Which spells break the game and why?

[Talakeal]

TLDR: Which spells make martial characters obsolete and why?


So it is often taken for granted that spell casters blow away mundane classes.

However, in practice I rarely see it in game, and most DMs I deal with insist it doesn't exist (see my threads about banned monks or OP great weapon fighters for example).

On the same token, I don't notice it in my homebrew system, which while not being a d20 clone fits a lot of the same conceptual space, and I have had people tell me that it is thematically impossible to balance a D&D style spell caster with mundanes, that either I am blind or my play-testers just aren't trying.

Also, it is noted that some spell casters are not OP. Bards, Dread Necromancers, and Beguilers are generally considered t3, while Warlocks, Healers, and War Mages are even lower.


So that got me thinking, what spells exactly break games and make non casters obsolete? Can we get a list going of broken spells and explanation for how they break the game, making either other classes obsolete or defeat the monsters with no challenge?


Also, I am not talking about spells which are obviously broken or poorly worded enough to allow infinite power shenanigans such as Gate, Shape Change, Polymorph Any Object, Genesis, Simulacrum, or Wish.

[Extra Anchovies]

Any spell of level 7 and up, I'd say. One of the easiest ways to keep the game balanced at high levels is to play Pathfinder and ban all the full-casters (leaving only noncasters, third-casters like the Paladin and Ranger, and half-casters like the Magus and Hunter; Summoner should probably also be nixed, but I have no experience with that class). Why pathfinder? More half- or third-casters. If you want to stick with 3.5, add some buffs to the Healer's spell list, port over the Hunter from Pathfinder if you want (as the druid surrogate) plus any of the other half-casters you like, and ban Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Spirit Shaman, Wizard, Wu Jen, and all the other full casters that don't have fixed lists (Shugenja doesn't count; they're kinda crappy to begin with).

Though really, it's not the spells themselves so much as it is the way they're used. Contingencies, metamagic reducers, etc.

[kellbyb]

If nothing else any polymorph style spell comes to mind.

[LTwerewolf]

The spells that replicate another class and then some all break things. This includes but is not limited to:

Summon monster replicates fighters after a certain level but with far more utility. Need fodder? Got it. Need brute force? Got it. What about a creature with a lot of SLAs? Still covered.

polymorph, divine power, shapechange, gate you mentioned, but need to be mentioned again. The fact that you needed to exclude them means you already see some of it.

Ice Assassin replicates literally anything should you go through enough effort (which being a wizard isn't really all that much) even if you ignore eschew materials shenangians.

The mailman build shows just how much damage the orb spells on a sorcerer can do.

You even have low level spells that can completely end fights, like glitterdust, ray of enfeeblement, cause fear, color spray, and sleep/deep slumber. At every level there are spells that can completely end encounters without needing to do much of anything. There's the batman wizard and the god wizard builds for a reason. They always have the tool for the job, and that tool is more often more powerful than entire classes.

You have fog cloud that can pretty much control what your enemy is doing at all times. Not to mention that you have multiple ways of ignoring the concealment that they gain, if you even NEED to ignore it.

Force cage can trap a large amount of enemies, and then you can start throwing a bunch of save or lose spells at them, because you have plenty of time to do so.

Cloud of bewilderment is always a staple as well.

Stinking cloud, slow, steel bands.

Basically there are tons of spells that make it so anyone other than true casters are really there to distract the enemies from the true casters (which with spells like energy immunity, mirror image, blur, blink, displacement the wizard can also do better himself).

[bekeleven]

SRD Wizard spells, with great fighter obsoleter, then defense, then misc:

1st: True Strike, Mage Armor, Silent Image
2nd: Alter Self, Mirror Image, Protection from Arrows
3rd: Haste, Fly, Greater Magic Weapon
4th: Polymorph, Stoneskin, Greater Invisibility
5th: Wall of Force, Overland Flight, Cloudkill
6th: Contingency, True Seeing, Tenser's Transformation Greater Heroism
7th: Forcecage, Spell Turning, Simulacrum
8th: Moment of Prescience, Mind Blank, Iron Body
9th: Astral Projection, Foresight, Time Stop

These are (in some cases) far from the best spells at each level, but it's an outline on how you might go about building a fighter-wizard. Put them together with a few save-or-dies, some dispels, summons, AoEs and a ray or three, and yes... you will give fighters a run for their money.

