil. Did I mention that?

[hymer]

@ Marlowe: Well, at least you won't have to put up with it for long, right? I mean, this sort of thing lasts a session at most, and at least you'll have a bunch of anecdotes to tell.

[Marlowe]

That's the plan.

He's got a dozen NPCs (approximately. The numbers get more variable the more he mentions them) following us around to assist with his railroading. Our plan is

Step 1--kill all the NPCs to cut down the dead weight (you wanted us to be Evil, didn't you?)

Step 2--teleport to the nearest temple of Eyrthnull (quoth the "Rouge", "there are people around who are more evil than us? The cheek! Kill them all!") and kill everyone. Teleport out.

Step 3--Continue step 2, working from Eythnull temples to Nerull, Hextar and Vecna in roughly descending order of Evil, than start hitting secular forces of evil until we're the only Evil people left alive.

Step 4--Open a law firm.

It's an Evil plan, but not a Bad plan.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yeah, like I said the bit about healing is more an argument that we're going to concede than something we take seriously.

The thing that's annoying us is he's only using this ban of Transplanar travel to keep us locked into his...perfectly balanced and well-thought out intricate worldbuilding, and he doesn't appear to have thought about the ramifications at all.

Oh, he's making us all be evil. Did I mention that?

.......... AH HA HA HA HA HA *SNORT*


Dear god, this is going to be an absolute cluster ****.

If it were me going in knowing that, I don't know that I'd be able to help but enjoy myself as I watched, and maybe helped a little, as the world inevitably crumbles under the weight of its own flaws.

If the world's going to burn anyway, why not bring some marshmallows and maybe a can of gas.

[Somensjev]

multiclassing (however, he did substitute it with "multiclassing")
if anyone's interested i can provide a few more details

[Hangwind]

multiclassing (however, he did substitute it with "multiclassing")
if anyone's interested i can provide a few more details

Okay, I gotta know. What?:smallconfused:

[Marlowe]

Oh yeah, that's right.

He's banned multiclassing as well.

...I should leave this thread now...

[Somensjev]

Okay, I gotta know. What?:smallconfused:

ok, so, apparently, unbeknownst to me (i started playing a session later), the DM decided that normal DnD was boring and slow, so he decided to make up his own DnD-esque game on the fly (use some basic dnd rules, everything else was made up as he went along) he based his game on the new dragon's dogma

apparently in that you can have any number of levels in any number of classes, but can only be one class at a time

so, pretty much, he had a person you could talk to at each town to change your class, it was a small fee to add new classes, and free to swap between ones you already have (seems alright, if a bit iffy)

i was talking to him about it, and he said that if you were a wizard/psion, when you were a wizard you still had the manifester stuff, you just couldn't use it, and vice versa when you're a psion

so, for a couple thousand gold i was about 20 or so classes at once, and could swap between them at any given town

since i always had all my stuff, i qualified for prc's really easily (unless the prc required a certain HD, since he specifically said you can only be one class at a time (including prc's) and HD was one of the few things that changed when you swapped classes)

note: this isnt the weirdest thing he did

[avr]

Talking in-character during combat without spending the entire round doing so.

Oh, I can sort of see the rationale; effective communication is difficult when you're simultaneously trying to do something else which is life-or-death critical. It makes combat really, really boring though and pretty much erases co-ordination between characters.

[nedz]

Talking in-character during combat without spending the entire round doing so.

Oh, I can sort of see the rationale; effective communication is difficult when you're simultaneously trying to do something else which is life-or-death critical. It makes combat really, really boring though and pretty much erases co-ordination between characters.

This should only be done, IMHO, if the party is in a Silence or something. It takes the fun out of the game though it can be amusing on occasion. It also makes Silence more entertaining, especially if its the party's fault.

[Deophaun]

Being Lina Inverse (Not Playing Lina Inverse. Being.)
Considering some places make it illegal to be Lina Inverse...

