D&D 5E How to Break 5E

[Zardnaar]

The following post is a general guide on how to break 5E at least in terms of combat. Note I make the following assumptions.
You have around 2 short rests per day (if you even need them my PC often take 1).
You have 6-8 encounters per day (in theory)

You have a variety of encounters. Assume 1/3^rd ranged, 1/3^rd melee and 1/3^rd a mixture. Sometime you will also be dealing with magical attacks. The ratios may vary a bit but in terms of DPR calculations in a real game you can’t count on a 10’10 room with a low AC opponent.

In general if I had a 4 person party I would build 2 melee PCs, 1 hybrid and 1 ranged PC. A 5 person group I would go with 2 melee, 1 hybrid and 2 ranged perhaps subbing in 1 more hybrid character depending on the build. By hybrid I mean something like a Rogue or tempest cleric that can go melee or ranged without a massive penalty.

Not I am mostly a permanent DM and most of the following tricks have been tried, the players however have not really stacked them all together to build an uber party. Note I do note advocate playing this way but if you like powerful PCs here you go. Or here are some things to avoid or say no to. Ok here are some of the abusable things to do in the game.

Negating Resource Depletion​

Negating resource attrition. 5E assumes a certain amount of resources used such as spells, hit points etc. You can get around this in several ways. One way would be to design a party around the short rest mechanic. For example a life cleric, lore bard, fighter and a fighter/baldelock would be one way of doing this. The other way is to get around the expectations of the game. This means using concentration spells and getting around the hit point attrition the game assumes. At a basic level the resilient (constitution), warcaster and healer feats enable this. I would also rate those feats as the best 3 feats in the game. For example instead of casting scorching ray (and odds are 1 ray will miss anyway) cast flaming sphere instead. Instead of casting guiding bolt cast bless. The healer feat at low levels also heals better than a dedicated life cleric and even in the mid levels is in effect an extra 4^th or 5^th level healing spell that recharges on short rests.

A more advanced way of doing this abusing the life clerics disciple of life ability to grant extra hit points with spells that heal or restore hit points. The Cleric1/land Druid XYZ or Life Cleric 1, Lore Bard6+ is the prime example of this where good berry heals 40 hit ponts vs 1d8+ wisdom modifier for a cure spell. The Rogue: Thief 3+with the healer kit is another way of doing this with bonus action healing and the ability to grant 1 hit point to anyone with 0 hit points only limited by the amount of healing kits available. The Inspiring Leader feat and other sources of temporary hit point stacking also enable this.
Uber Damage.

There are a few things in 5E that enable a lot of damage or DPS. I’m not really a massive fan of this as I think there are better things one can do in 5E but there you have it. The basic combo of this is the sharpshooter feat and the great weapon master feat. Both allow you to deal +10 damage per attack at a -5 penalty. You just need to find a way to offset that penalty. The archery combat style does this along with bless and getting advantage. The easiest way to get advantage is generally of spells such as Faerie Fire, Hold Person/Monster, Greater Invisibility and Foresight. Certain class features such as the Avenger Paladin can also get advantage.
A surprising source of advantage is the shield master feat. You can use this feat and an athletics check as a bonus action to attempt to knock people prone. It helps if you can get advantage or expertise on this roll. Level 7 Champion fighters get advantage along with the enhance ability strength spell while Bards and Rogues get expertise in a skill which should be athletics. The Enlarge spell also lets you make attempts to knock over huge beings. Once prone you get advantage to hit them. Hex can also be used as it grants disadvantage to an enemies strength or dexterity checks. If they are big and/or where heavy/medium armor pick strength if they are in light armor pick dexterity with your hex spell. Get advantage and disadvantage and you are looking at knocking giants prone somewhat reliably.

The other source of big damage in this game is exploiting the spell eldritch blast and the warlock class. A Warlock 2/Sorcerer XYZ is a great and basic build just remember to start as sorcerer to get proficiency in con saves and then you can do things like quicken eldritch blasts for cheap as it is a cantrip and you can use your sorcerer spell slots to cast more hexes. Agonizing blast+quicken= win and your warlock spell slots(read hex) refresh after a short rest as well and you can sacrifice your higherlevel spell slots to get more metamagic points to quicken more eldritch blasts. You deal more damage than a fighter than said fighter using action surge unless said fighter is getting an absurd amount of short rests per day.

