What's the most broken PC you've ever seen?

[DonAdam]

A played a non-errata'd 3.0 shifter a few days after MotW came out. My math prof thought he could school us young'uns by running us through the converted Tomb of Horrors, but I just walked around as a 3.0 retriever (regeneration-holy!).

His old-school Gygax killer instinct was not as strong as our 3.0 munchkin fu!

 

[jrients]

This goes back a while, but I had a friend who ran a 1E dual-classed barbarian/thief-acrobat who, by the time he was about 6th level, was ridiculously hard to throw adventures at that he didn't just laugh at... or maybe I was just inept as DM then? :\

1st edition Barbarians, at least as described in the original Unearthed Arcana, are not allowed to dual-class. At the moment I cannot recall if the original Dragon version contained this same proscription.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I have a broken PC in the campaign I'm running right now. He's a 5th level fighter, but he's twinked out as an archer. All core stuff. He does 1d8+6+1d6 damage with every hit, and usually Rapid Shots and hits twice. His attack bonuses are insane. Nobody else in the party can even come close to his damage potential per round. The best way to compensate seems to be, counter-intuitively, to use weaker monsters. Lots of them. Instead of fighting a couple CR 5 monsters, they'll fight 20 CR 1 monsters. Everybody can take them out in one hit, so they don't feel underpowered next to the archer. But I know this trick won't work forever. I'm just hoping he has had a rapid damage advancement at low levels and it will slow down a bit at the mid levels and let the others catch up a bit.

Personally, I would not be worried about above archer at all. That damage is really not that high at all; a first level barbarian would do more than that with his greatsword, while in rage. The only thing that makes the archer at all powerful is the second attack from the Rapid Shot feat, and with Unearthed Arcana's Whirling Frenzy rage variant, now the level 1 barbarian has that too. Archers are actually quite weak, but I suppose that character might be comparatively powerful if the other PCs are maybe a Bard5, a Wizard3/Sorcerer2 and an Ex-Druid1/Ex-Paladin4 or something.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Personally, I would not be worried about above archer at all. That damage is really not that high at all; a first level barbarian would do more than that with his greatsword, while in rage. The only thing that makes the archer at all powerful is the second attack from the Rapid Shot feat, and with Unearthed Arcana's Whirling Frenzy rage variant, now the level 1 barbarian has that too. Archers are actually quite weak, but I suppose that character might be comparatively powerful if the other PCs are maybe a Bard5, a Wizard3/Sorcerer2 and an Ex-Druid1/Ex-Paladin4 or something.

I'm hoping it will all work out in the end. He rolled really well at character creation, so his stats total to 15 points higher than the next best character. The other characters in the party are a paladin (lousy at dealing lots of damage, not a min-maxer at all), a ranger (right up there in the damage game, but that's because of the Frost Dagger she found), 2 monks (can't hit a damn thing, their attack bonus is so low), a druid (not a min-maxer at all, never wildshapes), and a Sorcerer 4/Rogue 1 (aiming for Arcane Trickster, keeps up in the damage game by using Scorching Ray).

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'm hoping it will all work out in the end. He rolled really well at character creation, so his stats total to 15 points higher than the next best character. The other characters in the party are a paladin (lousy at dealing lots of damage, not a min-maxer at all), a ranger (right up there in the damage game, but that's because of the Frost Dagger she found), 2 monks (can't hit a damn thing, their attack bonus is so low), a druid (not a min-maxer at all, never wildshapes), and a Sorcerer 4/Rogue 1 (aiming for Arcane Trickster, keeps up in the damage game by using Scorching Ray).

Ah, there you go then. The archer isn't broken, he just got good rolls compared to the others, who sound like they may all be underpowered and/or not damagers (Paladins don't really do much damage, Rangers are wimpy unless they luck out and face their favoured enemy, Monks...are good to multiclass into to cherrypick and can't hit very well as you mentioned [and two Monks is a crowd], Druids who don't wildshape aren't trying to do damage [although to be fair, a 5th-level Druid just got the ability recently and probably hasn't had the time to take Natural Spell yet], and Arcane Tricksters are cool, but Sorcerers are overall weak for a spellcaster and before you actually get the Arcane Trickster prestige class, the player experiences several levels of being really weak [the same goes doubly for Mystic Theurge], so your Trickster will probably improve once she actually becomes a Trickster). Its funny though, that an archer would be your problem considering the number of people complaining about how archers are underpowered...I guess its just because you don't have a Two-handed-weapon-wielding Barbarian or Fighter with Power Attack in the mix or a 5th-level wizard (you only have 1 dedicated caster in the party who actually has 3rd-level spells, and it looks like it wasn't the right person for a combat-oriented party at least).

