The worst balanced splatbook in 3.5?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Spinning out of the "Why so much ban forgotten realms and Eberron?" thread, I'm wondering... what do you think the single worst-balanced splatbook in 3.5 is? What book just makes you wince when someone asks about it? What book do you feel is the worst parade of cheese this side of Pun-Pun? Or alternately, is there a book where you feel like the entire thing is a trap option? Not just for one bad PrC or feat, but because the whole thing just feels like an endless parade of crap? With the notable exceptions of the Player's Handbook: Because we all know that the book with Wizards and Monks is probably the ultimate answer. (Also, let's try not to argue too much about controversial stuff like Tome of Battle).

To start things off, I'll vote for Serpent Kingdoms, the book that gives us Pun-Pun. And Venomfire. And Ability Rip. And the Manyfang Dagger. And Trait Removal. And the Nagahydra. I don't think I've heard of anything good coming out of that book.

[AnachroNinja]

I'd say maybe Tome of Magic for being pretty underpowered and Complete Champion for having a lot of broken stuff in it. Honorable mention to the book with Planar Shepherd

[Zaq]

Serpent Kingdoms was also my first impulse. Though I will defend the muckdweller, since they're goofy and fun. They're something good out of SK.

"Unbalanced" goes both ways, so on the low end, I want to mention the Miniatures Handbook. There's very little good material in there, with almost everything being way underpowered. I guess a one-level Marshal dip has its place in some builds? But taking more Marshal than that is awful, and the other unique class from that book is the Healer, which is a strong contender for "weakest base class that still gets 9ths." The PrCs are all basically unusable (Tactical Soldier? Dragon Samurai?), and the War Hulk in particular is just kind of stupid. I don't recall the feats being useful at all, either.

[Beheld]

Worst book: Complete Divine.

Persist Spell, also DMM Persist, also a PrC for Wizards and Druids to get turning attempts.

Persist spell is bad enough as is, obviously people are going to find a way to break it by not paying the cost. But then they just added in a way for everyone to do that into the book!

[Shadowquad]

My first reaction also was Serpent Kingdoms, for being ridiculously overpowered without tricks from other splatbooks.

On the other side of the spectrum, there's Weapons of Legacy: the concept is quite fun, the execution is horrible.

[Psyren]

Playe- Oh right, we can't use that one.

I'd say Book of Vile Darkness by a country mile. Hiveminds, Mindrape, Cancer Mage, Soul/Pain as resources, Mindrape, Soul Eater, Ur-Priest, Disciple of Dispater crit boosting, Mindrape, Apocalypse From The Sky, the list goes on (did I mention Mindrape?) About the only saving grace is that it's technically 3.0.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I'm seconding Weapons of Legacy. Other books may have their outliers, but i can't think of another one that doesn't have any decent but not broken options.
WoL is almost completely weak, with the only exception being Legacy Champion which is also weak unless you abuse it to extend classes beyond their written limits, then it's broken.

[Vizzerdrix]

Playe- Oh right, we can't use that one.

I'd say Book of Vile Darkness by a country mile. Hiveminds, Mindrape, Cancer Mage, Soul/Pain as resources, Mindrape, Soul Eater, Ur-Priest, Disciple of Dispater crit boosting, Mindrape, Apocalypse From The Sky, the list goes on (did I mention Mindrape?) About the only saving grace is that it's technically 3.0.

You forgot mindrape.

I want to mention mm4. As far as being balanced, against the other monster manuals it is weak. Too many reprinting of earlier monsters with class levels taced on. Honestly it is a waste of a book.

[Triskavanski]

I'd say maybe Tome of Magic for being pretty underpowered and Complete Champion for having a lot of broken stuff in it. Honorable mention to the book with Planar Shepherd

I'd agree on the Tome of Magic for how underpowered and clumsy the mechanics are.

[WhamBamSam]

Serpent Kingdoms was also my first impulse. Though I will defend the muckdweller, since they're goofy and fun. They're something good out of SK.I like a few of the feats as well, though they're mostly Savage Species reprints.

Speaking of Savage Species, it's another big hot mess of a sourcebook, not necessarily even in terms of being overpowered or underpowered (though it has its fair share of both), but in a lot of the material just not functioning as intended or being largely indecipherable.

Ultimately I'm going to give a cop out answer and say that pretty much every sourcebook has some redeeming qualities, but you'd be hard pressed to find one in 3.5 that you can read through the whole way without suspecting that the designers abdicated their duties to an army of monkeys at typewriters at some point.

[Zaq]

You forgot mindrape.

I want to mention mm4. As far as being balanced, against the other monster manuals it is weak. Too many reprinting of earlier monsters with class levels taced on. Honestly it is a waste of a book.

If we're accusing MMs of being problematic, I'd lean towards MM2 over MM4, unless MM2's not-quite-completely-3.5 nature serves as a defense. I agree that there's a ton of wasted potential in MM4 for pretty much the same reasons that you already stated, but that simply makes the book disappointing rather than actually unbalanced. MM2, on the other hand, has CRs that were chosen by blind monkeys who were on fire. Some are woefully over-CR'd, but many are dangerously under-CR'd. Plus it has some monsters that just aren't appropriate challenges at any CR, and plenty that are tempting in terms of having interesting fluff but extremely dangerous in terms of being very swingy or very unpredictable. (Like the thrice-damnéd Teratomorph, may it rot forever.)

MM4 at least has the Clockwork Steed, which is fun, and the Skiurid, which is endearing.

The Fiend Folio is similar to the MM2, for what that's worth.

Going in another direction, I think Ghostwalk is pretty horrifying in terms of its lack of balance. Many of its sins can be explained away as simply "does not play well with others" (in that you should basically never, ever use its material outside of a Ghostwalk-centric campaign), but even within itself, it's got some really wonky balance ideas, both low and high.

Savage Species is also very poorly balanced. I think its crimes against balance are self-evident.

[digiman619]

I'd agree on the Tome of Magic for how underpowered and clumsy the mechanics are.

Well, 3rd party Pathfinder gave us two- (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/strange-magic)thirds (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pact-magic) of it redone in a more balanced and far less clumsy manner.

[Troacctid]

I was going to say Complete Warrior, but I've changed my mind, I forgot about how much Weapons of Legacy blew it. Damn, that book is a pile of crap. They screwed a whole subsystem into unplayability. It has to take the cake.


Playe- Oh right, we can't use that one.

I'd say Book of Vile Darkness by a country mile. Hiveminds, Mindrape, Cancer Mage, Soul/Pain as resources, Mindrape, Soul Eater, Ur-Priest, Disciple of Dispater crit boosting, Mindrape, Apocalypse From The Sky, the list goes on (did I mention Mindrape?) About the only saving grace is that it's technically 3.0.
What's wrong with Disciple of Dispater and Cancer Mage? They seem fine to me.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'll add my voice to the chorus of SK, though I'd like to say that (at least for Clerics), there's fun stuff in there that's not broken as long as you don't use too many CL boosters or otherwise abuse it. I agree with the poster above who said the fluff was great. But, trying to make sense of the Scaled One deities and their history? Almost as difficult as figuring out how bloodlines work.

My nominations are several: Epic Level Handbook, because all the content should either be accessible way before 20, or is so overpowering that it shouldn't be allowed in any games at all.

Enemies and Allies, because even though it's fairly self-balanced, when compared to the rest of the game, it falls very flat.

I've got a personal gripe with Draconomicon, mostly because it's just so terribly edited, and suffered greatly from the 3.0 -> 3.5 transition.

[Rerednaw]

Low: Tome of Magic, all martial books including ToB which makes martials Tier 3-5.

High-Power: Spell Compendium, Draconomicon.

*facepalm* powerful: Complete Divine. Web supplements such as the Dweomerkeeper (for Complete Divine, surprise, surprise): Miracle as a SU for no xp or material cost?

[JNAProductions]

Cancer Mage has some abuse with Festering Anger, but outside that, I think it's fine.

[rgrekejin]

I'd say maybe ... Complete Champion for having a lot of broken stuff in it.

Ah, Complete Champion. None of the stuff in it is quite broken to the Persist Spell/DMM level that Complete Divine gives us, but this book seems to have been balanced to a different internal standard (assuming it ever got balanced at all) than most other 3.5 books. There's nothing in it I can recall that's completely broken, but almost everything in it is significantly stronger than similar options available from other sources. It has a very high average power level, even if it lacks any single ill-concieved game-breaker.

[Eldan]

To start things off, I'll vote for Serpent Kingdoms, the book that gives us Pun-Pun. And Venomfire. And Ability Rip. And the Manyfang Dagger. And Trait Removal. And the Nagahydra. I don't think I've heard of anything good coming out of that book.

Also splitting arrows I think? Never read that book,but heard bad things.

[Remuko]

Seconding the Epic Level Handbook. I love it dearly for what its trying to do but it requires a lot of patchwork to pretend to function in any meaningful capacity. I will say I prefer the hot mess of the ELH over certain systems/editions not having rules for post lvl 20. I love the idea of theoretically infinite leveling.

[Eldan]

Oh yeaaaah. The Epic Level Handbook. Simultaneously broken upwards and downwards, depending on class. IT's the Player's Handbook, but worse.

[Psyren]

What's wrong with Disciple of Dispater and Cancer Mage? They seem fine to me.

Cancer Mage gets infinite arbitrarily high Strength, how is that fine? You can punch the planet in half.

Tripling crit range isn't going to break the bank or anything but I personally think it goes against the point of a critical hit if you're doing it all the time.

[JNAProductions]

Disciple of Dispater is, I think, not much of an issue because it helps warrior types, not so much mages. And we all know warriors need more nice things.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Disciple of Dispater is, I think, not much of an issue because it helps warrior types, not so much mages. And we all know warriors need more nice things.

The problem is that the "nice things" warriors need is not "more damage". Warriors don't have a problem with damage if they're well built, they have a problem with everything else.

[JNAProductions]

The problem is that the "nice things" warriors need is not "more damage". Warriors don't have a problem with damage if they're well built, they have a problem with everything else.

Fair enough, that's a good point.

[Zombimode]

Serpent Kingdoms was also my first impulse. Though I will defend the muckdweller, since they're goofy and fun. They're something good out of SK.

"Unbalanced" goes both ways, so on the low end, I want to mention the Miniatures Handbook. There's very little good material in there, with almost everything being way underpowered. I guess a one-level Marshal dip has its place in some builds? But taking more Marshal than that is awful, and the other unique class from that book is the Healer, which is a strong contender for "weakest base class that still gets 9ths." The PrCs are all basically unusable (Tactical Soldier? Dragon Samurai?), and the War Hulk in particular is just kind of stupid. I don't recall the feats being useful at all, either.

There is some good stuff in the Miniatures Handbook. That most of its good stuff got reprinted in later books can't be hold against it.
From the Feats that didn't got a reprint Double Hit is quite good. There are a handful of useful feats in the DM's toolbox like Reckless Charge.
The Warchief PRC likewise is a useful DM tool.

[Vizzerdrix]

Also splitting arrows I think? Never read that book,but heard bad things.

Splitting arrows arent so bad. DR still cuts deep into an archers dps.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ah, Complete Champion. None of the stuff in it is quite broken to the Persist Spell/DMM level that Complete Divine gives us, but this book seems to have been balanced to a different internal standard (assuming it ever got balanced at all) than most other 3.5 books. There's nothing in it I can recall that's completely broken, but almost everything in it is significantly stronger than similar options available from other sources. It has a very high average power level, even if it lacks any single ill-concieved game-breaker.
Late 3.5 stuff tended to be balanced pretty far upwards of early stuff, because the designers recognized how royally they screwed the pooch on balance early on. You'll usually see more interesting options, fewer full-casting PrCs, and more powerful non-caster options.


Also splitting arrows I think? Never read that book,but heard bad things.
Nah, those are in Champions of Valor, I think.

[tyckspoon]

Cancer Mage has some abuse with Festering Anger, but outside that, I think it's fine.

And Vile Rigidity. Also some benefit from Warp Touch, although that one is both less troublesome (because it happens once and you're done unless/until you find another way to get inflicted with it) and less guaranteed to be helpful. I do think the book should be awarded (penalized?) extra points for the sheer obviousness of this exploit, tho - it's not even combining multiple books, so you don't have the 'well, they didn't have encyclopedic knowledge of everything this might interact with' excuse. You have diseases with the interesting idea of "makes you stronger, right up until the side effects kill you" in the same book as "doesn't suffer negative effects from diseases." What did they think was going to happen here?

[Zanos]

Cancer Mage gets infinite arbitrarily high Strength, how is that fine? You can punch the planet in half.

Tripling crit range isn't going to break the bank or anything but I personally think it goes against the point of a critical hit if you're doing it all the time.
Also arbitrary high natural armor via Vile Rigidity. To be fair, pretty much every game setting will be unrecognizable by the time a Cancer Mage can literally punch the planet in half. Each day only adds +1 damage, and the earth probably has hit points in the hundreds of millions to billions range. Even assuming 100 million at the low end, the cancer mage will be about 274,000 years old at that point. Going to use my ESP to assume that Troacctid is going to argue that Cancer Mage's are immune to all of the mechanical effects of the diseases they carry, not just the penalties. Seen that argument before.

BoVD also has fun stuff like Warp Touch, which you can buy via the warpsword. If you can game the RNG you can get sweet goodies like a medusa gaze attack, extraordinary flight, and "deformity" bonuses to con/dex/int. And natural weapons.

[Beheld]

High-Power: Spell Compendium,

Spell Compendium is 90% at least reprints, and when it makes changes, it nerfs the spells it is reprinting. Even if you bought the book and had literally no other books, 97% of it is going to be exactly as powerful as the material you were already using.

[AmberVael]

Cancer Mage has some abuse with Festering Anger, but outside that, I think it's fine.


Cancer Mage gets infinite arbitrarily high Strength, how is that fine? You can punch the planet in half.

Tripling crit range isn't going to break the bank or anything but I personally think it goes against the point of a critical hit if you're doing it all the time.

I agree that arbitrary strength scores aren't good. On the other hand, Cancer Mage isn't whats giving you arbitrarily high strength, its Festering Anger. Now, if Cancer Mage was what let you break Festering Anger, it'd make sense to criticize it in particular, but you hardly need Cancer Mage to abuse it. If anything, Cancer Mage is depowering you by requiring you to invest in a ton of useless stuff, like Great Fortitude and Toughness. Instead of picking up all its bad prerequisite feats and spending a level on it, you can just pick up a Rod of Bodily Restoration and Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind) to negate the side effects of it every day while continuing to get the benefits. And both of those investments have more than just the benefit of letting you abuse Festering Anger safely.

[Dracul3S]

Epic Level Handbook. The different epic class progressions, the epic feats. There is no balance in that book.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by rgrekejin
Ah, Complete Champion.

…almost everything in it is significantly stronger than similar options available from other sources. It has a very high average power level, even if it lacks any single ill-concieved game-breaker.

So, what in Complete Champion stands out as significantly stronger?

There seems to be a general sense that it’s a lot further along the power curve, but people don’t always give specific examples.

.

[Stealth Marmot]

Magic Item compendium is a great book for combining magic items and putting the charts in, and has a good deal of fun toys but...it's also full of new slots for items that suddenly overpower and over complicate inventory use. Psychoactive skins also sort of add an element Im not to keen on.

There's good stuff in there too, but the new charts have a tendency to clog the treasure field with items that are increasingly narrow in their usefulness and likely to make players balk at the treasure they end up with. "Oh instead of gauntlets of strength you get boots that make you harder to bull rush!"

It's such a mixed bag, but I would say that around half of the items in the MiC are crap, and half of the rest are unbalanced.

