Why I Don't Ban Spells (With One Exception...) | Worldbreaking 

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In a game where “Disguise Self” exists it’s crazy how many players would innately trust a victim who says they were murdered by the butler when they cast “Speak With Dead”.

I think people also forget spells like Guidance have Verbal and Somatic components. A lot of times my players would want to cast Guidance in situations where randomly casting a spell during an encounter or intense situation might prove problematic/difficult. IE: Trying to lie to or convince a guard/king of something. Ultimately, I don't mind the spell and don't actively ban anything in my games, but reminding players that casting spells aren't automatically stealthy might be a good way to go.

You can have curses that require Remove Curse with a higher level spell slot, rather than just "cannot be removed by remove curse", so it can afflict your characters for a few levels or until they go find a powerful allied high priest.

I think the biggest problem with guidance is that it only lasts for one minute. It makes players see it as a reactionary spell that can only be used for one roll especially in exploration. If it had a longer duration even like 10 minutes I think it would help player cast it before hand like when they enter a new room in a dungeon and they start to search it.

I like a middle ground for remove curse is that you have to understand the nature of the curse for it to work so the party has to put in some work to discovering the story behind the curse. Powerful curses could then also require specific components to remove as you mentioned. Maybe it straight up works on weaker curses though so you can still shoot your monk occasionally.

34:10 You put up the spell card for True Resurrection, not Transport via Plants. That said, you can technically use True Resurrection to fast travel if you kill a party member, go somewhere, and then True Resurrect them to the new location. I should find a way to use that at some point

My rule with Guidance is Guidance is an action. So if you're discussing an action you are going to do and want to help, you can precast Guidance on someone. But if you say you're doing something, you can't cast Guidance as a reaction to panic help them get better.

I think they way they handles Speak with Dead in the latest DND movie was hillarious as others ask questions to the caster and the corpse answers them directly wasting a question

The fix we've made to Silvery Barbs in the groups that I play with is to make it reduce a roll by 1d4 and allow another character to add 1d4 to their next roll. That brings it more in line with things like Bless or Bane, it's a good "oh this needs *just* a bit less to miss let's try it", and even when it doesn't succeed you still get that crispy +1d4 to your next roll. It definitely brings it down to a 1st Level spell.

I don't outright ban them, but if I ever play with a Shepherd druid I ask them to either take the single summon spells or limit them to the 1 or 2 options for summoning instead of all 8. I had a Shepherd druid who would take even longer every time she wanted to cast Conjure Animals but would always end up just going 8 wolves and every time I asked her to please keep track of their initiative to take the load off of myself, but every time she always pushed the burden of tracking their turns onto me.

9:06 a few aspects about comprehend language that dms should consider before outright banning number one the spell does not decode codes or secret messages meaning you can set an entire adventure around finding a cipher number 2 you must touch a page for a minute to read it meaning dms can keep things from being translated by adding some time sensitivity or preventing the text from being touched

My go-to fix for Counterspell, which i apply to everyone, both player and NPC: i remove and meld it into the Dispel Magic spell, and you can ready Dispel Magic to Counterspell. That way Counterspell wars are a thing of the past and the action economy unfairness (spending only your reaction to deny essentially your opponent's entire turn) is solved

I made Guidance and Resistance reactions, so they fit with the way players want to use them. I made True Strike a bonus action, so it has a reason to exist. All three spells add a d4 to a d20 roll of the appropriate type. Changing True Strike to +1d4 instead of granting advantage was necessary to prevent it from becoming a must-have for every rogue, and requiring a multiclass.

So i tend to run Remove Curse in a very similar way to how i see a lot of people run revival spells; it requires input from the players and is not just a "spell slot spent, consquences of my actions gone." Usually this is in the form of "welp i got lycanthropy, ill probably need something involved with werewolves to remove said curse as a compnent of my spell." I will likely be adding the "Remove Curse tells you how to remove it" thing to this formula, as its actually had soemtimes to give the players information on what kinds of things would help remove curses that are less simple than lycnsthropy or vampirism.

For me and my group, we do talk about certain spells that can cause an issue, so we dont get everyone just casting summon spells with silverybarbs support. But the most important thing is if there are problems with spells, change them to make them fit your group. Playiny in a campaign that is heavy on survival? Make goodberry consume its material component. A horror campaign through the realms of ravenloft? Make identity not reveal the curses on the item and loot you find so the surprise is still there. The most important thing is that this should be communicated and agreed with everyone involved for improving the health of your game.

For inspiration on speak with dead, try Pushing Daisies, they ask a man who killed him, he said his wife, he tasted something off in the coffee she made him, he went back to being dead, they then learned he was a polygamist.

You could use Remove Curse sort of like Revivify for Curses. It can remove a curse if it's cast within a certain time frame, sort of like a setting in period. If the players don't know they have lycanthropy, and don't find out until the first full moon after they contract it, it will be far too late for remove curse to work. But the next time they fight a werewolf, they'll know to treat that bite fast.

I’d say guidance has to be stated before the player rolls after a roll has been asked for. Allows a chance for them to give guidance and helps prevent pre rolling

Speaking as a player, I have issues with the way some DM's deal with remove curse by making it into a non-spell. Curses are already something that doesn't come up very often, at least in the games I play, so it kind sucks that the one time you get to use the one spell to help, you're effectively told "no, go fuck yourself." Like, I was in a game where my rogue had a sentient cursed magic sword. It was really strong, but it also actively wanted to eat her soul when she would die. But I couldn't get rid of it even if I wanted to because the DM straight up told me "no, remove curse doesn't work." And that's been the case pretty much every time I see curses come up in games. I personally like how Pathfinder does it, in that it's a check against the cruse's dc to get rid of it. The more powerful the curse, the higher the DC to counteract it. It feels more fair so players have a chance against it even if it would be difficult and the DM doesn't get cheated out of their plot hook they came up with. That would be a more balance way to fixing it instead of making it into a useless spell.

Ah yes, my favorite transportation spell, True Resurrection. Our table has a small check to Counterspell, where you don't have the Meet it to Beat it feature, the cast always requires the DC roll, upcasting doesn't provide any benefit.

CORRECTION: Conjure spells do NOT say the DM pick, it says they have the stats. Some spells, like find familiar, tell you to find the stats in the PHB. Conjure spells are just telling you who has the stats, not who chooses them. In fact, it says “choose one of the following...”

