Oh no you don't.......

[Darmanicus]

If this has been covered before then please post me a link.......

In your games are there any things that both players and DM agree not to use, usually for being far too powerful/game upsetting?

Off the top of my head we have agreed upon the following:

1. No Mordy's Disjunction........ever. What sort of sadist DM would allow this in his game as a spell any old 9th? level mage can roll out x/day? It's a seriously sick piece of magic.

2. No instant death spells/effects. Again these can really ruin someones day, especially in round one of a combat that could last all evening.

3. No smoking? Er no actually that's something one of our group is trying to ban. Personally I think there's no need for that sort of attitude when he can just stand outside by the window, (he's a ranger after all).

Your turn.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

If this has been covered before then please post me a link.......

In your games are there any things that both players and DM agree not to use, usually for being far too powerful/game upsetting?

Off the top of my head we have agreed upon the following:

1. No Mordy's Disjunction........ever. What sort of sadist DM would allow this in his game as a spell any old 9th? level mage can roll out x/day? It's a seriously sick piece of magic.

2. No instant death spells/effects. Again these can really ruin someones day, especially in round one of a combat that could last all evening.

3. No smoking? Er no actually that's something one of our group is trying to ban. Personally I think there's no need for that sort of attitude when he can just stand outside by the window, (he's a ranger after all).

Your turn.

You mean smoking by the PC's or the players? I don't allow smoking in my home PERIOD, and the one player I have who smokes has no problem with it.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Lesse. As the DM, I will let my players do what they wish, with the understanding that my NPCs will not use the same cheesy effects as long as the players are gentlemanly enough to refrain.

1) Disjunction: My NPCs don't use it. The players do. Somehow, they always wind up losing all their items from their own Disjunction. Eventually the other players threatened the arcane spellcaster until she stopped.

2) Sundering rules: Its basically impossible to not successfully Sunder any weapon at high levels. Neither my players nor I will use these rules, as they like to get new weapons, and I don't like to destroy theirs too often. That said, rust monsters and nightshades and bebiliths still have their special attacks, since those work outside the normal Sundering rules.

3) I'd just like to explain why I *do* allow Death Effects: Some people are immune or nearly impervious to everything else, making a death effect the only way to challenge the character. Now it doesn't have to actually kill them, perhaps it is merely Turn-to-Stone or something else that can be recovered more easily, the main point is that I want a variety of useful effects that require each of the three flavours of saving throw. If you take out insta-kills, Fortitude saves become a whole lot less important, and there is less to challenge that character with high Reflex and Improved Evasion who is immune to Mind-Affecting spells.

 

[Li Shenron]

In your games are there any things that both players and DM agree not to use, usually for being far too powerful/game upsetting?

Not really, but in one 3.0 FR campaign I play a sorceress and I have purposefully avoided learning spells such as Haste and Polymorph Self/Other. But that was mostly a mean for me to try something less "must-have", I don't have serious problems with those spells because I wouldn't abuse them.

Lots of high-level spells are very very powerful and can cause trouble to a campaign, but instead of banning them, we prefer simply not to play too high level (the reason is mostly that high-level games are harder for both players and DMs). I personally find it sometimes frustrating to play a high-level campaign BUT banning spells... if it turns to be merely a scaled-up game but nothing really different from low level, why play high level at all?

 

[Darmanicus]

DMC - Smoking players. Seriously this one guy really makes an effort to let us know that he doesn't like smoking. Problem I've got with that is that when we gamed around his place we all had to use the kitchen to smoke, (no problem there), but guess what?........he came in with us!!!!!?????

Rystil - Actually sundering was something I was gonna mention. I really don't like the idea of the DM taking a pop at my weapon, (the b@st@rd tried to disintegrate it once!!!), however I've done it once or twice, (funniest situation being me sundering BBEG's RHM's weapon and him just shruggin it off, grabbing mine and start beating me with it.....very entertaining).

Li - Just because we don't like some effects/spells/rules etc. etc. doesn't mean we should not play high level games. It just means we really don't like certain whatevers because we feel they can take the fun out of the game.

It wasn't just spells I was after, what about feats or PrC's.....anything really?

 

[Stalker0]

Unfortunately 3.5 took one step forward and two steps back when it came to sundering.

+X weapons now increase that weapons resistance to sundering by A LOT. Problem is the new DR makes it so noone ever wants higher than a +1 weapon.

I love teh new DR system in general, but this is a problem.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Unfortunately 3.5 took one step forward and two steps back when it came to sundering.

+X weapons now increase that weapons resistance to sundering by A LOT. Problem is the new DR makes it so noone ever wants higher than a +1 weapon.

I love teh new DR system in general, but this is a problem.

Nevermind. The thing I was going to say actually wasn't true for weapons as I had thought. The new hardness barely helps though.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I love teh new DR system in general, but this is a problem.

I see it as a feature-- it's part of the tradeoff you make for carrying a golfbag of lesser enchanted weapons. If you're worried about getting sundered, pump some magic into your main chiv.

 

[dvvega]

The standing agreement we have is "What is good for the goose, is good for the gander".

This boils down to:

If you min/max your PC, the DM will do likewise with the subtext of "and trust me the DM knows more than you about min/maxing".

so in effect that's a "don't min/max" understanding. We generally min/max a bit, what hero wouldn't focus on their strengths, but we stop short of the optimisation levels seen in many forums around the web.

Of course there is always "The DM is right". However we have an understood "don't do":

Do not argue with a decision made by the DM until a break where you may bring up disagreements with it. Then everyone can talk about it and come to an agreement about how to handle the situation next time.

D

 

[Li Shenron]

Li - Just because we don't like some effects/spells/rules etc. etc. doesn't mean we should not play high level games. It just means we really don't like certain whatevers because we feel they can take the fun out of the game.

In fact I didn't say you shouldn't, you asked about our groups right?

In my general opinion some high-level spells potentially troublesome can be these types:

- some high-level spells have the potential of disrupting an adventure plot, especially long-range teleportation and scrying
- some high-level spells have the potential of ending a combat very quickly (save or die or similar), which can lessen the fun if it's often
- some high-level spells have the potential of lessening the effort of playing well, namely the resurrection

Nonetheless I think these spells are an important part of high-level D&D play! If one decides to remove all those types, the high-level game loses its most typical features, and perhaps what is left is quite like a "scaled-up" lower-level game: everyone deals more damage, but has lots of HP, everyone has higher offensive bonuses but also defensive bonuses, etc... Maybe there could be still a point, for example if the result is that battles last longer and if the gamers prefer that (I don't know because those times when we tried higher levels we didn't ban anything).

The 1st reason why we usually avoid high levels is however that playing is more difficult (due to more randomness and especially many more deadly options that the PCs should protect against), and DMing is twice more difficult. One day we'll all be better players and DMs and we won't have problems anymore with high levels.

If a group has issues with only one type of spells then it's not a big deal. But I'd suggest that the decision is always discussed openly among the players, not just the DM deciding "all teleportation are forbidden" (especially if she says so AFTER character creation!). If Teleportation will disrupt one adventure, make a deal alltogether not to use it for this adventure.

Still I don't find it nice if this happens in a published adventure, that the author imposes a ban on something which would spoil his story: it should have been his duty to take that into account, or otherwise make the story a couple of levels lower. If a game is designed with these options, it's not nice to be told you need to drop a game feature to make the game work.