RSS Facebook Twitter Email
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice

Ban List

Advice

Search Thread

Search this Thread:

So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

My actual ban list:

Feats: Calculating Mind, Leadership, Sacred Geometry, all item creation feats.

Classes: All 9th casting classes (more a lore/flavor decision)

Archetypes: Vivisseccionist, Primalist, Master Summoner and Synthesist.

Any more sugestions? The game should last up to 12th Level.
Sovereign Court

From the look - other than adding the 9-level casters, I'd just port over the PFS rules.

If you are only planning on taking the game up to 12th, why ban all 9th casting classes? Instead call it an E12 game, and cap levels (and thus spells, especially the more problematic ones) for the campaign?

Banning Calculating Mind, Leadership and Sacred Geo - reasonable. The item creation feats? The campaign world concept must obviously be playing a role in this choice.

How do you feel about Gunslingers and gunpowder? Might warrant a thought or two about technological advances.

The point is to make a really low magic campaing, the Automatic Bônus Progression will be used to make sure the math isn't that screwed.

Gunslingers are present because gunpowder are common, and we use different rules to Guns (no more misfire or touch attacks).

Gonna read the PFS rules, thanks.
Grand Lodge
Metal Sonic wrote:

So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

My actual ban list:

Feats: Calculating Mind, Leadership, Sacred Geometry

Archetypes: Master Summoner

Any more suggestions? The game should last up to 12th Level.

That is about all I can agree with on your list. The banning of 9th level casters and ending at 12 is pure laughable as you will not be dealing with 9th level spells.

I would force Players to use the Unchained Summoner if they choose that class.

I limit crafting to no more than 3 a character instead of Banning it. A GM controls crafting via, Loot (gold) and Down time allowed.

I force all my players to play the Unchained rogue just because Core rogue is so much trash and there is no mechanical reason to play a core rogue.

I ban Gunslingers both for Flavor (guns are not classic DnD fantasy) and a properly built level 12-13 Gunslinger could solo a pit fiend CR 20. Let that sink in as you come to a judgement on the class. at least you know about Touch attacks being a bit OP on a Full BaB class.

But Little Helper is right much of your ban list is PFS ban list and rules...you might want to just look into those rules.

I like ABP but Low magic setting can mean a lot of things like: Access to lots of magic items and Point buy (usually 15).

There was a wizard cowboy with guns in the original Greyhawk campaign by the name of Murrlyn, look it up, Guns are indeed classic d&do fantasy, Mr. Thistlefoot.

In my games I've banned Colour spray because it eclipses all the other level 1 spells. It'll either TPK a party or win button an encounter.

Might want to add Vile Leadership to that list, its Leadership for evil people.

Also if your banning synthesist I would ban the witch synergist to.

Also if there is any magic at all I feel like you should add Alchemist as people trying to mimic what little magic they see.

Oh and what will you do if people have spell-like abilities?

The Witch is already banned because it's a 9th level caster. Though there is no way the Synergist is as Bad as a Synthesist.
Azten wrote:
The Witch is already banned because it's a 9th level caster. Though there is no way the Synergist is as Bad as a Synthesist.

Oh yeah. I just said it because it goes along with the same theme. Also for the hilarity of it's probable uselessness you could give them a bunch of wands of detect magic. Maybe ban that though?

The synthesist is fine if you don't use point buy. In a high stats game, it's really nothing special.

If I were the type to ban, I'd probably ban all of the inquisitor archetypes that outperform the other classes they are based on. Monster tactician is basically summoner+.

I would never allow gunslingers or guns as it does not fit the classic fantasy mold plus gunslingers properly done can solo content on their own.

If you remove gunslingers for theme, you'd probably want to remove alchemists too. They occupy a similar fantasy genre.

...Metal Sonic did say in the fourth post that guns do not hit touch AC (and also don't misfire) already, and he also said that it's a homebrew setting where gunpowder is common, which suggests that it's not a 'classic (D&D) fantasy' in the sense that you seem to be using the term. So many of the gunslinger objections seem irrelevant - if not unhelpful - to this thread...

Thanks for the input, all of you.

To clarify more, the 9th caster ban is common with the people I play: They feel that the game became more gritty without playing another system, at least in 3.5. It's my first time GMing PF to they.

And while I plan the game to go up 12th, I can't guarantee that will end at this point, because I play with this guys for 16 years and sometimes small campaings go around for years.

I will stick with the PFS bans as they look very reasonable.

