Yeah...I'm not bringing that to the table.

[Hellborn_Blight]

So at my table, and the tables that my friends run for the most part, the way we handle broken combos, exploitative tricks, and power gaming in general is if it can be on one side of the table, be wary of it showing up on the other side. For the most part this works, and has forced us as players to wither save a ridiculous tactic for a surprise, desperate situation, or at the very least not abuse any specific tactic for too long. But sometimes you fins something that you as a player are just like, "Nope, not letting the DM know about that."

So what kinds of things have you ever had to take pause of, or forgo completely, simply because you didn't want get it used against you later? Or are there any spells/gear/combos/tactics that you did bring out and really regretted later?

I'll start with a basic example of something that ended up favoring the DM way more than the player that used it. The spell Phantasmal Thief lets you potentially steal from a player "any object a creature possesses but is not holding or wearing. Even objects in a bag of holding can be stolen." meaning that even if you are holding your bag of holding, if you don't notice the invisible creature, it can steal items from the bag at will because you aren't holding or wearing any of them. So the great heist that was pulled off using that spell was quickly undone by it as well. On top of that, several "problematic" items the party had been using vanished. One more of many reasons stealing from a wizards tower is always a terrible idea.

[GreatDane]

Invisible Spell (the metamagic feat). Invisible enemies firing invisible (possibly Silent) spells = useless Spellcraft skill, no idea what to do/fight.

[Geddy2112]

Feeblemind- Once you end the encounter against the big nasty caster, its going to be used against your caster.

Time stop is fine so long as you don't have 80 scrolls of it lying around and start stacking it. We did a level 20 1 shot that turned into the wizard running the entire encounter with an army of summoned elementals. DM fiat eventually stopped it. While fine as a prepared spell, no scrolls.

Baleful polymorph is on the fence- overuse will result in the party stocking up on beads of newt prevention, normally stolen from enemies who have 10-12.

[AmberVael]

In my experience, one of the more universal choices is Disjunction. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesDisjunction.htm)

No one wants disjunction.

[Pluto!]

In my experience, one of the more universal choices is Disjunction. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesDisjunction.htm)

No one wants disjunction.

Mordekainen wants disjunction.

But maybe that's why nobody wants Mordekainen.

:smallfrown:

[Bronk]

So at my table, and the tables that my friends run for the most part, the way we handle broken combos, exploitative tricks, and power gaming in general is if it can be on one side of the table, be wary of it showing up on the other side.

I guess I would second disjunction.

I don't really favor that style of play, though, because if taken far enough it would just result in players and NPCs sidling past each other with their hands up and nothing getting done. I'd rather be up front about problematic things.

[Der_DWSage]

A bit of a corner-case, but 'if I hit you, you die' levels of damage fall on the table for my group. While this certainly happens at low levels, we have a bit of a gentleman's agreement that your damage total isn't going to exceed a +40 or so. Iterative attacks might kill you, but the first one rarely will.

No Shock Trooper shenanigans here, and lances are houseruled to just deal an extra 1d8 damage while charging rather than doubling everything.

[Hunter Noventa]

Mordekainen wants disjunction.

But maybe that's why nobody wants Mordekainen.

:smallfrown:

But his Mansion is so Magnificent!

[Psyren]

It's worth noting that PF Disjunction is powerful and useful without being the zero-sum nuke it is in 3.5.

One I see often bandied about on the forums is Ice Assassin - particularly the "use it on a deity" suggestion. The bad guys can buy component pouches too.

Another is Vecna-Blooded - a bad guy that hard to find would just be irritating.

[GilesTheCleric]

Save-or-dies. Even if I'm playing a pally or cleric or something with good saves doesn't mean that the rest of my party is. Besides, the game is more fun when combat lasts longer than enemies/2 rds and everyone gets to contribute.