[Hikarizu]

Considering some places make it illegal to be Lina Inverse...
You can be arrested for that. Seen it happen one time.

[Vknight]

While that is far less than fun, the '0' on a d10 is, in fact, the 10. The die goes from 1 to 10.

This is correct. He tried to argue this when someone rolled a 10 on a crit, and despite being reminded its a d10 not a d10-1 or a d9 with 10 sides.
Why I kicked him


I am interested in how a DM can ban...fire.

I'm surprised people don't want too know about the Mounts, or Thunderstones.
As for fire
I was playing an Arcane Trickster, we had just picked up a wand of Fireball crafted with a meta-magic on it(Maximize, Empower or Widen)
Having worked my way into the court of a powerful Lawful Evil Noble I was planning too burn his home down with plan 'Everything Burns'

Clusters of 2 Alchemist Fires, 5 packs of oil, and 2 Thunderstones were set throughout the home set on the casting of the wand(I forget how)
Fireball Wand set too go installed inside the Tricksters Cane.

Fire, everywhere as these explosive burning flash bangs detonated around the home.
As per the Gm's rules all elemental damage ignores hardness(stone walls are only so thick)
With this I burned down the bad guys home and revealed that he was working for the BBEG.

[TechnoWarforged]

Haha. That's awesome. Do you have an all male playing group or did the girls of the group just decide to play men?

The DM, who was female, had enough of her hormone raging adolescence players and their inaccurate portrayals of what the opposite gender acts like (whether it was true or not).

Any jokes regarding cleavages and upskirts would result in the DMG being thrown . Also all bar wrenches, princesses, and female of any species encountered in the campaign, while possesses interesting personality, almost always very sensible with varying degrees of intelligent, but were always plain, unattractive, dress conservatively, and does not act flirty to the PC in any way.

[ojayaba]

Things we have had banned in our group, some odd, some... not as much.
Tome of Battle
Book of Vile Darkness
Ring of Invisibility(because of how they would use it.)
Psionics
Retributive Amulet
meta magic'd Combust spell...
Vow of Poverty (currently undergoing testing to see if it should remain banned or not)
Miniatures Handbook
Ring of the Darkhidden (doesn't matter if its a surface campaign, its to "powerful")
Mighty Wallop (because permanency *interesting story*)
Leadership (if not banned then heavily monitored)
Anything less then a 2 level dip (unless it's for an NPC/DMPC they are running)

I think that's it for BAN's but the list for now that I can think of...

[Silva Stormrage]

Things we have had banned in our group, some odd, some... not as much.
Tome of Battle
Book of Vile Darkness
Ring of Invisibility(because of how they would use it.)
Psionics
Retributive Amulet
meta magic'd Combust spell...
Vow of Poverty (currently undergoing testing to see if it should remain banned or not)
Miniatures Handbook
Ring of the Darkhidden (doesn't matter if its a surface campaign, its to "powerful")
Mighty Wallop (because permanency *interesting story*)
Leadership (if not banned then heavily monitored)
Anything less then a 2 level dip (unless it's for an NPC/DMPC they are running)

I think that's it for BAN's but the list for now that I can think of...

Out of curiosity which retributive amulet was banned? The rigged BoED one or the tamer MiC one?

[ojayaba]

Out of curiosity which retributive amulet was banned? The rigged BoED one or the tamer MiC one?

...didnt know there was one in the MiC. Going to have to reread that and look at it. the one from BoED
Edit: the one in the MiC SUCKS!!!! It also has a 49000 price difference...

[Eldest]

This is correct. He tried to argue this when someone rolled a 10 on a crit, and despite being reminded its a d10 not a d10-1 or a d9 with 10 sides.

Ah. I misread what you said, then.

[mistformsquirrl]

I once had a DM ban the Lawful Good alignment. what about you guys? what's the strangest thing your DMs ever said wasn't allowed?