Getting Around the Concentration Mechanic​

The designers of 5E apparently hate spell casters and nerfed them hard by putting concentration on spells such as dancing lights and dark vision. This was to presumably shut down spell combos. They also conveniently made NPCs very vulnerable to save or suck/die type spells with the exception of legendary creatures. The way to get around this is to put more primary spell caster in your group perhaps even 100% although you might want a single beatstick/tank type PC. Skillmonkies like the Rogue can be replaced with Bards and fighters can be replaced with bladelocks (fighter 1, bladelock XYZ). With 6-8 encounters per day each spell caster only needs to cast maybe 2 encounter defining spells per day and you can do this from level 1. An encounter defining spell might be something as simple as bless or faerie fire and works its way up to things like hypnotic pattern, fireball, twinned greater
invisibilities and more. This also spreads the workload around and as long as you have decent DPS as well there is no real downside.

The Fighter Splash Level.​

The fighter is a seriously front loaded class for a 1 level dip. And by dip I mean start as fighter and MC into what class you actually want. 1 level gives you.
Proficiency in con and strength saves which are the best 2 saves one can get out of the classes.
Proficiency in heavy armor.

A combat style.

Second wind (not worth that much fast but hey it’s a freebie).

The main things you are after is heavy armor proficiency and the con save proficiency. This is really good for gish PCs in light or medium armor and it also reduces multiple ability dependency (MAD). Under the default array you can really only have 3 good stats so strength, con and spellcasting stat matter and the fighter dip level fixes that. This turns the bladelock form a weak class to an outright better fighter as you get to use eldritch blasts which combined with the warcaster feat does some very good things for the bladelock. It also works well for death and war clerics, valor bards, etc. The fiend pact blade lock also gets to feed off temporary hit points and will end up with hex, charisma to melee damage and the ability to use eldritch blast at range so you more or less out damage the fighter, out tank the fighter, and don’t suck at range. You might even cast a fireball on occasion.
Negating Damage

Another way of braking the attrition based model 5E expects is to not take any damage in the 1^st place. At the most basic level this is using things like temporary hit points, a high AC and things like a Paladins aura ability granting a huge bonus to saving throws to negate or reduce unpleasant effects. The inspiring leader feat would be another source of temporary hit points.

Taking it to the next level though there are a few classes which have great synergy at interfering with the NPCs ability to inflict damage. This is class abilities such as the light clerics flare ability, a Bards inspiration dice or cutting words, the diviners portend ability and the Abjurers warding ability. A party consisting of a Lore Bard, Light Cleric, a Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) and whatever else will cover most of the major bases. A 5 person party could add a bladelock and abjurer wizard. Using the standard encounter guidelines it is unlikely the DM will be able to deal with this party

Classes To Break the Game With.
Multiclass Fighters (single level only)
Bards (lore and valor)
Clerics (life, light in particular)
Sorcerers (wildmnages not so much)
Wizards (transmuters, diviners, abjurers, necromancers if you want to spam undead)
Paladins (Avenger, Oath of the Ancients)
Multiclass Warlocks

Classes to avoid.
Barbarians (its just damage)
Most single classed fighters (shield bash champion if you have GWM types in the party)
Rangers (exception hunter archers)
Rogues (thief with healer feat an exception)
Monks (all of them)
Warlocks (single classed, treat as an archer though not a spellcaster and they’re OK)
Wizards (invokers it is just damage)

 

[Tony Vargas]

How to avoid breaking it would probably be a more helpful topic.

 

[aramis erak]

The use of the magic initiate feat can grant the Goodberry spell to a cleric without costing a level... plus two extra cantrips. (but it has other opportunity costs, such as failing to raise the prime attribute for casting, in this case, Wis.)

 

[Zardnaar]

The use of the magic initiate feat can grant the Goodberry spell to a cleric without costing a level... plus two extra cantrips. (but it has other opportunity costs, such as failing to raise the prime attribute for casting, in this case, Wis.)

You can only cast it once a day though?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

i don't get what the point of this topic is. It's long winded and a bit of slog to read through as well.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

At a basic level the resilient (constitution), warcaster and healer feats enable this. I would also rate those feats as the best 3 feats in the game.

Inspiring Leader is mechanically a better feat than Healer. They're both usable equally often, but Temp HP for everyone proactively increases your survivability/insurance margin. Healer is better for getting downed PCs back up without expending any spell slots, but hopefully that situation won't arise very often and can be dealt with via Healing Word when it does. (Also, Healer isn't usable at range.)

