What to ban to make 3.0E and/or 3.5E playable and fair?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are there any alternatives to Secret Class Feature: Artifact sword? Is something like mandatory Gestalt Classing for sword-based classes too intrusive or too unhelpful? What about mid-game
racial ascension, like stapling on a free template that doesn't bump up ECL?

[nockermensch]

If you're going The Way Of The Swag, then you want a house rule where artifacts and caster levels interfere destructively . You don't want the Cleric picking Excalibur and becoming The Master of the Universe.

[Username17]

Are there any alternatives to Secret Class Feature: Artifact sword? Is something like mandatory Gestalt Classing for sword-based classes too intrusive or too unhelpful? What about mid-game
racial ascension, like stapling on a free template that doesn't bump up ECL?

Giving out gestalts is not going to decrease the power discrepancy between players, it will increase it. If one person makes a cleric/rogue and another player makes a favored soul/samurai, the difference you have to make up with secret class features is even higher than if one rolls a caster and the other does not.

If the players walk in with characters having noticeably different power levels, then you as MC are going to need to drop some secret class features on the folks pulling up the rear. It doesn't matter what those are, they could be artifact swords or planar touchstones or whatever. But throwing more toggles at the players is unlikely to be something that decreases your need because by definition it increases the maximum difference the players could present.

Yes, you can give out non-item secret class features. Quest rewards where people get mounts or new abilities or whatever. But that is not actually different than artifact swords.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Giving out gestalts is not going to decrease the power discrepancy between players, it will increase it.

How about just only allowing gestalts off of an approved list? For example, your allowed classes are:

Cleric, Psion, Wizard, Bard|Monk (I know, just roll with it), Ranger|Paladin, Rogue|Barbarian, Psychic Warrior|Soulknife, etc. If you wanna roll fighter, you're forced to back that ass up with a side order of knight. Similarly, if you want to play a druid, that's all you get.

[ishy]

Sounds like a lot of work for little gain. Ranger / Paladin doesn't scream synergy to me. With the class now having two shitty spell lists. And most classes still don't get out of combat things.

You'd be better off just improving the poor classes a bit IMHO.

[Username17]

Making bizarre gestalt lists is just like writing new classes. It's literally no gain at all over just porting in some classes from the Dungeonomicon or something. Saying "We're using the Dungeonomicon Monk instead of the PHB Monk" is less work than cobbling together some crazy patchwork of class options out of Unearthed Arcana. And it would work better.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Giving out gestalts is not going to decrease the power discrepancy between players, it will increase it.

How about just only allowing gestalts off of an approved list? For example, your allowed classes are:

Cleric, Psion, Wizard, Bard|Monk (I know, just roll with it), Ranger|Paladin, Rogue|Barbarian, Psychic Warrior|Soulknife, etc. If you wanna roll fighter, you're forced to back that ass up with a side order of knight. Similarly, if you want to play a druid, that's all you get.

See the entire thread where we talked about this (In Trenches I believe) and it was stupid as shit.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Saying "We're using the Dungeonomicon Monk instead of the PHB Monk" is less work than cobbling together some crazy patchwork of class options out of Unearthed Arcana. And it would work better.

Hey, no argument here, but I think you're discounting the psychological advantage of 'we play only with stuff we got from the SRD, with a couple of tweaks' as a talking point. It's total bullshit, yes, but a lot of people (including yours truly) get an irrational thrill from pretending that the rules worked all along, you just need to massage them a little bit.

However:

See the entire thread where we talked about this (In Trenches I believe) and it was stupid as shit.

Dammit, I was afraid of that. Oh, well.

[Drolyt]

Are there any alternatives to Secret Class Feature: Artifact sword? Is something like mandatory Gestalt Classing for sword-based classes too intrusive or too unhelpful? What about mid-game
racial ascension, like stapling on a free template that doesn't bump up ECL?

