Just Plain Broken

[roguerouge]

I'd probably throw leadership in there.

"Hey Bob, what did you take for your 12th level feat? I took Greater Weapon Spec!"

"Oh, that's nice. I got an entire 10th level character for mine!"

"..."

Don't forget that the gold dragon comes with a small army of craftsmen and experts. It's lovely to be able to start doing economic warfare....

 

[Cameron]

...As far as I know, that is the first opinion I've heard expressed that casting Wish, Gate, etc with no cost is a reasonable ability. You can use it to make magic items or gold! And at no XP cost, that's infinite money.



Could you refrain from attacking the person, rather than the idea? I'm afraid I do know what broken is, and being less broken than something even worse does not prevent something from being broken. Anyway, the Dweomercheater of Mystra ruins games. If you think that the Dweomercheater is fine, there is no point in continuing the DMM debate, since I think everyone will agree that Dweomercheater is more broken than DMM. I expect that likewise, you will be frustrated if you post in this thread to defend broken rules, since those opinions are unpopular, possibly unique among ENWorld posters to the best of my knowledge, except this one guy who said that anything published by Wizards can't have a problem and that disallowing selected material from a book for balance reasons is unfair.

However, if there's anything that you think is broken, you should definitely post them here--if they're more broken than Dweomercheater, they are things the OP should look at very very carefully!

First off, who says there is no cost? "I wish for lots of gold!" "You appear in the lair of a Red Dragon. Red Daddy's home." As I said, it requires maturity on *both* sides.

I am not attacking you. I am merely stating that you do not seem to know what broken really is. The why and how of that I am not sure yet. I am suspecting a lack of experience with these so-called "broken" builds. I am trying to tell you that it isn't broken and why, and all I have gotten back is "it is broken, it ie broken, neener, neener!" Come on, you can do better than that!

The Dweomerkeeper is no longer tied to Mystra. As I said, if you put in the feat Initiate of Mystra, then you have problems, but Dweomerkeeper itself is OK. The Cheater of Mystra build requires the Initiate feat or it won't work! See what I mean about you not knowing how these specific builds work? This is not an attack. This is an observation (and not a nasty one), and it is something that I don't think you are alone in. You have no idea the number of people that have told me Mystic Theurge is "broken".

Have you actually played one of these so-called "broken" builds in a mature manner (not a "Hah! The DM allowed it! Time to screw him over and teach him a lesson!" way)?

 

[Rystil Arden]

Actually, he's somewhat right...Think about it.

1st round: You use SDS, target is stunned and can take no actions,
2nd round: You recover that round, target can now take actions,
3rd round: You use SDS once again and start from the top.

So basically you do normal damage for a single attack + 10d6 which admittedly isn't that hot at 13th level but the round in which the target is stunned, basically means you should expect your party to wipe it out.

That is the big issue with the stun effect that basically you use this against your BBEG and what should've been a multiround affair is basically a two round affair.

Then again, as a DM, creating a BBEG that is immune to stunning is not exactly hard...

Exactly!--the Barbarian's high damage is no reason to claim SDS is not broken. Indeed, quite the opposite: While the Warblade stuns the opponent, the Barbarian can do that damage twice. And if she has the ability to Power Attack for AC instead of to-hit (I believe that's Shock Trooper?), she can do it with no fear on the round the enemy is stunned.

 

[AllisterH]

Please refrain from making personal attacks. You are correct that I forgot that when posting this, but that doesn't mean I'm not familiar with the rules. Of course, two Warblades (or a Warblade and a friend who dipped into Warblade to get the strike, etc) can very easily maintain the permastun I described, and even a single free stun is one free stun too many. It isn't a problem with the Warblade--it's a problem with SDS.

Re: Your Edit. Warmaster's Charge is majorly broken too. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it yet. As to the Colossal Red Dragon, that's a canard--it's immune to stunning.

Er, Dragons are immune to stunning? Since when?

As for Warmaster's charge, not really seeing that one either, but I am open to seeing a build that abuses it....

 

[Rystil Arden]

First off, who says there is no cost? "I wish for lots of gold!" "You appear in the lair of a Red Dragon. Red Daddy's home." As I said, it requires maturity on *both* sides.