Bonus non-core spells:
1: Arrow Mind, Master's Touch, Nerveskitter, 2: Deflect, Sense Weakness, Heroics, 3: Alter Fortune, Heart of Water, Shivering Touch, 4: Celerity, Orb of Force, Bite of the Werewolf, 5: Dimension Jumper, Greater Blink, Draconic Polymorph, 6: Starmantle, Spore Cloak, Brilliant Blade, 7: Ironguard, Bite of the Werebear, Body of War, 8: Superior Invisibility, Heart of Stone, Mysterious Redirection, 9: Black Blade of Disaster, Dragonshiape, Greater Spell Matrix

[Werephilosopher]

Things that grant extra actions or similar: celerity, time stop, and arcane spellsurge. For psionics, synchronicity, sense danger and temporal acceleration.

Things that give you minions: summoning spells, necrominion spells, binding spells, ice assassin, etc.

Basically, casters can do more; and what they can't do, they get someone else to do.

[Necroticplague]

I'm a slow typer, so by the time I finished a list, chances are everything good would already be posted. So I'll just go on a somewhat relevant tangent: trying to balance a daily system of power against a more constant or encounter-based one is inherently problematic. After all, if you can't use these powers as much, you expect them to be more potent, right? However, that only works correctly at a very certain encounter amount. More than that, and the daily user is essentially useless for the last few. Less than that, and the limiter on their power is irrelevant, and they're horrifically powerful. And if they ever get clever ways to get around their restrictions (in 3.e, this manifest as at least a few different PP regeneration tricks, Astral Projection while having scrolls on your person, clever use of various Glyphs and Symbol spells), then the whole thing breaks down. Of course, this issue can be avoided with a 4e like approach of having everyone have both daily and constant abilities that can have a meaningful impact.

[Urpriest]

At ultra-high op, there are the various ways to gain access to everything ever, but per your post we're ignoring those.

At high-op, you've got spells that give you access to huge swaths of abilities, letting you always have the right tool for the job. Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally give you grapplers when you need grapplers, flying when you need flying, ranged attacks when you need ranged attacks, spells when you need spells, large sacks of hp that cover half the battlefield when you need that...Polymorph and friends are if anything more optimizable in this role, and the various undead-controlling spells are likewise potent.

At mid-op, you've got battlefield control. If your enemies have weak Will saves, Color Spray or Glitterdust or Slow will neuter them. If their Fort is what's bad, Stinking Cloud is great. If Ref sucks, there are spells for that too. Bad at grapple checks? (Not just casters, but anybody Medium or smaller who isn't heavily Str-focused.) Several spells rely on the grapple mechanics, with Evard's Black Tentacles being the most well-known. Bad touch AC? Send in the rays. Martial types generally only target AC, and only a few monsters have especially low AC, while almost every monster has either a bad save or bad touch AC or is bad at grappling.

At low-op, you've got accidental plot derailment. The villain escaped? I cast Scrying, now I know where he is, then Teleport, we go in while he's sleeping and kill him. There's a chasm? But I cast Overland Flight this morning, so that doesn't matter. Nightmares seem like cool steeds for an evil party, but what's this about Astral Projection at-will?

[TheFamilarRaven]

A lot of game breaking spells have been brought up. But to really find the reason caster can out do mundanes you simply have to set a non caster and a full caster in the same scenario.

ex 1) Need to climb a mountain face? Hope the mundane has got plenty of ranks in climb, tons of rope and pitons. The wizard? Fly, problem solved. cleric? Air walk, or even the one Sanctified spell if you play with the BoED that gives you WINGS OF FREAKIN FIRE for the low low cost of 1d2 CON damage (can't remember its name), and according to the rules of BoED, can be cast spontaneously by any good aligned cleric.

ex 2) Oh no, the party is trapped inside a chamber that slowly filling with poison gas. Mundanes either have to 1) break out, or two, pick the lock on the door (if there is one). Casters? Stone shape.

ex 3) Uh oh, that's a lot of monsters guys, what are we going to do? Mundanes? Fight them one by one, using the terrain to their best advantage. Casters can disable most, if not all of them with one or two spells. Black Tentacles, Slow, Fear etc, and create the battlefield to fit your needs, rather than adapt to your surroundings

Those are just some examples. As for why it may not come up in some campaign session that you have observed, there are I think three major factors.