As others point out the gestalt thing is probably more trouble than it is worth, but there is one version I think might work: all non-spellcasters gestalt with rogue (or scout I guess). Rogue, more than any other non-spellcaster, will give characters a good mix of combat and non-combat abilities. Not sure what you should do if someone just wants to play a rogue in that case, but it might work.

As for templates, the big difference between that and handing out artifact swords is that it is more obvious, but if your players aren't the kind that insist that fighters are totally balanced with wizards it is probably a superior solution. Half-celestial/half-fiend are good choices here, gives lots of good stuff. Free Unearthed Arcana bloodlines are good too.

[Username17]

One of 3rd edition's biggest mistakes was assigning level costs to shit like lycanthropy and efreet blood. In AD&D days, if the party fighter was sucking, you could always just have them bitten by a werebear and gain a lot of power quickly. But in 3rd edition, the fact that shit like that is "supposed" to cost levels means that if you hand a player a naked powerup, it becomes obvious what you're doing. A lot of fighter players will become insulted that you are patronizing them, and bizarrely many wizard players will become envious and resentful.

Giving secret class features to players of shitty classes is an effective way to balance player characters in specific games. But while artifact swords are still pretty secret, in 3rd edition acquired templates and bloodlines are not. Everyone can see the level adjustment it's "supposed" to cost, and the favoritism is obvious. Things would be so much easier if you had to derive the rules for player character vampires like in the bad old days.

-Username17

[Drolyt]

One of 3rd edition's biggest mistakes was assigning level costs to shit like lycanthropy and efreet blood. In AD&D days, if the party fighter was sucking, you could always just have them bitten by a werebear and gain a lot of power quickly. But in 3rd edition, the fact that shit like that is "supposed" to cost levels means that if you hand a player a naked powerup, it becomes obvious what you're doing. A lot of fighter players will become insulted that you are patronizing them, and bizarrely many wizard players will become envious and resentful.

Giving secret class features to players of shitty classes is an effective way to balance player characters in specific games. But while artifact swords are still pretty secret, in 3rd edition acquired templates and bloodlines are not. Everyone can see the level adjustment it's "supposed" to cost, and the favoritism is obvious. Things would be so much easier if you had to derive the rules for player character vampires like in the bad old days.

-Username17

Okay, write houserules buffing all the PC races and giving them free abilities as they go up in level. Favor non-spellcasters somewhat, but it isn't that important because giving extra options naturally favors the characters that don't have many options already. Pretend you are just trying to make races more interesting.

[tussock]

All right. So, if I was running a strict 3.0E game in which any first-party WotC material that was published before 3.5E came out, what would I have to impose a blanket ban on to make the game playable until, oh, character level 20? If this is impossible, what's the highest level I can expect the game to go before I start having to ban more than a third of published material?

Pure 3.0 is where the Incantrix teleports to the final boss parlour on any plane of existence and casts reach-spell Harm and then quickened Magic Missile. While being a giant with an army of pet angels or whatever, doesn't matter. Then use cheap magic items to get the spells back for zero net outlay. Game solved.


To level 20? Everything to do with polymorph/shapechange. All the summons and calling stuff (or just be a complete dick about the flavour). All the teleport effects beyond about Dimension Door. Pretty much all the domination and charm spells. Everything that boosts save DCs and spell penetration checks. Everything that lowers metamagic costs. Fucking touch-AC, just get rid of it as a rule, everything hits regular AC or uses Ref saves as appropriate. Everything that gives extra daily spell slots or further speeds their recovery.

Like what 4e did to the spell list, only a caster can still tie things up with Web and Black Tentacles while invisible, invulnerable, and flying, and let the warriors murder them at leisure. Like D&D.

Monsters still have all those spell effects, but it's a DM-plot-point to use them, because you cannot become or control monsters other than through MTP (this change is because 3e made the monsters awesome, no one cared if you charmed an AD&D Giant or Dragon). You want to go to heaven? An angel comes and takes you there, when the DM's ready for you.

