The Most Broken Crunch in 3.5 (or what should I be banning)

[Remathilis]

I'll be starting a new campaign soon (I hope) in Eberron. What I want to do get a good feel of what feats/spells/classes/prcs I shouldn't even think twice about saying no to.

I will be using these books: Core 3.5, Expanded Psionics, All the Complete X books, all the Races of X books, Minis Handbook, and Eberron campaign setting.

I'm trying to keep as many options open as possible, but I want to know what to say NO to that I might have missed...

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

My suggestion is fairly simple.

DON'T ASK US!!!

There are such hugely varied opinions that you're not going to get anything beyond a "This is broken!" followed by "No it isn't!" discussion. Open up your game to all of those books, but have the players come to you with what THEY want. Look things over on a case by case basis and decide for yourself. Don't have us DM the game for you! What's broken for some of us might be perfectly reasonable to you. Case in point, I hate the Favored Soul, but many many people think its great

 

[Remathilis]

True enough... I've seen an argued in a few...

OK: Disciple of the Sun is horribly powerful. I'd wager broken. Most people I think would agree with this. Its mostly concensus. While there are descenting opinions, I think they are a minority.

Thats what I'm looking for, if not the worst, then the stuff I should look out for.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

My suggestion is fairly simple.

DON'T ASK US!!!

There are such hugely varied opinions that you're not going to get anything beyond a "This is broken!" followed by "No it isn't!" discussion. Open up your game to all of those books, but have the players come to you with what THEY want. Look things over on a case by case basis and decide for yourself. Don't have us DM the game for you! What's broken for some of us might be perfectly reasonable to you. Case in point, I hate the Favored Soul, but many many people think its great

That's just about the wisest thing I've ever seen on this board.

 

[Pants]

Watch out for Shapechange 3.5.

Frenzied Berserker in Complete Warrior is generally considered to be 'broken.'
Hulking Hurler, while more of a 'monster' PrC, has some devastating min-max builds (if you're interested in that sort of thing...).

There are a couple of Feats in Complete Divine that I would deam 'questionable,' Divine Metamagic being one of them. Still, the errata might have fixed it, although I'm not sure as I don't have the errata... I'm sure someone with more Complete Divine experience would give a better rundown on the good's and bads of the book as I really... don't like the book enough to read through much of it.

Oh, the spells Miasma and Spikes are pretty terrible in Complete Divine...

Mageslayer, a feat in both Complete Arcane and the Mini Handbook is generally considered to be quite powerful... overpowered in fact, depending upon who you talk to.

 

[xazil]

If you don't want overwhelming tanks running around watch out for goliath barbarians with racial substitution levels. Throw in ferocious rage as well and you can have a ECL2 character that can reach 30 strength while being large size. Of course if you only have one fighter so its not overshadowing someone else, then its maybe not so bad.

 

[Testament]

DISCLAIMER: LITTLE OF WHAT FOLLOWS IS BASED ON ANY KIND OF QUANTIFIABLE KNOWLEDGE, OR ANY GREAT EXPERIENCE. THAT IS, MOST OF IT IS MY OPINION AND/OR OBSERVATIONS

Translate: YMMV

From Complete Divine: Spikes has a stupid stupid stupid duration, at 1 hr/level. Miasma is still effectively a kill with no saving throw. Disciple of the Sun screams BREAK ME BREAK ME! As does Divine Metamagic, although the errata now means that you actually have to have the metamagic feat. Still wrong though. And don't allow anything that remotely resembles a Radiant Servant.

XPH: Energy stun, energy missile. Both of these scale WAY WAY WAY WAY too fast, DC goes up by one per aug. I have a friend slinging DC 20+ powers at level 4. That's just stupid. Metamorphic Transfer is also a worry, as is Hostile Empathic Transfer.

Complete Arcane: Mage Slayer string of feats have too minor prerequisites. And the Orbs of Force and Sound are silly, they're Conjurations?! Can't really say much more on that book, haven't done much with it yet.

Races of Stone: Racial substitution levels. 'Nuff said.

That's all for now. Once again, YMMV, this is my opinion.

 

[Campbell]

XPH: Energy stun, energy missile. Both of these scale WAY WAY WAY WAY too fast, DC goes up by one per aug. I have a friend slinging DC 20+ powers at level 4. That's just stupid. Metamorphic Transfer is also a worry, as is Hostile Empathic Transfer.

Edit: Those energy powers are commonly house-ruled. 2 power points used to augment a power should raise the DC by 1. to conform to spells of an equivalent level.

 

[Evilhalfling]

XPH:
beware of metamorphic transfer
The DCs listed in previous posts are errata'd
I still HR energy missle to 1 target +2 targets for +1 psp (max 5 targets)
Dispel Power should cap at manifester level
Dominate needs errata to be useful


CD
spikes
Raident Servant of Pelor

 

[Sejs]

Oh! Oh! Anything that's not in the core books or the Eberron campaign setting book?

Treat the illness by shooting the patient. *nod* It'll be a time saver, at the very least.