Honestly I worry less about individual feats and classes, and instead I ask my players to sit down and explain what they plan to take at the various levels during session 0. My players all build a skeleton of how their character will progress towards the end of the campaign, which they aren't strictly held to if character development changes their plans but gives me an idea of what they plan to accomplish. I compare the builds with the tier system, player goals, and system mastery level to determine who's characters will be a problem from a thematic or rollplaying (sic) perspective, and will explain the customized rule interaction of certain exploits in my campaign or why I choose to ban certain combinations or interactions in their build for this campaign. I allow them to maintain any flavor which isn't disruptive go the theme of the campaign this way, but prevent any one player from dominating the field in an unenjoyable way for the party. If I don't like how you claim two things stack, even if they actually do stack that way, I'll work with you to create a reasonable alternative. Maybe one of those bonuses counts as 1/2 stack, or they become a bonus that's harder to remove than normal or applies to more situations. I don't want to say someone can't take a valid choice of mechanics which fits the theme of my campaign, but because of the inherent power gaming nature of some of my players I do have to prevent gross misuse of the system and they accept and respect that decision, and my personal attention to their desires and vision for their character.

For instance, I'd allow a synthesist summoner. I see no reason it can't be reasonably worked with. But if they plan to use it to it's full potential by minmax ing their stats to have high mental scores and rely exclusively on the physical scores of the eidolon, to have high armor from the eidolon with no penalty, and to basically be a genius magician in a nearly indestructible mecha suit... I might tell them I'm going to rule that the eidolon takes over full control during their transformation, so long as the two are synthesized, such that they must use the mental scores of the eidolon in question rather than their own. Now it becomes, in effect, an alternate personality similar to a possession effect, where they are "along for the ride, with minimal input" during this time. They still control the actions of the eidolon, have access to all of their abilities including spell casting, and even have their knowledge checks unaltered as they can speak to and through the eidolon telepathically.

But their casting is done with the eidolon mental stats, their skill points aside from purely mental skills that can be done "through observation and communication alone" use the skill points and ability scores of the eidolon, et cetera. This dramatically reduces the inherent overpowered nature of the archetype, fits the flavor of most characters well enough to appease a well intentioned player, and can give a unique spin on a long standing build. Now they must carefully balance when they choose to be in each form, as they may need to drop their eidolon to use some spells or skills properly, leaving them vulnerable. Now they can't afford to drop all 3 physical scores to a 5, because they actually might need to carry their gear, walk on their own two feet for a few steps, and could be struck by a surprise blow if they aren't careful.

Note that restructuring an entire class/archetype is a heavy mod and I'd always declare it a work in progress that we'd reconsider periodically and allow partial rebuilds to ensure that everyone at the table could enjoy themselves. Restructuring an individual feat or the way two feats interact is a much easier solution in most cases.

I hope this advice helps someone, even if not the OP, because it's worked well with me to encourage open communication and balanced characters with an emphasis on roleplaying rather than powergaming.

Given the OP's removal of misfires and touch attacks on guns, I suppose this is merely a suggestion that the same judicial hand can be applied to most any similar concern.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

If you want to get complicated, you could allow the summoner, but force it to use the unchained summoner spell list. I don't suggest using the unchained summoner whole, because I personally really don't like its take on eidolons.

Ban summoners all togheter. Not because of the power level (well, not ONLY because of that) but above all because the class takes away 3 times the space every other class does in terms of actions per turn. In my experience the Summoner is a class that kills fun for everyone else.
Rogar Valertis wrote:
Ban summoners all togheter. Not because of the power level (well, not ONLY because of that) but above all because the class takes away 3 times the space every other class does in terms of actions per turn. In my experience the Summoner is a class that kills fun for everyone else.

That really depends. I've noticed that if a player doesn't know his class well enough, any caster can take a lot longer. When I play a summoner, I just keep enough dice to roll all of my attacks at the same time. It doesn't take a long time at all.

But, a house rule I have considered along those lines is to limit summoning spells cast as spell like abilities to only one monster per use.

Just open a book, & point to something.
Odds are it can be abused in some way. Especially if you do xyz, at lv?, and mis-interpert some other rule. Ban that.

Repeat a few times.

The summoner is a hidden 9th caster and should be banned, too if 9th casters are banned.

