> I never ever want to have to think about the interactions between named spells in a fight.
Alas, that's not how games work. Someone casts "Insanity", can it be removed with Dispel Magic? What about Antimagic Field? What happens if you kill the person, then resurrect them, do they come back with the insanity effect?
The story must go on. You either decide that you want it ill specified (ie: whoever improvs the best gets the decision), or you have a rulebook that carefully lays out the interactions.
You don't have to know the interactions. Simply knowledge that millions of other players have come across this game, and have likely already come across this situation and have analyzed the rules + made a decision is enough.
No person wants to memorize rulebooks. But we dungeon masters do so to ensure fairness in our decisions. If someone doesn't like the ruling, i can always point out the rulebook (or if not the rules, then an online discussion of a similar situation) that will settle the debate.
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Because if you know a thing about players, they will try everything to "Just for flavor, have that +5 Magic Sword on their Gorilla because its awesome" (when they really just want to roll more damage than everyone else in the party).
If I let the Druid effectively have twice the magic items of everyone and letting his pet-gorilla play a Fighter, then everyone else loses (because there's no way they can keep up with the damage output of a Gorilla using weapons locked to martial class). Martial weapons are locked to martial classes for a reason: those classes lose spellcasting but gain more damage to gain another role (the damage-dealing role) to play in this game.
In effect: the 1d8 fists of a Gorilla are there and balanced against the needs of everyone else. The Druid + Pet-Gorilla already play with two turns per... turn. They're already considered quite strong in the game, I as the dungeon master, need to know where "too much damage" starts to seep in and where "Improv rulebreaking" can start making the Druid stupidly overpowered.
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I've played with lots of "Improv" people. Even with their best interests at heart, the game innately becomes a "Lemme bullshit my own powers to be better than everyone else's, so that I'm the star of this show".
Maybe you don't do it, but *someone* in the group always tries to do this. You need to cut them down and restrict them so that their power level remains roughly on the same level as everyone else in the party. Knowing the limitations of spells, as well as the limitations of weapons, is a good starting point to ensuring fairness at the table.
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Going back to the top. Insanity is 7th level and is explicitly stated that only 7th level spells and above (like Limited Wish) can remove it. Trying to bullshit a 3rd level spell (Dispel Magic) into removing Insanity means that the Wizards / Sorcerers become overpowered, relative to the abilities of everyone else. You have to make them spend a 7th level slot to heal this particular curse.
What you describe after is hell. That’s exactly what I hate about RPG. You don’t have to care about balancing power level and people “bullshiting“ their powers if your game simply doesn’t have these mechanics. I don’t want to have to play through a detailed combats ever especially in a heroic fantasy setting. That’s as far removed from fun a situation as I can imagine.
It’s interesting because our discussion makes it obvious that there are entirely orthogonal way of enjoying RPG with next to no overlap.
To give my perspective, I fully agree with you and I'm not an "improv" kind of gamer. I want combat, but I also want simple rules and a fast flow to the gameplay, not tedium.
D&D is not only tedious to me, it's also a "mechanicist" (for lack of a better word) approach to fantasy. It's rules-based rather than fun-based. It doesn't tell a story, it tells how spell X interacts with weapon Y and how to read charts and stats. A fight in movies doesn't happen like that, the flow and thrill is entirely different.
I'm ok rolling dice, it's fun! But give me a result fast and make it narratively meaningful, nothing breaks immersion like arguing whether a level 35 Pastamancer can cast Fireball against a level 5 shield of enchanted wood.
> A fight in movies doesn't happen like that, the flow and thrill is entirely different.
If we look at real life games, such as Fencing... and less "combat" like games, like Football or Baseball, we end up with huge rule systems to fairly resolve conflicts.
One can say "I just want to throw a ball and have fun". But there is no _GAME_ here. If you want to play "Basketball", and get good at "Basketball", it becomes very important to define a foul.
Same thing in the D&D world. You may not necessarily have to define what is or isn't a foul in your games, but should combat grow intense and adversarial, then it becomes a necessity.
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But as I said before: if you want to just roleplay, Dread is there for that. There's a reason why other games systems exist.
But I bust out D&D when I want to (and when my players want to) have a complex system of magical spells interact with each other, in a well defined manner. That's still flexible enough for story to be pulled out of it.
No, Dread is no good, I'm not interested in role-playing with any rules as a bare-bones excuse. Dread seems barely a game at all.
