So most of us have probably been at tables where certain combinations have led to banning that as playable for future games. What are some of yours?
Only one I’ve seen so far is :
-Critical Hit specialist Magus rapier build. Because he was basically able to 1 (2 at most) most enemies unless they had some out there resistance or immunity to magic. Our council of GMs voted it a banned build not so much for monsters but he could and would bully other characters for best loot and no one was on his level damage wise. In character bullying only though. Out of game the player would help others make their characters more efficient at their role. Same player (who was on council) agreed that character was game breaking if by going strict CR rules.
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Never seen anything banned with any regularity. Synthesist shouldn't be allowed if your table is using point buy for stats, since you can tank the strength and dexterity with no penalty. Master Summoner is a problem unless you have a very small group, and even then it's not great, because of how much longer its turn can take.
I banned all Druids, Monks, Rogues, and Swashbucklers... not because they are overpowered, but because they don't ever contribute anything to the game... no matter the party.
I'm only half joking... I didn't ban anything at my table.
I’ve seen flat out Druid bans too but not specific builds like the OP.
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I didn’t find the Summonor OP the two times I had one at the table but to be fair both times annew player and they didn’t try to break anything.
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I just ban the Summoner. It's the closest class to plain broken, and both the worst builds and the combat crazy top end come from it.
The base summoner is just on par with the druid. It shouldn't break many games. The problem is that it's just more obvious than most caster imbalances, when comparing the eidolon to a core fighter.
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Our council of GMs voted it a banned build not so much for monsters but he could and would bully other characters for best loot and no one was on his level damage wise. In character bullying only though.
That's not a problem with the build, but with the player. (See this thread for resolution ideas concerning overly aggressive loot-hog roleplaying.)
Otherwise, a magus is not better than many other possible builds, even purely martial ones. (The "overshadowing" problem is chiefly a function of new players who are only familiar with the CRB bringing in severely-underpowered martials who are not up-to-snuff when without access to the wealth of later-printed material. Alternatively, they're enticed by "trap" archetypes whose hidden nerfage their inexperience doesn't spot. New players in general are over-fixated on melee damage to the detriment of saves, skills, and AC, and their builds begin faring more poorly when encountering things that don't die in one hit at 3rd+.)
A GM doesn't have to make encouraging suggestions as to how a Str20/Wis10 human fighter in leather armor with Power Attack, Toughness, and Weapon Focus could be better at 1st level, but perhaps he might consider it. E.g., "Power Attack and Weapon Focus basically off-set each other, meaning you're spending two feats to acquire a small bit of damage. The over-investment in strength in point-buy is robbing you of a better Con score avoiding the need for Toughness. And fighters are proficient in heavy armor; I know it reduces your speed, but slow-and-alive is faster-moving than stationary-while-dead. And, about saving throws...."
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I would reserve my ban-list for those classes or archetypes that are explicitly designed to instigate PVP. (Wildrager barbarian comes to mind.)
I’ve seen flat out Druid bans too but not specific builds like the OP.
More situationally, GMs could ban broad categories to promote verisimilitude during their home games. For example, a LotR-style campaign might not allow full casters, eastern-themed characters, sidekicks, and non-CRB races.
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Never seen anything banned with any regularity. Synthesist shouldn't be allowed if your table is using point buy for stats, since you can tank the strength and dexterity with no penalty. Master Summoner is a problem unless you have a very small group, and even then it's not great, because of how much longer its turn can take.I just ban the Summoner. It's the closest class to plain broken, and both the worst builds and the combat crazy top end come from it.
Which is somethi g I've said before Ive never seen a class that needs banning just players pushing things to the minmax and deliebrately breaking things. Like the players who take a combination of hgih powered abilities in games then complain its too easy and the abilities should be nerfed them get huffy about how they cant be expected to not take those abilities if they want more of a challenge.