Early Firearms: When firing an early firearm, the attack resolves against the target’s touch AC when the target is within the first range increment of the weapon,
-------
but this type of attack is not considered a touch attack for the purposes of feats and abilities such as Deadly Aim.
-------
At higher range increments, the attack resolves normally, including taking the normal cumulative –2 penalty for each full range increment.
-------
Unlike other projectile weapons, early firearms have a maximum range of five range increments.
-------
touch AC is only for up close fighting so you can not touch AC snipe.
-------
what's with the hate for alchemists. if your running a low magic campaign their should be more alchemists then wizards. alchemists are low magic. with out alchemy gunpowder is damn hard to make from piss and is a very long processed months up to a year and for really weak gunpowder. alchemists are the magics equivalent of scientists. with out them your not cheating the process by using chemicals.
-------
since piss gunpowder can be weak you would have a few bad batches. and by a few i mean there would be a lot of misfiring shells or bullets.
-------
OP are you making the ban list because you think your players can't handle it.
or
that you can't handle it.
or
because you think your players will abuse the new system.
-------
your not new to PF but your players are changing the rules will just have them forming bad habits for when they play it with someone else. just imagine if they tried to play a gunslinger with your rules at someone else's table. if it's their first time play it normal for the first few times before adding your own changes. personally i think low magic sucks eggs. i enjoy crafting personal magical items that are not in the books. like my glove of spark it is a cantrip lvl spell on a glove. i will keep that till my character dies and he will because my dm hates me.
-------
what is your reason for getting rid of item creation.beyond first lvl they will have no say in what their characters will look like only you will. what if one of your players wants to have a suit of plate armor that's pink with yellow poky-dots that has a flower motif. if you keep throwing dragon razor-blade spike plate armor at that player he or she might not be happy.

also with that ruling you won't be allowing alchemists or gunslingers into your game.alchemists rely on craft alchemy for everything they need to do as a class. gunslinger also rely on crafting for their class skills as well just look up Gunsmithing which gunslingers get as a bonus feat.

Gunsmithing

You know the secrets of repairing and restoring firearms.

Benefit: If you have access to a gunsmith's kit, you can create and restore firearms, craft bullets, and mix black powder for all types of firearms. You do not need to make a Craft check to create firearms and ammunition or to restore firearms.

Crafting Firearms: You can craft any early firearm for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the firearm. At your GM’s discretion, you can craft advanced firearms for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the firearm. Crafting a firearm in this way takes 1 day of work for every 1,000 gp of the firearm’s price (minimum 1 day).

Crafting Ammunition: You can craft bullets, pellets, and black powder for a cost in raw materials equal to 10% of the price. If you have at least 1 rank in Craft (alchemy), you can craft alchemical cartridges for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the cartridge. At your GM’s discretion, you can craft metal cartridges for a cost in raw materials equal to half the cost of the cartridge. Crafting bullets, black powder, or cartridges takes 1 day of work for every 1,000 gp of ammunition (minimum 1 day).

Restoring a Broken Firearm: Each day, with an hour’s worth of work, you can use this feat to repair a single firearm with the broken condition. You can take time during a rest period to restore a broken firearm with this feat.

Special: If you are a gunslinger, this feat grants the following additional benefit. You can use this feat to repair and restore your initial, battered weapon. It costs 300 gp and 1 day of work to upgrade it to a masterwork firearm of its type.

it was just easier to post the feat here. if you get rid of all crafting feats gunslingers can not replenish their ammo and alchemists are not alchemists they need it to make their bombs, mutagens, potions, and their extracts.
zainale wrote:
gunslingers can not replenish their ammo and alchemists are not alchemists they need it to make their bombs, mutagens, potions, and their extracts.

Gunslingers can still buy the ammo, it's just more expensive.

Alchemical cartridges don't exist.

Alchemists can't make alchemical items requiring craft alchemy checks, such as tangle foot bags and sunrods.

Nowhere have I ever seen that alchemists are required to take craft alchemy ranks to use their class skills, with the exception of swift alchemy, instant alchemy, and I think they use craft alchemy to identify any poison they examine as a standard action. Bombs, mutagens, extracts, and discoveries don't normally require craft alchemy to actually be used. Though I do recommend some bonus feats to replace the above mentioned abilities and the "brew potion" bonus feat, which you also can't use.
Scarab Sages
zainale wrote:


what's with the hate for alchemists. if your running a low magic campaign their should be more alchemists then wizards. alchemists are low magic. with out alchemy gunpowder is damn hard to make from piss and is a very long processed months up to a year and for really weak gunpowder. alchemists are the magics equivalent of scientists. with out them your not cheating the process by using chemicals.

As much as I dislike this ban list, craft (alchemy) is not an item creation feat. Nor do alchemists need it to make their daily bombs. He isn't banning the craft skills.

my bad. i miss read that.