I disagree about your sports analogy. D&D is the worst possible engine to simulate the fast paced flow of a sports game.
Or a fight. It's a mechanistic simulation, way too emphasis on interactions between low level rules. It's like attempting to design a good soccer game by writing lots of rules about the physics of the ball, how each bristle of the grass interacts with the ball, how the materials of the shoe affect the kick -- and all of this must be consulted in several charts every time there is a kick!
A wargame designer I know once put it like this: if your rules take an hour of play to simulate something that in real life only takes a few minutes, you are doing something wrong.
> Alas, that's not how games work. Someone casts "Insanity", can it be removed with Dispel Magic? What about Antimagic Field? What happens if you kill the person, then resurrect them, do they come back with the insanity effect?
> The story must go on. You either decide that you want it ill specified (ie: whoever improvs the best gets the decision), or you have a rulebook that carefully lays out the interactions.
> You don't have to know the interactions. Simply knowledge that millions of other players have come across this game, and have likely already come across this situation and have analyzed the rules + made a decision is enough.
You need a way to resolve conflicts. But that doesn't need to be some kind of zillion-layer spell simulation game (and in fact I'd argue that that just lends itself to its own kind of bullshitting, where people find ways to do things like the peasant railgun or locate city nuke).
> Going back to the top. Insanity is 7th level and is explicitly stated that only 7th level spells and above (like Limited Wish) can remove it. Trying to bullshit a 3rd level spell (Dispel Magic) into removing Insanity means that the Wizards / Sorcerers become overpowered, relative to the abilities of everyone else. You have to make them spend a 7th level slot to heal this particular curse.
OK so why bother having specific named spells with specific mechanics? Just say that guy's a level 7 wizard so his spell has strength 7+d6, my guy's a level 3 wizard so my spell has strength 3+d6, we make our rolls and the explanation of what happens (he bewitches my mate to make him insane and I try to dispel it) is purely flavour? That's no less objective, no less easy to be fair about (in fact it gives me far fewer avenues to try and bullshit you), but it doesn't require us to go memorize a textbook's worth of spell names and interactions.
Think about how you as a DM resolve non-combat conflicts in D&D - I want to persude the King's council to do this, another party member wants to blackmail the chancellor to vote against me - something that's a far more interesting part of most RPG games than "the party kills all the orcs". Why isn't that worth simulating in all this mechanical detail? Or is it that simulating it in such detail wouldn't actually enhance the experience? Then why not treat combat the same way?
Which doesn't exist in the game. When the last peasant lets go of the object, it falls to the grown on the same square as the peasant.
It only becomes "bullshit", when the improv player comes in and argues that because the object traveled 500-squares in less than 5-seconds, it must be going at X speed or Y momentum and carries forward.
But that's just bullshit. There's nothing in 3.5 that discusses "momentum", or "acceleration". It is "It is a move action to hand an object to another player". That's the rule.
People who mess with shenanigans are the problem, including peasant railgunners.
> It only becomes "bullshit", when the improv player comes in and argues that because the object traveled 500-squares in less than 5-seconds, it must be going at X speed or Y momentum and carries forward.
This is very much not an improv-player attitude IME; improv-players mostly want in-genre things to happen. When you simulate the nuts and bolts, you're more likely to attract the kind of player who sees that as an abstract puzzle to optimize and does so.
(And I note you skipped the Locate City nuke, I guess because that does work in-game? Fundamentally rule-based magic systems tend to be exploitable, because if you want the kind of things that fictional magic does in-genre to be possible, you have to make your magic be able to do impossible things, but the rules that allow that will tend to allow other impossible things which are more min-maxable).
> People who mess with shenanigans are the problem, including peasant railgunners.
Sure. My point is that adding more detailed mechanics does nothing to deter that; quite the opposite.
> This is very much not an improv-player attitude IME; improv-players mostly want in-genre things to happen
Hardly. Everyone likes to pretend "they're just in it for the story", but in my experience, they just want to give themselves advantages in my experience.
> And I note you skipped the Locate City nuke
3.5 is known to be pretty busted. I'm not aware of this sequence of events being possible in Pathfinder, which is my preferred crunch.
There are certainly busted things in Pathfinder (see Summoner). But upon recognition, I talk with the player and we work something out. (see Summoner Unchained).
If something is busted and truly too much for the system to handle, I stomp down as dungeon master. That's my duty above all, to ensure fairness in the game.