1) People who play casters decently prepare accordingly. I.e, they don't prepare knock if they have a rogue in the party, because rogues can in point of fact pick locks, and thus there is no need to waste a spell slot. Or perhaps they recognize that, while fireball is cool and all, it really just doesn't do as much damage in the long run as the guy who attacks twice with the shiny metal stick a la haste spell. What this point boils down to, is that any good DnD player, or any tabletop gamer, will compliment the party, allowing everyone a chance to shine, while still being godlike.

2) Most people agree that DnD is more fun when played with others, and may intentionally not steal the spotlight by going all godmode wizard. They'll deliberately dial back their power as to not upset the balance at the table, especially if there are noobies

3) Referring to the above example scenarios of casters vs non-casters. In each of these cases they are often solved by a caster class, which usually ends up benefitting the entire party. The challenges go by quickly, so the players continue on with their favorite part of DnD, which is to kill things and take their stuff. Whenever a caster solves a problem with the strategic use of a spell, it is usually dismissed as "the reason why they're there". In other words, there is the mentality that caster is just doing "their job", and thus no one actually stops to think how insignificant they make the other classes seem.

And for your record, you can add me to the apparently very short list of DM's who will tell you that full casters vs mundanes is unbalanced. As a DM, I've never said, "oh no, I hope that barbarian doesn't charge my monster". I have said, "Damn it! My cool nightshade just got one shotted by Undeath to Death" (Yeah ... that happened)

[LTwerewolf]

And for your record, you can add me to the apparently very short list of DM's who will tell you that full casters vs mundanes is unbalanced.

This is always what baffles me. I mean just a quick look at what the spells are should tell anyone paying attention how unbalanced it is.

[Talakeal]

This is always what baffles me. I mean just a quick look at what the spells are should tell anyone paying attention how unbalanced it is.

Well, a lot of people skip over the subtly brokem stuff and go for flashy stuff. Most people dont even try and play a non blaster wizard for years.
And for a lot of the crazier stuff you either have player who try to not abuse the game or dms who wont let them.

[Dalebert]

And for your record, you can add me to the apparently very short list of DM's who will tell you that full casters vs mundanes is unbalanced. As a DM, I've never said, "oh no, I hope that barbarian doesn't charge my monster". I have said, "Damn it! My cool nightshade just got one shotted by Undeath to Death" (Yeah ... that happened)

That's kind of the very definition of magic. It's always been about trying to cheat reality itself. We play games so we can be the main characters in the story and those characters usually outshine everyone else in some way. Superhero games, everyone plays someone who has special powers that make them stand out. This is why I liked the premise (if not necessarily the mechanics) of Ars Magicka. Of course everyone played a mage! The mundanes were NPCs. Who wants to play a mundane in a world with magic?

It does create obvious balance issues in a game that has a variety of classes though. I understand how it happens. These spells need to exist. They're in myths and fairy tales and stories and are essential to the flavor of a fantasy world.

I think where it falls apart is when they made them so trivially accessible. I think a lot of the spells being listed in this thread should exist, but they shouldn't be something a caster can trivially toss around every day as part of their repertoire. Ways to do that? Rare magical components comes to mind. Maybe you need the heart of a mimic or similar creature to cast a shapechange. It shouldn't just be a gp value. It should be something your party goes on a quest to obtain. You can TRY to find some of them in a magic shop and they will be very expensive because adventurers risked their lives to get them, but odds are they won't have exactly the ones you need and they will be very limited supply.

"I'm afraid we don't have any succubus eyes for a dominate person. You sure you don't want this ancient red dragon scale for casting stoneskin? Oh, you don't have that spell in your spellbook?"

Another way is just making them extremely costly. Take away all 7th+ spell slots and make casters spend multiples of lower level slots and maybe even take some ability score damage to cast those (and maybe for some lower level broken ones).

Those are just brainstorms, but I think the trick is to keep even the "broken" spells that are required for the flavor of the game but find ways to make them less trivial.

[Necroticplague]

That's kind of the very definition of magic. It's always been about trying to cheat reality itself. We play games so we can be the main characters in the story and those characters usually outshine everyone else in some way. Superhero games, everyone plays someone who has special powers that make them stand out. This is why I liked the premise (if not necessarily the mechanics) of Ars Magicka. Of course everyone played a mage! The mundanes were NPCs. Who wants to play a mundane in a world with magic?

It does create obvious balance issues in a game that has a variety of classes though. I understand how it happens. These spells need to exist. They're in myths and fairy tales and stories and are essential to the flavor of a fantasy world.

I think where it falls apart is when they made them so trivially accessible. I think a lot of the spells being listed in this thread should exist, but they shouldn't be something a caster can trivially toss around every day as part of their repertoire. Ways to do that? Rare magical components comes to mind. Maybe you need the heart of a mimic or similar creature to cast a shapechange. It shouldn't just be a gp value. It should be more like you can TRY to find some of tem in a magic shop and they will be very expensive because adventurers risked their lives to get them, but odds are they won't have exactly the ones you need and they will be very limited supply.

"I'm afraid we don't have any succubus eyes for a dominate person. You sure you don't want this ancient red dragon scale for casting stoneskin? Oh, you don't have that spell in your spellbook?"

Another way is just making them extremely costly. Take away all 7th+ spell slots and make casters spend multiples of lower level slots and maybe even take some ability score damage to cast those.

Those are just brainstorms, but I think the trick is to keep even the "broken" spells that are required for the flavor of the game but find ways to make them less trivial.

Problem with using spell components like that is that it means the maximum ceiling of the casters isn't really effected (if they can get access, its just as broken a before), while making spellcasting incredibly annoying just to play. So basically, you only suceeded in making casters even less noob friendly. I think it would just be easier to say "those abilities do exist, but only in lesser, not broken versions". Shapechange and similar might act more like the the Shapeshifter ACF for druid, so that a caster needs to have some physical stats to use it, and doesn't gain access to ridiculous abilities (I'm looking at you, master transmorgifist who turns yourself into a hydra/jelly combo to make an army of yourself).

And similar problem with the "burn more slots for higher". You might have made them weaker overall, but you haven't really restricted their game-breaking ability. You've just made the distance between "good spellcasters" and "useless wastes of space casters" even more giant. You've added another hurdle to brokenness, but not made it less broken. So once they jump that hurdle....

And no matter what you do, there's no way to balance some spells without effectively banning them (i.e, either actually banning them, or making them all but useless or impossible to cast). Like Planar binding for a Nightmare, or using tricks to wish for more wishes ("I wish for an LE candle of evocation").

[ShurikVch]

I think where it falls apart is when they made them so trivially accessible. I think a lot of the spells being listed in this thread should exist, but they shouldn't be something a caster can trivially toss around every day as part of their repertoire. Ways to do that? Rare magical components comes to mind. And then everyone will play as Tainted Sorcerer (http://dndtools.eu/classes/tainted-sorcerer/) or Maho-tsukai (http://dndtools.eu/classes/maho-tsukai/) :smallbiggrin:

[atemu1234]

I'd say most cleric spells put them far above paladins, and most druid spells put them high above rangers. Really, they're better from the get-go.

[Fouredged Sword]

Animate dead and any other permanent minion spells. "Oh, eat a HDx2 skeleton minion with the same base attack bonus as the party fighter!"

[Divide by Zero]

That's kind of the very definition of magic. It's always been about trying to cheat reality itself. We play games so we can be the main characters in the story and those characters usually outshine everyone else in some way. Superhero games, everyone plays someone who has special powers that make them stand out. This is why I liked the premise (if not necessarily the mechanics) of Ars Magicka. Of course everyone played a mage! The mundanes were NPCs. Who wants to play a mundane in a world with magic?

It does create obvious balance issues in a game that has a variety of classes though. I understand how it happens. These spells need to exist. They're in myths and fairy tales and stories and are essential to the flavor of a fantasy world.

I think where it falls apart is when they made them so trivially accessible. I think a lot of the spells being listed in this thread should exist, but they shouldn't be something a caster can trivially toss around every day as part of their repertoire. Ways to do that? Rare magical components comes to mind. Maybe you need the heart of a mimic or similar creature to cast a shapechange. It shouldn't just be a gp value. It should be something your party goes on a quest to obtain. You can TRY to find some of them in a magic shop and they will be very expensive because adventurers risked their lives to get them, but odds are they won't have exactly the ones you need and they will be very limited supply.

"I'm afraid we don't have any succubus eyes for a dominate person. You sure you don't want this ancient red dragon scale for casting stoneskin? Oh, you don't have that spell in your spellbook?"

Another way is just making them extremely costly. Take away all 7th+ spell slots and make casters spend multiples of lower level slots and maybe even take some ability score damage to cast those (and maybe for some lower level broken ones).