[Venger]

Also arbitrary high natural armor via Vile Rigidity. To be fair, pretty much every game setting will be unrecognizable by the time a Cancer Mage can literally punch the planet in half. Each day only adds +1 damage, and the earth probably has hit points in the hundreds of millions to billions range. Even assuming 100 million at the low end, the cancer mage will be about 274,000 years old at that point. Going to use my ESP to assume that Troacctid is going to argue that Cancer Mage's are immune to all of the mechanical effects of the diseases they carry, not just the penalties. Seen that argument before.

BoVD also has fun stuff like Warp Touch, which you can buy via the warpsword. If you can game the RNG you can get sweet goodies like a medusa gaze attack, extraordinary flight, and "deformity" bonuses to con/dex/int. And natural weapons.

that's what fast time planes are for. or being immortal through regular means such as elan or killoren

[sleepyphoenixx]

Magic Item compendium is a great book for combining magic items and putting the charts in, and has a good deal of fun toys but...it's also full of new slots for items that suddenly overpower and over complicate inventory use. Psychoactive skins also sort of add an element Im not to keen on.

There's good stuff in there too, but the new charts have a tendency to clog the treasure field with items that are increasingly narrow in their usefulness and likely to make players balk at the treasure they end up with. "Oh instead of gauntlets of strength you get boots that make you harder to bull rush!"

It's such a mixed bag, but I would say that around half of the items in the MiC are crap, and half of the rest are unbalanced.

What new slots? MIC adds no new item slots that i'm aware of, unless you're talking about weapon/armor crystals (which i actually rather like). Psychoactive skins are just a reprint.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing on your second point, but a bit of item bloat is kind of expected when you make a book that's full of items and nothing else.
Also if your "boots that make you harder to bull rush" references the Steadfast Boots i have to question your choice of example. It's one of the best items for melee to get for the price.

[Troacctid]

I agree that arbitrary strength scores aren't good. On the other hand, Cancer Mage isn't whats giving you arbitrarily high strength, its Festering Anger. Now, if Cancer Mage was what let you break Festering Anger, it'd make sense to criticize it in particular, but you hardly need Cancer Mage to abuse it. If anything, Cancer Mage is depowering you by requiring you to invest in a ton of useless stuff, like Great Fortitude and Toughness. Instead of picking up all its bad prerequisite feats and spending a level on it, you can just pick up a Rod of Bodily Restoration and Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind) to negate the side effects of it every day while continuing to get the benefits. And both of those investments have more than just the benefit of letting you abuse Festering Anger safely.
Yeah, Festering Anger is busted, but Cancer Mage doesn't give you any special access to the disease, nor does it particularly improve your ability to abuse it. If you're infected with Festering Anger, sure, you could take two feats and a level to maybe negate the drawback, or you could just drop a few k on a rod that does the same thing.

[Psyren]

I agree that arbitrary strength scores aren't good. On the other hand, Cancer Mage isn't whats giving you arbitrarily high strength, its Festering Anger. Now, if Cancer Mage was what let you break Festering Anger, it'd make sense to criticize it in particular, but you hardly need Cancer Mage to abuse it. If anything, Cancer Mage is depowering you by requiring you to invest in a ton of useless stuff, like Great Fortitude and Toughness. Instead of picking up all its bad prerequisite feats and spending a level on it, you can just pick up a Rod of Bodily Restoration and Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind) to negate the side effects of it every day while continuing to get the benefits. And both of those investments have more than just the benefit of letting you abuse Festering Anger safely.

This is all academic because Festering Anger debuted in that same book, so it doesn't actually change my rating. In fact, that makes it worse - whereas you had to book dive to ToB etc for your alternative, any schlub reading just BoVD could stumble across this combo in one volume, and even assume it was intended by the designers (who more likely, looking at the other things in the book like Hiveminds, either forgot to really playtest like the rest of 3.0 or had mentally earmarked the contents of the book as being for villains and not PCs.)


Epic Level Handbook. The different epic class progressions, the epic feats. There is no balance in that book.

I agree ELH is the worst, but at the same time, I'm not sure that makes it the worst balanced. I mean, it's epic, it's supposed to be nonsensical to a degree.

[Eldan]

I agree ELH is the worst, but at the same time, I'm not sure that makes it the worst balanced. I mean, it's epic, it's supposed to be nonsensical to a degree.

I'd say it's way, way up there for internal balance, just comparing what low-tier classes get vs. what casters get.

[tyckspoon]

So, what in particular stands out as significantly stronger? There seems to be a general sense that it’s a lot further along the power curve, but people don’t always give specific examples.

ACFs:
Spirit Lion Totem for Barbarians is the clear standout here; it's responsible for Barbarian being a nigh-mandatory dip for almost all optimized melee.
Fighter Aligned Strike is pretty neat, and probably worth more than the feat it replaces. The other two Fighter ACFs are at least not bad.
Paladin Underdark Knight is.. mostly uninspiring, but the high level abilities from it give Earth Glide (rare, for PCs, and enables some significant shenanigans) and Dimension Door.
Rogues can get Sneak Attack against Undead, share their Evasion with adjacent allies, or get a ... different form of Sneak Attacking undead.
Sorcerers can trade some normal spells known for Domain spells.
Wizards can get a domain power, and the big kicker Spontaneous Divinations.

Feats:
Most of the Domain feats come from here. Knowledge, Travel, Protection, Animal, Trickery, Law.. plenty of things here that are above-average for feats.
Spontaneous Domains. Retrieve Spell (spend Turn attempts for a Pearl of Power effect.) Freakin' Battle Blessing.

Prestige Classes:
Fist of the Forest (what it does isn't great in the grand scheme of D&D, but for what it does it's a good option.)
Ordained Champion (Spontaneous War domain spells, change Turn Undead attempts into Smites.)
A handful of short 3-5 level prestiges; even if not especially powerful on their own, these are easy to slot into other builds where appropriate. Paragnostic Apostle probably stands out having relatively soft requirements and being full casting progression + class features.

Spells:
..ok, I don't *think* there's anything terribly notable here. Could be wrong.

Items:
God-specific holy symbols. Your obligatory spellcasting focus is now a minor magical item.
Bow of Elvenkind - auto-strength adjusting Composite Bow (reprinted/changed in Magic Item Compendium, possibly.)
Bracers of Divine Luck - mostly notable because there isn't a lot of competition for useful Bracer-slot items.
Cloak of the Dragon - cheap flight for worshippers of the appropriate gods.
Ring of the Beast - better Summon Nature's Ally, because Druids needed help.
Domain Staffs - like Runestaffs, but contain a set of Domain spells instead.

Edit: Oh, hey, I missed a spell. Surge of Fortune comes from here. Substitute Domain, which effectively means your domain choices are all the ones your deity offers (although still only 2 to however many you got from prestige classes at a time.) Footsteps of the Divine is a versatile movement spell. Benediction is a pretty nifty other-character buff, for level 2; decent duration, rare bonus type, and grants a reroll.

[Venger]

isn't giving melee nice things good balance though? I don't see how it's bad balance.

[Cosi]

Tome of Magic is the worst on the low end of the scale. The classes range from "below average" for the Binder to "possibly the worst PC class" for the Truenamer. It also suffers from all the bloat problems that later splats do, though that's not (directly) a balance problem.

The ELH is the worst on the high end. Epic Level Spellcasting might be the worst thing ever. It's terrible and underpowered if you use it the way you're supposed to, but easy if you cheese costs down to zero. It is cheaper and faster to learn spells the more broken they are.


isn't giving melee nice things good balance though? I don't see how it's bad balance.

Giving Barbarians Pounce isn't a balance problem. It's a diversity problem. It pushes all melee characters towards Ubercharging even harder, rather than opening up new viable options. It's hard to get worked up about it, because even Tome of Battle: Book of Martial Power Creep still only produced middle of the pack options.

Overall, I don't really get people being worked up over Complete Champion. The only thing that I recall being particularly crazy is Spontaneous Divination, and that only really goes nuts with Versatile Spellcaster.

[sleepyphoenixx]

ACFs:
Spirit Lion Totem for Barbarians is the clear standout here; it's responsible for Barbarian being a nigh-mandatory dip for almost all optimized melee.
Fighter Aligned Strike is pretty neat, and probably worth more than the feat it replaces. The other two Fighter ACFs are at least not bad.
Paladin Underdark Knight is.. mostly uninspiring, but the high level abilities from it give Earth Glide (rare, for PCs, and enables some significant shenanigans) and Dimension Door.
Rogues can get Sneak Attack against Undead, share their Evasion with adjacent allies, or get a ... different form of Sneak Attacking undead.
Sorcerers can trade some normal spells known for Domain spells.
Wizards can get a domain power, and the big kicker Spontaneous Divinations.

Feats:
Most of the Domain feats come from here. Knowledge, Travel, Protection, Animal, Trickery, Law.. plenty of things here that are above-average for feats.
Spontaneous Domains. Retrieve Spell (spend Turn attempts for a Pearl of Power effect.) Freakin' Battle Blessing.

Prestige Classes:
Fist of the Forest (what it does isn't great in the grand scheme of D&D, but for what it does it's a good option.)
Ordained Champion (Spontaneous War domain spells, change Turn Undead attempts into Smites.)
A handful of short 3-5 level prestiges; even if not especially powerful on their own, these are easy to slot into other builds where appropriate. Paragnostic Apostle probably stands out having relatively soft requirements and being full casting progression + class features.

Spells:
..ok, I don't *think* there's anything terribly notable here. Could be wrong.

Items:
God-specific holy symbols. Your obligatory spellcasting focus is now a minor magical item.
Bow of Elvenkind - auto-strength adjusting Composite Bow (reprinted/changed in Magic Item Compendium, possibly.)
Bracers of Divine Luck - mostly notable because there isn't a lot of competition for useful Bracer-slot items.
Cloak of the Dragon - cheap flight for worshippers of the appropriate gods.
Ring of the Beast - better Summon Nature's Ally, because Druids needed help.
Domain Staffs - like Runestaffs, but contain a set of Domain spells instead.

Edit: Oh, hey, I missed a spell. Surge of Fortune comes from here. Substitute Domain, which effectively means your domain choices are all the ones your deity offers (although still only 2 to however many you got from prestige classes at a time.) Footsteps of the Divine is a versatile movement spell. Benediction is a pretty nifty other-character buff, for level 2; decent duration, rare bonus type, and grants a reroll.
None of that stuff strikes me as particularly problematic, with the possible exception of Spirit Lion Totem (but mostly i think it's that it lacks alternatives, not that it's too powerful). It's just good. Not too good, just good.
I've certainly never seen any of it being banned for being too powerful. Aren't build options supposed to be useful?

As for the Ring of the Beast - "because Druids needed help"? Seriously?
Just being a strong class doesn't mean you don't deserve cool items. Or else you could just take VoP.
Not to mention that i never see this kind of complaint about wizards or clerics, is always "Oh, a druid-friendly/specific item, why would anyone print something like that?"

[Telonius]

Magic of Incarnum is a contender, I think. I love it as a system and a multiclass addition, and it mostly lacks the brokenly powerful things most other splatbooks fall victim to. But when it's weak, it is really brokenly weak. Between Soulborn managing to be worse than Paladin, and Undead Meldshaping really not working like the developers thought it was supposed to, It's got some really awful options. Contrast that with the awesomeness that just a regular single-classed Totemist could pull off (let alone the absurdity of what can happen when you put it on a Changeling Warshaper, or even just a race with lots of natural attacks).

[Stealth Marmot]

What new slots? MIC adds no new item slots that i'm aware of, unless you're talking about weapon/armor crystals (which i actually rather like). Psychoactive skins are just a reprint.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing on your second point, but a bit of item bloat is kind of expected when you make a book that's full of items and nothing else.
Also if your "boots that make you harder to bull rush" references the Steadfast Boots i have to question your choice of example. It's one of the best items for melee to get for the price.

I dont have the ook in front of me sadly, I just remember a LOT of bad items.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Giving Barbarians Pounce isn't a balance problem. It's a diversity problem. It pushes all melee characters towards Ubercharging even harder, rather than opening up new viable options.
To be fair, the same book also gives us Travel Devotion, which is the other great-mobility-for-a-one-level-dip option.

[tyckspoon]

I didn't mean to imply that that list is actually overpowered, just better than similar options I can recall in other books. Like the ACFs; Pounce is usually much more expensive in gold, feats, or class levels, or if not is severely limited in some way. Spontaneous Wizard spells cost multiple feats and usually have a significant restriction on which spells, how many, or the action cost to use them; this ACF costs one bonus feat. Ring of the Beast is just surprisingly inexpensive for what it does. There's a Devotion feat that's useful for just about any character with next to no requirements. Just a higher concentration of stuff that is above the benchmarks of most other splats. Whether that's actually the appropriate level the game should have been designed for in all the books is a different discussion.

Re: MIC-
The Magic Item Compendium almost requires Magic-Mart to be a thing in your game to work really well, I think. Most of those 'bad' items can be thought of as optional add-ons to your basic stat boosters, thanks to the MIC changes to the rules on adding properties that mean you can add stat bonuses, AC, and save bonuses to things with little to no penalty charge. But that only works as intended if you can presume you have ready access to merchants and/or crafters who can sell or create the item you want. If you're rolling found items only, yeah, I can see a complaint about having all of this stuff clogging up the treasure possibilities for stuff you actually want to use.

[Zanos]

that's what fast time planes are for. or being immortal through regular means such as elan or killoren
You'd have to create a demiplane, as there are no accessible natural fast time planes, taking us back to 9ths being overpowered. Being an Elan or Killoren doesn't really help with this kind of timescale. It's likely the entire setting will be gone by the time you're done hulking up.

This is only assuming you actually want to sunder the planet, though. You can easily just adventure and enjoy your +2 strength every day. You'll be stronger than any printed creature in a few months anyway.



isn't giving melee nice things good balance though? I don't see how it's bad balance.
Giving melee variety and utility is good. Giving them more ways to smash for damage = very yes every turn probably isn't as great. Not nearly bad enough for me to call it one of the worst balanced books, though.

[Venger]

Re: MIC-
The Magic Item Compendium almost requires Magic-Mart to be a thing in your game to work really well, I think. Most of those 'bad' items can be thought of as optional add-ons to your basic stat boosters, thanks to the MIC changes to the rules on adding properties that mean you can add stat bonuses, AC, and save bonuses to things with little to no penalty charge. But that only works as intended if you can presume you have ready access to merchants and/or crafters who can sell or create the item you want. If you're rolling found items only, yeah, I can see a complaint about having all of this stuff clogging up the treasure possibilities for stuff you actually want to use.
does anyone not play with magic-mart? the game is so explicitly constructed with the assumption pcs will have certain amounts of necessary gear almost immediately (e.g. the infamous cr 3 shadow who you cannot hurt at all without a magic weapon) that it simply doesn't work in a "low-magic" setting.

what exactly is the advantage of creating busywork for yourself as a gm by rolling for loot, banning shops, and not just letting pcs buy the stuff they want? that's the only thing money's good for in the game.


You'd have to create a demiplane, as there are no accessible natural fast time planes, taking us back to 9ths being overpowered. Being an Elan or Killoren doesn't really help with this kind of timescale. It's likely the entire setting will be gone by the time you're done hulking up.

This is only assuming you actually want to sunder the planet, though. You can easily just adventure and enjoy your +2 strength every day. You'll be stronger than any printed creature in a few months anyway.