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I've seen summoners so poorly designed that an average fighter could mop the floor with them (at any given level), and so over-the-top that the rest of the party might as well put skill points into cribbage. That's bad enough for me. I like the idea of the summoner - it's not very practical to depend on summons as any other arcane class. It's typically the eidolon that makes it bad.I just ban the Summoner. It's the closest class to plain broken, and both the worst builds and the combat crazy top end come from it.The base summoner is just on par with the druid. It shouldn't break many games. The problem is that it's just more obvious than most caster imbalances, when comparing the eidolon to a core fighter.
Again though thats the player not the class.
I've never expressly banned someone from building a character they wanted, but I have come to regret allowing some of the rules from "Spheres of Might" in my game. I even asked people here in the forums if they thought it might be unbalancing and the consensus was no. I've found it to be the complete opposite, at least for this player. I'm not the sort of GM who will force a player to stop playing a character he's invested a lot of time and thought in but I'm going to have to do something drastic.
Anything involving sacred geometry or the other ridiculous do-weird-math-for-free-metamagic feat I don't remember the name of off the top of my head.
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Original version of the summoner...unchained summoner, maybe...if I know the player, and know they can make one without ruining the rest of the tables fun.
Druid is also pretty easy to make a grotesquely OP character...so again, I'd want to know the person playing it ahead of time.
Any pet class can get out of hand if you don't reign them in a little...I accidentally made a god tier Hunter/Rogue in PFS, that absolutely demolishes anything that isn't immune to precision damage...and even against things that are immune, it does so many attacks per round that I can still chip away at them pretty badly. I retired the character at level 10 due to it just not being fun for anyone involved (5 minute turns, resolving 9+ attacks on a full attack)
The one I thing I do ban 100% of the time isn't a class/build, it is an alignment, evil characters...too many bad experiences with people playing them over the years. Most people just use it as an excuse to be disruptive and ruin everyone else's fun.
I accidentally made a god tier Hunter/Rogue in PFS, that absolutely demolishes anything that isn't immune to precision damage...and even against things that are immune...
Hunter is too good, at least, if you know what you're doing. As I opined elsewhere: "That Hunter's Tactics ability is like a 20th-level critter-class capstone that you get at 3rd-level because it didn't occur to the designer how much gruesome, sickly-sweet brokenness you can truck out of it. A near-permanent +4 Pack Flanking bonus is the very least of things you can get away with.."
If a half-orc Hunter/Barbarian with Amplified Rage and AoO gimmickry shows up at your table, double the monster count, and send half his way.
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No, that's the class. Summoners can be built average...but they an also suck worse than most, and are simply the easiest class to overpower.Again though thats the player not the class.I've seen summoners so poorly designed that an average fighter could mop the floor with them (at any given level), and so over-the-top that the rest of the party might as well put skill points into cribbage. That's bad enough for me. I like the idea of the summoner - it's not very practical to depend on summons as any other arcane class. It's typically the eidolon that makes it bad.I just ban the Summoner. It's the closest class to plain broken, and both the worst builds and the combat crazy top end come from it.The base summoner is just on par with the druid. It shouldn't break many games. The problem is that it's just more obvious than most caster imbalances, when comparing the eidolon to a core fighter.
Exactly its an advanced class to play and easy to make up but the class itself is fine and lends itself to a variety of play styles and power levels. Its not a class someone new to the game shpuld play but the fighter outclassing killapede is a problem with the player not the class same with the badly built Eidolon that doesnt contribute (assuming its not a deliberate design choice) thats an issue with the player.
Summoner, Gunslingers, Zen Archer & Tower Shield builds, the re-roll Oracle build, and just out of personal bias, dual-shield-wielding builds.
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Again though thats the player not the class.
By this logic, almost nothing is bad on it's own--only players who make subpar choices make it bad--and absolutely nothing is inherently good--only players who make optimal choices make it good.
It's not necessarily an incorrect viewpoint, but it doesn't lend much to this discussion.
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Again though thats the player not the class.By this logic, almost nothing is bad on it's own--only players who make subpar choices make it bad--and absolutely nothing is inherently good--only players who make optimal choices make it good.
It's not necessarily an incorrect viewpoint, but it doesn't lend much to this discussion.