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EDIT: Looking at the Locate City Nuke, it seems like the problem is solved if I just ban the Snowcasting metamagic feat from Frostburn.
In general, my rule is: Do the players want me (the Dungeon Master), using the trick? If so, I use it on them. If not, then its banned. Generally speaking, I, as the dungeon master, can take advantage of these things far more than they can. So its in their best interests to keep the shenanigans in check.
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Honestly, the "Locate City Nuke" sounds like a fun adventure setting, now that I read up on it. Its a complicated set of 7 metamagics applied to one level 1 spell
The players, unlikely would be using this tactic, because its an evil action (indiscriminate killing).
If this were "crunchier", and closer to level 5 or 4 spell, yeah, that's a problem. But with this much metamagic needed to make Locate City into an actual problem (plus the need for a very specific Sorcerer / class build to serve as "The Ritual focus"), "Locate City Nuke" follows the pattern of Magical McGuffin (Wizard tries to steal a Princess/Sorceror named Elsa, who has innate connection to Ice Magic) who then stacks 7x kinds of Metamagic to build a particular spell into devestating power.
Alternatively, I patch "Locate City" so that it has no "Area" but only a "Range". Dungeon Masters are allowed to patch spells after all.
> Hardly. Everyone likes to pretend "they're just in it for the story", but in my experience, they just want to give themselves advantages in my experience.
Meh, at some point the only solution is "get better players". I've had if anything the opposite problem, with players who enjoy doing a dramatic death scene so much that they'd rush to these moments of sacrifice and loss even when they weren't really necessary. Improv-oriented players as I know them enjoy telling a story and are there for that; the problem you get is every player trying to hog the narrative spotlight (often with their moments of tragic suffering) rather than every player trying to be more powerful than the others.
> Think about how you as a DM resolve non-combat conflicts in D&D - I want to persude the King's council to do this
If your players are anything like my players, they'll cast Dominate Person on the King's Council. I'll have to note with them that the King's Council are elite and therefore expected to have Mind Blank, offering them immunity to their attempts.
They can work with persuasion, but if they are under the effect of Glibness, the King's Wizard would be able to see Glibness as an aura. The King's Paladin may use Zone of Truth to counteract the effects of Glibness, or maybe point out Glibness as "cheating" in the King's Court.
(Mind Blank doesn't help vs Glibness. Glibness simply makes the party's Bard's lies more believable. Its not an actual enchantment upon the King's Court, but instead a "buff" given to the Bard. So additional levels of security for the King's Guard are needed.)
As such, the battle of spells, trust, and other such interactions becomes a game. How well have the players prepared for the social encounter? Are they trying to use spells to "cheat"? How are the king's guards, Wizards, and Clerics trying to prevent the cheating?
Should I let the players get away with cheating? Well, I don't decide. I let the dice decide. As well as the rules that the game are around.
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Maybe the party is able to successfully hide the Glibness through some means. If they thought through their attempts to +40 Bluff check to convince the King's court of their intentions, I will grant them the +40 bluff check.
But if their Glibness / attempts at cheating are discovered, I'll grant a heavy penalty (-15) to their interactions for the rest of court.
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Players _WILL_ attempt to cheat (aka: use a spell to "solve") social encounters. This is just part of the game, and part of the fun. Are you, the dungeon master, ready to offer them a proper game of wits and preparation?
> OK so why bother having specific named spells with specific mechanics? Just say that guy's a level 7 wizard so his spell has strength 7+d6, my guy's a level 3 wizard so my spell has strength 3+d6, we make our rolls and the explanation of what happens (he bewitches my mate to make him insane and I try to dispel it) is purely flavour? That's no less objective, no less easy to be fair about (in fact it gives me far fewer avenues to try and bullshit you), but it doesn't require us to go memorize a textbook's worth of spell names and interactions.
Notice the above interactions. Glibness, despite level 3, avoids the Mind Blank preparation. Mind Blank does protect vs the more direct forms of enchantment (ex: Suggestion, Dominate Person, Geass), but it isn't a complete defense for the King's guard.
Of course, maybe the King's Dragon simply casts Anti-magic field and negates all magical preparations for the encountrer.
Note that Artifacts (aka: items from god) are immune vs mortal magic, and are one able to avoid the effects of Anti-magic field. This is where the DM has an opportunity to override the rules of the system and provide a story. (You can, at any time, "win the bullshit" fest by declaring an item a special artifact).