Giving melee variety and utility is good. Giving them more ways to smash for damage = very yes every turn probably isn't as great. Not nearly bad enough for me to call it one of the worst balanced books, though.

you are, of course, right, but if we're talking about cancer mage getting NI strength as a given, then clearly we're no longer discussing actual play, but are in TO, where "fast time plane" is the answer to everything.

by "roll an immortal race" I meant if your game was already starting in the mid-levels to explain your NI str score so you wouldn't have to keep track of your bonuses during actual play. if you're in a game where a festering anger cancer mage is allowed, then I can't see a dm caring about this.

attacking spirit lion totem is complaining about the treatment to the root symptom of the system that didn't allow you to just move and full attack as a normal thing characters could do, like charge and bullrush in the first place. I know the PHB is disallowed for purposes of this thread, but the designers seriously overestimated how useful dealing HP damage was.

[Psyren]

You'd have to create a demiplane, as there are no accessible natural fast time planes,

Realm of Dreams in MotP is fast time. Erratic time planes also have the potential to be fast time.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Festering Anger doesn't need a fast time plane or immortal races to break the game. One week of infection and you're jumping past anything the game expected you to have; one year and you can knock out elder dragons with one punch.

[Zanos]

Realm of Dreams in MotP is fast time. Erratic time planes also have the potential to be fast time.
I also believe it's listed under "variant planes", and is not actually detailed in any printed setting other than Eberron's Dal-Quor, which was severed from the planar cosmology and is unreachable.


you are, of course, right, but if we're talking about cancer mage getting NI strength as a given, then clearly we're no longer discussing actual play, but are in TO, where "fast time plane" is the answer to everything.

by "roll an immortal race" I meant if your game was already starting in the mid-levels to explain your NI str score so you wouldn't have to keep track of your bonuses during actual play. if you're in a game where a festering anger cancer mage is allowed, then I can't see a dm caring about this.
Fair.



attacking spirit lion totem is complaining about the treatment to the root symptom of the system that didn't allow you to just move and full attack as a normal thing characters could do, like charge and bullrush in the first place. I know the PHB is disallowed for purposes of this thread, but the designers seriously overestimated how useful dealing HP damage was.
As much as the god wizards on this forum would have you believe otherwise (and I play them almost exclusively), dead creatures can't take any actions.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd nominate Magic of Incarnum not for its content, but its layout. The soulmelds chapter, the entire reason for the book to exist, is possibly the worst-organized material in any D&D book ever.

[Venger]

As much as the god wizards on this forum would have you believe otherwise (and I play them almost exclusively), dead creatures can't take any actions.

sorry, I don't think I explained myself clearly. this ties in with something I saw you say the other day about how the forum "hates damage" with respect to wizard spells:

by "this game thinks dealing hp damage to opponents is more useful than it actually is" I didn't mean "dealing hp damage to opponents is a worthless strategy and you should use SoD or no-save effects instead." what I meant was "they put in a lot of barriers that would allow characters, especially mundanes, do reliably deal even low amounts of damage, such as being able to move and full attack at the same time." this is also seen by the lackluster effects from early always-on abilities such as eldritch blast.

and I don't think the board hivemind is anti-damage, per se. after all, things like the mailman exists. it's more that the prevailing design philosophy behind a god or batman wizard is that you best serve your party by dishing out status or bfc effects, and while it's easy for you to outstrip the party's fighter by dealing more hp damage than him, it's not the best use of your resources but more importantly is kind of a jerk move, so it suggests buffing him, debuffing enemies, etc rather than fireball everything like the designers wanted you to do.

[Psyren]

I also believe it's listed under "variant planes", and is not actually detailed in any printed setting other than Eberron's Dal-Quor, which was severed from the planar cosmology and is unreachable.

Printed is printed - if it is used at a table, you won't need a 9th-level spell to get there, was my point.

[Dagroth]

I think the real problems with Complete Warrior vs. Complete Champion boil down to "First Out, Last Out".

Complete Warrior is garbage that suffers from "Ooo... that's a nice idea. Too bad it's borked up." Many of the PrC class prereq's have the "why do you have to have that?" feeling... like Kensai requiring Combat Expertise. Sure, the name of the feat sounds like something a Kensai would have... but the Feat itself?

Yeah, there's a couple of nice things in there (like Warshaper), but then you have things like the Hexblade (that needs to be upgraded to at least Duskblade level of power) and the Samurai ("lets take a Fighter and put even more limitations on what he can do!").

Complete Champion does a lot to add pretty balanced options. Sure, Pounce at Level 1 Barbarian was a mistake... putting it at level 3 and it encourages Barbarians, rather than barbarian-dips (Bardipians?) Battle Blessing is not unbalanced for a Paladin (it's unbalanced if you allow it for a Prestige Paladin, obviously) and it wouldn't be unbalanced for a Ranger, either... unless you say that Sword of the Arcane Order makes Wizard Spells into Paladin spells.

So if you put them together, there's a huge imbalance between the two books... but I wouldn't say either book is unbalanced on its own.

[sleepyphoenixx]

As much as the god wizards on this forum would have you believe otherwise (and I play them almost exclusively), dead creatures can't take any actions.
That's not why people here advocate god wizards (or any other kind of focus) over blasters. Hp damage has it's place.

It's just that blasting is a horrendously inefficient use of your spell slots unless you optimize the hell out of it (see:Mailman), everyone can do damage, and most non-wizards can not only do reliable damage without spending daily resources, they can actually do very little else.

Effective BFC (or buffing, or summoning) on the other hand is almost entirely limited to casters, so you're generally doing yourself and your group a disservice if you insist on throwing Fireballs around.

Nobody is saying that you can't play a blaster caster. Blaster casters can be a lot of fun, and if that's what you want and can make work for your group more power to you.
But there's no denying that it's probably the least effective thing you can do with your spell slots.
So if someone makes a thread and asks about good options to make his wizard contribute to the group the natural answers are "god-wizard", "BFC", "buffer", "summoner" or a mix of those, not "blaster".

[Zanos]

sorry, I don't think I explained myself clearly. this ties in with something I saw you say the other day about how the forum "hates damage" with respect to wizard spells:

by "this game thinks dealing hp damage to opponents is more useful than it actually is" I didn't mean "dealing hp damage to opponents is a worthless strategy and you should use SoD or no-save effects instead." what I meant was "they put in a lot of barriers that would allow characters, especially mundanes, do reliably deal even low amounts of damage, such as being able to move and full attack at the same time." this is also seen by the lackluster effects from early always-on abilities such as eldritch blast.

and I don't think the board hivemind is anti-damage, per se. after all, things like the mailman exists. it's more that the prevailing design philosophy behind a god or batman wizard is that you best serve your party by dishing out status or bfc effects, and while it's easy for you to outstrip the party's fighter by dealing more hp damage than him, it's not the best use of your resources but more importantly is kind of a jerk move, so it suggests buffing him, debuffing enemies, etc rather than fireball everything like the designers wanted you to do.

I don't disagree with the philosophy of God/Batman wizards in general, it's largely correct. Control/buff/debuff spells promote party synergy, allow everyone to fill a discrete role, and are the most efficient way of handling many encounters. But forums tend to internalize and amplify, to the point where damage spells(and sometimes even damage itself) being terrible is overblown and nearly mimetic. I have seen people on this forum defend 500 damage pounces at level 5 or 6 as fine because they were just doing damage, which is a mindset that is at odds with most real tables.

The mailman was also created on the now defunct WotC forum.


-snip-
See above.

[Flickerdart]

High-Power: Spell Compendium

If you replaced all PHB spells with all SpC spells, you would be playing a much lower-powered game.

[Cosi]

If you replaced all PHB spells with all SpC spells, you would be playing a much lower-powered game.

The party would also be hosed whenever they encountered Mummies, Wights, or anything else you're supposed to restoration away.

Also you would be stuck on the DM's rails 100% of the time.

If you're worried about polymorph and planar binding, ban those spells. Don't ban a bunch of unrelated spells because "lol core is the most broken thing ever". The best solution is the one with the smallest number of bans.

[Venger]

I don't disagree with the philosophy of God/Batman wizards in general, it's largely correct. Control/buff/debuff spells promote party synergy, allow everyone to fill a discrete role, and are the most efficient way of handling many encounters. But forums tend to internalize and amplify, to the point where damage spells(and sometimes even damage itself) being terrible is overblown and nearly mimetic. I have seen people on this forum defend 500 damage pounces at level 5 or 6 as fine because they were just doing damage, which is a mindset that is at odds with most real tables.

So your point is that it's often not borne in mind that all gms can't negate or provide challenging counters to, say, a typical ubercharger, mailman, d2 crusader, or other character who can "only" deal large amounts of hit point damage?

That makes sense.

[Flickerdart]

The party would also be hosed whenever they encountered Mummies, Wights, or anything else you're supposed to restoration away.

Also you would be stuck on the DM's rails 100% of the time.

If you're worried about polymorph and planar binding, ban those spells. Don't ban a bunch of unrelated spells because "lol core is the most broken thing ever". The best solution is the one with the smallest number of bans.

Whether or not restoration is balanced has absolutely no bearing on the balance of Spell Compendium. Your crusade is not relevant to this thread.

[Cosi]

Whether or not restoration is balanced has absolutely no bearing on the balance of Spell Compendium. Your crusade is not relevant to this thread.

If replacing the PHB spell lists with the Spell Compendium spell lists causes characters to lose to otherwise level appropriate encounters, it is not more balanced. Obviously.

[Beheld]

If replacing the PHB spell lists with the Spell Compendium spell lists causes characters to lose to otherwise level appropriate encounters, it is not more balanced. Obviously.

You say that, but you and I are the only people in this entire forum who define balance that way.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If replacing the PHB spell lists with the Spell Compendium spell lists causes characters to lose to otherwise level appropriate encounters, it is not more balanced. Obviously.
It requires a bit more care on the DM's part when placing monsters who inflict ability damage and otherwise-incurable status conditions, but you could argue that not having effortless access to, say, Remove Disease makes encounters with Mummies more interesting and narratively meaningful. I mean, I generally agree with you that there are some parts of the PHB that are difficult to do without, but exaggeration on both sides doesn't help. Also, not sure what that has to do with "you would be stuck on the DM's rails 100% of the time." Player agency depends on the DM presenting a responsive world, not being able to cast Teleport from Plot.

[Troacctid]

That's not why people here advocate god wizards (or any other kind of focus) over blasters. Hp damage has it's place.

It's just that blasting is a horrendously inefficient use of your spell slots unless you optimize the hell out of it (see:Mailman), everyone can do damage, and most non-wizards can not only do reliable damage without spending daily resources, they can actually do very little else.

Effective BFC (or buffing, or summoning) on the other hand is almost entirely limited to casters, so you're generally doing yourself and your group a disservice if you insist on throwing Fireballs around.

Nobody is saying that you can't play a blaster caster. Blaster casters can be a lot of fun, and if that's what you want and can make work for your group more power to you.
But there's no denying that it's probably the least effective thing you can do with your spell slots.
So if someone makes a thread and asks about good options to make his wizard contribute to the group the natural answers are "god-wizard", "BFC", "buffer", "summoner" or a mix of those, not "blaster".
Blasting also happens to be more effective for damage-dealing than the vast majority of mundane builds.

[Cosi]

It requires a bit more care on the DM's part when placing monsters who inflict ability damage and otherwise-incurable status conditions, but you could argue that not having effortless access to, say, Remove Disease makes encounters with Mummies more interesting and narratively meaningful.

I disagree. The effect of fighting a Mummy (or Wight, or whatever) is that your character is worse in the long term, which is bad for the game because it encourages killing off those characters. In the standard game, you're still effected by Mummy Rot or Negative Levels or whatever that day (because the Cleric probably doesn't prepare restoration), so you still get consequences beyond the fight. I don't see what making those consequences permanent adds.


Also, not sure what that has to do with "you would be stuck on the DM's rails 100% of the time." Player agency depends on the DM presenting a responsive world, not being able to cast Teleport from Plot.

Well, yes and no. Obviously the DM can railroad you regardless of what the rules say. But the benefit of things like teleport or speak with dead or plane shift is that they bake the idea of player agency into the game. Those abilities should be explicitly provided to the players for the same reason that we explicitly provide players with abilities like fireball or Power Attack. The point of the rules is to adjudicate disputes between different players, and if one player (the DM) is the only one with the ability to interact with a certain layer of the game, that's bad.

Abilities like teleport are also important for differentiating low level play from high level play. If both 1st level and 20th level adventures are "go over there, kill the things that are over there, and bring back their stuff", there's no reason to have twenty separate levels.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Blasting also happens to be more effective for damage-dealing than the vast majority of mundane builds.

Only if you actually optimize for it (as in kill with one spell). Otherwise you spend more spells per encounter than you would if you just BFCed and let your mundanes mop up.

Yes, a non-optimized 5th level wizard casting Fireball for d6/level damage will beat out the sword & board fighter who only took Toughness and Weapon Focus for feats, especially in encounters with groups of lesser enemies. He'll also run dry of Fireballs after 2 encounters, or even 1.

A greatsword-wielding barbarian with Power Attack will do enough damage to kill most things in one round though, and that's enough damage for most encounters. You don't really need more.
Him being able to do it more-or-less unopposed isn't significantly slower than the wizard taking off half the enemies hp and letting the barbarian overkill - and a lot safer, saving the party cleric on healing spells/items.

Even a well-built rogue does more than enough damage to deal with the enemies in the various MMs. So does a well built fighter, and he doesn't even have to be a charger.
It doesn't really matter if your level 11 blaster sorcerer does 400 points of damage with a single spell when most enemies have maybe half that or less at CR 20.

[Triskavanski]

Someone mentioned weapons of legacy. I'd agree that is another bad balance book on the low scale. "Oh hey, sacrifice 3skill points, a finger, 30 hp and your mother to get a +1 to seeings the difference between indigo and purple."

[Grod_The_Giant]

I disagree. The effect of fighting a Mummy (or Wight, or whatever) is that your character is worse in the long term, which is bad for the game because it encourages killing off those characters. In the standard game, you're still effected by Mummy Rot or Negative Levels or whatever that day (because the Cleric probably doesn't prepare restoration), so you still get consequences beyond the fight. I don't see what making those consequences permanent adds.
I'm not suggesting that such things be permanent, just that "Mummies are deadly; if we get infected the only way to save ourselves will be to complete the Ritual of Ku-ad-oerth at the Temple of the Sun!" is, for some games and groups, an improvement on "Mummies are irritating; if we get infected we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the cleric to cure us." On-pain-of-plot-hook instead of on-pain-of-temporary-inconvenience, if you will.


Well, yes and no. Obviously the DM can railroad you regardless of what the rules say. But the benefit of things like teleport or speak with dead or plane shift is that they bake the idea of player agency into the game. Those abilities should be explicitly provided to the players for the same reason that we explicitly provide players with abilities like fireball or Power Attack. The point of the rules is to adjudicate disputes between different players, and if one player (the DM) is the only one with the ability to interact with a certain layer of the game, that's bad.

Abilities like teleport are also important for differentiating low level play from high level play. If both 1st level and 20th level adventures are "go over there, kill the things that are over there, and bring back their stuff", there's no reason to have twenty separate levels.
Well, sure, but the SpC (to say nothing of other splats that may also be in play) is hardly bereft of utility spells. It just has fewer that bypass entire swathes of the game.

[Psyren]

I'm not suggesting that such things be permanent, just that "Mummies are deadly; if we get infected the only way to save ourselves will be to complete the Ritual of Ku-ad-oerth at the Temple of the Sun!" is, for some games and groups, an improvement on "Mummies are irritating; if we get infected we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the cleric to cure us." On-pain-of-plot-hook instead of on-pain-of-temporary-inconvenience, if you will.