My ban list:
Any feat or trait that requires selecting one spell you can cast or acts as a metamagic reducer.
Metamagic outside some basic options.
A few traits are nerfed, and religion traits should be asked about.
Leadership.

Well, I think everything is up for negotiation between GM and player, and if I think a player is abusing something problematic, I'll take the player aside and we'll have an out-of-game chat.

One item that I would have banned had my last campaign not already ended is the gloves of reconnaissance. They totally negate any sense of mystery, and just aren't fun-- on either side of the GM screen.
QuidEst wrote:

My ban list:

Any feat or trait that requires selecting one spell you can cast or acts as a metamagic reducer.
Metamagic outside some basic options.
A few traits are nerfed, and religion traits should be asked about.
Leadership.

what about merciful metamagic?

zainale wrote:
QuidEst wrote:

My ban list:

Any feat or trait that requires selecting one spell you can cast or acts as a metamagic reducer.
Metamagic outside some basic options.
A few traits are nerfed, and religion traits should be asked about.
Leadership.
what about merciful metamagic?

Metamagic is on a "feel free to ask" basis since there are a lot of options and I might miss some game-improving ones. Merciful? Go for it. Dazing or Persistent? Nope.

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:
Metal Sonic wrote:

So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

My actual ban list:

Feats: Calculating Mind, Leadership, Sacred Geometry

Archetypes: Master Summoner

Any more suggestions? The game should last up to 12th Level.

That is about all I can agree with on your list. The banning of 9th level casters and ending at 12 is pure laughable as you will not be dealing with 9th level spells.

I would force Players to use the Unchained Summoner if they choose that class.

I limit crafting to no more than 3 a character instead of Banning it. A GM controls crafting via, Loot (gold) and Down time allowed.

I force all my players to play the Unchained rogue just because Core rogue is so much trash and there is no mechanical reason to play a core rogue.

I ban Gunslingers both for Flavor (guns are not classic DnD fantasy) and a properly built level 12-13 Gunslinger could solo a pit fiend CR 20. Let that sink in as you come to a judgement on the class. at least you know about Touch attacks being a bit OP on a Full BaB class.

But Little Helper is right much of your ban list is PFS ban list and rules...you might want to just look into those rules.

I like ABP but Low magic setting can mean a lot of things like: Access to lots of magic items and Point buy (usually 15).

If you ban 9th level spell caster it's banning 5th and 6th level spells. So it's not laughable, it's a good choice for low magic game.

voska66 wrote:
Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:
Metal Sonic wrote:

So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

My actual ban list:

Feats: Calculating Mind, Leadership, Sacred Geometry

Archetypes: Master Summoner

Any more suggestions? The game should last up to 12th Level.

That is about all I can agree with on your list. The banning of 9th level casters and ending at 12 is pure laughable as you will not be dealing with 9th level spells.

I would force Players to use the Unchained Summoner if they choose that class.

I limit crafting to no more than 3 a character instead of Banning it. A GM controls crafting via, Loot (gold) and Down time allowed.

I force all my players to play the Unchained rogue just because Core rogue is so much trash and there is no mechanical reason to play a core rogue.

I ban Gunslingers both for Flavor (guns are not classic DnD fantasy) and a properly built level 12-13 Gunslinger could solo a pit fiend CR 20. Let that sink in as you come to a judgement on the class. at least you know about Touch attacks being a bit OP on a Full BaB class.

But Little Helper is right much of your ban list is PFS ban list and rules...you might want to just look into those rules.

I like ABP but Low magic setting can mean a lot of things like: Access to lots of magic items and Point buy (usually 15).

If you ban 9th level spell caster it's banning 5th and 6th level spells. So it's not laughable, it's a good choice for low magic game.

I think he means any class which, over the course or the full 20 levels, gets to cast 9th level spells. Not the people who cast spells must stop at 8th level and pick something else. Though that would be an interesting decision game wise, provided you also disallowed any classes which advanced spell casting like mystic theurge.

Community & Digital Content Director

Removed a post and the replies to it. Please leave condescending comments concerning longevity of play history off of our forums.

Well, that depends all on what you mean by "exploitable or problematic." It's kind of a vague catch-all for "random assortment of stuff I don't like."

"Exploitable" covers pretty much everything in the game with any complexity beyond "I attack as a standard action." That's the funny thing about rules; whatever the rules are, there's ways to utilize them creatively.

