Fanaelialae
Legend
IDK, 'is not broken all the time' the same as 'not broken at all?' (whatever the definition of broken) I don't think so. Not minding, not seeing, not noticing, not caring - however you want to put it, it's perfectly reasonable and plausible, and in no way contradicts the thing in question actuallybeing brokenhaving quantifiable issues. If you want to share out the 'blame' like that, it'd be fine as far as it goes. You open up more ways to 'fix' the issue, if nothing else.
Since you went and edited this while I was typing my response to your original post, I hope you don't mind if I respond to the edited version separately here.
As I've tried to explain before, it's not about "Not minding, not seeing, not noticing, not caring". It's that I, and seemingly many others, do not have this issue. If a particular model of car, that isn't really meant to be driven at high speeds per se, only exhibits problems when you take it over 120 mph, is it broken? Or does it simply have an issue that only a small subset of owners will ever experience?
Again, I'm sympathetic to anyone having this issue. I've been attempting to contribute useful ideas to the discussion (add +3 to the AC of all monsters, have power attack suppress advantage, etc.) for use by those experiencing this issue. But I don't think it means the feat is broken, just because it breaks down when you take it over 120 mph. You don't go over 120 by accident; it's a conscious decision. If the players choose to do this, they are making that choice, whether it's because they want to "win" or because they enjoying breaking the system. Sorry, but if there is an issue at all in that scenario (and maybe there isn't, so long as everyone is having fun) then I don't believe that the real issue lies with the feat.
lol.
A decent analogy. Allow your players to have various options, don't allow them to combine them in untoward ways (DM takes responsibility for the balance of his campaign) Or just trust them not to (player restraint).
To be quite frank, hopefully your players don't want to mix chlorine and bleach either. But if they do, then yeah, it might be time to improvise some child safety locks.
For me at least, I like that if they really need to they might be able to break out this combo (assuming the party has taken power attack and whatever else to boost it) or something like it. In a previous campaign, I had a character who could cast Conjure Animals with high level spell slots. To make matters worse, so to speak, the DM didn't want to deal with picking the animal type so he allowed me to choose. Knowing that if I spammed it, it would break the campaign, I kept it prepared but almost never used it. There were only 2 or 3 times in the entire campaign that I cast that spell, and every time I did so with fair certainty that we would otherwise be facing an almost certain TPK. Let me tell you, 16 to 24 wolves will ruin just about anything's day. Used frivolously I could have overshadowed everyone and ruined the campaign. Used judiciously I kept a great campaign going until its finale.
The "brokenness" of the power attack combo can be a feature, rather than a bug, for the right table.
Now, I realize that I'm treading dangerously close to badwrongfun territory here, so please let me just say that I don't intend it that way. Different tables have fun in different ways, and I'm not suggesting that one is better than the other. I'm simply trying to explain to you why, IMO, it isn't universally broken the way you seem to believe it is.
That's fair. In that analogy, though 5e wouldn't be an SUV or a race car, it'd be a kit car billed as usable as either, and also as an economy commuter model.
So we install all the race car components (Feats & MCing &c), and then complain the fuel economy sucks ('broken'/imbalanced) and the speed limit's too low (too easy/soft).
This goes significantly beyond just installing the race car components. This is like installing those components and then tweaking them until you're getting basically as much performance out of them as allowed by the laws of physics. And then complaining that the fuel economy sucks et al.
My group uses feats and MCing too. And a whole bunch of other crazy house rules (such as a mind flayer racial class straight from the MM in the spirit of Savage Species) that ought to make us so over the top that whoever is DMing that week descends into madness. Yet it doesn't. The players keep themselves in check. They're more interested in trying out fun ideas than pushing the system to its breaking limit.
Again, that's not meant as a criticism of play style. However, I'm not sure that it's fair to criticize the system for being broken when the most likely reason for it breaking is that the players are going out of their way to break it. Power Attack + Reckless + Bardic Inspiration + Lucky + Bless is not something that is likely to come about by random chance.