[Necromancy]

We had the opposite problem of a player being a petty **** as a DM anytime something irked him

Prime example
Giant skeleton coming through the doorway. His wizard wanted to shoot a fireball through a giant skeleton's ribs and hit a target in the room behind. As per the rules on shooting through an arrow slit with fireball, we told him he had to make a ranged touch attack to get it through. For some reason, this bugged the hell out of him and we argued about it for probably 15 minutes. Finally he rolled the ranged touch attack and easily made it and we all went on with our lives.

Two months later and I am playing a wizard in his game. We are on a completely open field and I try to use my wand of fireballs and he tells me I have to make a ranged touch attack to get it past my allies without hitting one of them because "that's what he had to do". This time the arguing continued over several gaming sessions and ended up with us playing a different game.

So glad I moved, his games were bad for my blood pressure

[Seerow]

Those dirt cheap boots in MIC that let you always count as being readied against a charge? Yeah I try to steer the group away from those at every opportunity, because while yes they are super useful to have, the idea of every mundane character in the party killing themselves trying to use the most common viable melee tactic feels wrong to me.

[Hellborn_Blight]

I don't really favor that style of play, though, because if taken far enough it would just result in players and NPCs sidling past each other with their hands up and nothing getting done. I'd rather be up front about problematic things.

I can understand that position. You don't want to get to a point when you feel like every strat is gonna be punished. In a current game we have seen effectively every fighting style we have turned back at us because we are fighting Doppelgangers and greater doppelgangers. It has been entertaining and challenging and was kinda what made me start to ponder the topic as we have a non meta reason to not show our full hand until we have to. Which clearly points out the meta thinking that goes into not wanting the DM to use your tricks I guess.

It hasn't been an issue except for the greatest of infractions or a sever unbalancing of the game though. Robbing a wizards tower netted us some pretty sweet, way beyond level items. It was necessary to intervene, and was used as a hook for further adventures. Which was a lot better than the wizard showing up with Rust Ray & Disintegrate. It wasn't necessary to take my extra cloak of second chances (I roll a disproportionate amount of ones), but I eventually got it back. But for the most part I'm talking about having like over 100 turn attempts with Divine Meta Magic and Retrieve Spell. Or time stop + arcane fusion for 14 orbs of force. Mostly, I'm talking about things that are perfectly legal, mechanically sound beyond interpretation even, but require a gentlemens agreement not to abuse. The idea that the sword could swing back the other way is often enough to make sure the issue never comes up for us.

So where does it cross the line for your group? What kind of issues force you to make specific and solid rulings? That was the primary reason for me asking the question. To get an insight into how other people play and adjudicate, to better understand how me and my friends play.

[Mehangel]

A Nimble Gifted Blade (10)/Dark Tempest (5) with leadership using Adaptive Form to get Feat Leach Multiple times via Mental Power then casting it on each of his 30 level 1 followers to get both of their psionic talent feats (one from race, one from class) gaining 2074 power points which last for some 12 minutes which I use to cast fully augmented buffs with durations of 1 hour/level, 10 min/level, and finally 1 minute per level buffs...

[Psyren]

We had the opposite problem of a player being a petty **** as a DM anytime something irked him

Prime example
Giant skeleton coming through the doorway. His wizard wanted to shoot a fireball through a giant skeleton's ribs and hit a target in the room behind. As per the rules on shooting through an arrow slit with fireball, we told him he had to make a ranged touch attack to get it through. For some reason, this bugged the hell out of him and we argued about it for probably 15 minutes. Finally he rolled the ranged touch attack and easily made it and we all went on with our lives.

Two months later and I am playing a wizard in his game. We are on a completely open field and I try to use my wand of fireballs and he tells me I have to make a ranged touch attack to get it past my allies without hitting one of them because "that's what he had to do". This time the arguing continued over several gaming sessions and ended up with us playing a different game.

So glad I moved, his games were bad for my blood pressure

Your player-turned-DM was being petty, but you guys were actually in the wrong here initially - creatures only provide soft cover (RC 39), which does not block line of sight or line of effect, so he shouldn't have needed the arrow-slit rules to shoot a fireball past the skeleton. They wouldn't even have gotten the reflex save bonus against his fireball, because soft cover doesn't give that benefit.