Great, so now you're nerfing Wish? A Wish can specifically and without complications "Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value."

I am not attacking you. I am merely stating that you do not seem to know what broken really is. The why and how of that I am not sure yet. I am suspecting a lack of experience with these so-called "broken" builds. I am trying to tell you that it isn't broken and why, and all I have gotten back is "it is broken, it ie broken, neener, neener!" Come on, you can do better than that!

Although it starts off with "I am not attacking you", the rest of this paragraph is, in fact, a personal attack. I know what broken is, I have personal experience with these builds, and the strawman argument you draw for me is incredibly derogatory and untrue.

The Dweomerkeeper is no longer tied to Mystra. As I said, if you put in the feat Initiate of Mystra, then you have problems, but Dweomerkeeper itself is OK. The Cheater of Mystra build requires the Initiate feat or it won't work! See what I mean about you not knowing how these specific builds work?

But that is not true. I know about the 'Cheater of Mystra' build on WotC forums that abuses AMF. That isn't the reference here. Dweomercheater is a colloquial term for the Prestige Class because of how broken it is. I'm referencing the PrC alone, without the Initiate of Mystra feat, in full knowledge of what that implies.

I'm still not sure whether you are intentionally continuing the personal attacks, so I'm going to hope it's accidental--remember, presuming the other person's motives or intent is listed as a no-no in the code of conduct. This is specifically true when your presumption is that the other person is ignorant and you post as much, as you did above.

This is not an attack. This is an observation (and not a nasty one), and it is something that I don't think you are alone in. You have no idea the number of people that have told me Mystic Theurge is "broken".

That's a strawman because I am not one of those people. I've never claimed the Mystic Theurge was broken. From the moment they trotted it out in a preview, I was relieved. The same goes for the Warlock if that was your next example.

Have you actually played one of these so-called "broken" builds in a mature manner (not a "Hah! The DM allowed it! Time to screw him over and teach him a lesson!" way)?

I GM, but I've run a few of them as NPCs and I've seen players that played them. Afterwards, our group has always agreed to ban them because of how obscene they are, including the player who uses them if it was a character.

 

[Zurai]

Please refrain from making personal attacks. You are correct that I forgot that when posting this, but that doesn't mean I'm not familiar with the rules.

Oh, please. That was in no way a personal attack. "Please be familiar with the rules before you call them broken" is a perfectly reasonable request. "You're an ignorant moron if you don't even know XYZ" is a personal attack. Note that I did NOT use the second. It's also a request I'm going to make again, because again you show that you do not understand the rules you're basing your examples off of.

Of course, two Warblades (or a Warblade and a friend who dipped into Warblade to get the strike, etc) can very easily maintain the permastun I described

One: You can't really "dip" into Warblade to get Swooping Dragon Strike. It's a 7th level maneuver, which means you need Initiator Level 13 to get it. The maximum Initiator Level you can get for a Warblade maneuver without taking Warblade levels and without going Epic is 10 (a level 20 character). That means you have to take a minimum of 6 Warblade levels (6 Warblade ILvl + 7 ILvls from non-Warblade classes = 13 Ilvl).

Two: You also MUST use Leaping Dragon Stance to even have a shot at making the Jump check against anything above size Large (unless playing something like a thri-kreen, which is obviously munchkin in this regard), which means you can't use any of the stances that actually, you know, help you. LDS basically reads "you now have a chance to actually pull off all those jump-check-required Tiger Claw maneuvers".

Three: So the maneuver which you originally said was broken because a single player could use to permastun a single enemy (while doing very subpar damage) now requires TWO players doing subpar damage. That's half of a "standard" party, and ALL of the typically-alotted non-spellcaster slots. So, sure, you've locked down a single enemy. Too bad his friends are now devouring your cleric and wizard.

and even a single free stun is one free stun too many. It isn't a problem with the Warblade--it's a problem with SDS.

Free? Since when is making a DC80+ jump check "free"?

There is a difference between "can be broken" and "inherently broken". Just about any class can be broken, even a plain jane fighter (have you seen the damage a dedicated charger can do?).

