limits as a DM - what's cheesy and what is not?

[lhilas]

So basically, I'd like to know what do you allow at your games.
Where do you draw the line between strong feat/spell/combo and cheesy, nasty, banned stuff.
Personally for my team we allow stuff such as natural spell, divine metamagic and frenzied berserker , but we do not allow steadfast determination, discipline of the seven veils and the persist spell version of divine metamagic (because a cleric who can outfight most melee characters is just too OP! XD

[chaos_redefined]

So basically, I'd like to know what do you allow at your games.
Where do you draw the line between strong feat/spell/combo and cheesy, nasty, banned stuff.
Personally for my team we allow stuff such as natural spell, divine metamagic and frenzied berserker , but we do not allow steadfast determination, discipline of the seven veils and the persist spell version of divine metamagic (because a cleric who can outfight most melee characters is just too OP! XD

Huh?

You won't allow Steadfast Determination, but you will allow Natural Spell?
You'll allow Divine Metamagic (Quicken) but not Divine Metamagic (Persistent)?

You'll allow clerics at all, but think that a cleric who can outfight most melee characters is too OP?

I... don't get your standards at all...

And the problem with frenzied berserker isn't that it's strong, it's that it can accidentally TPK it's allies.

[lhilas]

The thing is that with the persistent spell trick you could cast both divine power righteous might for a 24 hours duration you're basically a full caster with +16 str, +4 con, DR 15 and a full bab.
He can easily deal 150-200 damage in melee per round in level 15 but can still cast all his spells normally.
Anyway steadfast determination is a cheap way to give your barbarian a +7 will without any logic.

[Xervous]

A single digit bonus to will saves is too powerful? Would you also be banning Wedded to History (Survivor) as well for its ability to replace all your save with your will save?

[BowStreetRunner]

Generally the games I've played in treat cheese NOT as something that is OP - after all if the DMM Persisted cleric is OP there is nothing preventing the other players from playing DMM Persisted clerics too. One player choosing a sub-optimal character build does not cause another choosing an optimal character build to become cheese. NOR is something cheese just because it is more powerful that a lot of the monsters out there. Anything the players can do the DM can do too.

What we generally feel IS cheese is any time when in order to make some combination work you have to hold it up to the light at a certain angle and squint real hard. In other words, if the majority of the players in the room don't agree with your interpretation of the rules either RAW or RAI then there's not going to be a fight about it. State your case, let the others offer their opinions, then the group can decide whether it is cheese or not - of course the most important person to convince is the DM. Once something has been declared cheese, let it go. If you are so married to the concept of using that rules interpretation that you can't have fun without it, you are not playing the game right.

Also, even if 100% of the group agrees that RAW and RAI a certain rule works that way but it actually BREAKS the game, it's out. Something OP does not break the game. Something that creates an infinite loop or an unsolvable paradox breaks the game. There are very few of these but whenever they come up they are just tossed as poor foresight on the part of the game developers.

That is pretty much it.

[Xervous]

What we generally feel IS cheese is any time when in order to make some combination work you have to hold it up to the light at a certain angle and squint real hard.

The eternal exhibit A: Dragonwrought Kobolds Are True Dragons

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The thing is that with the persistent spell trick you could cast both divine power righteous might for a 24 hours duration you're basically a full caster with +16 str, +4 con, DR 15 and a full bab.
He can easily deal 150-200 damage in melee per round in level 15 but can still cast all his spells normally.
Anyway steadfast determination is a cheap way to give your barbarian a +7 will without any logic.

The PHB Errata (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a) changed Righteous Might (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/righteousMight.htm), it's no longer as good. Most Clerics with DMM: Persistent will use Mass Lesser Vigor (Fast Healing 1) on the whole party and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (similar to Haste, but better in some ways) on the whole party. Many will also use Elation (+2 Str and Dex, +5 ft. speed) on the whole party as well. Non-party buffs that get made persistent are usually Divine Power, Holy Star, and Stormrage. Since the errata and the abundance of persistable spells in other books, it's not even worth it to persist Righteous Might or Divine Favor any more.

Even without DMM: Persistent, a Cleric is easily better in melee than any dedicated melee class. He can just cast (DMM: Quickened) Divine Power and then dive into melee with (Lesser Rod of Extended) Magic Vestment on his armor and shield and Greater Magic Weapon on his favorite weapon.

[Balmas]

Hmm. You know, that's kind of something I haven't thought about a good deal. It's almost like I don't know exactly what Cheese is, but I know it when I see it.

I have two general principles when it comes to optimization. If you do it, it has to be fun for the group as a whole. I'm fine with Hulking Hurlers playing bowling with the moon, so long as the rest of the party enjoys it. Ditto Nightstick-stacking, Divine Metamagic-ing clerics who buff themselves in the morning and spend the rest of the day walking around as semi-divine beings: if the party is okay with it, so am I.

That's the first principle. The second principle is that if you do it, you acknowledge that it exists. That means that if you figured it out, there's probably at least one more person in the game world that has done it as well. I don't mind if you go for a dragoon build that can one-shot the Tarrasque, so long as you don't mind if a similar dragoon tracks you down to your town.

[Faily]

Hmm. You know, that's kind of something I haven't thought about a good deal. It's almost like I don't know exactly what Cheese is, but I know it when I see it.

I have two general principles when it comes to optimization. If you do it, it has to be fun for the group as a whole. I'm fine with Hulking Hurlers playing bowling with the moon, so long as the rest of the party enjoys it. Ditto Nightstick-stacking, Divine Metamagic-ing clerics who buff themselves in the morning and spend the rest of the day walking around as semi-divine beings: if the party is okay with it, so am I.

That's the first principle. The second principle is that if you do it, you acknowledge that it exists. That means that if you figured it out, there's probably at least one more person in the game world that has done it as well. I don't mind if you go for a dragoon build that can one-shot the Tarrasque, so long as you don't mind if a similar dragoon tracks you down to your town.

I think that is where I mostly stand on it too. Likewise, in a way I feel that cheese can be very relative to the party.