Oh things are bad on their own. I have 2 criteria for what makes something broken. First a class that someone with no experience or knowlege of the game can take, make random choices and be guaranteed something more powerful than any other class. Second a class that someone experienced at making min-maxed superpowered builds can not bring up to average power with other classes. Neither of which applies to the summoner.
However I do agree we should drop this as the OP wasn't what is broken it was what have you banned.
I accidentally made a god tier Hunter/Rogue in PFS, that absolutely demolishes anything that isn't immune to precision damage...and even against things that are immune...Hunter is too good, at least, if you know what you're doing. As I opined elsewhere: "That Hunter's Tactics ability is like a 20th-level critter-class capstone that you get at 3rd-level because it didn't occur to the designer how much gruesome, sickly-sweet brokenness you can truck out of it. A near-permanent +4 Pack Flanking bonus is the very least of things you can get away with.."
If a half-orc Hunter/Barbarian with Amplified Rage and AoO gimmickry shows up at your table, double the monster count, and send half his way.
How about a Halfling Hunter/Rogue with a Keen Scimitar? It got to the point where the GM wouldn't even bother with the math, he'd just say whatever I was fighting was dead if I confirmed two crits during the fight.
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I've never expressly banned someone from building a character they wanted, but I have come to regret allowing some of the rules from "Spheres of Might" in my game. I even asked people here in the forums if they thought it might be unbalancing and the consensus was no. I've found it to be the complete opposite, at least for this player. I'm not the sort of GM who will force a player to stop playing a character he's invested a lot of time and thought in but I'm going to have to do something drastic.
Could you go into a bit of detail about this? Spheres of Might made a point of getting away from what most martials do (full attack) in favor of being able to to cool things instead of "I don't move and swing four times" or nuke it with a longbow.
It is possible something is being misunderstood or that a Martial having things to do feels like too much, but without details we can't tell.
Our council of GMs voted it a banned build not so much for monsters but he could and would bully other characters for best loot and no one was on his level damage wise. In character bullying only though.That's not a problem with the build, but with the player. (See this thread for resolution ideas concerning overly aggressive loot-hog roleplaying.)
Otherwise, a magus is not better than many other possible builds, even purely martial ones. (The "overshadowing" problem is chiefly a function of new players who are only familiar with the CRB bringing in severely-underpowered martials who are not up-to-snuff when without access to the wealth of later-printed material. Alternatively, they're enticed by "trap" archetypes whose hidden nerfage their inexperience doesn't spot. New players in general are over-fixated on melee damage to the detriment of saves, skills, and AC, and their builds begin faring more poorly when encountering things that don't die in one hit at 3rd+.)
A GM doesn't have to make encouraging suggestions as to how a Str20/Wis10 human fighter in leather armor with Power Attack, Toughness, and Weapon Focus could be better at 1st level, but perhaps he might consider it. E.g., "Power Attack and Weapon Focus basically off-set each other, meaning you're spending two feats to acquire a small bit of damage. The over-investment in strength in point-buy is robbing you of a better Con score avoiding the need for Toughness. And fighters are proficient in heavy armor; I know it reduces your speed, but slow-and-alive is faster-moving than stationary-while-dead. And, about saving throws...."
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I would reserve my ban-list for those classes or archetypes that are explicitly designed to instigate PVP. (Wildrager barbarian comes to mind.)
I’ve seen flat out Druid bans too but not specific builds like the OP.More situationally, GMs could...
It was the type of player; For when he retired that character made a dwarf fighter specced for AC that by end game had a legit AC in the 60’s (on a bet he can’t make anything other then High burst DPS). Where there was only 1 in 20 chance to hit him (Nat 20) even his touch was stupid high (Don’t remember the actual number).
There is only one true banned build...
Pact Wizard (Haunted Heroes).... NO. NO AND HEEEEELLLLL NO!!!!
Chained Summoner is also off the table
Coven/Army Across Time infinite caster level builds were banned fairly swiftly for me after trippling the radius of the world with a control water spell, killing everyone.