I love that your suggestions about Remove Curse were basically the same thing I suggested in your Discord while we were waiting for the video to go up 😅.

Depending on my prep, I've actually had cyphered a message/handout for the characters. If they have the comprehend languages, I'd give them a key to break it, and they'd still have to long hand translate it. Or it gives them a word for word translation, but not the metaphorical meanings if it's hidden behind that.

24:41 The advice to have Conjure Animals conjure a mix of different animal types would tune down the spell’s power but keep in mind that also means there are even more creature stat blocks in play! Probably better to keep all conjured animals the same type but add a random element to what animals get conjured.

Haven't gotten all the way through the video, you may touch on this later but I wanted to get it written out while I was thinking about it. As a DM, I make a couple of assumptions with my players in session 0. First, when it comes to the world they live in, the characters are smarter than the players. So I would allow things like some over the table talk about situations where an experienced adventurer might know something that the player would not, or that they'd know the basics of tracking, forest craft, singing, conversation with nobles, etc. BUT there are many situations where the players are smarter than the characters, so at the same time I would prevent the character from acting on information the PLAYER knows. Things like "I botched that roll, I need one of the others to take over something I specialize in". This applies to spells like guidance because they often try to use it as a REACTION when something is currently happening, rather than beforehand. The other thing I do is remind characters of the way the spell is written, especially if they try to abuse it. Comprehend languages: you must touch the surface the writing is on, so you can't read the archway above a door if you can't reach it (or have someone give you a boost) and it takes a minute to cast. Silvery Barbs is a great example of this: RAW, the spell belongs to the Silverquill school of Strixhaven, and if you aren't a student there, you have no way to know the spell. If the spell has a verbal component, they can't cast it in the middle of a social scenario without being noticed, questioned, and potentially stopped. All that said, I also bend every one of the above rules if the rule of cool wins out, or if I see the player is demoralized by the action (not the character) and is genuinely not enjoying the game. Because this is a game first and foremost, and if everyone isn't having fun, what is the point. The only rule I enforce 100% of the time is this: COMMUNICATE with me. Tell me what you are wanting out of the game, what you are planning and need some compromise or help on, and how we as a group can make this a fun environment for everyone. Sometimes that means reflavoring a game mechanic, and sometimes that means outright ignoring certain rules. Cause it's our game, in that moment. And the game is made up, and the rules don't matter. :)

I dont ban any spells, because i find it sort of lazy on my end as a GM however, there are some limitations i enforce, typically on things i claim to be game breaking, like the technical infinite simulacrum loop.

Anyone interested in finding ways to make mysteries that work around Speak with Dead in their games should check out the show "Pushing Daisies." That's basically the main character's whole deal; he can touch something dead and bring it to life, and then touch them again to return them to rest. He uses that power to make pies with eternally fresh fruit, but another main character convinces him to use that ability to interview the recently deceased to help solve their own murders.

Simple solution to Counterspell: make it 4th level. It still only counters 3rd and lower level spells, so you need to spend a higher level slot than the opponent to guarantee it works, which seems fine given the action economy advantage it gives. Also, 3rd level is already ripe with very powerful spells, and it's nice to have more good options for your 4th level pick.

While I agree that guidance needs to be said before the roll this causes a major issue in actual play. Let's say the rogue and DM and keyed in and going back and forth on the rogue investigating a chest for traps and lockpicking it. There usually is NOT a break or breath where a priest/druid can casually say "and I cast guidance" because the second the DM says "roll investigation" the rogue is going to immediately roll their dice. This causes the guidance caster to have to yelp out "I CAST GUIDANCE" before the DM finishes saying "roll investigation" because they need to say it before the roll happens but there was no way to say it beforehand without interrupting and speaking over either them DM or rogue. Online you can at least type in the chat and pray the DM and rogue read it before they roll.

The problem with curses is exactly the same problem I have with disease. The 2014PHB has some really cool and flavorful diseases in it with incubation periods, symptoms, mechanical effects and cures. The problem is, like most disease, they begin shoeing symptoms long before they start harming you, and every class and their dog gets access to lesser restoration which solves the problem immediately, making that rare flower you have 4 days to find before you go blind irrelevant to the disease.

What if remove curse worked to give you leads / rules for breaking it, and maybe it helps with one ingredient so the players get 1 agency (they get to choose which ingredient they dont want to get), 2 the spell helps clear the curse (it provides the clear conditions and 1 ingredient of the players choice) and 3 the dm still get to make removing the curse harder and more interesting.

I think it’s perfectly valid to decide a certain kind of magic doesn’t fit the flavor of the world you’re trying to create, but it has always seemed bizarre to me to hear DMs claiming any spell is *mechanically* “broken”. You control the entire world! If a spell is making certain challenges trivial for the party, you have plenary discretion to devise different challenges that require a novel approach.

The bit about Counterspell reminded me of a campaign that had been one of the best I was ever in, until the GM decided to make the boss of the campaign and all of the monsters backing him up totally immune to magic. I was playing a character whose offensive abilities were all based on spellcasting, so while the other players were getting moments of being absolute badasses, I was barely making a dent on anything. I spent most of the fight mentally checked out, and doing 2-20 hit points of damage to monsters that had hundreds of hp. It went from being one of the best campaigns to one of the absolute worst in a single session.

I remember when silvery barbs came bursting onto the scene I also remember the immediate backlash and hatred that it got. Frankly speaking Mike, I think your way of handling it is the best. Don't outright ban it but give it a cost and make it difficult to acquire

Best way to deal with Silvery Barbs is to have the occasional NPC cast it when it would be funny as hell.

For spells that raise the dead, I like requiring the the spell caster and the character being raised to make a constitution saving throw with a DC of 10 + the level of the spell to raise them. If the character being rezzed fails, they lose a point of Constitution (semi-permanently: they can do a quest to restore the point somehow if they are ever successfully rezzed) and the spell fails. If the character being rezzed fails, the caster rolls at disadvantage. In either case, if the caster fails their roll, they lose a point of Constitution (again, semi-permanently) but the spell still may succeed in bringing the target back from the dead, depending on the target's roll. Reincarnation does not require any of these rolls. It just works, and I use an extended list of possible species/races/subraces that they may come back as.

