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I do not allow everything from every book. In fact my policy is anything outside the core books is assumed to be not-allowed, and spells/feats are only added by player request and DM approval. I agree, It controls development of killer-combos a great deal. But it does not eliminate them. Often...

You seem to have a very high and lofty sense of what a DM should be. I will speak from personal experience, and observations. Perhaps I may bring your opinion of DMing back into the real world. I play with 6 other players who each passed the bar exam on DnD Rule Law. Among all the players, at...

1. Yes, and I touched it too. 2. I used a high quality sock puppet I picked up from a local children's book store of a dodo bird to represent a PC's familiar. In my games, talking familiars are managed as NPCs. I may be the worst ventriloquist ever, but the wise-talking dodo bird managed to...

I actually banned Persistent spell the first time I read the feat. We still play on 3.0. Most of us have too much money invested in 3.0 books to switch to 3.5. Especially when most of the 3.5 books are just re-releases of content I already have in a 3.0 book. Instead I run off a house rules...

Hardhead's comments are very correct. Words coming from someone who clearly has had the same problem I am expecting in the next campaign. I encourage readers to re-read a few of hardhead's lastest replys to get a strong idea of the cleric party I am dealing with. Heres a great analogy: Battles...

The clerics in the party are almost always deity compatible. I encourage this. Its pretty rare for there to be more than 1 alignment step away from each other. The players do this to improve the role-play experience and reduce party infighting. However limiting all clerics in the party to one...

Allow me to clarify my problem a bit more: The party always makes sure they have all thier bases covered. No rogue? They hire one, no mage? they hire one. Its pretty hard to come up with many situations that this party can't handle. But thats the fun part about DMing. I can come up with an...

I DM for a whole bunch of rule-lawyers/munchkins. They tend to gravitate towards clerics... a lot. Mostly because they are considered the "best" class (understandibly). With the proper combination of buffs, these clerics easily surpass the party fighters and barbarians in damage delt. Where are...

I think you are already well on your way to being the flamboyant swordsman. I can't think of any other class that defines the flamboyant swordsman more than the bard. Charismatic, wears no armor, quick of wit and quick on his feet. A particular class does not define a character... you do. In...

I recenty decided to have all Instant travel spells (and Wind-Walk) to limit the spell to 1 addition creature aside from the caster. The obvious exception being teleportation circle and gate. I feel that 9th level is a little too soon for casters to start having the ability to teleport all over...

You are absolutely correct, I agree 100%. But this is also the problem. You posted 6 scenarios under which just about all DnD encounters fall. IMHO a good campaign will feature an even distribution of all 6 of these types of encounters. Unfortunately the short duration 3.5 buffs are only useful...

A lot of posters in this thread make the basic argument that "a wizard should not be able to use a spell to replace the skills of a rogue (or other sneaky type)". This philosophy is TERRRIBLE! A Wizard's greatest asset is that she can cover for a missing aspect of the party in a pinch. Remove...

Not everyone follows the "Standard" dnd mantra of magic shops being more common than supermarkets. In the games I run magic items are incredibly rare. Powerful, but rare. The only way characters ever get exactly what they want in a magic item is if they make it themself via item creation feats...

I use 10 Min/Level for the animal buff spells, with a maximum time of 90 minutes. It gives players plenty of time to work with, AND keeps a pesky level 18 Wizard from using extend spell to get a 6 hour/day boost to Int. In my games combat is over in about 5-8 rounds. 1 Minute/level spells...

Look forward to 4e where the duration of Mage Armor is reduced to 1 minute per level because the designers found that too many players were substituting the spell for mundane armor. IMHO 1 Minute / level is the most annoying duration on a spell. Practically useless to anyone under level 5. You...

I would say that 3.5 was a failure. Regardless of my opinon of 3.5 (which I will get into later) Here is how I came to my decision: 3.5 was intended to improve the rules, to clarify confusion, fix typos, and remove loop-holes. The 3.5 FAQ is now 24 pages long. Only a few pages short of 3.0...

Ken, the ship's captain and the party's charismatic PC, gets captured by a band of mercs. He is tied up and brought before the rest of the party. Hostage negotiations begin. Failing to come to a reasonable agreement, the Mercs coup de grace Ken. Retep, My Barbarian/Cleric of Kord exclaims: "Oh...

I never use the encounter distance rules. In fact, I don't think I ever read them. I use good ol' common sense. The following is a basic encounter system that is easy to remember and even easier to implement. And it works for every terrain, and can easily be reversed if the party is trying to...

Unfortunately there are people who take this crap as the truth. My Roomate's parents being one of them. Of course he plays DnD with us every weekend. We have to hide the DnD books when his parents visit.

11. Remove the Mage Armor spell, too many players are using this particular magic spell in place of normal armor. 12. Take Orcs out of the game to keep people from getting DnD confused with LotR or Warcraft 13. Replace spells in the PHB with collectable trading cards. This way, players can...