Strictly enforce XP (and gp) costs for everything, and use the same XP rewards for everyone like 3.0 originally did. Casters making lots of items end up down a level, then just give out more items to compensate. Fighter-friendly items, of course.


Players can end up throwing around enough long-duration buffs to make the Fighters happy (about +10 to all physical stats all day for a start, while lowering equipment costs for grunts), and you've basically removed the effects that bypass everything they might contribute.

Use the early "no such thing as level-adjustment" monster-PC rules, because none of that helps casters. If it does help casters, just ban it.

Encounter-wise, use a big old fuck-ton of low-CR monsters all the time. If the PCs are fighting just one monster, it's a very easy fight because they never see anything above their own level. Ever. At all. Except for MTP non-combat stuff. Even at their own level is a total rarity and never in a hard fight. That helps the at-will-all-day martial classes a great deal. Hard fights are always against large numbers.

Oh, and don't let haste give you a whole partial action, just an attack. Cast and swing, or swing and swing, that's fine. Same for the monsters on that one.

Similarly, what if I was running a 3.5E game?

Much the same, only you need to compensate for the lack of buffs with even more treasure. Grunts are even weaker in 3.5 in a lot of ways, the monsters got such a boost for a start. Use even more, even weaker monsters. Like 100 Goblins at level 8 to make use of Great Cleave and Whirlwind and whatever else. I'd give up earlier in 3.5 too, level 14 would be about it.

[Mistborn]

To level 20? Everything to do with polymorph/shapechange. All the summons and calling stuff (or just be a complete dick about the flavour). All the teleport effects beyond about Dimension Door. Pretty much all the domination and charm spells. Everything that boosts save DCs and spell penetration checks. Everything that lowers metamagic costs. Fucking touch-AC, just get rid of it as a rule, everything hits regular AC or uses Ref saves as appropriate. Everything that gives extra daily spell slots or further speeds their recovery.

Like what 4e did to the spell list, only a caster can still tie things up with Web and Black Tentacles while invisible, invulnerable, and flying, and let the warriors murder them at leisure. Like D&D.

Monsters still have all those spell effects, but it's a DM-plot-point to use them, because you cannot become or control monsters other than through MTP

Go suck a barrel of cocks, then commit Sudoku. If you strip the plot effects from the caster lists than you're basically playing 4e, only casters are still going to fvcking dominate combat since you haven't gotten around to banning the spells that fvcking kill people. So all you've done is make the game stupid without fixing anything.

[Drolyt]

All right. So, if I was running a strict 3.0E game in which any first-party WotC material that was published before 3.5E came out, what would I have to impose a blanket ban on to make the game playable until, oh, character level 20? If this is impossible, what's the highest level I can expect the game to go before I start having to ban more than a third of published material?

Pure 3.0 is where the Incantrix teleports to the final boss parlour on any plane of existence and casts reach-spell Harm and then quickened Magic Missile. While being a giant with an army of pet angels or whatever, doesn't matter. Then use cheap magic items to get the spells back for zero net outlay. Game solved.


To level 20? Everything to do with polymorph/shapechange. All the summons and calling stuff (or just be a complete dick about the flavour). All the teleport effects beyond about Dimension Door. Pretty much all the domination and charm spells. Everything that boosts save DCs and spell penetration checks. Everything that lowers metamagic costs. Fucking touch-AC, just get rid of it as a rule, everything hits regular AC or uses Ref saves as appropriate. Everything that gives extra daily spell slots or further speeds their recovery.

Like what 4e did to the spell list, only a caster can still tie things up with Web and Black Tentacles while invisible, invulnerable, and flying, and let the warriors murder them at leisure. Like D&D.

