Does banning certain spells/books/classes really balance the game?

[Malphite]

Hello GitP Forums, and I have a question for you does banning spells/books/classes really balance the game out? Or does it just cause more problems? I would really like to hear what everyone's thoughts on this topic are since has been something that has been floating around in my mind for the last few weeks.

[chaos_redefined]

Spells... Well, banning a few spells doesn't balance the game entirely, but it closes the gap between some classes and others a tad.

Books... I've heard the argument that banning all classes, feats and spells from the player's handbook does wonders here? Not sure how far it goes. Of course, this inadvertently bans a lot of other things... such as all the feats that have dodge, power attack or weapon focus as a prereq.

Classes... A DM of mine tried banning all T1 and T2 classes. Suddenly, noone wanted to actually be a healer. So... while everyone was balanced against each other, it had different problems.

[Emperor Tippy]

Not even close, at least unless you ban everything and then allow only a small handful of classes.

[FidgetySquirrel]

It's a VERY labor-intensive task. As far as I know, no one has been able to truly balance 3.5, whether they used bans, nerfs, houserules, or any combination of the three. It's best to just get your players on the same page, power-wise, and then run appropriate encounters for that power level.

[Malphite]

See for me as a DM I don't ban anything I trust my players since they are my friends, and no one goes out to break anything since I ask them not to.

[TheIronGolem]

Bear in mind that "Does banning books XYZ balance the game?" is a different question than "Is there value in banning books XYZ?"

The answer to the first question is no. The second? Depends. As an easy example, it makes sense to ban Libris Mortis if undead do not exist in your campaign world.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Eh, the most overpowered thing in D&D is a motivated player. You're better off with some sort of stated or implicit agreement among the players to be reasonable. I've seen things banned to "remove the temptation," but otherwise it's unproductive.

[Divide by Zero]

I am of the opinion that very few things in the game are inherently broken. As long as the players are mature enough to use them without ruining the game, banning things, especially entire books, just serves to reduce character options.

[Urpriest]

See for me as a DM I don't ban anything I trust my players since they are my friends, and no one goes out to break anything since I ask them not to.

Usually that's the best strategy. Sometimes you need to make a decision on something that isn't obviously broken or not, and come to a group decision. Those sorts of situations are ones where you maybe ban a spell or a class, though usually just changing some wording works wonders. Even then, it's a decision best made with your players' advice, when you've got a nice friendly group.

[FidgetySquirrel]

Bear in mind that "Does banning books XYZ balance the game?" is a different question than "Is there value in banning books XYZ?"

The answer to the first question is no. The second? Depends. As an easy example, it makes sense to ban Libris Mortis if undead do not exist in your campaign world.True. There's also some value in banning certain things for flavor reasons as long as the players are on board. Banning 6+ spell level casters just makes sense in a low-magic setting, after all.

[Vhaidara]

See for me as a DM I don't ban anything I trust my players since they are my friends, and no one goes out to break anything since I ask them not to.

You have the best plan. The only book that should be banned on principle is Serpent Kingdoms. I have yet to hear of a single good, wholesome, and/or balanced thing to come out of that book.

[Miss Disaster]

Our group actively encourages a collaborative approach to modifying, tweaking and re-engineering game mechanics that are overpowered, underpowered or problematic within a given campaign's play environment.

So outright banning just doesn't happen. We'll eventually make everything work if a given player or DM really needs/wants a given game mechanic to make a presence.

The collaborative approach is fun and generally ends up with a final result that pleases most parties.

[Malphite]

For the most part I think our group would only tell me to impose a ban on one specific player since in other games in our group he goes rampant but he never has gone rampant in mine. Mostly since I ask for a nice semi balance environment, and we usually agree on house rules involving things that don't make much sense.

[Gabrosin]

The only thing you really need to balance is the players against each other. As the DM, you always have the ability to up the challenge factor of the opposition against a well-optimized party, but you don't have as many tools at your disposal for making the newbie human fighter not feel like an afterthought once the optimized druid starts summoning bears all over the place.