[Brova]

One thing I think deserves mention in this discussion is stuff that while not particularly broken, is overwhelmingly superior to the competing options. For example, Domain Wizard. Being a Domain Wizard isn't all that much better than being a specialist, but it's all upside. It doesn't destroy the game in the way that wish cheese or shapechange does, but it makes a component of character creation essentially meaningless. Another example is Natural Spell on a Druid. Or Tomb Tainted Soul on a Dread Necromancer.

[Troacctid]

My current list of banned feats is Epic Toughness, Greenbound Summoning, Item Familiar, Leadership, Linked Power, Persistent Spell, and Precocious Apprentice.

Epic Toughness is banned because it screws with math and makes encounters more difficult to design, especially when you can take it like half a dozen times at level 1, and I just plain don't want to deal with it. Precocious Apprentice is banned because nobody ever takes it except as an early entry trick, which doesn't actually work, so I figure I'll shut it down in advance. Leadership is overpowered and has logistical issues. The rest are just overpowered.

[Brova]

Leadership is overpowered and has logistical issues.

Leadership is interesting. It's very powerful, but it's also one of the most symmetrically powerful feats. If you allow people to take Persist Spell, casters with metamagic reducers benefit disproportionately. If you allow people to take Greenbound Summoning, Druids benefit disproportionately. But anyone can take Leadership. Frankly, you can make a case that it actually smooths some power imbalances because it gives mundanes that are normally one trick ponies something to do outside of combat.

Frankly, you could make a very reasonable case for just giving everyone Leadership for free at 6th level.

[pwykersotz]

Cheese to me is bypassing or trivializing game limitations. Not necessarily feature or spell limitations, but the expectations set by the game based on the relative power of class structure and monster structure.

It's very evident, for example, that +5 is supposed to be considered a major increase to a stat, achievable only with a powerful magical item or by one of the most powerful spells in the game. This means that any attempt to push a stat well beyond ~30 is generally somewhat cheesy.

It is also evident that all things have HP. When reduced to 0, you die. This is a basic and universal game function. So any build which lets you become immune to HP damage is cheesy. Yes, this means that Hide Life is cheesy.

Spell limitations in terms of the level you can cast and the number of spells are fairly solid in their architecture, having very little variation. Vastly inflated numbers of spells or infinite casting are cheesy.

There's more, but that's a general idea of what I consider to be cheese.

[Troacctid]

Leadership is interesting. It's very powerful, but it's also one of the most symmetrically powerful feats. If you allow people to take Persist Spell, casters with metamagic reducers benefit disproportionately. If you allow people to take Greenbound Summoning, Druids benefit disproportionately. But anyone can take Leadership. Frankly, you can make a case that it actually smooths some power imbalances because it gives mundanes that are normally one trick ponies something to do outside of combat.

Frankly, you could make a very reasonable case for just giving everyone Leadership for free at 6th level.
I don't think I've ever been in a game where I've said "This party is too small. We should double its size." Usually it's the opposite problem.

Plus, unlike similar feats (Wild Cohort, etc.), Leadership also has the issue of followers, which can be an enormous pain in the ass to deal with. So far I'm favoring telling the player to put them to work offscreen at your home base or something.

If you really want Leadership in my games, you can play a Marshal. I unban the feat for them as a buff to the class. Only Marshal levels count towards it.

[WhamBamSam]

The eternal exhibit A: Dragonwrought Kobolds Are True DragonsI actually allow Dragonwrought Kobolds as True Dragons, because that's where I stand on that particular RAW argument, and most of it is fun, interesting, and flavorful optimization fodder rather than actually being as broken as people think it is. There are a few things that are that broken, but I ban them individually. I don't allow them to take the Loredrake or Wyrm of War Sovereign Archetypes, Epic Toughness (that's actually just regular dragon cheese rather than True Dragon cheese), or any of the Dragon Psychoses apart from maybe Nameless or Ravening. I also don't allow the RSLs out of order thing, but that's because it isn't actually supported by the RAW.

I'm generally pretty permissive of cheese. Some things (Bloodlines are a big one, and yeah Leadership is another), I usually prefer to shy away from, but in general, if you present a compelling case that the RAW works the way you want it to, and you're not going to be too far out of line with the power level of the rest of the party, I'll generally say go for it.

[Troacctid]

Bloodlines have the problem of, like, not actually functioning as written. The rules for them just don't make sense, and it's not obvious how they're supposed to make sense, either.

[WhamBamSam]

Bloodlines have the problem of, like, not actually functioning as written. The rules for them just don't make sense, and it's not obvious how they're supposed to make sense, either.Yeah, that's a big part of it. They're sort of cheesy by any interpretation, though, except the almost certainly incorrect one (where they function as LA and don't cause non-casting/psionic subsystems to scale weirdly) by which they're basically useless.

[BowStreetRunner]

...if you do it, you acknowledge that it exists. That means that if you figured it out, there's probably at least one more person in the game world that has done it as well...

Now that you mention it, that's a great attitude to have. I think in the next game that I run Pun Pun will be an actual deity and he has cast an Epic Spell so powerful that it not only destroyed every sarrukh in existence, but perpetually continues to scour the universe for sarrukhs and if another pops into existence at any time it will exterminate it immediately, no SR or Save allowed. :smalltongue: So once he used the trick, he also made sure there would be no one to follow him. :smallbiggrin:

[ExLibrisMortis]

Frankly, you could make a very reasonable case for just giving everyone Leadership for free at 6th level.
I agree. It shouldn't even be a feat at all; either work it out normally (recruiting through Diplomacy, paying followers and so on), or ban the ability.


I think the DM should limit 'free' power, like wishing for wishes. Any worthwhile goal should require the significant expenditure of some resource to attain. Yes, that's a vague limit. A DM needs a fair few Sense Motive ranks to figure out what the players find worthwhile and a significant expenditure of resources.

[Brova]

I don't think I've ever been in a game where I've said "This party is too small. We should double its size." Usually it's the opposite problem.