[Necromancy]

I don't remember exactly why, but the player specifically wanted to shoot it between rib bones

[Curmudgeon]

Starmantle (Book of Exalted Deeds, page 108) vs. natural weapons. (There's no game rule specifying what happens to destroyed claws, and I really don't want the headache.)
Dust of Sneezing and Choking (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#dustofSneezingandChoking)
Manyfang Dagger (Serpent Kingdoms, page 152)
Thought Bottle (Complete Arcane, page 150)
Sovereign Archetypes (Dragons of Eberron, pages 30-31)
Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) (Unearthed Arcana, page 170)

[Hellborn_Blight]

We had the opposite problem of a player being a petty **** as a DM anytime something irked him

Everyone of us play or have played in a game the others have ran before so it kinda became a courtesy/selfish thing of, "oh god, I wouldn't want to try to create a non-wiping challenge with that sitting there" sort of mind set. We also keep a shared errata/house rule log for things we all agree were lacking in definition or were stupid, like not actually giving Rangers the feats for their combat styles. We made it so they did get the acctual feat and just had them lose access to them when they don't meet the specific Ranger prereqs, like wearing heavy armor and such.


Those dirt cheap boots in MIC that let you always count as being readied against a charge?

Yeah My DM thought I made that item up at first when I told them what it did. Another terrible and cheap one is the ring of dark hidden. Makes you invisible to darkvision for a mere 2000gp.



Starmantle (Book of Exalted Deeds, page 108) vs. natural weapons. (There's no game rule specifying what happens to destroyed claws, and I really don't want the headache.)
Dust of Sneezing and Choking (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#dustofSneezingandChoking)
Manyfang Dagger (Serpent Kingdoms, page 152)
Thought Bottle (Complete Arcane, page 150)
Sovereign Archetypes (Dragons of Eberron, pages 30-31)
Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) (Unearthed Arcana, page 170)


Starmantle is annoying even without the natural weapon issue, that cursed dust of appearance is really confusing on what they were going for and how badly they missed the mark and the thought bottle when uncorked is filled to the brim with cheese. But WTF were they thinking with that dagger? That is by far the stupidest thing I have ever seen on a weapon.

I like item familiar myself, but it hasn't been severely abused in a game yet. I'm using it as a weapon currently, and have met sunderers so it isn't a free pass on the major draw back either. It was understood when I took it that there would be times when it would be targeted, so protecting it has become a major part of what I have to do when adventuring. I will not argue that it does way more than a feat should however. It should have been some kinda class feature trade off or the cap for a 3 level prestige class similar to the Uncanny Trickster prestige class where it advances preexisting class features at -1 but gives you extra stuff.

[atemu1234]

I don't remember exactly why, but the player specifically wanted to shoot it between rib bones

And then complaining about being told how to do it?

[Ogh_the_Second]

I experienced the reverse, sort of. One of my DMs (fine DM, generally) works with 2 groups. Ours is pretty low-OP, while the other is more medium-to-high-OP.

Occasionally, the DM has used the other group's tricks as NPC tactics in our game. We have politely hinted at keeping nightcandle-DMM-persist & sudden-maximized Shivering Touch away from our table, so that we would not have to revert to similar stuff. We are quite happy using Weapon Focus and Magic Missile, thank you very much. :-)

[Draz74]

Yeah My DM thought I made that item up at first when I told them what it did. Another terrible and cheap one is the ring of dark hidden. Makes you invisible to darkvision for a mere 2000gp.

Steadfast Boots are problematic, but I can see where the designers were coming from with them -- without them, nobody ever seems to value the weapon property of dealing extra damage when readied against a charge.

I never thought Ring of the Darkhidden was a problem, though. Most creatures with darkvision also have normal vision, after all :smalltongue: and it's actually pretty hard to enforce dark conditions in 3.5 with the stupid way the Darkness spell is written.