If you have players who delight in total optimization and want to bring Pun Pun to the table, just say no to whatever specific trick they're using, rather than taking out a whole book in response. Or set up a one-shot session where they can bring their demented creations to life for a brief time, and then get back to normal D&D after their d2 crusader punches the planet to death.

[Red Fel]

It's a "six of one, half dozen of the other" situation.

As mentioned, there are a handful of spells that absolutely crack the game wide open. Banning them certainly brings T1 casters down a peg, but they're still in the T1-T2 range. What it does, however, is balance the game for the DM. Basically, banning certain spells may not make the classes more even, but it will make it harder for the PCs to bypass the plot.

Banning books is generally a bad idea, in my experience. As others have mentioned, the most broken stuff tends to come from the PHB, and you can't really afford to ban that. Everything else is all about giving more options. While many of these options tend to favor casters, they don't tend to make them substantially more broken than they already are. (Exceptions exist, of course: see Incantatrix or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil.)

Banning classes is... Complicated. On the one hand, you can arbitrarily remove the T1 classes, even the T2 classes. But be very clear on what that does. Removing T1s and T2s does not balance the remaining classes. They remain as broken or powerful, as versatile and stagnant as they always were. Removing T1s and T2s, rather, simply removes some of the most powerful and versatile options.

It won't, for instance, make a Monk more powerful, even by comparison. It might make a T3 caster more desirable, since if you want to cast your options are limited to T3 and on. It really won't change things for non-casters, such as Fighters, because if you were going to play a Fighter, you had already locked yourself out of T1-T2, so the lack of availability of options there won't change your class choices.

The other thing it will do, however, is hurt melees. This is perhaps the most unfortunate thing: As a general rule, most actions taken to neutralize the advantage of primary casters have the unfortunate side effect of hurting non-casters more. That's because casters have options, whereas a non-casters options tend to be dependent on their casters. My Wizard can't cast Gate? Ah, well, at least he has Planar Binding. I can't play a Wizard? At least I can play a Sorcerer. But if my Wizard can't cast, say, Enlarge Person, my Wizard has other spells he can use; the party Monk, however, will cry.

Basically, it boils down to how you define "balance." If you define "balance" as "all classes have a roughly equal level of versatility," then banning classes will do that, to a certain extent; the Tier System is based on versatility, so banning everything outside of a narrow band of tiers will ensure a certain degree of versatility. But even then, caster classes have a natural advantage over non-caster classes. And the more caster material you exclude, the weaker non-casters become from lack of caster support. And even among non-casters, there is substantial discrepancy. The Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian will embarrass the Monk, the Dungeoncrasher Fighter will make the Rogue sigh, and so on.

Like I said. It's complicated.

[TypoNinja]

Not so much. Its not that the particular spell/class/feat is broken (most are just fine taken alone), its that an unusual combination pops up. Gate is not a broken spell. Chain gating from a candle of invocation for unlimited wishes at low level is the problem.

If you pick and choose things to ban one at a time you'll be at it forever, and by the time you've whittled the game down enough to eliminate all the issues, you won't have much of a game left.

By far the better solution is for your group to understand that RAW aside, some combos are just a bad idea in play, and this is important because different groups are going to have different levels at where they find the cheeze has gotten too strong.

[FidgetySquirrel]

For the most part I think our group would only tell me to impose a ban on one specific player since in other games in our group he goes rampant but he never has gone rampant in mine. Mostly since I ask for a nice semi balance environment, and we usually agree on house rules involving things that don't make much sense.You must be pretty good at DMing to keep a rampaging black belt in Op-fu in line!

[terminusdrop321]

Howdy Gitp im one of the guys in the group with Malphite and one of the other Gms.
As my next game will have a lot of house rules, bans and the like I'm interested in hearing everyones opinion.

[Malphite]

I am loving the responses guys :) great reads.

Well I look at the tier system for classes I don't actually personally see a reason to ban the Tier 1s & 2s in my game mostly because again we keep a nice niche of fair play and balance around. Plus for me if I were to ban a source from a game, I don't use it myself another one for example is I dislike Psionics not because I don't think psychic powers are cool just for a fantasy game it seems off for me. I will say I love Mind Flayers and other Psionic creatures but that's mostly for the idea that Psionics is strange, mysterious, and alien so these creatures using their minds for power doesn't seem out of place it's a bit of a double standard but that's just me.

