What do you usually ban in your games?

[snakeman830]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

Last I checked, Zoro was a Spaniard gentleman with a penchant for fencing, acrobatics, and theatrics.  I don't see any magic in that.

[rot42]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

Last I checked, Zoro was a Spaniard gentleman with a penchant for fencing, acrobatics, and theatrics.  I don't see any magic in that.

I think they mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roronoa_Zoro, not the Spanish Fox (disclaimer: I only just now looked up both of those tidbits).

[Agita]

To be fair, the writers of Tome of Battle said that they got their inspiration from Japanese anime fighting shows and Chinese Wuxia.

But most of the flavor text for Disciplines and the classes are versatile enough to fit in "standard D&D."  The Crusader can easily serve as a "holy warrior knight," while Iron Heart can be used to make a convincing "everyman hero."

Yes. Most of it does work. My concern is access to blatantly magical effects through purely martial study.

In short (cause once again I started typing a post at 3 A.M.)

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

Do you disallow the monk too ont he basis of flavor, then? That's another anime/wuxia trope, and explicitly involves magic through meditation and training.
(For the record, all the obviously supernatural maneuvers with a few exceptions are explicitly supernatural effects, and the classes that get them - the Swordsage, which is Monk 2.0, and the Crusader, which is Paladin 2.0 - have supernatural flavor. Warblades are the badass mundanes and don't get supernatural maneuvers.)

On the topic itself, SorO and  strider24seven have it right. Whatever the system, I ban being a douche to me and the other players. That covers pretty much every potential abuse, I believe. It even retroactively covers loopholes in itself!
From experience, any restriction that feels arbitrary to a player will be pushed against, and nearly everything has a way around it in 3.5. Even if you want to put out a specific ban list, ban "easy metamagic reducers", not "Divine Metamagic", for instance.

[Prime32]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

I haven't seen a lot of One Piece, but I don't remember Zoro doing a lot of weird stuff beyond being stronger and tougher than a normal person. And if you don't allow an lv7+ character to be stronger and tougher than a normal person, you're kind of missing the point of the level system.

Not only is the monk far more Eastern-themed, it's almost a carbon copy of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, which practically invented the shonen fighting genre.

[oslecamo]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

I haven't seen a lot of One Piece, but I don't remember Zoro doing a lot of weird stuff beyond being stronger and tougher than a normal person. And if you don't allow an lv7+ character to be stronger and tougher than a normal person, you're kind of missing the point of the level system.

At start sure, but eventualy Zoro started to do stuff like growing two extra heads and six more arms while multiplying his swords just because.

Plus right now he's not just tougher than normal people, he's tougher than mr.rubber"I take cannon shots, heavy drugs and deadly poison cocktails for breakfast" man, as Zoro explicitly channeled all the pain and suffering Luffy had taken after a big boss battle into himself. Said pain and suffering had even knocked out the main character, which is explicitly inhuman. Zoro was still standing after the channel, despite having to deal with his own pain and suffering he had suffered in said boss battle.

The cook guy also used to be "just tougher, faster and stronger", and now can set his legs on fire and perform advanced plastic chirurgy with kicks.

Not only is the monk far more Eastern-themed, it's almost a carbon copy of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, which practically invented the shonen fighting genre.

Lethal Palm fist and catching arrows out of mid air was already the stuff of asian legends before that.

Not to mention that ironically Kenshiro and his pals explicitly aren't immune to either disease or poison despite being the greatest  in their world.  Which happens to be a key point when the strongest of them fails to simple cancer. And their master also falls in combat due to his advanced age. None of those would ever bother a 3.5 D&D monk.

[Prime32]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

I haven't seen a lot of One Piece, but I don't remember Zoro doing a lot of weird stuff beyond being stronger and tougher than a normal person. And if you don't allow an lv7+ character to be stronger and tougher than a normal person, you're kind of missing the point of the level system.

At start sure, but eventualy Zoro started to do stuff like growing two extra heads and six more arms while multiplying his swords just because.

I thought that was just creating illusions by moving really fast while intimidating his opponent? Depicting "killing intent" etc. metaphorically as an aura or transformation is nothing new.

Not only is the monk far more Eastern-themed, it's almost a carbon copy of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, which practically invented the shonen fighting genre.