In a Kobold-only campaign, I was banned from buying a cart for the mule I owned to pull. The DM feared that we'd turn it into some kind of invincible kobold death tank or something. On the one hand, I sympathize, because let's face it - invincible kobold death tank would be pretty awesome. On the other hand, I don't think any of the players (myself included) were actually thinking of that until the DM said something. We just wanted a way to get the slower members of the group (Like me, Kobold Fighter), around more easily.

In another campaign I was banned from taking any magic items, despite starting at level 10 and joining a level 17 group. It wasn't necessarily a low magic campaign (the enemies had plenty of it); but the PCs were starved for magic items. The level 17 fighter had a non-magical mace still. (Granted it was homebrew and did 4d10 damage +x3 Str mod, so it wasn't weak, but at level 17 you'd expect a +1 at least, for damage reduction purposes if nothing else.)

Monk class I've seen banned for every reason under the sun, including being overpowered. (I grant to a DM not familiar with how things actually play out, Monk can certainly LOOK intimidating with all those abilities... but as we all know...)

I've also had Tome of Battle and Psionics both banned frequently enough that I'm not even sure that counts as 'strange'.

[Yomega]

I had a DM ban looting bodies unless we wanted to use there gear to directly replace our own and by doing so made our current gear unable to be sold.

Basically he was trying to run a low magic world (he would never admit it) so buying and selling magic equipment was out of the question, but you know every other random vagabond has a +1 sword now

[huttj509]

Looting.

I played in a Shadowrun campaign where looting was banned. Attempting to loot things resulted in said things blowing up. Literally. Unless them blowing up would be beneficial to us, in which case they became unusable through some other random means.

My group did that after a run through an Ares warehouse, where it was realized that loading themselves down with Ares predators from the crates would net significantly more money than the run itself. A ludicrous unbalancing amount. Hard to keep the feel of "grimy cyberpunk working outside the rules to get by" when you're absolutely rolling in Nuyen.

After that all crates were filled with anvils. A later infiltration attempt generated Mario's "mobbed up" Pizza and Anvil Delivery Service, to explain where the anvils came from.

[Necroticplague]

My group did that after a run through an Ares warehouse, where it was realized that loading themselves down with Ares predators from the crates would net significantly more money than the run itself. A ludicrous unbalancing amount. Hard to keep the feel of "grimy cyberpunk working outside the rules to get by" when you're absolutely rolling in Nuyen.
That's pretty much an inevitable step for almost every run group I've seen: the realization that for light-security runs, their isn't enough of a payout for it to be worth your time, and for heavy security, you make more selling the security than you target. The Storyteller's solution was to have the security's security (like the programs on the drones) makes it prohibitively difficult to re-use (and thus resell).

[Vknight]

Ah. I misread what you said, then.

? What was it misread as? The intention being he wanted d10's to effectively act as 0-9 not, 1-10.

[Coidzor]

That's pretty much an inevitable step for almost every run group I've seen: the realization that for light-security runs, their isn't enough of a payout for it to be worth your time, and for heavy security, you make more selling the security than you target. The Storyteller's solution was to have the security's security (like the programs on the drones) makes it prohibitively difficult to re-use (and thus resell).

Reminds me of a time when security systems were so expensive, thieves began specializing in just stealing those and re-selling them.

[asdflove]

I once had a GM ban WBL for cohorts. According to him a 10th level characters WBL is good enough to get level appropriate gear for a 10th level and an 8th level character. :smallannoyed:

The same GM banned reserve feats and the keen enchantment.

That game never actually went through, so I can't say if they would have banned anything else once play started.

[Maginomicon]

I don't know whether this would count as "odd", but I ban direct player control of familiars, psicrystals, animal companions, cohorts, followers, hirelings, mercenaries, etc.

What I mean by that is that nothing in the rules says that you have them dominated. You can give them orders, but the details of how they move or act is up to me as GM. This is especially true for animal companions, and I fully enforce the handle animal rules for tricks and special purposes.