"Problematic" is something that actively causes problems for the other players at the table. These sort of things are usually discovered as they come up, and vary from table to table because players are all different. Do your players tend to have no idea how to use an iterative attack? Then maybe hold off on the Master Summoner. Are they the sort that think carrying around a portable hole full of swift runner shirts is a viable adventuring strategy? Then maybe you'll want to be tight-fisted on item creation feats.

I've never had reason to flat-out ban stuff at the table, except for setting / flavor reasons. it's simple enough if a problem comes up to say "hey, this is looking like a problem, how about we change this?"
Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
Metal Sonic wrote:
So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

I would be wary of the traits Wayang Spell Hunter and Magical Lineage; the witch hex Slumber (there's a few ways non-witches can take it); and the archetype Invulnerable Rager.

And yeah, require the Unchained Summoner instead of the old one. I'm not seeing what's so bad about the Vivisectionist and Primalist, unless you're banning them for flavor of course.
Liberty's Edge
Metal Sonic wrote:

So, I'm going to run a custom game in a homebrew setting, and I need to know some exploitable or problematic Archetypes and feats.

My actual ban list:

Feats: Calculating Mind, Leadership, Sacred Geometry, all item creation feats.

Classes: All 9th casting classes (more a lore/flavor decision)

Archetypes: Vivisseccionist, Primalist, Master Summoner and Synthesist.

Any more sugestions? The game should last up to 12th Level.

For this setting that seems to come to mind with what you've posted.

I would suggest changing the ban on casters to those that don't do so with spontaneous power. Replacing Wizards with Alchemists and clerics with Oracles.
Adding the Gunslinger if you want them with the early firearms.

As for the feats, I would allow some item creation feats such as Brew Potion, Craft Wand and Scribe Scroll.
Those three give the PC's the ability to create a few items that can help keep the group going and not use all there magic when it comes to healing and store a bit of magic. The other Item creation feats will keep for NPC's that create more impressive items and keep costs and such as you'd like them.

But single use items and items with limited charges help the group and keep them from panicking if they can't find X at a market place or within creature hordes.

as for Other things to Ban, you might also want to consider races that are banned from play by PC's. Otherwise you might run into other headaches. The member running Giantslayer has just noticed how bad it was for her to allow another member to play a Half-Giant in a campaign that has most of it's magic items and artifacts geared to kill and force PC's to attack and Kill giants. Tends to make us leave important quest items behind because we 'shouldn't' use them with a friendly giant in our group.
Metal Sonic wrote:

Thanks for the input, all of you.

To clarify more, the 9th caster ban is common with the people I play: They feel that the game became more gritty without playing another system, at least in 3.5. It's my first time GMing PF to they.

And while I plan the game to go up 12th, I can't guarantee that will end at this point, because I play with this guys for 16 years and sometimes small campaings go around for years.

I will stick with the PFS bans as they look very reasonable.

Honestly, if this is a standard mode of play for your group and not a one off novelty campaign for them...I'd lean toward looking at an alternative low-magic game system to provide the toolset for the evening's fun. From your description it would be a lot simpler and more fun than the pain in the butt of figuring out what is allowed or realizing something that should be banned post fact.

Offhand Hero System would give you the greatest amount of control, but something like Warhammer Fantasy (2nd ed is the last I played) might serve the setting and campaign just as well. Lots of low magic and low power systems out there that maintain a sense of 'threat' throughout an adventuring career. It doesn't take a lot of optimization at all for a mid-range mundane fighter type in PF\D&D to pump out a impressive round by round damage total for instance even without much magic.

Because unless the party is a bunch of commoners, most combats are about resource management until you hit the BBEG (granted rat bastard DMing helps change that;-). And even facing a climatic set piece it can be a bit iffy if it actually turns out that way. PF/D&D doesn't do 'gritty' well when compared to other systems IME so to model what I can suss out from your description, I'd advise exploring some alternatives to get from point A to B. Plus it can be fun picking up\learning\exploring a new system rather than wrestling with a ruleset to milk out a lackluster end result.

Since I run a homebrew campaign most of the stuff on my ban list has to do with the setting:

-The majority of the races in the ARG simply don't exist.

-Summoners and Gunslingers also don't exist.

-Druids exist but are very rare because they were mostly hunted into extinction. There's a particular faith that actively hunts the rest.

-No psionics, so that also means no Occult Adventures.

-I haven't banned story feats, but let's be honest. Except for the one that gives you a stat boost, the rest are pretty much terrible and no PC is going to take them anyway.

-Clustered shots. May rescind this decision though.
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Ban List All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice