Just Plain Broken

[Cameron]

It doesn't have to be game-destroying to be broken. It just has to be terribly unbalanced. Unbalanced enough to mess with the game too much, or make the rest of the PCs comparatively sucky and worthless, to where their players don't have fun any more, or to where the DM gets fed up with trying to deal with the unbalanced PC.


Just because your group is 'mature' enough to use broken rules or purposely choose not to, does not mean that the broken rules will not cause problems in groups where munchkins rule, or where DMs can't get the group to comply or 'give back' any broken rules bits in exchange for balanced stuff because the DM didn't realize they would be so broken beforehand.

Not all groups of D&D players have the rare luck of all being selfless, group-fun-oriented, highly-mature, laid-back roleplayers who don't bother with powergaming. Most groups have at least one or two individuals who are more or less the opposite of that (sometimes the DM!), and can't necessarily keep playing if they just boot the troublemaker(s). Especially not if those troublemakers are their good friends otherwise!

So we have to deal with the rules, and that means that the rules should be reasonably balanced in the first place, so that we can avert potential problems that don't necessarily break the game themselves (as Pun-Pun or the Planar Shepherd does), but can break up the group.


Anyway, your example with the wiz, clr, and ftr has no correlation to our arguments that some rules material is broken.

Actually it does. It very much does.

If the Int 8 Wizard is the *par* for party power, then the Str 14 Fighter is overpowered and thus would cause issues.

I didn't change anything with regards to that, except I brought the par down to the level way below the average. So, you have a bunch of heroes, and then you have DMM. Strong and stronger. I brought it down to useless and average.

The fact that you cannot see this and thus consider one broken but not the other is very telling on your state of biasness with regards to certain things in DnD. My question is, have you actually played/seen DMM or any of the other "broken" stuff in play in a party that is actually like a *real* adventuring party and not a bunch of simpering simpletons on a picnic lunch? Or are you just echoing some nay-sayers, the same type of nay-sayers that claimed Monks, Mystic Theurges, etc., are "broken"?

 

[Nifft]

If the Int 8 Wizard is the *par* for party power, then

... then party power is a Commoner. Man, what? Relevance, please?

The fact that you cannot see this and thus consider one broken but not the other is very telling on your state of biasness with regards to certain things in DnD. My question is, have you actually played/seen DMM or any of the other "broken" stuff in play in a party that is actually like a *real* adventuring party and not a bunch of simpering simpletons on a picnic lunch? Or are you just echoing some nay-sayers, the same type of nay-sayers that claimed Monks, Mystic Theurges, etc., are "broken"?

Hey, look, it's a strawman! What a cunning distraction!


So far, the arguments for keeping DMM are:

1/ Commoners are less powerful than Fighters;

2/ Mystic Theurges are not broken; and

3/ Insult, insult, insult.


Compelling! Cheers, -- N

 

[Arkhandus]

Yep, Nifft. That's basically it.

Cameron: Yes, yes I have. I have even had the distinct.....pleasure.....of having my PC beaten down within an inch of his life on multiple, frequent occasions by the party's Frenzied Berserker, and was just fortunate enough that the party wizard managed to succeed with his second or third attempt at Suggestion or Hold Person each time (by which point my monk was in deep negatives), to make the FB stop or run after 'supposed' enemies in the distance due to a Suggestion. And I can assure you that the players in that campaign were pretty smart people, and played very tactically. The wizard was great at using his transmutation specialty, the elf was an uber-archer, the halfling cleric was very lucky and tricky, and the druid was as much a melee beast as a blaster. The FB was just pure munchkin though, and cared nothing for his impact on the rest of the party (or anything like teamwork).

And you don't need to keep being rude, making callous insinuations, and beating on dead fallacious horses all the time.

As for your wierd argument about people playing terrible characters, that's only a matter of a jerk DM and players with bad ability score rolls. If I were playing the wizard there I'd have been the most suicidal wizard ever, and rolled up a new PC ASAP who didn't, for God only knows what reason, have an Intelligence of 8.

I always allow players to re-roll when the CORE RULES state that they should, or when they rolled far too poorly compared to the rest of the party, to maintain some balance between the PCs. And I don't shoehorn PCs into taking a particular class at 1st-level, they choose their class after rolling ability scores. No one would willingly play a wizard who can't do anything but die like Joe Commoner.

