D&D 5E What is Over-Powered?

[pming]

Hiya!

So, basically, what it seems to be boiling down to is: Feats are overpowered.

Man, did *anyone* playtest this stuff? C'mon! Sheesh...at the very least they could have made them optional so that they weren't assumed to be in use in the base game.

...oh. Wait. THEY *ARE* OPTIONAL!!!

I'm sorry for the yelling, but I think we need to leave out ALL OPTIONAL stuff, because that stuff isn't part of the actual 5e core system. Or at least divide or designate something overpowered that happens to be optional as "(OPT) The Feat...blablabla...is overpowered". That way, those of us who aren't using (or are going to drop) Feats and other optional stuff at least know.

As for me, a Core thing I find overpowering...100% heal after passing out in a drunken stupor in the inn.

"Wow, good thing we made it back to the inn! I was almost dead after drinking that vial of poison, passing out, getting swallowed by that purple worm, then falling 353' to the jagged rocks below the cliff after you guys killed it. I was down 97hp, with only 2hp left! Ahhh well. Nothing 8 hours in a comfy bed can't cure."

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[TrippyHippy]

According to the entree in the ‘D&D Bible of Gospel Truth and Assorted Eggnog Recipes’, the definition of ‘Overpowered’ is ‘A Half-Elf’, apparently.

 

[Paraxis]

I don't find the sharpshooter or great weapon master feats that overpowered, the -5 to hit is a big deal. One of my players uses GWM constantly and has a huge *whiff* factor.

I mean I love polearm master but still wouldn't call it overpowered.

 

[MortalPlague]

A lot of what seems to be overpowered tends to only come out, at my table, in the hands of players who are mechanically savvy. The sort of players who end up with powerful PCs every single time because they have a good grasp of the mechanics and how they synergize.

There have not been any game breaking combinations that I've seen. Some PCs can be tough to handle, but nothing that makes the game grind to a halt.

 

[DaveDash]

Hiya!

So, basically, what it seems to be boiling down to is: Feats are overpowered.

Man, did *anyone* playtest this stuff? C'mon! Sheesh...at the very least they could have made them optional so that they weren't assumed to be in use in the base game.

...oh. Wait. THEY *ARE* OPTIONAL!!!

I'm sorry for the yelling, but I think we need to leave out ALL OPTIONAL stuff, because that stuff isn't part of the actual 5e core system. Or at least divide or designate something overpowered that happens to be optional as "(OPT) The Feat...blablabla...is overpowered". That way, those of us who aren't using (or are going to drop) Feats and other optional stuff at least know.

As for me, a Core thing I find overpowering...100% heal after passing out in a drunken stupor in the inn.

"Wow, good thing we made it back to the inn! I was almost dead after drinking that vial of poison, passing out, getting swallowed by that purple worm, then falling 353' to the jagged rocks below the cliff after you guys killed it. I was down 97hp, with only 2hp left! Ahhh well. Nothing 8 hours in a comfy bed can't cure."

^_^

Paul L. Ming

The fact that feats are "optional" doesn't help, since the vast majority of people I know who play D&D want to play with feats, and they're a staple for anyone who has been playing the prior three editions (which includes pathfinder).
Feats are not optional because they're not balanced, most of them are remarkably well balanced. Feats are optional because they want to cater for all the oldschool retro D&Ders who are offended by their very existence.

 

[Blackbrrd]

If there is lot's of stuff that's overpowered, isn't another take on that there is some stuff that's underpowered and the rest is normal?

I have only DM-ed level 1-3 with a Fighter, Rogue, Druid, Sorcerer and Monk, and so far nothing has seemed more powered than the rest. (The druid didn't go for the shape shifting stuff).

I think that depending on how you run the rests, it affects the outcome of what's overpowered and not a lot. Does the party take a one hour short rest in the midldle of the dungeon? Sure, that might make some characters feel overpowered, but it also makes sense for the party to get ambushed during that hour... So far, my group has been taking very few short rests and I do think that the game flows very nicely. I am looking forward to level 4-10, I really hope it feels like the first three levels.

 

[Psikerlord#]

No multiclassing (unnecessary given subclasses, just encourages minmaxing).
I think the -5/+10 part of GWM and SS can be OP at some tables. Swap for +1 stat for abundant caution.
Delete the no disad shooting in melee part of CE.
Delete passive perception (more dysfunctional as opposed to OP).
... and you're golden.

 

[Cernor]

No multiclassing (unnecessary given subclasses, just encourages minmaxing).
I think the -5/+10 part of GWM and SS can be OP at some tables. Swap for +1 stat for abundant caution.
Delete the no disad shooting in melee part of CE.
Delete passive perception (more dysfunctional as opposed to OP).
... and you're golden.

If you're the DM, nothing is "overpowered" compared to what you can throw at the party, and you can change the game drastically to make it easier (or more difficult) for your players. If your party isn't tactically minded, they could have a party with every character having "overpowered" builds but nobody being overpowered. On the other hand, they could have mechanically "weak" characters but still laugh at everything you throw at them with a combination of good luck and strong tactical play.

I agree that multiclassing for the sake of minmaxing is a bad idea: even though no builds (that I've seen) utterly break the game, it seems wrong to allow players to multiclass without then having a good RP reason for it. For example, if a wizard wanted to take a level in cleric "because my channel divinity lets me maximize the damage of Chromatic Orb", I'd probably disallow it. If a wizard wanted to take a level in cleric " because he's been a devout worshipper of the god of storms and he's rewarding him for his faithful service", then that's fine. Even if the resulting build is the same, at least one player made an effort to justify it.

For example: to deal with GWM/SS, if you impose disadvantage on the attack roll then if they take the -5 their hit chance is ridiculous. Or a high-AC target that drops their effective to-hit at or below zero: the Shield and Shield of Faith spells come to mind here.

I've only seen crossbow expert come into play once, and when it did it was pretty powerful... However, not having disadvantage for shooting in melee was less of an issue than the fact that the character rolled a +5 to Dex at level 1 so he had two attacks at +7 to hit each and a total of 18 (1d8+1d6+10) damage. Our ranger also hadn't gotten his multiattack yet, and once he got that his damage became competitive with what the CE used to do (before the player left).

Passive perception is a bit wonky, but if you give a clue when a PC detects something with passive perception rather than a full description ("You see a goblin hiding in the woods" compared to "You hear the rustling of leaves off to your side, and see what looks to be a pair of eyes glinting behind some foliage") it can work fine.

To deal with a moon druid (mentioned in every thread about OP builds...), throw situations at them where Wildshape would have to be used in a non-combat role: for example, a sheer cliff where they'd need to turn into a Giant Spider and ferry the rest of the party, or if they need to crawl through the bars of a cage to release the party from a trap.

 

[Staffan]

If you're the DM, nothing is "overpowered" compared to what you can throw at the party, and you can change the game drastically to make it easier (or more difficult) for your players.

IME, there are two kinds of "overpowered." The first is "overpowered versus the world", which only exists in games that care about encounter balance and such anyway. If a group of characters is normally expected to handle so and so much in the way of opposition, and they easily handle half-again that much, there's something fishy going on. But that kind of overpowered can be compensated for by increasing the opposition, and decreasing the XP (so instead of having 10 "moderate" encounters to level, you'd have 10 "hard" ones).

The second, and worse, kind of overpowered is "overpowered versus the other PCs". I don't mean that in a PVP kind of situation, but rather a situation where one character is a lot tougher than the rest, to the point where anything the DM does that can threaten that character will utterly squash other characters. I ran into this in a game of Mutant: Undergångens Arvtagare (Swedish post-apocalyptic game), where one of the PCs was a robot (which meant he had some base armor), had taken the robot ability that gave extra armor, and then wore actual armor on top of that. He subtracted something like 12 points off every hit scored on him, in a game where the default blackpowder pistols dealt 2d8 points of damage, or a big and strong guy using a heavy melee weapon might do 2d8+1d6. The only way of really threatening him would be to bring in something that dealt a lot of damage - and any damage that would reliably go through his armor would at least cripple any other PC. That's the kind of overpowered that really causes problems.

 

[Psikerlord#]

IME, there are two kinds of "overpowered." The first is "overpowered versus the world", which only exists in games that care about encounter balance and such anyway. If a group of characters is normally expected to handle so and so much in the way of opposition, and they easily handle half-again that much, there's something fishy going on. But that kind of overpowered can be compensated for by increasing the opposition, and decreasing the XP (so instead of having 10 "moderate" encounters to level, you'd have 10 "hard" ones).

The second, and worse, kind of overpowered is "overpowered versus the other PCs". I don't mean that in a PVP kind of situation, but rather a situation where one character is a lot tougher than the rest, to the point where anything the DM does that can threaten that character will utterly squash other characters. I ran into this in a game of Mutant: Undergångens Arvtagare (Swedish post-apocalyptic game), where one of the PCs was a robot (which meant he had some base armor), had taken the robot ability that gave extra armor, and then wore actual armor on top of that. He subtracted something like 12 points off every hit scored on him, in a game where the default blackpowder pistols dealt 2d8 points of damage, or a big and strong guy using a heavy melee weapon might do 2d8+1d6. The only way of really threatening him would be to bring in something that dealt a lot of damage - and any damage that would reliably go through his armor would at least cripple any other PC. That's the kind of overpowered that really causes problems.

Yeah situation 1 is not a problem, you can always adds more monsters.

Situation 2 is the issue. You end up with either the game folding due to disinterested low power PCs, or an accidental snowball TPK by trying to challenge the OP PC. You can mitigate a power unbalance with magic items and monster selection to some degree, but ideally you just avoid it in the first place.