I'm confused, your solution is to ban stuff that messes with the plot but leave all the stuff that allows casters to dominate in actual play? I mean, I have no problem with banning teleport if it doesn't fit with your setting (it is potentially much less fun than shadow walk/ethereal jaunt or having to find the right portal in Sigil or even having to go through the Mine of Moria) but it isn't really what is wrong with spellcasters. Scry and die isn't a real issue because in any sane setting where it is possible everything important will be warded like Hogwarts, except harder to attack. Charm and dominate don't work well in combat, and polymorph... well, it is broken as written, but I think the correct response is not to ban it but to fix it. As for getting rid of metamagic reducers and touch attack spells (and other ways to bypass defenses), that will help, but it doesn't really affect the real problem with casters, which is that their attacks are binary (win/lose) while fighters have to whittle away at hp. If you really want to fix D&D you need to make spells less of an instant win (while still being good) and give fighters options that aren't "do damage" and "trip/disarm/etc. that doesn't work against most things". As has already been discussed it is impossible to do that just by banning random things.
Edit: Also, who cares if spellcasters get extra spell slots? They already have enough to act every turn at high levels, and at low levels it is bullshit that they don't get to act every turn.

[Username17]

Okay, write houserules buffing all the PC races and giving them free abilities as they go up in level. Favor non-spellcasters somewhat, but it isn't that important because giving extra options naturally favors the characters that don't have many options already.

That's... only sometimes true.

If you already have something useful to do, the addition of an extra ability that gives you something useful to do is not as big a difference as if you didn't already have anything to contribute. The choice of A or B is not as different from doing A (because you have nothing else to do) as doing B is from doing nothing (because you have nothing to do at all). But... it is also importantly true that a new ability is more likely to "form a combo" with another ability you have if you have more abilities.

So your first level appropriate attack is worth a whole lot more than your eighth level appropriate attack. That's why Rogues can play the game at all, even though they basically only have attack volleys with damage bonuses on each attack to do large damage per turn at short range. They just have the one attack, but it's level appropriate and most enemies can be felled with burst damage.

But solid fog is merely "pretty good" when used in its intended function of splitting enemy groups so that you can deal with one part and then the other. Once you combine it with area damage, so that you can effectively remove all of the enemies from combat and still attack them for several turns, it becomes obscene.

If you just haphazardly throw a bunch of powerups at the players and let them dumpster dive through them, you are very likely to have at least some setups that correspond to the second option, which is going to be more of a relative powerup for the full casters than for anyone else. And they, of course, are the characters that need a powerup of any kind least of anyone.

If you want the game to be more balanced instead of less, you need to give out something that gives more actual power to the non-casters than it does to Mr. Pointyhat. And as things stand, in 3rd edition Magic Items are the only things that work that way. I mean, technically followers and cohorts work that way too, but everyone thinks you only get those things from the Leadership feat, and only in the amount determined by that feat. The fact that the rules don't actually say that would still probably be treated as a crazy house rule by anyone you played with, so ingrained is that misconception.

-Username17

[Drolyt]

Okay, write houserules buffing all the PC races and giving them free abilities as they go up in level. Favor non-spellcasters somewhat, but it isn't that important because giving extra options naturally favors the characters that don't have many options already.

That's... only sometimes true.
[snipped]
-Username17

Okay you need to be somewhat careful but it works about the same as handing out magic items. You face the same problem where the spellcasters will end up with some of the magic items/racial bonuses/whatever you choose to do, you just have to follow the same solution of making it more useful to non-spellcasters.

As an aside, what exactly were they smoking when they priced magic items? Your comment about flaming swords got me thinking, wings of flying costs more than a 10th level character has in GP but overland flight lasts an hour a level and can be had for one 5th level spell slot at 9th level. Eyes of charming costs slightly more and is not even close to a level appropriate ability for a 10th level character. A Monk's belt takes up a 6th level character's entire wealth by level and is weaker than using alter self to turn into lizardfolk for 10 min/level as a 2nd level spell slot.

[Kaelik]

I'm confused, your solution is to ban stuff that messes with the plot but leave all the stuff that allows casters to dominate in actual play?

The thing you have to understand about Tussock is that he doesn't play 3e D&D. He plays fundamentally differently when it comes to saves, so he is very confused about saving throws and spells, and how they affect the game.