In Mage the Ascension/Awakening players effectively start with Wish as an unlimited spell and it is never a problem. The world just needs to be internally consistent. Like in our world we have smartphones and they are normally either not allowed when sitting in a exam or exams are setup so they require a smartphone.

idea for spell fixes: comprehend languages: perhaps comprehend languages isn't perfect (especially for ancient or alien languages) for example it might translate words literally, and the players would still have to find the context behind the word choice. like imagine how someone who doesn't know English phrases would take "this injury has been a thorn in my side" maybe they'd take it literally and assume the injury is literally from a thorn in your side speak with dead: honestly there are tons of ways to hide info from speak with dead 1. the dead person hate's the party and refuses to tell the truth 2. the answers are cryptic or obfuscating 3. the answers are misleading or inconclusive 4. the dead person has a secret and will lie to protect it 5. the dead person simply doesn't know the answer to your question 6. the dead person was mistaken in life and shares false information 7. the dead person only spoke a little-known language (in which case you'd also need a way to speak that language) 8. the corpse had its mouth damaged to the point where it can't speak 9. the speak with dead spell was already cast on it in the last 10 days remove curse: alter it maybe in one of the following ways: 1. it only suppresses the curse, not removes it 2. it has to be upcast to match the severity of the curse 3. it's actually just the final step of removing a curse, for example to cure lycanthropy you need a creature to ingest a wolfbane which temporarily suppresses the curse, and if you target them with remove curse while lycanthropy is suppressed, they are cured

I don't ban spells but certain spells are problematic. I change the spells to try to balance them. For example, I change Silvery Barbs to be a 2d level spell and I change the trigger of it to: when a creature you can see within 60 ft of you makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. That means that the players must cast it prior to the roll. They do not know ahead of time what the result will be.

I think a safer solution for Remove Curse would be to demand material components and set conditions for it to work on certain curses. Curses that demand this involvement would mostly include Vampirism, Lycanthropy, or anything that a Hag could give you. I.E., save those kinds of curses for entities who actually have some status. If you used remove curse on a cursed magic item, would simply give you the chance to unattune and leave it for the next sad sap to pick it up.

I've changed Silvery Barbs to be 2nd level. It still gets used, but not as much. I also don't tell people more information when hit, other than "you are hit". I started this a long time ago due to the Shield spell. When I give damage I'll inform them if it was a crit with the description of the damage but it is too late to use a "when hit" reaction. They could still use a "when taking damage" reaction of course. This way these reactions are not only used when most effective. I also like the narrative, especially with Shield of the attack sometimes blowing through their hasty defense.

My solution for the Resurrection spells is pretty simple, you can only get brought back once. I've toyed with exceptions to that, the one I've settled on is you can only be brought back once by the standard Resurrection spells, and once by Reincarnation. This applies to using Wish to recreate any of the Resurrection spells, however if you use the version of Wish that can risk you losing the ability to cast Wish ever again, that one can work on you as many times as you want, because the price for that is risking losing the spell, and let's be honest, Wish should usually just work. And yes I've really thought through the logistics of this. "Oh why would you ever use the higher level, more expensive spells if your revivify takes the one do-over anyways?" Simple, the advantage of the higher level spells is that since you don't have to use them immediately, you don't need to keep them always prepared like Revivify, thus you can have another combat or utility spell to hopefully prevent death in the first place. And as you use the even higher spells you can over come more difficult situations, like disintegration, it's all already built in. As for flavor/in game reasoning for this? Well you know that diamond all the standard Res spells use? Yeah well the somatic component for casting those spells is cutting out the heart and replacing it with the diamond a-la the Briarhearts from Skyrim. And no amount of healing will ever fully repair the wound. Boom, you can't be Res'd again because you only had the one heart, and it's a permanent reminder of what happened. Even if you later use your one use of Reincarnation, your body still has the wound and the diamond for the heart. For easy mode version of these rules, each level of Res spell can be used once each. So you get one Revivify, one Raise Dead, one Resurrection, etc. The higher level spells can be used in place of the lower level ones, but not the other way around. (i.e. you could theoretically be True Res'd 4 times, and then never be able to be Res'd again with any spell, but you'd only ever get one Revivify)

Spells I banned or changed: 1. Comprehend Languages (and any other spell or feature that works with languages) - only works on living languages. It's still useful, but doesn't raise questions like "why is this ancient, dead language of a civilization that disappeared 10 000 years ago not completely understood?" 2. Goodberry and Create Food - again, not only to enable some survival gameplay, but also for worldbuilding. (Goodberry is only partially banned, it still heals but doesn't nourish.) The worldbuilding part is that with airships around, if there wasn't _some_ limit on their range, there wouldn't be any unexplored continents. Columbus' expedition wasn't considered a folly because 15th century people thought the Earth was flat, it was considered a folly because he thought the Earth was much smaller than the - more-or-less correct - consensus of the day, so if he had tried to cross from Portugal to India westward then he and his crew would have starved to death (if America hadn't been in the way). If Earth had clerics who could cast Create Food, this wouldn't have been a concern. 3. Remove Curse - only works on most curses if it is cast within 24 hours. Beyond that, it is only one component, and usually requires a ritual with other components. As for the limitations of Speak with Dead, one only has to play Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice to see the limitations. In that game, the core of the "justice" system of Kura'in is spirit channeling: the victims final memories are summoned into a scrying pool, and it is then accepted as evidence. However, before the arrival of our hero Phoenix, this sent thousands of innocents to the gallows because they exterminated their lawyers, and nobody was there to cross-examine them. A lot of the time the victim's memories were unreliable, or straight-up misinterpreted. (And of course if you're running a murder mystery and a player has Speak with Dead, just make sure that the victim was poisoned or stabbed in the back.)

I don't mind Guidance at all. My biggest pet peeve is people forget it's vocal and somatic. So people cast it for persuasion checks in front of NPC's and get surprised when the NPC notices the spell... But for locks and stuff yeah. It's by no means a quiet or stealthy spell so I think it's fair honestly.

Good video. Always interesting to listen to takes about House Rules. On a different note: One thing I've noticed being done A LOT in these videos and I've begun noticing and really pay attention after your PHB covers reviews. You use the crutch "We''ll talk about this later/We'll get there soon/We'll get back to this" constantly. In the PHB review it was a funny bit. But it did lampshade how frequently this literary device is used in general.

I like how the understand langauge spell has the perfect answer baked in "Just make important documents a Cyhper or half of the words" 😂

My current DM bans all resurrection except Revivify, bc she wants the characters to be able to trust in-character that once we've killed someone, they're dead.