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. The better question is: how many character concepts want to have a bunch of minions? And I think there are honestly a lot of them. Three separate schools of magic have minionmancy, including two of the three that got their own classes. More than half of the classes in the PHB have some way to get allies, many have two or three. FFS, the iconic ability of the Fighter to become a member of the nobility existed before I was born. Now, it is true that in a vacuum, Leadership makes that problem worse rather than better. That said, shoving all that into Leadership seems like a simple way to avoid some problems.


Plus, unlike similar feats (Wild Cohort, etc.), Leadership also has the issue of followers, which can be an enormous pain in the ass to deal with. So far I'm favoring telling the player to put them to work offscreen at your home base or something.

I kind of thought that was the point. I mean, there are tactics you can use to turn a bunch of low level chaff into a credible threat, but I don't really see how that's a Leadership problem. I mean, animate dead can give you all the 1HB skeletons you want, and you could charm or dominate some commoners if that was a thing you wanted to do.

[Troacctid]

I agree. It shouldn't even be a feat at all; either work it out normally (recruiting through Diplomacy, paying followers and so on), or ban the ability.
You don't need Leadership to recruit allies. You just need it to recruit allies who are automatically loyal to you and don't take a share of the party's xp.


I kind of thought that was the point. I mean, there are tactics you can use to turn a bunch of low level chaff into a credible threat, but I don't really see how that's a Leadership problem. I mean, animate dead can give you all the 1HB skeletons you want, and you could charm or dominate some commoners if that was a thing you wanted to do.
Well, yeah, but at that point you're actively building your character with it in mind and investing levels into classes with class features specifically designed for that purpose. Which is as it should be. I don't want to make armies like that available to every character as a side benefit of a feat that's already arguably the most powerful feat in the game just from the cohort alone.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You don't need Leadership to recruit allies.
I know, that's why I say you can 'handle it normally'.


You just need it to recruit allies who are automatically loyal to you and don't take a share of the party's xp.
This is the part of the feat I have an issue with.

The benefits of the feat are 'the DM promises not to screw you over too much'. In short:

- The DM won't take XP from you. Encounters should take your army into account anyway, so that's hardly impressive. Even if the DM takes away XP, it's for the whole party, so it won't create a level disparity - but it'll take more sessions to reach a certain level. XP per session concerns are strictly OOC and should not be handled through feats.
- The DM won't have your soldiers ignore/resist your Diplomacy/Intimidate attemps, and won't have them go hostile at random moments. If your DM lets you have an army, they should be cooperative to begin with. No DM says 'you meet up with your personal army, it's been two days since you saw them, roll Diplomacy to get them to accept your command'.

Instead of a feat, the DM should adjust XP and PC/army interactions manually. The Leadership table should be in the 'recommendations for DMs' section, or maybe next to the 'Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells' table, or in the Diplomacy skill description, or just not exist at all.

[Brova]

Instead of a feat, the DM should adjust XP and PC/army interactions manually. The Leadership table should be in the 'recommendations for DMs' section, or maybe next to the 'Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells' table, or in the Diplomacy skill description, or just not exist at all.

Honestly, having a bunch of low level scrubs who follow your orders is flavor text. Having a village of peasants farming for you should come out of the same pool of resources as "being a member of the mages guild" or "knowing the leaders of street gangs", and have roughly the same effect. That requires a robust minigame to be written up for managing kingdoms and fighting battles, but that should obviously exist.

And then you would have people's classes give them minions which are actually combat effective. So the Knight gets a magical advisor, the Druid gets a pet Tyrannosaurus, the Necromancer gets a bunch of zombies, and the Marshall/leader of men gets a pack of soldiers.

Frankly, having them both come from the same feat is kind of dumb. While everyone needs to be interacting with the kingdom management minigame (if it exists), it's a totally okay life choice to just have one badass token, instead of a bunch of relatively worse ones.

[Nifft]

Hmm. I feel like Leadership could work better as a party-wide mechanic. Like, you establish a Stronghold as a party, and your party gets this many Followers, and you can have an apprentice Cohort who follows you around like a groupie and makes coconut clop-clop noises.


Frankly, you could make a very reasonable case for just giving everyone Leadership for free at 6th level.
But Druids don't have a feat at 6th level, they only have Natural Spell.

[Brova]

But Druids don't have a feat at 6th level, they only have Natural Spell.

Yep, that's a thing I hate actually. It's just awful design. Not because Natural Spell is powerful (although it totally is), but because the trade off is just so obviously correct. If you are a Druid, it is always correct to take Natural Spell at 6th. Always. And that doesn't actually make Druids any weaker (because they all get the best feat), but it does make them less interesting (because they all get the same feat). If you just let Druids cast in Bear form at 5th or 6th, they wouldn't get all that much stronger, but they would get a lot more diverse.

[Nifft]

Yep, that's a thing I hate actually. It's just awful design. Not because Natural Spell is powerful (although it totally is), but because the trade off is just so obviously correct. If you are a Druid, it is always correct to take Natural Spell at 6th. Always. And that doesn't actually make Druids any weaker (because they all get the best feat), Second best feat.


but it does make them less interesting (because they all get the same feat). If you just let Druids cast in Bear form at 5th or 6th, they wouldn't get all that much stronger, but they would get a lot more diverse.

But by your own logic, Druids are actually twice as diverse as all other classes.

All other classes get Leadership at level 6. Period. No exceptions.

Druids get a choice between Leadership or Natural Spell. Therefore, Druids have diversity!

(Until 9th level.)

[Brova]

Second best feat.

That's hard to say. There are a lot of very good feats. Persist Spell is certainly in contention, if you have some kind of metamagic reduction technique. You could make a case for various other cheese feats as well. Depending on how you feel about WBL, item creation feats might be up there.


All other classes get Leadership at level 6. Period. No exceptions.