So in his head, when he is saying "don't let casters buff DCs" he probably thinks that brings saves back to 2e levels, even though it doesn't.

The way he personally uses saves, monsters actually never fail saves at all, so Wizard spells are a lot worse.

[ishy]

A Monk's belt takes up a 6th level character's entire wealth by level and is weaker than using alter self to turn into lizardfolk for 10 min/level as a 2nd level spell slot.

That is why only druids who use wildshape wear it.

[Username17]

As an aside, what exactly were they smoking when they priced magic items? Your comment about flaming swords got me thinking, wings of flying costs more than a 10th level character has in GP but overland flight lasts an hour a level and can be had for one 5th level spell slot at 9th level. Eyes of charming costs slightly more and is not even close to a level appropriate ability for a 10th level character. A Monk's belt takes up a 6th level character's entire wealth by level and is weaker than using alter self to turn into lizardfolk for 10 min/level as a 2nd level spell slot.

The big thing here is that they decided to make these neat little math formulas to generate item costs, and even neater mathematical formulas to generate treasure parcel values in order to make wealth numbers add up using the treasure charts. It's really very elegant in a way. But then they didn't go back and check to see if these items actually counted for shit against the enemies you're expected to face. And they really don't.

When K and I were bashing our heads up against the Book of Gears, that was the big problem we had. The truth is that while all the costs and values add up the way the game tells you they are supposed to, the actual power contributed by those items doesn't come anywhere close to where it needs to be to make swinging a sword a gainful proposition in the 5-15 level range.

A symptom of this was people spurging out on weird tiny cheap items that stacked together to get offensive and defensive bonuses. People grabbed bullshit items because that was all that could be afforded. And while there was lots of hand wringing about how people got amulets of natty armor instead of flying carpets, I don't think Andy Collins and the like ever figured out that the fundamental problem was simply that the wealth by level values were laughably too low at almost every level people played.

-Username17

[fectin]

Everything Frank said is true, but I still think Drolut is looking at the 3.5 prices, not the 3.0 ones.

[Judging__Eagle]

A symptom of this was people spurging out on weird tiny cheap items that stacked together to get offensive and defensive bonuses. People grabbed bullshit items because that was all that could be afforded. And while there was lots of hand wringing about how people got amulets of natty armor instead of flying carpets, I don't think Andy Collins and the like ever figured out that the fundamental problem was simply that the wealth by level values were laughably too low at almost every level people played.

This is absolutely true. However, about 'how' much more than WBL should PCs have compared to the WBL charts?

[Drolyt]

A symptom of this was people spurging out on weird tiny cheap items that stacked together to get offensive and defensive bonuses. People grabbed bullshit items because that was all that could be afforded. And while there was lots of hand wringing about how people got amulets of natty armor instead of flying carpets, I don't think Andy Collins and the like ever figured out that the fundamental problem was simply that the wealth by level values were laughably too low at almost every level people played.

This is absolutely true. However, about 'how' much more than WBL should PCs have compared to the WBL charts?

Looking at how wondrous items are priced you basically need to shift the WBL charts five levels just for people to get one or two items equivalent to the spells available at that level. The only advantage of these items over said spells is their permanency. Creating more items with daily charges might help.

[tussock]

I'm confused, your solution is to ban stuff that messes with the plot but leave all the stuff that allows casters to dominate in actual play?

No, you both missed my attempt at a point, so I'll try again.

Fact: Monsters in 3e are really good, other than their saving throws.

Result: Becoming or controlling a monster of your choice is too good. It worked in AD&D for twenty years because the Fighter was much better than the monsters and so no one much cared. But now, you can't let people have pet monsters, or be monsters, not because you can do interesting things with it (which you totally can and is quite fun), but because they're all much better Fighters than the actual Fighters.

So you only play full casters and make your own Fighters as need be, or ban monster control and polymorph and let people play Fighters as PCs instead.


