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

[Lazybones]

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.

Yeah the first time I saw the entry for enspelled armor in the 5.5e DMG I thought of the 6x shield item. I would consider that Rare at least. The problem is that not all spells are equally useful when infused into magic items.

Your DM's game reminds me of the games I played when in my teens. Our characters walked around with magic items adorning them like Christmas tree ornaments. As long as everyone's having fun, though, more power to you.

 

[Lazybones]

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.

It can also backfire on the DM. There were a few situations in that campaign where a monster I'd created to challenge the hexadin got past him and absolutely shredded the non-AC-optimized characters.

I do a lot of homebrew in general, but by the time that group (where 4 of the 5 players were very skilled powergamers) reached the low teens level-wise I was building custom monsters for 90% of the encounters, just to give them a reasonable challenge. That's one of the things I like about 5.5e, it adds more high-level challenges to the DM's arsenal (and some of them hit really hard).

 

[Dessert Nomad]

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.

Note that you specifically mentioned level 3 so I examined it at the specific level you mentioned and pointed out the reality of what it does at that level. Having a conversation about game balance where people vastly inflate the capabilites of characters under discussion is not really interesting, so I corrected the misinformation.

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.

It can also backfire on the DM. There were a few situations in that campaign where a monster I'd created to challenge the hexadin got past him and absolutely shredded the non-AC-optimized characters.

What's wrong with the counterargument exactly? Anytime there's a high AC, no control, so-so sustained damage character, enemies can just ignore the guy who's hard to hit, kill everyone else, then focus down the super-AC character at their leisure. He doesn't trivialize the fight or require special encounter design, enemies just have to notice 'whoa that glowy shield made me miss' and think 'I'll go attack an easier target".

Your own example from later on validates it by showing that the character was not actually able to trivialize the encounter because enemies can simply walk past the high AC, no control character and 'absolutely shred' the other characters. It doesn't take any kind of special encounter design, just 'have the enemies not focus their attacks on the guy they're not very effective against'.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

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.

I think this comes back around to 'single abilities that are good' vs 'super builds'. The power attack feats in 5.0 are disproportionately good (and really blow up at lower levels), and the fact that they keep coming up is not a surprise. But the thing that really makes the ranger unoptimized is 'didn't pick up sharpshooter for his bow attacks' and not anything deeper - it's not like the fighter needed to go to a weird source book for those feats, or take any unusual choices for a ranged character.

I've seen a naive player stumble into a 'highly optimized' barbarian build in 5.0 by chance. Take the default PHB advice on stat allocation (max STR, high CON and DEX), build a human because it's the default, choose variant human because +1 to all stats is more boring than a cool feat, and settle on great weapon master because hitting harder with your axe and sometimes getting an extra attack is fun. The 'highly optimized' bit comes from choosing GWM.

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.

That's what I've seen a lot of too, the complicated builds don't tend to perform well in actual adventuring conditions. One big weakness with 'incredible' builds I've seen online is that many can only do their thing once per day with prep time, If they misjudge 'is this the big fight' or their prep gets interrupted, then they're just a mediocre multiclass who's kind of unimpressive at most things. Meanwhile a simpler character might not get the burst damage that the super-combo-maker would do, but does fine at multiple things through the day while still being useful in the big fight.

 

[Mistwell]

We've never had a game break, though I did voluntarily pare back a twilight cleric because I felt it wasn't as fun to play with one of its abilities.

But then we've never gotten to a level where Simulacrum is a thing. Because in the wrong hands, that spell breaks the game.

 

[Willie the Duck]

To qualify, it needs to be valid under 5.0 or 5.5 rules (with errata included).

Shouldn't the thread then have the 5e tag? Not sure on those rules.

Anyways, I don't think there is anything 'broken' like 3e druids making fighters feel invalidated (or worse things like hulking hurlers making 'any situation that can be solved with to-hit rolls and damage' pointless, dread city nukes, infinite wealth loops, or wizards in demi-planes sending ice assassins at each other).

Wish+Similacrum breaks how the game is supposed to work if you interpret it to allow near-infinite wishes. Force Cage/Wall frustrate in that there are plenty of powerful opponents that have no response. There are a few other very situational too-effective things like that.

Otherwise, mostly there are things that you either have to completely shut down (making them unfun to anyone trying to try them out) or they become the go-to answer for every encounter where they are remotely appropriate. The two examples I know of there are hordes (2014 Conjure Animals, necromancer with skeleton archers, heck just hiring a band of followers) and kiting (ex. rogues on fast mounts, aim feature, and DM that allows it with the mount moving). Both of them have enough responses (AoE the skeletons, for example) and situations where they don't apply such that they don't run rough shod over the game, but a whole lot of encounters get a whole lot easier with them being employed, and if you shut them down too much you can make someone feel targeted.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Not for nothing, I don’t think hordes break the game by being too powerful but by completely throwing off the spotlight balance - it’s not like that you do a lot more damage than the barbarian so much as that it takes you twenty times as long to take your turn as the barbarian.

They are good, but the big number that makes them a problem is the number of attack rolls and damage rolls for piddly amounts.

 

[NaturalZero]

Your DM's game reminds me of the games I played when in my teens. Our characters walked around with magic items adorning them like Christmas tree ornaments. As long as everyone's having fun, though, more power to you.

It's hit or miss when you play off of random tables. When he ran before, I went from level 3 all of the way up to level 18 (after like 3 real life years!) and I wore the same adamantine armor without an upgrade until the end of the campaign. Getting an artifact was literally rolling 100 on a d100 twice, which I think it like 1/100,000, right?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've yet to see a build break the game as much as cheating or getting the rules wrong does. Because the really ornate builds often work by specialization. Your unstoppable melee monster PC is going to find themself stuck when the enemy is 100' up in the sky on an airship that they can't get to.

 

[Zardnaar]

Another 5.0 one.

Silvery Barbs plus order cleric. By itself Silvery Barbs is a fun suck. Aquired via fey touched.

Basically it did its normal thing then funneled an extra attack to the rogue.

Rogue had a great time. Everyone else not so much, slowed everything down etc.