Also, your example is based on random ability score rolls it seems, not predetermined, pre-written rules material. Those are not random, and classes, feats, etc. are chosen, not forced. Unlike ability scores when you're playing with a stingy DM who wants to use the old ability score rules of placing scores in the order they were rolled. And even then, you're choosing to play under such a stingy guy, rather than walking away from the table to find a more reasonable GM who's less likely to be planning to arbitrarily screw over your PCs at some point.

 

[AllisterH]

re: Ease of brokenness

I do think Cameron has a point in a round about way though. There should be a question as to how EASY it is to break something that should determine its effectivenee. Take Warmaster's Charge vs Swooping Dragon Strike.

WMC to break, requires a hell of a lot more effort on the part of the player (and it also requires help on the part of the rest of the players in his party) AND luck to get in the realms of "BROKEN"

Compare with SDS which admittedly can be done by just taking options from the core books.


re: Non-core interaction and brokenness

I don't think a feature be it a spell/feat/class should be called broken if it requires the use of other non-core material. Take Power Attack for example. Unlike Combat Expertise, PA isn't capped. Using just core material though, you would rarely exceed a PA value of 5 even for a Half-orc barbarian raging since any iterative attack you have would miss quite frequently. Thus, PA was "balanced" in core.

However, a hill giant barbarian/Frenzied berserker can dump easily more than double that PA value compared to a equivalent fighter of the same level. Now then is PA broken or is the unforseen interaction between a non-core race, a core class, a core feat and a non-core prestige class. While WOTC knew PA was deadly (most giants in the MM always get PA), should they honestly think about how broken PA can get when combined with features that they never intended to be combined?

re: SDS
If you must add a SAVE to the manoeuver, it should at least be something that a 13th level character would bother using against the BBEG or his lieutenants and not just the canon fodder. The problem I have with the 10+str+manoeuver level vs Fort is that in play, this ALWAYS gets resisted (actual game experience here). The creatures that don't succeed on the SV are creatures that would get wiped out by the damage already.

I mean, let's look at the creature types. Constructs, Elementals, Plants, Oozes and Undead right out are immune to the stun effect. Gaints and Dragons have way above average Cons and have a good Fort save while regular animals (and their dire version), aberrations and magical beasts aren't exactly weak in that department either. Really, the only creatures that will fail the save are Fey in my experience and humanoids in non-melee classes. However, such creatures tend to die already to damage so why bother using it?

 

[Rystil Arden]

re: SDS
If you must add a SAVE to the manoeuver, it should at least be something that a 13th level character would bother using against the BBEG or his lieutenants and not just the canon fodder. The problem I have with the 10+str+manoeuver level vs Fort is that in play, this ALWAYS gets resisted (actual game experience here). The creatures that don't succeed on the SV are creatures that would get wiped out by the damage already.

I mean, let's look at the creature types. Constructs, Elementals, Plants, Oozes and Undead right out are immune to the stun effect. Gaints and Dragons have way above average Cons and have a good Fort save while regular animals (and their dire version), aberrations and magical beasts aren't exactly weak in that department either. Really, the only creatures that will fail the save are Fey in my experience and humanoids in non-melee classes. However, such creatures tend to die already to damage so why bother using it?

Then pump up your save DC--with Strength as the key stat, it isn't that hard to do (have a caster Polymorph you into something very large with massive brute strength). Besides, particularly with the rules to swap out known manoeuvres, your game is in much more danger with an overpowered manoeuvre that makes fights less fun due to brokenness than it is from a manouevre that is weak for its level if you don't have enough Strength. If it doesn't work for the character, at most the player will grab it for a level or two and then swap it out, and she probably just won't take it. I do suggest having the 10d6 damage just be automatic if you lower the DC to regular though.

 

[AllisterH]

Then pump up your save DC--with Strength as the key stat, it isn't that hard to do (have a caster Polymorph you into something very large with massive brute strength). Besides, particularly with the rules to swap out known manoeuvres, your game is in much more danger with an overpowered manoeuvre that makes fights less fun due to brokenness than it is from a manouevre that is weak for its level if you don't have enough Strength. If it doesn't work for the character, at most the player will grab it for a level or two and then swap it out, and she probably just won't take it. I do suggest having the 10d6 damage just be automatic if you lower the DC to regular though.

