Just Plain Broken

[Nifft]

there was an Assassin PrC variant discussion a long while back

I reserve the right to have been stupid in the past, and possibly in the future! Can't remember that specific debate, but my rules savvy has hopefully gotten better with time. I can't promise that I'd have the same opinion today that I had a few years ago.

Also, I don't have the Magic Item Compendium, but if I did I'd probably ban the Belt of Battle.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Zurai]

The only truly broken class (that a player could actually play in a normal game) is one that I havn't seen mentioned here: Planar Shepherd, from Faiths of Eberron. It can permanently act at a 10:1 time ratio at a high enough level - that's like a maximized empowered time stop... every round of every day.

 

[Arkhandus]

Not particularly. Suffice to say that anyone who thinks 3 feats plus others is an insignificant investment is, *IMO*, not too attached to the realities of DnD3.x.

Sorry, not to sound arrogant and all, but that is just my take on it. In a blunt and uncompromising fashion...

Cameron: You're derailing the thread by continuing to argue the point. There's a whole forum dedicated to that kind of rules discussion, and I know you post there, so there's no reason to clutter another guy's thread with lots of debate over stuff.

And you make too much of a fuss over the 'opportunity cost' of the cleric spending his feats on this stuff. That's only valid if there are numerous other strong feats that he could make good use of in his specialty.

Pray tell, what is the vast, dreadful opportunity cost of a Barbarian taking Power Attack feats to be more awesome at pounding stuff into bloody goo, or the vast, dreadful opportunity cost of a Cleric taking Divine feats to be more awesome at nuking heretics and buffing himself to more gawdlike proportions to pound stuff into bloody goo almost as well as the Barbarian on top of doing all the other cleric-y stuff that clerics have the power to do so well?

If they're saving spell slots through DMM to buff themselves (rather than using their precious, valuable, scant few higher-level spell slots), they have more slots to spend on healing and blasting and utility, so I don't think the 'opportunity cost' you harp about is so significant.

Divine Metamagic is not non-broken just because a cleric could potentially take a few other, similarly-useful-but-less-broken feats if only he didn't spend his feats on DMM.

 

[Brazeku]

I think the Thrallherd is actually broken, campaign-wise. Being able to ruin things in combat has a fairly limited impact compared to having a fully self-replenishing army of completely mind-controlled slaves.

 

[Nifft]

Cameron: You're derailing the thread by continuing to argue the point.

I'm on your side when it comes to the balance here, but isn't it a tiny bit unfair to say this and then argue some salient points demanding a rebuttal?

Anyway: my vote for most broken PrC would be the 3.0e Foresaker. Not only is it bad in mechanics, it's terrible in terms of interacting with a typical party, as it forces everyone else in the party to adhere to its restrictions or leave the PC behind (i.e.: no group teleport or plane shift).

Cheers, -- N

 

[green slime]

Strangely enough, I don't find DMM broken.

But that is probably because I don't allow casting of metamagicked spells of a level beyond what they could ordinarily cast.

So in order to cast a DMM Quickened 3rd level spell, you need to at least have access to a 7th level slot.

Sort of removes all the fun and games from Sudden feats, DMM, and that silly Incantrix.

My vote still goes for the Frenzied Berserker. Man, that is one supreme example of bad design.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Strangely enough, I don't find DMM broken.

But that is probably because I don't allow casting of metamagicked spells of a level beyond what they could ordinarily cast.

So in order to cast a DMM Quickened 3rd level spell, you need to at least have access to a 7th level slot.

Sort of removes all the fun and games from Sudden feats, DMM, and that silly Incantrix.

My vote still goes for the Frenzied Berserker. Man, that is one supreme example of bad design.

That isn't strange at all, I'd say--you houseruled it to fix it, as I mentioned in post #9

 

[kaomera]

I think I'd just ask my players what they'd like to see banned. If they really don't mind seeing a tribe of 200+ Orcish Frenzied Berzerkers raging across the kingdom's borders, then I'm more than willing to let them have access to that PrC too.

 

[Nifft]

That isn't strange at all, I'd say--you houseruled it to fix it

Much like I don't consider Toughness* to be weak.

Cheers, -- N

*) Opinion valid only for Nifft's house-ruled variant of Toughness.

 

[Cameron]

I dunno. Nifft's insights into the rules seem to be pretty grounded as far as I've seen. Occasionally he'll actually come too far in the permissive side for my tastes (for instance, there was an Assassin PrC variant discussion a long while back that involved giving the Assassin 1d6 Sneak Attack every level for 10 levels and he thought it was not overpowered vis-a-vis Rogue), but I've never seen him underestimate the investment needed to get a particular power.

The 'but it costs resources' argument is inherently flawed and can be used to defend Frenzied Berserker (costs the intro feats you don't want and 10 levels of Barbarian abilities) or any of the other things in a thread like this. The fact is, in its extreme form, that argument could be used to defend a three feat chain that gives you +20 to AC and +20 to hit (but it costs three feats!).

The problem with extreme arguments is that they are extreme.

*All* feats are a toss up. Which should I get? Which is better? Is there anything else I can do instead? Thus, we must *always* weigh up opportunity costs. *If* there was a feat chain that allowed +20AC and +20 to-hit, a fighter-type would be fairly stupid not to take it, three feats be darned, simply because it is the one that gives the most return on investment.

Saying that talking about opportunity cost is inherently flawed is itself inherently flawed...