But you want to ensure that if you ever do declare a god-level artifact in play, that the players "saw it coming" to an extent (foreshadowing), or otherwise works in your story.
This is far more tactical, and even story-driven, than rolling a d6 and saying "my dice was higher than yours therefore I win".
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A skilled DM will also do this when its story-appropriate. I would _NEVER_ have an Orc-King's court pull these shenanigans (outside of maybe one Half-Orc Cleric who the players would be familiar with). But the opposite problem may happen, the Orc-King, upon losing an argument to skill alone, may claim the adventurers were cheating at the argument/debate through magic and it'd be up to the players to prove (to a non-magical being) that they were in fact, not using magic.
Etc. etc.
With skill, you can setup good stories more easily through these interactions.
> As such, the battle of spells, trust, and other such interactions becomes a game. How well have the players prepared for the social encounter? Are they trying to use spells to "cheat"? How are the king's guards, Wizards, and Clerics trying to prevent the cheating?
> Players _WILL_ attempt to cheat (aka: use a spell to "solve") social encounters. This is just part of the game, and part of the fun. Are you, the dungeon master, ready to offer them a proper game of wits and preparation?
> This is far more tactical, and even story-driven, than rolling a d6 and saying "my dice was higher than yours therefore I win".
Yes and no. You can offer the players a tactical game of spells, but to the extent that you folow the standard rules this is inherently an abstract puzzle, not really any more attached to the story than rolling a die. Some players enjoy puzzling out a magic system, but many do not. And to the extent that you make it depend on story-relevant artifacts, the rules framework isn't really helping you set things up.
How do the players "win" or "solve" the puzzle? Either they make the sensible, competent, mainstream move - which is fine, but not really narratively relevant and not worth spending a lot of time on - or they find a loophole in your magic system (or in the border between your magic system and common sense), which will almost certainly be against narrative and genre, and you'll have to either allow it or disallow it and either one is pretty unsatisfying - or they notice specifics of the story you've been foreshadowing - something you can do just as well without a standard mechanical magic system. (Yes, if you're very skilled then maybe you can work with the logic-puzzle approach and create an artifact which interacts in a novel way with some standard spell, and the player spots a way to use that that you intended. But more likely they spot a different, more powerful interaction than the one you meant for them to, and then we're back to finding a loophole in the magic system).
> With skill, you can setup good stories more easily through these interactions.
Maybe. In my experience even in genre fiction the best stories aren't, and shouldn't, really be about the magic or the tactics - they're about the deep human themes, trust, betrayal, arrogance and all that Shakespearean stuff. Gandalf fighting the Balrog isn't about him realising that Moria stone was carved by the dwarves and would be vulnerable to magic, it's about him realising that this enemy is undefeatable and sacrificing himself for the sake of his fellows.
The best and most satisfying way for a player to "win" or "solve" a scenario, IME, is a) for them to notice setting or character details that they can exploit (maybe the younger prince is jealous of the elder? Maybe the chancellor is obeying the tenets of a less-popular faith that a party member has ties to?) or b) them to come up with something creative that I hadn't thought of but that is still genre-appropriate and sufficiently "realistic". And I don't think a detailed mechanics system helps a lot with either of those, because at the end of the day either the detailed mechanics system gives you an answer that lines up with common sense or it gives you one that doesn't, and either way it's not helping much.
Through fun, ultimately. Maybe its fun if they don't win.
So they try something, they fail. Its just a social encounter, now the King's guard is distrustful of them and the story continues. No biggie, I can handle that as a dungeon master.
Win or lose, the story continues. The importance is that the players have agency in the process, as well as knowing the limits of their own powers and capabilities.
> The best and most satisfying way for a player to "win" or "solve" a scenario, IME, is a) for them to notice setting or character details that they can exploit (maybe the younger prince is jealous of the elder? Maybe the chancellor is obeying the tenets of a less-popular faith that a party member has ties to?) or b) them to come up with something creative that I hadn't thought of but that is still genre-appropriate and sufficiently "realistic". And I don't think a detailed mechanics system helps a lot with either of those, because at the end of the day either the detailed mechanics system gives you an answer that lines up with common sense or it gives you one that doesn't, and either way it's not helping much.
Or they could just... ya know... beat me (the Dungeon Master / chief antagonist) in the game. Or defeat the foes that I've laid out before them.
