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

[Dessert Nomad]

When I hear people talk about powergamers pulling super builds from the internet and blowup up games, the impression I have is that they're doing something like the 3e stuff of combining multiple classes (often from different sources) and obscure feats to do something vastly beyond what a 'take a basic idea and build it competently' character can do. My impression from my experience playing 5.0 and 5.5 is that isn't something that really happens in those editions, generally you get your most powerful characters by taking a single class character and putting together things that make sense with each other.

What I'm seeing in the responses matches my experience - most of what people are listing are not what I'd consider 'builds', and especially not overpowered builds put together with powergamer trickery. "High Level Monk" is just a class, "Armorer Artificer" "Twilight Cleric," "Gloomstalker," and "Zealot Barbarian" are just a specific subclass, "Simalacrum" and "Wall of force" are just specific spells, "Sharpshooter" and "Great Weapon Master" are specific feats. None of it is weird synergy combinations that you have to delve deep into the rules for or dig into message boards to spot. Also a lot of the 'blowing things up' seems to be at low levels, where things blow up much more easily, especially in 5.0. I don't really see anything that should give the DM more headaches than things like 5.0 moon druid or VH/CL with a -5/+10 feat. Managing to throw off the balance of low-level games as much as a large portion of ordinary classes and feats that you'd probably pick using 'it sounded pretty good from the name so I took it' do isn't really much of an accomplishment IMO.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

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.

This is not an accurate summary of what the multiclass does. It doesn't get an AC in the high 20s, it gets an 19-21 depending on gold (heavy armor gives 16-18, physical shield, and fighting style) that you can spike by 5 3 times per day plus 1 time per short rest with the shield spell as long as you're either a variant human (to start with the warcaster feat) or sheathe your weapon every round (giving up your ability to do opportunity attacks). And each time you spike the AC (which only gets to the high 20s if you have full plate) you give up one of your 3x +2d8 damage smites. I also don't consider +2 to damage for one fight and 3x2d8 smites to be 'massive damage', a 3rd level druid can do 2d10 damage to everything along a 60' line ever round twice per day, while a light cleric can do 2d10+wis damage to everything within 30' twice per day plus a 6d6 fire damage 2x per day, while other variant humans who took sharpshooter or great weapon master can do -5/+10 on all of their attacks.

So what you really have is a character with a high base AC (19-21 depending on whether you let a 3rd level character buy 1500gp full plate), which is something you can get to in multiple ways, who can also sacrifice 1/3 of his extra damage at a time to go higher AC for a round. This is easy to deal with - the shield uses are extremely limited and reduces his already limited burst damage, and once they're gone then he's the same as anyone else going for hefty armor. And like any overly high AC character, enemies can just ignore him to kill all of his allies first (especially if he is like your Elven example so won't even be able to take an opportunity attack) then gang up on him to wear him down after.

I actually think a champion fighter can do the "really hard to hit" schtick better at level 3. No shield spell, but (if VH/CL) can take defensive duelist for +2 AC against 1 attack every round, which probably averages out to more overall than shield. No smite, but gets the crit benefit of hexblade curse all day along with the same 19-21 AC, double attacks once per rest. And roughly the same amount of healing (though self-only). And straight champion fighter is not exactly the 'powergamer' build of choice.

 

[J-H]

When I hear people talk about powergamers pulling super builds from the internet and blowup up games, the impression I have is that they're doing something like the 3e stuff of combining multiple classes (often from different sources) and obscure feats to do something vastly beyond what a 'take a basic idea and build it competently' character can do. My impression from my experience playing 5.0 and 5.5 is that isn't something that really happens in those editions, generally you get your most powerful characters by taking a single class character and putting together things that make sense with each other.

What I'm seeing in the responses matches my experience - most of what people are listing are not what I'd consider 'builds', and especially not overpowered builds put together with powergamer trickery.

Exactly. I'm currently dealing with a level 14 Illusionist using Mirage Arcana... there is a Sage Advice out there about "can you make Mirage Arcana into pool of lava and turn that into real lava that deals damage as an illusionist" where Jeremy Crawford said "Sure." It's causing more headache because Mirage Arcana is loosely-written and self-contradictory, but it's one spell with one subclass and definitely one where the DM can keep it under control. It's just causing more research faster than any other one feature/spell/etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

Real game battle master fighter 2015 with SS and CBE was up there. Was dealing around 70% if the party's damage.

Twilight cleric.

These two are probably the worst I've seen in a real game.

War Cleric out performed the other gish in a test including a Bladesinger with CME.

 

[Lazybones]

This is not an accurate summary of what the multiclass does. It doesn't get an AC in the high 20s, it gets an 19-21 depending on gold (heavy armor gives 16-18, physical shield, and fighting style) that you can spike by 5 3 times per day plus 1 time per short rest with the shield spell as long as you're either a variant human (to start with the warcaster feat) or sheathe your weapon every round (giving up your ability to do opportunity attacks). And each time you spike the AC (which only gets to the high 20s if you have full plate) you give up one of your 3x +2d8 damage smites. I also don't consider +2 to damage for one fight and 3x2d8 smites to be 'massive damage', a 3rd level druid can do 2d10 damage to everything along a 60' line ever round twice per day, while a light cleric can do 2d10+wis damage to everything within 30' twice per day plus a 6d6 fire damage 2x per day, while other variant humans who took sharpshooter or great weapon master can do -5/+10 on all of their attacks.

So what you really have is a character with a high base AC (19-21 depending on whether you let a 3rd level character buy 1500gp full plate), which is something you can get to in multiple ways, who can also sacrifice 1/3 of his extra damage at a time to go higher AC for a round. This is easy to deal with - the shield uses are extremely limited and reduces his already limited burst damage, and once they're gone then he's the same as anyone else going for hefty armor. And like any overly high AC character, enemies can just ignore him to kill all of his allies first (especially if he is like your Elven example so won't even be able to take an opportunity attack) then gang up on him to wear him down after.

I actually think a champion fighter can do the "really hard to hit" schtick better at level 3. No shield spell, but (if VH/CL) can take defensive duelist for +2 AC against 1 attack every round, which probably averages out to more overall than shield. No smite, but gets the crit benefit of hexblade curse all day along with the same 19-21 AC, double attacks once per rest. And roughly the same amount of healing (though self-only). And straight champion fighter is not exactly the 'powergamer' build of choice.

It's fine to disagree. I've seen this build in play and it is extremely effective at all of the things I described. Note I mentioned this was a "mid-level" build, which does take a while to get going. I'll grant that a single-level warlock dip is less effective, you really need at least 2 to get the 2 spell slots and the invocations.

Also, I don't think that "the enemies can just ignore him" is a good counterargument; that very statement shows how impactful on the game this build can be.

 

[Seramus]

I've never seen a build that could break my game, but I have definitely seen builds that make other players feel unhappy or useless. It usually only comes up when two (or more) people share a similar niche, but I've absolutely seen the sad and dejected look of an unoptimized 5.0 Ranger comparing himself to the Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter Fighter.

On a comical note, I did have a player who would come in and boast about his incredible builds... which... were really pretty mediocre at best. I tried not to say anything, because I always have infinite dragons, but it wasn't even... I just can't... seriously, he wasn't great.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Back in 3E there was a third party assassin class a player of mine wanted to try. I should have read it more closely because its core ability was to study a creature for 3 rounds while doing nothing else and then make an attack. If it succeeded, it flat out killed the creature. There may have been a save? Been awhile. It was some major BS is mostly what I recall.

 

[J-H]

That's the base Assassin PRC. Not sure if you're trolling or not. My trolldar is underpowered.

 

[Scott Christian]

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 DM can always adjust, but it is tedious playing to the uber-chacter. It also has a way to diminish other characters, which sometimes diminishes the players' fun.

 

[NaturalZero]

I don't know if it's game breaking but my DM let us pick a couple of Uncommon items when we started at 3rd level. Enspelled sword with 6 uses of Thunderous Smite and an Enspelled armor with 6 uses of Shield per day. getting 12 extra 1st level slots it's pretty strong.

This DM does use very extensive loot tables and if you hit the lottery on nested rolls, you might wind up with something super strong because the tables include everything. We found a broken sword made of black metal and almost forgot that were were getting it reforged. Sessions later, I brought it up and it turned out to be Blackrazor. Temp HP equal to a target's max HP whenever you kill it. Obscene. I'm picking up Warding Bond next level to share the massive pile of temp HP i roll around with.