Lethal Palm fist and catching arrows out of mid air was already the stuff of asian legends before that.

True, but Kenshiro's signature attack is a flurry of super-fast punches and his ultimate technique is turning intangible. Plus Kenshiro can decide exactly when his poke-of-death kills people.

Not to mention that ironically Kenshiro and his pals explicitly aren't immune to either disease or poison despite being the greatest  in their world.  Which happens to be a key point when the strongest of them fails to simple cancer. And their master also falls in combat due to his advanced age. None of those would ever bother a 3.5 D&D monk.

The age thing would (Timeless Body doesn't affect maximum lifespan), and a D&D monk would be facing magical diseases which he's not immune to.

[oslecamo]

- Gutts is ok. Zoro is not, unless he has some magic from other source flowing in his veins.

I haven't seen a lot of One Piece, but I don't remember Zoro doing a lot of weird stuff beyond being stronger and tougher than a normal person. And if you don't allow an lv7+ character to be stronger and tougher than a normal person, you're kind of missing the point of the level system.

At start sure, but eventualy Zoro started to do stuff like growing two extra heads and six more arms while multiplying his swords just because.

I thought that was just creating illusions by moving really fast while intimidating his opponent? Depicting "killing intent" etc. metaphorically as an aura or transformation is nothing new.

If this is simple killing intent, shouldn't have it ended after the enemy is defeated?

Not only is the monk far more Eastern-themed, it's almost a carbon copy of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, which practically invented the shonen fighting genre.

Lethal Palm fist and catching arrows out of mid air was already the stuff of asian legends before that.

True, but Kenshiro's signature attack is a flurry of super-fast punches and his ultimate technique is turning intangible. Plus Kenshiro can decide exactly when his poke-of-death kills people.

Almost. Kenshiro can decide exactly when his poke-of-death kills people... Before executing the strike. The D&D monk can decide it after performing the strike.

Not to mention that ironically Kenshiro and his pals explicitly aren't immune to either disease or poison despite being the greatest  in their world.  Which happens to be a key point when the strongest of them fails to simple cancer. And their master also falls in combat due to his advanced age. None of those would ever bother a 3.5 D&D monk.

The age thing would (Timeless Body doesn't affect maximum lifespan), and a D&D monk would be facing magical diseases which he's not immune to.

He didn't die of old age. He tried to take on a disciple when said disciple showed intent to go rogue, but couldn't keep up his tecniques because his body wasn't what it used to be.

The other didn't suffer any sophisticated disease. He was simply exposed to radiation whhen the nukes went off while the other main characters managed to get in shelters in time.

In the prequel, one of them cuts off his own leg after it is hit by a poison dart, which later on costs him the fight with Kenshiro's father.

That's one of the major diferences between Fist of The North Star and the D&D monk. Kenshiro and pals live hard and fast, rarely  geting to die of old age as normally their bodies will fail them in combat before that (not to mention they themselves admit they're professional assassins before anything else). The D&D monk aims a lot more to be the Zen dude that seeks a balanced path of life.

Going back to the quivering palm, Kenshiro can spam it all day long because he's trained to be a killing machine, while the D&D monk can only do it 1/week, as it isn't that Zen to go make people drop dead left and right with just a touch

[Agita]

Guys, there's a perfectly good anime thread over in the Off-Topic section. Arguing about how Magical this or that anime character is isn't really the point here.

[Unbeliever]

...
Not to mention that ironically Kenshiro and his pals explicitly aren't immune to either disease or poison despite being the greatest  in their world.  Which happens to be a key point when the strongest of them fails to simple cancer. And their master also falls in combat due to his advanced age. None of those would ever bother a 3.5 D&D monk.

It's not "simple cancer" when the horrors of radiation are the prime movers of the entire setting. 

But, yeah, I do have to agree that it's a little weird to call ToB "too anime" or "too wuxia" when the Monk base class and several of its PrCs (e.g., Tattooed Monk) share the same DNA.  Maybe the Monk is "too wuxia" as well:  I could readily see the argument for an unarmed combatant not fitting in many fantasy environments (e.g., GRRM's Game of Thrones).  It's just that any criticisms along those lines should be leveled appropriately.  And, then you get into the whole fluff v. crunch problem.  For example, supposing a Monk didn't suck mechanically for a moment, such a class might be perfect for building a peasant, staff-wielding hero of the people type.  Such a character would fit into many fantasy settings.  Likewise, another poster mentioned the Warblade as a kind of character who can take a lick and keep on ticking in Conan/Barbarian fashion.