This drastically improves the speed of combat when these extra characters are involved. Other than a basic command (about the length of a twitter message) once per round (in plain English), you aren't allowed to say anything in-character. If anything I'd say this is the single most basic and obvious fix for the leadership feat (and associated abilities).

This also counts when using telepathy, as telepathy also moves at the speed of speech. Empathic impulses however, (such as between a wizard and familiar) are faster than speech and don't have this restriction (but are limited in what they convey).

Of course, if you really want to say more, you can spend actions on your initiative.

Sure, this means that you can't have character dialogues or monologues in combat, but isn't monologuing supposed to be a bad idea (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilGloating)? This is why the one-round diplomacy check penalty of -10 isn't just harsh numerically, but in fluff as well.

I also cut down on at-the-table talk by imposing this speaking restriction on the PCs as well. You're allowed to ask the GM for any information you like about your own perceptions, and you can ask an ally anything informative about them or their abilities that you could have learned from chatting with them around the campfire or on the road, but apart from that, it's one twitter-message-worth of speech or telepathy per round (in plain English). It's not just realistic, it creates tension in combat other than the danger and reduces how much the players can act as a hive mind. It also makes them plan ahead and gain the meta-equivalent of teamwork benefits.

[Zombulian]

The DM, who was female, had enough of her hormone raging adolescence players and their inaccurate portrayals of what the opposite gender acts like (whether it was true or not).

Any jokes regarding cleavages and upskirts would result in the DMG being thrown . Also all bar wrenches, princesses, and female of any species encountered in the campaign, while possesses interesting personality, almost always very sensible with varying degrees of intelligent, but were always plain, unattractive, dress conservatively, and does not act flirty to the PC in any way.

Heh. I can respect that. The way our DM fights player to NPC flirting is by generally creating extreme homoeroticism in the exchanges, which is usually enough to deter our mostly heterosexual group. (Note I say *usually*. It doesn't always work.)

I did forget about some of the bans that have come about in the group because of myself as a player. Off the top of my head I can remember:
•Monks
•Changelings
•Incarnate Construct (completely valid)
•Warforged
•Dragonborn (though usually only in conjunction with Warforged)
•Fire

[Coidzor]

I also cut down on at-the-table talk by imposing this speaking restriction on the PCs as well. You're allowed to ask the GM for any information you like about your own perceptions, and you can ask an ally anything informative about them or their abilities that you could have learned from chatting with them around the campfire or on the road, but apart from that, it's one twitter-message-worth of speech or telepathy per round (in plain English). It's not just realistic, it creates tension in combat other than the danger and reduces how much the players can act as a hive mind. It also makes them plan ahead and gain the meta-equivalent of teamwork benefits.

You act like you're talking about the players but you call them the PCs. :smalltongue:

[Unseenmal]

Waaaaay back in 3.0 (it may have been the early days of 3.5, memory fails me) I had a DM ban Druids and this was before people realized just how really strong they are. Story below...

He said that his campaign would be set underground, not Underdark, just underground dungeons and towns.

The group was fairly large, 10 players or so, and they only had 1 cleric for healing. I joined and asked if I could make a Druid to help with the healing since I didn't like Paladins. He agreed but laughed and told me "Druids would not be able to function because Druids suck in dungeons". Most of the players agreed with this sentiment. I said OK and forged ahead anway

First dungeon, we get to a door the rogue could not pick open and the fighter-types couldn't break down (they rolled poorly). I simply say "I cast Warp Wood on the door and kick it". Stunned silence around the table.

Suddenly all of the doors were made of metal instead. Next time we get to a door the rogue can't pick and the group is dumbfounded. I say "I cast Heat Metal on the lock and smash it with my club. Jaws agape.

Suddenly all of the doors are reinforced metal AND reinforced locks. Again we come to a door that can't be opened. This time the DM looks at me with a nice big ****-eating grin on his face. I simply smile and say "I cast soften earth and stone on the wall around the door and push it over."

The DM threw his papers in the air and walked out.

And I was never allowed to play a Druid again....