Actually, in case it wasn't clear, I was suggesting Leadership as a bonus feat. The idea would be that at 6th level you get a bunch of followers, who farm, or are a cult, or whatever, and a cohort - in addition to whatever feat you normally get. The cohort is there to do a couple of things. First, it gives classes like Rogues, Fighters, and (to an extent) Sorcerers an in with the minions game. Second, it gives one trick ponies like Barbarians or Warblades someone to do out of combat stuff. Finally, it gives you a balanced framework for adjudicating the various minion making abilities. That one is a little iffy though.

[Nifft]

That's hard to say. There are a lot of very good feats. You called Natural Spell "the best feat". I do agree that it's great, but I don't think it exceeds Leadership.


Actually, in case it wasn't clear, I was suggesting Leadership as a bonus feat.

That's fine. I'm suggesting that it not be a per-character feat at all, but rather a per-party mechanic based around a shared Stronghold.

The neat thing about doing it as a party-mechanic is that you can vary the number of cohorts with the needs of the party -- a 5-character party might get one cohort, while a 2-character party might get three cohorts.

[Brova]

You called Natural Spell "the best feat". I do agree that it's great, but I don't think it exceeds Leadership.

For a Druid, Natural Spell is probably better. Depends on what you get to do with the cohort/followers, and what you were already doing in terms of minions.


That's fine. I'm suggesting that it not be a per-character feat at all, but rather a per-party mechanic based around a shared Stronghold.

The neat thing about doing it as a party-mechanic is that you can vary the number of cohorts with the needs of the party -- a 5-character party might get one cohort, while a 2-character party might get three cohorts.

I think that the problem is that Leadership conflates two things, one strategic and one tactical. On the strategic level of things, having a bunch of minions and a base should just happen between 6th and 9th. Maybe some dials for campaigns to tweak, but basically that. On the tactical level, having minions should be a function of your class. So Necromancers would get a bunch of undead, Warlocks would get a single demon, and Beastmasters would get an animal or three.

I don't think that there should be a feat that gives you a combat capable cohort, but given the way 3.5 works, I think Leadership should be a thing people just get.

[Douglas]

Now that you mention it, that's a great attitude to have. I think in the next game that I run Pun Pun will be an actual deity and he has cast an Epic Spell so powerful that it not only destroyed every sarrukh in existence, but perpetually continues to scour the universe for sarrukhs and if another pops into existence at any time it will exterminate it immediately, no SR or Save allowed. :smalltongue: So once he used the trick, he also made sure there would be no one to follow him. :smallbiggrin:
Pun-pun ascended long ago, with his nigh infinite intelligence and wisdom realized the true nature and purpose of his universe as a game setting, and decided to help keep the game balanced to ensure that adventures would be fun both to play and to watch. He is now the overdeity of infinite loops, cheese, and rules exploits, and individually judges each action related to his portfolio and prevents those that would be too disruptive to the game.

[ericgrau]

It's definitely a sliding scale with varying opinions and group power levels, and I wouldn't knock anyone for banning a few things that are weaker than a few allowed things. Better than allowing everything.

The group I play in doesn't optimize excessively but it also doesn't do too much significant banning, just random little stuff. Mostly we don't pull any crazy BS and that's plenty. Except when most of them DM they ban monk for being way overpowered :smallbiggrin:. I think they read some opinions in some old threads way back when and haven't used online D&D forums much since then.

If I were to DM I think I would be pretty conservative when DMing but I'd nerf rather than ban whenever possible to keep options open. The only things I might ban would be things that greatly vary in usefulness and therefore are hard to nerf the right amount. The way I figure by nerfing the top 5-10% of popular options you actually make the other 90-95% that much more reasonable and therefore actually open up more options to the player. So I'd have a ton of minor but simple nerfs (+1 spell level to the best/most popular non-core spells, etc.), but not many bans.

[AnonymousPepper]

In my game, anything goes save infinite loops and things that would cause munchkinry-induced high Henderson scale values.

[Brova]

In my game, anything goes save infinite loops and things that would cause munchkinry-induced high Henderson scale values.

That's not particularly clear in either point.

For example, what constitutes an infinite loop? Is being a Elan, working a job, and eventually accumulating infinite gold an infinite loop? What about loops that can be executed arbitrarily many times, but over a span of days (i.e. awaken looping)? What about non-infinite but increasing loops such as using Epic Spellcasting and planar binding to bootstrap your Int to arbitrary values?

And what constitutes being a munchkin? An ubercharger that hits for 1,000,000 damage? A caster that denies all enemies all their actions? A Druid that, well, is a Druid?

For that matter, are non "munchkinry-induced" Henderson values okay?

[ericgrau]

That's not particularly clear in either point.

For example, what constitutes an infinite loop? Is being a Elan, working a job, and eventually accumulating infinite gold an infinite loop? What about loops that can be executed arbitrarily many times, but over a span of days (i.e. awaken looping)? What about non-infinite but increasing loops such as using Epic Spellcasting and planar binding to bootstrap your Int to arbitrary values?

And what constitutes being a munchkin? An ubercharger that hits for 1,000,000 damage? A caster that denies all enemies all their actions? A Druid that, well, is a Druid?

For that matter, are non "munchkinry-induced" Henderson values okay?
I think the point is that it's not well defined, varies from group to group, and probably even causes minor disagreements within the same group. It's fuzzy like that.

Once you bring in the strictly defined legal-speak, shortly thereafter come the legal loopholes that nobody has time to notice in advance.

[noob]

Well throwing the earth into the sun does not needs any loop at all and is done in three actions(the hard one being to buy 2000 chickens but if you do not care about seeing heroes trying to stop this plan you can use commoners instead)
Do you consider consumptive field cheesy(+2 untyped strength per creature killed by a short range field affecting people with negative life)?
Or do you let players throw the earth in the sun at level 10 and gain this way one level then let them throw other occupied planets into stars gaining one level per thrown planet until they are enough high level for getting no benefits from this activity?

[Troacctid]

A planet is not a single object, so you can't throw it in one action. You'd have to throw it in reasonable-sized chunks.

