Most overrated "broken" things?

[Nonlethal Force]

And a Spiked Chain in my campaign WOULD destroy my gaming experience.

Oh, and one other thing. You'll notice that your response doesn't talk about "broken" as I define it. To me, broken means it destroys the game, not your gaming experience. "Broken" is a term that deals with mechanics, not one's enjoyment of the game. Broken halts the game because the rest of the mechanics cannot overcome the advantage given by the "broken" mechanic.

As I said above, you can eliminate the spiked chain from the game at your table. But not because it is broken, but because you choose not to suspend reality in that area. That doesn't make the spiked chain broken, it makes it unnacceptable to you. Those are two different things. Mechanically, the spiked chain is not broken. It may be unnacceptable to you, however.

To use a personal example from myself, just to show that I'm not trying to attack you: I don't allow Complete Psionics in my game. I choose not to suspend my reality in that direction. I thought the book poorly edited and didn't care much for the PrCs and some (but not all) of the power fixes. Additionally, I hate the flavor of the ardent - at least I think that's the one but I might have the name wrong (anything specifically anti-religion is automatically contrary to my homebrew setting). I am a firm believer in that most pre-industrial worlds had a strong sense of superstition if not religious fear (or love).

My point in that example is not that Complete Psionics is broken - because there is very little in Complete Psionics that even has a chance at breaking the game! Rather, Complete Psionics doesn't fit my style of gameplay. I choose to not use it because it will ruin my experience, but not because it is broken. That's my choice as a roleplayer and it has nothing to do with the mechanics!

Like it or not, the spiked chain is not broken. It may unnecessarily drag out combats ... but it does not give a mechanical advantage to any player that cannot be overcome through another set of mechanical advantages.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Oh, and one other thing. You'll noticve that your response doesn't talk about "broken" as I define it. To me, broken means it destroys the game, not your gaming experience. "Broken" is a term that deals with mechanics, not one's enjoyment of the game. Broken halts the game because the rest of the mechanics cannot overcome the advantage given by the "broken" mechanic.

In his defense, he never was arguing that the spiked chain is broken:

That would be because the Spiked Chain is in fact silly. It may well be *mechanically* sound. But it is in no way, shape or form logically sound. It isn't "broken". It's just stupid beyond all reason.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Okay, fair enough. This being a thread about "broken" things, I may have made an assumption. I can admit that. But if that's true, then this thread has strayed from the topic! [Not that this is unusualy or anything ... ]

 

[rockstarfozzy]

I don't understand how the spiked chain could ruin someone's entire gaming experience.

If you have such a problem with it, then you really arn't in any position to comment on whether it's broken or not, since your opinion will clearly be bias because of your non-nonsensical hatred of the weapon.

I mean really, you just need to chill out.

Anyhoo, one of my players ran a spiked chain fgt/swsh build in a campaign i ran once. He was a machine, and the player loved running him. Everyone just called him "Chains." Regardless, in response, i did what any good DM would do, i adjusted the difficulty.

Thats the thing about "broken" characters. If you are a good DM, you can adjust the campaign to fit the characters needs, and to provide them with a decent challenge. Maybe I'm just not one to whine over things there's no need to whine over.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Which is why I said:

I really didn't want to go down this path because there was an entire thread about the spiked chain recently, so I'm just going to say one thing regarding the realism of the spiked chain:

And then I proceeded to derail this entire thread.

 

[rockstarfozzy]

The concept of "Broken" in and of itself is kind of stupid IMO. Sure, there are build that are better than others, more effective than others, etc, but much of the joy I garner from gaming is from role playing. I won't say that i dislike building effective characters, but if I don't have an interesting personality to boot, i just won't play it. No fun you know.

Some would argue that balancing issues in the game are super important because if the party is unbalanced, the people will feel weaker than others in fights. I guess my response would be that you can compensate for being weaker in fights by being stronger in other areas. Of course that Spiked Chain Wielder is a monster during battles, but whose going to disarm the traps on the way? And whose going to dispel the fly spell on the opposing spell caster before he blasts your SPW to bits with that disintegration ray?

 

[Fifth Element]

The SC is not historical. It isn't even based on a historical concept. It is silly.

Do you exclude everything from your game that isn't historical? Cuz I think there *might* be a few things in D&D that aren't historical, or even based on historical concepts.

Hey! You got your reality in my fantasy!

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

The concept of "Broken" in and of itself is kind of stupid IMO. Sure, there are build that are better than others, more effective than others, etc, but much of the joy I garner from gaming is from role playing.

This is true, but the real problem with broken things is when you lose variety. When a player is ostracized for taking a feat, class, weapon, ability, or whatever instead of another one because it's essentially useless, or not nearly as good as this other one.

I played a core rogue in an OA game once and it was stupid how much more powerful than me everyone else (who had built their characters out of the OA book) was in combat. I fired 3 arrows the entire campaign. The first one missed, the last two were used to coup de grace fellow party members as part of the plot. It was frustrating for a while, but I developed my own game plan and ended up having tons of fun (I ended up starting an underground criminal organization, taking over a corner of the world, and my character became a recurring villain for that DM).

Whenever I've felt like I was on the short end of the balance stick in a game, I've just gone out and changed the game so that it played to my strengths. The best thing about D&D has always been its flexibility and the way you can accomplish just about anything you put your mind to.

 

[Felon]

How skilled the warrior in question is is pointless. The weapon itself is absurd.

Last time I checked, Magic Missiles weren't usable in the real world. But then a Spiked Chain wouldn't be either...

And a Spiked Chain in my campaign WOULD destroy my gaming experience. It would be an insult to thousands of years of warriors developing the best possible weapons for the task at hand. Lives were spent earning that knowledge. To introduce such a blatantly absurd weapon is insulting to them...

OK, it's pretty clear where we stand now. Discussion on the spiked chain has progressed to the point where Tetsubo's veneer of having a rational objection has been stripped away by logical counter-arguements which concede that the SC may well be unrealistic, but point out that D&D is filled with things that are no less outlandish. He's quite willing to dismiss this and any other objective statment by shaking his head in denial and uttering "it's absurd...it's silly...it's stupid..." in an infinite loop. He's willing to state his opinions as indisputable fact. He's willing to make crazed statements about insulting the warrior tradition and that having a spiked chain would destroy his gaming experience. Apparently, he feels that his hobby of reading books about weapons and drawing pictures of weapons gives him some rare and special perspective that's inaccessable to others.

Tetsubo, you should really consider what you think you're accomplishing with this behavior that has become something of a pattern. if you think it's a dumb weapon, and you just want to share your opinion and move on, that's no big thing. But if you have an opinion which you feel compelled to throw out at any available opportunity with the intent of provoking responses from others, then you have some onus to entertain reaonable discussion. In other words, play fair. If you feel compelled to rebutt every rebuttal, then it ought to consist of more than just digging your heels in and dismissing logic with outrageous, emotionally-charged denials and reiterating your initial position. Otherwise, the end result is just baiting people and making a spectacle of yourself. Is that what you're trying to accomplish? Whether or not it is, it's disruptive behavior.

 

[Caliban]

Apparently, he feels that his hobby of reading books about weapons and drawing pictures of weapons gives him some rare and special perspective that's inaccessable to others.

I think he may be right about that. His perspective is innaccessable to me, at least.