Plus, Inspiring Leader combos well with the best way to break the game: minions and hirelings. Especially minions and hirelings with ranged weapons. Normally human guards with longbows, hobgoblins, and animated skeletons are all kind of fragile and easily slaughtered by Fireballs, Frost Giant boulders, etc. But an 11 HP hobgoblin can become a 27 HP hobgoblin minion by the time your party is level 11, thanks to Inspiring Leader, at which point he has a pretty decent chance of surviving Fireball long enough to make some death checks and/or be stabilized by other hobgoblins. Without Inspiring Leader attrition is much worse among your minions, which hurts morale and therefore combat effectiveness and may lead to betrayal.

Troops want two things: victory and loot. With Inspiring Leader you can give them victory, and keep most of the loot for yourself.

 

[Wik]

You know, my brother sometimes talks like this. He's an MMO player, and that sort of thinking is rewarded there. However, whenever he puts his thinking to use in our RPG games, it always falls flat. Not due to any effort on my part, but simply because the game itself doesn't really reward that sort of thinking. Events change, and the way it's played rarely follows a predictable pattern over time.

Modules change. Sometimes they have monsters that throw that thinking off the rails. And it's not a game where everyone has the same goals, so perfect party cohesion is a rare thing. There's always that guy that wants to spam fireballs, even if it's not the wise move. And it seems every party has their own Leeroy Jenkins.

Ultimately, if you ask me, the way to "break" 5e is to overthink it, and present the game to your friends and others as if it's a solvable mathematical formula.

 

[Celtavian]

The only way these items could "break the game" is if you were running with a DM that ran everything by RAW or you somehow could force the DM to run things by RAW. Otherwise these are min-maxing ideas a DM learns to deal with.

What are some of the most powerful combinations I've dealt with?

1. Fighter 1/Warlock x with Devil Sight using darkness. This combination comes online at fairly low level. With the warlock wearing heavy armor, it is virtually an "I win" button in any situation where the spell can't be dispelled or the opponent has some means to see in darkness. When you can dispel darkness, it's easy to counter given the warlock's low number of spell slots.

2. The power of hypnotic pattern. This spell has no hit die, hit point, or creature limit. It's been an extremely useful means to limit the action economy of groups of creatures.

3. Mobility and ranged attacks. It is extremely easy for a ranged attacker to set himself up to avoid attack, while delivering damage. By the time a creature closes, it's already taken so much damage it has near zero chance of winning against the party.

4. bless. This spell is the most powerful group buff in the game other than perhaps holy aura.

You don't need to "break" 5E. It's already a very easy game as it is. It's the easiest version of D&D besides perhaps 4E. I didn't play enough 4E to know. It's way easier and less lethal than early versions of D&D with save or die spells and effects. It's easier than 3E with multiple levels of tactical play and layered buffs and debuffs and monsters with immunity to many things. 5E is a very easy game without much need to "break" the game. Just use the straightforward power given to each class to win. PCs outclass monsters by leaps and bounds save when you design an encounter now and again to counter what they do to gain an advantage.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Getting Around the Concentration Mechanic​

The designers of 5E apparently hate spell casters and nerfed them hard by putting concentration on spells such as dancing lights and dark vision. This was to presumably shut down spell combos. They also conveniently made NPCs very vulnerable to save or suck/die type spells with the exception of legendary creatures. The way to get around this is to put more primary spell caster in your group perhaps even 100% although you might want a single beatstick/tank type PC. Skillmonkies like the Rogue can be replaced with Bards and fighters can be replaced with bladelocks (fighter 1, bladelock XYZ). With 6-8 encounters per day each spell caster only needs to cast maybe 2 encounter defining spells per day and you can do this from level 1. An encounter defining spell might be something as simple as bless or faerie fire and works its way up to things like hypnotic pattern, fireball, twinned greater invisibilities and more. This also spreads the workload around and as long as you have decent DPS as well there is no real downside.

You say that "the designers of 5e apparently hate spell casters," but then you go on to admit that spell casters have "encounter defining spells" and mention how vulnerable NPCs are to save or suck/die type spells. These two statements are contradictory. If the designers of the game really hated a type of character, they wouldn't give them "encounter defining" abilities, nor would they engineer NPCs to have weaknesses against them.

You also talk about how rogues and fighters can supposedly be replaced by bards and bladelocks, which are both spell casters. So which classes do the designers of 5e hate, again?

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm the DM and it's very rare my group have had more than 1-3 encounters per day. They almost never take short rests.

This is because we like our fights exciting. To be any challenge, a fight must be difficult. After one or three such fights, a PC is depleted, more or less.

I consider the 6-8 encounter expectation fundamentally flawed. Who in their right mind want to fight three goblins, and then another three goblins, and so on, just to see if you can do it without spending any significant resources?

I don't know about you, but playing according to the 6-8 expectation would bore us to death...