[noob]

well the rules with ships in pathfinder does says that huge ships are made of multiple objects so it would be rather logical to say the same thing of a planet but now if the character equip planet parts in its inventory does he magically absorbs huge chunks of the planet in its inventory?
And then can he teleport with all the chunks he did put in its inventory(he have enough strength for having all that as a light load)?
what happens to creatures and buildings on the chunks you put into your inventory(they are probably going to take 20d6)
Since things fall(mostly) instantly can you put in your inventory the chunk under you then you fall taking some damage then you restart(taking items can be a free action in some cases but I forgot which ones) and get to the center of the earth then start grabbing all the earth falling on its core putting all the planet in its inventory(until gravity stops being significant)?
I would find fun to see what truly happens(sadly there is no dnd physics simulators).
At least it makes destroying the planet an interruptible process.

[Nifft]

For a Druid, Natural Spell is probably better. Depends on what you get to do with the cohort/followers, and what you were already doing in terms of minions. "Probably", since it depends on the specifics of the game?

Can't really engage with that.


I think that the problem is that Leadership conflates two things, one strategic and one tactical. On the strategic level of things, having a bunch of minions and a base should just happen between 6th and 9th. Maybe some dials for campaigns to tweak, but basically that. On the tactical level, having minions should be a function of your class. So Necromancers would get a bunch of undead, Warlocks would get a single demon, and Beastmasters would get an animal or three.

I don't think that there should be a feat that gives you a combat capable cohort, but given the way 3.5 works, I think Leadership should be a thing people just get. 9th level might be too soon. It really depends on the game.

IMHO the unifying trait is the idea of establishing a stronghold.

Without a stronghold, there's no place to keep your Followers (who never follow you into combat) -- so it's logically and logistically interconnected with the old school concept.

But there's not really an idea that you ~must~ establish a stronghold before 10th level. That's going to vary by campaign and setting -- and you might not be in an appropriate place to establish a stronghold, or hell, you might not even be on an appropriate plane of existence during those levels. A six-level long escape from the Abyss or the Underdark would be fun, but might not interact well with gathering Followers unless the DM put in extra work to make it happen.


Once you bring in the strictly defined legal-speak, shortly thereafter come the legal loopholes that nobody has time to notice in advance. +1 Insightful.

Moreover, some people see the act of finding loopholes in legalistic wording to be a fun challenge.

The more legalistic you make your wording, the more you encourage such thinking.

This is a key trait of 3.5e and a part of the fun of character optimization.

[Naez]

Things I've had to ban so far:

Pounce+Battle Jump: After our Warblade killed the BBEG of that particular module and the surprise REAL BBEG directly after it, each in a single turn.

The Dark Template: +1 LA for a level 17 class feature? Oh hell no.

Ray of Stupidity: Here's a 50 HD T-Rex. 4th Level Sorcerer: "I'll solo it."

Shivering Touch: Read above but replace with dragon.

Leadership: Hey I'm a druid with an Animal companion and I get a druid as my cohort who also has an animal companion and they get a cohort.... Yeah no.

Splitting+Precision Damage: After our scout vaporized...well pretty much everything in the whole campaign. (Swift Hunter in a mid-high teen level game so could skirmish nearly everything).

[Evolved Shrimp]

Epic Toughness is banned because it screws with math and makes encounters more difficult to design, especially when you can take it like half a dozen times at level 1,

Just a minor point: Epic Toughness (by RAW) isn’t available at level 1. It’s an epic feat, which means that a character must be level 21 to take it. By which point it is no longer exciting, if not downright underpowered.

[DarkSonic1337]

Just a minor point: Epic Toughness (by RAW) isn’t available at level 1. It’s an epic feat, which means that a character must be level 21 to take it. By which point it is no longer exciting, if not downright underpowered.

Dragons above old age can take epic feats.

Dragonwrought Kobolds are Dragons (this is not ambiguous), and have 12 age categories (the same as true dragons actually), which includes "old."

:)

[Evolved Shrimp]

Dragonwrought Kobolds are Dragons (this is not ambiguous)

Well, maybe not to you, but apparently to others:



What we generally feel IS cheese is any time when in order to make some combination work you have to hold it up to the light at a certain angle and squint real hard.
The eternal exhibit A: Dragonwrought Kobolds Are True Dragons

Anyway, if you feel that the problem with Epic Toughness arises because dragonwraught kobolds can take it at first level, then they can also take any other epic feat at first level, which likewise can lead to problems and remains unaffected by the ban on Epic Toughness.

Instead of banning Epic Toughness, the obvious solution would be to ban dragonwraught kobolds taking epic feats at non-epic levels. (Or even simpler, to clarify that they are not considered true dragons for purposes of qualifying for classes, feats, etc.)

[goto124]

And the problem with frenzied berserker isn't that it's strong, it's that it can accidentally TPK it's allies.

I recall a solution: do [something]to your shield, such that it counts as a creature. When you kill all your enemies and are still in the Frenzied state, you attack your own shield.

Helps with the mental image of a barbarian trying to chew the heck out of her shield :smallbiggrin:

@Naez: Do you only ban things if they've proven themselves cheesy or OP in the course of the game? Have you banned anything pre-emptively?

[Threadnaught]

Well, maybe not to you, but apparently to others:

Wait, what?

Dragonwraught Kobolds are Dragons. It explicitly states this in the Feat text.
Their Type is Dragon, ergo they're Dragons. Completely unambiguous.

The ambiguous part comes from the question over whever or not they're True Dragons, a subset from the Dragon Type, that is eligible for a lot of pretty power stuff that other Dragons aren't.


Right so Pun Pun ascension kills the would-be Pun Pun, Leadership is currently being tested under a house rule, Natural Spell caused me to do a lot of thinking when it first came up, it wasn't pushed so I had no problem.
Diplomacy was house ruled, but I may go by the RAW since not even that ******* Druid uses it anymore, and he wanted to be able to abuse Epic Leadership level 10000 at 1st level, the first time he played. Diplomacy and Charm Person still wouldn't work like that, but it would make the Skill more attractive to them.

