Igfig's page

I gave Demogorgon a bunch of items, active spells, and contingencies when I ran him for my ridiculously optimized group, but I think the most important thing I added was this epic spell:

Anti-Antimagic
Abjuration
Spellcraft DC: 56
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Area: 10-ft.-radius emanation
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: None
To Develop: 504,000 gp; 11 days, 20,160 XP. Seed: ward (DC 14). Factors: nullifies dispel magic (+6 DC), nullifies greater dispel magic (+10 DC), nullifies wall of dispel magic (+8 DC), nullifies wall of greater dispel magic (+14 DC), nullifies reaving dispel (+16 DC), increase CL by 15 (to 40, +30 DC). Mitigating factors: 20d6 backlash (-20 DC), Increase casting time to 10 minutes (-20 DC), reduce range to personal (-2 DC).

You are completely immune to all spells of the dispel family.

Without it, they would have dispelled all of his protective spells and killed him in the first round. As it is, he lasted three.

And here's an unfinished version of the list. It only covers some of the stuff that came up during the campaign; more will be added eventually.

NOTE: The banned list consists of stuff that's inherently broken, as I see it, and can't or shouldn't be fixed at all.

The restricted list is stuff that's banned unless a player can convince me that he'll use it sparingly and responsibly, and not for any optimization or mechanical advantage. Some entries come with suggested changes for how to make them more acceptable to me.

The watch list contains stuff that's okay to use, but should be used with caution and care to avoid munchkinry. Abuse of these privileges may result in that entry being restricted or banned.

The list of spell, item, and feat changes consists of things that need only minor fixes or clarifications to make balanced. Think of it as a personal errata.

The purpose of these lists is to ensure that the members of the party are balanced against each other and their opponents.

BANNED:
-Venomfire
-Shivering Touch (lesser and greater)
-Synchronity
-Unfettered Heroism
-Anything that causes a loop, especially an infinite one.

RESTRICTED:
-Anything from BoED or BoVD
-Hell, anything from 3.0 that hasn't been fully and properly updated to 3.5. That includes most MM2 and FF stuff.
-Share Spells cheese
-Polymorph and its spell tree. Too much variety. Use the "Wonder Twins" spells instead.
-Frostfell. Maybe make lvl 9, 1 cube only.
-Celerity
-Leadership
-Persistent Spell
-Incantrix

WATCH LIST:
-No-save-or-die effects, like Otto's Irresistible Dance, Forcecage, and White Raven Hammer. I wrote an essay on the topic outlining the problem and a possible solution, but it needs editing.
-Tome of Battle. Don't get me wrong--I love ToB--but it's fairly easy to outstrip your party if they're not optimized.
-Overuse of stacking.
-Artificer. With too much downtime, or too many weird spells, they can pull of unholy combos.
-Wild Shape. Same problem as Polymorph.
-Disjunction
-Fortunate Fate
-Time Stop
-Rod of Absorption

Spell, item, and feat changes:
-Ray of Stupidity inflicts a penalty, not ability damage. It can't reduce scores below 1.
-Spell Matrix spells can only target you and your allies. It's for quick buffs, not a massive barrage of low-level attack spells.
-Steadfast Boots use up an AoO each time you use them against a charge. Basically, they just grant Hold the Line.
-Split Ray allows you to attack two different targets. It's not just a cheaper Twin Spell.

I'm the DM who ran the campaign, and I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Now usually, I prefer to play with a lower-power, more narrativist style, like yourselves; however, since this campaign was probably going to be my last in 3.5, I made it clear to all involved that this was going to a no-holds-barred, anything-goes, campaign, where they could and should optimize to their hearts' content.

And so they did, and it was awesome. I powered up the enemies in response, and it was awesome. Khala was an even more annoying bastard than before, and it was awesome. Undead Vanthus went from a 98-hp weakling to an unholy warblade/swordsage combo with an army of wraiths, and it was awesome. And Demogorgon... Demogorgon was nigh-unkillable, and it was awesome.

The thing is, when you're as powerful as we were, a lot more happens in each round. The PCs had their gated creatures and a bunch more imbrued for emergencies, and Demogorgon had six summoned balors, Nulonga, and Belcheresk (who was an infernal). Everybody got way more actions per round than you'd think, because of White Raven Tactics, Time Stop, massive numbers of attacks, and companions/cohorts.

As it turned out, the battle probably took longer than many of yours, and it was really tense the whole time. When the heavily-buffed druid flailed at Big D with all eight of his tentacles and missed every time against his ridiculous AC, there were gasps around the table. When Sparky did the annulat trick, everybody high-fived (me included). And when Forly managed to turn the tables, dispel the epic dispel buffer, and start the endgame, everybody was so into it that you would have thought we were burrowing beetles or something.

(And that's not even mentioning the denouement and taking of the demon prince's crown.)

Basically it was awesome. It's a different playstyle, but it's still a good one.

(There were some imbalances, yeah, but they were relatively minor. Once I and Mithrandir have finished compiling the list, we'll totally share it.)