Banning Fly, Improved Invisibility, Dimension Door, and Teleport

[drothgery]

Encounters which REQUIRE a single answer to complete, whether its fly, teleport, or craft(widget) is bad design, pure and simple.

The thing is that there's very rarely only a single way to do something in D&D.
To fly, for example, you can
- cast fly
- change shape into something that can fly
- acquire a mount that can fly
- acquire a magic item that lets you fly (winged boots, broom of flying, flying carpet, cloak of the bat, etc...)
- summon something that can fly, and have it carry you
- be a race that can fly (avariel, half-dragon, etc.)
- be a class that can fly
... and that's just off the top of my head.

To cover ground quickly (the strategic, as opposed to tactical, use of teleport), you can
- teleport
- shadow walk
- wind walk
- tree stride (given a convenient large forest between where you are and where you want to go)
- transport via plants
- ride/be carried by a fast-moving creature
- transform into a fast-moving creature
- in Eberron, ride an airship or a lightning rail
- in the Realms, use a portal

 

[Deset Gled]

I'd go for it. Heck, I would probably have a lot of fun in a campaign like that. I've always felt that one of the weakest things about D+D is that it entirely removes the "travel" part of the fantasy world. Just about every classic fantasy story written has a significant part (if not the most significant) part focused around the journey involved with the adventure. Removing the spells you mention would bring that back to the game.

I do really like the idea of having the spells be "scroll-only", though. That really makes people think twice about using them, while still allowing them where absolutely needed.

 

[Delta]

Comparing this to earlier versions of D&D: even in OD&D all these spells were available, except for "Improved Invisibility". So, to me, that's the first nominee for the chopping block and still be playing classic D&D.

The other thing is that in all prior versions of the game "Teleport" had a chance of instant death, higher if not used carefully. It's the removal of that chance that made the 3E tactic of scry-buff-teleport-blast feasible. Go back to OD&D where you have a 75% chance of instant death when teleporting without certain knowledge of the destination, and a lot of abuse problems disappear.

 

[ScipioX]

Challanges scale in D&D. Things that were challanging at first level are a nice cakewalk at higher levels. Arbitrarily picking a physical challange and making it always a challange is just picking on a class by removing their high level chance to shine

I'm pretty sure your average high level wizard has plenty of chances to shine
(maybe by ending encounters in 1 round perhaps?) besides getting the party across the raging river. Giving that opportunity to shine to the fighter who has 15 ranks in swim (cause his skill list sucks) doesn't seem like a bad thing.

By removing a bunch of the 'must have' spells, it changes the game a bit, and allows/forces players to be a bit more creative. Personally, I can't remember the last time my group used shadow walk, or transport via plants. Why? Because Teleport is just easier and better.

Arcane casters are still going to be plenty powerful to play. Maybe they aren't quite as good as clerics now, but they still make monks and rogues look like pansies.

 

[frankthedm]

As these post have shown, you have a few other spells to remove. Air walk, wind walk. You'll want to insist on the druid "Shapechange" option in the PHB2, changing the flying form for a climing form.

Dimension door is really not too bad given the long range limit.

 

[Zaruthustran]

This is all good info; thanks for the feedback. To answer a few recurring questions:

1. I removed those spells because they are so useful as to be boring, default choices. Like someone else said, if taking a particular spell is a no-brainer then it's probably too powerful.
2. I'm fine with other spells that give similar effects (wind walk, alter self, etc.).
3. The spell restriction has been in place since day 1.
4. The arcanist (a sorcerer) agrees that those spells are cliche, and okayed the change. I'm a collaborative DM; I'd never impose a restriction without the consent of all players.
5. The "balancing factor" for removing four spells from the game is giving access to the spells from Stormwrack, as well as some of the spells from The Complete books, spell compendium, etc. It's a "lose access to four spells, gain access to dozens" kind of thing.

I've got to reiterate that I'm not one of those dictator DMs who makes changes in a vacuum. I see the DM role as a person responsible for providing entertainment to the players; before a campaign starts I ask about play style, preferred realism, preferred levels of gore/horror/comedy/drama/tragedy, challenge level, whether monsters should "pull punches" by spreading out attacks instead of focusing on one player at a time, and so on. The players tell me their favorite ingredients, and I bake the pizza to their specifications. It's their game, I'm just the referee/storyteller.

What I'm wondering with this post is if a lack of Fly and Improved Invis will break the game. Does D&D require that a party have the Fly spell? Or can D&D cope with a party that has, say, alter self, or summoned flying mounts, or a person with Leap of the Clouds, and so on?

Someone commented that only DMs can break games, and that's pretty good insight. I've been doing the DM thing for over 20 years and I'm confident that I can adjust encounters as needed, via special one-shot items that duplicate a spell effect, tweaking monster behavior, etc.

Piratecat's comments are particularly valuable to me, since his nerfing of Flicker's Ring of Blinking is one of the inspirations for my adjusting the wizard spell list. For those not familiar, his players had an NPC rogue who, thanks to the ring, got sneak attack damage every round. They all decided that was no fun, and so came up with spooooky ethereal worm things that terrorized the NPC whenever he blinked. Clever solution. The specifics have never come up, but if they did I'd use the same McGuffin to rationalize the lack of development of Teleport and DD, and come up with similar fiction for Fly (the genie Sky Tyrants of this particular Greyhawk continuity forbid mortals to use magic to Fly!) and Improved Invis (use of that spell draws incorporeal undead like moths to a flame).

I'll have to think about this one a bit more; it'd be easy enough to put the spells back in. Keep the comments coming!

-z

 

[werk]

I see the DM role as a person responsible for providing entertainment to the players; before a campaign starts I ask about play style, preferred realism, preferred levels of gore/horror/comedy/drama/tragedy, challenge level, whether monsters should "pull punches" by spreading out attacks instead of focusing on one player at a time, and so on. The players tell me their favorite ingredients, and I bake the pizza to their specifications. It's their game, I'm just the referee/storyteller.

I wanna give you a hug...

 

[Patlin]

Just to reiterate, I'm confident you'll be fine. If your willing to adjust any strange encounter that comes up which seems to need one of the eliminated spells, that should handle any problem. I doubt you'll even need to.

As I said earlier, I like the spells you're eliminating, but especially with the further explanation I can see why you're doing it, and it sounds like a fun game. Heck, I'd want to play in it myself.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Aw, thanks fellas. The players (all experienced players in their 30's, like me) settled on a heroic swashbuckling game, almost perfectly in tune with Pirates of the Caribbean. I therfore added Piratecat's action point system to the game. Most of the combat is "action movie" style, with little visible blood, lots of chaos in the background, mooks, witty one-liners, etc., but for climactic encounters (and a few rare creepy scenes) I crank up the gore and horror quite a bit.

Such as an early encounter, where (highlight to see spoiler)

Spoiler

I described the successful grapple & bite attack of one of Parrot Island's ravenous dead as "The soggy, dead thing clutches you behind the head--as a lover would--then leans in and bites off your cheek."

It's been a heck of a lot of fun.

-z

 

[Nail]

I've got to reiterate that I'm not one of those dictator DMs who makes changes in a vacuum.

Excellent.

Piratecat's comments are particularly valuable to me, since his nerfing of Flicker's Ring of Blinking ...

That was Sagiro, actually. Piratecat was a player (Dranko, IIRC.)