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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldragon" data-source="post: 1464459" data-attributes="member: 3962">I do not allow everything from every book. In fact my policy is anything outside the core books is assumed to be not-allowed, and spells/feats are only added by player request and DM approval. I agree, It controls development of killer-combos a great deal. But it does not eliminate them. Often times one spell alone is balanced, but in groups there becomes a problem. I am not going to disallow one spell because it can be used in combination with some other feat to devastating effect.  For example. Keen Edge is balanced, Improved Critical is balanced, Weapon Master is balanced; but a weaponmaster using a keen rapier and having the improved critical feat is pretty gruesome, and many believe this lead to the change in the spell description to Keen Edge in 3.5.I agree entirely. Certain combos give a character a lot flair. I like to play a fighter/mage that uses the following string of feats/spells: Spring Attack+ Power Attack+Arcane Strike+True-Strike. A fun combo, but a rare combo. Not a whole lot of people  would use. But when everyone uses the same combo, it stops becoming flair and becomes commonplace and IMHO annoying. The Scry-Teleport assasination is one such example. Pretty much every campaign with players over lvl 10 do this tactic at least once.I made the mistake of implying that every combo is a killer-combo. Some combinations are certainly not game breaking. When I say Killer-Como, I mean combinations that are nearly universally useful.  A druid using Transmute metal to wood, and repel wood to Send a PC party off a cliff to thier deaths is also certainly powerful, but really only useful to a druid who lives at the top of a cliff.  However Scry-Teleport is nearly always useful, and can be applied heavily by a party as low a level as 9.Sure the DM can steal ideas from a party, and I have an aweful lot of fun doing it. In fact I usually reverse a combo back on the PCs, and let them come up with the counter to the killer-combo.  Sometimes the players can't come up with a solution to thier own combo. IMHO, when the game degenerates to the same combos being used again and again by PC and DM alike, with no counter being devised,  something is wrong in the system. A house rule needs to be written. I feel this postulate falls in to the category of "Every campaign is different". Since the DM's power is limitless, and the party makeup infinitly varied. In other words, in my campaign we do it this way. My NPCs tend to try and survive an encounter with PCs. Thus use all thier best spells right away, and when losing the battle they run away. The PCs follow the same strategy with NPC encounters. Neither side uses the concept of cannon fodder (Thats what summoning is for).</blockquote>

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