Permanent Greater Invisibility at will, combined with flight and a poor decision to allow memory loss arrows. It's so cheesy under Circa's control, it's not the kind of thing that seems to bother most of tne playground, though he is Tiny and a Gestalt Druid//Sorcerer.
He doesn't break the game and annoy the DM by wiping out encounters like a normal munchkin (character building rules demanded Circa, MetaMyconid and that ******* Druid go munchkin), which I think I'd actually prefer, no he's breaking the game and annoying the DM by messing about with no name NPCs whom I can't be bothered to roll stats for. I am often forced to find something just so he can legally destroy whatever sidequests I try to present.
How does one kill an invisible Druid without cheating or breaking verisimilitude?


Nobody had actually made anything really cheesy before that GAF.

[Larrx]

I hard ban-

NI loops (chain gating, wish loops, d2 guy, anything Tippy does with a trap, etc.)

Kender . . . because obviously

And these are more houserules than bans, but the silly RAW stuff about which there is near complete consensus (drown healing, monk unarmed proficiency, etc.)

I soft ban (discourage) a few other things-

Incarnum, ToB (I don't have the books, if you can bring them to the table, then they're allowed)

minionmancy (slows combat to a crawl, if you can make tactical choices efficiently then it's fine)

but that's all stuff for one specific table (we don't own something, my current players are both terrible at and glacially slow during tactical combat), I f I DM'ed for different people I wouldn't use any of my 'soft ban' stuff.

[ekarney]

There's a heavy distinction between practical optimization, theoretical optimization and cheese, despite the fact there's a bit of overlap sometimes.

Practical Optimization: Is something we all do to a certain point. Like not playing a Wizard 20 with 4 intelligence, or playing an armour-clad melee cleric, seeing as they don't face ASF nor do they rely heavily on dexterity. This is something that's allowed at most tables and generally refers to having a playable character who performs well at the table, but doesn't totally outshine everyone. If anything that's PO is classified as overpowered that's because it's not cheesy, or broken, it's because it doesn't fit the power level of the table.

Theoretical Optimzation:Is optimization that it usually rules-legal however is considered broken because it's game-ruining, or far outmatches the power-level on any table and if everyone did it, it'd be a nightmare. This is stuff like the Omniscificer, which relies on things like infinite loops. The D2 Crusader is also on this list. A lot of the time TO relies on exploits, things that are technically RAW, but it's blatantly obvious that it should be veto'd, again infinite loops are an example of this, as is the Candle of Invocation trick (I think?) and those Wu Jen builds based around cloning yourself several million times and giving all your clones transcend mortality.

Cheese: Cheese is, in my opinion cheap optimization, in the way that it gives you a sizeable power boost without you really requiring to dedicate yourself to something, it usually gives short terms result, or is questionable via rules, or is most of the things found on danddwiki. I have a decent-ish example of this in a campaign I was going to run a while ago. I told everyone I was going to run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and because they were mostly new players I gave them all a small LA allowance. I had them come back with things like Dragonborn Knight, Winged High-Elf Scout, Half-Vampire Artificer, you know relatively acceptable things, then I had one guy come back with a template-stacked to hell Elan StP Erudite with homebrew bloodline abuse and tried to force stock bloodlines on all the players to justify his, despite having full knowledge of what the others were playing and was my most veteran player. that was just plain cheesy, he was grabbing minor power boost for the hell of it.

Now, the differences between optimization and cheese.
Optimization generally refers to goals for the character, getting them to meet specific goals in the meta and quite often are long term things that vary from character to character for example, taking Divine Metamagic on a cleric who you plan on staying as a cleric isn't a cheesy choice, you're trying to get the most out of your character.
Cheese is aiming for power without a real goal in mind. Older-than-dirt Dragonwrought Kobold is one of those things, just a straight up +3 to all your mental stats for one feat, of course I'll allow that one at my table, since there's worse things people could do and I trust my players.



Wait, what?

How does one kill an invisible Druid without cheating or breaking verisimilitude?



Wait till he opens a portal and send the Incantatrix's after him all you need is a level 9 elf with an item familiar. Or wait till he ticks off someone with True Seeing.

[Curmudgeon]

Anything which cranks up the power unambiguously triggers an arms race, so that's an unacceptable level of cheese. That includes Item Familiar, Leadership, Gestalt, bloodlines (though also because their rules are clear as mud), crafting cost reductions, and metamagic cost reducers. It's a better game if nobody has access to those things. In fact, Leadership has caused me to overcompensate: only one creature per player. Nobody gets a familiar, companion, mount, symbiote, psicrystal, hireling, or whatever. I've come to the realization that it's not fair for a player with additional creatures to get more play time than an unaccompanied character's player, and there are plenty of class variants, ACFs, substitution levels, and the like which replace extra creatures.

[Brova]

"Probably", since it depends on the specifics of the game?

Can't really engage with that.

I mean, there are situations where everything could be optimal. If for some reason you really need summon nature's ally to last twice as long, Extend Spell might be the best feat. Generally, I think the Druid is going to benefit more from Natural Spell than Leadership, but depending on the situation Leadership might be better. One aspect of Leadership worth noting is that it's less useful for people who already have minions, and the Druid has both temporary and permanent minions.


9th level might be too soon. It really depends on the game.

By 9th level you can cast charm monster, dominate person, lesser planar ally, lesser planar binding, animate dead, awaken, and command undead. It's honestly fairly late based on RAW. It's possible that the levels where you get those abilities should be rewritten, but in 3.5 9th level is very much the high end of when you can get swarms of minions.


But there's not really an idea that you ~must~ establish a stronghold before 10th level. That's going to vary by campaign and setting -- and you might not be in an appropriate place to establish a stronghold, or hell, you might not even be on an appropriate plane of existence during those levels. A six-level long escape from the Abyss or the Underdark would be fun, but might not interact well with gathering Followers unless the DM put in extra work to make it happen.

That's true. I think that might be largely a function of D&D not having a developed set up for doing that kind of thing. The rules of the game feed into peoples expectations and how the game is played, and the rules for kingdom management and mass battles essentially don't exist. Now, I do think you could make a case for people's power bases interacting with an abyssal campaign, but the lack of formal rules mean many campaigns won't.


Moreover, some people see the act of finding loopholes in legalistic wording to be a fun challenge.

The more legalistic you make your wording, the more you encourage such thinking.

That can be fun, but it's only fun if everyone is on the same page. If the DM thinks he's setting stuff to a Rogue balance level, then you walk in with a technically legal version of the Wish, things are going to get rough.


Just a minor point: Epic Toughness (by RAW) isn’t available at level 1. It’s an epic feat, which means that a character must be level 21 to take it. By which point it is no longer exciting, if not downright underpowered.

I believe he allows people to take Epic feats as long as they meet the listed prerequisites.


d2 guy

I don't really get this one. I mean, obviously if you've attached sadism or something else powered by damage to the attack, it's very good. But normally it's just an attack that kills a dude. How is that better than Power Attacking at a massive damage multiplier? The target is just as dead.

[Nifft]

That's true. I think that might be largely a function of D&D not having a developed set up for doing that kind of thing. Yeah, could be. I feel like Leadership as a feat was an attempt to write those rules, but it wasn't complete and never got finished before 3.x fell off the rules-radar.


That can be fun, but it's only fun if everyone is on the same page. If the DM thinks he's setting stuff to a Rogue balance level, then you walk in with a technically legal version of the Wish, things are going to get rough. Well, since getting people on the same page is exactly what I was talking about, it seems weird that someone is trying to explain to me that getting people on the same page is important...

My point was: if you write a very detailed, very specific, very legalistic rules document, you're implicitly inviting people to find clever loopholes and ways to violate those rules.

That might be news to some people who think that very detailed rules are "safer" and less subject to abuse.

[Invader]

I don't allow anthromorpic bat as a race for one.

[WhamBamSam]

Anyway, if you feel that the problem with Epic Toughness arises because dragonwraught kobolds can take it at first level, then they can also take any other epic feat at first level, which likewise can lead to problems and remains unaffected by the ban on Epic Toughness.

Instead of banning Epic Toughness, the obvious solution would be to ban dragonwraught kobolds taking epic feats at non-epic levels. (Or even simpler, to clarify that they are not considered true dragons for purposes of qualifying for classes, feats, etc.)As Threadnought said, Epic feats are a function of being dragons (ie, having the dragon type, which is not remotely ambiguous) not of being True Dragons. And it's not any Epic feat. It's an epic feat for which they meet the prerequisites. Most Epic feats are not, in fact, a problem on Dragonwrought Kobolds, and with the exception of Epic Toughness at low levels and a few of the caster feats, most Epic feats aren't overpowered by the time the kobold can qualify for them. I'd really much rather make a few selective bans then close off an entire avenue of optimization which I feel is largely benign and interesting, and which mostly helps mundanes.

But then, I also think most True Dragon cheese is worth keeping, and only make selective bans there as well, so maybe I'm just weird.

[Troacctid]

I believe he allows people to take Epic feats as long as they meet the listed prerequisites.

That's right.

[Brova]

That's right.

How have you found that to work out? Are there any that people automatically take?

[Xervous]

Earlier I was just pointing out the hotly contested realm of DWKs. I personally have never had to deal with a player proposing a DWK character, cheesy or not, but I figure it's only a matter of time. Then things will play out based on the relative power level of the party. If it's squirt guns, water balloons, that guy with a hose and... ATTACK HELICOPTER yeah I'm going to be having a polite talk with a certain player, the game isn't often enjoyable for all when one character is leagues of power beyond the others.

[Troacctid]

How have you found that to work out? Are there any that people automatically take?

I introduced it relatively recently, so I haven't played much with it yet. It has definitely raised the appeal of save-boosting feats, since +4 is a lot better than +2. At least one player wants to get Fast Healing, but is pretty far away from boosting his Con enough to qualify--I think it might end up being a feat that everyone would like to take, but can't necessarily afford to, making it kind of like the end of a long feat chain where the prerequisite feats are "Great Constitution, Great Constitution, Great Constitution, etc." On that note, so far nobody's sprung for the "Replace my feats with ability score increases" option, but it's there--maybe if someone plays a Swashbuckler, they'll spam it in their "thematically appropriate bonus feat" slots. Epic Essentia seems to be a new staple feat for Incarnates. Holy Strike looks like it'll be a staple low-level feat on smiters. I expect Epic Reputation is probably going to see play if someone brings a diplomancer to the table. Lingering Damage might secretly be a class feature that replaces a Rogue's level 15 feat.


Earlier I was just pointing out the hotly contested realm of DWKs. I personally have never had to deal with a player proposing a DWK character, cheesy or not, but I figure it's only a matter of time. Then things will play out based on the relative power level of the party. If it's squirt guns, water balloons, that guy with a hose and... ATTACK HELICOPTER yeah I'm going to be having a polite talk with a certain player, the game isn't often enjoyable for all when one character is leagues of power beyond the others.
I've found that once you take away the ability modifiers for aging and give everyone native access to Epic feats, the cheesiness value of Dragonwrought goes down pretty significantly.

[Naez]

@Naez: Do you only ban things if they've proven themselves cheesy or OP in the course of the game? Have you banned anything pre-emptively?

The only one I've preemptively banned is shivering touch. I've either played alongside or DMed for all the others. I generally like to encourage building anything you like. But when your character completely trivializes the rest of the players or wipes entire encounters out before the enemy even moves it's not fun anymore. And that's really what's important.

[chaos_redefined]

The thing is that with the persistent spell trick you could cast both divine power righteous might for a 24 hours duration you're basically a full caster with +16 str, +4 con, DR 15 and a full bab.
He can easily deal 150-200 damage in melee per round in level 15 but can still cast all his spells normally.
Anyway steadfast determination is a cheap way to give your barbarian a +7 will without any logic.

At level 15, the stupidest thing for your cleric to be doing is melee-ing. And +16 to str does not result in 150-200 damage. And quicken allows him to do similar, he just doesn't have to worry so much about dispel magic. Which should be a thing at level 15+.

