D&D General What builds have actually broken a game?

[Dessert Nomad]

People often talk about power-gaming builds that come in and break the game, either trivializing encounters to the point that the DM has to account for them, or being so effective the rest of the party becomes practically spectators. But I don't actually see them turn up, even when I play a lot of games in Adventurer's League format (one-shots, character rebuilds allowed between sessions, no house rules) that is well suited to trying out and/or using weird broken builds. My experience is that simple builds used well tend to cause more DM headaches than weird multiclasses grabbing special feat combos - a fighter with a vicious weapon action surging or a rogue that automatically makes DC25 sleight of hand and DC 20 deception and stealth checks tend to throw DMs for a loop more than the 'X levels of this, y levels of this, z levels of this' combinations.

So what are some complex builds you've seen someone use that actually blew up at a real table? To qualify, it needs to be valid under 5.0 or 5.5 rules (with errata included). It must have been used in an actual game with a different DM than the player (in-person or online is fine, solo isn't). It has to actually work with someone reading the rules RAW. It should specify what rules sources it uses, and those should not be straight homebrew. It should be excessively overpowered compared to a simple-but-effective build with a similar idea. The character should be able to function through a typical adventure, and the brokeness should be able to occur in normal circumstances.

I'm asking this because I don't think this is really a 5.0/5.5 problem - 3/3.5 had a lot of trouble with super-combos and their base classes were weak compared to other options, but it doesn't seem to be the case now. To me it seems to be more of a 'gaming legend' thing, but I'll be interested to be shown wrong.

Some examples of what doesn't qualify:
Things like Paladin with 1 level of Hexblade (5.0) or 1 level of Warlock + Pact of the Blade (5.5) - that makes a character that can focus Charisma instead of dividing between Strength or Dex. It's certainly useful, and some people don't like it story-wise (especially since Hexblade is notoriously lacking in narrative) but it's not something that just throws off encounters or makes the game just about that PC.

Coffeelock (take sorcerer and warlock with the invocation that allows you to go without sleep to get unbounded sorcery points) could qualify, but the 'I rest for 8 hours to take 8 short rests instead of one long rest and keep converting my warlock slots to sorcery points and never ever take a long rest ever' is not RAW and is something I wouldn't expect a real DM to keep allowing.

 

[Stalker0]

The only build I’ve seen straight up break a game was a dread necromancer back in 3.5. They built their own undead army to the point where the rest of us went to thr dm and said “honestly we are just bit characters at this point, the DN owns the show”

In my games there was a paladin/sorc build that would have broken the game if it had been more combat less narrative. It’s not that I couldn’t deal with them, it’s that every combat was all about dealing with them because if I didn’t they just dominated everything so completely the others could have just left and it wouldn’t matter.

In terms of narrative breaks, a player ran a diviner type character combined with a Paladin ally. They could cast commune with other plane as a ritual and only fail the int check on a 1 (and had advantage so a 1 in 400 chance to fail). During any downtime they gave me pages and pages of questions.

What we would do is grab a lunch together and they would just pound me with questions and I would rapid fire answers. So we made it work, but it could have consumed all the narrative oxygen if it had been done in game

 

[Lazybones]

I don't think it's necessarily about breaking the game, but rather forcing the DM to adjust the scenario to keep the players challenged. It can also be an issue if not all of the players in a given group are powergamers, but as long as everyone is having a good time, this can still work.

The issue with the hexadin isn't Hex Warrior, it's how their class abilities layer to form an almost unstoppable melee character that can unleash massive damage in a relatively narrow window. With access to shield, you can get a character with an AC in the high 20s at third level, which is going to trivialize most encounters-as-designed for that level. And the 5.0 nova capability (thankfully fixed in 5.5e) of the hexadin makes for a deadly crit-fisher build. Hexblade's Curse synergizes excellently with Elvish Accuracy and Vow of Emnity (though using that full sequence does require two turns to set up). I've seen a mid-level hexadin just utterly crush a boss monster that's supposed to be a difficult challenge in one round with a crit empowered by Divine Smite and Eldritch Smite.