Caster/martial disparity is why no unhittable fighter or melee crit-fisher should ever be considered OP, except in relation to other martials.
Easily-unimpressed arcanist: "Really? You killed ten opponents with a sword? How...incredible."
...Our council of GMs voted it a banned build not so much for monsters but he could and would bully other characters for best loot and no one was on his level damage wise. In character bullying only though.That's not a problem with the build, but with the player. (See this thread for resolution ideas concerning overly aggressive loot-hog roleplaying.)
Otherwise, a magus is not better than many other possible builds, even purely martial ones. (The "overshadowing" problem is chiefly a function of new players who are only familiar with the CRB bringing in severely-underpowered martials who are not up-to-snuff when without access to the wealth of later-printed material. Alternatively, they're enticed by "trap" archetypes whose hidden nerfage their inexperience doesn't spot. New players in general are over-fixated on melee damage to the detriment of saves, skills, and AC, and their builds begin faring more poorly when encountering things that don't die in one hit at 3rd+.)
A GM doesn't have to make encouraging suggestions as to how a Str20/Wis10 human fighter in leather armor with Power Attack, Toughness, and Weapon Focus could be better at 1st level, but perhaps he might consider it. E.g., "Power Attack and Weapon Focus basically off-set each other, meaning you're spending two feats to acquire a small bit of damage. The over-investment in strength in point-buy is robbing you of a better Con score avoiding the need for Toughness. And fighters are proficient in heavy armor; I know it reduces your speed, but slow-and-alive is faster-moving than stationary-while-dead. And, about saving throws...."
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I would reserve my ban-list for those classes or archetypes that are explicitly designed to instigate PVP. (Wildrager barbarian comes to mind.)
I’ve seen flat out Druid bans too but not specific builds like the OP.
Sounds like a fun party member, dang.
I had forgotten that some people didn’t like gunslingers. That usually seemed to be more about theme than anything else though.
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Sounds like a fun party member, dang.
What did? (You quoted the whole post, and I don't know which part you're referring to.)
I've never expressly banned someone from building a character they wanted, but I have come to regret allowing some of the rules from "Spheres of Might" in my game. I even asked people here in the forums if they thought it might be unbalancing and the consensus was no. I've found it to be the complete opposite, at least for this player. I'm not the sort of GM who will force a player to stop playing a character he's invested a lot of time and thought in but I'm going to have to do something drastic.Could you go into a bit of detail about this? Spheres of Might made a point of getting away from what most martials do (full attack) in favor of being able to to cool things instead of "I don't move and swing four times" or nuke it with a longbow.
It is possible something is being misunderstood or that a Martial having things to do feels like too much, but without details we can't tell.
On the whole, SoM is balanced, but there are a few options that break it.
1) Striker and getting to use Con instead of a mental stat. They use it for a bonus to AC and their DCs for stuff. Think of a monk that can use Con instead of Wis.
2) Dual Wielding Sphere. There are some stupid options like being treated as a creature 5 times larger for combat maneuvers, getting touch attacks/flat-footed AC.
3) Some interesting combos like Berserker + Vital Strike or Barrage being able to dish out "full attack" damage in a standard action.
4) The Wrestling Sphere. Grappling was already a solid option. This just makes it completely stupid.
Coven/Army Across Time infinite caster level builds were banned fairly swiftly for me after trippling the radius of the world with a control water spell, killing everyone.
Even if you manage to convince your GM to go with the most lenient definition of "statistics", how would you get infinite caster levels?
Coven/Army Across Time infinite caster level builds were banned fairly swiftly for me after trippling the radius of the world with a control water spell, killing everyone.Even if you manage to convince your GM to go with the most lenient definition of "statistics", how would you get infinite caster levels?
He doesn't mean literal infinite caster levels... but you can get it high enough that it doesn't matter anymore.
Pretty sure a Grand Coven with 13 members can literally do the impossible.
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1) Striker and getting to use Con instead of a mental stat. They use it for a bonus to AC and their DCs for stuff. Think of a monk that can use Con instead of Wis.
