Has anything ever broken your game?

[Pants]

It seems like you can't hit the refresh button without finding a thread about how 'X and X is broken.' Well, I'm curious, we all read about how something looks broken, but has anyone ever had a PrC, a feat, or a combination of rules that just totally destroyed a game? I'm curious and please, don't limit it to d20 if you don't to.

While I've never had a game 'destroyed' by something broken, I got really irritated about something. The wizard in a game about three years ago abused 3.0 Haste like you wouldn't believe. It got to the point that I had to have enemy spellcasters abusing Haste in order to challenge him and that made me feel really, really bad (especially since I was kinda screwing over the other PC's who weren't abusing the spell). Needless to say, I switched over to the 3.5 version as soon as I found it on the WotC webpage.

So, tell us your stories (if you have any).

 

[Bront]

I've seen a PrC that was quite oviously unbalanced, but it was the first PrC we used in 3.0, and it was found on the web, so not in any official source book. Basicly, the PC was able to do extra unconditional damage with a bow, had full casting, and got an inherant miss chance that grew per level (topped out at 25% I believe), while having skill points and hit points close to a rogue. And I'm sure I'm missing some of the extra powers.

For the final session, the same GM let me earn 3 per level twice in the Lycanthrope, but that was partialy an RP thing, and the final battle was the next session. Made me pretty visious as a warrior, but nothing that was game breaking (Of course, we were all Level 18, so it was less noticable). The GM was the one who insisted on it too, I didn't ask for it. (I had been playing up finding my bear spirit animal, and had eventualy become a werebear).

Something that was so broken it ruined a game? Nothing that was gotten normaly in D&D 3.0 or later (I don't count unbalanced awards of gear, that's the GM's fault). In earlier editions, I've had psionics grind a game to a halt, and before that, racial limits sucked. In other systems, I've seen a few things, but usually our GMs have had the vision to simply either say "this needs to be fixed" or in some cases, the player said the same.

 

[demiurge1138]

Frenzied f-ing berzerker. Level 13 or so, homebrewed kobold-centric game, player's new character is a frenzied berzerker. And he eliminates creatures of his CR in a single round, regularly. Then he starts eliminating the players. Pretty much every combat had one character dead or dying from the FB, and there was very little hope of stopping him once he got started.

Basically, I knew it was Broken with a capital B when the party got entangled with the law in a troglodyte city. He killed, singlehandedly, eight CR 11 lawmen before even slowing down.

Eventually, I NPCed him, banned the Frenzied Berzerker class forevermore, then used him as an enemy, and he was the campaign's final fight. And boy, did it go badly.

 

[Corsair]

Frenzied f-ing berzerker. Level 13 or so, homebrewed kobold-centric game, player's new character is a frenzied berzerker. And he eliminates creatures of his CR in a single round, regularly. Then he starts eliminating the players. Pretty much every combat had one character dead or dying from the FB, and there was very little hope of stopping him once he got started.

Basically, I knew it was Broken with a capital B when the party got entangled with the law in a troglodyte city. He killed, singlehandedly, eight CR 11 lawmen before even slowing down.

Eventually, I NPCed him, banned the Frenzied Berzerker class forevermore, then used him as an enemy, and he was the campaign's final fight. And boy, did it go badly.

Our party had a FB for a while. My Loremistress basically became his custodian, waiting with a ready Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Web, or Glitterdust for the sole purpose of taking him down after a fight.

 

[beaver1024]

3.5. The moment I introduced it, our sorcerer became unplayable. The cleric and druid climbed exponentially in power such that no other classes are played.

 

[Crothian]

Nothing.

 

[Testament]

3.5. The moment I introduced it, our sorcerer became unplayable.

OK, this part I'm curious about. How did the sorcerer become any more unplayable than it would have been under 3.0?

 

[Shadowslayer]

Broke completely? maybe not. But I once fixed my DMs insistence on using spell points, rather than the D&D method. I'm sure there's good systems for that, but I havent seen one yet. This guy's system made wizards horribly unbalanced, but he insisted on the whole "fire and forget doesnt make any real world sense" line of guff.

Then one day my character had a bad disagreement with the party theif and it came to blows. All I had to do was fly out of bow range and rain down magic missiles till she died.

The system was revamped in short order.

BTW this was 2e, so Im not sure if it applies or not.

 

[tetsujin28]

In a word? No. Nothing has ever broken my game. Back in the days when I was really running D&D on a consistent basis (mid-'70s-early '80s), I was using Arduin alongside (A)D&D. So there was always something tougher I could throw at the PCs.

 

[tetsujin28]

Frenzied f-ing berzerker.

A class I have no problem with. We've got one in our game, and he's no more unbalancing than anything else.