So its all very situational, I suppose. Usually "broken" refers to rules-bending to an absurd extent, like the well-known thousand-damage-dealing Hulking Hurler or the AC 60+ cohort I mentioned, characters who would become problems in any campaign they entered.

 

[Elemental]

This was an PBP arena game, so all the characters were pretty munched. At level 10, my Barbed Devil could reliably deal 50 damage a round due to exploiting Produce Flame, Beast Claws and a Ring of Shocking Blows. But that paled before the awesome brokenness that was some of the other characters.

One was the griffon-riding paladin saint (exploiting the grossly inadequate +2 LA) who would do flying charges to deal 100+ damage.

Or the ghaele eladrin. He would use Ethereal Jaunt to hide (thankfully, 3.0 revised that spell to level 7) and would hide in an object, buff up with every cleric spell ever published anywhere, then emerge from the Ethereal and kill you. Unless you also had Ethereal Jaunt, fights would be very boring.

Or the druid / shifter with Energy Drain armour that also had the Wild quality. He'd change into something with silly strength (Feral Annis Hag, Insectile Troll) and touch you to death.

The worst one was the anthromorphic baleen whale cleric with an intelligent sword. Due to the wonkiness of 3.0 Haste, he had three spells per turn, one from his sword. AC in the middle 40's, easily with no sacrifice in combat effectiveness, along with blindsight and absurd natural armour. Anthromorphic whales were very popular in that place, exploiting the fact that you only needed to sacrifice 3 levels and didn't get any LA in return for incredible stat boosts, 12 or so natural armour and blindsight.

Arena games really expose you to the true horrors of brokenness, when roleplaying is an optional extra. Fortunately, the epic level arena I'm in at the moment (gratuitous link--I play Kiri and Mazikeen) is much better about broken material, nerfing anything that seems too unbalancing--such as the recent guy who used Fission, Schism and Font of Power to spit out 4 Huge astral constructs per round at no PP cost.

 

[sullivan]

--such as the recent guy who used Fission, Schism and Font of Power to spit out 4 Huge astral constructs per round at no PP cost.

That gives me a visual that makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

 

[Diirk]

Or the druid / shifter with Energy Drain armour that also had the Wild quality. He'd change into something with silly strength (Feral Annis Hag, Insectile Troll) and touch you to death.

This one at least doesn't work.. the wild armour quality only preserves the AC bonus of merged armours, not other qualities such as its energy drain quality. So that would go away whenever he wild shaped.

 

[Evilhalfling]

a 2nd level 1/2 orc Barbarian.
okay so not technically broken, but in a party that averages +6 mod from all stats he has a +11 and -3 from charisma. We have a human paladin, a human monk w/o str bonus, 2 halflings, and a gnome. Oh and Meepo.
Paladin +4(1d8+2)
Monk -1/-1 (1d6)
1/2ling Thief +3(1d6) (see sig for sneak attack strategy)
gnome enchanter +4(d8) x-bow
and
Barbarian (enraged) + 8(1d12+ 9)

 

[The Souljourner]

a 2nd level 1/2 orc Barbarian.
okay so not technically broken, but in a party that averages +6 mod from all stats he has a +11 and -3 from charisma. We have a human paladin, a human monk w/o str bonus, 2 halflings, and a gnome. Oh and Meepo.
Paladin +4(1d8+2)
Monk -1/-1 (1d6)
1/2ling Thief +3(1d6) (see sig for sneak attack strategy)
gnome enchanter +4(d8) x-bow
and
Barbarian (enraged) + 8(1d12+ 9)

The monk player is screwing himself. Monks are melee fighters and need all the strength they can get. You wouldn't play a fighter with 10 strength would you? In fact, monks need strength MORE than fighters, because they don't get full BAB.

The halfling thief needs to bump his strength as well. 10 strength and small means you're doing jack-all for damage. Might as well just yell insults at the opponents, it'll hurt just as much.

This party looks like it'll get mauled by any reasonable encounter at it's level, except maybe because of the barbarian. At best, everyone else will feel far inferior to the barbarian, and for good reason... they've hamstrung themselves.

And this is exactly why I hate rolling for stats... the lucky guy outshines the rest of the party (assuming he picks a fightery class, which tend to get more benefit out of high stats than non-fightery clases).

-The Souljourner