You kinda need a Dark Lantern (ToM), as well as the standard stealth tactics (super high Hide/Move Silently and the Darkstalker feat) in addition to the Ring before the combo starts to become really good.

[Hellborn_Blight]

Steadfast Boots are problematic, but I can see where the designers were coming from with them -- without them, nobody ever seems to value the weapon property of dealing extra damage when readied against a charge.

I never thought Ring of the Darkhidden was a problem, though. Most creatures with darkvision also have normal vision, after all :smalltongue: and it's actually pretty hard to enforce dark conditions in 3.5 with the stupid way the Darkness spell is written.

You kinda need a Dark Lantern (ToM), as well as the standard stealth tactics (super high Hide/Move Silently and the Darkstalker feat) in addition to the Ring before the combo starts to become really good.

Use to I would agree about the enforcing dark conditions being difficult, but the DM had to deal with the Dark template in a previous game (which he has now banned outright) and so we all have a good education, as well as a page bookmark (302 DMG), on the environmental condition. I have had the ring for a single game session and already it has made things kinda annoying for everyone involved. The whole party has darkvision, so when we go underground, which is most of the the time, there are zero light sources. The only thing that saw me in the whole dungeon crawl was a Naga with See Invisibility, and the Illithid Boss because his room had torches. This includes my party members, with the exception of the guy with mindsight, so coordinating tactics can't be done by visual cue with them anymore and I have to be careful of meta gaming.

Still it's raw power makes me glad that we didn't know about the ring before, as almost every single combat situation for the game has happened in the dark. I would be ok with this item if it cost around 10K, but at 2k access to it happens too early for the characters that would really want it. I will probably just use the ring for scouting and wear a third ring and just switch them as a move action after scouting, but then I'm back to the problem of what ring i should get:smallsigh:.

[Naez]

Reminds me of a build I had for my character that I scrapped. I rolled an 18 dex and an 18 Cha and the idea was Battle Dancer 1/Paladin of Freedom 2/17 Unarmed Swordsage with Vow of Poverty and Vow of Peace. The character was flawed but it did have an AC of 28 at level 2. Not broken but damn near untouchable. And not being able to threaten a character is one of my DM's biggest annoyances.

[Firechanter]

Aboleth Mucus.
DC19 Save or Die vs anything that breathes at a mere 20GP a pop.
When I read that, "Yeah...I'm not bringing that to the table" was pretty much exactly what I was thinking. It would be just asking the DM to return the favour.

[goto124]

The whole party has darkvision, so when we go underground, which is most of the the time, there are zero light sources. The only thing that saw me in the whole dungeon crawl

Wait, what? If it's underground shouldn't the enemies have some sort of darkvision as well?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Wait, what? If it's underground shouldn't the enemies have some sort of darkvision as well?

That's the point. The ring makes you invisible to darkvision. Having darkvision yourself means you don't need a light source (which would make the ring useless, because anything that has darkvision has normal vision as well).

It doesn't do anything against blindsight, tremorsense, etc though, and is easily countered in any number of ways unless you also invest in a way to reliably create (total) darkness (torches, glowing plants, windows...).
It's very effective at what it does but too easy to counter to increase the price imo.


Things i don't bring to the table: optimized Uberchargers (or really anything with excessive damage stacking like Mailman sorcerers). Getting your PCs oneshot every time an enemy rolls lucky is not my definition of fun, even if you can do the same.

[ben-zayb]

Chaos Shuffling, Tinfoil Hats, Invisible Fogs attached to your false teeth, Bazillion Contingent Spells, Nightstick abuse, Ice Assassins, Uber Heart Surges, Aleaxes, XP/cash rivers, Infinite HD gains, and majority of the psionic tricks especially those involving Bestow Power, Affinity Field, Synchronicity, or Forced Dream.

That particular table has a DM who likes his T1s and T2s, so anything we do that is too cheesy can easily be turned against (maybe at a worse situation)

[Hellborn_Blight]

It doesn't do anything against blindsight, tremorsense, etc though, and is easily countered in any number of ways unless you also invest in a way to reliably create (total) darkness (torches, glowing plants, windows...).
It's very effective at what it does but too easy to counter to increase the price imo.