Re: Your Edit. Warmaster's Charge is majorly broken too. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it yet.

Not Warmaster's Charge - that requires two people to successfully charge to stun, and it's a freaking level 9 maneuver. It's supposed to be powerful. The 8th level maneuver is White Raven Hammer.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Er, Dragons are immune to stunning? Since when?

As for Warmaster's charge, not really seeing that one either, but I am open to seeing a build that abuses it....

Good call on dragons! It was just paralysis. Wow, that makes WMC even more powerful than I thought

I'll present to you the 'lite' version of a discussion from a while ago:

You don't need a build to abuse WMC. If you have Leadership, an allied summoner druid/conjurer, or something like that, you're golden to utterly break it. And it's already pretty darn broken with a regular party, particularly a larger one, like say a 6 person party. You're probably not going to miss with between +6 and +10 (or more if your group has animal companions, summons, cohorts, followers, mounts, NPC allies, etc) if this is a reasonable fight, so the stun is basically automatic without a save, you do tons of damage, and everyone gets to charge as an immediate action, which means that in addition to the mega-damage you're about to do, they get two more full attacks before the stunned enemy can act.

 

[Cameron]

Great, so now you're nerfing Wish? A Wish can specifically and without complications "Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value."



Although it starts off with "I am not attacking you", the rest of this paragraph is, in fact, a personal attack. I know what broken is, I have personal experience with these builds, and the strawman argument you draw for me is incredibly derogatory and untrue.



But that is not true. I know about the 'Cheater of Mystra' build on WotC forums that abuses AMF. That isn't the reference here. Dweomercheater is a colloquial term for the Prestige Class because of how broken it is. I'm referencing the PrC alone, without the Initiate of Mystra feat, in full knowledge of what that implies.

I'm still not sure whether you are intentionally continuing the personal attacks, so I'm going to hope it's accidental--remember, presuming the other person's motives or intent is listed as a no-no in the code of conduct. This is specifically true when your presumption is that the other person is ignorant and you post as much, as you did above.



That's a strawman because I am not one of those people. I've never claimed the Mystic Theurge was broken. From the moment they trotted it out in a preview, I was relieved. The same goes for the Warlock if that was your next example.



I GM, but I've run a few of them as NPCs and I've seen players that played them. Afterwards, our group has always agreed to ban them because of how obscene they are, including the player who uses them if it was a character.

Considering that I am not the only one that says you don't seem to know what you are talking about, I'd hardly think it was an attack. However, if you wish to view it that way, I will just have to ignore you on grounds that anything I say would be deliberately miscontrued as an attack and I'd rather not get involved in that.



So, anyone *else* here wanting to talk about how DMM and other stuff are broken (or not)?

 

[AllisterH]

re: Broken

I guess my view on Broken is how easy or how obvious the optimization path is. Sticking with SDS, since we rarely use psionics in our campaign, we never saw that exploit. We knew about the thrikeen and the effect of the Jump spell but since nobody uses XPH, SDS seemed balanced. Now we're going to have to keep that in mind....

Whereas something like the Planar Shephard's Time tricks are kinda hard to miss since the PrC EXPLICITLY mentions them.....

 

[Zurai]

You don't need a build to abuse WMC. If you have Leadership, an allied summoner druid/conjurer, or something like that, you're golden to utterly break it. And it's already pretty darn broken with a regular party, particularly a larger one, like say a 6 person party. You're probably not going to miss with between +6 and +10 (or more if your group has animal companions, summons, cohorts, followers, mounts, NPC allies, etc) if this is a reasonable fight, so the stun is basically automatic without a save, you do tons of damage, and everyone gets to charge as an immediate action, which means that in addition to the mega-damage you're about to do, they get two more full attacks before the stunned enemy can act.

If this was the World of Warcraft forums, at least I'd be able to do palm-to-face-man.

That thread you reference as proof that WMC is "broken" is the thread where I showed in very simple math that an "allied summoner druid/conjurer" is worthless with WMC against any opponent with DR - which 90% of CR17+ enemies have.