In my current game our power player is a Psion since Psionics is his favorite I let him have it because why not, I shouldn't exclude the system just make it rare, so rare in fact that if he goes crazy with it he'll awaken Psionic horrors that will hunt him down. As a way to enforce the don't break it man philosophy I have, he's done some neat stuff but he hasn't pulled the carriage Psionic rail gun with me since he knows that if he busts it to hard he'll awaken the horrors. This also adds a plot element on why Psionics is so rare since those who are powerful of the mind have mitigated their abilities to protect the masses from the Psionic horrors that come to feed on them.

[terminusdrop321]

^Malphite

Meanwhile the same player in my game has essentially become the byword for doing something hilariously crazy and stupid, or just system mastery-fu in general.

[RogueDM]

I've never banned anything core, because sifting through it for just a handful of game breaking spells etc is just too daunting to lazy-me. Anything outside of core, however, we have a standing agreement that it stands on DM approval, doubly so if its third-party or... *shudder* homebrew.

Generally speaking I trust my players not to go out of their way to break things, however I have one player who is far more motivated to optimize his character than the others and often does so to a gratuitous extreme. So I usually curtail his optimization just after surpassing the whole party but before the point of destroying playability. Except for that first time...

[Malphite]

^Malphite

Meanwhile the same player in my game has essentially become the byword for doing something hilariously crazy and stupid, or just system mastery-fu in general.

My solution don't make encounters against him since that's why he does make his characters so powerful, also ask him to be more mellow :). Worked for me.

[Vhaidara]

I've never banned anything core, because sifting through it for just a handful of game breaking spells etc is just too daunting to lazy-me. Anything outside of core, however, we have a standing agreement that it stands on DM approval, doubly so if its homebrew or... *shudder* third-party.

Generally speaking I trust my players not to go out of their way to break things, however I have one player who is far more motivated to optimize his character than the others and often does so to a gratuitous extreme. So I usually curtail his optimization just after surpassing the whole party but before the point of destroying playability. Except for that first time...

Fixed that. Unless you're talking about PF, in which case I broke it.

[terminusdrop321]

^Malphite
I tried,doesn't listen.

[Malphite]

^Malphite
I tried,doesn't listen.

Have you tried making similar and less obscure encounters, since he has said he ops for your game because he feels he needs to, so he can survive and the party can.

[terminusdrop321]

^ Malphite

Yeah, i'm working on that. :)

[Malphite]

Once you do that you should be good mate, I'm sure he'll settle down or I hope he will.

[terminusdrop321]

^Malphite

Well we will see, won't we. :smallsmile:

[Urpriest]

I am loving the responses guys :) great reads.

Well I look at the tier system for classes I don't actually personally see a reason to ban the Tier 1s & 2s in my game mostly because again we keep a nice niche of fair play and balance around. Plus for me if I were to ban a source from a game, I don't use it myself another one for example is I dislike Psionics not because I don't think psychic powers are cool just for a fantasy game it seems off for me. I will say I love Mind Flayers and other Psionic creatures but that's mostly for the idea that Psionics is strange, mysterious, and alien so these creatures using their minds for power doesn't seem out of place it's a bit of a double standard but that's just me.

In my opinion, the only circumstances where you need to do something like ban Tier 1/2 are when your group likes to optimize fairly heavily, and wants a challenge. It's a nice way to formalize "this is the desired power level for the game" when that level could otherwise be quite high, but if your players have a good understanding of what you're going for then that sort of explicit thing isn't necessary.

[JusticeZero]

In my experience? Once you ban the classes out of the PHB, the game is far more balanced. *nodsnods*

[Malphite]

In my experience? Once you ban the classes out of the PHB, the game is far more balanced. *nodsnods*

I will agree with this. But of course that also removes options one of the main reasons I love D&D.

[Faily]

In my groups, some GMs will not allow some books because they don't feel it fits with their setting or it contains new mechanics for them to learn and take into account when constructing encounters (like Psionics and Tome of Battle).