The reason why I think it should cost more is that at the level you can buy it not much has extra sensory capability. It is quite easily counterable at higher levels as long you are fighting the right creatures. I also read an environment entry in the DMG recently that says even for creatures that have darkvision, they tend to use torches every 40ft so as not have to live their lives in black and white. If you fight a battle completely in the dark it is supposed to be a +1cr difficulty increase too. Normally that would be the case, but everybody having Darkvision kinda neutralizes it, and the DM was of the opinion that it still gave the denizens of the deep the advantage in total darkness. Since he like to use somewhat normal races with class levels as enemies a lot, even at level 11 only see invisibility was effective.

The only item worse price wise for triggering things like sneak attack and breaking line of sight is the custom ring of invisibility swift. As per the rules of making custom magic items it's 1800gp, and it wrecks early encounters. It is one of the few things I have outright banned myself.

[Tvtyrant]

Chaos Shuffling, Tinfoil Hats, Invisible Fogs attached to your false teeth, Bazillion Contingent Spells, Nightstick abuse, Ice Assassins, Uber Heart Surges, Aleaxes, XP/cash rivers, Infinite HD gains, and majority of the psionic tricks especially those involving Bestow Power, Affinity Field, Synchronicity, or Forced Dream.

That particular table has a DM who likes his T1s and T2s, so anything we do that is too cheesy can easily be turned against (maybe at a worse situation)

Don't forget casting Genesis to create a fast time plane, then casting Node Genesis to get free metamagic. You may need to Acorn of Far Travel yourself though.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The reason why I think it should cost more is that at the level you can buy it not much has extra sensory capability. It is quite easily counterable at higher levels as long you are fighting the right creatures. I also read an environment entry in the DMG recently that says even for creatures that have darkvision, they tend to use torches every 40ft so as not have to live their lives in black and white. If you fight a battle completely in the dark it is supposed to be a +1cr difficulty increase too. Normally that would be the case, but everybody having Darkvision kinda neutralizes it, and the DM was of the opinion that it still gave the denizens of the deep the advantage in total darkness. Since he like to use somewhat normal races with class levels as enemies a lot, even at level 11 only see invisibility was effective.

The only item worse price wise for triggering things like sneak attack and breaking line of sight is the custom ring of invisibility swift. As per the rules of making custom magic items it's 1800gp, and it wrecks early encounters. It is one of the few things I have outright banned myself.

It's countered by torches. Or a cantrip pretty much every caster has access to. Not to mention that by RAW 30% of magic weapons glow like a torch, so there's a pretty good chance that an enemy carrying one has light pretty much automatically in a combat situation, even if it's only a basic +1 weapon.

Basically everything with above animal intelligence should have access to a light source if it operates in the dark, that's just basic common sense (or good NPC design on the part of your DM, i guess).
It also doesn't do anything to prevent you from being heard, so unless you're already sneaky without it chances are your enemies will be able to activate those light sources without wasting a combat turn.

What i'm trying to say is that the ring should be useful if you're properly prepared or strike by surprise, but without that most enemies don't really need to go out of their way to negate it. The price is fair under those conditions imo.
If your DM ignores this and plays the encounters as if you didn't have the ring then yes, it's pretty overpowered for its price. But that's true for a lot of effective tactics (though the ring is more straightforward then most).

For the Swift Invisibility ring, that's why custom items need DM approval. It's hardly the only 1st-level spell that becomes hilariously broken as a custom at-will, continuous or use-activated item with the suggested prices.

[Ephemeral_Being]

It's countered by torches. Or a cantrip pretty much every caster has access to. Not to mention that by RAW 30% of magic weapons glow like a torch, so there's a pretty good chance that an enemy carrying one has light pretty much automatically in a combat situation, even if it's only a basic +1 weapon.

