Just what makes classes unbalanced?

[thereaper]

D&D has balance issues. This is a generally accepted statement. But just what is it that makes certain base classes in D&D (the core ones, at least) overpowered? Exactly which spells/skills/combinations/etc allow for easy abuse of the system? Examples: Solar cheese and timestop.

And while on the subject, what is it that makes certain other classes underpowered such as the fighter (but not the monks, please; there's enough threads on that)? And are there ways to tweak things ever so slightly that would fix them?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to start a D&D group with some of my friends (most of the candidates, myself included, have never played), and I want to get some houserules in place with the DM to minimize the amount of cheese. This might involve banning some spells or abilities, banning certain combinations, or simply limiting them in some way.

[Emperor Tippy]

Classes are unbalanced when they can fill more than 1 party role well or when they fill 1 role in such a way that they utterly destroy anything that they face.

Clerics are unbalanced because they can heal, buff, and fight while still having utility. (Fills multiple roles).

Druids are unbalanced because they can fight better than a dedicated fighter, heal better than everything except a cleric, scout fairly well, have lots of nice spells to use when needed, and can dump physical stats without any real problem.

Wizards are unbalanced because of sheer versatility. Just about the only role they can't fill is that of healer.

Monks are underpowered because they have no role in which they excel but are also not good generalists. They aren't good in combat. They aren't great scouts. They don't have the skills to be a skillmonkey, they have no real role to fill.

[KoDT69]

It's pretty easy really. There are a lot of things you can do that make sense (at least to me). In my campaigns I give extra skill points to melee classes to help round them out. I expand skill lists, like allowing the Fighter to take the social skills as without a cross-class restriction on ranks helps a lot, and give them Use Magic Device like a Rogue. Give Monks full BaB for starters, more skills, and hope for the best. Restrict or limit possibly game-breaking spells. Ban spells that can replace a class feature of other player characters. That's about it for easy stuff without reworking basic class features or mechanics. I reworked a bunch of feats for my games and made some new ones, and made new PrC's for melee types.

[thereaper]

That's good to know. But exactly what spells and abilities are game-breaking ones? I've heard of a couple such as timestop, but I know there's a lot more.

[Thinker]

That's good to know. But exactly what spells and abilities are game-breaking ones? I've heard of a couple such as timestop, but I know there's a lot more.

I'd suggest just not worrying about it unless it comes up. Balancing the classes in DnD is such an arduous task that it is not worth the trouble if it never comes up in your games.

[Indon]

Generally, flipping through books cherry-picking the best stuff unbalances things, and thus, abilities that let your players do that can lead to unbalancing.

Unbound Polymorph effects, for example, are notorious for this; For any given number of HD there is probably one or more pretty awesome creatures running around that you can change into.

To a similar degree, spellcasting abilities are like this, because of the versatility spellcasting grants.

But if you don't have players that flip through the book selecting the most tactically effective choices, it's unlikely to be a problem.

[Chaos Bringer]

Classes are unbalanced when they can fill more than 1 party role well or when they fill 1 role in such a way that they utterly destroy anything that they face.

Clerics are unbalanced because they can heal, buff, and fight while still having utility. (Fills multiple roles).

Druids are unbalanced because they can fight better than a dedicated fighter, heal better than everything except a cleric, scout fairly well, have lots of nice spells to use when needed, and can dump physical stats without any real problem.

Wizards are unbalanced because of sheer versatility. Just about the only role they can't fill is that of healer.

Monks are underpowered because they have no role in which they excel but are also not good generalists. They aren't good in combat. They aren't great scouts. They don't have the skills to be a skillmonkey, they have no real role to fill.

Well said sir! My hats off to you, except i'm not wearing one.

