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

[keterys]

Bravo.

 

[Iron Sky]

That's pretty epic Zinovia.

That said, we must have one of the rare groups where everyone is a powergamer (including me, the DM), so we all dig it when someone drops a huge pile of damage or auto-kills the 20 minions in 1 round through 2 feats, a daily, and a magic item daily in some odd synergy or locks the solo down for three rounds straight while everyone destroys it.

In our case, is seems to make the game more intense rather than less, since I can throw brutal level +5 or 6 encounters at them and they find some way to survive it. We rarely have a dull fight(especially since we had 5 characters die in the last 3 sessions).

 

[Saeviomagy]

That said, we must have one of the rare groups where everyone is a powergamer (including me, the DM), so we all dig it when someone drops a huge pile of damage or auto-kills the 20 minions in 1 round through 2 feats, a daily, and a magic item daily in some odd synergy or locks the solo down for three rounds straight while everyone destroys it.

The problem is that if you've got a group that are not all powergamers playing a game with the level of balance that 4e has ended up at. You're going to end up with one or more dissatisfied players. Which is a shame really: they started out doing pretty well, with most of the imbalanced created by dodgy readings of rules, and just seemed to throw more of that away with every increment since.

 

[Iron Sky]

The problem is that if you've got a group that are not all powergamers playing a game with the level of balance that 4e has ended up at. You're going to end up with one or more dissatisfied players. Which is a shame really: they started out doing pretty well, with most of the imbalanced created by dodgy readings of rules, and just seemed to throw more of that away with every increment since.

Which is what happened in our last 3.5 game. We had one PC that could solo a Nightwalker and one that needed a 20 to even hit one. One PC got killed in one round by a hydra, another killed it with 1 spell.

I think the difference for us has been that in 4e it has more tools that make it easier to semi-optimize your character (namely the Character Builder), so you don't have to dig through 10 splat books cherry-picking feats, front-loaded classes to multi into, and the like. It's all in one place in conveniently sorted lists.

 

[Zinovia]

Currently banned in my game are:
• Expertise feats - I give them Math Expertise for free, which is +1 to attack at 5/15/25
• Double weapons - not only are they a huge source of cheese (using the "light weapon" end for rogue attacks), but most of them are downright silly, even for a fantasy game.
• Monster races - almost always used for the sake of optimization rather than flavor, and the flavor itself can create issues when interacting with NPC's.
• Half Orcs - just for this game world
• Paragon Defenses (or whatever that was called)- instead I am allowing 3 stat raises on the 4/8 levels.
• White Lotus feats - kind of broken IMHO

Things I am considering banning include Iron Armbands of Power, and Bloodclaw weapons. Maybe a couple others, like Radiant weapons. The auto-damage weapons just are too good compared to any other choices, and hence they are boring because everyone will want them.

Bloodclaw has another issue, which is that powers and items that damage oneself annoy the party's leader (a TacLord) to no end. Our group is a tad short on healing, with the taclord and a fighter/mc cleric. They do just fine, but people causing additional damage to themselves all the time would further deplete the already limited healing resources. And believe me, given one of the players, it would be *all the time*. "More damage? Sign me up! So the warlord has to heal me sooner, or we use up another potion. It's more damage! Rawr!"

I have been choosing all of the magic items myself, rather than using wish lists. I only have a wish list from one of the five players, and I don't see that as changing. The players aren't all that interested in poring over the books or Compendium and picking out goodies for themselves. Limiting the choice of items is thus very easy for me.

Recently the group picked up the Enchant Magic Item ritual, so at some point they will be making their own items. Due to a ruling in my initial house rules document, a recipe is needed to make any given item. Some require rare ingredients (good adventure fodder), while others may simply be unobtainable. Most recipes they can simply look up in the library, others may be treasure in and of themselves. It gives me more control over what items they have.

I want the characters to get and make cool magic items, but as I anticipated a year ago when we started this thing, some of them are unbalanced and we are better off without them. I'd rather disallow questionable stuff in the first place than have to take something away from a character.

Oh, and thanks for the comments on my soliloquy - thanks especially to Will Shakespeare for the original

 

[Garthanos]

Bloodclaw has another issue, which is that powers and items that damage oneself annoy the party's leader (a TacLord) to no end. Our group is a tad short on healing, with the taclord and a fighter/mc cleric. They do just fine, but people causing additional damage to themselves all the time would further deplete the already limited healing resources. And believe me, given one of the players, it would be *all the time*. "More damage? Sign me up! So the warlord has to heal me sooner, or we use up another potion. It's more damage! Rawr!"

The theory is the battles finish faster since the heros normally have an advantage ... and that usually means the party actually takes less damage (and so needs less healing) this way than letting the monsters have more rounds to take a shot at you. ... the Rawr is appropo ;-) and it seems extreme enough in combination with multi-attacking that it is unbalanced.

I'm working on presenting this bloodclaw magick multiple different ways... so that it fits my game world better .... because well I do like battles going faster... but dont think self flagellation or "cutting"... although having a symbiote that feed on you and boosts you is kind of interesting...its a lot more Heroic to be Heroes pushing themselves in extreme maneuvers (resulting in taxing there fatigue and luck and wrenching muscles etc) ...

 

[keterys]

I have a sticky note I use when I play my character with bloodclaw 'I am using bloodclaw unless I say otherwise', and I pretty much only say otherwise for minions or if I'm in trouble.

And I play the healer. I'm more than happy to encourage people to use it - after combat I throw out a banner of healing, top everyone off while healing the primary target... it works crazily with temp hp, with incidental healing, etc.

 

[deleteme123456]

Surprised there's not more votes for versatile master. That made our list. And the avenger multiclass that gives you OoE until EoE. We also just flat-out banned the orb of imposition so we didn't have to worry about crazy things like the phrenic crown... you can still be a great wand, staff, or tome wizard. We banned expertise and gave it out for free; we also banned the 'expertise-like' feats in AP (draconic spellcaster, I think was one).

For grasping weapon, we required that it be used after you hit with a MELEE attack. Grasping javelins were a little sketchy.

I'm on the fence on white lotus... I've seen some of them in play and it's good but not (quite) insane. I'm more worried about sword burst + arcane reach + admixture:thunder + some feat to make thunder powers' radius go up by 1 = close burst 2 from 2 squares away that targets enemies only... at-will.

 

[Jhaelen]

• Monster races - almost always used for the sake of optimization rather than flavor, and the flavor itself can create issues when interacting with NPC's.

Are you referring to the races described in the Monster Manuals? If so, there's no need to ban them, because they're aren't intended for pcs, anyway. The stats are for npcs only.

 

[Ryujin]

Are you referring to the races described in the Monster Manuals? If so, there's no need to ban them, because they're aren't intended for pcs, anyway. The stats are for npcs only.

Except that there are a bunch of them listed in Character Builder as character race options.