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

[Distracted DM]

Yes, Twilight Cleric was a very big unhappy surprise for me when I was running CoS.

I think something that really dragged me down as a DM is that early on in 5e, I basically ran the world and the encounters "as I thought made sense" in the context of the world and the story. I'd been running DnD and other TTRPGs for years n years so I had an idea of how strong dragons were, or mind flayers, or ghosts, etc.

There was an ogre and a bunch of goblins threatening the hamlet.
There was a young dragon in the tower.
There was an archmage and his golem.
A pack of werewolves.
Lich-Queen Vlaakith, her big dragon, and a few githyanki gish on smaller dragons.

And early on in 5e, with just the PHB, this worked great. Xanathar's was added, and I had some unpleasant surprises with hexblade/paladin multiclasses that resulted in some anticlimaxes because of insane crit-smites, but other than that it was good.

As more and more player options were released, and more Sick Buildz and Class-Feature Combo-Breakers! were introduced, I had to stop running things as I thought "made sense" in the fiction, and I had to start thinking about the game less in the narrative of the world and more in the mindset of encounter balance and design- and that sort of disappointed me, I think, without me being consciously aware of it.

Now it couldn't an ogre and a bunch of goblins- it needed to be several ogres and more goblins, more than I really thought "realistic" for the scenario.. but they had to be there so it wasn't a complete cakewalk for the party.
It couldn't be a pack of werewolves, there had to be special werewolves in there now because there were PC features that just negated ways that the werewolves could threaten the PCs- so these special werewolves were basically being added just so the PCs wouldn't neuter the encounter immediately.
The archmage and his golem ... well the poor archmage was totally outclassed now, he needed a warrior-general's hit points because of the neutralizing powers and anti-spell features etc. that the newer PCs had, or ways that they could get past the old defenses and spells.

I've said that 5e characters punch above their weight class, and with just the core 5e books that was fine. But as splatbooks release, the PC power goes up through the roof, and 5e moreso than others because of its flat-math design.

And we sort of see this in newer monster math. A 5e archmage has 99 hit points- that's 18 hit dice. A 5.5e archmage has 170 hit points- that's 31 hit dice.
In older edition terms, they were a "level 18 NPC-class mage." That made sense to me. In 5.5e, I don't know what they are anymore. They're just game mechanics there to challenge the PCs.
And the modern monster math works much better for the modern characters. I think it's just that the game lost its internal consistency.

This is tangential to the thread I guess, but I only really just realized that this might've been one source of burnout for me. I had to stop thinking of the story and world, with the game mechanics being there to help us interact with said world, and focus a lot more on the system mechanics and "how to challenge the PCs." I got more frustrated with the system over time because it felt like the PCs were outgrowing it. Maybe that's just system mastery coming to the fore, and it happens with every edition as it gets older? I don't know.

So ... probably just a vent post here.

Hey @Micah Sweet IIRC you tend to run fiction-first with your games- have you encountered any of this? How have you adapted to it?

 

[Ancalagon]

I would say Twilight cleric disproves the first statement. None of my players are powergamers, but when someone played a twilight cleric it completely dominated. It's broken out the box. It might be that in amongst a bunch of powergamed builds, a vanilla twilight cleric appears less broken.

I can back that one up.

In the game I mentioned previously, the cleric player was not a "strong" player in the build or tactics department (and he's a fun guy to play with, and that's much more important isn't it?). But he didn't have to do anything special - just use the temp hp ability and have the druids (because there was a shepard's druid AND a land druid) conjure animals and .... oh god

 

[Ancalagon]

I've even seen how someone being painfully underpowered can ruin a game, because everyone else slowly begins to resent them for HAVING to come to their rescue and HAVING to define all plans around keeping the nearly-incompetent ball-and-chain alive, while said player refused to change behavior or replace the character because that would be "unfaithful" or some other nonsense.

Yeah. I've seen it, with my own two eyes. It's not fun.

I can also back up this story with one of my own. In a 3.x/bits of pathfinder game, we had a large party with a bard. The bard in 3.x was a 2/3 caster with d6 hp and not super strong, but quite good at boosting the rest of the party. And, in her defense, the bard was very good at doing that.

But they took no defensive measure. 0 con bonus to hp. Light armor. Middling dex. no defensive magical items, no defensive spells.

If a goblin broke through the front line she was in danger!

20 is yeas ago, this drove me nuts. Today... maybe she felt that the "help I need rescue" made the game more exciting? But the group never talked about it so...

One thing I really appreciate about 5e is that a casually built PC, as long as it's done with a minimal amount of compentency, will not be that weak - the gaps between the strongest and weakest build are far narrower than the 3.x pf1e era, where they could be colossal

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would say Twilight cleric disproves the first statement. None of my players are powergamers, but when someone played a twilight cleric it completely dominated. It's broken out the box. It might be that in amongst a bunch of powergamed builds, a vanilla twilight cleric appears less broken.

A lot of the time, things that get analyzed as "holy crap this is obviously OP" are more that they require almost no effort to reach high power. It's not that they're the most powerful, in fact usually they aren't, it's just that it goes from 0 to 120 in five seconds, while other options need more time or components to ramp up.

You also saw the reverse effect in some 4e classes, Warlock being the poster child. If handled with high optimization, its performance wasn't meaningfully below anyone else's. But you had to optimize fairly well to get that kind of performance--it's a late spike design, not an early spike. I'd argue some of the narrow optimization paths for Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian in 3.5e were of a similar nature--the chassis itself is pretty weak, but if you optimize really hard, you can still squeeze something powerful out, it's just mostly the power of the added options, not bringing out the hidden power of the class you're playing.