Fact: 3e teleport (in combination with various things) wins D&D.

Result: everyone pretends they won't use it that way, the DM doesn't murder all the PCs in their sleep, and you don't completely ignore everything he offers and go murder the final boss in their sleep. It's cool, but just ban it. Traveling montages don't actually take up game time, and there's plenty of in-game time-critical ways to move around without it, a lot of them are even super-fun and full of RP goodness.

Scry and die isn't a real issue because in any sane setting where it is possible everything important will be warded like Hogwarts, except harder to attack.

So you house-rule it out of existence. "No one does that because we pretend it doesn't work." I was just honest enough to ban it.

And don't fucking well nerf scrying. I hate when people mess with divination in D&D, it's about the best part of playing a spellcaster is being able to solve the puzzles. Even if you have to scry on some minion and then scry who he meets and so on, you can eventually find Bin Laden and flying-carpet your way in to kill the bastard.

Obvious if you can't do that the DM will just have to tell you where Bin Laden is anyway, but fuck that for a game. May as well play 4e and start session with an initiative check.

Charm and dominate don't work well in combat

Planar Binding, Dominate Monster, and Charm Monster are all variously enabled forms of having a pet who is a better Fighter than the Fighter. You can ban Fighters, or ban the charms. Take your pick.

, and polymorph... well, it is broken as written, but I think the correct response is not to ban it but to fix it.

It's been 13 years and no one has even come close to fixing Polymorph for d20 without effectively banning it and replacing it with a convoluted combo of Claws of the Wolf, Bull's Strength, and Fly with a tiny duration. You fix the fucking thing if it's so easy.

<snips>
But in general the question was how one does D&D with minimal banning and that must include Fighters who mash on the low-punch key all day and Wizards who can actually end fights with a single spell (Wall of Stone or whatever) when things get tough. Because that is D&D. Love everyone's fantasy heartbreaker ideas and shit, but the question was about banning stuff for 3.0 (and 3.5).

Edit: Also, who cares if spellcasters get extra spell slots? They already have enough to act every turn at high levels, and at low levels it is bullshit that they don't get to act every turn.

Oh, cry me a river Mr "I had to use a scroll or two today". Fucking hell people are whining bitches about their Wizards.

Here's the thing, casters by default (at mid-high levels) have too many slots with too high DCs that all recover too quickly, and a quick patch on that is to not make it any worse. Just say'n.


And yes, as Kaelik says, I home-use DC 15 for all saves and such forever, so my high level monsters and fighters make some saves and that does change things. But another solution is to use so very many monsters all the time that casters run out of save-or-lose spells and it becomes efficient to work on damage promotion in the party because that is something that needs to happen anyway.

And I also know that the highest level casters can't run out of spells in 3.5, but I did suggest you burn them for building endless extra spells. Banning the purchase of extra spells as scrolls and potions and wands and shit wouldn't hurt either, but it's just not a huge deal to have a small spread of low-level options that can go all day, and I like giving them out as treasure all the time anyway (especially for the monsters to zap away with during battle).

[Mistborn]

tussock have you considered playing 4e instead, Srsly.

The Fighter is going to feel small in the pant whenever people do something other than swing at people for damage, but that sure as hell isn't a problem with every other class.

[Omegonthesane]

tussock have you considered playing 4e instead, Srsly.

The Fighter is going to feel small in the pant whenever people do something other than swing at people for damage, but that sure as hell isn't a problem with every other class.

That's a strawman, right there, at least if we assume his core position has indeed shifted to what was in the last post - a post which in fact countenances the existence of the option of "just ban fighters, they're terrible at their supposed job".

That being said - tussock, can you really not see the practical difference between "this option exists and so do precautions against it, which some though not all enemies will use" and "this option doesn't exist"? Precautions tend not to be scot free, so some opponents will reasonably not have them everywhere - for example, a lazy BBEG might only proof his deepest inner sanctum against teleports, leaving swathes of his HQ that could be teleported into.