2) Dual Wielding Sphere. There are some stupid options like being treated as a creature 5 times larger for combat maneuvers, getting touch attacks/flat-footed AC.
3) Some interesting combos like Berserker + Vital Strike or Barrage being able to dish out "full attack" damage in a standard action.
4) The Wrestling Sphere. Grappling was already a solid option. This just makes it completely stupid.
1) That's intended though. I don't think I've heard anyone say "Gee, I wish my martial character needed more high ability scores to be effective."
2) Size: requires you to hit with your main weapon and it is a scaling size category increase, starting at 1 and going up every 5 BAB after. Touch Attack: Your main weapon gets a touch attack, and it only deals the weapon's damage die. Nothing else(no strength mod, no Power Attack, no +1 to +5, etc). This is so you off-hand(usually weaker) weapon gets a small scaling bonus and hits flat-footed(which for a large majority of things won't be a very big difference from normal AC).
3) Vital Strike is supposed to be a full-attack backup anyway. Not seeing anything in Berserker Sphere that makes this change. Barrage carries heavy penalties to attack rolls when in use.
4) Probably have a point here, but it also makes Grappling more fun and not a niche thing you can't reliably do half the time.
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Oh things are bad on their own. I have 2 criteria for what makes something broken. First a class that someone with no experience or knowlege of the game can take, make random choices and be guaranteed something more powerful than any other class. Second a class that someone experienced at making min-maxed superpowered builds can not bring up to average power with other classes. Neither of which applies to the summoner.
That's why I said that *almost* nothing is *inherently* bad. A rogue might be considered worse than a wizard, but a well-built rogue will be better than a wizard with Int 13, Combat Expertise and a tower shield.
And while that's an interesting definition of "broken", I don't think anything actually falls into that category: someone who's *never* played a ttrpg before, makes *random* choices and is *guaranteed* something more powerful than *any* other class? Nothing ever published by a gaming company fits that criteria. Same thing in reverse. And if the definition of a descriptor is so vague or specific as to apply to everything or nothing, then it's not a very useful definition.I, on the other hand, ban more than I allow. But that's because of tone and genre, not broken rules.
If I'm running a traditional Tolkienian High Fantasy, then you can play one of the core races, and that's all. If we're going for a medieval European feel, then there shall be no ninjas, kung-fu maters or samurai.
And there will probably be no swashbucklers, gunslingers, bloodragers, weird races, odd style feats, goofy exotic weapons--really, I ignore the vast majority of supplemental material in my games, because more is not more.
But. If you can convince me that your barbarian-monk-druid that turns into a karate-chopping octopus that's frothing at the mouth actually fits into the story we're telling, have at it. No one's managed it so far, but hey. First time for everything.
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How about a Halfling Hunter/Rogue with a Keen Scimitar? It got to the point where the GM wouldn't even bother with the math, he'd just say whatever I was fighting was dead if I confirmed two crits during the fight.I accidentally made a god tier Hunter/Rogue in PFS, that absolutely demolishes anything that isn't immune to precision damage...and even against things that are immune...Hunter is too good, at least, if you know what you're doing. As I opined elsewhere: "That Hunter's Tactics ability is like a 20th-level critter-class capstone that you get at 3rd-level because it didn't occur to the designer how much gruesome, sickly-sweet brokenness you can truck out of it. A near-permanent +4 Pack Flanking bonus is the very least of things you can get away with.."
If a half-orc Hunter/Barbarian with Amplified Rage and AoO gimmickry shows up at your table, double the monster count, and send half his way.
Mine was a kitsune who used 2 keen kukri and a tiger companion...4 attacks per round at 15-20 crit range, then claw/claw/bite/rake/rake from the tiger. Plus the teamwork feat that grants AoOs on crits...if I got a full attack in something it was 99% likely to be dead
Each casting of army across time buffs your caster level, causing the next casting to create more duplicates, and thus more caster levels.
Ooooh...
Buffing the buff, with the buff. Very clever.
