What spells do you ban?

[Vahktang]

I am not liking heroes feast, it's laundry list of immunities is a bit boring and having it as a default everyday spell seems less cool than having it be a special occasion ritual type buff.

I didn't like it too, until I thought that it should be heroic that characters of that level should not be bothered with mundane disease, et al.

I would like to ban glitterdust.
Makes golems kind of useless.
There's an immunity to ray spells that would make the beholder kind of useless.

The beginning teleport has a range. You can make that to good use.
And, when they miss their roll, separate the party. By hundreds of miles.
That will make the party real cautious about using it.

There's a lot of spells from Complete Divine I should ban. But they've been in my campaign for a while now and I'm reluctant to ret-con it.

The gawdz change their minds.
An epic adventure (that our heroes weren't involved in) goes wrong, and the spells are eliminated until somebody rights them.

Wish spells I don't worry about. My players like their xp's too much for it to be a problem.

Scorching Ray.

it gets too scary.

I just raised it to 3rd, and now nobody takes it.

someone mentioned magic missile up above and I gotta ask... why?

Many people agree it was grandfathered in, being from basic (I believe)
It always hits, and does more than a bit of damage.
Which doesn't scan with the rest of the spells.

 

[Nifft]

Both of you. I'm curious as to both.

Okay.

I nerf magic missile to be consistent with other 1st level spells. It caps at its 5th level effect -- three missiles -- rather than at 5 dice of damage.

Why do I do this? Because magic missile is balanced against other 1st level effects up through 5th level. Shocking grasp is a reasonable choice at 5th level, because it deals +2d6 damage over what magic missile deals, even though magic missile has better targeting, flexibility in distribution, and a far superior damage type.

- - -

I've never had a problem with scorching ray. Players get all excited about the number of dice, but so many things have 5 or 10 points of Fire resistance -- which gets applied multiple times, reducing the effect of each ray to something far less exciting. In play, it never seemed all that bad.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Sylrae]

I've never had a problem with scorching ray. Players get all excited about the number of dice, but so many things have 5 or 10 points of Fire resistance -- which gets applied multiple times, reducing the effect of each ray to something far less exciting. In play, it never seemed all that bad.

Elemental Substitution: Sonic - no spell level uppage. And what the hell has sonic resist, seriously!
Until then you just use your fire version. Not everything will have fire resistance (unless the dm has a sense of humor and sends you to the hells/plane of fire).

 

[Nifft]

Elemental Substitution: Sonic - no spell level uppage. And what the hell has sonic resist, seriously!

If you allow 3.0e sources, you'll have worse problems.
If you only allow 3.5e sources, no sonics.

Until then you just use your fire version. Not everything will have fire resistance (unless the dm has a sense of humor and sends you to the hells/plane of fire).

That's right. Sometimes it'll be effective. Good. It's a spell, it should work a lot of the time.

But my point is: it's not a universally effective spell, and many things that resist 28% of an 11th level fireball will resist 72% of an 11th level scorching ray. (It's amusing that the proportions work out like that.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Drowbane]

Two people did. Who are you asking?

-- N

The one who banned it outright... but I'm curious about your answer as well (now that you mention it).