Just Plain Broken

[Rystil Arden]

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.

It's a personal attack whether or not it uses nasty language. Please don't make any more personal attacks.

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.

It's broken enough if a single character can keep the enemy stunned half of all rounds for free. It's super-mega-broken if you can permastun. And really, if it's broken enough to ruin the fight any time you can use it, and sometimes you can't use it (in this case if you can't make the Jump check), does that mean it isn't broken?

The 8th level maneuver is White Raven Hammer.

Good find! That's quite broken too.

 

[Rystil Arden]

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.

Who cares about the damage from those little guys? The point is the ridiculously uncapped +to hit, the free movement, and the auto-stun

 

[Rystil Arden]

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)?

Zurai did have some grounds in that I slipped up on the Warblade refreshing rules, but that's a separate issue. I'd like to see your response to my quote from the Wish spell's text, though

 

[AllisterH]

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.

Um, actually I was part of that discussion and we kinda proved that one as being so very sub-optimal for a 17th level party. Was it the one where they use two summoners to summon some hound archons versus a CR 30 Titan?

Keep a couple things in mind. The manoeuver doesn't bypass the limitation on charging thus, even though the people affected by the manoeuver don't block each other, the ENVIRONMENT still does. Things like a simple "Protection from Evil" spells knocks out the summoned monsters so they can't charge thus negating the bonus and the time it takes to actually setup the manoeuver properly (what's the target doing in the meantime?....)

Personally, any manouver that can be stopped by the 1st level spell, Grease, is not one I would place on the broken list.

Warmaster's charge is a manoeuver that looks great on paper but in practice? A total waste of an action....

As for the Dragon and SDS , er, even that psionic-powered build is going to have a devil of a time passing that check...A Colossal Dragon would have a DC easily in the 200s.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Um, actually I was part of that discussion and we kinda proved that one as being so very sub-optimal for a 17th level party. Was it the one where they use two summoners to summon some hound archons versus a CR 30 Titan?

Keep a couple things in mind. The manoeuver doesn't bypass the limitation on charging thus, even though the people affected by the manoeuver don't block each other, the ENVIRONMENT still does. Things like a simple "Protection from Evil" spells knocks out the summoned monsters so they can't charge thus negating the bonus and the time it takes to actually setup the manoeuver properly (what's the target doing in the meantime?....)

Personally, any manouver that can be stopped by the 1st level spell, Grease, is not one I would place on the broken list.

Warmaster's charge is a manoeuver that looks great on paper but in practice? A total waste of an action....

As for the Dragon and SDS , er, even that psionic-powered build is going to have a devil of a time passing that check...A Colossal Dragon would have a DC easily in the 200s.

Hmmm, I wasn't in that particular thread then--I was in a different one about Bo9S in general

Do remember though, you can Jump while charging (I know, I know, more Jumps ), which can help with difficult terrain, and you can always have your Wizard Dispel PfE if the enemy is capable of putting that up. And remember--it's broken even if you can't send in the summoned mooks, since it's effectively giving everyone except the Warblade the charge itself, then two free rounds of other things to do (the Warblade gets 1 free round).

True on the Colossal Red--but the Huge and Gargantuan dragon might be doable. Also, there is nothing that says you have to start on the ground. I believe that an Air Walk or something similar would do the trick--you can cover the lateral distance in your sleep.

 

[Zurai]

As for the Dragon and SDS , er, even that psionic-powered build is going to have a devil of a time passing that check...A Colossal Dragon would have a DC easily in the 200s.

Correct. Assuming a simple doubling of height per size catagory, a Colossal creature is 64 feet tall. Jump DC = 4*height. 64*4 = DC 256 Jump check. Even a simple 20 foot tall creature (in the Huge range) is DC 80. That's with a running start.

 

[Cameron]

Um, actually I was part of that discussion and we kinda proved that one as being so very sub-optimal for a 17th level party. Was it the one where they use two summoners to summon some hound archons versus a CR 30 Titan?

Keep a couple things in mind. The manoeuver doesn't bypass the limitation on charging thus, even though the people affected by the manoeuver don't block each other, the ENVIRONMENT still does. Things like a simple "Protection from Evil" spells knocks out the summoned monsters so they can't charge thus negating the bonus and the time it takes to actually setup the manoeuver properly (what's the target doing in the meantime?....)

Personally, any manouver that can be stopped by the 1st level spell, Grease, is not one I would place on the broken list.

Warmaster's charge is a manoeuver that looks great on paper but in practice? A total waste of an action....

As for the Dragon and SDS , er, even that psionic-powered build is going to have a devil of a time passing that check...A Colossal Dragon would have a DC easily in the 200s.

Watch as he brings up second/third party interference to bolster his arguments... Which, of course, would prove that the item in question *by itself* isn't broken. But who cares, eh? Let's move the goalposts a bit, say to India...


Darn it! Ninja'd...

 

[Zurai]

True on the Colossal Red--but the Huge and Gargantuan dragon might be doable.

Possibly for a Huge dragon, but then a Huge dragon is only ~CR14. A Gargantuan dragon would be at least ~30 feet tall, which is a DC 120 jump check - even the twinked out example character couldn't make that check.

Also, there is nothing that says you have to start on the ground. I believe that an Air Walk or something similar would do the trick--you can cover the lateral distance in your sleep.

No. In general, flight spells overrule upwards movement with their own mechanics. Air Walk, specifically, says that moving upwards is treated as walking up a hill.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Possibly for a Huge dragon, but then a Huge dragon is only ~CR14. A Gargantuan dragon would be at least ~30 feet tall, which is a DC 120 jump check - even the twinked out example character couldn't make that check.



No. In general, flight spells overrule upwards movement with their own mechanics. Air Walk, specifically, says that moving upwards is treated as walking up a hill.

Hmm, that's a good point on Air Walk. I was thinking of that too when I read it, but the way I'm parsing it, despite the ability to just walk up the air like a hill, it does not preclude jumping and landing at the same height. The specific line I'm looking at is "The subject can tread on air as if walking on solid ground." I'll admit that it looks like you could go either way with RAW--I've allowed jumping off Air Walk before because it was harmless, but if I had to play in a game with SWS, I would rule as you did.

 

[Zurai]

Hmm, that's a good point on Air Walk. I was thinking of that too when I read it, but the way I'm parsing it, despite the ability to just walk up the air like a hill, it does not preclude jumping and landing at the same height. The specific line I'm looking at is "The subject can tread on air as if walking on solid ground." I'll admit that it looks like you could go either way with RAW--I've allowed jumping off Air Walk before because it was harmless, but if I had to play in a game with SWS, I would rule as you did.

The thing is, when flying, flying upwards specifically takes double your movement. It'd be silly to be able to just say "oh, I'll just Jump up instead" and completely negate that very specifically spelled out restriction.

Also, no DM would ever let you (as you mentioned) trivialize the jump check for SDS like that. That check is the balance to the maneuver.

On that note, I'd like to point out that I'm not saying the fact that the DC for the stun save is equal to your Jump check is overpowered - I think it's silly and definitely should be changed to the standard formula for DCs (ie, DC 17+str mod in this case). The strike itself, however, is not in the slightest bit broken. It does reasonable damage considering you're giving up the ability to full attack if you use it, and it's got a massive restriction on it to prevent you from using it against things that are too large.