How many spells have you banned from your game?

[Psion]

Heh, while I wouldn't run my game like diablo - senseless hack & slash with the barely maintained illusion of some kind of mission - that doesn't mean I wouldn't steal some cool bits.

I know. My point being that some people out there are convinced if it's associated with a CRPG, you shouldn't be doing it or anything like it. Nuh uh.

You know gamers. A hateful creed.

 

[Greg K]

I have banned at least a dozen spells including the Bigby spells, Mordenkainen spells, prismatic spells, mental buffs, and blade barrier. I have also altered many other spells such as Detect evil/good/etc and Summon Monster.

edit: I forgot to add the Leomund spells to the list of banned spells

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Shhh. You might let on to people who speak about Diablo II and Final Fantasy in bitter tones that some RPGers actually like them...

Diablo I can see, what with the manic screaming scramble for power and magic items to the exclusion of all else, but what the heck is wrong with Final Fantasy? It's pretty D&D-ish already. Wilderness full of monsters, cities with equipment shops, ancient evil about to rise and bring about a new era of darkness...again. That's pretty standard.

 

[Pants]

Diablo I can see, what with the manic screaming scramble for power and magic items to the exclusion of all else, but what the heck is wrong with Final Fantasy? It's pretty D&D-ish already. Wilderness full of monsters, cities with equipment shops, ancient evil about to rise and bring about a new era of darkness...again. That's pretty standard.

It's a VIDEOGAME and, thus, automatically sub-par when compared to the true art of pen-n-paper roleplaying.

Or some would have you believe so...

 

[Darkness]

Yeah, Pants. Such elitism is silly IMNSHO.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I have banned at least a dozen spells including the Bigby spells, Mordenkainen spells, prismatic spells, mental buffs, and blade barrier. I have also altered many other spells such as Detect evil/good/etc and Summon Monster.

Why?

 

[Greg K]

Why?

The spells I ban or rework do not , either in concept or mechanics, fit the type of campaigns that I want to run.

 

[ruleslawyer]

None. I have yet to ever ban a spell. I thinking banning a spell is admitting defeat.

I have to express amazement at this attitude. I've been DM-ing for 17 years now, and while I've tried to stick closely to the RAW, I also have thought it simple prudence and good gaming to make appropriate house rules or rules corrections from time to time. That includes spells. Is it really a point of pride to abstain from changing or banning problematic or unworkable spells? I can't imagine why for three reasons:

1) The designers can't be exactly on point all the time. There's a reason why D&D spells have been changed through editions or in errata. Some of them just don't work. I think of 1e tempus fugit, 2e stoneskin, and 3.0 harm, time stop, polymorph, miasma, and several others. Nor does everything get caught with each edition change. I'm still unhappy with disjunction, gate, and a few others.

2) Gaming style. Some DMs don't like particular magical capabilities being easily available. I myself am less than fond of easy teleportation, for instance. Some spells may even be completely inappropriate for a particular gaming style (raising and resurrection magic in some games, for instance).

3) Why bother with a contrived solution to a problematic spell that stretches suspension of disbelief when you can just get rid of, or substantially changing, the spell? I particularly abhor the mutually-assured-destruction approach to spells like disjunction, for instance, or the tactic that callls for balancing gate's ruinous might with role-playing restrictions ("Well, every creature you gate will find a way to return to you with its allies and take revenge!") I'm not innocent of this myself; in 2e, when stoneskin was such a problem, I made an entire adventure out of a diamond-dust shortage!

Anyway, I don't tend to ban spells, per se, but I do change them around a bit. I tend to use the spell lists from Arcana Unearthed and add on my favorite "iconic" D&D spells; in particular, I think that call outsider and portal to another plane are a far superior alternative to gate.

 

[fanboy2000]

Is it my turn?

Let me try this one...

Is it really a point of pride to abstain from changing or banning problematic or unworkable spells?

Of course not. I agree with Crothian on this one, and I feel it's safe to say that it's a point of pride to find an alternative way to deal with problematic spells; an alternative to banning that is.

I can't speak for Crothian, but here's my opinion. Your milage may vary.

1) The designers can't be exactly on point all the time.

Very true. However, it's safe to say that the spells in the PHB are more throughly tested than the spells in other books, regardless of the publisher. Finding alternatives to banning is much easier with PHB spells than it is with spells from other sources, regardless of publisher.

2) Gaming style.

Crothian wasn't talking about banning a spell for setting purposes, as he explained a few posts later. Its diffrent when the setting designer bans a spell, because flavor is big factor.

Of course, if you're like me, you're both a setting designer and a DM, so sometime the DM bans a spell because he or she is wearing two hats.

3) Why bother with a contrived solution to a problematic spell that stretches suspension of disbelief when you can just get rid of, or substantially changing, the spell?

This question assumes the solution is contrived and strectches the suspension of disbelief. It's posible, and fun, to come up with simple, elegant, and interesting ways to deal with spells that cause problems for a DM. This is a skill that comes only thrugh expreance (an irony, if you think about it) and I willing to be you have that skill.

Anyway, I don't tend to ban spells, per se, but I do change them around a bit. I tend to use the spell lists from Arcana Unearthed and add on my favorite "iconic" D&D spells; in particular, I think that call outsider and portal to another plane are a far superior alternative to gate.

It seems to me that you have found many alternitives to banning in your 17 years of DMing. I find it an irony that you had a problem with someone simply trying to encourage out of the box DMing.

Now, don't make me eat you.

 

[Desdichado]

What, there's no option for "all of them?"

Although, to use Crothianspeak, I didn't ban them as a GM, I banned them as a setting designer. Actually the only spell any PC's have at this point is Fist of Yog-Sothoth which comes out of the d20 Call of Cthulhu book. Before our next session, though, I need to come up with a list of a score or so spells that he's learned between adventures from studying The Book of Eibon...