1) I feel like the discussion around Silvery Barbs ignores the fact that it does in fact take your reaction. No more Shield, no more Opportunity Attacks for you 2) I think a DM that wants to ban resurrection or Remove Curse wants to play a different game than I want to

Players are always upset at counterspell because they don't understand what their options as a spellcaster are. Learn to prepare your spells behind cover instead of in full view of the enemy spellcaster. Have people bait out reactions from the spellcaster before blowing your load. Target the spellcaster first before using powerful magic. Silence the spellcaster. Block line of sight of the spellcaster. BLIND the spellcaster. You think a martial has a bad time? No, they simply have disadvantage. Casters simply are not allowed to cast most spell due to the wonderful words "A target/spot you can see". Players like to complain about GMs treating NPCs as if they have more computing power than 90s AI but refuse to open the player's handbook and read how spells/abilities work beyond RAW.

A rarer occurrence is Countering a Counterspell with Counterspell as a set reaction from your reaction or another spellcaster in the party's reaction. It's hilarious but shocking to see the party/gamemaster's reactions.

I would rule that for Speak with Dead, the creature's mouth must be intact enough to physically produce words. That means no casting it on a skeleton, they gotta have lips and a tongue. So if you have a killer that's worthy of a mystery, they may well know to cut out the tongues of their victims.

My own take on each of these: *Guidance:* It's best to keep the downsides of guidance in mind, yeah. I also think if you and the players can agree guidance anxiety is annoying, you can just negotiate a custom rule. A favourite of mine is saying Guidance only works X times a day, but the user can apply its bonus retroactively to a failed skillcheck to try and turn it into a success. *Comprehend Languages:* If you need a document that can't be read, a cipher or secret code will counter this spell. If you _really_ need the language barrier to be important in your game, I'd prefer increasing the spell level to a removal, or perhaps you can rationalise how certain languages might be impenetrable to the spell. *Goodberry:* Yeah, this one is definitely a matter of it breaking _very specific_ kinds of games. I like Zee Bashew's approach because you can apply the logic retroactively. If you're doing a desert adventure where you want to emphasise rationing for that specific adventure's vibes, you can say that Goodberry requires fresh berries, it's never come up as a problem before because of how easy they'd be to get, but in this hostile environment the PCs will have to find a way to preserve berries if they want Goodberry to work. *Identify:* I do understand wanting to make magic items harder to figure out, but the PCs need _some_ way to unambiguously understand what a magic item does at some point. *Healing Spirit:* Post errata I don't think it's problematic enough to ban. I will say personally, if you are getting to the point where you and the players are essentially in a balancing arms race over one specific spell, that's worthy of having a direct balancing discussion with your table. *Counterspell:* IMO spellcasters being able to contest the spells of other casters is too important to ban, but I do think Counterspell is lame. Not just when used against players- Those Critical Role moments are dope, but it can be seriously sad for spellcaster villains to just _fail_ to cast a spell, said Crit Role moments are often enhanced by the context being Matt's villains trying to escape. I have a custom replacement spell that boils down to _"You and the caster you countered are locked in a spell duel and can both use your concentration slot to maintain it. Whoever loses/gives up concentration first loses the duel, and the other gets what they wanted, either that spell succeeding or failing to cast. You can both take your turns as normal, but you both have the choice to use your action to force the other to make a DC10 + your spell mod concentration check. If you cast this at a lower level than the one you're contesting, you need a concentration check of DC10 + the total level difference to start the duel or it fails."_ This way, either way the counterspell goes, you get the cool visual of both casters locked in a big laserbeam battle and it feels way more earned one way or the other. *Speak With Dead:* A DM who doesn't plan for Speak With Dead when making a murder mystery doesn't have any excuse. There are tons of ways for Speak With Dead to be ineffective. The killer smashed the jaw in, the head is missing, the victim was in shock and couldn't make sense of their last moments, or my favourite, they only identify their killer with a cryptic phrase that will make sense in the end, Disco Elysium style. *Summoning Spells:* This is definitely another instance where you should ideally use custom rules to keep combat quick, not ban outright. *Remove Curse:* This is a pretty complex problem that could also be worthy of a custom ruling. It really sucks that the spell is essentially designed assuming "curses" as individual disposable debuffs, whereas the narrative hook for curses is much more grave, and that so many curses DMs deal out just carry Remove Curse immunity. *Resurrection:* Totally fine thing to ban depending on the vibe a campaign is going for. *Charm Monster:* Really not that bad, there are tons of ways for Charm to fail, it's a high risk attempt to defuse the encounter. Don't get mad when one in ten times, your players actually cut all the right wires. *Polymorph:* Some people just hate fun! Ban Fireball next, why don't they? *Teleports:* Definitely a valid rule to set up for a universe in advance, and can go a long way to making high level campaigns easier to manage. *Wish:* Far too iconic to D&D to ever seriously consider banning for me. Wish is definitely a handful but that's the beauty of it. *Silvery Barbs:* Yeah, it's a mess and if there's one spell I'm fine with leaving on a banlist, that would be it.

If players don't like being counter spelled. Counter play it. 60 Feet range. It can get counter spelled. It can't easily beat high level spell slots. Subtle spell.

One way I could see counter spell being limited in its uses would be to make it so that yes you do interrupt the casting of a spell but the afflicted retains its action so it can cast another leveled spell since it didn’t cast a spell with its first spell due to counter spell but due to the lose in time you must cast a spell of a lower level than the spell slot you tried to use.