Those are just brainstorms, but I think the trick is to keep even the "broken" spells that are required for the flavor of the game but find ways to make them less trivial.

Grod's Law would like a word with you. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?328767-More-realistic-D-amp-D-Economy/page4&p=17613518#post17613518)

[GreyBlack]

Locate City is a broken spell.

To that note, my group used to be a group which said monks were OP and casters were somewhat weak. Then, I asked permission from the DM to play a wizard, he was starting an evil campaign and we had no full caster in the group. Since it was an evil campaign, I asked if it would be okay to run a Divination specialist wizard/omnicidal maniac and pull out that combo at some point. His response was a flummoxed, "How the [REDACTED] are you even remotely able to pull that off?" I showed him the combo and received a prompt no. I always make sure that I check these things with my DM to make sure he's okay with it and not too far outside the group power level, as a courtesy and because it's fun playing with the group, so as not to outshine anyone else at the table.

[Ivanhoe]

SRD Wizard spells, with great fighter obsoleter, then defense, then misc:

1st: True Strike, Mage Armor, Silent Image
2nd: Alter Self, Mirror Image, Protection from Arrows
3rd: Haste, Fly, Greater Magic Weapon
4th: Polymorph, Stoneskin, Greater Invisibility
5th: Wall of Force, Overland Flight, Cloudkill
6th: Contingency, True Seeing, Tenser's Transformation Greater Heroism
7th: Forcecage, Spell Turning, Simulacrum
8th: Moment of Prescience, Mind Blank, Iron Body
9th: Astral Projection, Foresight, Time Stop

These are (in some cases) far from the best spells at each level, but it's an outline on how you might go about building a fighter-wizard. Put them together with a few save-or-dies, some dispels, summons, AoEs and a ray or three, and yes... you will give fighters a run for their money.

Bonus non-core spells:
1: Arrow Mind, Master's Touch, Nerveskitter, 2: Deflect, Sense Weakness, Heroics, 3: Alter Fortune, Heart of Water, Shivering Touch, 4: Celerity, Orb of Force, Bite of the Werewolf, 5: Dimension Jumper, Greater Blink, Draconic Polymorph, 6: Starmantle, Spore Cloak, Brilliant Blade, 7: Ironguard, Bite of the Werebear, Body of War, 8: Superior Invisibility, Heart of Stone, Mysterious Redirection, 9: Black Blade of Disaster, Dragonshiape, Greater Spell Matrix

As a long-time supporter of the notion that a wizard's familiar is better than a fighter (and currently getting second thouhts about that), how exactly do the spells you mentioned make martial/mundane characters obsolete?

[Telonius]

Wind Wall: Sorc/Wiz3, Clr3, Drd3. It's only rounds/level, and somewhat limiting in that you'd have to stay behind the wall (meaning a bit less maneuverability). But in many situations it makes archers useless.



Some other spells that make mundanes (not necessarily martial characters) obsolete:

Guidance of the Avatar: Clr2. One casting of it changes a Cleric into a Skillmonkey. "Oh, Mr. Rogue thought he'd beat my spot check, did he?"
Knock: Sorc/Wiz2. Makes a high Open Lock check much less special.

[Bonzai]

Guns don't kill people, People kill people. Like wise, Spells don't break campaigns, players do.

[Urpriest]

Guns don't kill people, People kill people. Like wise, Spells don't break campaigns, players do.

And just like a child who finds a gun around the house can precipitate a tragedy, a player who runs into a broken spell without understanding its power can wreck balance without trying.

[Dalebert]

Guns don't kill people. Speeding bullets kill people!

[Psyren]

And just like a child who finds a gun around the house can precipitate a tragedy, a player who runs into a broken spell without understanding its power can wreck balance without trying.

And just like the careless parent would be at fault in that situation rather than the gun, the DM must be careful which spells get into their players' hands/sheets.

[Melcar]

Specifically: Wish, Gate, Shapechange and Celerity

But pretty much all level 7, 8 and 9. Mostly level 9 though.

From a game perspective, its unfare, but thats why it sucks to be a strong person swinging a metal stick.

[Namfuak]

And just like the careless parent would be at fault in that situation rather than the gun, the DM must be careful which spells get into their players' hands/sheets.

The problem with this analogy is that we can't expect everyone who DMs to be an expert at the game, like we can expect a gun-owning parent to understand and follow gun safety procedures. Everyone had to start somewhere. However, the upside is that if a spell is used once and then deemed overpowered, unless the player who cast it is a stinker it's usually not a big deal. In my experience even the person casting the spell doesn't like it when the whole encounter is trivialized, unless it's their ace in the hole to save a battle.