[Draz74]

Fighters: a lot of their offensive power relies on getting Full Attacks. In practice, against intelligent opponents, they rarely get to use Full Attacks, and often just get one attack per round. This is especially true when their opponents use tactics like flying that are hard to counter without magic. (Archers get around this problem somewhat, but have a hard time scaling their damage up to significant levels, since they have to put some of their resources into high Dex, and can't use Power Attack on their arrows.)
Fighters have low Will saves, which makes them very vulnerable to a lot of things enemy NPC casters can do to them. This is a problem for everyone with poor Will saves, in principle; but at least the Rogue can Hide from the casters or get Slippery Mind, and at least the Paladin and Barbarian have class features that boost their saves, and at least the Paladin and Ranger usually buy a higher Wisdom than the Fighter (and get more benefits out of their Wisdom).
Fighters run out of good feats by Level 10 or so, especially in Core-Only. Sometimes people are very surprised to hear this. I think what these people are missing is that feats that give you small, static bonuses like Weapon Specialization are actually really lame. Sure, getting lots of lame feats from levels 6-20 is better than getting nothing, but it's not better than getting anyone else's class features.
Finally, the Fighter just really can't do much except deal damage and trip people. This means he's outshined by classes that can control the battlefield better or hit opponents with "save-or-lose" abilities. Or do something useful outside of combat, like social skills or utility/mobility spells.

The Barbarian has the same problems as the Fighter, except less so. He gains class features all the way to Level 20. (They're not particularly amazing class features, after the early levels; but they're better than picking up Weapon Focus!) His will saves are a little better when raging. He gets a few more skill points and better class skills. His mobility problem really isn't much different from the Fighter's (in core).

All full casters have the problem that they are supposed to be limited by running out of spells to cast if they use their powerful spells often. In practice, though, they don't, unless they're very low-level or they have a lot of encounters per day. If they do ever start running out of spells, they'll usually just quit for the day, find a safe place to sleep (sometimes using spells like Rope Trick, Magnificent Mansion, or Teleport to "create" a safe place), and fully recharge to get ready for more encounters. This is called the narcolepsy effect. The DM usually lets them get away with it, because it's boring to run encounters when the spellcasters sit around and act near-useless. Even if the DM isn't that lenient, he will need to be a very skilled DM to create quests and situations with time limits if he is trying to prevent the Rope Trick & Co. version of narcolepsy.

The Cleric and Druid are "full casters," who get access to new levels of spells as fast as the Wizard does ... yet they also get good Fortitude saves, Medium BAB (with OK weapon/armor proficiencies to back it up), and 2 more HP per level than the Wizard. Red warning flags should be flashing now. The only reason this overpoweredness wasn't apparent to designers is that divine casters were supposed to have a weak selection of spells compared to arcane casters. But they don't, really. They just have to pick their spells a little more carefully (which they can do, since they automatically know every spell on their list!). If they search through the list, they'll find good spells to pick, even if they want blasting power. (Of course, if they realize that the best spells aren't blasting anyway, and that the "buffs" they have in abundance are a great way to win combat, things just get worse.)
So the Cleric and the Druid are overpowered anyway, but then you start adding more things into consideration:
- If the Cleric can find ways to cast a few buffs on himself, namely Divine Power and Righteous Might, before combat, he actually becomes a more impressive fighter than the Fighter. Divine Favor, a Level 1 self-only buff, makes things even crazier, but it's just really the icing on the cake.
- When the Druid uses Wild Shape, he replaces his Strength and Dexterity scores with those of the animal. That means he can have these scores be really low (allowing him to bump his Wisdom and Constitution, and sometimes Int/Cha, up into the "really high" zone), and yet he can still fight well in melee. As an animal he can also pick up a few nasty combat abilities like Pounce or Improved Grab. In practice, this means he can often fight as well as the Fighter in melee when he is an animal (especially when you consider the help he gets from his Animal Companion, who is about as strong as a Fighter at low levels and always remains at least semi-decently strong).
- Once the Druid hits middle levels, he can pretty much be an animal like this all the time, as long as he doesn't mind not being able to talk. The Natural Spell feat means he's still got all his usual power as a full caster while he's in animal form.

