What (PHB) Spells have you banned/altered?

[Sound of Azure]

When I want a character to stay dead, I just have a demon trap their soul. you cant ressurect a trapped soul. Magical spells are their own balancing factor. For every spell you hate, there is one to counter it's effectiveness. Dimensional Anchor also being one of my favorite traps.

That's a good point. A lot of these kinds of decisions seem to really be a flavour thing, be it from setting or personal preference.

In my case, with magic less emphasised (and there being no demons) I can rule out certain things that aren't thematic. In a more contemporary campaign, I might use dante's ideas.

It's important to log what effects your changes will do though, and let that be known to the players (so they can change their own expectations).

 

[el-remmen]

It is easier for me just to give you a link: http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Changes+to+Core+Spells

 

[ender_wiggin]

Well, a couple campaigns back, we were faced with the whole Buff-Scry-Teleport combo, and we came close to removing the teleport spells altogether. But in the end, what we did instead was create a bunch of custom spells dealing with this sort of thing. They all fit into the world just fine, because there was an organization in-game that was exactly the kind of people that'd be researching this stuff to begin with.

There was a 2nd/3rd-level spell that scrambled scrying, forcing the scryer to make spot/listen checks to draw any information from a 5' area around one target. (Duration was 1 hour/level, so even though it doesn't sound like much of an effect, it made scrying just unreliable enough that people stopped depending on it.)

There was an AoE dimensional anchor. There were scry trap spells, scry detection spells, teleport redirection spells, and triggered area dispels (really handy vs buffs). Plus items for quite a few of these, of course.

And then at one point, the PCs met the guy who had actually researched all of these spells, and found out he had also made a really nasty 9th-level custom spell called reality anchor that shut down all teleportation, scrying, summoning, planar travel, etc. within 60' of the caster. It also tried to banish any outsiders within the area, if the caster spent a round concentrating. The best part was that you wouldn't know it was there until you tried something, at which point it'd not only interrupt, it'd deal 1d6 damage per spell level.

Anyway, you don't need to design custom spells, really; just realize that the splatbooks and such are loaded with spells or items designed to counteract many of the PHB spells. So, all the DM needs to do is throw a few of those into the campaign.

IMW, major cities have to create and maintain anchored fields (spheres that encompass the entire city). Any traveling spell (teleport, dimension door, and the like) requires an amendment to the spell that only a select few people know. They are called arcane security signatures, and they make exellent plots.

This is to prevent the mage of an enemy city from teleporting in and killing thousands of people before you can react. However, if the city is being attacked, defending mages can utilize teleportation spells to their advantage.

 

[Taraxia]

My group has seriously mucked around with haste since we feel a spell that makes you go faster should help more than just the fighters:

The transmuted creatures move and act more quickly than normal. This extra speed has several effects.

A hasted creature can, each turn, choose to gain an extra attack, or an extra spell. When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may make one extra attack with any weapon he is holding. The attack is made using the creature’s full base attack bonus, plus any modifiers appropriate to the situation. (This effect is not cumulative with similar effects, such as that provided by a weapon of speed, nor does it actually grant an extra action).

Instead the creature can choose to gain an extra spell. As a full round action, a hasted creature may cast two spells, only one of which may have a casting time of more than 1 standard action. (ie. a hasted wizard may, as a full round action cast Summon Monster, and Hold Person). A quickened spell may not be used in combination with this effect. This effect also applies to characters who use spell-like abilities.

A hasted creature gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls and a +1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves. Any condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) also makes you lose dodge bonuses.

All of the hasted creature’s modes of movement (including land movement, burrow, climb, fly, and swim) increase by 30 ft, to a maximum of twice the subject’s normal speed using that form of movement. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus, and it affects the creature’s jumping distance as normal for increased speed.

Multiple haste effects don’t stack. Haste dispels and counters Slow.
Material component: A shaving of licorice root.

In other words... you went back to the old Haste, with some modifications.

 

[ender_wiggin]

With regards to haste, I think the reason they disallowed the extra spell was because the ability to cast any additional spell in your repertoire offers a degree of flexibility that an additional attack does not.

I'm still thinking about a way to fix it. I'm sure there are numerous old threads on the subject, but I can't search. If someone were to start up the discussion again (specifically on the handling of haste), I'd be willing to participate.

 

[Storyteller01]

In my current campaign I use IK's item creation rules. Tends to put an emphasis on player skills as opposed to having gear.


In my last campaign I didn't muck with spells, but I made clerics seriously unloved in the campaign. It cut down access to healing spells, so the players started using smarter tactics.

As it stands, I use the 3.5 Enlarge and Reduce spells, but I stick with 3.0 spells beyond that.

 

[Storyteller01]

With regards to haste, I think the reason they disallowed the extra spell was because the ability to cast any additional spell in your repertoire offers a degree of flexibility that an additional attack does not.

I'm still thinking about a way to fix it. I'm sure there are numerous old threads on the subject, but I can't search. If someone were to start up the discussion again (specifically on the handling of haste), I'd be willing to participate.

Yea, but then it goes to the psion debate, or something similar. You gain the flexibility at the cost of exending power at a huge rate. If you can't rest during the day, you do more harm than good in the long run. On the flip side, you never run out of melee attacks .

 

[Emirikol]

I Detest Cliche' Spells

I run lower-magic CONAN-world D&D campaigns. There needs to be a sense of the exotic and a certain amount of man-against-nature going on. I also detest when players use the same damn spells (cliche's of D&D) over and over. I don't want to "ban" them, I just want to make them harder to reach. I've done the following:

1. All characters need 2 levels of a non-spellcasting class before gaining a spellcasting class.

2. Modified Spells: All of the following spells are ONE level higher for PC’s: Magic missile, Detect (alignment), Lightning bolt, Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Imbue spell ability, Meteor Swarm, Entangle, Hold person, Invisibility, Invisibility Sphere, Raise Dead, Create Water, Create Food & Water, Detect Magic, Command, Greater Command, Polymorph, teleport

You can't imagine the direction that our campaigns go now that we've instituted these two simple changes have made!

If you guys are doing more travel spells, I wonder which ones I missed? THoughts?

jh
..

 

[Three_Haligonians]

In other words... you went back to the old Haste, with some modifications.

Yup! and it works pretty well for us

Oh, we're also about to get into some heavy modification of the light and darkness spells. Somewhere out there exists a neat system that has a chart of various light levels and the spells simply move the current lighting condition up or down a number of notches.

It's on the to do list at the moment, but we will get there since none of us can stand the 3.5 "darkness makes it brighter in some cases" fiasco.

J from Three Haligonians

 

[Kwitchit]

I use 3.0 Command, for the sheer fun of it...