When I was introducing some newbies to gaming, I actually made some little cards (from card stock, a little smaller than average playing cards) with envelopes with windows in them. The window showed what the item looked like, and if they rolled well on a check they could slide the card up to see a couple lines (I forget how exactly I managed it, but there were like two or three levels of detail they could get). It gave a little extra mystery and engagement with items that would eventually become background details (like a healing potion or a sunrod). I certainly wouldn't do that for experienced players... except it strikes me that it might indeed be the way to go for specific cool items that they need to explore over time. Hand over the partially disguised card and when they get to whatever mechanic allows them to learn more, tell them just how much they can uncover -- and I don't need to keep track of the details myself.

i dont ban anything, i explicitly make my enemy spellcasters learn from the spells the party defaults towards, and plan their tactics around it. You need to actually be able to SEE two enemies at once for say, silvery barbs to function, which means keeping the enemies seperated out of LOS of the party caster. tactics, i have found, are more fun for the players to try to overcome with all their fancy tricks, rather than taking their tricks away for "fairness"

I've had a lot of fun working around remove curse. There's a lot of ways to circumvent it while still giving your players the easy out for curses sometimes. One of the ways around remove curse is having the curse say that the player must attempt to conceal the curse. It gives a fun roleplay opportunity to the player and means the party won't just hit them with remove curse before the curse can do anything. You can also do the voodoo doll method. Instead of an item the player is carrying being cursed, have an object somewhere that has like a lock of the PC's hair or something in it that's projecting the curse onto them. Fun one with that is that you can have remove curse act as a temporary remedy that only alleviates the symptoms for a time while the players search for the object. You can also use one and done curses. An item that when you attune to it, it vaporizes all spell scroll the PC is carrying for example. The final way I've worked around remove curse is just curses that are tougher to remove. Say a curse that you have to make a spellcasting ability check to remove. That can make curses last a long time, especially if you set the dc arbitrarily high like DC 25.

I like the in-character investigation created by banning short rest identifying and the identify spell. I have a ring that has four abilities that trigger based on random words so the player is incentivised to talk in character more. I had an axe that could be charged up by killing monsters so my player had two options keep charging it up and suffer the consequences or stop charging it up. Simple choice, but big impact. I have an amulet that was used by an npc so the player knew some of what it could already do before testing it out. You would be surprised how creative players can be when testing magic items.

I tend to distill my thoughts on Guidance to one simple phrase: "Guidance is not a Reaction spell". Falling off a cliff? No you can't use Guidance because the Athletics check to catch yourself is a Reaction, you literally don't have time. Checking to see if you know something? No you can't use Guidance, because checks like that are just things I have you roll outside of the normal turn structure. Beyond stuff like that I don't worry about it that much.

As a player my DMs never banned any spell. Sometimes they have changed something to the effects. (Revive are often more complicated than using a spell slot, consume some shiny rocks and nothing more.) As a DM I never ban any spells. After the first change in the UA, I’ve tried Guidance as a reaction fore a one shot and, at my table, the change of the casting time solved some problems (and created some others, lol). And for counterspell my rules are “not in every combat” and “the same amount of caster that can counterspells the party have” (+1 if the encounter is very hard and make sense to have this bunch of spellcasters).

On the issue of Remove Curse, it's worth mentioning, since apparently 5e hasn't examined this, but it was elaborated on in 3.5. Namely in the supplementary, Book of Vile Darkness (yes it's an actual game Manuel in 3.5) where it made it clear that Remove Curse only works on "weak curses". Namely, anything Bestow Curse is capable of doing, but there are significantly more powerful curses that a simple casting of a spell won't get rid of. Examples were things like a Dying Curse, that involves afflicting someone with a curse powered by the rage that could be in someone's dying breaths. A hex woven by a hag or a full coven that is so intricate and empowered by fell magics that it can't be lifted by a mere wave of the hand, and other such situations where truly "Dire Curses" would require more than a PC to just cast a spell to end it... if it could be ended at all. Keeping this in mind, and how such curses follow how we understand these types of magics to work in folk lore, can go a long way to not actually needing to modify how Remove Curse works, let alone banning the spell out right.

The only character I’ve ever been tempted to take Silvery Barbs on is a member of the Orzhov Guild on Ravnica, which is at least in the same continuity as Strixhaven. But, I also have 30+ years of TTRPG experience; I often have to actively hold back to keep from dominating a game. As a GM, I don’t ban spells, mostly because I have the experience to work around them. But, I understand not every GM does; do what works for the health of your game. Just remember: players will always do things you aren’t prepared for. *Always.*

My problem with Silvery Barbs isnt really that it is too powerful. The problem is that it breaks up the game and interrupts emotional responses to rolls. The DM also always has to side eye the Silvery Barbs caster. It just destroys the flow of the game.

7:08 My campaign has a lot of languages that my players wouldn't have any way to speak, so Comprehend Languages is very useful to them, in addition to magic items(?) that give them extra languages.

For Remove Curse I think the best solution is for Bestow Curse to be expanded into an effect that might be a part of various monster attacks. Make it another condition like poisoned or charmed. THAT is the kind of curse that Remove Curse removes. Big curses though? Like vampirism or lycanthropy or maybe even some cursed weapon effects? Those require a big major ritual with special ingredients and maybe the help of a particularly skilled NPC (whose whereabouts might be unknown)

I’m currently running a curse heavy campaign, and the way I’ve run remove curse is basically the same as a dispel magic. Assign the curse a dc that would equate it roughly to a level of spell and have the players roll. Of course, some of the curses have been put on them by a god so the dc goes beyond 19, but it’s been a way to provide hope of removing a curse while keeping it away from just the remove curse spell. I also had an NPC they went to say that if they gave him a few months he could come up with a ritual to make the remove curse more precise. Cause there was also a backstory curse that was involved and if that one was broken the character would instantly die (by the player’s orders) so that character was hesitant to let the remove curse happen. But yea. Just treat it like a dispel and assign spell levels to the curses! It works!

You know what, it's funny - I never ban silvery barbs and I've played in multiple games (including Strixhaven) where players have it. The reroll often DOESN'T change a hit to a miss, maybe 40% or less of the time, so it often gets used mostly to cancel crits (not unlike the Grave cleric) or just give advantage. It gets spammed early on and then that stops and it gets used more tactically, and NOT everyone takes it. Maybe I play with unusual groups of people?

Great video, Mike, gave me a lot of food for thought as a GM. For what it's worth, in my own games, with resurrection spells I don't add a difficulty level, but introduce consequences for over use on the same individuals (straining the soul or the threads of fate etc). One thought for potentially improving silvery barbs might be that it just forces a re-roll, not disadvantage, which would still make it a good option for countering critical hits, but less of a reflexive option for a standard hit.

