Robillar's Gambit

[Celebrim]

Our group just played the final session in a somewhat lengthy campaign last night, and I was kind of disappointed with the way it ended. By the end, my character was a Warblade 17/Barbarian 1/Frenzied Berserker 7 with Robillar's Gambit...

Player chooses famously broken over powered character building options...

Is disappointed when campaign lacks challenge and finishes in an anticlimactic way.

What I hadn't really realized until earlier that night was the fact that, unless I was bereft of any uses of the Frenzy ability, not only was I essentially invincible in melee combat...

Yes.

Don't blame the yourself (entirely). It's the DM's responsibility to exclude material which produces this situation or anything remotely like it. I don't ban virtually everything WotC published in 3.X because I hate my players and I'm sadistic. I'm not saying 'No' to disempower them. Quite the opposite in every way.

Seriously, you've reached the end of the ark of power gaming, as almost every serious power gamer does. Congratulations on your new maturity as a gamer. You've realized that winning isn't everything.

 

[Celebrim]

Warblade (Tome of Battle) - Not broken in and of itself, but a single Warblade is arguably more powerful than a non-optimized 3.0 era party of four PC's. It's basically balanced only with other classes in the ToB and optimized or nearly optimized spellcasters. It is not balanced with most classes and arguably not balanced with most monsters of equivalent CR.

Frenzied Berserker (Complete Warrior) - Completely and utterly broken. Can't believe this got published.

Robilar's Gambit (PHB II) - Completely and utterly broken. Can't believe this got published.

Improved Combat Reflexes (Epic Level Handbook) - Basically balanced, but broken if there is ever anything else published that allows multiple triggers drawing AoO from an enemy. So if you dare put this in your rules, then you have to be very careful about everything else you publish.

Deft Opportunist (Complete Adventurer) - Basically balanced.

 

[Nezkrul]

Wow, you throw "broken" around like it's candy, Celebrim

Shall I list everything that stops a frenzied berserker in his tracks? If you look at the ENORMOUS amount of counters to it, and the fact that many of them are main stay and common things, maybe you'll realize that it is barely on par with spellcasters (after all, a 1st level arcane spell screws it over instantly)

Robilar's Gambit utterly broken? ROFL! They printed it because the 5' step that monsters constantly take advantage of made Combat Reflexes a worthless feat. Now, it is worth taking, but you can't have this trick until 12th level as a fighter, you know, that level when mages and clerics have already COMPLETELY DOMINATED THE GAME. Oh well, no neat toy for mundane melees, its too broken.

ELH- can't use this stuff till 21st level anyways, you know when spellcasters are now GODS in the game.

Deft Opportunist- yes, useful and balanced.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

One of my DMs set an FB against us once. As a cleric I simply cast Sanctuary and he failed his Will save spectacularly, so he couldn't attack me. He then chose to go after the fighter, but the fighter had some sort of ring or whatever that gave him limited flight and thus he was able to stay out of range. The paladin was likewise out of attack range by virtue of being on top of a building, and the beguiler went invisible. Our own barbarian got killed, but not before taking off half the FB's head in the process. Essentially we just waited out the FB's frenzy and it died. Then I used Revivify to bring back our barbarian and all was well.

Do note that a simple grease spell can totally stop an FB since frenzy prevents using dex-based skills which means it can't make the Balance check to move even if it did make the ref save not to fall down.

 

[Crust]

So, is the real issue that the build was broken, or that the GM didn't fully understand the capabilities of the PCs, such that what he built as opposition wasn't appropriate?

The real issue is I should have said (over six years ago), "It is a bit frustrating when players think their builds can't be touched." The DM fully understands.

 

[ImperatorK]

Playing Epic (or just high level really) tends to do that. If you don't like it play low levels only or E6.
FB might be kinda strong and susceptible to cheesing it out, but it's not broken. It has it's strengths and it's weaknesses.
Robilar's Gambit comes online late, requires a decent Dex and can be circumvented by reach/ranged weapons or simply not attacking him.
People that cry "BROKEN!" don't know what they're talking about. The only problem I see here is playing Epic levels and the DM not being prepared for OPs character/playing the encounter incompetently. I mean, he had this kind of situation once already and yet he couldn't come up with anything to counter the OPs tactic at least a little? How could trading blows with the guy that can't be killed and attacks back for every attack be anything but a bad idea?

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

FB might be kinda strong and susceptible to cheesing it out, but it's not broken. It has it's strengths and it's weaknesses.

I've got to disagree here. FB is hilariously poorly-designed and certainly could be called broken. The problem is, what people are complaining about, Deathless Frenzy, is not the problematic part. It's really quite weak.