 

[Zardnaar]

A lot of the time, things that get analyzed as "holy crap this is obviously OP" are more that they require almost no effort to reach high power. It's not that they're the most powerful, in fact usually they aren't, it's just that it goes from 0 to 120 in five seconds, while other options need more time or components to ramp up.

You also saw the reverse effect in some 4e classes, Warlock being the poster child. If handled with high optimization, its performance wasn't meaningfully below anyone else's. But you had to optimize fairly well to get that kind of performance--it's a late spike design, not an early spike. I'd argue some of the narrow optimization paths for Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian in 3.5e were of a similar nature--the chassis itself is pretty weak, but if you optimize really hard, you can still squeeze something powerful out, it's just mostly the power of the added options, not bringing out the hidden power of the class you're playing.

Fighters peaked early and I suspect most games back tgen didnt go to high level either.
. Sone combination of barbarian, fighters, ranger and rogues were very good early 3.0 and 3.5.

5E its more self contained twilight clerics and Sshrprd druids otherwise party synergy generally.

5.5 Sorcerer and War Cleric might be best ive seen.

 

[500 Toads]

Twilight cleric's potential got even more ridiculous if combined with a peace cleric, once Protective Bond came into play and made it harder to focus fire in order to counter the mass-granted THP from the former.

Thankfully, I mostly played with people who intentionally didn't go for minmaxing or cheese in any way; and the few exceptions tended to not even know about such tactics due to being both new to the game and disinclined to research such things.

 

[jasper]

Things that get slightly difficult to deal with.
AC 22 or better depending on the tier.
Not enforcing Material component cost. Which reminds me, I need to double check my handout.
A nova ability if the combat day is going to be less than 4 combats.
(UN)willful reading of a special ability. OOPS no Oofta your monk may get grapple for free but opponent get automatic check against it.
In Adventure League bringing a +2 or better leveled PC above the written level of adventure.
More than 5 players at the table.

 

[Horwath]

I'm going to jump on the Twilight Cleric bandwagon.

if Twilight cleric ability was only once upon activation, it would be a good feature.

house-rule rework:
Bonus action activation:
temp HP: 5+cleric level
dispels one fear or charm effect.
gives advantage vs fear and charm for 1 minute

it is still way better than Inspiring leader feat as it can be used in combat when needed.

 

[Tigris]

I've said that 5e characters punch above their weight class, and with just the core 5e books that was fine. But as splatbooks release, the PC power goes up through the roof, and 5e moreso than others because of its flat-math design.

I would argue its nor only the splatbooks but also people understanding 5e better.

Yes some later subclasses released and options are really strong, but in PHB only there is already a huge discrepancy of strong (dub) classes and options and weak ones.

So in the beginning people did not knew this and were more likely to pick weak things. And because you have high chances of having some wesk characters in the party they dont punch yet so high above their level.

Of course with morenoptions the strongest characters will be stronger, but PHB 5 can also have strong parties. But if people pick monk or ranger or champion it looks different...

We can also see this in 5.5 in how yes there were overall some buffs, but wizards as a strong example got not big (combat) buffs and also got many nerfs in the form of making really steong spells (like force cage) way weaker.


5.5 made mostly the power floor higher. As in making sure non optimized (martial) characters are closer to optimized wizards.

Of course there are some outliners like twilight cleric and some others (like hexblade cha only pala) which were added later.

And we sort of see this in newer monster math. A 5e archmage has 99 hit points- that's 18 hit dice. A 5.5e archmage has 170 hit points- that's 31 hit dice.

This mainly just shows how bad the monster math was initially. It was really just that bad and mostly only works if all players play weak characters.

We completly destroyed many encounters in the 5e starting adventure with PHB options, but the good ones not the bad ones obviously.

One thing I really appreciate about 5e is that a casually built PC, as long as it's done with a minimal amount of compentency, will not be that weak - the gaps between the strongest and weakest build are far narrower than the 3.x pf1e era, where they could be colossal

I agree here, but this is something 5.5 also made even better the power floor is higher.


In original 5e if you had a (beast master) (or dual wield) ranger it was really not fun for them. And in a friends party the Ranger was considered almost broken weak. (And the used the revised version when it come out to make that character playable/not hinder the others).

And you can still do a d6 character (although most are d8 now) even with -1 to constitution.


Also the "default stat array" for some classes like monk really hurts them and makes them quite a bit weaker than others.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think a lot of online optimization discussion is done by people who are entirely or mostly theorycrafters and don't play much if at all, and if they do play it's often at lower levels than the builds they talk about or is in arena type formats where impracticalities don't really show up. I think that's also why DPR calculators figure so prominently, it's easy to plug character info into a calculator and say 'look, this build gets 75 DPR, that's way better than the 58 DPR the other one does!' while ignoring everything else.

A lot of the 'optimized' characters I've seen can only do their thing once per day and only if they get the right amount of prep time and know ahead of time 'this is the one big fight' and several other things line up just right. They seem like something that would be painfully dull to play, because you don't have a lot of broad abilities and don't have a way to cope with unexpected stuff. And I'm not talking about 'DM builds an encounter just to mess with you', just ordinary stuff like not knowing if what you're fighting is the end boss or just a warm up encounter, having to deal with odd terrain or mechanics, and the like.

In my experience, yeah, optimization only works under very specific conditions. Or requires a year of play to bring into being. You might have someone that is unstoppable in very close range, but can do nothing against a ranged foe they can't close with. And ultimately, you're only getting so much out of it in return for sacrificing any degree of breadth; when a challenge doesn't target their forte, they end up a liability.