I agree with a lot of the stuff in video. Thoughts on some of the specific spells though are as follows. Comprehend Languages I think is great as it helps with world building. If a place if run by Orcs then a lot of the signs, documents, and such should mostly be in Orc. Same with Dwarves, Elves, and so on. This means if no one in the party speak that language they can't read the signs in some ruins that might be like Armory, Infirmary, warning sudden drop before a bit trap ;), and so on. It makes picking languages matter more so if someone knows it they can translate for the party but if they don't know then caster can step up with it. Also just because you can read something does not mean you understand it. If they really wanna keep the mystery of a text just have it written in code, it says so in the spell, and why would someone trying to keep something hidden write it normally even in a rare language when they know comprehend language exist. Identify is important to allow as I got limited time to play games and don't wanna sit around for 30+ minutes while either I or someone else at the table stumbles around trying to figure out what their item does. Let's keep the game moving. Speak with dead is fine and can even use to mislead your characters. Say someone was killed by shapeshifter or person with disguise magic so speaking with the dead will only confirm what other eye witnesses and planted evidence may reveal because the real killers are setting up a frame job. After all in a world with Speak with dead spell an assassin would know such things and keep their true self hidden. Or the assassin could cast Speak with dead on the victim themselves knowing it prevents further casting. Which then also gives a clue to the players that killer knows magic. Remove Curse I think should be errata to be done in levels. Like it can only remove and equal level or lower curse. And then Bestow curse and other curses have a spell ranking. This way you could have like a bestow curse hieghten to level 7 and the players would need to be able to cast remove curse as a level 7 spell to remove it. Thus need to be level 13. Where as curses like Vampire and Werewolves are Level 10 curses which means pretty much only wish or something like that can remove. Have a once size fits all curse remover and yet still have curses like werewolves in the world makes no sense. The revive spells I think are fine as first one is level 5 spell and has to be done right away which means you specifically need someone who can cast it on site and hope the person who goes down isn't that person. The next you get a level 9 and because it gives 10 days means you can maybe take a day's rest to prepare it if you don't have it on hand. But if you don't the party has to rush back to town in hopes of finding someone who can cast it. If they are based out of a smaller town there may not be a cleric who can cast it within a 10 days march. But also if the party has been together from level 1-9 there is a chance they have grown attached to those characters. So death can still sting in a race against the clock or tax their finances if they are say lower levels but and having to pay for a higher level spell does bring back their friend matter enough to pawn that magic weapon? But also person could RP the trauma of having died and seeing the other side. There is a ton of RP opportunity around player death and revival. Also though if the whole party wipes there is no one to do the reviving. Teleports require to have been to the location already to really get the most out of them. The circle one requires you have a circle at the destination so great for portalling back to a base of operations after a quest. But not so good for getting someplace you never been. Teleport had a very large chance of you ending up in some random location that may or may not be close to your intended target depending on how well you known the location. And even then if you are several miles off you gotta figure out in which direction, like if you try and teleport to a town are you North, South, East, or West of the town? Do you know any landmarks in the area to figure out where you landed? Basically you'd need to live in a location for months for me to consider it very familiar, otherwise it's seen casually or worst odds on that teleport. I don't see the problem here as I think it be fun to have players dropped into the middle of a deadly swamp because they rolled bad on teleport. Wish is end game I don't even see how this matters. Most campaigns will never get there and if your players stuck with it the whole time let them having their power fantasy and change the world. Perhaps they do some world changing wish like breaking teleports for your campaigns going forward in the same settings ;). Or fixing it after the previous campaign broke them. Getting to cast 9th level spells is a massive achievement and players should be able to feel the world altering powers at their finger tips. Or you could play monkey's paw and twist their wishes in unintended ways so they learn to becareful what they wish for. ;) Overall though most of the reason to ban it seem to be from wanting to impose our non-magical view on the way the world works into a fantasy realm where people of that world would already have figured out ways to deal with such magic.

Something I enjoy doing with Comprehend Languages is having it work just like you said, like a translation app. And the programmers of it (an ancient morally dubious empire that are responsible for many of the artifacts in the world) wouldn’t have every single language in it. Most are in there, but there are three groups of exceptions. 1. Ancient languages that were forgotten before that empire came into power 2. A language from beyond the normal bounds of the setting 3. The language of the nobles of that particular empire, since they didn’t want the lower class to listen in on them. The spell is still useful at all times, because even if it doesn’t give them what the language is, it tells them it is either massively ancient or from beyond the stars. It always gives information of some kind.

Just enjoying seeing The Game Master's Book Ofs in the background, those books are amazing.

I didn't ask about taking Silvery Barbs because I felt I would be getting away with something. I asked because there's controversy about the spell. My DM knows that I'm not one to abuse game mechanics, so we decided to see how it goes. I offered that if either of us is feeling that the spell is problematic or disruptive, that we'd either adjust the spell, or exclude it from the game. We're all working together to have fun playing a game. Epic moments for the characters is fun, be they epic moments of triumph, or epic moments of struggle.

31:52 - Your hands won't be cold and dead, they'll just be replaced by elf hands. Or gnome, or dwarf, or backwards rakshasa hands, if things get _really_ weird.

Guidance for me is pretty simple, you have to cast it before the roll is made. You can apply it to any roll, but only if you call it out before the player rolls. BG3 is the one that helped me realize it, as that’s how it works within the game.

For Goodberry I think the 3.5 version can be an alternative. It gives 2d4 enchanted berries instead of 10, so it's a bit harder to know how many spell slots to save. It also limits the healing the spell can do to 8 points per person per day, which, meh, that just adds paperwork. But the important one is: the spell requires freshly picked berries to enchant. So if you're traveling through the wilderness with no towns in sight and your rations were eaten by an owlbear Goodberry now gives you an extra option for how to obtain your meal for today, as well as good in-combat healing, but you shouldn't treat it as your only option. If you pass a river you're going to go fishing rather than marching on confident there will surely be a berry patch ahead. For Conjure Animals my DM decided based on I think a sage advice somewhere to create a random animal table. I can ask the spirits for 8 wolves (or yaks, or giant bats, or giant frogs, or...), but I'm going to get 8 of one random creature of CR 1/4 or lower. Could be yakals, could be camels, could be fish. It does not solve the action imbalance. In fact I'm making extra rolls now. But it does solve me abusing this spell all the time coming from the philosophy that every problem has a solution that starts with "I summon 8 ..." The other summoning spells do let the caster pick their summons, because those are only used by NPCs so far.

