It was only a 2 feat combo. Divine Metamagic with Persistent Spell metamagic. You buy as many nightsticks that you could or have the party craft and you had bunch of buffs last 24 hours. It wasn't a very complicated or high level combo. As far as I recall, it was certainly well before 10th level.
All of the broken stuff I played was broken before 10th level and required no prestige classes. Aberration Druid, Nightstick Cleric, and Metamagic stacking Artificer.
There is a very good reason people don't use "E12." They use E6. That is the point at which the scaling has just begun to separate, and thus is still mostly reasonable. Fighters have a second attack, full casters all have their complement of pretty powerful 3rd level spells (fly, invisibility, haste, fireball, etc.) but are only one spell level ahead of Bard-style part-casters.
I've played several 3.5e/PF1e campaigns at this point. The rules go off the rails around level 7-9, and obliterate any concept of reasonable balance by level 12 at the latest.
There is a very good reason people don't use "E12." They use E6. That is the point at which the scaling has just begun to separate, and thus is still mostly reasonable. Fighters have a second attack, full casters all have their complement of pretty powerful 3rd level spells (fly, invisibility, haste, fireball, etc.) but are only one spell level ahead of Bard-style part-casters.
I've played several 3.5e/PF1e campaigns at this point. The rules go off the rails around level 7-9, and obliterate any concept of reasonable balance by level 12 at the latest.
That wasn't my experience. A lot of my characters (casters and non-casters) really came into their own after level 5 or do and it wasn't until the mid teens that casters dominated.
But I'm sure there were a lot of variables and everyone's individual experiences will vary.
While people have been arguing over where exactly things started going off the rails & eventually just took flight, I think it's important to note something being completely ignored because it's something that provides such a stark contrast with modern d&d. Back then there was an expectation that a not insignificant chunk of a PC's power came from various magic items & that those magic items would be regularly upgraded. Toss in slot & bonus type conflicts along with the way that the most specialized hyperoptimized builds tended to need similarly specialized gear & it was easy for a GM not running the game like a mindless CRPG interweb thought exercise to massage the gap between weaker & more powerful PCs. Not only was it easy for the GM to smooth out the peaks & troughs across the party through how gear upgrades were handled, monsters themselves had a lot more mechanical hooks that existed for further massaging of the curve in the form of things like creature type resist/immune bits☆ and per attack DR/resist or spell selection influencing SR.
Juggling all of that to keep things fun for the party was generally fairly simple & there were plenty of monsters available to make doing it easy without seeming to single anyone out. It was not uncommon for it to just get done during adventure prep without really giving it much thought. All of that is largely stripped away in the name of "fun" & "simplicity" resulting in a situation where massaging the curve of CharOp at the table is now so needlessly difficult that any attempt tends to wind up not too different from the results of using an impact driver when a set of precision jeweler's tools was needed.
spotted this somewhere recently
Choosing to overoptimize and disregard the option of holding back in the name of cooperative fun for the entire group is a stupid decision. It's also one that was not all that difficult to handle back in 3.5 without players feeling punished, that is largely no longer the case.
☆undead/constructs being immune to most sources of sneak/crit damage being the most obvious but there were many more.
It was only a 2 feat combo. Divine Metamagic with Persistent Spell metamagic. You buy as many nightsticks that you could or have the party craft and you had bunch of buffs last 24 hours. It wasn't a very complicated or high level combo. As far as I recall, it was certainly well before 10th level.
All of the broken stuff I played was broken before 10th level and required no prestige classes. Aberration Druid, Nightstick Cleric, and Metamagic stacking Artificer.
While people have been arguing over where exactly things started going off the rails & eventually just took flight, I think it's important to note something being completely ignored because it's something that provides such a stark contrast with modern d&d. Back then there was an expectation that a not insignificant chunk of a PC's power came from various magic items & that those magic items would be regularly upgraded. Toss in slot & bonus type conflicts along with the way that the most specialized hyperoptimized builds tended to need similarly specialized gear & it was easy for a GM not running the game like a mindless CRPG interweb thought exercise to massage the gap between weaker & more powerful PCs. Not only was it easy for the GM to smooth out the peaks & troughs across the party through how gear upgrades were handled, monsters themselves had a lot more mechanical hooks that existed for further massaging of the curve in the form of things like creature type resist/immune bits☆ and per attack DR/resist or spell selection influencing SR.
Juggling all of that to keep things fun for the party was generally fairly simple & there were plenty of monsters available to make doing it easy without seeming to single anyone out. It was not uncommon for it to just get done during adventure prep without really giving it much thought. All of that is largely stripped away in the name of "fun" & "simplicity" resulting in a situation where massaging the curve of CharOp at the table is now so needlessly difficult that any attempt tends to wind up not too different from the results of using an impact driver when a set of precision jeweler's tools was needed.
Choosing to overoptimize and disregard the option of holding back in the name of cooperative fun for the entire group is a stupid decision. It's also one that was not all that difficult to handle back in 3.5 without players feeling punished, that is largely no longer the case.
☆undead/constructs being immune to most sources of sneak/crit damage being the most obvious but there were many more.
illusion magic is always the biggest mother may I?
Its soo fun to play if your dm plays ball, but its utterly about player creativity and lacks hard and fast rules. If you dm doesn't wanna play ball, everything ignores your illusions and your pointless.
A lot of optimizers would tell you that some of the most busted things in 3.5 were right in the PHB, not limited to, but including things like simulacrum, wish, Natural Spell, and the item creation feats.