I agree, but I'd reserve something like this for a specific mummy - e.g. a miniboss, or maybe even all the way up to the Big Bad or his Dragon. Needing to jump through hoops like this for every mook or ascended mook (and having a world designed around same) would get old in a hurry.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I'm not suggesting that such things be permanent, just that "Mummies are deadly; if we get infected the only way to save ourselves will be to complete the Ritual of Ku-ad-oerth at the Temple of the Sun!" is, for some games and groups, an improvement on "Mummies are irritating; if we get infected we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the cleric to cure us." On-pain-of-plot-hook instead of on-pain-of-temporary-inconvenience, if you will.
If you contract Mummy Rot you'd better be familiar with the Temple of the Sun and have a caster with Teleport, because otherwise you're pretty much dead unless you're supremely lucky.
And if you do die you can't even be revived until True Resurrection because dying from Mummy Rot effectively disintegrates you.

I've had people dying of Mummy Rot even with a cleric in the group who had scrolls of Remove Curse around and prepared more the next morning because of that DC 20 CL check.
Remember that a Mummy is CR 5. A few unlucky rolls on the CL check and the fort saves/ability damage can kill most characters in 24-48 hours. You don't really have time to go sidequesting for a cure.

Not to mention that Mummies have a paralyzing fear aura that triggers on sight with no range limit, so it's not too hard to have more than one infected person, especially in a fight with multiple Mummies. Unless your low level parties tend to carry around Remove Curse scrolls in double-digit numbers your group is pretty screwed even with access to the spells and a cleric in the party.

So yeah, at the level you're supposed to fight them? Mummies are already deadly as hell.

[The Viscount]

If we're accusing MMs of being problematic, I'd lean towards MM2 over MM4, unless MM2's not-quite-completely-3.5 nature serves as a defense. I agree that there's a ton of wasted potential in MM4 for pretty much the same reasons that you already stated, but that simply makes the book disappointing rather than actually unbalanced. MM2, on the other hand, has CRs that were chosen by blind monkeys who were on fire. Some are woefully over-CR'd, but many are dangerously under-CR'd. Plus it has some monsters that just aren't appropriate challenges at any CR, and plenty that are tempting in terms of having interesting fluff but extremely dangerous in terms of being very swingy or very unpredictable. (Like the thrice-damnéd Teratomorph, may it rot forever.)
The Fiend Folio is similar to the MM2, for what that's worth.

MM2 has been partially fixed in terms of the DR but you're right in that CR is all over the place, and it is the book that gave us the exploitable dream that is the Jovoc. I still prefer MM2 to MM4 because in addition to the regular races with class levels, MM4 spends 36 pages on the Tiamat family reunion, and that really soured the experience for me.

I'm fully seconding mentions of Savage Species. So many PrCs and feats in that book that are just explicitly for monsters or NPC. I know it's the book that makes monsters playable de jure, but show me a player that's rolled up Sybil, Emancipated Spawn, Yuan-ti Cultist or Slaad Brooder and I'll show you a liar.

A lot of the really good ones have been said already, so I'm going to add Complete Psionic: of the PrCs presented only about 2 are worthwhile, and the base classes give us 1 solid and 2 of the worst psionic classes. It also gave us the erudite, which laid the foundation for the infamous StP acf.

[Amechra]

I agree with Tome of Magic, just because of the massive balance swing within the book. You've got Binders (which are decent), Shadowcasters (which are meh), and Truenamers (what is this I don't even).

It also has some of the best flavour, so...

[StreamOfTheSky]

Forgotten Realms in general has always seemed overpowered and I generally ban it all. Eberron's got some ridiculous stuff but IME is much more sane, I think it gets banned so much because the flavor of its setting doesn't fit w/ what DM's are doing in their campaigns.

For specific books...

Serpent Kingdoms
Savage Species
Complete Divine
Book of Vile Darkness
Most of the later Monster Manuals
Complete Psionic (for nerfing things that didn't need nerfing, what a horrible splat book)
Spell Compendium (I hate to list it because 90%+ of it is well-designed spells and it's a good book, but the fact remains...you're giving tons of new toys to the guys who need them the least, and unlike C. Arcane/Divine, there's not much at all for the noncasters here)

[Rerednaw]

...
specific books...

... the later Monster Manuals
Complete Psionic (for nerfing things that didn't need nerfing, what a horrible splat book)
Spell Compendium (I hate to list it because 90%+ of it is well-designed spells and it's a good book, but the fact remains...you're giving tons of new toys to the guys who need them the least, and unlike C. Arcane/Divine, there's not much at all for the noncasters here)
+1 to this.
FYI to the other posters who seemed to disagree with my stance the SpC is high powered (not broken mind you compared to even the PHB) is the exact reason above. It gives Tier 1 even more tools that I felt frankly they did not really need. Nice fluff here and there and some reprints again from other splats for Tier 1...but I would have preferred some more for martials.

Course I allow all 3.5 in my games anyway so *shrug*

[Mordaedil]

I'll nominate Complete Psionics for being a complete waste of purchase and not expanding on the existing psionics in any meaningful way.

[Efrate]

Where to begin. PHB obviously, barring that...

I hate the MIC generally, because of the enormous swatch of situational whatever items that totally clog treasure, and a million cheap 2x/day things sometimes gets easily out of hand,I do not want to learn 300 pages or whatever or sitational stuff or have to look up X Y Z or track stuff over multiple sessions that go on in the same day or whathave you. I always allow boots of X vs. gauntlets of X and such, that is reasonable and DMG calls it out.

Magic of incarnum is a book I am falling more and more in love with as I read it more and more, but soulborn is borked, incarnate is meh, totemist has potential, but its such a headache to read because its like they tore the manuscript up and kinda glued bits where ever and said ship it. Also why oh why do so many of the feats NOT offer essentia. Considering its more or less vitally necessary to do much of anything, seems like or oversight. Or make extra essentia able to be taken multiple times at +1 essentia per. Between limits on shaped soulmelds, more limits on binds, essentia limited per level it would be so much easier to just take extra essentia multiples time to fuel your very niche powers. Also incarnate should either have a lot more ranged option support and at least have 3/4 BAB.

SK can be silly, I dislike Eberron because I don't want steampunk in my D&D, but its assumptions clash with most settings, a lot of FR is more fluff and you can slot in a lot easier without totally breaking verisimilitude.

The completes are a mixed bag, and as a whole I think they are fine though DMM/persist discounts can go die in a fire.

Planar handbook (the 3.5 one) is just inferior in pretty much every way to manual of the planes (the 3.0 ones unless I am mixing up my books), and Complete Psi never happened. Tome of magic is woefully underpowered, from binder being a very cool and flavorful class that just falls flat, truenamer which doesn't work, and shadowcaster which is also pretty terrible. Then you give binders zycrell which is just bonkers. Unlimited summoner monster a level sooner than anyone else and it has a template is kind of silly.

[tiercel]

+1 to this.
FYI to the other posters who seemed to disagree with my stance the SpC is high powered (not broken mind you compared to even the PHB) is the exact reason above. It gives Tier 1 even more tools that I felt frankly they did not really need. Nice fluff here and there and some reprints again from other splats for Tier 1...but I would have preferred some more for martials.

Course I allow all 3.5 in my games anyway so *shrug*

To be fair, SpC is pretty good for bards, paladins, and rangers in terms of spell options. (Granted, it does hand out a lot more goodies to T1, plus makes those lower-tier spells stealable options for T1 to boot... but also for wand/scroll UMD users)

[Gemini476]

I'd nominate Magic of Incarnum not for its content, but its layout. The soulmelds chapter, the entire reason for the book to exist, is possibly the worst-organized material in any D&D book ever.
It's bad, but being the worst-edited 3E book still puts it leagues ahead of the early days of the hobby.

OD&D's Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, has the following structure:

Explanation of psionic drawbacks for character classes.
Druid write-up.
Explanation of psionic drawbacks for Thieves.
Alignment chart of the book's new monsters.
Explanation of determination of psionic ability and potential (and minimum stats required to become a Druid.)
Note that there's a chance of getting bonus psionic abilities equal to your Psionic Potential, and explanation of how often you get them (~10%/level chance, 1/level).
Druid level-up table, Highlander Duel rules, and spell/Fighting Capability table.
Initiative rules for ranged attacks/spells.
Psionic combat rules, including the huge matrices. (Also included are rules for how often you get Attack/Defense Modes, and a quick note that you've got a never-mentioned-elsewhere Psionic Defense Strength number that doesn't matter.)
Rules for recovering psionic energy.
Attacks and saving throws of new monsters.
Druid spell list.
Psionic ability list, and explanation of psionic abilities.
Explanation of Druid spells.
Stats of new monsters, and descriptions. (Rules for demon amulets are stuck in the end of the Demon subsection.)
Artifact descriptions.
Artifact ability descriptions.
Encounter tables.


It's an alright book, but that list really doesn't do it justice. Figuring out how on earth Psionics worked was a chore.


Yes, a non-optimized 5th level wizard casting Fireball for d6/level damage will beat out the sword & board fighter who only took Toughness and Weapon Focus for feats, especially in encounters with groups of lesser enemies. He'll also run dry of Fireballs after 2 encounters, or even 1.
3*Toughness, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization and a +1 longsword means that they're hitting at +7+STR for 1d8+3+STR damage - assuming 16 strength from elite array and level-up, that's +10/1d8+6. Against the average tofu-block CR5 enemy (AC 17.16, Ref +5.82) the Fighter does 7.266 DPR. An (elite array+levelup, Spell Focus) low-op fireball blaster has DC17 for 5d6 damage, so does an average of ~13.2/fireball - one fireball is slightly worse than two attacks, in other words, but probably makes up for that by virtue of AoE.
Magic Missile does 3d4+3 damage, no save, so 10.5.
The average CR5 enemy has 56.33hp, so needs five Fireballs to kill it (or eight sword-swings, or six Magic Missiles).

For those curious, the damage at level 6 (assuming the Fighter picked up yet another Toughness feat) is... +11/1d8+6 +7/1d8+6 vs. AC18.88 = 6.363+3.738 ~= 10.1 damage.
Hit points are 69.12, so seven sword-swings.
Reflex has gone up to +6.85 while fireball has gone up to 6d6, averaging out to ~15.3. So still five fireballs.

The old Optimization by the Numbers table didn't account for offensive stats, sadly, so I don't know who wins the damage race. Probably the group with four characters that finishes the job in two turns, though.

I might have done the math a bit wrong - 5% one way or the other, I think, and I ignored crits - but it's an interesting way to look at things.

Also, of course, this immediately shows how Haste is stronger than Fireball against small groups - not only does Haste give an extra attack (and thus is immediately better against a single target if you have two S&B Fighters to buff), but it also gives +1 to hit and lasts for five rounds!
Fireball probably shines better against larger groups, but I kind of want to consider Cleave for that.

I might do the math later, I dunno.

[Stealth Marmot]

To be fair, SpC is pretty good for bards, paladins, and rangers in terms of spell options. (Granted, it does hand out a lot more goodies to T1, plus makes those lower-tier spells stealable options for T1 to boot... but also for wand/scroll UMD users)

I agree with this. One of the things I liked most about Spell Compendium are spells that are either lower level for paladins/rangers/bards, or spells that are exclusive to those classes since they make the spellcasting of those classes unique and useful instead of watered down versions of primary casters that many players willingly trade off for a few bonus feats.

[Jormengand]

XPH, hands down. For all that ToM gave us the genuinely-decent binder, the moderately-sucky shadowcaster and the insanely-swingy truenamer, XPH gives us as base classes two full-casters who are arguably stronger than the PHB casters, a decent gish, and a class so awful that for the first few levels it's better off actively avoiding its own class features and sinking martial weapon proficiency on a greatsword. For prestige classes, you get a mystic theurge redo, some weird pointless gish thing, a class which does nothing but make you slightly worse at manifesting than taking more base class levels, another bad partial-manifesting prestige class, a monk gish thing which really wants to be a base class, an awful fire-based PrC... and then the last three: a full-bab 9/10 manifester which gives you immunity to several schools of magic and psionic disciplines as well as other assorted nice features, an 8/10 manifester which gives you a better version of leadership, and a full-bab class with five-sixths of the psychic warrior's manifesting shoved into ten levels, oh, and these last three are practically impossible not to qualify for if you're trying. The XPH's internal balance is somehow even worse than the PHB's.

[Anthrowhale]

Complaining about the Spell Compendium seems odd to me because most of the spells are reprints from other books, sometimes incorporating fixes and occasionally nerfs. The only spell I know of that became stronger in the Spell Compendium is Hail of Stone which became a fairly strong L1 spell due to the addition of SR:No.

Given this, banning the Spell Compendium while including everything else probably increases the power of T1 casters. And, if you look through all the books which the Spell Compendium draws from for spells not included in the Spell Compendium, you typically find stronger spells than those in the Spell Compendium. I'm thinking of Shivering Touch and the mother cyst spells as examples.

[Troacctid]

Earthen Grasp got buffed! It used to provoke attacks of opportunity for grappling!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky
Forgotten Realms in general has always seemed overpowered and I generally ban it all.

…can you give specific examples? Any particular spells, items, PrCs that have caused you problems?


Originally Posted by Efrate
…a lot of FR is more fluff and you can slot in a lot easier without totally breaking verisimilitude.

My first 3.5 group played exclusively in the Forgotten Realms, and that was pretty much our experience. Not sure about “verisimilitude” per se, but we never had the problems that seem to have made the Realms so notorious.

[Cosi]

Someone mentioned weapons of legacy. I'd agree that is another bad balance book on the low scale. "Oh hey, sacrifice 3skill points, a finger, 30 hp and your mother to get a +1 to seeings the difference between indigo and purple."

Yeah, that book was crap. Which is really sad, because "arbitrary artifact sword of level appropriate magic bonuses" is one of the simplest ways to fix martial characters.


I'm not suggesting that such things be permanent, just that "Mummies are deadly; if we get infected the only way to save ourselves will be to complete the Ritual of Ku-ad-oerth at the Temple of the Sun!" is, for some games and groups, an improvement on "Mummies are irritating; if we get infected we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the cleric to cure us." On-pain-of-plot-hook instead of on-pain-of-temporary-inconvenience, if you will.

Possibly, but that's not the choice being presented. The SpC alone doesn't leave you with a bunch of rituals to replicate core spells, it leaves you with nothing. Certainly it's possible that you could happen to prefer any particular set up for dealing with disease, ability drain, or other maladies, but the one you're talking about is not the one present in the SpC. It also warps the base game to a pretty huge degree even if you do happen to do it.


Well, sure, but the SpC (to say nothing of other splats that may also be in play) is hardly bereft of utility spells. It just has fewer that bypass entire swathes of the game.

You mean like teleport? teleport does three things:

1. Let you bypass travel.
2. Let you bypass encounters.
3. Let you pull the famed teleport Ambush.

The first is an obvious good. People who are supposed to wade through armies shouldn't have adventures where "get from point A to point B is a significant challenge".

The second is also good, because the only encounters people will bypass are ones that they aren't interested in, and having to fight through filler encounters is bad. If the only reason the DM can think of for you to fight a monster is because he put it there, he has failed as a DM.

The third isn't really the fault of teleport, so much as it is the fault of attacker advantage (choosing the time and therefore having your short term buffs running) being much bigger than defender advantage (choosing the location and therefore having ... I guess maybe you could use guards and wards?). If you gave people better locational defenses, or worse short duration buffs, the problem would disappear without changing teleport at all. If you change teleport without changing those things, people will just go to whatever the next best thing is.


…can you give specific examples? Any particular spells, items, PrCs that have caused you problems?

Incantatrix, Red Wizard, Hathran, Dweomerkeeper, and Spelldancer all hail from the Forgotten Realms. Those classes are all varying degrees of insane (Red Wizard probably the least so on its own, but CL shenanigans are dangerous). Also Initiate of Mystra and Greenbound Summoning.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The third isn't really the fault of teleport, so much as it is the fault of attacker advantage (choosing the time and therefore having your short term buffs running) being much bigger than defender advantage (choosing the location and therefore having ... I guess maybe you could use guards and wards?). If you gave people better locational defenses, or worse short duration buffs, the problem would disappear without changing teleport at all. If you change teleport without changing those things, people will just go to whatever the next best thing is.
Those defenses already exist.
Scry & die tactics only work when the enemy leaves those defenses or doesn't/can't put them up, because they're crippling for the attackers if set up properly.
Forbiddance kills any kind of teleport-ambush on a fixed position all by itself. Private Sanctum foils anything with the [Scrying] descriptor.
Even a mobile group is pretty safe with (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation and Nondetection/Mind Blank.

The problem is that you need a cleric and/or a wizard for those. Any enemy without is a sitting duck for a group who has a full caster.
And the big problem with Teleport is that other forms of ambush can be detected on approach. Without a wizard casting AT you have no such chance against scry & die.


Incantatrix, Red Wizard, Hathran, Dweomerkeeper, and Spelldancer all hail from the Forgotten Realms. Those classes are all varying degrees of insane (Red Wizard probably the least so on its own, but CL shenanigans are dangerous). Also Initiate of Mystra and Greenbound Summoning.
That's actually pretty tame considering the number of FR books available. It's really no worse than setting-neutral material with stuff like DMM, IotSV, Shadowcraft Mage or Uncanny Forethought.
Eberron is actually better in that regard. The only really broken thing that comes to mind is the Planar Shepherd.

Just ban those and allow the rest unless it conflicts with your settings flavor. And i rather doubt that something like Monastic Training does that unless you also ban monks and psionics.

[Zaq]

Let's not forget that Forgotten Realms also has a ton of really low-power crap in it as well. PrCs that have towering piles of prereqs and stretch one and a half interesting class features over ten levels. "Flavorful" regional feats that give insultingly narrow bonuses. "Playable" races with LA and RHD that are way beyond anything the race actually does. There's the brokenly strong crap that's already been mentioned, but there's also a higher-than-average portion of stuff that was obviously intended to be used on one NPC (or one group of NPCs) in a dev's home game and that has nothing useful to offer anyone else.

[nyjastul69]

Weapons of Legacy was the single most disappointingly poor 3.x product I've ever bought. It is the definition of the wrong execution of the right idea. So much opportunity lost. I can actually deal with the ups and downs of splat book balance issues, I expect that. I can deal with layout issues, I expect those. What I don't expect is that my shiny new weapon will start to eat bits of me in order to be fully functional.

[Beheld]

The are on Sanctum and Forbiddence are criminally small towards actually protecting any reasonable area that you might want to move around in. Like yeah, if you literally had a shack in the woods, but good luck layering a big Cathedral, much less a castle or dungeon with that stuff.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The are on Sanctum and Forbiddence are criminally small towards actually protecting any reasonable area that you might want to move around in. Like yeah, if you literally had a shack in the woods, but good luck layering a big Cathedral, much less a castle or dungeon with that stuff.

Forbiddance wards a 60ft cube/level and has a minimum CL of 11. That's plenty for most buildings, not to mention it's permanent so nothing is stopping you from casting it as often as needed.
If you can afford a castle you can afford to ward the damn thing with Forbiddance.

And Mage's Sanctum doesn't need to protect the whole castle. A secure room to make plans or discuss sensitive information is all that's needed.

Not to mention that once you go outside core there's items like the Weirdstone, which wards a 6 mile radius against teleportation, scrying and astral or ethereal travel.
That's enough to ward an entire city.

[Flickerdart]

If you can afford a castle you can afford to ward the damn thing with Forbiddance.

Given how common earth-shattering threats are in your typical kitchen sink setting, it's probably fair to say that just because you can afford to build/buy a castle, it doesn't mean you can afford to own the castle. Warding it with all kinds of spells is the only way to make sure that your investment doesn't burn down.

[Venger]

Given how common earth-shattering threats are in your typical kitchen sink setting, it's probably fair to say that just because you can afford to build/buy a castle, it doesn't mean you can afford to own the castle. Warding it with all kinds of spells is the only way to make sure that your investment doesn't burn down.

You're renting it from someone with the landlord feat.

Better check that casting all these weird spells doesn't break your lease like owning a waterbed.

[Flickerdart]

You're renting it from someone with the landlord feat.

In that case, the landlord is the one liable for repairs, and will want to be the one to invest in all these spells.

[Venger]

In that case, the landlord is the one liable for repairs, and will want to be the one to invest in all these spells.

"YOU HAVE A SENDING FROM 1324 HENSBANE GROVE. DO YOU ACCEPT?"

landlord:"Yes"

message:"Some ne'er do well activated the sepia snake sigil on my granary again. Can you come by, cart him off, and replace the thing? Thank you kindly"

landlord:"St. Cuthbert's beard, it's always something."

[Flickerdart]

"YOU HAVE A SENDING FROM 1324 HENSBANE GROVE. DO YOU ACCEPT?"

landlord:"Yes"

message:"Some ne'er do well activated the sepia snake sigil on my granary again. Can you come by, cart him off, and replace the thing? Thank you kindly"

landlord:"St. Cuthbert's beard, it's always something."

Well, receiving sendings and contracting spellcasters would be the job of the superintendent.

IRL a lot of buildings don't allow folks to bring in any old repair guy (or mover guy, or appliance guy), because you need to have a certificate of insurance that proves that someone else can pay up in case anything goes wrong. So you could make a fair bit of scratch as a multiclass wizard/insurance agency.

[The Viscount]

Planar handbook (the 3.5 one) is just inferior in pretty much every way to manual of the planes (the 3.0 ones unless I am mixing up my books), and Complete Psi never happened. Tome of magic is woefully underpowered, from binder being a very cool and flavorful class that just falls flat, truenamer which doesn't work, and shadowcaster which is also pretty terrible. Then you give binders zycrell which is just bonkers. Unlimited summoner monster a level sooner than anyone else and it has a template is kind of silly.

Binder works fine. It certainly has a few gaps in its abilities in ToM alone like flight, but it's very playable. Was there something specifically about it that let you down?

To be fair Zceryll doesn't come from ToM but from a web enhancement. I will completely agree that Zceryll does not fit in with the other vestiges in terms of power level, and I take the writeup of influence as a sign that the writer did not know enough about vestiges to be mucking about with them.
This raises a good point actually. The web enhancements for binder are exceptionally unbalanced. Zceryll of course is dramatically stronger than every other vestige, and bumps binder one tier stronger alone. Vanus is acceptable if in the lower half of power, and the city ones are good. But the psionic vestiges! They give you a pathetically small number of PP for the powers you get, and the other benefits are either very small or in the case of Abysm, literally nothing. Yes I know that the Triad grants proficiency with all exotic weapons, but am I really going to get so much use out of (essentially) that alone that I bind it to the exclusion of the other 6ths?

[Venger]

Well, receiving sendings and contracting spellcasters would be the job of the superintendent.

IRL a lot of buildings don't allow folks to bring in any old repair guy (or mover guy, or appliance guy), because you need to have a certificate of insurance that proves that someone else can pay up in case anything goes wrong. So you could make a fair bit of scratch as a multiclass wizard/insurance agency.

I would play in this campaign. The PC with the action-packed letters of payment.

Yours truly, Johnathan Goldpiece.

[Cosi]

Those defenses already exist.
Scry & die tactics only work when the enemy leaves those defenses or doesn't/can't put them up, because they're crippling for the attackers if set up properly.
Forbiddance kills any kind of teleport-ambush on a fixed position all by itself. Private Sanctum foils anything with the [Scrying] descriptor.
Even a mobile group is pretty safe with (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation and Nondetection/Mind Blank.

Sure, there are counters to Scry and Die tactics that work with various levels of efficiency. That's not really what I'm talking about. My issue is that there are awesome short duration buffs (like divine power) that encourage you to go in guns blazing, but no compensating abilities that make it easy to hold ground. That's the root cause of teleport assaults, and if you changed it there would be dramatically less reason to do them.


The problem is that you need a cleric and/or a wizard for those. Any enemy without is a sitting duck for a group who has a full caster.

I can't even remotely view this as a problem. Of course ignoring magic entirely makes you vulnerable! So does ignoring technology entirely in the real world. It's like complaining about having to use tanks instead of knights in a WWII game. The fact that there are a bunch of classes that don't get magic is a problem, but the fact that you need magic to stop demigods who are coming to murder you seems totally fine.


That's actually pretty tame considering the number of FR books available. It's really no worse than setting-neutral material with stuff like DMM, IotSV, Shadowcraft Mage or Uncanny Forethought.

I dunno, assuming those lists represent an equal percentage of broken stuff in their respective domains, Forgotten Realms contains at least as much broken stuff as the entire rest of the game. It seems reasonable to ban it on that basis.

[Beheld]

Forbiddance wards a 60ft cube/level and has a minimum CL of 11. That's plenty for most buildings, not to mention it's permanent so nothing is stopping you from casting it as often as needed.
If you can afford a castle you can afford to ward the damn thing with Forbiddance.

And Mage's Sanctum doesn't need to protect the whole castle. A secure room to make plans or discuss sensitive information is all that's needed.

Not to mention that once you go outside core there's items like the Weirdstone, which wards a 6 mile radius against teleportation, scrying and astral or ethereal travel.
That's enough to ward an entire city.

The Well's Cathedral is by no means the biggest one in the world. It would take 17,430 castings of Forbiddance at CL 11 to lock in the entire area cathedral and a very small amount of external area.

Also note that the material component is per cube. So even a single casting of CL 11 Forbiddance making maximum area is going to cost 18,000gp. To enclose the entire Cathedral is 300 Billion gp.

This is not a feasible method of teleport proofing your locations.

If you Sanctum only a single area, then you confine yourself to that area forever, or you get teleport ambushed, the person teleport ambushing you doesn't care if they hear your sensitive conversations, they just want to appear and kill you. Detect Scrying gives you full proof protection against people listening in on you, but it doesn't stop them from murdering you.

[Calthropstu]

I find the worst balanced books to be the smaller ones. Not enough weight to stay on my head.

[Zanos]

The Well's Cathedral is by no means the biggest one in the world. It would take 17,430 castings of Forbiddance at CL 11 to lock in the entire area cathedral and a very small amount of external area.

Also note that the material component is per cube. So even a single casting of CL 11 Forbiddance making maximum area is going to cost 18,000gp. To enclose the entire Cathedral is 300 Billion gp.

This is not a feasible method of teleport proofing your locations.

If you Sanctum only a single area, then you confine yourself to that area forever, or you get teleport ambushed, the person teleport ambushing you doesn't care if they hear your sensitive conversations, they just want to appear and kill you. Detect Scrying gives you full proof protection against people listening in on you, but it doesn't stop them from murdering you.
It's a 60 ft cube, not 60 cubic feet.

[rgrekejin]

The Well's Cathedral is by no means the biggest one in the world. It would take 17,430 castings of Forbiddance at CL 11 to lock in the entire area cathedral and a very small amount of external area.

Also note that the material component is per cube. So even a single casting of CL 11 Forbiddance making maximum area is going to cost 18,000gp. To enclose the entire Cathedral is 300 Billion gp.

This is not a feasible method of teleport proofing your locations.

If you Sanctum only a single area, then you confine yourself to that area forever, or you get teleport ambushed, the person teleport ambushing you doesn't care if they hear your sensitive conversations, they just want to appear and kill you. Detect Scrying gives you full proof protection against people listening in on you, but it doesn't stop them from murdering you.

It's a 60 ft cube, not 60 cubic feet.

Using the measurements for Wells Cathedral I got off Wikipedia (415*140*180 at its widest points), a cube completely surrounding it would be 11,503,800 cubic feet. One 60-foot cube is 216,000 cubic feet. So, an 11th level caster could cover 2,376,000 cubic feet with a single casting, at a cost of 18,000gp. Five castings would give you 11,880,000 cubic feet of space, enough to enclose the cathedral completely, at a cost of 90,000 gp. Frankly, that seems almost ridiculously cheap for a permanent effect.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Sure, there are counters to Scry and Die tactics that work with various levels of efficiency. That's not really what I'm talking about. My issue is that there are awesome short duration buffs (like divine power) that encourage you to go in guns blazing, but no compensating abilities that make it easy to hold ground. That's the root cause of teleport assaults, and if you changed it there would be dramatically less reason to do them.
Those exist too. What do you think BFC and defensive buffs are for? Not to mention that attack has to exceed defense in some way to prevent stalemates that last forever.
The whole point of scry & die tactics is to jump your enemy while he's unbuffed and unprepared. Ideally while he has spent the majority of his daily spells and is sleeping to recover them.

The entire threat not only disappears as soon as you have (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation up, if you do your attacker teleports right into an ambush instead of ambushing you.
Assuming your enemies can scry you in the first place, because that too can be defended against. Rather easily in fact.
If you have the appropriate defenses scry & die tactics are a not only a non-threat, they can even be an opportunity to trap an unwary opponent.

Which brings up my problem:

I can't even remotely view this as a problem. Of course ignoring magic entirely makes you vulnerable! So does ignoring technology entirely in the real world. It's like complaining about having to use tanks instead of knights in a WWII game. The fact that there are a bunch of classes that don't get magic is a problem, but the fact that you need magic to stop demigods who are coming to murder you seems totally fine.
That's a great attitude for immersion and worldbuilding, but for a group where no one wants to play a wizard it sucks.
If a defense against a tactic nearly every spellcaster can do is only available to a single class that's bad balance.

I dunno, assuming those lists represent an equal percentage of broken stuff in their respective domains, Forgotten Realms contains at least as much broken stuff as the entire rest of the game. It seems reasonable to ban it on that basis.
Why? It's still only a tiny fraction of FR material. You don't ban non-setting material on the basis of the broken stuff in it, you ban the broken stuff and leave the rest.
What makes setting specific content (or more accurately, content from a setting-specific book that's otherwise completely generic) different?

Not to mention that FR has almost as many books as there are non-setting specific books, so it's not that surprising. Seriously, there are a lot of FR books. It was 3.5s flagship setting for a long time.



If you Sanctum only a single area, then you confine yourself to that area forever, or you get teleport ambushed, the person teleport ambushing you doesn't care if they hear your sensitive conversations, they just want to appear and kill you. Detect Scrying gives you full proof protection against people listening in on you, but it doesn't stop them from murdering you.
For the first see rgrekejin's answer.
And again, if you can build a cathedral that big you can pay the money to ward it. A permanent spell that disables an entire (big) line of spells should have a cost.

As for the Sanctum, you can't get teleport ambushed in a Forbiddance even if you get scryed. There's also multiple personal protections against scrying and teleport for if you leave your protected area.
If you're important enough to have people capable of scry & die after you you can afford those protections. The only reason to ward a permanent base is to save on spell slots and for your mooks to be somewhat useful instead of people teleporting around them.

And again, if it's really that important to you to be unobserved and in a teleport-locked area the size of a city buy a Weirdstone. 6 mile radius, 230,000gp.

[Dagroth]

Monastic Training is the dumbest Feat Tax I have ever seen... ever. A close second is Knight Training.

They fixed most of that with the "Aesthetic" & "Devoted" Feats in the Complete books. I personally threw out Monastic Training as a requirement for Tashalatora, since Aesthetic Mage is a thing.

The Argent Fist PrC in Faiths of Eberron requires one or the other, then has the nerve to give you Aesthetic Knight as a "Bonus Feat" at first level.

[zergling.exe]

Monastic Training is the dumbest Feat Tax I have ever seen... ever. A close second is Knight Training.

They fixed most of that with the "Aesthetic" & "Devoted" Feats in the Complete books. I personally threw out Monastic Training as a requirement for Tashalatora, since Aesthetic Mage is a thing.

The Argent Fist PrC in Faiths of Eberron requires one or the other, then has the nerve to give you Aesthetic Knight as a "Bonus Feat" at first level.

A nitpick, but the word is "ascetic", not aesthetic.

[LordOfCain]

A nitpick, but the word is "ascetic", not aesthetic.

What's wrong with handsome arcanists? :smallbiggrin:

[thorr-kan]

I find the worst balanced books to be the smaller ones. Not enough weight to stay on my head.
Really? I find the worst balanced books are the larger ones. Too heavy to swing well one-handed, but to light weight to swing well two-handed.

[Calthropstu]

Really? I find the worst balanced books are the larger ones. Too heavy to swing well one-handed, but to light weight to swing well two-handed.

I...

I am totally making this character now.

[Doctor Awkward]

Eh, I guess it depends on your definition of "worst"

If you mean it as "most broken" then my vote definitely goes to the Book of Exalted Deeds. I could just say "Saint template, full stop.", but then I wouldn't get to point out the Starmantle Cloak, which allows you to roll reflex saves against weapon attacks... Or a Swift Hunter who takes levels in Stalker of Kharash to get Favored Enemy: Evil. Seriously...
And of course the stuff that everyone knows about like Words of Creation or Vow of Poverty or the absurdity of the sanctified spells. The biggest issue is that most of the requirements for this stuff is based on your roleplaying. So if the DM isn't interested in enforcing those you have all of this ridiculousness at no drawback.

If you take it to mean "most unfairly" balanced, then I'm surprised no one mentioned Complete Psionic. The pointless nerfs aside, that book also dropped Linked Power and Synchronicity on the world.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Weapons of Legacy is the worst weakest waste of paper. It's mostly underpowered annoyance, and then there's the Legacy Champion.

Serpent Kingdoms is probably the most broken one by itself.

I'll also second the Miniatures Handbook, as weakish book, but note that it's at least fun. I like War Hulk and War Chief.



Overall, I dislike broken useless more than broken overpowered. Broken useless is bad in PO and TO, and just gets ignored (when was the last time you used WoL?). Broken overpowered at least gets you some fun TO tricks, and can be mixed with low-power classes to get an acceptable power level (as when advancing Monk 5/Ur-Priest 2 with Prestige Paladin 13).

[Efrate]

I know zycrell is from the online vestige list, which is very much a mixed bag, but the class as it suffers from the WotC fear of repeatable use abilities that aren't wack it with a stick. I love binders but they have some glaring holes which easily could have been filled, flight being the biggest one offhand for what is essentially a specialized not-quite-gish with tricks. The fluff is great, the influence mechanic I actually enjoy from an RP perspective, but its just underwhelming most of the time, then you get zycrell which is bananas. Its really cool, but it needs something. I would love a theurge PrC with binder and totemist for example, I think they would be great together.

On Forgotten realms: I like it because it is a high fantasy setting that you can easily use pieces of in any high fantasy (standard DnD) game without issues most of the time. The land is large, dangerous, and there is a lot of magic old and new everywhere. There exist higher level casters who roam and do their thing, and the setting isn't quite so antagonistic toward arcanists as traditional DnD can be. You have a much wider variety of races and stuff all around so its easier to be something weird and not be an immediate outcast. The standard fantasy assumptions are there still. God exist, magic exists, etc.

Eberron on the other hand adds a few elements which I think clash hugely with the standard high fantasy setting, and almost feels like another system they tweaked a bit to make it DnD for sales purposed. Airships, trains, gods and planes not working like they normally do, non-magical magical craftsmen, the various monster races having a ton of society and cultural "norms" which just do not fit a standard model DnD system. Gods (and divine magic) are a knowable accessable thing, most monsters do not form major nations or societies, joe schmoe commoner cannot take an airship or a train halfway accross the continent for reasons, and so on. It feels like a different game in my experience playing, with window dressing to make me feel comfortable that just ends up being jarring and more alienating.

As far as brokeness in FR, for all the stuff that brokenly good (SK pretty much in its entirety), there exists so much more that is just brokenly bad. If you made a list all the silly broken OP stuff from FR, then made a list of the brokenly bad or just more or less unplayable for a PC stuff that exists, the latter list would be so much bigger.

[Cosi]

Those exist too. What do you think BFC and defensive buffs are for? Not to mention that attack has to exceed defense in some way to prevent stalemates that last forever.

BFC advantages you against groups of enemies, not against attackers. Defensive buffs are the problem, because their duration is so short that you can't wait around with them up until people attack, so the only viable option is a first strike.


The entire threat not only disappears as soon as you have (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation up, if you do your attacker teleports right into an ambush instead of ambushing you.
Assuming your enemies can scry you in the first place, because that too can be defended against. Rather easily in fact.
If you have the appropriate defenses scry & die tactics are a not only a non-threat, they can even be an opportunity to trap an unwary opponent.

Those weaken specific tactics, but they don't change the overall paradigm of all wars being exchanges of overwhelming first strikes. Ideally, there should be a reason to go after weaker enemy holdings first, or to force your enemy out of their base. As it is, the optimal tactic is to achieve surprise and make an overwhelming strike, which isn't a great play pattern.


That's a great attitude for immersion and worldbuilding, but for a group where no one wants to play a wizard it sucks.
If a defense against a tactic nearly every spellcaster can do is only available to a single class that's bad balance.

Well, yeah, but the solution is obviously to open up those options, not ban them.


Why? It's still only a tiny fraction of FR material. You don't ban non-setting material on the basis of the broken stuff in it, you ban the broken stuff and leave the rest.

Not everyone wants to have to isolate every broken ability in FR. What's the affirmative case for allowing FR content?


Or a Swift Hunter who takes levels in Stalker of Kharash to get Favored Enemy: Evil. Seriously...

That seems absolutely fine. You just voltroned together two base classes, a feat, and a PrC to get... a damage bonus of about 40% of your level on each attack, some minor skill bonuses, and crits on evil crit immune enemies (which doesn't even get Constructs, Elementals, or Oozes).

[Venger]

That seems absolutely fine. You just voltroned together two base classes, a feat, and a PrC to get... a damage bonus of about 40% of your level on each attack, some minor skill bonuses, and crits on evil crit immune enemies (which doesn't even get Constructs, Elementals, or Oozes).

While what you're saying is mostly true, I don't know where you're getting crits from. Neither stalker of kharash nor nemesis do anything to your crits. Are you maybe thinking of murderous intent?

[Cosi]

While what you're saying is mostly true, I don't know where you're getting crits from. Neither stalker of kharash nor nemesis do anything to your crits. Are you maybe thinking of murderous intent?

First, I meant Skirmish.

Second, Swift Hunter gives you Skirmish against Favored Enemies. Assuming the ability in question is literally Favored Enemy (and not some largely similar thing with a different name), it would allow you to Skirmish any enemy that was evil. Which is good, but a lot of things -- notably Constructs and Elements -- are immune to precision damage but usually neutral.

[Stealth Marmot]

"YOU HAVE A SENDING FROM 1324 HENSBANE GROVE. DO YOU ACCEPT?"

landlord:"Yes"

message:"Some ne'er do well activated the sepia snake sigil on my granary again. Can you come by, cart him off, and replace the thing? Thank you kindly"

landlord:"St. Cuthbert's beard, it's always something."

This made me chuckle.

[Grod_The_Giant]

First, I meant Skirmish.

Second, Swift Hunter gives you Skirmish against Favored Enemies. Assuming the ability in question is literally Favored Enemy (and not some largely similar thing with a different name), it would allow you to Skirmish any enemy that was evil. Which is good, but a lot of things -- notably Constructs and Elements -- are immune to precision damage but usually neutral.
Swift Hunter just lets you Skirmish enemies who are normally immune to it. As you note, "Favored Enemy: Evil" wouldn't be much better than "Favored Enemy: Undead" in that regard.

[sleepyphoenixx]

BFC advantages you against groups of enemies, not against attackers. Defensive buffs are the problem, because their duration is so short that you can't wait around with them up until people attack, so the only viable option is a first strike.
That's not actually true. There are plenty of hour/level, 24 hour and day/level buffs.
If you actually have the necessary casters to have them up all the time you're golden. But the game doesn't just consist of casters. And even for casters there is the opportunity cost of not having those spell slots for something else.

Those weaken specific tactics, but they don't change the overall paradigm of all wars being exchanges of overwhelming first strikes. Ideally, there should be a reason to go after weaker enemy holdings first, or to force your enemy out of their base. As it is, the optimal tactic is to achieve surprise and make an overwhelming strike, which isn't a great play pattern.
Of course attacking from ambush is the optimal tactic. That's just common sense.
But that's what perception skills and divination spells are there to prevent. You can get around most of them with the right tools - if you actually know what they are. Which you won't in a real game (as a player).
It's easy to talk on a forum about "i counter their spell x with my spell y, and their item f with my class ability v." but it rarely works out that way during actual gameplay.
Especially when you're talking about stealth, surprise and detection, because by the time you know you need a counter it's usually too late, and trying to counter everything will just leave you without the resources to attack.

The only one this isn't true for is the DM, because you know what your players characters are capable of. Your players are always guessing, always trying to adapt to a new enemy.
You can build your encounters to counter tactics your players have used before and tailor them to provide the challenge you want.

And if you're still worried about alpha strikes despite that and can't come up with counters to the tactics your players are using?
Give your monsters a Ring of Nine Lives with 1 charge left as part of their WBL. Or ask on the forums here. People will be glad to help you out.

Well, yeah, but the solution is obviously to open up those options, not ban them.
I never said anything about banning. Just that it's a problem with teleportation magic as written in the books. Which this thread is kind of about despite us derailing it somewhat.


Not everyone wants to have to isolate every broken ability in FR. What's the affirmative case for allowing FR content?
Don't you look over your players character sheets before a game when you DM? That's enough to catch the broken stuff.
You don't need to memorize all of FR for that. If you don't know something in one of your players builds look it up.
Ask your players about their concept: what they plan to do, any specific combos they want to use, what their characters most powerful tricks are.

I assume you're capable of judging if something fits into your games power level when you do that.

[Cosi]

Swift Hunter just lets you Skirmish enemies who are normally immune to it. As you note, "Favored Enemy: Evil" wouldn't be much better than "Favored Enemy: Undead" in that regard.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Is it really just Undead that are generally both Immune and Evil? Because that's seriously disappointing.

[Telonius]

I...

I am totally making this character now.

Paperback: Light weapon
Hardcover: Martial weapon
Complete Works: Two-handed weapon
Folio: Exotic weapon

[Venger]

This made me chuckle.

glad to hear it.

[Cosi]

That's not actually true. There are plenty of hour/level, 24 hour and day/level buffs.

But those are symmetric! The attacker gets long term buffs + short term buffs, the defender gets long term buffs.


If you actually have the necessary casters to have them up all the time you're golden. But the game doesn't just consist of casters. And even for casters there is the opportunity cost of not having those spell slots for something else.

If the duration of a spell is longer than your refresh time, it does not cost spell slots.


Of course attacking from ambush is the optimal tactic. That's just common sense.

Ambushing someone in their house is usually not optimal.


I assume you're capable of judging if something fits into your games power level when you do that.

I mean, I probably am, but most people probably don't look at a spell list that has planar binding and magic circle against evil and say "oh, that's infinite power". Lots of combos are non-obvious.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Is it really just Undead that are generally both Immune and Evil? Because that's seriously disappointing.
I mean, what else is usually immune? Constructs, Elementals, Oozes, Plants, and Incorporeal creatures? According to the Monster Finder (http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/), there are

13 evil Constructs
10 evil Elementals
4 evil Oozes
8 evil Plants
3 evil [Incorporeal], non-undead creatures

While on the other hand, there are a grand total of 8 non-Evil undead. Favored Enemy (Evil) actually gives you a net boost of 30 targets, which... makes it a pretty good choice, actually. Huh. Actually a pretty decent upgrade, if not for all the rest of the benefits being a Swift Hunter confers. (Uhhh... maybe worth the dip if you're in a gestalt game where your DM won't let the dual-progression part of the feat work, and you can burn feats on the entry requirements? Bleck).

[sleepyphoenixx]

But those are symmetric! The attacker gets long term buffs + short term buffs, the defender gets long term buffs.
If the defender has Greater Anticipate Teleportation up he not only gets short term buffs, he also gets to ready actions for when his opponent appears.
And it doesn't only work against teleports. Alarm spells exist. Various wall spells, wards, and traps exist.

Or Time Stop. Or Temporal Acceleration. Or just Celerity + Teleport away, buff up and come back. Or Dispel Magic.

The point is that ambushes only really work against people who aren't prepared for them, either because they weren't expecting it (remember, the only wizards who get to high level are the paranoid ones) or because they can't prepare sufficiently (they don't have a wizard/cleric).

If the duration of a spell is longer than your refresh time, it does not cost spell slots.
It still costs you slots every time you have to refresh it.
This is actually a benefit for a defender at a fixed position, since a lot of good defensive spells are or can be made permanent.

Ambushing someone in their house is usually not optimal.
Unless someone is paranoid enough to take precautions their house is the best place for an ambush if you can get in undetected.
It's where they feel safe so their guard is down, it's private so lower chance of third party interference and you can loot all their stuff.

I mean, I probably am, but most people probably don't look at a spell list that has planar binding and magic circle against evil and say "oh, that's infinite power". Lots of combos are non-obvious.
Those aren't even in FR. Most of the broken FR stuff is hilariously obvious with a single good look.

And it comes back to "ask your players about their builds".
If someone goes "Oh, and i bind an Efreet and get infinite wishes" on you ingame with no warning your best response as a DM is "no".
Not to mention that that kind of thing depends on a very liberal interpretation of Planar Binding. As in "no, don't worry, that evil outsider you totally screwed over isn't going to take revenge on you".


While on the other hand, there are a grand total of 8 non-Evil undead. Favored Enemy (Evil) actually gives you a net boost of 30 targets, which... makes it a pretty good choice, actually. Huh. Actually a pretty decent upgrade, if not for all the rest of the benefits being a Swift Hunter confers. (Uhhh... maybe worth the dip if you're in a gestalt game where your DM won't let the dual-progression part of the feat work, and you can burn feats on the entry requirements? Bleck).
Don't forget it also helps against every variable alignment monster that's evil (which tends to be the case with the majority of enemies in most "good" campaigns).
And most people who get FE:Evil also tend to pick up Nemesis, which is a pretty much impossible to foil detection method that works without LoE.

[Beheld]

Not to mention that that kind of thing depends on a very liberal interpretation of Planar Binding. As in "no, don't worry, that evil outsider you totally screwed over isn't going to take revenge on you".

Can we not?

[Cosi]

If the defender has Greater Anticipate Teleportation up he not only gets short term buffs, he also gets to ready actions for when his opponent appears.

The attackers are going to get more buffs, because they have more than three rounds to buff. The readied action thing is real though.


Or Time Stop. Or Temporal Acceleration. Or just Celerity + Teleport away, buff up and come back. Or Dispel Magic.

Action economy is symmetric.


Unless someone is paranoid enough to take precautions their house is the best place for an ambush if you can get in undetected.

But the precautions available are not strong enough. Like, by definition, if people are complaining that teleport based assaults are overpowered, the game does not have powerful enough defensive advantages to bring things into equilibrium.


And it comes back to "ask your players about their builds".