Can I get a source for that? I'd like to read the text myself.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Can I get a source for that? I'd like to read the text myself.
I'm AFB at the moment so i can't tell you where exactly it is in the DMG. I do have the SRD link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm) though.


Light Generation
Fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell (bright light in a 20-foot radius, shadowy light in a 40-foot radius). These glowing weapons are quite obviously magical. Such a weapon can’t be concealed when drawn, nor can its light be shut off. Some of the specific weapons detailed below always or never glow, as defined in their descriptions.

[Hellborn_Blight]

Not to mention that by RAW 30% of magic weapons glow like a torch, so there's a pretty good chance that an enemy carrying one has light pretty much automatically in a combat situation, even if it's only a basic +1 weapon.

This is actually something that I don't think has ever come up since the beginning of my D&D playing days lol. That has to be super annoying to deal with if you are shopping as an Assassin.

"Nope that one glows. This one too. Sir, do you have any daggers that don't give away my position when I draw them it?"

Or this could happen.

"Hey guys, hold up."
"Sarge, why are the bushes glowing?"
"I'm guessing someone has a magic weapon, son."

It is definitely something to consider, but old habits die hard, and I can guarantee the DM (or myself) is not going to roll percentile every time he gives equipment to an NPC or enemy, simply out of established patterns.

Torches, or light sources of any kind, are an obvious counter, but the whole point of the ring is to take advantage of what normally is a strength and turn it into a weakness. The normalcy of the NPC/enemy/DM is that Darkvision is the beginning and the end of seeing in the dark. Getting around the blind spot that the ring creates without metagame thinking coming into is rather difficult.

I admit freely though, that it wouldn't be so much of a problem if my group didn't depend on special powers so much. I will also consider your ideas in future applications of the item. In a game where no one has dark vision and relies on light sources, then the ring is totally useless. I think a best of both worlds situation is actually low light vision. You never can see in the dark so it requires some sort of light source. With a torch, shadowy illumination still gives them the chance to hide. Every character that actually has a use for stealth is gonna have ranks in the relevant skills, so hide and move silently should be a forgone conclusion. But with Low light vision, shadowy illumination is less of a problem. Torches get stronger because of this. Your points combined with the recent revelation that there should in fact be light sources underground, even when enemies have dark vision, are things I'd like to incorporate into my games. So this discussion has been of great value and any further musings are appreciated.:smallsmile:

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well, i'd assume that weapons intended for stealthy characters are made non-glowing, with the glowing reserved for things like longswords, axes and similar "in your face" things. :smalltongue:
Still, it is an option for a DM if the Ring of the Darkhidden becomes a problem and you somehow can't justify the presence of other light sources.

There are also various options to reliably create total darkness. The Darklight (SoS, 500gp) is probably the cheapest, but it requires a pp reserve to fuel it. But those also aren't without their counters.
So you can make the ring worth it, but it's not a one-stop solution to invisible encounter domination by any means.

In the end it's a useful item for some classes, but i'd argue that most non-stealth characters can find better things to spend the gold on especially at lower levels when that's still a significant chunk of WBL. Even stealth focused characters have other things they want before a situational invisibility item. And at higher levels counters beyond simple light will be a lot more prevalent.

[ben-zayb]

Don't forget casting Genesis to create a fast time plane, then casting Node Genesis to get free metamagic. You may need to Acorn of Far Travel yourself though.

Almost everyone in that group (including me) never touched Node Magic, so our knowledge of those are really not that great anyway. But fast time planes are still a big no no, nonetheless.

[Tvtyrant]

Almost everyone in that group (including me) never touched Node Magic, so our knowledge of those are really not that great anyway. But fast time planes are still a big no no, nonetheless.

I love node magic though... It was always my favorite setting piece (after Mythals and Mythallars).

[lord_khaine]

Don't forget casting Genesis to create a fast time plane, then casting Node Genesis to get free metamagic. You may need to Acorn of Far Travel yourself though.

Except you cant affect the time trait when you use Genesis to create a new pocket plane. it might have been doable in an older version, but not the newst one published.