I allow casting summoning spells anytime but at a cost. Needing ingredients to cast certain spells isn't new, so my summons cost a special potion prepared in a ritual which only works for the caster who prepared it. Since you can't meditate, chant or dance for hours while in combat, the preparation takes place in camp before sleep. It also costs ingredients like a bottle, a handful of matter from the home plane of the beings to be summoned, a fluid (oil, holy water, brandy, …) and powdered money-sinks like pearls or lesser gems, the more and bigger creatures in the summon, the greater the quantity. This makes for a number of effects: a) the DM doesn't get each and every encounter trampled by raptors while b) summons stay a viable option, but c) the casters now have to manage their sleep. d) High-level characters who already have everything find a use for all their money outside of inns - their livers will be happy. Weighing whether to lose half a night's sleep and be unfocused and grumpy the next day, or preparing only a little goop every night and saving it up becomes a tactical mini-game for the players. A character relying on summons will quickly burn a hole in the party's purse, crave coffee, be irritable and may even fumble spells. Someone powdering and meditating just a little every night may fill up their bottle only slowly but be well rested and able to unleash a powerful summon when the need is dire.

A version of Remove Curse that I've considered is change it to "suppress curse". Make it suppress all effects of a curse for 24 hours. You could even make it a ritual spell. 24 hour suppression is long enough get past temporary issues, while not giving you a complete answer for something like curing lycanthropy. If you make it a ritual then it is even something that doesn't have mechanical issues during the adventure but is always looming over your head because it is there waiting if you ever can't cast the spell for a day. It can even be the trigger to some adventure when the old priest of the town who has been suppressing the orphan's lycanthropy suddenly dies due to a normal accident and the party has to look into a decade old town mystery to find the werewolf and either kill it or take on the job of somehow curing them.

With remove curse i like to add that the spell is the prefix for the cure, not the "active ingredient". Players are free to have remove curse but there is also a ritual aspect. For example, to cure lycanthropy you need wolfsbane and silver in order to force the target to transform, then you fight them down until they are weak and THEN you cast it. It won't work unless they are incensed by wolfsbane, primed by silver, and in a weakened state on the brink of death

This is a video that not only I got useful insigth to improve myself as DM from what Mike said, but from useful tips that people shared in the comments. Great topic and I should save this video apart and come back from time to time if needed.

On the topic of curses, one option is to say that a curse can only be removed with a special material component, or at a specific place. The other thing is to consider curses as spell slot costs, it costs a player a 3rd level spell slot, so they can either deal with the curse for a day or expend a spell slot. That is minus one fireball or dispel magic or aura of vitality for the party. A third thing is to have the curse only be removed if cast at a certain level, "this curse can be removed only if remove curse is cast using a 7th level spell slot"". And you can mix and match material component and timing/spacing. A curse that can only be removed if the remove curse spell is cast using a 6th level spell slot while under a full moon on the top the highest boulder in a druid grove when an awakened tree is present? That's a lot of circumstance.

My fix for comprehend languages, Identify, and other divination spells is that I make comprehend languages be direct literal translations (this works bc I'm a language nerd, so I know how to phrase something in a way that makes it less useful without cultural context or language knowledge), and for Identify I have it draw on a "database" stored in the weave, giving casters access to written entries based on tags. This allows disruption, but also for the spell to grant far more limited info should it be used to identify an unregistered item or spell. It still tells you some vague info, like rarity, bonuses to numbers, charges and options, but details are missing.

Remove Curse in older editions had a caster level check you had to pass to remove most curses, so you could have curses that were easier or harder to remove, or even ones where they wouldn't be able to remove it now, but they could in a couple levels when they got stronger, if you're having problems with it, you could implement something like that into your games to help mitigate that issue.

Haven't started the video beyond informing players prior to campaign about any banned spells, but wanted to share what I presently limited in my game and why. I have banned spells like Planeshift because a key plot point in my campaign is that the antagonists are trying to summon their gods into the material realm so having a spell that does it defeats the premise, though there are points in the world where you can go from Material Realm to the Fae Wilds but they are few and far between. The only other spell I didn't ban, but advised my sorcerer not to take at this point is Teleportation Circle, primarily because I was unaware of the spell myself and they opted to take it without reading it once able, so after reviewing discussed allowing them to change it out because I didn't prepare any circles for them to use prior to that point and didn't want them to feel they wasted a known spell as a result.

Things like guidence, I ask my players to prepare a few tiny inspirational parables for different situations, to keep it interesting even if spammed. I really understand Create Water/Waterbreathing to be raised a spell level in the desert/sea. For summoning spells, I generally limit them to either players who can start there turn already knowing what they're going to do, or just control the summons myself to quickly funnel through the extra actions. I used to play an 'eepymancer' and summon sheep to clog the battlefield but nothing else, so was just a different web spell basically. What creature is summoned is either something basic, or something they went out of their way to make a pact with, keep the silly or gimmics down if being done on mass unless they are soloing something like a puzzle. Some rules like summons only doing average damage or rolling just once for all could also help if players go extra crazy with them. For wish I want my players to close thier eyes and reach into their hearts and say "I wish-", not pick from a list.

I think Frieren is some good inspiration here. When the humans fought against the Zoltraak spell, they had no defense at all, but in 80 years, the cornerstone of defensive magic was the counter to it. Furthermore, many wizards started using physical objects as barriers instead. There is an evolution to it. If you want to change the way magic feels, you can play before certain fundamental innovations were made - Identify takes an Arcana check now, Counterspell always requires a skill check or you need to upcast it more than usual. Obviously describe this beforehand.

I've recently joined my first campaign (a few sessions in, after finally wrapping my head around how to play with the help of bg3 lol - it's a much less overwhelming introduction) and there's a lot of 'banned' spells in our campaign... but it doesn't really feel like that because it's part of the setting that they're missing. Also, we gained access to one of the spells (true resurrection) as a one time cast as a randomly rolled quest reward and it felt amazing ahaha, so the "fun" of banning vs not banning really is context dependent

I'm like halfway through, but for vampirism and lycanthropy, I sorta went with the notion that while remove curse removes the curse from the player, it hasn't removed the thing in the body that is causing the curse(usually a disease or something). I don't tell the players that the root cause is still in effect, only that they have, at least for that moment, assuaged the curse. So the need for blood subsides and maybe they can eat. Or, something I thought would be neat, they cast it on a werewolf while transformed, and the transformation ends as it's a symptom of the curse, but the next time it would be activated(full moon), they transform because the curse returns. This way there's a functional use to remove curse, but it's not a cure-all. It can also be a way to keep a vampire in check, or disable a werewolf while they try to solve the issue at hand. Functionally, depending on what causes the curse to appear, can make a curse persistent if the root cause isn't excised, much like how cursed magic items curse someone again if they use it, if the item itself is still cursed.