The Wizard is way better than the Sorcerer because the ability to know infinite spells is much more powerful than the flexibility of casting spontaneously. Especially when you add Bonus Feats and "getting new spell levels one level earlier" into the mix.

All the arcane casters have way too many spells that are way too strong. These can be divided into two categories: the ones that really "break the game," and the ones that "work just like they're supposed to, but still just make casters better than non-casters; magic is just that good." Here's a list of some of the latter type of spells for Core Wiz/Sorc:
Grease, Sleep, Color Spray, Ray of Enfeeblement, Alter Self, Glitterdust, Web, Blindness/Deafness, Knock, Spider Climb, Phantom Steed, Stinking Cloud, Suggestion, Wind Wall, Ray of Exhaustion, Fly (!!!), Haste, Slow, Dimensional Anchor, Stoneskin, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, Solid Fog, Confusion, Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer, Enervation, Fear, Cloudkill, Teleport, Overland Flight, Forcecage, Finger of Death, Reverse Gravity, Irresistable Dance, Time Stop.

These are mostly just offensive spells, and they don't even include spells with specific, specialized abuses (like Rope Trick as mentioned earlier, or Greater Shadow Evocation when you use it to duplicate certain specific spells ...) Alter Self can easily move into the "totally broken" category, for example, if you manage to have a PC who's an Outsider instead of a Humanoid. Same with Reverse Gravity if you set up some kind of infinite falling loop ... you get the idea. Evil combos.
(Note, btw, that Time Stop -- while it is too good -- is far from being in the "totally breaks the game" category in my book. It is 9th level, and it's not really too bad unless you combine it in some specific combos.)

Here are the more "utterly broken" spells in Core:
Polymorph. Polymorph Any Object. Mage's Disjunction. Gate. Shapechange.

... That'll do for now. Especially since I'm sure 100 people ninja'ed me while I was writing all this.

EDIT: I forgot to mention. The two most broken things in Core aren't even class-related. They are:
- Summoning Cheese using a Candle of Invocation (especially involving infinite loops or Wishes, but even without this extra cheese there's something wrong with a one-time use of Gate at low levels!!!)
- Diplomacy. Using it as-written, turning enemies into friends left and right automatically. If you're worried about players trying to abuse rules, re-writing the effects of Diplomacy should be your top priority. I recommend this fix (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/advanced-rules/diplomacy.html).

[Telonius]

Unbalanced, abusable, and/or poorly worded spells and feats:

Natural Spell.
Divine Power.
The entire Polymorph spell family.
Gate (ie gating in some being that grants you a Wish).
Contingency.
Celerity.

A lot of these really don't become an issue until you reach higher levels, or outside of core. But these are the prime culprits, and among the best-known. There are others.

[Catch]

The short answer? Spellcasting.

The ability to dramatically alter yourself, your allies or your environment a limited number of times per day has repeatedly proved superior to a sword that you can swing all day long. As a general rule, partial casting is better than no casting and full casting is better than partial. Martial prowess just doesn't have as much of an advantage when it can be gained by a spell or three.

Basically, in D&D short bursts of power prevail over consistent mediocrity.

The caster / melee disparity aside, the problem lies in spells and abilities that are intended to be powerful--and generally are by themselves--that when combined with other spells or class features become too powerful. Oddly enough, the most "broken" stuff comes from core.

Polymorph. Gate. Forcecage. Disjunction. Natural Spell.

Really though, unless you're trying to break the game, you generally won't.

[Emperor Tippy]

Mage's Disjunction isn't utterly broken. It's just that most DM's won't use it on the players.

It's a great way to take out a fighter type and is even useful agaisnt casters. Facing a buffed to hell Clericzilla? Drop a MD on him. That fighter flying after you? MD him and watch him never bother you again.

[kjones]

Most class imbalance doesn't show up until higher levels (>10 IMHO, but others will argue with me on this). If you're that concerned about it, keep your campaign to the lower levels. This is generally better for newer players anyway, since they have fewer possibilities that generally only lead to confusion.

