Implementing character creation restrictions

[Blackflight]

In an attempt to avoid the same overpowered build being used every game I have tried to work on a short character creation restriction list that bans some of the most broken builds while still leaving a lot of room for creativity. The idea is to ban overpowered races, 1 level dips in hexblades, S-tier subclasses like wizard chronurgy and tasha's cleric subclasses. Furthermore, the idea is to limit easy exploration through find familiar spells or druid turning into undetectable tiny creatures that can scout through an entire dungeon and to furthermore ban druids from summoning 8 CR 1/4 creatures every encounter that breaks action economy and ... fun! These restrictions hit some classes harder than others of course, but this is still work in progress. What do you think of the following list?


Following Race choices are not allowed:
• Races that have a flying speed (Aarakocra, Fairy and Tiefling Variant, etc.)
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Satyrs
• Veldalken
• Shadar-Kai

Following subclasses are not allowed:
• Hexblade (warlock)
• Chronurgy (wizard)
• Peace, Order and Twilight domain (Cleric)

Following Spells are not allowed:
• Silvery Barbs (1st level)
• Find familiar (1st level)
• Flock of familiars (2nd level)
• Find steed (2nd level)

Following Feats are not allowed:
• Lucky
• Great weapon master
• Sharpshooter
• Sentinel feat (only if combined with Polearm master feat or Echo Knight fighter subclass)

Summoning spells errata:
• Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time.
• If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours.
• The summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.

General errata:
• Life Domain clerics casting the goodberry spell summons +3 goodberries rather than each goodberry healing +3 hit points
• Paladin Divine smite damage does not multiply when it is used on a critical hit.
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the PaladinÂ’s Divine smite
• Druids wild shape cannot be used to turn into tiny creatures
• Circle of the Moon Druids of 2nd level cannot wild shape into stronger creatures than CR ½
• Polymorph Spell maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)
• Casting ritual spells can only be done once per long rest without spending spell slots on the spell (this is primarily meant as a nerf to wizards, no longer making them able of casting an endless amount of spells in their downtime)

[Dualight]

This sounds fairly reasonable for the most part, just two questions:
1: Why is find steed on the banlist while find greater steed isn't? Considering that these spells have a different use case than familiars, what is the reason to restrict them? (perhaps the 'no more than one summon per summoner' restriction can keepfind steed under control already? I doubt that minionmancy paladins are a problem, but, of course, I do not know your table)
2: Is the ritual restriction of 1/LR per spell or per caster? Being able to cast only one ritual per day is a far greater nerf that would also make the book of Ancient Secrets Eldritch Invocation mostly-useless and nerfs the Ritual Caster feat(if that is a desired outcome, than it is no problem) If wizards are the only problem, then limiting them to 1 ritual from their spellbook without preparing that spell per long rest might also be a less-drastic way to limit wizard shenanigans.

[Keltest]

There aren't actually a lot of ritual spells out there, unless you have your own homebrew about that. I dont much see the point in nerfing them; for the most part they're all utility spells so it isn't like the wizard is giving everybody a bunch of hour long buffs over a short rest or something.

[Mastikator]

Are you banning the whole subclass of hexblade or just level 1 dips? Could someone play a hexblade without multiclassing?

[Arkhios]

Are you banning the whole subclass of hexblade or just level 1 dips? Could someone play a hexblade without multiclassing?

FWIW, I'd say ban the subclass entirely or not at all. The more fiddly bits you have, the more difficult it becomes to manage.

[J-H]

What's wrong with Lucky and Find Familiar?

On my end, I changed Sharpshooter and GWM to just give +1 to damage (was +2) with the appropriate weapon types (plus the other benefits) instead of -5/+10. That makes them slightly above-average fighting styles.

[Blackflight]

T
1: Why is find steed on the banlist while find greater steed isn't? Considering that these spells have a different use case than familiars, what is the reason to restrict them? (perhaps the 'no more than one summon per summoner' restriction can keepfind steed under control already? I doubt that minionmancy paladins are a problem, but, of course, I do not know your table)
2: Is the ritual restriction of 1/LR per spell or per caster? Being able to cast only one ritual per day is a far greater nerf that would also make the book of Ancient Secrets Eldritch Invocation mostly-useless and nerfs the Ritual Caster feat(if that is a desired outcome, than it is no problem) If wizards are the only problem, then limiting them to 1 ritual from their spellbook without preparing that spell per long rest might also be a less-drastic way to limit wizard shenanigans.

Find greater steed is an oversight by me and something I would also include on the ban list. the reason for the ban in the first place is that it is an often overlooked but incredibly powerful spell. Free disengages for the rider, 60 feet speed, no timer on the spell. No concentration needed. Extra damage.

I do agree that the ritual casting restriction is something that has to be rolled back. The idea was to limit the strengths of wizards but this can be done more elegantly I think. I am not sure how to nerf wizards without breaking the class though.

[Blackflight]

Are you banning the whole subclass of hexblade or just level 1 dips? Could someone play a hexblade without multiclassing?

I intended to ban the entire subclass. You could make a case that "If you take hexblade subclass" then you cannot "Multiclass into Bards, Sorcerers or Paladins". Like Arkhios said, the partial ban makes it more fiddly. Hexblades are often chosen for pure warlocks eventhough they indend to be a caster, simply because the armor and hexblade's curse is so good to have.

[Blackflight]

What's wrong with Lucky and Find Familiar?

Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times. Furthermore, familiars are incredibly easy to scout with. Turn them into a tiny tiny spider, crawl through an entire dungeon and scout out the whole thing with zero risk involved. Its probably smart the first time someone did it, but after having seen the trick being used more than a hundred times it just breaks the exploration part of dungeons.

The ban to lucky is just a personal preference. 3 rerolls per long rest is actually very very powerful. I personally prefer games without the feat.

[Keltest]

Find greater steed is an oversight by me and something I would also include on the ban list. the reason for the ban in the first place is that it is an often overlooked but incredibly powerful spell. Free disengages for the rider, 60 feet speed, no timer on the spell. No concentration needed. Extra damage.

I do agree that the ritual casting restriction is something that has to be rolled back. The idea was to limit the strengths of wizards but this can be done more elegantly I think. I am not sure how to nerf wizards without breaking the class though.

Nerfing wizards is IMO as simple as controlling the scrolls they get as loot. A lot of the problems with wizards are white room "well if they have all these spells ready this particular day and know to save them for Y opponent then theyre invincible" but that rarely survives contact with a real DM. If you dont want them to have wish or simulacrum, just say those spells arent available in this campaign and dont give them free scrolls with every encounter. Treat a spell scroll as the equivalent to giving a fighter a magic weapon.


Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times. Furthermore, familiars are incredibly easy to scout with. Turn them into a tiny tiny spider, crawl through an entire dungeon and scout out the whole thing without zero risk being involved. Its probably smart the first time someone did it, ut after having seen the trick being used more than a hundred times it just breaks the exploration part of dungeons.

The ban to lucky is just a personal preference. 3 rerolls per long rest is actually very very powerful. I personally prefer games without the feat.

Just attack the familiar. They have like 10 AC and single digit hit points. I had a player who liked to use familiars like that, and they had a pretty large attrition rate because of it.

[Blackflight]

Nerfing wizards is IMO as simple as controlling the scrolls they get as loot. A lot of the problems with wizards are white room "well if they have all these spells ready this particular day and know to save them for Y opponent then theyre invincible" but that rarely survives contact with a real DM. If you dont want them to have wish or simulacrum, just say those spells arent available in this campaign and dont give them free scrolls with every encounter. Treat a spell scroll as the equivalent to giving a fighter a magic weapon.

Just attack the familiar. They have like 10 AC and single digit hit points. I had a player who liked to use familiars like that, and they had a pretty large attrition rate because of it.

Good point on the wizards. This is actually very simple :) :)

Regarding find familiar / flock of familiars, the problem is not so much their use in combat. There are some nice uses like a familiar with dragon's breath used to counter enemies without ranged attacks. Its more their out of combat potential that is problematic. Free help actions is strong for skill checks outside combat, but mostly its the exploration aspect that I dunno like. This is the reason that I included that Druids cannot wild shape into tiny creatures. Again, being an itsy bitsy small spider that can crawl the walls of dungeons makes it almost undetectable (moreso than invisibility will). Its more a case of being able to "break" puzzles and dungeon design.

[JackPhoenix]

Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times. Furthermore, familiars are incredibly easy to scout with. Turn them into a tiny tiny spider, crawl through an entire dungeon and scout out the whole thing with zero risk involved. Its probably smart the first time someone did it, but after having seen the trick being used more than a hundred times it just breaks the exploration part of dungeons.

The ban to lucky is just a personal preference. 3 rerolls per long rest is actually very very powerful. I personally prefer games without the feat.

"Tiny spider" doesn't mean much. A rat or a cat is tiny, too. A spider the size of a rat is pretty unlikely to crawl through entire dungeon without being squished.

[Keltest]

"Tiny spider" doesn't mean much. A rat or a cat is tiny, too. A spider the size of a rat is pretty unlikely to crawl through entire dungeon without being squished.

For that matter, a spider the size of a regular spider is going to take a month to crawl through an entire dungeon.

[stoutstien]

Obligatory post that 5e is opt-in by design and you can't ban anything outside of organized play structures which just have preset opt-in material.

Obligatory obligatory post reminding that while the end results might be similar, framing is important in regards to how people respond to each and maintaining a cohesive table and game logic/structure should be a higher priority than trying to sink up the totality of context.
Especially since we're not talking about just player facing material because many options directly pull from the other side of the screen with Transformation and summoning features.

[Waazraath]

In an attempt to avoid the same overpowered build being used every game I have tried to work on a short character creation restriction list that bans some of the most broken builds while still leaving a lot of room for creativity. The idea is to ban overpowered races, 1 level dips in hexblades, S-tier subclasses like wizard chronurgy and tasha's cleric subclasses. Furthermore, the idea is to limit easy exploration through find familiar spells or druid turning into undetectable tiny creatures that can scout through an entire dungeon and to furthermore ban druids from summoning 8 CR 1/4 creatures every encounter that breaks action economy and ... fun! These restrictions hit some classes harder than others of course, but this is still work in progress. What do you think of the following list?


Following Race choices are not allowed:
• Races that have a flying speed (Aarakocra, Fairy and Tiefling Variant, etc.)
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Satyrs
• Veldalken
• Shadar-Kai

Following subclasses are not allowed:
• Hexblade (warlock)
• Chronurgy (wizard)
• Peace, Order and Twilight domain (Cleric)

Following Spells are not allowed:
• Silvery Barbs (1st level)
• Find familiar (1st level)
• Flock of familiars (2nd level)
• Find steed (2nd level)

Following Feats are not allowed:
• Lucky
• Great weapon master
• Sharpshooter
• Sentinel feat (only if combined with Polearm master feat or Echo Knight fighter subclass)

Summoning spells errata:
• Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time.
• If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours.
• The summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.

General errata:
• Life Domain clerics casting the goodberry spell summons +3 goodberries rather than each goodberry healing +3 hit points
• Paladin Divine smite damage does not multiply when it is used on a critical hit.
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the PaladinÂ’s Divine smite
• Druids wild shape cannot be used to turn into tiny creatures
• Circle of the Moon Druids of 2nd level cannot wild shape into stronger creatures than CR ½
• Polymorph Spell maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)
• Casting ritual spells can only be done once per long rest without spending spell slots on the spell (this is primarily meant as a nerf to wizards, no longer making them able of casting an endless amount of spells in their downtime)

Most of what you are doing: I understand where it comes from, and think it will work out fine. Some stuff in random order:
- order cleric is not originally from Tasha's, and on a completely diffent leven than twilight and peace (tbh it even sucks a bit) - why ban that one?
- find steed is good, but it's one of those 'class features that unfortunately turned into a spell'. Paladin's always had a steed, it's part of class identity. Removing it seems harsh (though pally is strong enough to take the hit.
- feats: I never saw people actually take lucky, even though it's good - but there's always something better imo. On the other hand, Crossbow Expert and Elven Accuracy are ime both much more common and prolematic (if you consider big damage boosts problematic).
- summoning: isn't it easier to just state "all phb summon spells (incl conjure-line) are banned & replaced with tasha's summon spells"?
- druid wildshape: isn't this an issue of playing the game wrong normally? As far as I know a druid can only change in creatures mentioned in the MM, and there are no tiny tiny indetectable spiders in there. I understand you want to exclude the option, but the option doesn't exist in the first place imo.
- no divine smite on crits: eh, that's nerf no.2 for the paladin. Again, it's a strong class, but I don't know if this is deserved.

[animorte]

A lot of the problems with wizards are white room "well if they have all these spells ready this particular day and know to save them for Y opponent then theyre invincible"
<snip>
Just attack the familiar. They have like 10 AC and single digit hit points. I had a player who liked to use familiars like that, and they had a pretty large attrition rate because of it.
Thank you for making both of these points for me. This is exactly the problem I find with Wizards. The majority seems to treat the idea as though it's strictly a white room/always prepared class.

In another note, this is clearly putting forth extra effort to remove things so that the effort doesn't need to be made in planning for their existence within the game. I can respect that, as different DM styles are preferred.

I personally prefer to address these things while playing. I don't mind my players building really strong characters, we've even waived multi-class restrictions in several cases. I try to make sure everybody has their shining moments and do my best to make encounters challenging and interesting either way. I see no reason to limit all of these things, maybe because I appreciate the challenge of designing a fun game around them anyway.

[Samayu]

This seems to be a mix of "banning OP things" and "banning things I'm just tired of seeing." I mean, I would totally ban the yuan-ti, and it's not uncommon to disallow fliers, but satyrs? Are you just doing this for games that you're running, or proposing this to all your games, or are you the forever-GM?

Anyway, can you just talk to your players, and convince them to try new things? Say, "hey, that sounds like a cool character, but we had one of those in four out of the last five campaigns. Would you mind trying something new this time?"

Banning Hexblade dips may sound fiddly, but I think just having the list gets a little fiddly. OTOH, I'd be surprised if anyone would want to play a single-classed Hexblade.

Spells, I get Silvery Barbs, but not the others. FF has already been addressed, but for Find Steed, remember that the character must carry around the saddle if the steed vanishes. Or do you not play with any semblance of encumbrance? Not even, "no, you can't carry five swords, and extra suit of plate armor and a saddle"? And don't forget Simulacrum and Wish. Or maybe you never get to that level? Low level wizards don't need a nerf.

Feats, is Lucky really that great? You're giving up a whole ASI for only three rerolls a day? Compare that to Bardic Inspiration, or some Battlemaster maneuvers. In our group, I've only seen that feat once. And what about Elven Accuracy?

I don't get the Smite nerf. I played an Ancients paladin recently, where I only used their spell slots for Divine Smites. I felt that I was not keeping up with the other martials, in terms of damage output. Crit-smites were the only time I ever felt like I was having fun with the character (outside of RP), and I think it only happened once in six levels. So I'd be really angry if you nerfed me this way. And this is probably the only nerf on your list that would make me angry.

Why the nerf for Moon druids?

I recommend not limiting ritual spells this way. I'm not sure what problem you're trying to solve, but in my group we spam detect magic. It's basically almost always on. We allow this because we decided it's unfun to miss magic items. But there are all kinds of limits to the spell and to ritual casting that we could pay attention to. You can't ritual cast while you're moving. It only lasts ten minutes, so one hour of dungeoning turns into two. What happens while you're sitting? Wandering monsters? The shot clock ticks down and you chance missing your goal? Make the consequences happen in-world instead of simply mechanical.

[Skrum]

Banning GWM and SS raises my eyebrow a bit. Being a good damage dealer is the "reason" to play a martial class. Taking away those feats and they're worse at their main thing. Does it make them unplayable, no. But barb without GWM is....yikes. AND not allowing Sentinel + PAM? Idk. That seems like an unwarranted amount of hate towards martial characters bringing something to the table.

[Nagog]

2: Is the ritual restriction of 1/LR per spell or per caster? Being able to cast only one ritual per day is a far greater nerf that would also make the book of Ancient Secrets Eldritch Invocation mostly-useless and nerfs the Ritual Caster feat(if that is a desired outcome, than it is no problem) If wizards are the only problem, then limiting them to 1 ritual from their spellbook without preparing that spell per long rest might also be a less-drastic way to limit wizard shenanigans.

As an avid Wizard player, limiting it to only allowing you to Ritual cast spells you have prepared is huge. Imo, preparing the likes of Identify, Find Familiar (if not banned), or even Detect Magic is a waste of a prepared spell when you can ritual cast them.
That said, not having a use of Identify can be a really party hindrance. Unless you tell players what a magic item is/does when they receive it automatically, waiting for the caster to Identify them at 1/day can be a drag, and really takes the fun out of finding a horde of magic items. Considering Find Familiar is already banned, perhaps making 1st level spells except from this rule would mitigate that?


Are you banning the whole subclass of hexblade or just level 1 dips? Could someone play a hexblade without multiclassing?

Hexblade is incredibly powerful for a variety of reasons, pretty much every feature they get is really strong on a class that is already pretty strong as-is. If you want to discourage Hexblade Dips, moving the Hex Warrior feature to be included in Pact of the Blade not only discourages the Dip but also makes a Sword Pact Warlock viable for all patrons. As-is, Pact of the Blade is a trap option for anything but Hexblades, and picking Tome, Chain, or Talisman on a Hexblade is a similarly poor choice.



I do agree that the ritual casting restriction is something that has to be rolled back. The idea was to limit the strengths of wizards but this can be done more elegantly I think. I am not sure how to nerf wizards without breaking the class though.

Again speaking as an avid Wizard player, the biggest nerf you can give to the class without breaking it is a difficult question, as pretty much any blanket restriction is capable of being built around, as the Wizard class is essentially made of clay: it has more build versatility than anything else because so little of it is set in stone. Nerfing a Wizard may need to be done on a case-by-case basis, so establishing early on when a player says they want to play a Wizard that you'll want to curate and nerf things as needed is essential.


All things being said: In banning Find Familiar, does this also ban Chainlocks?

[JackPhoenix]

So, banning Hexblade multiclassing is too fiddly, but banning Sentinel ONLY if you have PAM isn't?

[Veldrenor]

If you're tired of druids and familiars scouting dungeons for the party, banning them is totally a way to go. But there is another option: time. None of that scouting is instantaneous, especially if your scout is a tiny unnoticeable insect. Things can change while the scouting takes place - guard rotations, enemies advancing their goals, wandering monsters, etc. Especially wandering monsters, because while the scout's off scouting the rest of the party is sitting somewhere that they can be stumbled upon. And the longer they sit there waiting, the greater the odds that something will find them and they'll have to expend resources without making actual progress towards their goals. Keep track of time, periodically roll to see if something happens to make the party's lives harder, and sooner or later familiar/druid scouting won't be the go-to.

Also it may not be possible to familiar scout at a distance greater than 100 feet. It all depends on whether you interpret the "While your familiar is within 100 feet of you" bit as applying to the sentence or the paragraph.


Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times.

Except that familiars don't provide a free help action at all times because the help action doesn't exist outside of combat. No, seriously, helping someone accomplish a task outside of combat is governed by a different set of rules. Chapter 7, page 175 - Working Together. And those rules put limitations on who can provide help and when. You can't help with a task you couldn't attempt alone, and you can only help if multiple individuals working together would be productive. Those limitations may still apply to the in-combat help action, depends on how you interpret the rules and specific beats general, but that's beside the point. The point is, whenever a player's like "I have my familiar help," go through the following:

1) Could the familiar attempt the task by itself?
1a) If no (a 1-int languageless frog deciphering runes, a 4-pound owl busting down a locked and reinforced door, etc), then the familiar can't help.
1b) If yes, proceed to 2.
2) Would the familiar's help actually be productive?
2a) If no (an owl flapping in your face while trying to pick a lock, a rat pulling at your sleeve while climbing, etc), then the familiar can't help.
2b) If yes, then the familiar can help.

[Blackflight]

It sounds a bit like some people here feel personally attacked with this thread which is not the intention :) First of all, as I wrote in the post, these are just ideas and they are not final in any way.




"1)So, banning Hexblade multiclassing is too fiddly, but banning Sentinel ONLY if you have PAM isn't?"

2) This seems to be a mix of "banning OP things" and "banning things I'm just tired of seeing."

3) "Banning GWM and SS raises my eyebrow a bit."


1) Its more fiddly to make hexblade only be banned under certain circumstances. Maybe this is the right approach though. I initially decided to ban Hexblade altogether because even as a pure lock caster it is still probably the strongest subclass. Maybe moving the level 1 feature to a later level, as someone else suggested is more elegant.

2) True. The list is based on things that I have come accross that seems S-tier strong (one could argue broken). Again, the list is not final.

3) You could make the case that these feats are fine, but all "strong" martial builds I have seen have either of these feats. I think excluding them could mean more nuanced and inventive builds. I don't buy that martial classes suck without these feats. Its just that martial classes with these feat tend to be vastly superior to martial classes w/o them.

4) Regarding Lucky feat as many have mentioned. I think I would roll the restriction back and let it be allowed again. I do see the point that it is not crazy strong - its just being picked a lot (which is different).

5) Regarding nerf to divine smite. Divine smite is strong by itself, but what makes it crazy good is that you can fish for crits which may or may not be intended by WotC. This nerf makes it so that paladins dont go crit fishing with elven accuracy + vengeance advantage etc. Maybe this nerf is unwarranted but there is something "not fun" about paladins going up and deleting bosses. Sure you can make the boss have more hp, maybe be flykng, maybe make it so that the paladin has a hard time closing the gap, but again, from a balancing standpoint I think crit-fishing is a bit broken.

[Samayu]

When I said This seems to be a mix of "banning OP things" and "banning things I'm just tired of seeing." I wasn't making a judgement call. That was a serious observation, and I'm OK with it either way. I was just trying to clarify things. I'm sorry that it sounded judgey.

But I don't think that some of the people's opinions are based on them being mad that you're taking their favorite options away. There are a lot of discussions here about whether certain abilities or combos are over-powered, and there aren't a whole lot of them that many people agree are OP. Usually, we're all, like, "yeah, the game is designed this way. Some options are stronger than others."

[Amechra]

Most of your suggested changes should work just fine... but I have one suggestion:

Instead of banning Find Familiar, move it from the Wizard list to the Ranger list, where it's more thematically appropriate anyway (a wizard's familiar should be more like Salem, not Snowy). If the scouting really bothers you, just cut down on the telepathy range or make it require line of sight.

[Skrum]

3) You could make the case that these feats are fine, but all "strong" martial builds I have seen have either of these feats. I think excluding them could mean more nuanced and inventive builds. I don't buy that martial classes suck without these feats. Its just that martial classes with these feat tend to be vastly superior to martial classes w/o them.

Yes and no. In some sense taking away the martial's best options you're making other builds viable, but your doing it purely by making martial builds worse. Of course this won't break the game or something, or make fighters/barbs/rangers unplayable, but it does reduce the "reasons" to play those classes. Casters are presumably still going to have access to spike growth, fireball, wall of fire, cone of cold, etc. Their dominance of AoE damage is going to remain, but now martials won't get their niche area of dominance (single target, generally resourceless damage). This is just not a decision I would make.

But, what do I know, I'm a dirty optimizer xD.

[Sparky McDibben]

Nerfing wizards is IMO as simple as controlling the scrolls they get as loot. A lot of the problems with wizards are white room "well if they have all these spells ready this particular day and know to save them for Y opponent then theyre invincible" but that rarely survives contact with a real DM. If you dont want them to have wish or simulacrum, just say those spells arent available in this campaign and dont give them free scrolls with every encounter. Treat a spell scroll as the equivalent to giving a fighter a magic weapon.

Just attack the familiar. They have like 10 AC and single digit hit points. I had a player who liked to use familiars like that, and they had a pretty large attrition rate because of it.

Another way to nerf wizards in that same vein is to simply make them work for all their spells - no more "2 free spells at every level;" they can only add spells if they find them in the wild. Though if you're going to do that, I'd be generous with having a d100 table of wizard spells they can find in the world, and I'd err on the side of handing them more information from defeated wizard opponents.

Just to add to the familiar point, you can also give the familiar more power and agency. What if the familiar remembers every time their mortal body died? Every excruciating second of being stabbed and eaten alive by goblins, giant spiders, and various undead? In my mind, that warrants at least giving it a reaction roll to the PCs' orders, with a -1 to each death it's suffered in the last month (make the player track that). See here (https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/06/youre-doing-familiars-all-wrong.html) for another opinion.

As to the philosophy behind the list...it very much doesn't jive with my style of running or playing. That does not make you wrong.

I think by trying to fit too much of a straitjacket over the player's options, you end up narrowing the imaginative horizons of the game you're playing. If you don't mind my asking, how often do these come up at your table? 1 level hexblade dips, familiar scouting shenanigans, OP martial feats - what are they doing to your game? If you ban them, and a player finds another way to reach a similar effect, what are you going to do? Will you congratulate them on a well-played session...or just add it to the ban list?

[Mastikator]

It sounds a bit like some people here feel personally attacked with this thread which is not the intention :) First of all, as I wrote in the post, these are just ideas and they are not final in any way.

This forum sometimes be like that. IMO, you're the DM. It's your game. You can ban anything you don't like.

Personally, to combat the SS/GWM feat tax I added an optional rule at my table. When a player takes The Attack Action™ with a weapon, unarmed or natural attack that they are proficient in, they can forgo the proficiency bonus to hit and add 2x proficiency bonus to damage. Must be declared before they roll the d20.
For SS and GWM I removed the -5/+10 effect and added +1 str/dex, in case a player wants the other effects.

[igor140]

As a guy who LOVES hexblade builds... they really only get overpowered if you multiclass them. Out of the box, Hexblades are not that great after the first 6ish levels. At that point, Paladins have more spell uses (and therefore more smites), other casters have more utility, and other martial combatants do SOMETHING better: rogues = damage, barbarians = survivability, monks = everything, etc. When you get to much higher levels, hexblades really get left behind. The high level Warlock features don't give hexblades enough to keep up with the rest of the party. "But the mystic arcanum feature is awesome!" True... and demonstrably weaker than what any full caster gets.

All that to say: I can see where you would want to prevent them from multiclassing or 1 lvl dips, but if someone really wants to play a half-assed warrior and a third-assed mage, I say let them.

The other side of this conversation is that powercreep is a natural part of this game. I am co-DM with another guy at our table, and we have these conversations a lot. The things you have outright banned (yuan-ti, twilight cleric, silvery barbs, etc) are indeed objectively OP compared to what's in the PHB; for this reason, we originally banned the entirety of Tasha at our table. But as time as gone on, we've kind of steered into it. It opens a lot of gameplay options and character customization. So now our rule is more along the lines of "you have to justify why this is something that fits in your your character's personality"... and not just because "it hits harder".

It's actually worked out quite well at our table (with the exception of one player...). "Oh, you're a level 2 barbarian who has the Shadow Touched feat? How did you learn that? Who taught it to you? Why is that integral to who you are as a barbarian? Did you take this as a quick power grab, or will your character actively sacrifice part of his martial prowess for magical knowledge?" Yes, it is a bit more "fiddly" to do it on a case-by-case situation, but it has cut down on a lot of shenanigans.

We have still more or less banned dips of pretty much any kind. Because you have to justify why your character would know or learn or be exposed to that class's features, our general rule for any "full" campaign is that it needs to be a minimum of six levels in a class.

[animorte]

As to the philosophy behind the list...it very much doesn't jive with my style of running or playing. That does not make you wrong.

This forum sometimes be like that. IMO, you're the DM. It's your game. You can ban anything you don't like.
Both of these represent how I feel about this particular thread.

[Kane0]

BANNED
• Races that fly
• Races with Magic Resistance
• Chronurgy Wizard
• Peace and Twilight Cleric
• Silvery Barbs (1st level)

ALTERED
• Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time.
• Summoned creature shares summoner's initiative
• Summoner picks the creature summoned
• Polymorph Spell maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)

Fair



BANNED
• Vedalken Is this about the advantage on mental saves? Because Gnomes get that
• Shadar-Kai
• Hexblade Warlock Is this about dipping? Because you can move the proficiencies or Cha-weapon to Blade pact at level 3
• Order Cleric
• Find familiar (1st level) So you say this is about spamming scouts, maybe just make it not a ritual spell except for chain pact warlocks?
• Flock of familiars (2nd level)
• Find steed (2nd level)
• Lucky
• Great weapon master/Sharpshooter Is this about damage output? May I suggest taking a look at my sig for some ideas on changing these feats (and others)?
• Sentinel feat (with PAM or Echo Knight) I don't think devoting two of your precious ASIs to locking down opponents in melee is gamebreaking.

ALTERED
• Life Domain clerics casting the goodberry spell summons +3 goodberries rather than each goodberry healing +3 hit points
• Paladin Divine smite damage does not multiply when it is used on a critical hit.
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin's Divine smite
• Druids wild shape cannot be used to turn into tiny creatures
• Circle of the Moon Druids of 2nd level cannot wild shape into stronger creatures than CR ½
• Casting ritual spells can only be done once per long rest without spending spell slots on the spell (this is primarily meant as a nerf to wizards, no longer making them able of casting an endless amount of spells in their downtime)

Why, for all these things? I've added some thoughts in red, but want to hear your thoughts. I don't want to just assume you're reacting to things seen online and not experienced during play at your table, or that this is because of things you personally have trouble handing as a DM.

I totally understand if certain things would be different or unavailable due things specific to your campaign setting, but for purely mechanical changes I'm going to ask for intention and justification (because if it's good I just might copy your homework).

[False God]

Question: How many of these have you actually seen in-play in your group?
-There's a lot of talk about how OP this is or how OP that is, or how OP this strategy is or that class feature online, in whiteroom discussions and IME, few of these represent actual play experiences.
Second Question: Do these bans have any in-universe support? Certain races don't exist? Certain classes have never been invented? Certain spells just haven't been thought of? Or are these bans soley based on meta-concerns?
-If its the latter, refer back to my first question.

If a player is, what we in MTG circles call "netdecking", that is grabbing a list of really powerful combo cards and playing an incredibly unoriginal deck that is grossly unfun to play against for no other purpose than they want to "win", then I suggest the same advice I always have:
Don't ban gameplay, ban players.

I would object strongly to many of these "bans", due to the fact that many of them are a core element of the class. You might as well just ban Wizards, Clerics and Druids if you don't want to deal with caster shenanigans.

If you wish to advise your players that you have a "list" of things that you'll be extra watchful for at the table due to what you feel is their high danger of unbalancing the game, sure go for it. But if you were to present this to me as a potential player? I'd walk.

[AvvyR]

I get where most of these are coming from, and I have kind of a "soft ban" on some of this stuff ("soft ban" in this case means I say to my players "Hey, don't do ridiculous broken stuff to ruin the game.")

What stands out to me is that by banning Hexblade, Find Familiar, and turbo-nerfing rituals, you've effectively banned the entire Warlock class, since Blade, Chain, and Tome pacts are completely or mostly disallowed.


Edit: Also, I agree with False God above, that I think you can fix the overwhelming majority of these issues by just having better, less game-y players. Hence my "soft ban" talk, because hard bans aren't necessary at my table.

[kazaryu]

I intended to ban the entire subclass. You could make a case that "If you take hexblade subclass" then you cannot "Multiclass into Bards, Sorcerers or Paladins". Like Arkhios said, the partial ban makes it more fiddly. Hexblades are often chosen for pure warlocks eventhough they indend to be a caster, simply because the armor and hexblade's curse is so good to have.

thing is, hexbaldes curse is really only a problem if you're able to to proc it more frequently than the hexblade normally can. so like, with a fighters' multi attack+action surge, or most poignantly, via scorching ray/magic missile, or a sorlock using quicken spell on EB. generally speaking the damage is nice for pure warlock, but even at high levels where its a +6 across 4 potential EB hits, its not crazy. thats one of the reason hexblade is most commonly used as a dip, rather than for full warlocks.

[Leon]

What stands out to me is that by banning Hexblade, Find Familiar, and turbo-nerfing rituals, you've effectively banned the entire Warlock class, since Blade, Chain, and Tome pacts are completely or mostly disallowed.


It inconveniences Chain certainly but hardly the others as for Tome the Ritual thing is nice but not a cornerstone of the subclass and Blade pact doesn't need Hexblade to function at all

[Necrosnoop110]

The three that jump out at me that I'm not a fan of banning are:

Find Familiar
Find Steed
Ritual Casting nerf

These don't seem overpowered at all really. If you dig into the rules Familiars and Steeds can be opposed, stopped, and/or killed by many, many things.

tldr; most of your issues can be solved by enforcing rules already in the books a little more diligently and if you ban them creative PCs can easily find alternatives for your problems

(1) Combat helping. If it is the helping in combat, familiars outside of warlocks and extensive buffing, are pretty fragile. And often very unintelligent. Even a weak side-kick of the "real" enemy could take out familiars with very little issue. And AOE spells and effects as well. I play wizards a lot and at most tables the DMs NEVER attack my familiar in any way ever for some reason. Never call for them to make saves. They just get ignored. If you are doing this just follow the rules a little stricter.

(2) Long range scouting. If it's the scouting ahead that is slowing down the game just limit the range the familiars to a hard 100' and that problem is solved. Even if you just keep the standard rules, the telepathy and viewing through the familiar senses only work at 100' And remember that if an owl familiar, for instance, goes off for long range/long duration scouts, that after 100' the owner knows nothing. And when the familiar returns it can only offer the report of INT 2 (-4) animal. It shouldn't be coming back with Sherlock/News Reporter levels of insight, mapping and details. You should just give the PC a general synopsis, if it makes it back alive at all.

(3) Keep in mind there are soooo many scouting option outside the familiar. And sooo many mount options outside of find steed. If you ban these, creative PCs can easily find alternatives. With spells, gold, and certain class abilities PCs can replicate the familiar/steed anyway. You can buy mounts. A rogue PC or hire can long range scout. Let alone magic alternatives likes arcane eyes, echo knights (7th level Echo Avatar), and the list goes on and on.

[AvvyR]

It inconveniences Chain certainly but hardly the others as for Tome the Ritual thing is nice but not a cornerstone of the subclass and Blade pact doesn't need Hexblade to function at all

Uh, yeah. Flat banning the entire feature is certainly an "inconvenience" for that feature.

[Waazraath]

The thing with banning feats that increase martial's single target damage (GWM / SS, but as mentioned if you want that you should also hit CBE, PAM and EA) is imo not that it's impossible to create single target martials anymore. There are still plenty of options, including multiclassing pally with a full caster for lots of extra smite slots, multiclassing for a powered up Shadow Blade, or multiclassing sorcerer quicken spell SCAG/Tasha's cantrips, or multiclassing & optimizing for extra attacks (fighter BM for reaction attacks / war cleric / ranger gloomstalker OR hunter with horde breaker) - but the thing is, most of these oblige martials to multiclass in caster classes.

If the result of the changes is "if a martal wants to be good at damage it should be a caster" has quite a bit of a 3.x vibe to it (not judging here, just stating how it seems to me).

From another perspective, there are plenty of fun and interesting martial builds without being "highest single target dpr evah" - so if you want to see more of those at your table, it's a fine change in the rules.

[Jerrykhor]

I don't agree with 99% of this list but i mean, you do you, its your table. I don't believe in the 'school teacher' style of DMing. Like, 'I see you're having a bit too much fun with this powerful spell, and you're doing 5 damage more than my baseline standard, so im banning that thing' style of DMing.

This kind of list is only necessary if you are doing an open invite to recruit players. If you're playing with your friends whom you know IRL, its usually unnecessary. And even then its a lot less work to just screen out the 'that guy' type of players. Most players aren't going out of their way to play the most broken or most 'meta' characters possible. IMO a thing isn't ban-worthy just because its S-rank on the tier list.

[Waazraath]

I don't agree with 99% of this list but i mean, you do you, its your table. I don't believe in the 'school teacher' style of DMing. Like, 'I see you're having a bit too much fun with this powerful spell, and you're doing 5 damage more than my baseline standard, so im banning that thing' style of DMing.

This kind of list is only necessary if you are doing an open invite to recruit players. If you're playing with your friends whom you know IRL, its usually unnecessary. And even then its a lot less work to just screen out the 'that guy' type of players. Most players aren't going out of their way to play the most broken or most 'meta' characters possible. IMO a thing isn't ban-worthy just because its S-rank on the tier list.

I don't even believe in S-rank tier lists or whatever for 5e, but this is not how I interpret the OP's request (as school teacher style dm'ing). The way I read it, it seems to come at least partly from the observation that a lot of similar choices are made in different games. Which, given the richness of options in a game like D&D, one could see as a loss. I do believe in any case in that restrictions can breed creativity, and that goes as much for a game with rl-friends as when playing with folks you never met before.

[Osuniev]

I don't necessarily have the preferences that you have (for example, I think the RAW GWM is a very good and interesting option, and removing it makes melee Martials weaker than they should be).

But I completely endorse having a restricted list of options. Constraints breed creativity.

In fact, I've now reached the point where I only offer a curated list of options for races, background and classes for each campaign, depending on the feel and theme I want for them.

IE, instead of saying "these are banned" I say "pick among these". My veteran players have so many character concepts that they always have some they want to to try. My newbie players find the restricted list much easier to navigate.

[JackPhoenix]

If anything, my ban list is even more extensive, but based on a different criteria.

Silvery Barbs? Chronurgy? Vedalken? None of that is in a setting we play in, so the entire books are banned.
Shadar-kai? Aarakokra? None of that exist in the setting. Neither do Tabaxi, Gith, or, say, Dragonborn, to mention some less "OP" races. Winged tieflings are a thing, but don't expect everyone to just shrug and go about their business when a demon walks the street.
Peace domain? Twillight domain? None of the available deities have that in their portfolio. There are no clockwork sorcerers, storm herald barbarians or drakewarden rangers either.
There is not anything WotC released after 2020, and half TCoE is banned on thematic grounds, not because it's "too powerful".

[KorvinStarmast]

Following Race choices are not allowed:
• Races that have a flying speed (Aarakocra, Fairy and Tiefling Variant, etc.)
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Satyrs
• Veldalken
• Shadar-Kai Looks similar to my "they are not PCs" list but I also don't allow Kenku PCs. I also do not use Ravnica.


Following subclasses are not allowed:
• Hexblade (warlock)
• Chronurgy (wizard)
• Peace, Order and Twilight domain (Cleric) Order is fine with me. Nobody I have played with has ever chosen it, though.

Following Spells are not allowed:
• Silvery Barbs (1st level)
• Find familiar (1st level)
• Flock of familiars (2nd level)
• Find steed (2nd level) I don't use the book with Silvery Barbs, so it's not even an option for me, but that spell would have been better off left on the drawing board IMO.
Flock of Familiars I have seen, and I don't like the spell, so it's not available.
Find Familiar: There is nothing wrong with it.
Find Steed: why do you dislike paladins? There is nothing wrong with that spell.

Following Feats are not allowed:
• Lucky
• Great weapon master
• Sharpshooter
• Sentinel feat (only if combined with Polearm master feat or Echo Knight fighter subclass)
Why do you hate martial characters? (Echo Knight is not in any of the books that I use).

Summoning spells errata:
• Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time.
• If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours.
• The summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
Close to how I do it; for Conjure Animals the Player and I arrive at a few packages for summons. I don't mind two dire wolves or two bears if the Player is competent enough to run two more characters. If the player just stinks at it, then they get one. Another option is "the only summons are the ones in Tasha's" since that is easier to manage, but you do end up having to make a sheet for those summons since they are a little bit fiddly, as regards features. If you and your player work together on that, I think it works well. But I insist that the player get involved and take their share of the workload.

Paladin Divine smite damage does not multiply when it is used on a critical hit.
Why do you hate paladins? Pointless nerf.

• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin's Divine smite Honestly, I find that a good idea; keep the pact magic separate. It is a different source of magic, and regenerates on a short rest.

• Druids wild shape cannot be used to turn into tiny creatures Why not? As to the risk to the spiders: if a DM can't figure out how someone or something squishes a spider, I'd suggest using one's imagination a bit more. :smallsmile: Ever seen a house cat or a dog mess with a roach that tries to crawl across the floor?

• Circle of the Moon Druids of 2nd level cannot wild shape into stronger creatures than CR ½ DM versus player syndrome appears to be in evidence. Do you lift that restriction at third level?

• Polymorph Spell maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up) While I personally dislike that restriction, I appreciate why that is done based on balance concerns.
I have one DM who thinks that the spell would be much better if that limit was imposed. At the rest of our tables we get a kick out of King Kong showing up now and again.

• Casting ritual spells can only be done once per long rest without spending spell slots on the spell (this is primarily meant as a nerf to wizards, no longer making them able of casting an endless amount of spells in their downtime) Hmm, I'd take a hard look at which spells you include in this list. Unseen Servent summoned numerous times in a day seems innocuous enough. Likewise Tenser's Floating Disc. But I see what you are getting at.

FWIW, I'd say ban the subclass entirely or not at all. I do. But I also boost Pact of the Blade to include Medium Armor as a part of the subclass.

What's wrong with Lucky and Find Familiar? In truth, nothing.

Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times. Furthermore, familiars are incredibly easy to scout with. Yes, that's right. It is a good scout, but it is not undetectable. As the party goes up in levels a lot of creatures can spot them (adult dragons with their high Passive Perception being but one example). The entire Pact of the Chain, Warlock, sub class apparently deserves your hate. I am not sure why. I did like the suggestion that the spell be moved to the Ranger List, but nerfing Pact of the Chain strikes me as needless. In our first campaign, by the time we got to sixth level my brother's wizard frequently lost his familiar

The ban to lucky is just a personal preference. 3 rerolls per long rest is actually very very powerful. I personally prefer games without the feat. Understood. Feats are optional. We have never found it to be a problem. Then again, when I DM it's rarely a 5 minute adventure day.

That seems like an unwarranted amount of hate towards martial characters bringing something to the table. Yes. And that is an artifact, I suspect, of reading all of the DPR posts slamming those feats.

So, banning Hexblade multiclassing is too fiddly, but banning Sentinel ONLY if you have PAM isn't? *nods*

Instead of banning Find Familiar, move it from the Wizard list to the Ranger list, Interesting idea.

but it does reduce the "reasons" to play those classes. Fair point.

I don't necessarily have the preferences that you have (for example, I think the RAW GWM is a very good and interesting option, and removing it makes melee Martials weaker than they should be)

In fact, I've now reached the point where I only offer a curated list of options for races, background and classes for each campaign, depending on the feel and theme I want for them... instead of saying "these are banned" I say "pick among these"...My newbie players find the restricted list much easier to navigate. + eleventy.

Silvery Barbs? Chronurgy? Vedalken? None of that is in a setting we play in, so the entire books are banned. That's how I see it also.
...half of TCoE is banned on thematic grounds, not because it's "too powerful". There are selected items in TCoE that I use, and plenty that I don't. (Quite a few of the magic spells are not allowed, but some are, and many magic items are not allowed. But I use the heck out of the Tattoos; particularly the "single use" tattoos as a reward for doing "something" or doing someone powerful a big favor. Great little consumable there.

[Oramac]

Why do you hate paladins?

This was my reaction as well. Banning Find (Greater) Steed is fine, I guess, but banning smite crits? You may as well just ban the paladin.

Personally, I'm strongly opposed to banning anything (except electronics). As a DM, I'd rather find a creative counter to my players creative actions, rather than just banning stuff.

But hey, it's your table. You do you.

[Ionathus]

In an attempt to avoid the same overpowered build being used every game I have tried to work on a short character creation restriction list that bans some of the most broken builds while still leaving a lot of room for creativity. The idea is to ban overpowered races, 1 level dips in hexblades, S-tier subclasses like wizard chronurgy and tasha's cleric subclasses. Furthermore, the idea is to limit easy exploration through find familiar spells or druid turning into undetectable tiny creatures that can scout through an entire dungeon and to furthermore ban druids from summoning 8 CR 1/4 creatures every encounter that breaks action economy and ... fun!

I'll echo the question several others have asked here: are these things that have hurt your gameplay experience at IRL tables? Because it does read kinda like a laundry list of complaints echoed in online discussions about "the 5e meta".

If you've experienced all of these for yourself, I applaud your tenure as a DM. But if this is based on abstract analysis instead of seeing the feature in actual play, I'd encourage you to give everything a chance before you ban it. I can give examples for many of these features where my players took them and they caused no problems whatsoever. I realize other players in another campaign might have problems, but most of the time I feel like internet discussion is actively searching for exploits, but the average player doesn't. Just because something could be abused doesn't mean it will be. And even if somebody does find a truly gamebreaking exploit, in my experience they will almost always play nice if I explain how it makes the game less fun for the others. And if they don't come to the table with the mindset of "everybody has fun," then I wouldn't have invited them in the first place.


What do you think of the following list?

Tbh I wouldn't want to play at this table. It doesn't matter to me whether these bans are based on your personal DMing experience or from others' online analysis: they reflect a heavier focus on gameplay "balance" than I like. As others have said, this isn't wrong, and some tables really like this degree of fine-tuning the mechanics, and you can sand all those edges off and achieve balance if you're dedicated.

But IMO, 5e is designed to be a little wonky, because its top priority is letting you have fun being a hero with lots of cool abilities, and it's very rare that those abilities are actually too cool. So what if the paladin smites real good on a crit? That's their moment in the spotlight, and everyone can cheer for them, and then next turn the barbarian will do something cool, and after that the cleric.

If one player is consistently underperforming, there are so many other things available to me (magic items, varied monster types, different challenges than "kill all the monsters in this one room") to give them opportunities for looking cool. I would much rather add something fun to elevate everyone else to that level than remove something fun and interesting because it's "too powerful."

I want my players to feel like they're all cheering for each other's PCs to be as strong and cool as possible, and I think opening a campaign with an extensive "ban list" runs counter to that goal, because it puts the idea of something being "too powerful" in the players' heads. Power shouldn't factor into it. I don't want my PCs comparing power levels -- I want my PCs thinking about the setting, and the story, and their characters' team dynamics, and how they're each going to kick in the door and save the world with their individual, unique, badass powers.

[Blackflight]

There has been a lot of valuable feedback in this thread and I agree with a lot of the points being made. On a general note any type of ban list should be discussed with the players and usually its easier to figure out at the table. However, I do like the idea of having a premade list that makes it easier for new players to quickly jump in at the table. I usually like to theorycraft and optimize myself and therefore see no issue when players do the same. There are however, some options that (in my opinion) are simply too strong. With extra consideration I have rolled back a lot of these restrictions and come up with the following changes:

Banned options
• Races that have a flying speed
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Silvery Barbs
• Chronurgy magic (wizard subclass)
• Peace and Twilight domain (Cleric subclass)

Multiclass restrictions
• Hexblade subclass (warlock). Restriction only applies if multiclassing with either Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers classes
• Sentinel feat. Restriction only applies if multiclassing with the Fighter Echo Knight subclass
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin’s Divine smite

Altered
• Summoning: Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time. If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours. Lastly, the summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
• Polymorph Maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)

[Ionathus]

Another option instead of banning Hexblade for CHA multiclasses is to just make Warlocks INT based - INT needs love anyway and I've always seen Warlocks as more about intelligence and seeking forgotten forbidden lore anyway.

[thoroughlyS]

Obligatory post that 5e is opt-in by design and you can't ban anything outside of organized play structures which just have preset opt-in material.

Obligatory obligatory post reminding that while the end results might be similar, framing is important in regards to how people respond to each and maintaining a cohesive table and game logic/structure should be a higher priority than trying to sink up the totality of context.
Especially since we're not talking about just player facing material because many options directly pull from the other side of the screen with Transformation and summoning features.
I want to echo stoustien here. The most important thing to keep in-mind is that the DM always gets to decide what is included at the table. If you're the DM, I hope your players respect your choices as to what not to include.




Following Race choices are not allowed:
• Races that have a flying speed (Aarakocra, Fairy and Tiefling Variant, etc.)
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Satyrs
• Veldalken
• Shadar-Kai
I would also argue for excluding eladrin, which are just as crazy as shadar-kai. Free non-spell misty step is kind of crazy.
I am super curious why Vedalken are listed. Could you elaborate on them?

Following Feats are not allowed:
• Lucky
• Great weapon master
• Sharpshooter
• Sentinel feat (only if combined with Polearm master feat or Echo Knight fighter subclass)
You hit the two big martial feats, but didn't hit the big spellcaster feat: War Caster. I would exclude that as well, so that casters aren't suddenly the only worthwhile option. I would also personally exclude Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master instead of Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter, but either pair does what you want.

General errata:
• Life Domain clerics casting the goodberry spell summons +3 goodberries rather than each goodberry healing +3 hit points
• Paladin Divine smite damage does not multiply when it is used on a critical hit.
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the PaladinÂ’s Divine smite
• Druids wild shape cannot be used to turn into tiny creatures
• Circle of the Moon Druids of 2nd level cannot wild shape into stronger creatures than CR ½
• Polymorph Spell maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)
• Casting ritual spells can only be done once per long rest without spending spell slots on the spell (this is primarily meant as a nerf to wizards, no longer making them able of casting an endless amount of spells in their downtime)
Your first point is actually reflective of a misunderstanding of the Preserve Life/goodberry interaction. Preserve Life only applies to spells that restore hit points, and goodberry doesn't restore hit points, it creates magic food. Your ruling (that it creates 3 more berries) is also what I use, because I think it's cool.
I understand not doubling smites on a crit. It prevents a lucky 20 from ending a boss fight early. Your players probably won't like it unless you explain why you're doing it.
Your third point here is the first change to the rules you've listed. Everything else has just been excluding certain options from the table. This is actually a houserule. I am actually going to argue against making this change. The interaction between pact slots and sorcery points/divine smite is not exploitable. The players are still expending resources, just on different stuff. Divine smite isn't always better than actually casting a spell with that slot, so I don't think it should be disallowed.
I will join the chorus that Tiny animals shouldn't be assumed to be beneath the notice of NPCs and monsters. I've always compared the spider statblock to the cat stablock with my players and pointed out that it probably isn't representing a house spider. It's representing a bird eating spider (https://critter.science/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/gbet1-1180x520.jpg)(WARNING: big spider).
I will also argue against limiting ritual spells. There aren't really any ritual spells that are exploitable if cast repeatedly. That's why they're allowed to be rituals.

[Mastikator]

Another option instead of banning Hexblade for CHA multiclasses is to just make Warlocks INT based - INT needs love anyway and I've always seen Warlocks as more about intelligence and seeking forgotten forbidden lore anyway.

Hex singer is going to be absolutely sick.

[KorvinStarmast]

There has been a lot of valuable feedback in this thread and I agree with a lot of the points being made. On a general note any type of ban list should be discussed with the players and usually its easier to figure out at the table. However, I do like the idea of having a premade list that makes it easier for new players to quickly jump in at the table. I usually like to theorycraft and optimize myself and therefore see no issue when players do the same. There are however, some options that (in my opinion) are simply too strong. With extra consideration I have rolled back a lot of these restrictions and come up with the following changes:

Banned options
• Races that have a flying speed
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Silvery Barbs
• Chronurgy magic (wizard subclass)
• Peace and Twilight domain (Cleric subclass)

Multiclass restrictions
• Hexblade subclass (warlock). Restriction only applies if multiclassing with either Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers classes
• Sentinel feat. Restriction only applies if multiclassing with the Fighter Echo Knight subclass
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin’s Divine smite

Altered
• Summoning: Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time. If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours. Lastly, the summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
• Polymorph Maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up) I'd be happy to play with those constraints, even though I would give a sad face on Polymorph, there's still plenty of fun to be had if the Wizard turns my Rogue into a Giant Scorpion (CR 3) for a while. Fun! :smallsmile:

[Kane0]

There has been a lot of valuable feedback in this thread and I agree with a lot of the points being made. On a general note any type of ban list should be discussed with the players and usually its easier to figure out at the table. However, I do like the idea of having a premade list that makes it easier for new players to quickly jump in at the table. I usually like to theorycraft and optimize myself and therefore see no issue when players do the same. There are however, some options that (in my opinion) are simply too strong. With extra consideration I have rolled back a lot of these restrictions and come up with the following changes:

Banned options
• Races that have a flying speed
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Silvery Barbs
• Chronurgy magic (wizard subclass)
• Peace and Twilight domain (Cleric subclass)

Multiclass restrictions
• Hexblade subclass (warlock). Restriction only applies if multiclassing with either Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers classes
• Sentinel feat. Restriction only applies if multiclassing with the Fighter Echo Knight subclass
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin’s Divine smite

Altered
• Summoning: Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time. If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours. Lastly, the summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
• Polymorph Maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)

I'd be totally fine with that list

[Waazraath]

+1 to 'would be fine for me as a player', logical list.

[False God]

There has been a lot of valuable feedback in this thread and I agree with a lot of the points being made. On a general note any type of ban list should be discussed with the players and usually its easier to figure out at the table. However, I do like the idea of having a premade list that makes it easier for new players to quickly jump in at the table. I usually like to theorycraft and optimize myself and therefore see no issue when players do the same. There are however, some options that (in my opinion) are simply too strong. With extra consideration I have rolled back a lot of these restrictions and come up with the following changes:

Banned options
• Races that have a flying speed
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Silvery Barbs
• Chronurgy magic (wizard subclass)
• Peace and Twilight domain (Cleric subclass)

Multiclass restrictions
• Hexblade subclass (warlock). Restriction only applies if multiclassing with either Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers classes
• Sentinel feat. Restriction only applies if multiclassing with the Fighter Echo Knight subclass
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin’s Divine smite

Altered
• Summoning: Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time. If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours. Lastly, the summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
• Polymorph Maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)

That seems like a more reasonable list IMO.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There has been a lot of valuable feedback in this thread and I agree with a lot of the points being made. On a general note any type of ban list should be discussed with the players and usually its easier to figure out at the table. However, I do like the idea of having a premade list that makes it easier for new players to quickly jump in at the table. I usually like to theorycraft and optimize myself and therefore see no issue when players do the same. There are however, some options that (in my opinion) are simply too strong. With extra consideration I have rolled back a lot of these restrictions and come up with the following changes:

Banned options
• Races that have a flying speed
• Yuan-ti purebloods
• Silvery Barbs
• Chronurgy magic (wizard subclass)
• Peace and Twilight domain (Cleric subclass)

Multiclass restrictions
• Hexblade subclass (warlock). Restriction only applies if multiclassing with either Bards, Paladins or Sorcerers classes
• Sentinel feat. Restriction only applies if multiclassing with the Fighter Echo Knight subclass
• Warlock spell slots cannot be converted into sorcery points or be used to cast abilities like the Paladin’s Divine smite

Altered
• Summoning: Each character can never have more than one summoned creature active at a time. If not already mentioned in the spell description, the summoned creature shares your initiative count in combat, but takes its turn immediately after yours. Lastly, the summoning character decides which of the eligible creatures are summoned.
• Polymorph Maximum CR value equal to ½ character level (round up)

I'd be fine with these. My summoning rule is a bit less restrictive--I merely suggest that you don't call more than 2 things. And also that summoned, created, conjured, etc creatures will not ever summon, conjure, or create another minion. No chaining minions by any means. Period. This also stops the whole wight-apocalypse scenario dead--you need to be an OG wight to be able to create more undead that way.

[Oramac]

I could live with the amended list.

I will propose what I've done in the past though. This has helped curb the really screwy stuff my players come up with.

Basically, I don't ban anything at my table. I do, however, remind my players that if they can do something, so can the monsters. It only takes once or twice of the monsters summoning a bunch of pixies to cast polymorph before the players start to think all the way through their plans first.

[Zuras]

I see the OPs motivations, but I’d personally just soft-ban most of the problematic items, especially the Familiars and other summons issues.

Except Silvery Barbs. That one was just a massive mistake.

On the other hand, I’ve never had a repeat build between campaigns from my players, ever, so I can’t really relate to the OPs position.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I'll say I also find the idea of not allowing smites to crit strange, mostly because I don't see what "problem" we're addressing here.

If the party is committing resources to guarantee a crit I don't see why they should be punished for that.

On the other hand, of your worry is that the paladin is getting too much from a crit that probably means they're not smiting much otherwise. Crit fishing on Paladin is, in my opinion, a bit of a trap. If you only choose to smite on a crit that means you're not smiting otherwise, which means you're doing zero extra damage rather than a few dice extra.

[Joe the Rat]

I'm also on the side of not restricting rituals, but I can see the concern with the idea of a wizard casting rituals 8-5 daily. I would be more inclined to make it once per short rest. It gives you a limiter on wizards, and gives the grumpy long-rest-only caster a reason to short rest (gotta get that free identify!).

[Ionathus]

I see the OPs motivations, but I’d personally just soft-ban most of the problematic items, especially the Familiars and other summons issues.

Question: how do you define "soft ban"? I've seen this term before but have never been able to get a good definition, and Google isn't helping me here either.


On the other hand, I’ve never had a repeat build between campaigns from my players, ever, so I can’t really relate to the OPs position.

Echoing this thought. The only circumstance I can see OP experiencing lots of repeat "overplayed" builds at their table is if their main DMing space is a drop-in gaming table at an FLGS or AL-type setup. Which would also explain why they're thinking of drawing up a cut and dry list of bans instead of just asking their players to not exploit unfun mechanics on a case-by-case basis: if the roster is always changing, it's easier to set the limitations right off the bat instead of relying on the goodwill of your longtime RPG friends.


I'll say I also find the idea of not allowing smites to crit strange, mostly because I don't see what "problem" we're addressing here.

If the party is committing resources to guarantee a crit I don't see why they should be punished for that.

On the other hand, of your worry is that the paladin is getting too much from a crit that probably means they're not smiting much otherwise. Crit fishing on Paladin is, in my opinion, a bit of a trap. If you only choose to smite on a crit that means you're not smiting otherwise, which means you're doing zero extra damage rather than a few dice extra.

Agree with all of this. Paladin consistently gets singled out for nerfs because when some people see that chunky crit smite damage they panic, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of denying fun player options war.

But in the average campaign (which doesn't crack level 10), paladins will rarely get above 2nd level slots, and rarely have more than 7 slots total. And those same slots have to compete for their spellcasting - and in 5 years of weekly DMing, I could count on one hand the number of times any of my spellcasting players have used up their spell slots completely. It's an extremely limited resource, good for big flashy moments, but it cannot be sustained consistently over even two nontrivial fights!


I'm also on the side of not restricting rituals, but I can see the concern with the idea of a wizard casting rituals 8-5 daily. I would be more inclined to make it once per short rest. It gives you a limiter on wizards, and gives the grumpy long-rest-only caster a reason to short rest (gotta get that free identify!).

I don't see anything broken with rituals. The ritual spells are specifically chosen because they can't be abused by being spammed - you usually can't benefit from multiple castings, and most of them are for downtime uses anyway (communication, transportation, etc). The only one I can think of that's useful in the midst of dungeon delving is Detect Magic, and even then if your players are stopping every 10 minutes to re-up their 10 minutes of Mage-O-VisionTM, it's your job as DM to give them consequences for doubling their exploration time.

The consequences are the key here for me. Take Identify for example: If you have multiple unidentified magic items, and you want to use them right this moment, the "hard choice" is already there between burning a slot or waiting 10 minutes per item. Either the PCs are in a dire situation where every minute counts, or they aren't. If your concern is that they'll spam 5 ritual castings of Identify in the middle of a dungeon when it doesn't make sense, then give them the same consequences as you would for short resting in the middle of a dungeon when it doesn't make sense. But if they're out of the dungeon and free to long rest until the plot comes along again, then there's no reason to gum up the logistics of Identify. That player chose a Wizard so they could be a master of the arcane, and they chose to put Identify in their spellbook so that they could cast it. Let them do their cool thing. Find a different complication.

[Slingbow]

Find familiar is banned because it is incredibly good to have a free help action on your character at all times. Furthermore, familiars are incredibly easy to scout with. Turn them into a tiny tiny spider, crawl through an entire dungeon and scout out the whole thing with zero risk involved. Its probably smart the first time someone did it, but after having seen the trick being used more than a hundred times it just breaks the exploration part of dungeons.

The ban to lucky is just a personal preference. 3 rerolls per long rest is actually very very powerful. I personally prefer games without the feat.

I have to admit I've angered many a DM with pact of the chain. And silvery barbs.

That said, I would rather play with drastic restrictions, like no full casters, or even no magic users at all than pidly little changes. If I can't play a GOD Wizard then I'll just be a fighter.

[windgate]

The whole ban list strikes me as an example of "treating the symptoms but not the cause"


The players building powerful characters are building them because... they want to be powerful.... Assuming the player is even willing to join the game you are making (despite the ban list) they are going to go looking for something you missed, and you will get end up just adding to your next version.


instead of making reactive restrictions why don't you identify what you actually want your players to choose instead and reward them for making the desired choices.

Give benefits to players that pick certain races
Give benefits to players who do not multiclass
Give benefits for playing certain subclasses

If you want variety, "buff" the weak choices.

As for the Familiars and pets. Your answer here is enviromental hazards.

The Familiar (owl) has ONE hitpoint.

Wizard Player: I send my owl to scout the dungeon
DM: Okay
Wizard Player: What does it see
DM: Your pet is scared being alone so it is moving fast. It scouts a bit but does not see much. (DM rolls a dice) Make a Dexterity save for your pet
Player: says result
DM: Your pet experiences a sudden pain and you lose your connection to it.

One hit point means it would die to a static damage modifier from a surprise attack or a random falling rock..... Dead things cannot communicate (what killed them) after they are dead.


Enviromental threats and AOE attacks are the solution to large numbers of creatures. Make use of them. Heck, give the players warning in advance to incentivize behavior. 8+ Animals might be great tactically, but the player might sacrifice that choice if they are actually tracking damage (and making saving throws) on all of them independently.

[windgate]

I also wonder if the simpler route to getting your desired result is implementing gritty realism.

Short Rest: 8 Hours
Long Rest: 7 Days

It is a lot easier to create the design intended 6-8 encounters per long rest. A lot of the "overpowered" builds lack endurance. Tell your players about the fights per rest expectation as you might just see the variety you want.

[stoutstien]

It is a lot easier to create the design intended 6-8 encounters per long rest. A lot of the "overpowered" builds lack endurance. Tell your players about the fights per rest expectation as you might just see the variety you want.

No such design intent exists. It assumes the GM will toggle as needed for a given table.

[windgate]

No such design intent exists. It assumes the GM will toggle as needed for a given table.

From the DMG, p.84 "Assuming typical adventuring conditions* and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day," and a little later, "This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest."


You want to do fewer fights, that's perfectly acceptable but optimized characters and parties will streamroll through everything without being challenged very much.

Edit: Or you could make 1-2 fights with an insanely high CR, but that effectively mandates everyone plays "top tier" characters to survive which exasterbates the OP's complaint.

[stoutstien]

From the DMG, p.84 "Assuming typical adventuring conditions* and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day," and a little later, "This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest."


You want to do fewer fights, that's perfectly acceptable but powerful characters will streamroll through everything without being challenged very much.

Reread the entire section. It's a "warning sharp curves ahead. Proceed with caution" not "This is the speed you must drive or your car will explode" and even then it's only referencing this within the paradigm of using the experience budget style of planning which isn't assumed either.

5e has no baseline for using encounters as a pacing via resource management. They have never started a min/max encounter count used as a balancing factor. They have an post hoc value based on reported table feedback. Big difference.

[Willowhelm]

As for the Familiars and pets. Your answer here is enviromental hazards.

The Familiar (owl) has ONE hitpoint.

Wizard Player: I send my owl to scout the dungeon
DM: Okay
Wizard Player: What does it see
DM: Your pet is scared being alone so it is moving fast. It scouts a bit but does not see much. (DM rolls a dice) Make a Dexterity save for your pet
Player: says result
DM: Your pet experiences a sudden pain and you lose your connection to it.

One hit point means it would die to a static damage modifier from a surprise attack or a random falling rock..... Dead things cannot communicate (what killed them) after they are dead..

While I agree with your overall point. Your example here is flawed.

The DM has chosen the familiar is moving fast. The player may explicitly say they are being stealthy. (Owl has +3 stealth). They’ve also had them move forward after they “don’t see much” without the player getting info on what was seen and making choices.

Then they failed to notice something (owl has passive perception 13, perception +3 and advantage on checks hearing or sight… what exactly is it that got the drop on them?)

You seem to be giving them a connection outside of the 100ft and knowledge that it died. Is this a pact chain familiar? In which case now they’re flying and invisible and have some actual hp and it’s a whole different ball game.

So the wizard just drops 10g and resummoning them, then asks them what killed them. Turns out dead things can communicate. (As the familiar from find familiar specifically doesn’t die at 0hp)

So, yeah, familiar are easy to deal with but… this example isn’t great.

You send the owl to scout. It gets noticed, “killed”, and while you’re waiting for it to return (because you have no knowledge of any of this) the entire dungeon is now on the move preparing for the wizard party and goes on the offence. Roll initiative.

[windgate]

....

Good Rebuttal, there were definitely flaws in my example.

The DM declaring the familiar was moving too fast took away player agency. Should not do that.

But the player should be required to deal with both the pet's low intelligence score and instructing it to act in abnormal way. Owls are not proficient in stealth and IIRC are naturally ambush predators (not stalkers like big cats). sneaking through rooms is not normal behavior for a bird like that, which would be suspicious behavior.

As for the surprise element. If you were aware of what was attacking you, Its pretty hard to justify you having the surprised condition. If you died during a surprise attack I am willing to grant you knowing how you died but I am dubious on whether or not you would be aware of what killed you since you were not aware of it before you were hit with lethal damage.

[windgate]

Reread the entire section. It's a "warning sharp curves ahead. Proceed with caution" not "This is the speed you must drive or your car will explode" and even then it's only referencing this within the paradigm of using the experience budget style of planning which isn't assumed either.

5e has no baseline for using encounters as a pacing via resource management. They have never started a min/max encounter count used as a balancing factor. They have an post hoc value based on reported table feedback. Big difference.

I get it. There is a resource management element to this game that has been problematic in multiple editions and tier of play. Players start off relatively fragile but rapidly accumulate resilience as they gain levels (such as hit die and spell slots in 5e). At low levels 6-8 fights is pretty suicidal.

That being said, If the party is consistently fully exhausting their offensive resources but barely using hit dice (for healing), long rest frequency is a balance issue that should considered.

[stoutstien]

I get it. There is a resource management element to this game that has been problematic in multiple editions and tier of play. Players start off relatively fragile but rapidly accumulate resilience as they gain levels (such as hit die and spell slots in 5e). At low levels 6-8 fights is pretty suicidal.

That being said, If the party is consistently fully exhausting their offensive resources but barely using hit dice (for healing), long rest frequency is a balance issue that should considered.

5e just doesn't care about bout recovery of resources without GM fiat. They actually took a play out of thier back catalog and used an OSR approach which is smart....though they failed at editing and presentation but I digress.
By not caring as much about stuff like resources or encounter count you can do a lot more at the system level of writing and publishing material.

Failure to capitalize on that by pumping out soulless splats and heartless settings is it own issue. There's a reason that E:RftLW is the only one with any guts.

[sithlordnergal]

-SNIP-

Sooo...people have already said my thoughts on the ban list. I can understand some of the nerfs and bans, others seem unnecessary. Like I can fully get the racial bans, banning certain subclasses, banning specific feats, and nerfing summoning. However, I agree with the rest that some things go too far. Like the ban on Find Familiar and Find Steed? Neither of those are game breaking, banning one of them removes an entire subclass, and banning both really gets rid of what are essentially class features made into spells.

As for things like Rituals, Wildshape, and Divine Smite, you're basically removing/nerfing core features of those classes. Nerfing Rituals really makes it so casting leveled spells will be the only thing Wizards do, something I find a lot of DMs dislike. Wildshape is a core part of the Druid, and Tiny animals tend to not be very useful outside of some very specific circumstances. They're just too squishy, and their stats too low. And then no critting on Divine Smite makes zero sense. Are you also removing the ability to crit with Sneak Attack? Its basically on par with Divine Smite, it just does a little bit less damage in exchange for being able to be used every single round.

All in all, while you are the DM, I'd ask yourself why you're making these changes, and trying to determine if making the changes will:

A) Fix your issue

and

B) Keep things fun and interesting


If your issue is "These things are OP", check to see if they're actually OP or not. Check if your players are following the proper rules for their use, and how often the OP situations come up. I noticed one reason for banning Find Steed is due to being able to disengage via the mount. But does that actually come up often enough to be an issue? Are your players using that Large Mount in areas to be an issue?

Finally, if you are worried about things being OP, there's sad news. Just about everything can be made OP in this game with the right combination.


-----

EDIT: I just saw the amended list, that is far, far more reasonable than your first list.



It inconveniences Chain certainly but hardly the others as for Tome the Ritual thing is nice but not a cornerstone of the subclass and Blade pact doesn't need Hexblade to function at all

Umm...It absolutely makes Tome and Blade unplayable. Tome is all about Rituals, their main invocation involves being able to prepare and cast any ritual, regardless of what class its from. While it has expanded a little bit via Tasha's and Xanathar's, Rituals are a core part of the Tomelock. Hell, Pact of the Tome only has one unique Invocation in the PHB, and its the one that lets you get every single Ritual. Meanwhile Chain and Blade both had two unique Invocations in the PHB.

As for Pact of the Blade, I am fully convinced that Hexblade was made solely to fix the Blade Pact's shortcomings. You know how you'd make a melee Warlock pre-Hexblade? Take a level of Fighter or Paladin for armor, go Tomelock, take Shillelagh and PAM, snag Find Familiar for a ritual. You used less Invocations, and your damage was still on par with a Bladepact till level 12 when you could take Lifedrinker. So they made Hexblade in order to fix Pact of the Blade and make it viable...and they did it by putting everything that should have been in Pact of the Blade into Hex Warrior.

Of course, even then Hexblade on its own is not OP. I'd say its on par with most of the other subclass options. The real issue that Hexblade ran into is that Warlock has always been the best dip for any Charisma caster from day 1, and because they basically made the important Pact of the Blade features into a level 1 subclass feature it made dips even stronger.

[JackPhoenix]

Agree with all of this. Paladin consistently gets singled out for nerfs because when some people see that chunky crit smite damage they panic, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of denying fun player options war.

But in the average campaign (which doesn't crack level 10), paladins will rarely get above 2nd level slots, and rarely have more than 7 slots total. And those same slots have to compete for their spellcasting - and in 5 years of weekly DMing, I could count on one hand the number of times any of my spellcasting players have used up their spell slots completely. It's an extremely limited resource, good for big flashy moments, but it cannot be sustained consistently over even two nontrivial fights!

Divine Smite is just a Sneak Attack with resource cost and different damage type (and d8 instead of d6 dice, but capped at 6d8 (27) instead of 10d6 (35).


So the wizard just drops 10g and resummoning them, then asks them what killed them.

10 GP and AN HOUR OF TIME at least. While whoever killed the owl knows something's up. Whatever intel the owl had may no longer be accurate.

[windgate]

By not caring as much about stuff like resources or encounter count you can do a lot more at the system level of writing and publishing material.

Failure to capitalize on that by pumping out soulless splats and heartless settings is it own issue. There's a reason that E:RftLW is the only one with any guts.

Perhaps there is also a diverging range of desires and expectations from the system, specifically what is it that keeps people coming back to the table for hours at a time.

4th Edition seemed to have been almost exclusively built around tightly balanced tactical combat with an element of wisely managing resources. It was great for people that derived satisfaction from that but it almost completely alienated people that were looking for almost anything else. It didn't really do anything else which was a massive failure on its part.

The speed and relative simplicity of combat in 5th Edition opens the door for people who are motivated by the other elements of TTRPG but it does sacrifice in that one area. Namely the CR system is relatively more difficult in creating hard but not brutal combat encounters.

I have yet to play in a game where the DM even used experience Points. If we were using the traditional methods (experience points), levels would take forever. The alternative method for a DM is to make a few hard orinteresting fights and grant levels regardless of the XP. Which leads to the "5 Minute adventuring day thing where a lot of builds feel inferior.

What exactly is the point of getting fighters and warlocks recovery on short rests if they never even need to take them?

You can have engaging and narratively interesting fights but if you are trying to simulate a (1) long day off fighting off a horde of enemies, or (2) doing the "none shall pass!" trope, the necessary attrition element is hard to implement in 5e.

The DM could put the overwhelming number of weaker enemies into a single battle but then it goes back to the stereotype of Wizard > Everyone else.

[stoutstien]

Perhaps there is also a diverging range of desires and expectations from the system, specifically what is it that keeps people coming back to the table for hours at a time.

4th Edition seemed to have been almost exclusively built around tightly balanced tactical combat with an element of wisely managing resources. It was great for people that derived satisfaction from that but it almost completely alienated people that were looking for almost anything else. It didn't really do anything else which was a massive failure on its part.

The speed and relative simplicity of combat in 5th Edition opens the door for people who are motivated by the other elements of TTRPG but it does sacrifice in that one area. Namely the CR system is relatively more difficult in creating hard but not brutal combat encounters.

I have yet to play in a game where the DM even used experience Points. If we were using the traditional methods (experience points), levels would take forever. The alternative method for a DM is to make a few hard orinteresting fights and grant levels regardless of the XP. Which leads to the "5 Minute adventuring day thing where a lot of builds feel inferior.

What exactly is the point of getting fighters and warlocks recovery on short rests if they never even need to take them?

You can have engaging and narratively interesting fights but if you are trying to simulate a (1) long day off fighting off a horde of enemies, or (2) doing the "none shall pass!" trope, the necessary attrition element is hard to implement in 5e.

The DM could put the overwhelming number of weaker enemies into a single battle but then it goes back to the stereotype of Wizard > Everyone else.

Yea at it's core 5e is low clearance/ high tolerance. It can handle a lot of different modes of play but it also assumes a lot from the GM side with little support.

That's why I never begrudge a GM on what content to use or not regardless of my personal taste or confront levels. If they have issues and ask for suggestions then sure. I've messed up enough to know something relevant...occasionally..even if I usually talk myself into circles in the process

Like the OP is overly focused on superficial balance which is a common mistake. It takes a lot of time to learn that stuff like damage is a low priority on the list of things to worry about.

[Zuras]

Question: how do you define "soft ban"? I've seen this term before but have never been able to get a good definition, and Google isn't helping me here either.

A soft ban is basically telling a player “you can have ability X, but it looks ripe for abuse, so don’t do abusive things with it”. This can either be done just by asking, or with stepped consequences, where the players are aware it will trigger escalating countermeasures in a logical game world.

For example, scouting around a corner or a few rooms ahead with a familiar is reasonable, but trying to scout the whole dungeon is too much—I can come up with logical obstacles and constraints if needed, but I don’t want to start a player-DM arms race. Nonchalantly getting your familiar killed repeatedly for some mechanical benefit would annoy me as well.

It’s like the bag of rats trick—some things don’t fit tonally, but I don’t want to figure out why a bag of rats doesn’t work but ritually killing a pheasant and reading it’s entrails does work (since RAW it’s the same reducing a creature to zero hp).

There are lots of cool abilities that just don’t work in a team game if you abuse them to their fullest extent. If Superman made the fullest use of his super-speed in every Justice League episode, there wouldn’t be much for anyone else to do. You don’t want to leave Superman out of the Justice League, though, so he just avoids doing that.

A soft ban means players have access to these abilities, but only use them in extreme ways in dire situations or when the Rule of Cool says they’re appropriate, the DM is not obligated to figure out specific bright-line limitations or explicit consequences beforehand.

It works best if the player comes up with the rationale—maybe they actually feel psychic pain when their summoned creatures die, so they normally don’t use them as cannon fodder.

The upshot is you don’t formally ban something, you and your players just agree not to use it, because it won’t be fun. It hasn’t been ruled impossible in the world, so if a situation comes up where it would be fun, it’s available.

[Ionathus]

Ah, I see, so you define "soft ban" as more or less a good-faith request to not abuse a given mechanic? Makes sense to me.

Thanks for the explanation!

[Slingbow]

A soft ban is basically telling a player “you can have ability X, but it looks ripe for abuse, so don’t do abusive things with it”. This can either be done just by asking, or with stepped consequences, where the players are aware it will trigger escalating countermeasures in a logical game world.

For example, scouting around a corner or a few rooms ahead with a familiar is reasonable, but trying to scout the whole dungeon is too much—I can come up with logical obstacles and constraints if needed, but I don’t want to start a player-DM arms race. Nonchalantly getting your familiar killed repeatedly for some mechanical benefit would annoy me as well.

It’s like the bag of rats trick—some things don’t fit tonally, but I don’t want to figure out why a bag of rats doesn’t work but ritually killing a pheasant and reading it’s entrails does work (since RAW it’s the same reducing a creature to zero hp).

There are lots of cool abilities that just don’t work in a team game if you abuse them to their fullest extent. If Superman made the fullest use of his super-speed in every Justice League episode, there wouldn’t be much for anyone else to do. You don’t want to leave Superman out of the Justice League, though, so he just avoids doing that.

A soft ban means players have access to these abilities, but only use them in extreme ways in dire situations or when the Rule of Cool says they’re appropriate, the DM is not obligated to figure out specific bright-line limitations or explicit consequences beforehand.

It works best if the player comes up with the rationale—maybe they actually feel psychic pain when their summoned creatures die, so they normally don’t use them as cannon fodder.

The upshot is you don’t formally ban something, you and your players just agree not to use it, because it won’t be fun. It hasn’t been ruled impossible in the world, so if a situation comes up where it would be fun, it’s available.

I love this. It addresses the real issue of "why is the player spamming/abusing?". There is a player/DM communication problem. Not really a game mechanics problem. I like restrictions when they are intended to make the game challenging and more interesting.

[Leon]

Umm...It absolutely makes Tome and Blade unplayable. Tome is all about Rituals, their main invocation involves being able to prepare and cast any ritual, regardless of what class its from. While it has expanded a little bit via Tasha's and Xanathar's, Rituals are a core part of the Tomelock. Hell, Pact of the Tome only has one unique Invocation in the PHB, and its the one that lets you get every single Ritual. Meanwhile Chain and Blade both had two unique Invocations in the PHB.

As for Pact of the Blade, I am fully convinced that Hexblade was made solely to fix the Blade Pact's shortcomings. You know how you'd make a melee Warlock pre-Hexblade? Take a level of Fighter or Paladin for armor, go Tomelock, take Shillelagh and PAM, snag Find Familiar for a ritual. You used less Invocations, and your damage was still on par with a Bladepact till level 12 when you could take Lifedrinker. So they made Hexblade in order to fix Pact of the Blade and make it viable...and they did it by putting everything that should have been in Pact of the Blade into Hex Warrior.

Of course, even then Hexblade on its own is not OP. I'd say its on par with most of the other subclass options. The real issue that Hexblade ran into is that Warlock has always been the best dip for any Charisma caster from day 1, and because they basically made the important Pact of the Blade features into a level 1 subclass feature it made dips even stronger.

Tome's Ritual Invocation is last time I checked an Optional choice, yeah its for the sub class but the subclass doesn't need it to function as the Subclass. If it were actually critically important to the subclass it'd be up there with the Pact of Tome entry but you know what its not. Take away all the Invocations and the Subclasses are still able to do what the subclass does. The invocations just add options or extra effects. Yes you can make a Melee warlock a multitude of ways including just being a Blade-pact Warlock with no MC or convoluted feat selections, it works fine out of the box.

[KyleG]

In my next campaign im considering banning the full casters or at least going past level 11 in one of them. I want a lower magic setting and this feels appropriate. I looked for ideas to keep class progression until 20 with some other benefit but haven't found one as yet.
Im also more a fan of sorcerers for a campaign than wizards, not because of spell potential but again the flavour or a wizard who is supposed to spend years studying goes on an adventure and learns (powering up isnt the issue) Spells that normally take significant time. Sorcerers, even bards its much more intuitive. So clerics would probably have to go too. Maybe I don't like prepard casters?
In this setting i am also considering restricting races to max of 2 or maybe 3 between the pcs. It is hard to justify how a dragonborn, tabaxi, tortle, elf and goblin (as examples) all have found themselves living in village x of 150 people. A big metropolis sure but village x is a 4weeks walk from said metropolis.
Makes sense right?

Either way as long as you are upfront and you still get players interested then no harm no foul i reckon.

[Kane0]

In my next campaign im considering banning the full casters or at least going past level 11 in one of them. I want a lower magic setting and this feels appropriate. I looked for ideas to keep class progression until 20 with some other benefit but haven't found one as yet.

You could go old school and increase the XP needed for full-casting classes to level up after your 'sweet spot' levels.

[animorte]

In my next campaign im considering banning the full casters.
I have played a few times in which there was nothing above half-caster and it was honestly among the best experiences I've had.

[KyleG]

I have played a few times in which there was nothing above half-caster and it was honestly among the best experiences I've had.

Did they multiclass to other classes or were those casters not even available? If the former were there any rules around this or their other class levels?

[animorte]

Did they multiclass to other classes or were those casters not even available? If the former were there any rules around this or their other class levels?
Most players were single class, but everybody agreed that full casters didn't exist except for cases like Druidic Warrior, Blessed Warrior, or 1/3 caster subclasses.

[diplomancer]

If your players are spamming rituals and you think that's a problem, one easy way to fix it is require the casting of rituals to be more or less stationary. Not necessarily not moving at all, but staying mostly in the same physical location. Might be a problem in a sea-faring campaign, but otherwise it deals with most of the problems.

[Veldrenor]

In this setting i am also considering restricting races to max of 2 or maybe 3 between the pcs. It is hard to justify how a dragonborn, tabaxi, tortle, elf and goblin (as examples) all have found themselves living in village x of 150 people. A big metropolis sure but village x is a 4weeks walk from said metropolis.
Makes sense right?


All depends on how you're starting the campaign, really. Makes sense if the campaign is supposed to start with everyone living together in the same small village (barring the "we came to the furthest, smallest town to hide/escape _____" trope). But you can totally justify them all being in the village if some portion of them aren't residents - even the most remote villages get the occasional traveler selling goods or providing services the village doesn't have. Or the PCs could all be from different villages that have come to town for the day because the town has some important central feature: a mill, a market, a festival, etc.

[windgate]

In this setting i am also considering restricting races to max of 2 or maybe 3 between the pcs. It is hard to justify how a dragonborn, tabaxi, tortle, elf and goblin (as examples) all have found themselves living in village x of 150 people. A big metropolis sure but village x is a 4weeks walk from said metropolis.
Makes sense right?


I've done race restriction similar to that before. I thought it worked pretty well. I limited the setting to 5 "known" intelligent races with the Players choosing 3 of them during session zero (I lumped all "subraces" into a single race for this purpose). They might encounter others at some point but the rarity of it would be a major discovery.

It gave me some extra re-usability for a world map I have been drawing and adding more details over time. Fewer races also requires less work from the GM in filing out the culture in places the PC's explore. The Player will also have a sense of where "Home" and "Family" is.