[Braininthejar]

Perhaps it is because a monk has been a part of the setting for many years. Also, transcending humanity is his goal from day one - he spends his whole life, training but also meditating, freeing himself from earthly concerns and what not (as the result he gets a lot of totally inhuman abilities and somewhat by accident, becomes able to kick ass... to a certain extent.)

A Swordsage may be excused by the same line of thinking. But when a Conan-type barbarian chieftain knocks opponents down by slamming his nonmagical hammer into the ground, we have somehow moved from D&D to Diablo 3.

[littha]

The problem is generally getting away from the mundanes cant have nice things stuff is hard. Once one character has the ability to bend reality it becomes a little unfair if the melee guy is left with +1 to attack and a useless feat.

[caelic]

The Crusader can easily serve as a "holy warrior knight," while Iron Heart can be used to make a convincing "everyman hero."

...who can turn out the sun with a roar of effort.

[littha]

Mechanically yes but I don't think I have ever seen anyone argue that was the intended effect...

[Alexei]

I am not a big fan of Tome of Battle but that's only because I consider it out of genre ( I love anime, but not in my D&D)

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10832

Great link, I have marked it

@Libertad: DMM: Persist can be a great way to alleviate differences between the non minmaxing rogue who doesn't want advice and the rest of the party. We don't ban it unless it's the cleric going godmode over everything.

We don't ban anything except Wish loops, Pun-Pun and Leadership (because it's too much effort to track it. Leadership is OK only to build a business in the background and have your cohort take care of it, and banned for everything else)

[Prime32]

Perhaps it is because a monk has been a part of the setting for many years. Also, transcending humanity is his goal from day one - he spends his whole life, training but also meditating, freeing himself from earthly concerns and what not (as the result he gets a lot of totally inhuman abilities and somewhat by accident, becomes able to kick ass... to a certain extent.)

A Swordsage may be excused by the same line of thinking. But when a Conan-type barbarian chieftain knocks opponents down by slamming his nonmagical hammer into the ground, we have somehow moved from D&D to Diablo 3.

At what level? You're saying that an lv20 character who has the physical strength of 300+ normal men* and can survive swimming through lava shouldn't be able to knock people down?

*Not an exaggeration. +5 Str doubles your carrying capacity.

[Braininthejar]

dropping into lava should really be instant death if you have no fire immunity. At the very least, it should do Con damage from inhaling fumes, like large vats of acid do.

And even with the strength you mention (which is perfectly ok in heroic fantasy) such a hero would miss the strength required to shake the earth without magic by about an order of magnitude.)

[Halinn]

Why can't mundanes have nice things, Braininthejar? The druid has been able to, as a standard action, create a proper earthquake for 5 levels at that point.

[Soft Insanity]

What about:

Vow of non-violence and Vow of Peace

Things that go against the very nature of the game in 99% of d&d games.

[oslecamo]

Mechanically yes but I don't think I have ever seen anyone argue that was the intended effect...

Which is something really exceptional by D&D terms.

Plenty of people are perfectly fine with twisting rules wording left, right and center with pretty much any other D&D book, but with ToB, they suddenly seem perfectly willing to play fair and square, whitout need of torturning the english language to the extreme to make absurd extrapolations.

[Prime32]

Mechanically yes but I don't think I have ever seen anyone argue that was the intended effect...

Which is something really exceptional by D&D terms.

Plenty of people are perfectly fine with twisting rules wording left, right and center with pretty much any other D&D book, but with ToB, they suddenly seem perfectly willing to play fair and square, whitout need of torturning the english language to the extreme to make absurd extrapolations.

That's not really a ToB thing. For instance you hardly see anyone using hathrans even in TO builds, despite their ridiculous abilities (expanded spell list, buffs to both planar ally/binding and Leadership, circle magic, and use wizard slots to spontaneously cast any spell you know from any list), because the cheese is so obvious.