Yes, obviously if you can eliminate broken things with perfect accuracy, you don't block ban because things from some sources are broken at a higher rate. But that doesn't mean that block banning FR is bad if you happen to need to do block banning. By analogy, if you are playing a game like Starcraft there may be players who execute non-optimal strategies because attempting optimal ones would have worse results at their skill level.

[sleepyphoenixx]

But the precautions available are not strong enough. Like, by definition, if people are complaining that teleport based assaults are overpowered, the game does not have powerful enough defensive advantages to bring things into equilibrium.
The precautions available stop the entire tactic cold. How is that not strong enough?
The problem is that they're only available to a small minority of characters. If your party doesn't have one you're screwed.

Not to mention that i strongly disagree with the second part. People have been complaining about monk being too strong. About wizards being too weak. About the brokenness of rogues getting SA on every hit and how katana aren't statted realistically. The last one had a goddamn 20 page argument!
People complain about all kinds of things even if nothing is wrong just because they had bad experiences with them, or bad die rolls, or just because they don't understand them.
So no, just because people are complaining doesn't mean something is wrong. It just means people are people.

[thorr-kan]

I...

I am totally making this character now.
This isn't fiction; this is *LIFE!*

Post it! Post it!

[thorr-kan]

Paperback: Light weapon
Hardcover: Martial weapon
Complete Works: Two-handed weapon
Folio: Exotic weapon
Sounds legit!

There's a Librarians (the TV series) joke, but I don't watch the series, so I can't make it...

[Stealth Marmot]

Paperback: Light weapon
Hardcover: Martial weapon
Complete Works: Two-handed weapon
Folio: Exotic weapon

Pdfs are a ranged weapon sent through emails.

Instead of weapon augment crystals you use weapon augment bookmarks.

[SecretlyaFish]

Serpent kingdoms, once I read some of the abilities people mentioned, seem like cool traits for monsters or perhaps recurring bad guys, not so much for characters unless with moderation/dm rules. I've always wondered though why some people go so far as to ban spells, books, feats (obviously broken ones are fine, conjurer teleport jaunt comes to mind), ever classes, but most of these things can be EASILY cured by a wave of the DM's hand, and in a way that doesn't completely screw over the player. Cancer mage, I honestly didn't read too much into the abilities, but, seriously, very easy fix.

I mean, perhaps its not so easy for some but I have no trouble telling somebody NO when they are being abusive of something. Lets look at the cancer mage, which can take advantage of many diseases that you can reap benefits and not the weaknesses from. That is FINE. However, lets read one disease people here mentioned.

"Festering Anger- Brought upon by long-term, intense fury and hatred, this disease manifests as dark boils across the skin. The incubation period-in this case, the amount of time during which a character must be angry-varies.but it usually takes at least a year for festering anger to erupt. Each day after the onset of this malady, the character takes 1d3 points of consitution damage, but she gains a cumulative +2 enhancement bonus to strength.
Each day, the victim must succceed at an additional Will saving throw (DC22) or attack whatever has made him so angry. The victim is obsessed with taking action against the focus of anger, but isn't completely heedless of danger. If the focus of the victim's anger isn't readily available, the victim will instead attack allies, minions, or symbols that remind him of the reason for his hate."

Obviously, the mental part of this doesn't affect the cancer mage, but in 2 seconds I thought of a very easy solution, that lets the player feel really cool, without breaking the game! Once the player acquires the disease, tell him to roll 1d3's until they equal or surpass his total constitution. So, if the cancer mage has 14 constitution, and rolls 1-3-3-2-1-3-2, he goes over his constitution score of 14, meaning the disease would have ordinarily killed him by this point. If his CON gets higher he can do a re roll and see if he qualifies for another strength increment increase. The disease now stops progressing and he can roll play this disease as having made him disgusting but perhaps bloated with abnormal muscle growth all over his body, up to you as the DM and how you interpret the disease. He would gain +12 strength from this disease, not too shabby. And not game breaking by any means either. To prevent a player from taking a 1 level dip, tell him that he can gain that cumulative bonus, allowing the disease to progress further, once for each level of cancer mage he acquires, or every 2, up to the DM. Meaning, he could get to +20 strength theoretically with 10 levels of cancer mage and enough constitution. But lets say for example, that player is only a 3rd level cancer mage, he only gets +6 strength.

This is all stuff I thought of off the top of my head. This could be applied for any disease he thinks he can cheese. Now, lets say you got a real "clever" player who thinks he's sly and tries to keep minmaxing through loopholes etc in the RAW, trying break the game despite your good compromises, well, maybe the master cancer mage of your world who has found a way to subvert the RAW comes and kills him for trying to steal his secrets, or maybe you just need to tell that player that perhaps its time to find another game to play in.

Balance can always be corrected, and as long as the player is understanding and respectful, I'm willing to work with them to give them something cool and make em feel special.

[Hunter Noventa]

Paperback: Light weapon
Hardcover: Martial weapon
Complete Works: Two-handed weapon
Folio: Exotic weapon

Final Fantasy Tactics had Dictionary weapons. You would open it up, read, and the enemy would be hurt by a 'twang' sound.

That or a Ninja could throw them.

Both should be viable tactics.

[Stealth Marmot]

If the tiering threads are to be believed, Dungeonscape is one of the worst based on the Factotum alone.

Both ways even.

[Stryyke]

I've never found Tome of Battle to be particularly op, but I see a lot of people cringe at the mere mention of it. WITHOUT STARTING A WAR, can someone from the op side of the argument mention why you think it's op?

[Cosi]

I've never found Tome of Battle to be particularly op, but I see a lot of people cringe at the mere mention of it. WITHOUT STARTING A WAR, can someone from the op side of the argument mention why you think it's op?

The martial options are, particularly in terms of floor, substantially stronger than other martial options. Those options (and the ones in Tome of Battle) are somewhat underpowered, but if you happen to think they are balanced, Tome of Battle is clearly overpowered.

[Stryyke]

I think the translation of that was that it starts out stronger than many other martial options. My opinion on that is simple, ok. So? Martial will always be inferior to magical anyway. And the ToB doesn't really break anything. It's just good. You obviously don't think that's the case, so let me inquire how you would break the game with anything in the ToB. Again. Just asking. Not trying to start a war. Peace be with all.

[Troacctid]

Lets look at the cancer mage, which can take advantage of many diseases that you can reap benefits and not the weaknesses from. That is FINE. However, lets read one disease people here mentioned.

"Festering Anger- Brought upon by long-term, intense fury and hatred, this disease manifests as dark boils across the skin. The incubation period-in this case, the amount of time during which a character must be angry-varies.but it usually takes at least a year for festering anger to erupt. Each day after the onset of this malady, the character takes 1d3 points of consitution damage, but she gains a cumulative +2 enhancement bonus to strength.
Each day, the victim must succceed at an additional Will saving throw (DC22) or attack whatever has made him so angry. The victim is obsessed with taking action against the focus of anger, but isn't completely heedless of danger. If the focus of the victim's anger isn't readily available, the victim will instead attack allies, minions, or symbols that remind him of the reason for his hate."

Obviously, the mental part of this doesn't affect the cancer mage, but in 2 seconds I thought of a very easy solution, that lets the player feel really cool, without breaking the game! Once the player acquires the disease, tell him to roll 1d3's until they equal or surpass his total constitution. So, if the cancer mage has 14 constitution, and rolls 1-3-3-2-1-3-2, he goes over his constitution score of 14, meaning the disease would have ordinarily killed him by this point. If his CON gets higher he can do a re roll and see if he qualifies for another strength increment increase. The disease now stops progressing and he can roll play this disease as having made him disgusting but perhaps bloated with abnormal muscle growth all over his body, up to you as the DM and how you interpret the disease. He would gain +12 strength from this disease, not too shabby. And not game breaking by any means either. To prevent a player from taking a 1 level dip, tell him that he can gain that cumulative bonus, allowing the disease to progress further, once for each level of cancer mage he acquires, or every 2, up to the DM. Meaning, he could get to +20 strength theoretically with 10 levels of cancer mage and enough constitution. But lets say for example, that player is only a 3rd level cancer mage, he only gets +6 strength.

This is all stuff I thought of off the top of my head. This could be applied for any disease he thinks he can cheese. Now, lets say you got a real "clever" player who thinks he's sly and tries to keep minmaxing through loopholes etc in the RAW, trying break the game despite your good compromises, well, maybe the master cancer mage of your world who has found a way to subvert the RAW comes and kills him for trying to steal his secrets, or maybe you just need to tell that player that perhaps its time to find another game to play in.
See, Cancer Mage doesn't really factor into the balance at all there, because anyone abusing Festering Anger is just gonna take a level of Incarnate or Binder and become immune to all the ability damage instead, which doesn't cost any feats and is way more powerful overall.

[Beheld]

I think the translation of that was that it starts out stronger than many other martial options. My opinion on that is simple, ok. So? Martial will always be inferior to magical anyway. And the ToB doesn't really break anything. It's just good. You obviously don't think that's the case, so let me inquire how you would break the game with anything in the ToB. Again. Just asking. Not trying to start a war. Peace be with all.

He does agree, he just knows that there are a bunch of people who are ideologically committed to the idea that the Core classes are balanced, or that Wizards aren't stronger than Fighters, or whatever. Since he acknowledges those people exist, he acknowledges that those people have to see ToB as OP.

[SecretlyaFish]

See, Cancer Mage doesn't really factor into the balance at all there, because anyone abusing Festering Anger is just gonna take a level of Incarnate or Binder and become immune to all the ability damage instead, which doesn't cost any feats and is way more powerful overall.

You may have missed where, the DM can rule against such things? If a player is trying to become this god where he's got a million immunities put your foot down. I wouldn't stand for that and neither should you!

[Stryyke]

He does agree, he just knows that there are a bunch of people who are ideologically committed to the idea that the Core classes are balanced, or that Wizards aren't stronger than Fighters, or whatever. Since he acknowledges those people exist, he acknowledges that those people have to see ToB as OP.

Thank you. That was a bit clearer.

That's understandable. People do that all the time, in all walks of life. Idealize the past. Fear change. Thanks for the update.

[Troacctid]

You may have missed where, the DM can rule against such things? If a player is trying to become this god where he's got a million immunities put your foot down. I wouldn't stand for that and neither should you!
It has zero to do with Cancer Mage, is the point. That class is not broken. Like, at all. I mean, it's fine. It's a good, solid class for an evil rogue-type. But there's nothing overpowered about it.


I've never found Tome of Battle to be particularly op, but I see a lot of people cringe at the mere mention of it. WITHOUT STARTING A WAR, can someone from the op side of the argument mention why you think it's op?
a. It breaks low-level games.
b. It's blatantly the best thing a melee character can possibly do, so every melee character is basically forced to do it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You may have missed where, the DM can rule against such things? If a player is trying to become this god where he's got a million immunities put your foot down. I wouldn't stand for that and neither should you!
Oberani Fallacy-- just because something's mechanics can be fixed, doesn't mean they weren't broken to begin with. Especially if you need full-on houserules to fix the problem, not just a logical ruling.


I think the translation of that was that it starts out stronger than many other martial options. My opinion on that is simple, ok. So? Martial will always be inferior to magical anyway. And the ToB doesn't really break anything. It's just good. You obviously don't think that's the case, so let me inquire how you would break the game with anything in the ToB. Again. Just asking. Not trying to start a war. Peace be with all.
ToB classes are really strong at low levels and low optimization levels, both of which are particularly common. The at-will part also tends to freak people out. ToB isn't unbalanced if you're comparing it to well-played casters, or even well-built conventional damage builds like a Barbarian charger or Daring Outlaw, but a lot of groups are nowhere near that level.

[Telonius]

The other "op" reading of Tome of Battle is usually due to some exceptionally poor (even by WotC standards) editing in two particular cases: the 1d2 Crusader, and Iron Heart Surge. With the 1d2 Crusader, you get an infinite damage loop. With Iron Heart Surge, they never bothered to define "effect" or "condition." (That leads to all kinds of silliness like saying "being attacked by an enemy" is a condition, or more famously, Iron Heart Surging away the sun).

[SecretlyaFish]

Oberani Fallacy-- just because something's mechanics can be fixed, doesn't mean they weren't broken to begin with. Especially if you need full-on houserules to fix the problem, not just a logical ruling..

Lol, a logical ruling would be "Well, because the disease cannot harm you, it cannot progress, therefor you either get the strength bonus once or not at all. It stands to reason with the wording of the disease and what the description of the cancer mages ability, one could easily interpret at as that. The disease progresses as the person gets sicker, you haven't even begun to get sick so the disease does not progress. Very easy fix. One that requires virtually no effort on the DM's part. I was being extremely generous with interpretation of it so the player could still kinda feel like he "won". Also why do you feel the need to point out a fallacy. Its silly and well, I could say what it makes you come off like but I'd get in trouble and I also doubt you care either, lol.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

No love for Player's Guide to Faerun? The original persistent spell (at +4 no less), with Incantatrix in the same book, along with a bunch of other silly mechanics like Rune Magic. Most of those setting-specific books throw in ill-conceived mechanics created by people who'd rather be writing fluff.

[Beheld]

No love for Player's Guide to Faerun? The original persistent spell (at +4 no less), with Incantatrix in the same book, along with a bunch of other silly mechanics like Rune Magic. Most of those setting-specific books throw in ill-conceived mechanics created by people who'd rather be writing fluff.

Well it does say 3.5 book.

[Zanos]

No love for Player's Guide to Faerun? The original persistent spell (at +4 no less)
You're thinking of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

[SecretlyaFish]

You're thinking of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

I can't remember when that book came out but I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time and I remember that was my favorite book to read. My imagination went wild wishing I could have 100 campaigns so I could experience adventuring in all the areas and with all the notable people in that book. Truly one of the best books EVER printed for D&D, in my humble opinion :D Wish there was a 3.5 version.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Well it does say 3.5 book.

You're thinking of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.
No, I am referring to the 3.5 Player's Guide to Faerun, published in 2004, which updated a variety of FR content and somehow made it more overpowered.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Lol, a logical ruling would be "Well, because the disease cannot harm you, it cannot progress, therefor you either get the strength bonus once or not at all. It stands to reason with the wording of the disease and what the description of the cancer mages ability, one could easily interpret at as that. The disease progresses as the person gets sicker, you haven't even begun to get sick so the disease does not progress. Very easy fix. One that requires virtually no effort on the DM's part. I was being extremely generous with interpretation of it so the player could still kinda feel like he "won". Also why do you feel the need to point out a fallacy. Its silly and well, I could say what it makes you come off like but I'd get in trouble and I also doubt you care either, lol.
You're not looking at the rules, but at your 'fix' of the rules. The 'logical ruling' is the one based on RAW and logic, not real-world common sense. After all, the D&D 'verse is anything but the real world, and common sense need not apply. In short: that's still the Oberoni fallacy.

If it helps, think of it like this: If we port this (unchanged) into a computer game, is it broken? Alternatively: If we run a tournament under this rule, is it broken? In both cases, you are (presumably) dealing with an impartial DM, and rulings must be as general as possible, to apply to all games.

[Beheld]

No, I am referring to the 3.5 Player's Guide to Faerun, published in 2004, which updated a variety of FR content and somehow made it more overpowered.

I am nearly absolutely certain that persist spell was not in players guide and as the "original persist spell" was in the 3.0 Dr campaign setting

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I am nearly absolutely certain that persist spell was not in players guide and as the "original persist spell" was in the 3.0 Dr campaign settingPersistent Spell appears in 3.5 first in PGTF, page 42.

Edit: Indeed, like many broken mechanics, the feat has an origin in a prior edition.

[Zanos]

Persistent Spell appears in 3.5 first in PGTF, page 42.

Edit: Indeed, like many broken mechanics, the feat has an origin in a prior edition.
Not with a +4 level adjustment. It's +6 in PFtF. The +4 version was first printed in FRCS in 2001, and reprinted in Deities and Demigods in 2002.

[gooddragon1]

The problem is that the "nice things" warriors need is not "more damage". Warriors don't have a problem with damage if they're well built, they have a problem with everything else.

Not quite. Ranged warriors are often screwed. Non strength warriors making lots of attacks run afoul of DR. And you should never count on the magic item emporium being in your game. Or even access to things like out of core feats. That's the main reason I don't homebrew prcs or classes that aren't self contained.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Not quite. Ranged warriors are often screwed. Non strength warriors making lots of attacks run afoul of DR. And you should never count on the magic item emporium being in your game. Or even access to things like out of core feats. That's the main reason I don't homebrew prcs or classes that aren't self contained.

There are enough ways for non-strength warriors to get bonus damage too. Archers are admittedly harder, but even they can be made sufficiently effective.
Yes, in core-only they're kind of screwed. But that's what splatbooks are for, to address that lack of options.
And they do, even if said options are unfortunately scattered over dozens of books instead of WotC releasing Complete Archer.

The game itself assumes access to magic items. It's been discussed to death here and on other forums. This is not an opinion, it's a fact: WBL is part of your characters assumed power.
D&D simply does not work well with no-magic or low-magic games.
And that's not really a failing of game balance. When you ignore part of the mechanics that are assumed by the rules it's no wonder they don't work out.

As for access to non-core feats, we're talking about splatbooks. Their being available is kind of a given.
Not to mention that it's a little counterproductive to complain about the lack of options and then ban the books that offer said options.


So i stand by my statement. Nobody needs more damage, those options exist already. What warriors need is more options to effectively bring that damage to bear.
Pounce is the big one for melee, but it also includes things like Blindsight or other vision/detection modes, movement modes like flight, ways to bypass DR/hardness or attack touch AC,...

Basically all those nifty things maneuvers let you do? That's what warriors needed. Options to react to different situations/enemies. Not more damage.
Martial adepts do roughly the same damage as a mid-op core melee, but they're tremendously more fun and comfortable to play. It's a shame that ranged characters didn't get the same love.

[gooddragon1]

There are enough ways for non-strength warriors to get bonus damage too. Archers are admittedly harder, but even they can be made sufficiently effective.
Yes, in core-only they're kind of screwed. But that's what splatbooks are for, to address that lack of options.
And they do, even if said options are unfortunately scattered over dozens of books instead of WotC releasing Complete Archer.

The game itself assumes access to magic items. It's been discussed to death here and on other forums. This is not an opinion, it's a fact: WBL is part of your characters assumed power.
D&D simply does not work well with no-magic or low-magic games.
And that's not really a failing of game balance. When you ignore part of the mechanics that are assumed by the rules it's no wonder they don't work out.

As for access to non-core feats, we're talking about splatbooks. Their being available is kind of a given.
Not to mention that it's a little counterproductive to complain about the lack of options and then ban the books that offer said options.


So i stand by my statement. Nobody needs more damage, those options exist already. What warriors need is more options to effectively bring that damage to bear.
Pounce is the big one for melee, but it also includes things like Blindsight or other vision/detection modes, movement modes like flight, ways to bypass DR/hardness or attack touch AC,...

Basically all those nifty things maneuvers let you do? That's what warriors needed. Options to react to different situations/enemies. Not more damage.
Martial adepts do roughly the same damage as a mid-op core melee, but they're tremendously more fun and comfortable to play. It's a shame that ranged characters didn't get the same love.

You should tell that to some DM's. Sounds good, but the reasons I get vary from not being familiar with the material, not having the time, knee-jerk reactions, having to write it into the story, and so forth. So, instead of hoping for reasonable access to the things you need, I make homebrew that can deal with problems without much gear.

Clergy vigilant: full attack, decisive strike if strong defense or can't full attack, blast foes for swarms, spells for utility. Items help, but aren't a deal breaker. And the key is that it's simple and short. The DM won't be able to say it's too much to read or too unfamiliar since the mechanics are almost all from existing material.

[Efrate]

If you apply that to ToB though, you get like spells, but no slots, totally recharge after each fombat or in combat with special actions. Most newer dms see unlimited spells no way! Fireball all the time is broken!

I love ToB, its a great book, but it significantly upgrades all melee floor to be significantly better with no work than any other martial. Its also pretty hard to screw up. You compare to a normal low op core or almost core only fighter or barbarian and its so much getter. That same optimization level of a caster and they still come out head. Compared to what the "expected" party of healer cleric, blaster mage, sword and board fighter, trapfinding rogue is, you outshine them with next to no effort, barring healing.

[Venger]

If you apply that to ToB though, you get like spells, but no slots, totally recharge after each fombat or in combat with special actions. Most newer dms see unlimited spells no way! Fireball all the time is broken!

I love ToB, its a great book, but it significantly upgrades all melee floor to be significantly better with no work than any other martial. Its also pretty hard to screw up. You compare to a normal low op core or almost core only fighter or barbarian and its so much getter. That same optimization level of a caster and they still come out head. Compared to what the "expected" party of healer cleric, blaster mage, sword and board fighter, trapfinding rogue is, you outshine them with next to no effort, barring healing.

"hard to screw up" is a feature, not a bug. despite the designers' love for trap options, especially in core, that doesn't make them part of good design or conducive to good gameplay, especially with players who aren't good at optimization and may accidentally shoot themselves in the foot by making an incompetent non-tob melee focused character.

[gooddragon1]

"hard to screw up" is a feature, not a bug. despite the designers' love for trap options, especially in core, that doesn't make them part of good design or conducive to good gameplay, especially with players who aren't good at optimization and may accidentally shoot themselves in the foot by making an incompetent non-tob melee focused character.

Someone once said we don't need to bring tier 3 up, we need to bring tier 1 down. Good luck with that, but maybe bringing tier 5 up could be the key. Though there is a certain something about playing tier 5. It's like playing with the very early yugioh cards. Fun for some strange reason.

[Venger]

Someone once said we don't need to bring tier 3 up, we need to bring tier 1 down. Good luck with that, but maybe bringing tier 5 up could be the key. Though there is a certain something about playing tier 5. It's like playing with the very early yugioh cards. Fun for some strange reason.

tier 1s are tier 1 because they have infinite options. wizard has access to all wizard spells. whenever a new book came out, he'd get dozens of new toys. "fixing" t1 means looking over every spell in the game and deciding whether to buff, nerf, ban, etc it. it's just not practical.

playing low-tier classes can certainly be fun if you're trying to play at a handicap, or if you just enjoy the class. basically if everyone in your group is on the same tier more or less, you'll probably have a fun time. when they aren't, that's when problems arise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw)

[sleepyphoenixx]

You should tell that to some DM's. Sounds good, but the reasons I get vary from not being familiar with the material, not having the time, knee-jerk reactions, having to write it into the story, and so forth. So, instead of hoping for reasonable access to the things you need, I make homebrew that can deal with problems without much gear.

Clergy vigilant: full attack, decisive strike if strong defense or can't full attack, blast foes for swarms, spells for utility. Items help, but aren't a deal breaker. And the key is that it's simple and short. The DM won't be able to say it's too much to read or too unfamiliar since the mechanics are almost all from existing material.
I find it a little hard to believe that a DM would ban ToB but allow homebrew that does essentially the same thing.
Not impossible, i've seen my fair share of nonsensical DM decisions, but at least somewhat unlikely.


Someone once said we don't need to bring tier 3 up, we need to bring tier 1 down. Good luck with that, but maybe bringing tier 5 up could be the key. Though there is a certain something about playing tier 5. It's like playing with the very early yugioh cards. Fun for some strange reason.

Most of the time T1 plays fine with T3 classes in actual games. Unless the T1 player goes for the really op options or deliberately tries to break the game with stuff like infinite wishes or similar silliness, but that's what you have a DM and Rule 0 for.
It's the low-tier classes who have issues finding their niche (or more accurately filling it effectively).
The T3s are good at what they do, and most players are fine with the T1 doing the stuff their build doesn't cover as long as they feel they contribute in their role.
It's when they feel that they're outdone even in their specialization that you get complaints, and that's not really a problem with T3 most of the time.

[SecretlyaFish]

I find it a little hard to believe that a DM would ban ToB but allow homebrew that does essentially the same thing.
Not impossible, i've seen my fair share of nonsensical DM decisions, but at least somewhat unlikely.



Most of the time T1 plays fine with T3 classes in actual games. Unless the T1 player goes for the really op options or deliberately tries to break the game with stuff like infinite wishes or similar silliness, but that's what you have a DM and Rule 0 for.
It's the low-tier classes who have issues finding their niche (or more accurately filling it effectively).
The T3s are good at what they do, and most players are fine with the T1 doing the stuff their build doesn't cover as long as they feel they contribute in their role.
It's when they feel that they're outdone even in their specialization that you get complaints, and that's not really a problem with T3 most of the time.

Can I ask you why players do that? I've never personally experienced it. I've always liked overpowered characters, but never felt the need to really optimize them. When I was younger, playing a fighter and my dad letting me roll 4d6 for ability scores so I could go over 18 STR at level 1 made me feel cool. I didn't need infinite wishes. My current character I'm building is a gestalt tiefling cleric/focused specialist conjurer. Focused specialist actually makes me worse but I'm Rping my character wanting to be the best summoner in the world, on any plane. I'm even allowed to take 2 PRC's in the same level, but that's because I'm not abusive and I RP. We are almost more a RP game. We get exp from RPing and if we accomplished a lot in terms of story etc we get the same exp as if we were in a combat encounter.

Infinite broken loops, obviously completely broken abilities, and using them to ruin the game world and DM's fun, its like, why. Its like cheating in a survival game, for example, Ark Survival Evolved. You make yourself max level, build yourself an incredible base, spawn all the best most high level equipment and dinos, then at the end, you've not worked for any of it and its like "what now". Not fun for anyone, have you ever had a DM or seen one put up with that? Feel really bad for the DM's who might not have a lot of choice or friends and feel compelled to allow that sort of thing for fear of not being able to play.

[GilesTheCleric]

Can I ask you why players do that?

I optimise for the RP. For example, if I'm breaking WBL, then I'm funneling that wealth into a series of churches across the land, each of which can provide valuable services to the residents of their towns. I can bribe politicians and grease palms until I have a high place in local government, from which I can reform laws and boot out the corrupt folks. I was even able to help out my party near the end of one campaign -- we were all hit with a Red Tide + Prismatic Wall, and the weakest one in the party, a PF alchemist, failed a whole lot of saves and ended up losing all their gear and teleported to the Outlands. I was able to re-buy their entire level 17 gear so they could continue to (kind of) contribute to the game.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Can I ask you why players do that?

You can ask, but i can't actually tell you.
I like building optimized characters, but i'm also a firm believer in optimizing to the level of the party for those i actually intend to play.

I don't get it either, but some people want to "win" at D&D. And everyone knows that the best way to win is if everyone else loses.
You'll have to ask a munchkin why they munchkin. I've always preferred support characters like healers and buffers, so i'm probably about as far from the mentality as you can get.

[SecretlyaFish]

I optimise for the RP. For example, if I'm breaking WBL, then I'm funneling that wealth into a series of churches across the land, each of which can provide valuable services to the residents of their towns. I can bribe politicians and grease palms until I have a high place in local government, from which I can reform laws and boot out the corrupt folks. I was even able to help out my party near the end of one campaign -- we were all hit with a Red Tide + Prismatic Wall, and the weakest one in the party, a PF alchemist, failed a whole lot of saves and ended up losing all their gear and teleported to the Outlands. I was able to re-buy their entire level 17 gear so they could continue to (kind of) contribute to the game.

I wouldn't mind a character using extreme cleverness to come up with neat ways to do it. But there is a big difference between exploiting wealth, which could just simply be annoying, and exploiting game mechanics that interact in combat encounters, or using a series of broken abilities and feats, along with spells to make encounters that should be a challenge become completely trivial, forcing the DM to munchkin even more, making the player feel like his optimized abilities don't matter. It can easily spiral out of control. I'm attempting to rebalance the Summon Monster spells to be more useful, and that's what my character is mostly going to spending gold and time on. Not overpowered magic items etc but, researching, to expand the list of creatures he can summon so he is the best in all the planes. Gotta catch em all. Spending 5k gold to get adequate on a creature for a level 2 spell that is extremely unknown to most is something he would do, even if he might not have use of the creature. Having unlimited money wouldn't happen without consequences in my campaign though regardless of how good you are or what you do with it. Perhaps a Red Dragon hears of your special talent and spends its entire horde on an item to permanently enslave you, forever creating gold for its horde.


You can ask, but i can't actually tell you.
I like building optimized characters, but i'm also a firm believer in optimizing to the level of the party for those i actually intend to play.

I don't get it either, but some people want to "win" at D&D. And everyone knows that the best way to win is if everyone else loses.
You'll have to ask a munchkin why they munchkin. I've always preferred support characters like healers and buffers, so i'm probably about as far from the mentality as you can get.

D&D is such a wonderful game because there isn't an "end" in that sense. My character, is evil and driven, and will likely die in his pursuit to be the best summoner in all the planes, as his quest for power to show others he is the best gets more and more out of hand. Once you've summoned Pit Fiends and Balors and even bent Solars to your will, whats next? You might think a Lord sounds like a great target. Well, everything has consequences, and there is always someone better, up until there isn't. The journey and knowing there is more work to do is what drives you forward, to continue pushing. I plan on being a character in the background too.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

It's not official material, but I'm going to go with the Book of Erotic Fantasy, which contains what is in my view the strongest PrC ever printed. The Metaphysical Shaper is a 3 level PrC with easy entry requirements and full casting progression. It also features two metamagic reductions in three levels.

As to what is more official, Book of Exalted Deeds. Vow of Poverty, Risen Martyr, Vow of Nonviolence... I'm not sure any book features more options with potential to create really serious problems within the party.

[Cosi]

a. It breaks low-level games.

Low level games are already broken. Tome of Battle classes win at low levels, but they don't win particularly more than classes that already won at those levels.


b. It's blatantly the best thing a melee character can possibly do, so every melee character is basically forced to do it.

I would rather there be one passable thing for melee guys to do than lots of crappy things for melee guys to do.


The other "op" reading of Tome of Battle is usually due to some exceptionally poor (even by WotC standards) editing in two particular cases: the 1d2 Crusader, and Iron Heart Surge. With the 1d2 Crusader, you get an infinite damage loop. With Iron Heart Surge, they never bothered to define "effect" or "condition." (That leads to all kinds of silliness like saying "being attacked by an enemy" is a condition, or more famously, Iron Heart Surging away the sun).

The d2 Crusader is weird, because infinite damage isn't all that impressively broken. Dealing "infinity" damage to one target is the same as dealing a "a million" or even "a thousand" damage to it in the vast majority of cases. The target either has an immunity, or dies. You can voltron stuff onto it to do broken things (like sadism), but on it's own it's not particularly worse than Uberchargers or Mailmen.


Someone once said we don't need to bring tier 3 up, we need to bring tier 1 down.

No. What you need to do, the absolute first thing you need to do, is figure out a balance point. Saying that we have to move Tier One down before you figure out where you want the balance point do be is pointless and unhelpful.

[danielxcutter]

Deities and Demigods isn't 3.5, I presume?

[Venger]

Deities and Demigods isn't 3.5, I presume?

deities and demigods is 3.0.

[CharonsHelper]

Spell Compendium. A lot of it was just a compilation from previous splats - but the there were quite a few new OP spells mixed in too.