Generally speaking, social encounters shouldn't be high risk. The high-risk actions in my experience should be combat. If the players die, they know trouble will happen as the bad guys move forward and wreck the kingdom or whatever.
> Maybe. In my experience even in genre fiction the best stories aren't, and shouldn't, really be about the magic or the tactics - they're about the deep human themes, trust, betrayal, arrogance and all that Shakespearean stuff. Gandalf fighting the Balrog isn't about him realising that Moria stone was carved by the dwarves and would be vulnerable to magic, it's about him realising that this enemy is undefeatable and sacrificing himself for the sake of his fellows.
I don't need a story to play Axis and Allies, Chess, Go, or a myriad of other games though. When playing an adversarial game with my friends, its not about story. Its about combat and adversaries.
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I'm not here to offer Puzzles to my players btw. As the Dungeon Master, I also explain the rules before major decisions are made.
Especially to a new Wizard (who must select spells before the adventuring day begins), the "game" is about which spells the Wizard should select. We all know the Wizard could, theoretically, handle everything. But the issue is that the Wizard must "foresee" the use of all of these spells.
I know Wizards can solve Insanity with Limited Wish. I make sure the players know that. I also point out other curses (Flesh to Stone, Bestow Curse), and their counter-effects. Etc. etc.
Its not about tricking the players or puzzling them. Its about having them have to think about the decisions that they make (ie: which spells to pick).
> Through fun, ultimately. Maybe its fun if they don't win.
> The importance is that the players have agency in the process, as well as knowing the limits of their own powers and capabilities.
Sure; my point was: what is it that makes the difference between the players winning or losing? If it's about whether they spotted (narratively relevant) connections, understood things, had good ideas, that's interesting. If it's about whether they had a clever leap of genre-appropriate logic, that's interesting. If it's about whether they solved an abstract logic puzzle, that's less interesting; if it's about whether they out-argue you or browbeat you that's deeply uninteresting. But distinguishing between "came up with a clever way to use the detailed abstract magic system" and "came up with some bullshit" is, if anything, harder than distinguishing between "came up with a clever piece of imaginative improv" and "came up with some bullshit"; better for a powergamer to come up with something stylish and genre-appropriate that benefits them than for them to find some bizarre spell interaction that does something absurd that benefits them.
(If it's about whether they rolled higher or lower that's not really interesting, but it's quick and avoids interrupting the flow, so that's fine for a low-stakes moment. Certainly making one roll for a narratively unimportant encounter is better than making dozens).
> Generally speaking, social encounters shouldn't be high risk. The high-risk actions in my experience should be combat.
Why? D&D pushes you towards doing it that way, but it's not narratively satisfying. Making a lot of dice rolls can give a certain kind of player the illusion that they had agency in winning or losing (particularly important if you want them to accept the death of their character), but in reality it all averages out and who wins a given combat is largely a question of what everyone's stats look like going into it. (Or you allow the players to come up with tactics that you consider clever enough to give them advantages - but then we're back to you having to judge whether they've come up with something good or some bullshit).
> I don't need a story to play Axis and Allies, Chess, Go, or a myriad of other games though. When playing an adversarial game with my friends, its not about story. Its about combat and adversaries.
Right - but roleplaying and adversarial games go poorly together. If a game is adversarial then players have to do mechanically optimal things (and, as you say, will look for every excuse to give their characters a mechanical advantage) rather than the narratively interesting things. Why should a player to try to act in-character when it can only disadvantage them?
> Making a lot of dice rolls can give a certain kind of player the illusion that they had agency in winning or losing (particularly important if you want them to accept the death of their character), but in reality it all averages out and who wins a given combat is largely a question of what everyone's stats look like going into it. (Or you allow the players to come up with tactics that you consider clever enough to give them advantages - but then we're back to you having to judge whether they've come up with something good or some bullshit).
That's like saying Chess or Backgammon isn't satisfying because you're just moving pieces around or rolling dice.
People can love the game itself. Positioning, selection of spells, cooperation with allies. Etc. etc. D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder is a good game at its core.
The same cannot be said of all systems of combat. (IE: World of Darkness). World of Darkness's dice seem more like a randomization element. But then again, this is a roleplaying game, rather than a rollplaying game.
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All the "roleplayer" wants is a random element. Someone to have randomly decided to have been the winner / loser, and then to roleplay the new situation. From this perspective, D&D is counterproductive.
So don't play D&D. Play the myriad of other, roleplay heavy games (like Dread, World of Darkness, Changeling, Vampire, etc. etc.). They're perfectly good games.
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> but it's not narratively satisfying
Don't turn D&D into something it isn't. If you're not satisfied by the combat of D&D, then do not play it. There are plenty of other games that have far better focus on the roleplaying aspect of this genre.
EDIT: Moods shift. Sometimes I feel like combat. I use D&D / Pathfinder / etc. etc. for that. Maybe Ikusa or Axis and Allies as well.
Sometimes I feel like roleplaying. I pull out World of Darkness instead
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Like, if the 400-pages of spell-interactions and obscure flanking rules is counterproductive to your enjoyment of the game... maybe don't choose that system? But I've derived plenty of enjoyment from these systems (3.5, Pathfinder, etc. etc.) so I can say its worthwhile... if you're into it. But don't force yourself to like it if you're not into it...
> People can love the game itself. Positioning, selection of spells, cooperation with allies. Etc. etc. D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder is a good game at its core.
I enjoy playing Mordenheim-style small squad miniatures combat games (and that's what D&D is at its heart) on occasion. But I've never found a game that can succeed at being both a competitive game and a roleplaying game at the same time (not just RPG-style games, I had this problem with Android the board game too). One can't be a servant of two masters.
> So don't play D&D. Play the myriad of other, roleplay heavy games (like Dread, World of Darkness, Changeling, Vampire, etc. etc.). They're perfectly good games.
Right. You seemed to originally be claiming that having a less mechanically detailed, more roleplay-oriented system inherently made games less balanced and more unfair. "Lemme bullshit my own powers to be better than everyone else's, so that I'm the star of this show" is a problem in fully freeform systems, but you don't need a detailed combat system to resolve it; light systems where conflict is a simple roll (even WoD is a bit heavy for my tastes personally) handle fair conflict resolution just fine. (And I'd argue that they end up being fairer than mechanically heavy systems where the powergamers with min-maxed builds have an advantage over players who just picked a build that felt fun).
Alas, that's not how games work. Someone casts "Insanity", can it be removed with Dispel Magic? What about Antimagic Field? What happens if you kill the person, then resurrect them, do they come back with the insanity effect?
The story must go on. You either decide that you want it ill specified (ie: whoever improvs the best gets the decision), or you have a rulebook that carefully lays out the interactions.
You don't have to know the interactions. Simply knowledge that millions of other players have come across this game, and have likely already come across this situation and have analyzed the rules + made a decision is enough.
No person wants to memorize rulebooks. But we dungeon masters do so to ensure fairness in our decisions. If someone doesn't like the ruling, i can always point out the rulebook (or if not the rules, then an online discussion of a similar situation) that will settle the debate.
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Because if you know a thing about players, they will try everything to "Just for flavor, have that +5 Magic Sword on their Gorilla because its awesome" (when they really just want to roll more damage than everyone else in the party).
If I let the Druid effectively have twice the magic items of everyone and letting his pet-gorilla play a Fighter, then everyone else loses (because there's no way they can keep up with the damage output of a Gorilla using weapons locked to martial class). Martial weapons are locked to martial classes for a reason: those classes lose spellcasting but gain more damage to gain another role (the damage-dealing role) to play in this game.
In effect: the 1d8 fists of a Gorilla are there and balanced against the needs of everyone else. The Druid + Pet-Gorilla already play with two turns per... turn. They're already considered quite strong in the game, I as the dungeon master, need to know where "too much damage" starts to seep in and where "Improv rulebreaking" can start making the Druid stupidly overpowered.
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I've played with lots of "Improv" people. Even with their best interests at heart, the game innately becomes a "Lemme bullshit my own powers to be better than everyone else's, so that I'm the star of this show".
Maybe you don't do it, but *someone* in the group always tries to do this. You need to cut them down and restrict them so that their power level remains roughly on the same level as everyone else in the party. Knowing the limitations of spells, as well as the limitations of weapons, is a good starting point to ensuring fairness at the table.
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Going back to the top. Insanity is 7th level and is explicitly stated that only 7th level spells and above (like Limited Wish) can remove it. Trying to bullshit a 3rd level spell (Dispel Magic) into removing Insanity means that the Wizards / Sorcerers become overpowered, relative to the abilities of everyone else. You have to make them spend a 7th level slot to heal this particular curse.