I've never expressly banned someone from building a character they wanted, but I have come to regret allowing some of the rules from "Spheres of Might" in my game. I even asked people here in the forums if they thought it might be unbalancing and the consensus was no. I've found it to be the complete opposite, at least for this player. I'm not the sort of GM who will force a player to stop playing a character he's invested a lot of time and thought in but I'm going to have to do something drastic.Could you go into a bit of detail about this? Spheres of Might made a point of getting away from what most martials do (full attack) in favor of being able to to cool things instead of "I don't move and swing four times" or nuke it with a longbow.
It is possible something is being misunderstood or that a Martial having things to do feels like too much, but without details we can't tell.
It's been several weeks since we last were able to get together for a game, but the things his character does the most is to take some sort of stance whereby he rushes up adjacent to a foe, strikes him, then instantly prepares himself to automatically strike if the foe makes any sort of move. Then he adds another maneuver that allows him to punch an enemy so hard it lifts them up to 10 feet straight up off the ground. I may be remembering some of this incorrectly, but those are the two things he seems to do the most. I wish I could remember the names of the maneuvers so I could give better examples.
EDIT: I should also add he's only 5th level but can deal more damage in a round than the Slayer and the Monk can do combined. I can't challenge this character on anything like an equal footing without making the encounter too powerful for the rest of the party to take on. Granted, I chalk a lot of this up to not being familiar with the SoM rules. He's an Asperberger's kid who almost fixates on rules and practically memorizes perfectly anything he reads. I have no reason to believe he's cheating because his dad has been a good friend of mine and on and off player in my campaigns for years and is in the current one. He'd tell me if his son was cheating.
That sounds like too much for one round of actions....
It does to me, as well. Bear in mind that it's been several weeks since we've played and I'm going on what might be a piecemeal memory, but those are some of the actions I've seen taken by this player.
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I can sort of see how he might pull it off assuming class abilities I'm unaware of if the enemies close by. Swift action, move action, attack not full, attack of opportunity. Seems like a lot going on in one round though and the enemy should get an attack on him if hes moving more than 5 foot.
I don't remember if there's some ability in his suite of powers that prevents that or not. I'm going to try and take notes during the next session.
the things his character does the most is to take some sort of stance whereby he rushes up adjacent to a foe, strikes him, then instantly prepares himself to automatically strike if the foe makes any sort of move. Then he adds another maneuver that allows him to punch an enemy so hard it lifts them up to 10 feet straight up off the ground.... EDIT: I should also add he's only 5th level but can deal more damage in a round than the Slayer and the Monk can do combined....
Only 5th? Hmm.... Sounds like he's stacking Opportune Parry and Riposte with Combat Reflexes and the Panther Parry feat chain in some sort of piercing unarmed-strike build. (This probable multiclass combo would need all of good dexterity, wisdom, and charisma bonuses for AoOs, parry uses, and panache, respectively. So, high-dex w/Agile AoMF? Pre-nerf Kata Master monk might work as a straight-class; they don't get OP&R now.)
In any event, AoO-exploiter builds can do crazy stupid damage due to sheer number of attacks, especially in comparison to others at 5th only receiving one attack -- and parry monks are just the tip of the iceberg (auto-sharing Teamworks feats with sidekicks is the real cheddarfield). --But it's only damage, and they only get it when you-the-GM toss them a pile of monsters to beat on.
If all of your encounters devolve to melee combat, expect bruiser builds.
That sounds like what he's doing. I don't throw many major monster encounters at them, but when I do he's the one who pretty much kills everything. Gonna have to think about some things.
Thanks, everyone!
I wouldn't worry about it. He only looks overpowered at 5th when he's flurrying and dropping a Ki point for an extra attack. But in another level, the other martials will be BAB6 and pick up their iterative, good BAB6-required feats come on-line, and the casters are more likely to have a spare Haste for the party (meaning Joe Average schleb fighter goes from one attack to three a round). Everybody is also finally getting enough money for good gear, and attack-bonuses will correspondingly escalate.
Hmm...hadn't thought of it like that. Thanks!