[Psyren]

The moral is you should know what spells your players have even before they are cast.

Did they level up? Get that sheet.
Loot a dragon's hoard? Get that sheet.
Go shopping? Get that sheet.
Retrain anything, ever? Get that sheet.

You should also have access to their sheets before the session to see what they have prepared. The game expects the DM to have this information anyway.

[Curmudgeon]

Guns don't kill people. Speeding bullets kill people!
No, no, no. We're talking about people who use magic to run roughshod over the normal rules of existence: that is, the super people.

Haven't you seen any of the old Superman TV series with George Reeves? The bad guys would fire their full revolver load of bullets into Supe's chest, doing nothing. Then they'd throw the guns at Superman's head — and he'd inevitably duck. So bullets can't kill super people, but guns can. :smallbiggrin:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGf1r8-Snss

[GreyBlack]

And just like a child who finds a gun around the house can precipitate a tragedy, a player who runs into a broken spell without understanding its power can wreck balance without trying.

So the moral of the story is that it's the DMs fault for not properly educating the players and keeping the good stuff locked away?

[atemu1234]

So the moral of the story is that it's the DMs fault for not properly educating the players and keeping the good stuff locked away?

I feel like we're crossing into politics now, guys...

[Urpriest]

So the moral of the story is that it's the DMs fault for not properly educating the players and keeping the good stuff locked away?

The DM isn't the parent. The DM is just another player. In this analogy, perhaps an older child. Neither DMs nor players have months of exhaustive playtesting at their disposal, and neither DMs nor players are paid to write rules that lead to a balanced and fun game.

[atemu1234]

The DM isn't the parent. The DM is just another player. In this analogy, perhaps an older child. Neither DMs nor players have months of exhaustive playtesting at their disposal, and neither DMs nor players are paid to write rules that lead to a balanced and fun game.

There's a healthy amount of unbalance, in my opinion (we should probably retire the gun metaphor). It's always fun to have a player capable of one-shotting an entire tribe of Orcs. Fun is the important bit. If a player feels overshadowed, we should be careful.

[Arbane]

Specifically: Wish, Gate, Shapechange and Celerity

But pretty much all level 7, 8 and 9. Mostly level 9 though.

From a game perspective, its unfare, but thats why it sucks to be a strong person swinging a metal stick.

At lower levels, Flight and Teleport (and its little brother Dimension Door) can trivialize a lot of obstacles.

[elonin]

There are a some spells that are ready for abuse. The real difference of power is the versatility. A well prepared wizard can deal with many situations easier than a melee type can.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

IMO you obviate a fighter by killing things. That can be through summons (Malconvoker) or direct damage before the enemy can blink (Mailman), but IMO the most obvious way a caster obviates a fighter is by actually walking up and beating things to death (the gish). With that in mind...

Draconic Polymorph is basically just Polymorph+ a slot higher, and it's personal range. War Troll gets insane STR/NA/CON and decent DEX. If you're an outsider (otherworldly), Jarilith is even better, and it gets pounce! You can nab Kelvezu for high dex and sneak attack if you'd prefer.

Bite of the Were[animal] gives massive bonuses to stats, personal range.

Wraithstrike lets you target touch (for 2 rounds if extended, and of course all day if persisted). Of course, it's personal range as well.

The well-known Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Righteous Might are all personal.

Why do I focus on personal buff spells that improve your fighting? Well, they are natively persistable, but more importantly you can't cast it on the Fighter*. Haste is really powerful. For similar reasons, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful is really powerful. But they don't obviate the mundane classes, because they're group buffs. It's this personal buff nonsense. Did the designers really think letting you put these buffs on a fighter would break the game? "B-b-but, he has full BaB!" Well, so does an Incantatrix with Arcane Disciple: Hero, most of the above buffs, and many more.

*Barring shenanigans

[Gwendol]

Shatter, for obvious reasons...

Polymorph, Planar Ally/Binding, Gate, Wish, Miracle and a few others have strong game breaking potential. Other suspects are the various scrying and divination spells, teleportation, and means to shift between planes such as astral projection.

A lot of these spells are really high level though, and I have a feeling a majority of games take place at lower levels (no access to ninth level spells). There are culprits among those as well, as has been noted previously.