What spells do you not allow?

[DonTadow]

I'm slowly switching over my games to Elements of Magic, so in that case: all of them

But otherwise, I've never banned any spells, and my players are a ways from being 'D&D masters', so I don't have anything really to worry about right now

Some, I've eyeballed and reduced in power, or otherwise changed them if I felt it was needed. But I'm not really much for magical stuff anyways, so this really doesn't come up all that much - in my case.

cheers,
--N

right out of my own mouth. I do allow PHB spells but they provide a greater risk of casting than the normal EOM spells. It's easier to make up your own spells than it is to copy someone elses to the tee.

 

[delericho]

Higher-level campaigns usually devolve into figuring out the adventure goal, scrying the revelant sites, and teleporting from one to one in quick succession.

I was under the impression that you can't scry locations, only individuals?

Which has the downside at high level that your opponents gain a save, are probably aware of the scrying attempt, and will be ready for you. (Or have teleported out before you get there.)

 

[Sir Brennen]

Summon Excremental

 

[Wolfwood2]

I was under the impression that you can't scry locations, only individuals?

Which has the downside at high level that your opponents gain a save, are probably aware of the scrying attempt, and will be ready for you. (Or have teleported out before you get there.)

True that. It seems to make much more sense to use Wind Walk or Phantom Steed or something to get to a location near the source of the problems, then scout it out. (Using stealth characters or Prying Eyes or something like that.)

 

[kenobi65]

Tasha's Hideous Daughter
Transmute Flesh to Plush
Otto's Irresistable Bodily Functions

 

[Bagpuss]

Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection - and spells that have similar effects.

 

[Dykstrav]

I was under the impression that you can't scry locations, only individuals?

Yeah, this is right. But still, scrying someone generally lets you get a "viewed once" level of familiarity for the purposes of teleport. Scrying speficially states that you can see the subject's "immediate surroundings," within about a 10-foot radius. Even greater teleport requires that you at least have a description of the place.

This means that once your character can start tossing around scrying and teleport spells (somewhere around 9th level), the formula for a villain-motivated adventure generally breaks down to something resembling the following: 1) Scry the villain to figure out where he is; 2) teleport in and start wailing on him. If the scrying fails there's generally no reason that you can't just sit around and wait until tomorrow to try again.

Even giving a villain access to detect scrying usually doesn't help too much. If he detects someone looking in on him, he's likely to return the favor and come to the PC's instead of the other way around (he'll probably at least send some minions). The specifics vary from character to character of course, but the general trend seems to stick. You can only have so many fortresses with permanent Mordenkainen's private sanctum effects up, after all.

 

[Seule]

Power Word Pain
Wraithstrike
Floaty Shield (that's not the real name, it's in the SpC, it animates a shield. That enhancement is also banned).
Polymorph will get a very close looking at next time I run a game, and will probably be replaced with the various specific spells.
I'm sure that there are others, those are the biggies.

--Seule

 

[Lanefan]

For 1e, I've ditched some spells that were essentially useless (Friends and Wizard Mark, for example) and just didn't bother adopting some of the spells from 1e's UA (how many different versions of demon banishment and control do you really need?). But I can't recall ever banning a spell once it had been used, and in fact I've introduced some new ones along the way.

That said, every spell in my game has been tweaked to some extent, except high-level MU which I've yet to get to.

If I were to start over, I don't think I'd ban any, but Commune and similar would become much higher level.

Were I running 3e, I might ban a lot of the various buff spells just on principle.

Lanefan

 

[joshuakanton]

You can only have so many fortresses with permanent Mordenkainen's private sanctum effects up, after all.

You could always use lead sheet. :\