There are other builds that can have a disproportionate impact on the game. The twilight cleric is widely acknowledged to be OP; in average encounters they can effectively double a party's hit points, rechargable on a short rest. Others are situational; for example, in a campaign set underground where everyone has darkvision, a gloomstalker gets the equivalent of a Legendary magic item (a ring of invisibility, but even better since it never shuts off) at third level. I have a goliath Rune Knight with a grappler build in one of my games who is demonstrating to me on a weekly basis that the fact that most of the monsters in the Monster Manual are not proficient in Athletics is a problem.

I don't think any of these break the game per se, but they do require adjustments as the OP noted in their post. Thankfully those are within the ability of a DM to make: more and/or tougher enemies, smart foes that learn from their mistakes, or adjusting the pacing so it's harder for the group to take rests in the dungeon are all options.

 

[Shiroiken]

The closest thing to a 5E build breaking one of my games was the Twilight Cleric. Mobs of weaker monsters are useless, with only big heavy hitters being anything close to a threat (even then, the monsters need to be well beyond a Deadly Encounter to be a threat).

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

A sorcerer straight up broke one of my games. The rest of the Players would just stay back and clean up any messes he left behind. That was before I started enforcing expensive material component costs for spells.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The build that frustrated me the most as a DM was an Aarakocra Monk. I was ready for the flight, I wasn't ready for the fly speed to be 50 feet, and the monk speed boosts to stack on top of it, with capacity to bonus action Dash and Disengage with that much extra movement. It was an online battlemap-centric campaign which somewhat constrained the space of skirmishes, so this guy could just always be anywhere on the map on any turn, and it really broke my game in terms of providing interesting tactical combat. I wouldn't say it broke the game, I'm sure solutions could have been found. It was just such an outlier in terms of character abilities that I wasn't prepared for it, and the campaign was over before I adapted.

 

[Sulicius]

Hexadins and sorcadins have been similarly powerful to an annoying degree in my games. Even in 5.5e, the sorcadin was an annoying defensive tank that just made the game less fun for me to DM. Even the party noticed that without them, the party was a lot weaker.

The only time I ever asked a player to change their build was an armorer artificer, who, combined with a hexadin and chronurgy wizard, was impossible for me to threaten. With a base AC24, he became non-interactive for me in combat. Believe me, I tried a lot.

AC and DC buffing are some of my biggest red flags.

 

[J-H]

I had a Zealot Barbarian who became immune to death except for a very small list of spells/status effects at level 14.
I had a high level monk who (when hasted) could outrun every single enemy and be the one-man "I run through town, shoot people, start fires, and run out the other side" diversion.
Wall of Force was pretty annoying, as was someone who had multiple Tiny Servants shooting Magic Stone as a bonus action every round with 60' blindsight. Not super damaging but there was no possible counter-play and it seemed unfair.
Druid Grove and Forbiddance on an area the party was defending was pretty powerful, but that's what those spells are supposed to do.

That's about it. When the ancient red dragon cast AMF, the Giants barbarian grappling it using 15' reach (to stay outside AMF) and holding it still for the entire fight seemed pretty fair.

 

[Blue]

I've had things that broke tables, but that was because of things like a table of mixed system mastery that allowed a rather wide gap between the well designed and better played 5e moon druid and the rest of the party. But that was table breaking, not game breaking.

I've seen theorcrafting that I thought was cheesy, but I normally play with reasonable people so haven't seen it at an actual table. (Okay, I saw a tabaxi monk who could move like 540' for one round. From a player who obviously copied it off the internet and didn't know what to do with it except rush into combat before anyone else could support them.)

 

[jmartkdr2]

The only build that ever consistently threatened a game I've been in is Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter (I don't recall the class offhand). It's just a lot of damage output at no cost while staying out of the fray, so he could drop boss enemies before the melee character (my character) could even close with the enemy. That was anticlimactic.

Simulacrum is another one, without even cheesing it - even one extra wizard just hanging around is a lot of extra firepower and utility, but more than that it's a lot of extra table time for one player who already probably took up more than anyone else. I eventually stopped using it just because it's an unfun challenge-evader and spotlight hog. My simulacra ending up doing other stuff while I adventured.

Sorlocks and sorcadins can nova well but burn gas fast - the upside, essentially, is that you can spend your daily resources faster. Which isn't much of an upside if you need to conserve them.