For comprehend languages, if a GM can have the information consist of a riddle or be written in code or need a MacGuffin or all or whatever. The spell still has a purpose of translation, then the party still has to engage in some thought or other skill rolls to gain the information. It adds more functional engagement layers for multiple members to play a part in developing the story. Making more things in this way presents more opportunities for the party members to think as a team and not just a group of separate individuals.

I have had plans (that I need to accelerate now that my Sorcerer wants to take Animate Objects) to create an alternate homebrew for multi-creature summoning spells. I want to use MCDM's beautifully elegant Minion rules to keep all the summons easy to manage, and fast to use in combat, while still making sure the power level of the spells isn’t too heavily affected (unless the spells really need to be wrangled in).

Before I dive into my thoughts, I'm a long time player tryinging to work up some dm chop. In my player experience Ive liked a bit of meta chess with my dms. If I figure out a way to weaponize shape water to drop ice blocks on people I have to live with putting that in the game. With that in mind i find summon spells interesting specifically in that they change the scale of combat "oh you want to have a 13 character party, you will now be experiencing large scale battle fields. Your grunts will fight enemy grunts and after 2 rounds the winner of the grunt fights will join the main fight" if pc hirelings are stealing focus maybe they don't need to be "in focus" I feel like remove curse could be tweaked and still get all of its punch by creating 2 categories of curses "arcane" and "planar/divine". Your healer can unbind the bindings of another mortal but they aren't curing a minotaur. Revivify is prepared spell bloat "man I wish I had prepared a different spell but I haven't cast revivify in ages and I'm never letting it go"

I have a couple thoughts about Curses. One is that curses like Lycanthropy and Vampirism could be considered a Greater Curse that can't be cured by Remove Curse. Maybe Remove Curse could ameliorate the effects of the curse until the character takes a long rest. The other is that Lycanthropy, Vampirism, and other self-perpetuating curses might be one, giant curse that cannot be cured with Remove Curse, because you're only affecting a tiny part of the curse as a whole. In this framework, each curse is unique, tailored to the will of the caster and the magical strength of the curse itself, so each curse would naturally have varying requirements to remove. Even saying "May their souls rot for eternity," might constitute a Curse, though a very weak one, given the number of targets, intended duration, and lack of strength invested in the curse.

Personally I think remove curse only fully works on “conjured” curses, like bestow curse. For anything “permanent” or “narratively important”, (or cursed items?) the spell only suppresses the symptoms. It might not even stop the progression of the curse so when it comes back it’s more severe. That way the characters have a window where they can act without being crippled but also without minimizing the consequences and time crunch.

For Remove Curse, I really like the idea that much of the more powerful curses would be created specifically to be antagonistic to anyone trying to break it, like a built-in magical trap. So it might be designed to respond to an attempted break by doubling down the effect, spreading the effect to the curse breaker, alerting the original caster that the curse has been broken, any number of nasty triggered effects. The only way to evade this is by carefully studying the curse over downtime and succeeding on a spellcasting check to disable the failsafes...but if you don't have that kind of time, you might have to just cross your fingers and hope for the best.

I actually have a Remove Curse homebrew that makes it a very difficult check (DC 20 Arcana for a lvl one curse, also yeah curses have spell levels) the spell itself is first level, but you need to pass the check to remove the curse, and if you fail you can be harmed, or even get the same curse placed onto yourself, you can lower the check's DC by doing certain things (Think having the cursed person eat ginger if they were cursed with nausea) It's a bit more work, but it lets any given curse, even stuff like Lycanthropy be cured if the players put the work into it

37:42 I like wish, since it can allow some really interesting sittuations if you are in a high level campaign (also, it can end up badly if you aren't careful with how you word your wish, while also being able to lose the spell if you roll less than 33 in a d100). I was literally thinking about using the wish spell to make a crossover for the final fight of a campaign, breaking the barriers of time and planes to allow all the parties that are doing the adventure my DM is running on that module he created for a final battle against the BBEG of the campaign (also,s ince the BBEG is not native of the plane we are in, this will also allow to kill her permanently.). Also, my character has seen the spell cast before, as an NPC used it in a sittuation in which we were extremely screwed, and that NPC lost the ability to cast spells forever, since he depleted his whole magical reserves by forcing the spell before he was able to wield it naturally (also, he almost dies during that casting, as he ended up with a maximum HP of 10 after that casting to show how much it had drained him), so, my character knows the spell, but not how to draw that much magical energy (since my character only knows up to level 6 spells). I think that is a spell that one should look forward to, but also know what they are getting into, making the spell something that the players don't want to use unless they need to, since the consequences could be devastating.

A key part that gets ignored of comprehend languages is that it translates the /literal/ meaning of the words, not the grammatical context, any idioms or metaphors, nor things that lack a literal translation. A perfect example is the language spoken in the Star Trek TNG episode Darmok. The Tamarians spoke entirely in allegories, like "Temba, his arms wide," ("We are willing to listen") or which the universal translator could only parse for their literal meaning. Examples for the language using earthly allegories were provided "Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk," and one that was added to the Tamarian language "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel" (Both meaning "Initial rivals/enemies coming together to face a mutual foe"). It can also be argued that certain speech or script when translated should retain its original accent, tonality, or handwriting, and when a primordial god speaks, comprehend languages could note "The booming voice when translated reverberates in a low earth-shaking rumble. The frequency is far below a range at which words can be understood."

A Counterspell alternative that I know of is casting the exact same spell as reaction into the original one, causing them to cancel each other out. Kinda of requires the enemies to have that exact spell, while revealing part of their arsenal as part of the couterspelling.

We also use the "you can cast Guidance if it makes sense for the characters in-world to be doing that" rule. It helps that our cleric is a ditz and tends to forget about it, so my rogue is usually the one (in character) requesting to have Guidance cast on him. If it's a borderline case, I always check with the DM first if Guidance can be used or not. It's never really been an issue for us (the biggest challenge is reminding the cleric that Guidance and Enhance Ability are both concentration, so he can only use one or the other).

Charm creature spells and abilities does have limitations, for example you could give your boss advantage on charm effects letting your enchantment focused players realize it won’t be easy to deal with them, and if they do succeed they simply won’t be targeted as the charmed creature believes everything you do to the other party is to benefit it.