By that argument, I can simply only use immune to stun creatures and just keep the manoeuver as is. That said, it isn't that easy to swap out manoeuvers. A warblade I've found can only really focus on two disciplines and thanks to the pre-requisites AND SDS being a high level manoeuver means you might not be able to grab an equivalent level manoeuver.

Personally, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree since I honestly don't think the STUN effect is a game ender as you believe it to be. In-game experience I haven't found SDS to be unbalanced due to the DC of the check and other features. For example, Arkhandus mentioned how using just Skill Focus (Jump), Acrobatic and the Run feat, you can get a core-only high JUMP skill rank. In practice, nobody actually takes those feat since, other than SDS, from levels 1-13, there are much better options to take. Sure, they make the jump check "easier" and that helps with the earlier tiger claw juimp manoeuvers but given that there are equivalent level manoeuver that can do as much damage WITHOUT the jump check or more useful manoeuvers, the idea of taking subpar feats just to max out a 13th level ability seemed like a waste for us in our campaign.


Side question: In practice, wouldn't the STUN effect be the equivalent of the surprise round?


As an aside, I consider Polymorph/Shapechange much more problematic/broken than any other spell/feat/prestige class in the game. Polymorph is just too damn versatile and its effects are simply too powerful. Simply polymorphing even a simple dwarven fighter into say a troll plays havoc with EL I've found. Polymorph is just too much of a headache. Shapechange is worse given that you gain supernatural abilities. At 17th level, even a wizard only knows a few 6th level spells and higher due to cost of spells. Really, think about in game, how many 6th-9th level spells a sorceror or wizard would actually possess? Shapechange simply says "BAH" to that problem. Just find a creature with the right supernatural ability and voila, you get that 6th-9th level spell effect.

I simply despise polymorph and I'm seriously considering banning it or at the least, using the new "one fixed form-polymorph spells" that the PHB II introduced. Much less prone to abuse at a glance it would look like.

 

[AllisterH]

re: WHY polymorph is inherently broken.

The spell itself has problems with the rest of the system. Basically, the spell allows you to become a creature which legally (using the CR-ECL-LA system for monster races) you wouldn't be allowed to become.

Ex: A 13th level caster polymorphs the 13th level fighter into a Firbolg. A firbolg PC though has a ECL of +18 meaning you can't play the bloody race until you're in a 18th level party. So why the hell does the spell allow you to get around this?

Ex: A 7th level wizard changes the 7th level dwarven barbarian into a troll. However, Trolls have a LA of +6 IIRC. Meaning, at 7th level, the troll PC should only have the melee aptitude of a a troll plus a 1st level fighter where the polymorphed barbarian has not only the 7th level capability of a barbarian but also a STR. CON score that the dwarf can't even match when raging in his normal dwarven form. Oh, yeah, that's not going to be a problem.

Yep, I think the spell is inherently fracked.

 

[Arkhandus]

Not really like a surprise round. You only get a partial action in a surprise round, don't you? And you don't get +2 on attack rolls in the surprise round. With stunning, you get a full round of actions against them (or at least your allies do, depending on how long the stunning lasts), with +2 on attack rolls, and the target drops anything they're holding, and they just stand there like a boxing bag. A boxing bag of meat.

I agree regarding the shapechanging spells, though. Even WotC can't be bothered to go to the effort of describing them clearly and determining some rules for what can be shapechanged into and what can't, and what abilities are gained from it and what aren't. They'd rather we all just forget those spells exist in the game and stop bugging them about those already.

 

[AllisterH]

What makes it worse is that polymorph is a *signature* spell. What I mean by signature is

1. It's a core spell
2. It's a spell that has existed since pretty much the beginning (I believe it was in OD&D even before 1st ed AD&D)
3. It's a spell that isn't easily replaced. I mean, you can switch out say a damage spell like scorching ray with another damaging spell however, in the PHB, there isn't an equivalent level spell.
4. It's a spell that honestly, screams wizard/magic in popular culture and it NEEDS to be there.

Yet in game, the polymorph spell is just broken....I even tried looking at the 2E version but that offers no solution. The 2E version was fixed since really, few creatures were good targets for polymorphing.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Of course, polymorph really isn't such a relevant example any more, since it's effectively been errata'd into nonexistence by the polymorph subschool, which (at least putatively) *is* designed to keep things level-appropriate and on the rails.