Most of the time though, the unspoken rule is "don't horribly abuse and consider the RAI".

[JusticeZero]

Well, I like options too, but the core stuff really is designed poorly. It's because so much of their design hasn't really changed for the entire history of gaming, in spite of a lot of learning how they really play out. When the spells that are found in PF and 3 are being cast, they really haven't changed much since the days when it seemed like a good idea for all weapons to do 1d6 damage, and to give daggers two attacks every round. We've learned how to design things better since then.

[Malphite]

I will not disagree we as players have learned to houserule broken concepts and how to balance the game itself without saying X cannot be allowed because Y.

An example for me was the idea to house rule Spears for Medium characters as a one handed weapon since I see no reason why they should not be, it basically makes a Medium character using a shortspear pointless but the Spear being a two handed weapon to me always felt extremely wacky in hindsight.

[atemu1234]

I like having the PCs have access to any book they want. Of course, they aren't big readers, I doubt any of them have read any books outside of PHB and maybe HoH for the Archivist. I make suggestions and they take them, and I do the rest. It works pretty well.

[Iwasforger03]

Classes... A DM of mine tried banning all T1 and T2 classes. Suddenly, noone wanted to actually be a healer. So... while everyone was balanced against each other, it had different problems.

I have a game where I did this, currently running. It seems to be mostly working. Well, i banned the 9s, not explicit tiers, but it does almost the same thing. And it works pretty friggin well so far, since the paladin/warpriest/inquisitor can do post battle healing. They have next to no mid-battle healing, but it's worked so far.

[JusticeZero]

An example for me was the idea to house rule Spears for Medium characters as a one handed weapon since I see no reason why they should not be, it basically makes a Medium character using a shortspear pointless but the Spear being a two handed weapon to me always felt extremely wacky in hindsight.
Well yeah, but that's just because a shortspear is a regular spear for halflings in 3.0. I do have to cut some things where I just can't get the flavor to line up with everything else.

[Psyren]

Before you ban anything you should get a sense of what is a problem at your actual table. If your wizard shows up with slots full of fireball and magic missile, or your cleric actually prepares cure spells you probably don't have a lot to worry about. (In fact they may actually need help.)

[IAmTehDave]

Before you ban anything you should get a sense of what is a problem at your actual table. If your wizard shows up with slots full of fireball and magic missile, or your cleric actually prepares cure spells you probably don't have a lot to worry about. (In fact they may actually need help.)

I had a character idea at one point of a cleric who joins a party, and actually prepares cure spells. Reason being: He's actually neutral/Rebuking, and a Necropolitan. He just hides it very well. At least, until he PrCs into Master of Shrouds. I've always wanted to throw dread wraiths at my problems until they go away...

[Cruiser1]

If you pick and choose things to ban one at a time you'll be at it forever, and by the time you've whittled the game down enough to eliminate all the issues, you won't have much of a game left.
A classic concept from computer security is that it's better to have an allow list or whitelist of things that are allowed, in which everything not on it is banned. That's opposed to having a deny list or blacklist of things that are banned, which allows everything not on that list. Trying to prevent e-mail spam by adding individual spammers to a ban list doesn't work very well, because you're continually playing whack-a-mole. You can do a much better job of preventing spam by only allowing e-mail from a known good list of addresses. That may drop the occasional valid message, but (barring address spoofing) it does keep spam away. That's why hotmail/gmail/yahoo e-mail have spam, but Facebook e-mail doesn't. "Guilty until proven innocent" is bad for a fair legal system, but good for game design.

A similar concept can be applied to D&D spells. If you ban every spell but a set of hand-picked DM spells, there's much less likely to be unbalanced or game breaking combinations. For an extreme example, a Wizard in a world with only Read Magic and Magic Missile existing is definitely no longer Tier 1. ;) Similarly, that's why Summon Monster is relatively balanced compared to the Polymorph line. Summon Monster only has specific creatures you can summon. Polymorph can change into any creature in any book. Polymorph spells become more balanced when limited to particular forms (such as WotC did in late 3.5).