D&D 3E/3.5 Top 20 most broken character builds 3.5

[Greenfield]

Where did the Animal Companion come from? Monks don't get such things, at least not as Class Features. Also, to qualify as an Animal, it has to have an Intelligence of 3 or lower.

That may also shoot the Profession in the foot: You don't "train" intelligent beings. They don't learn "tricks", as described under Handle Animals.

 

[Greenfield]

guess the real question is, what qualifies as "broken", and what's just a Quesadilla (aside from being a nice snack, the word means "little cheesy thing" )

For example, any PC who is Large, or can use an Enlarge Person spell, uses a Spiked Chain with Improved Trip.

There's a huge hole in the Diplomacy rules. Diplomacy checks aren't opposed, the PC is simply rolling against a fixed target number. So any PC designed as a "Diplomancer" can go from normal to cheesy to extra cheesy to broken in a very few levels. Consider a Half-Elf Bard (+2 Diplomacy modifier) with 5 points in Bluff (for the Synergy), five points in Sense Motive (another Synergy bonus), and a maxed out Diplomacy. Give them a good Charisma score and they become nearly unstoppable.

They start with +6, from the Racial bonus and Synergy bonuses. At first level they can take 4 ranks, and with as small as a 16 Charisma they're at a +13. Add the Negotiator feat and you're at +15. Add a Circlet of Persuasion (+3 on all Charisma checks, including skills), and you're at +18.

There is some question on whether you can get more than one Synergy bonus to this (Knowledge Nobility 5 ranks also grants the bonus), so maybe he's only at +16. You can drive that higher with a Skill Focus though, depending on how insanely they want to abuse this.

Break points for this skill, to change someone's attitude, are every 10 points, starting at 20. That means any roll of 4 or more can delay a fight or redirect an encounter. Add the Skill Focus and they can't fail, even at 1st level.

At 5th level his score is +20 without the Skill Focus. Even a natural 1 doesn't fail on Skill checks, so that first level of attitude change becomes automatic. Can't fail to get a 20, starting at Level 4.

This skill abuse actually moves much of the control of the game from the DM to the Player. That player gets to decide whether some encounters happen at all. Combat turns into pure RP, presuming the PC speaks a language the other guys can understand.

Another abuse is the Bard's Fascinate ability. It isn't a spell, it's a skill check, and as subject to abuse as Diplomacy. The total for the Perform check is the opponent's Save DC v the Fascinate. I ran a Bard whose Perform check was such that nothing short of a deity could resist. So unless your big bad monster is immune to mind affecting abilities or spells, again, the control of the encounter shifts from the DM to the PC.

 

[Dandu]

Ladies and gents, I have a fully built COMPLETELY off the wall creation. You want something broken? You want to destroy everything at level 1??? Read this!

Do you understand how LA works?

 

[Greenfield]

As Dandu said/hinted, the Pixie/Monk is a 5th level character, not a first. And he's a 5th level character with nine hit points.

Yeah, he's got a good AC (unless he's caught flat footed), and a DR 10/Cold Iron, but he gets dropped by almost any damage spell, and AoEs don't care if you're invisible.

Who does care? The party healer, who can't find you, because you're Invisible all the time, including when you're on the ground, bleeding to death.

Don't get me wrong, he's a buzz saw in combat, but he's made of glass.

Also, the "special arrows" aren't automatic, and unless you have some way to replace them, they will run out. And since there's no game mechanic for creating such arrows, you'd better be careful in their usage

 

[Random Bystander]

There are no problem builds. There are problem players. Let your players know that the game is supposed to be fun for everyone, and, if you are playing a relatively serious game, not be *too broken.

Then, ban players who cannot even keep those two simple house rules.

Or, in short: If your players need lists of banned items, then the banned items are not the problem.

* "If, at any point, you feel like cackling madly as you unleash your creation upon the world, you are to assume you are not allowed to build that..."

Fake edit: If you are running a "public" game, then you might, sadly, need a list.

 

[Zach Craven]

There is one broken thing that I doubt id ever allow. Miser with Magic, from Kingdoms of Kalamar. With it, you can easily get infinite actions by level 7, if you use PH2.

The feat itself is basically thus: in exchange for a DC10+(spell lvl x 2) spellcraft check, you do not use up the spell slot or prepared spell. If you fail, the spell is used normally. If failed by 5 or more, the spell fails and you lose the spell. Of course you can only attach this to as many spell levels as your casting modifier....

Let's couple this Celerity, a level 4 spell that can, as an immediate action that can interrupt your opponent's actions, allows you a standard action in exchange for your next full round.

Say, what kind of action does it take to use a staff? Oh, standard, even if it's a staff of Timestop? Oh, but how do you recharge a staff? By casting into it and you get that spell's level in charges?

Have a 20 casting stat, easily done, use celerity to get your action to activate timestop, which is easilu charged with your infinite Celerity spells. Oh, lets also attach Miser with Magic to ANY level one damage spell. If you dont see where i am going with this, i can explain....

 

[Greenfield]

I'm curious: Where does it say, in the rules, that staves are recharged by casting spells into them?

I've heard this claim before, but I've never been able to find it in the rules.

 

[Tinker]

Recharging items was in ad&d. You had to start up with enchant an item spell, then cast the item spell into the item X times, which restored X charges. About that anyway.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[Greenfield]

I know this is a few years late, but...

i just found one. the candle of evocation. you could summon an efrreeti get three wishes and on the third wish get another candle of evocation. Unlimited wishes.

The Candle works, but no Paladin will get one that leads to a wish.

The Candle can Gate in a Genie, that's true. But each candle has an alignment, and can only gate in creatures of the proper alignment.

There are four types of Genie:

1) The Djinn (from Monster Manual) is Chaotic Good, and the only ones who get any Wishes are the Royals. 1% chance of getting one.
2) The Efreet (From Monster Manual) is Lawful Evil. He can cast up to three Wishes in a day, but hates being forced into servitude, and will probably twist and abuse the hell out of them.
3) The Marid (from Eberon) is Chaotic Neutral, and can grant one wish per year.
4) The Dao (from Eberon) is Lawful Neutral, and can grant up to five Limited Wishes a day

None of these can be called by the candle given to the Lawful Good Paladin.

Add that I'd have to look at the rules for Wishing for magic items, which isn't simply handled on a coin value basis, before I'd say with any certainty that you can use one Wish to replace the Candle.

 

[Deset Gled]

There is one broken thing that I doubt id ever allow. Miser with Magic, from Kingdoms of Kalamar. With it, you can easily get infinite actions by level 7, if you use PH2.

The feat itself is basically thus: in exchange for a DC10+(spell lvl x 2) spellcraft check, you do not use up the spell slot or prepared spell. If you fail, the spell is used normally. If failed by 5 or more, the spell fails and you lose the spell. Of course you can only attach this to as many spell levels as your casting modifier....

Let's couple this Celerity, a level 4 spell that can, as an immediate action that can interrupt your opponent's actions, allows you a standard action in exchange for your next full round.

Beyond the fact that recharging a staff is a house rule in 3.x, I'd also add this:

1. Immediate actions can explicitly only be used once per round, so you can only use the Celerity spell once.

2. There is errata on Miser of Magic. "The feat Miser with Magic can be used on a number of spell levels per day equal to the ability score modifier appropriate to the type of spells you cast". It don't have a working link to the errata, but it's noted in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?13249-Miser-with-Magic

Personally, I never really liked Kalamar as I found it to be full of power creep (the races alone set off my cheese-o-meter). Also, it was a very early release, before things like the PH2 and immediate actions even existed. I would be surprised if this was the biggest rules loophole you could find in it.