And Endurance + Steadfast Determination gives a barbarian a +7 to will by bouncing spells with his chest muscles. In the mean time, Natural Spell + Dragon Wild Shape (Shadow Dragon) = I'm up in the air, with total concealment, with an AC higher than said barbarian, a higher will save than said barbarian, and a higher fort save than said barbarian. I'm still not seeing the problem with the former. The game already gives the benefits to people who aren't barbarians. Let the barbarians have something nice.

[Curmudgeon]

At level 15, the stupidest thing for your cleric to be doing is melee-ing.
It's really not stupid if you can get away with it. That is, a Cleric has so much inherent power that they can fire off some battlefield control spells and then get into melee combat just because there's nothing stopping them from doing so. Assuming they've prepared the necessary spells, the Cleric can equal or outdo dedicated melee combatants whenever they want.

[Susano-wo]

As Threadnought said, Epic feats are a function of being dragons (ie, having the dragon type, which is not remotely ambiguous) not of being True Dragons. And it's not any Epic feat. It's an epic feat for which they meet the prerequisites. Most Epic feats are not, in fact, a problem on Dragonwrought Kobolds, and with the exception of Epic Toughness at low levels and a few of the caster feats, most Epic feats aren't overpowered by the time the kobold can qualify for them. I'd really much rather make a few selective bans then close off an entire avenue of optimization which I feel is largely benign and interesting, and which mostly helps mundanes.

But then, I also think most True Dragon cheese is worth keeping, and only make selective bans there as well, so maybe I'm just weird.

I'll quote you because you are the latest to assert this. But I fail to see how being a dragon gives you any of this. Dragon type abilities (http://http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#dragonType) do not seem to include not taking penalties for old age, and certainly do not include being able to take epic feats before epic levels Heck I cant find that info anywhere--what book is it found in? Am I missing some paragraph somewhere? It seems that being dragonwrought qualifies a kobold to get dragon racial traits, be dragonblooded for further feats, and be able to use anything that has dragon as a prerequisite, and that's it (oh and be affected by things that specifically target dragons)

[Curmudgeon]

Dragon type abilities (http://http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#dragonType) do not seem to include not taking penalties for old age, and certainly do not include being able to take epic feats before epic levels
You're looking in the wrong places. From page 39 of Races of the Dragon, in a footnote to Table 3–3: Aging Effects:
Ability penalties due to age do not apply to dragonwrought kobolds. See the Dragonwrought feat, page 100.
And from page 66 of Draconomicon:
EPIC FEATS
These feats are available to characters of 21st level or higher. Dragons of at least old age also can choose these feats even if they have no class levels.

[AnonymousPepper]

Re: the person who took issue with my vague assessment of what's bannable at my table earlier - that's the entire point.

If you have to specifically write down ahead of time what the exact criteria for what's bannable at your table, what constitutes cheese, then you've already lost. And then you will continue to lose because the sort of players that would call for that level of inflexibility are exactly the sort that will attempt to lawyer their way around it.

At least in my experience, anyway. My players have a decent idea of what's expected of them from the start. Hell, I tend to assume worse of them than they're actually willing to resort to; I was setting DCs for the party's definite min-maxing artificer w/r/t creating items of mythic spells and just sort of automatically assumed he'd drop Guidance of the Avatar to hit him, and he came around and basically said, "I wasn't going to open that door, are you sure you want to go down that road?" and I was like "Yeah sure" and readjusted the DCs. My bunch all more or less have an idea where the limits are with me, and I try to convey the general idea to any new players that join too - and that's been pretty successful.

It comes down to building a rapport with your players and not having an adversarial personal relationship with them.

Then, when somebody else comes in with something stupid broken because they just do not give a damn, you as DM don't have to do the calling out, your players will. And if that doesn't work, they'll usually agree with you when you drop the banhammer on the offending bit of work. And if that doesn't, there won't be complaints when you show the offender the door.

But more importantly, that kind of relationship means that your players will ask you before they bring something silly to the table. Hell, during chargen, my players' characters tend to shift *up* in power level a bit, because I'm the sort to see hidden potential in builds, to understand what the thing they want to do is, and recommend and discuss options to them to help them achieve it. I'm an enabler of the worst sort, to be honest, and it works, because my players trust me. Not that I would hesitate to kill them in a heartbeat, of course, if they'll let me. :smallamused:

Bottom line, the best way to avoid what you consider to be cheese, since it's a highly subjective thing (I wouldn't bat an eye if somebody brought a Wiz3/MSpec2/Incantatrix3/IotSFV7/Fatespinner 2/Archmage 3 or some similar build to the table, while another GM might consider wizards in general to be bannable), is to have a good enough relationship with your players that they know where the line is, roughly, and don't really care to try and cross it. If you as a GM are laughing as hard at your sessions as your players are, if they're a group that enjoys being around each other as much as they enjoy playing the game, if everybody at the table is there to have a good time... you won't have a problem in the first place. It nips the problem in the bud.

[Nibbens]

If I had to take a stab at this, I don't ban much of anything. If my players can configure it up, it's my job to play at their power levels. Where I get kinda "press my lips into a line and sigh" is when my players damage vastly outstrips the other PCs. For example (this is PF btw) - I have a siege mage golem crafter who can helicopter and dish out close to 700 damage in a single turn, and a Pally with a hyper intelligent Cohort/Mount with Paladin Levels (yeah, it's interesting) who can dish out 1000 damage per round on a good charge. My sorcerer can deal close to 200 if she wishes, and my cleric hasn't cast a single offensive spell in the year we've been playing.

The only reason why I've allowed such a disparity is that my players have okayed it. The dice rollers like to roll their damage dice, while the sorc and cleric are more utility, info gathering and roleplay oriented. I design my encounters to play to the strengths of each character and all my PCs know, that without the four of them together they could easily die. Challenging them is no problem.

However, there are a few things that I have banned in the past and my players generally don't use them out of respect even though there's no "hard ban" on them. Aboleth's Lung (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/aboleth-s-lung) and Sacred Geometry (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry).