The new, shiny "Stuff I Have/Would Ban" thread!

[Infiniti2000]

Players will always lose the arms race against the DM if the DM sets his mind to it.

True, but that's the mark of a bad DM, not whether something is banned. Banning things does not make a DM bad.

Moreover, there's as much reason to trust a group of people on the internet who are dedicated to 4E rules as there is to trust the designers of the game. So, the correlation of your "internet" comment doesn't apply. In fact, I'd say that the opinion of brokenness (or not) from this particular forum is far more honest and credible than either the original designers or CS. Why? Because the people here have a massive advantage in terms of hours played. Also, the fact that they spend free, personal time here discussing these things is testament to their dedication and commitment to, above all, a fun game.

 

[Umbran]

I guess a WotC apologist is born every day. Sorry, but I'm not gonna bite; this thread is too valuable.

If you really wanted to leave it be, you should have left it be, rather than get a dig in without supporting evidence or logic. You've now sullied the thread you thought was valuable with even more rudeness. Not exactly a good move.

Folks, if you don't like what someone else says, not responding at all is not only an option, it is a preferred option. You get no points or prizes for having the last word, so please don't try to do so.

 

[Zinovia]

What about genasi?

I allow genasi, but not drow. I like the genasi as elemental based people. They are cool. Their inclusion also adds another strength bonus race into the mix. I dislike Forgotten Realms drow, and have no place in my world for them as written. I replaced them with a third branch of the elven family tree known as the Sundered. They are pale skinned, pink- or red-eyed elves that live in the deep caverns. Sure, they are kind of like drow in a number of ways, but the slight reskinning (pun intended )makes me happier. Their society is less stupid and self-destructive. I swear drow would have to have litters of babies to avoid extinction – what with all the murders, child sacrifices, and casual killing of underlings, not to mention what adventurers routinely do to them.

I've been averaging about 18-30 damage a combat due to Bloodclaw. Basically, one healing surge.

Since in most LFR adventures, I use about 1-3 healing surges per encounter, 3 encounters per adventure and I have 9 healing surges, I'm not too worried about using up surges. As long as I have a cleric around healing me instead of just spending them myself, the damage is inconsequential.

It's not the total damage that is necessarily the issue. In our particular group, the warlord's player dislikes the thought of having to use his very limited healing resources on healing self-inflicted damage. Total surge numbers hasn't been too much of a problem as of yet (although it will be in an upcoming series of encounters), but the number of healing powers we have at our disposal (at level 5) in one combat is around 3, if we burn the MC cleric's daily use of Healing Word. Then there are potions (limited resource), and Second Wind, which to paraphrase Radio Free Hommlett, may as well be a dwarven racial power in the eyes of some of my players. They do use their second wind when it is needed, but they hate doing it. Bloodclaw is a possibly overpowered option (with 2 handed weapons) that exacerbates our lack of strong healing in this particular group, so I'm going to disallow it. Besides, I'm married to the player of the TacLord character, so maintaining good relations is important.

Well, the MM section starts with a disclaimer 'use at your own risk' and stresses they've included the stats primarily to create npcs.

I have no idea what's going on on the CharOp boards because I refuse to visit them. I only hear about them if someone here mentions them. If I ever caught a player trying to use one of their infamous rule-twisting builds I'd probably kick him straight out of my game.

I'd allow any races that received a new writeup, like minotaurs, but nothing straight out of the MM. The dragon writeups have been rebalanced to be on par with the PHB races.

I agree on the MM race writeups, which made it easy to not allow them. Minotaurs and Warforged were rebalanced when they received full character race writeups, but I still don't feel either of them fit as PC's for my game. YMMV. It's flavor, not balance.

I read the CharOp boards to let other people do my research for me. Is there some new feat or item shows up in 3/4 of the builds posted there? If so, I am tempted to ban or houserule it on the spot because it is highly likely to be broken. Why should I spend a lot of time worrying about broken combos when I have all these people doing it for me? It's a useful resource. Besides, some of the builds get me thinking about stuff in a different way, and that's all to the good.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I have no idea what's going on on the CharOp boards because I refuse to visit them. I only hear about them if someone here mentions them. If I ever caught a player trying to use one of their infamous rule-twisting builds I'd probably kick him straight out of my game.

Firstly: how would you catch them if you never read them?

Secondly: most of the builds aren't all that rule-twisting. They're simple matters of taking rules to their logical conclusion. A bunch of the high dps builds are simple things like "take a ranger, multiclass to avenger, take every crit-enhancing feat and item you can find", or "take a wizard with high wisdom, add every save worsening feat and item you can find". These days builds that use even iffy (not outright wrong) interpretations of rules tend to get looked down on.

That said: for most groups, you can trust your players to play the game to have fun. Most optimizers are benign, and if they're not, chances are that they disrupt the game anyway.

Most of the reason I've banned stuff is
1) I don't see a reason to spend money on a book that has ill-balanced rules
2) A lot of the problems occur heuristically: there's no effort to exploit the rule, but using the rule at all unbalances things.

 

[Flipguarder]

I allow genasi, but not drow. I like the genasi as elemental based people. They are cool. Their inclusion also adds another strength bonus race into the mix.

This is the first time this month I disagree with you. To allow Genasi but not Warforged is racist. And I will not stand for it! .

1. Both are strength bonus races, so your "appreciation" for that trait should be shared
2. Warforged are just as if not more cool than genasi.
3. Both are from the exact same kind of source. Both started as MM races.
4. COME ON! WOODEN ARCANE ROBOTS!
5. NO REALLY! WOODEN AND METAL ROBOTS BROUGHT TO LIFE WITH ARCANE ENERGY!

 

[Jhaelen]

Secondly: most of the builds aren't all that rule-twisting. They're simple matters of taking rules to their logical conclusion. A bunch of the high dps builds are simple things like "take a ranger, multiclass to avenger, take every crit-enhancing feat and item you can find", or "take a wizard with high wisdom, add every save worsening feat and item you can find".

I don't have any problems with any of these approaches, since they're pretty obvious. I don't have to read the OP boards to get ideas like these.

If that's all that can be found on the OP boards these days, there's even less reason to visit them

Regarding items: Players may create a wishlist of the items they'd like to have. This doesn't mean they'll really get them. If they really want a specific item and nothing else, they'll have to buy or create it themselves. That's one area you can easily control as a DM.

Regarding banning because of flavour reasons: I'm all for this! If a setting doesn't have an intelligent race of bipedal half-cows, then there's of course no reason minotaurs should be allowed. E.g. my current 3E setting doesn't have elves and gnomes because anything related to the fey is restricted to npcs.

Naturally, restrictions like these have to be communicated well in advance, when describing the setting/campaign outline to interested players.

 

[Garthanos]

Regarding banning because of flavour reasons: I'm all for this! If a setting doesn't have an intelligent race of bipedal half-cows, then there's of course no reason minotaurs should be allowed. E.g. my current 3E setting doesn't have elves and gnomes because anything related to the fey is restricted to npcs.

Naturally, restrictions like these have to be communicated well in advance, when describing the setting/campaign outline to interested players.

Interestingly if somebody wanted a penultimate archer even with your game world were I dming I would let them build it with the elf archetype (allow swap out the language... and indicate they were not 'fey' ... skin them as a human with an odd gift ... he picked up a bow and knew it like the back of his hand etc... a natural born robinhood.

 

[Zinovia]

This is the first time this month I disagree with you. To allow Genasi but not Warforged is racist. And I will not stand for it! .

Ah, to be accused of fantasy game racism by Flipguarder after receiving the great distinction of appearing on his sig list, it is a blow from which I'll never* recover. I cannot deny the cool factor of magically animated wooden and metal robots - who could? The existence of sentient arcanely animated constructs with a strength bonus seems to push it into a critical mass of awesome that could threaten the entire game world by its very coolness. Besides, the other races would all be jealous.

Genasi seemed a fair compromise. They are weird colors and have funky hair analogues, but they are strong. And elemental. The one genasi in my group was once a pirate, so that raises his cool factor by a couple degrees at least. He may be nearly as cool as a killer magic robot with a weapon grafted onto its arm. Nearly.


* for values of never approximately equaling a minute or two

 

[Infiniti2000]

Regarding items: Players may create a wishlist of the items they'd like to have. This doesn't mean they'll really get them. If they really want a specific item and nothing else, they'll have to buy or create it themselves. That's one area you can easily control as a DM.

In 4E, I don't think that's fair. As was shown in a different thread, player cannot create an item of a higher level than themselves and most likely can't afford it. Therefore, the 4 items they get per level at item levels +1 through +4 will never be something the player wants. I'd say that pretty much sucks. Of course, I'm sure you account for this somehow, perhaps with more money to buy the item or some other mechanism, but based purely on rules your campaign decision is generally not a good one.

 

[keterys]

In 4E, I don't think that's fair. As was shown in a different thread, player cannot create an item of a higher level than themselves and most likely can't afford it. Therefore, the 4 items they get per level at item levels +1 through +4 will never be something the player wants. I'd say that pretty much sucks. Of course, I'm sure you account for this somehow, perhaps with more money to buy the item or some other mechanism, but based purely on rules your campaign decision is generally not a good one.

This response didn't make sense. If a player makes a wish list of 3-5 items and the DM doesn't like one of them, they can still just give something else off the list.

If the player lists only one item and it's not one the DM wants, then the player failed at making a wish list in the first place (3-5 items) and the DM should ask them to pick more. Or they're asking to be the 1 of 5 players who doesn't get to pick their item that level.