[Deophaun]

And I was never allowed to play a Druid again....
Basically, your story isn't really about druids, but about a DM that tried (unsuccessfully) to ban opening doors.

[lunar2]

I don't know whether this would count as "odd", but I ban direct player control of familiars, psicrystals, animal companions, cohorts, followers, hirelings, mercenaries, etc.

What I mean by that is that nothing in the rules says that you have them dominated. You can give them orders, but the details of how they move or act is up to me as GM. This is especially true for animal companions, and I fully enforce the handle animal rules for tricks and special purposes.

This drastically improves the speed of combat when these extra characters are involved. Other than a basic command (about the length of a twitter message) once per round (in plain English), you aren't allowed to say anything in-character. If anything I'd say this is the single most basic and obvious fix for the leadership feat (and associated abilities).

This also counts when using telepathy, as telepathy also moves at the speed of speech. Empathic impulses however, (such as between a wizard and familiar) are faster than speech and don't have this restriction (but are limited in what they convey).

Of course, if you really want to say more, you can spend actions on your initiative.

Sure, this means that you can't have character dialogues or monologues in combat, but isn't monologuing supposed to be a bad idea (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilGloating)? This is why the one-round diplomacy check penalty of -10 isn't just harsh numerically, but in fluff as well.

I also cut down on at-the-table talk by imposing this speaking restriction on the PCs as well. You're allowed to ask the GM for any information you like about your own perceptions, and you can ask an ally anything informative about them or their abilities that you could have learned from chatting with them around the campfire or on the road, but apart from that, it's one twitter-message-worth of speech or telepathy per round (in plain English). It's not just realistic, it creates tension in combat other than the danger and reduces how much the players can act as a hive mind. It also makes them plan ahead and gain the meta-equivalent of teamwork benefits.

how long do you think it will be before your characters invent a shorthand to bypass this limit?

i once imposed a limit of 15 syllables spoken per character per round (violators bit their tongue and started taking bleeding damage every round until healed). 2.5 syllables per second is actually pretty fast talking, especially when you are doing other things at the same time, so i felt this was reasonable.

next time the party leveled up, they all invested a point (or two) in speak language for a shorthand one of the players invented exclusively of one syllable words used to describe concepts on the battle field. of course, i let them have it, since they spent the IC and OOC effort to devise it.

[Zombulian]

Waaaaay back in 3.0 (it may have been the early days of 3.5, memory fails me) I had a DM ban Druids and this was before people realized just how really strong they are. Story below...

He said that his campaign would be set underground, not Underdark, just underground dungeons and towns.

The group was fairly large, 10 players or so, and they only had 1 cleric for healing. I joined and asked if I could make a Druid to help with the healing since I didn't like Paladins. He agreed but laughed and told me "Druids would not be able to function because Druids suck in dungeons". Most of the players agreed with this sentiment. I said OK and forged ahead anway

First dungeon, we get to a door the rogue could not pick open and the fighter-types couldn't break down (they rolled poorly). I simply say "I cast Warp Wood on the door and kick it". Stunned silence around the table.

Suddenly all of the doors were made of metal instead. Next time we get to a door the rogue can't pick and the group is dumbfounded. I say "I cast Heat Metal on the lock and smash it with my club. Jaws agape.

Suddenly all of the doors are reinforced metal AND reinforced locks. Again we come to a door that can't be opened. This time the DM looks at me with a nice big ****-eating grin on his face. I simply smile and say "I cast soften earth and stone on the wall around the door and push it over."

The DM threw his papers in the air and walked out.

And I was never allowed to play a Druid again....

That DM should quit trying to actively fight his players yard for yard. You get punished for playing smart? That's dumb.


how long do you think it will be before your characters invent a shorthand to bypass this limit?

i once imposed a limit of 15 syllables spoken per character per round (violators bit their tongue and started taking bleeding damage every round until healed). 2.5 syllables per second is actually pretty fast talking, especially when you are doing other things at the same time, so i felt this was reasonable.

next time the party leveled up, they all invested a point (or two) in speak language for a shorthand one of the players invented exclusively of one syllable words used to describe concepts on the battle field. of course, i let them have it, since they spent the IC and OOC effort to devise it.

That's actually really cool of the players. Good on them.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Basically, your story isn't really about druids, but about a DM that tried (unsuccessfully) to ban opening doors.

This is more a testament of how traditional dungeon crawls don't work with any kind of prepared caster of at least level 5.

[Unseenmal]

That DM should quit trying to actively fight his players yard for yard. You get punished for playing smart? That's dumb.

Well, I was only banned from playing Druids with that DM in particular. Luckily though, I only played 1 more campaign with him after that one. One where I walked out of the game due to his cheating shenanigans. No monster crits every hit, on every player, every frigging round. The dice gods love no man that much. And that was the tamest cheating he pulled. Not a good DM at all.

[Maginomicon]

how long do you think it will be before your characters invent a shorthand to bypass this limit?

i once imposed a limit of 15 syllables spoken per character per round (violators bit their tongue and started taking bleeding damage every round until healed). 2.5 syllables per second is actually pretty fast talking, especially when you are doing other things at the same time, so i felt this was reasonable.

next time the party leveled up, they all invested a point (or two) in speak language for a shorthand one of the players invented exclusively of one syllable words used to describe concepts on the battle field. of course, i let them have it, since they spent the IC and OOC effort to devise it.
That's the whole point.


You act like you're talking about the players but you call them the PCs. :smalltongue:

Well yeah, the players can ask and tell the GM as much as they like about what their PC perceives. That kind of information is free for the same reason that a picture is worth a thousand words. They can ask or tell another player whatever they want so long as it's something that their PC could have asked or told that player's PC while traveling or around the campfire. That kind of information is free since the PC-to-PC talking itself actually happened during that downtime. For anything else, once initiative is rolled, we're down to 6 seconds of time per round. A single twitter-sized message (split up however you like) per round thus works well enough.

[Sith_Happens]

That's the whole point.

"Blackwing, touch [i.e.- deliver touch spell]."
*points at target*

Could be fun.

[Coidzor]

Well yeah, the players can ask and tell the GM as much as they like about what their PC perceives. That kind of information is free for the same reason that a picture is worth a thousand words. They can ask or tell another player whatever they want so long as it's something that their PC could have asked or told that player's PC while traveling or around the campfire. That kind of information is free since the PC-to-PC talking itself actually happened during that downtime. For anything else, once initiative is rolled, we're down to 6 seconds of time per round. A single twitter-sized message (split up however you like) per round thus works well enough.

Ahh. Silly me. x.x I even went to doublecheck it, too, and still thought that the restriction was on anything a player would say.

[Deophaun]

This is more a testament of how traditional dungeon crawls don't work with any kind of prepared caster of at least level 5.
Not really. Doors are there to be opened, and doors that force the party to expend limited resources to get past (as these did) should always be considered to have done their jobs.

[Axinian]

One time I was playing a Sorcadin and wanted to take that ACF that lets you sacrifice spell slots for a temporary AC bonus. DM said that it's banned. OK, my AC was already kind of ridiculous so I didn't miss it. Then he later threw a boss at us that had it.

"That's a DM only ability" :smalltongue:

Me: :smallannoyed:

This was only a minor thing and I didn't really care that much, but it was just weird to me.

[Hangwind]

One time I was playing a Sorcadin and wanted to take that ACF that lets you sacrifice spell slots for a temporary AC bonus. DM said that it's banned. OK, my AC was already kind of ridiculous so I didn't miss it. Then he later threw a boss at us that had it.

"That's a DM only ability" :smalltongue:

Me: :smallannoyed:

This was only a minor thing and I didn't really care that much, but it was just weird to me.

You...WANTED to give up spell slots?:smallfrown:

[Axinian]

You...WANTED to give up spell slots?:smallfrown:

Not permanently. It just let you use an unused spell slot to save your butt.

[Hangwind]

Not permanently. It just let you use an unused spell slot to save your butt.

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I must say though, I usually play a caster or manifester of some sort so the idea of giving up spell slots for, well, anything is almost physically painful for me.:smalleek:

Well, anything besides spells of course:smallbiggrin:

[awa]

just think of it as an extra spell known that increases your ac

[Eldest]

? What was it misread as? The intention being he wanted d10's to effectively act as 0-9 not, 1-10.

I thought he was arguing that it was a 1-10. Like I said, bad parsing of what I read.

[AntiTrust]

I personally prefer it when the DM actually RPs the familiar/cohort/your mom/animal companion/whatever, but as far as picking class/feats/etc. and running them in combat (if they are a combatant), I'll do that thanks.

I once had the paladins mom continually attempting to get him married. One time to a succubus, although the mom had no idea.

I had a DM allowed a player to play a pyrokinetist, but banned him from actually burning down anything. Attempting to do so usually resulted in instant response guards and bucket brigades or spontaneous rain. In either case the building suffered no damage.

[Totema]

apparently in that you can have any number of levels in any number of classes, but can only be one class at a time

so, pretty much, he had a person you could talk to at each town to change your class, it was a small fee to add new classes, and free to swap between ones you already have (seems alright, if a bit iffy)

I gotta point out that this sounds exactly like an MMORPG mechanic.

[Milo v3]

I gotta point out that this sounds exactly like an MMORPG mechanic.

Well... It is specifically from a videogame.

[WildPyre]

My DM has currently banned me (and only me, not the rest of the party) from...

Playing a Summoner
Playing anything that casts arcane spells.
Playing anything that casts Divine spells.
Playing anything that mimics casting spells.
Playing a Summoner, seriously, this is right out.
Playing a goblin rogue.


To be fair, I deserved every one of these. My level of optimization isn't high but compared to the rest of the party I'm such a munchkin.

[Zrak]

In a Kobold-only campaign, I was banned from buying a cart for the mule I owned to pull. The DM feared that we'd turn it into some kind of invincible kobold death tank or something. On the one hand, I sympathize, because let's face it - invincible kobold death tank would be pretty awesome.

You know, you just started a campaign near a large, flightless bird, a bunch of wood, and a friendly kobold. :smallamused:

Let's get some Handle Animal rolls and untrained Craft: Vehicle checks going and live the dream.

[Chester]

My first campaign ever, my DM banned our characters.

It was 2e.

We were kids . . . we "rolled" our characters on our own, with our siblings as "witnesses."

The group Paladin had four 18's (a big deal back then).

One day, he charged a dragon with a lance on his horse and killed it instantly.

The DM made us roll new characters right in front of him, right then and there.

[Somensjev]

My first campaign ever, my DM banned our characters.

It was 2e.

We were kids . . . we "rolled" our characters on our own, with our siblings as "witnesses."

The group Paladin had four 18's (a big deal back then).

One day, he charged a dragon with a lance on his horse and killed it instantly.

The DM made us roll new characters right in front of him, right then and there.

see, i do this worse, but dont get banned, in front of my DM i rolled five 18's and a 17, my DM let me use that :smalleek:

[Osiris]

no, i went a couple steps up, hence why the battering ram was banned :smallwink:

Just go find a big tree stump. There's your battering ram!

[Somensjev]

Just go find a big tree stump. There's your battering ram!

that battering ram was fun

i dont think my DM ever expected a large 8"something, big, strong guy would jump off a wall, ram in hand, and land ram first on a goblin, and then proceed to bury half the ram :smallamused: :smallwink:

[137beth]

Wands of CLW (and CMW, CSW, and CCW).

Wands of lesser vigor were allowed:smallconfused:

[SiuiS]

Currently, I'm banning:
Kender (because

No because. Go ahead and ban Kender. We don't blame you. You needn't explain.