What options have you regreted allowing in your game?

[Mort]

As the title says, what options (races, classes, substitution levels, class variants, rules variants, anything of that sort) have you allowed into your game that you later regretted? What happened to cause the regret?

Note, I'm not only talking about things that ended up being too powerful, I'm also asking about things that ended up being too weak, or just generally no fun for some reason.

What did you do (how did you deal with the regret)? did you ask for an immediate change? Did you live with it until the next campaign?

 

[Cameron]

Nothing so far. I throw the field wide open, even eliminating racial pre-requisites for most prc. I trust my players not to abuse this privelege that they will find nowhere else on the planet.

My only regret is allowing immature players into the game that abuse this trust. But that is solved by giving those players the boot, not by restricting stuff.

 

[AllisterH]

Spellthief is what I've seen.

The class isn't powerful. Far from it, it actually is pretty weak but it had great flavour (a guy who pilfers ACTUAL spells and not just the spellbooks? That's a somewhat unique idea...)

Problem was the mechanics behind it left a LOT to be desired. It seemed way more trouble than the paltry gains.

Good flavour, Bad Execution.

 

[Mort]

Spellthief is what I've seen.

The class isn't powerful. Far from it, it actually is pretty weak but it had great flavour (a guy who pilfers ACTUAL spells and not just the spellbooks? That's a somewhat unique idea...)

Problem was the mechanics behind it left a LOT to be desired. It seemed way more trouble than the paltry gains.

Good flavour, Bad Execution.

That's a great point. nothing annoys me more than game slowdown from wonky mechanics (there are enough normal things that slow the game down).

 

[theredrobedwizard]

The Complete Adventurer version of the Ninja class. It's just... I dunno... Dumb? Sudden Strike is like the little idiot brother of Sneak Attack, I'm not too fond of it. I use the Oriental Adventures/Rokugan Ninja if someone is gung-ho about playing one. Same thing with Samurai; we use the OA version instead of the Complete Warrior version.

Other than that, I regret allowing my players to play Paladins, simply because they're always the one limiting options the group can take. Any class that limits the fun of the other players is gone.

-TRRW

 

[Rabelais]

Gestalt classes. Sweet Baby Jebus Jumping Up and Down, that was a mistake. Nothing ruins the game faster.

 

[Mort]

Gestalt classes. Sweet Baby Jebus Jumping Up and Down, that was a mistake. Nothing ruins the game faster.

Because of power level? Complication level? what was the big problem (or problems)?

 

[Middle Snu]

Wizards.

 

[Piratecat]

Marshals, as written. They're a weird class because they arguably aren't strong enough and need a full BAB... but as a dip class for high level paladins, they have a substantial and unbalancing effect on the game. Adding charisma bonus to (for instance) every party member's will saves means a whole lot when the high level paladin/marshal's charisma bonus is +9. I've decided to keep it, though, and simply disallow it in my next campaign.

The only other mechanic that springs to mind is the metamagic feat that causes some spell durations to persist for 24 hours. With the players' full approval, we removed it and swapped out the feat for something else of the players' choosing.

 

[Wik]

Spellthief is what I've seen.

The class isn't powerful. Far from it, it actually is pretty weak but it had great flavour (a guy who pilfers ACTUAL spells and not just the spellbooks? That's a somewhat unique idea...)

Problem was the mechanics behind it left a LOT to be desired. It seemed way more trouble than the paltry gains.

Good flavour, Bad Execution.

You know, Spellthief happens to be my favourite class. And I fully agree with you.

The big problem with the class isn't entirely mechanical (although they're definately a part - in short, to steal a spell you have to waste an action to acquire it, and then another action to actually cast it - and you can only steal spells that a wizard of equal level could cast. So, um, why not play a wizard?).

No, the big problem with the class is one that the ranger suffers from - the GM picks when your class abilities come into effect. My spellthief started off as a load of fun (let me tell you, there's nothing quite like stealing a random spell from your enemy, and then having to figure out a creative use for that Tenser's Floating Disc you just stole; stealing energy resistance from a creature and then blasting him with a spell that did that type of damage was also a lotta fun)... but then, as if the GM wanted to 'counter' my abilities (yeah, he was pretty, uh, "Clever"), I found that every encounter was against fighters, ogres, giants, and beasts.

Spellthief is pretty much a waste, then.

In a game where you can expect to be stealing spells quite often, it might be balanced. But I think you could make it more balanced by making spellcasting a 6 level progression, and giving the class 8 skill points per level. Do that, and it's more or less balanced with the rogue or beguiler. (is it just me, or does anyone else think it's weird that the class offers no special synergy with the use magic device skill?)

***

Really, though, I haven't seen anything in our games from wotc that truly unbalances things. This may be because I have plaeyrs that are self-regulating; if they came across something that would be terribly unbalanced, they would talk to me about it first before even thinking about using it. But, really, about the only thing I've seen that I'm not a huge fan of is a spell from Complete Champion that allows a priest to cast a spell that denies a target from dying from HP damage - and he can cast the spell as an immediate action.

However, that spell has prevented PCs from dying, so maybe it's actually kind of a good thing.