Also, most of the game-breaking stuff is not exactly intuitive, and only happens when somebody sets out to make a deliberately overpowered character (Druids are an exception here). When I started a group with all-new players, the wizard was on par, power-wise, with the rest of the party, since he didn't focus on Batman-type spells or making magic items. The cleric was generally considered pretty useless, since he usually only took healing spells. Out of that group, the most powerful character was probably the Ranger, who was reasonably well optimized for ranged combat.

So, don't worry about bogging down your game with house rules, especially for new players. Just tell them what they should and shouldn't be doing, and they'll understand what's expected of them.

[Draz74]

Mage's Disjunction isn't utterly broken. It's just that most DM's won't use it on the players.

This one is certainly debatable. But I'd still vote for, "it breaks the game." Not in the sense that "A character with it is too much more powerful than a character without it," but in the sense that "the game isn't fun with this spell actually getting used." (Too many cool magic items being permenantly destroyed, etc.)

Of course, with that definition I suppose I'd have to add some more spells to my list. Maybe you have a good case for moving Disjunction to the "merely overpowered" list.

[Mojo_Rat]

A few other factors create the class imbalance although most of those have been addressed. There is some power creep issues witht he newer books. the unearth arcana class variant that gives barbarian's pounce is a good example' It lets the barbarian get past the 'need a full attack option for maximum damage' while the Fighter still is stuck in needing this.

I think also some of the Religous casting classes were given 'too much' Which creates the 'able to do many class roles' bit that was mentioned in previus posts.

an example being Paladin gets full attack plate armor martial weapons partial spellcasting.

Cleric gets medium base attack plate armor doesnt get martial weapons (but doesnt really matter can often bypass this) and Full spellcasting. The full spellcasting then lets the cleric get around the medium base attack.

Druids it can be argued are a strong enough class if they had Wild shape and no spell casting or spell casting and no wild shape that they get /both/ is a big part of the imbalance.

They just seem to 'get too much' so to speak.

Anyhow thats my $0.2 although for the record i like fighters a fair bit

[Storm Bringer]

Most of this cheese is a result of people who spend a LOT of time reading the rules and shearching for those killier combos.

Most of the players i know don't go that far with thier optimisation. I mean, they build nice characters , but thier not the OMFG I R TEH WIN!!!, game breakingly powerful things people are talking about here.

With people who have not played and are still learning the rules, I'd say just go with the current rules and use the unlimited power vested in you, the DM, to cope with anything that crops up. Most of the cheese involving wizards is based on combos of spells that a new player wouldn't know.....


......unless you got the sort of player (or players) who seek help online for thier character sheets, in which case god help you.

[Solo]

......unless you got the sort of player (or players) who seek help online for thier character sheets, in which case god help you.

>.>
<.<
>.<

[Emperor Tippy]

Most of this cheese is a result of people who spend a LOT of time reading the rules and shearching for those killier combos.

Most of the players i know don't go that far with thier optimisation. I mean, they build nice characters , but thier not the OMFG I R TEH WIN!!!, game breakingly powerful things people are talking about here.

With people who have not played and are still learning the rules, I'd say just go with the current rules and use the unlimited power vested in you, the DM, to cope with anything that crops up. Most of the cheese involving wizards is based on combos of spells that a new player wouldn't know.....


......unless you got the sort of player (or players) who seek help online for thier character sheets, in which case god help you.

Not really. I noticed a lot of it on my first read through the rules. Particuarly the magic section. Not quite how overpowered some things were but that casters were the most powerful and that they could make everyone else worthless (and how to do it), yeah that was noticed within 20 miniutes of finishing reading the core books.

But I'm good at breaking things, no matter the system.

[Hario]

know whats broken?

Monkey grip!

Ok now we got that joke out of the way... you can stop laughing,
anything that breaks the rules of physics and mechanics can usually be overpowered, timestop, celerity, greater teleport, contingency, generally break rules most notably, time and requirements. If casters were just 'buffers' than it'd be fine just like clerics (except cleric's buffs are personal usually). The game is mostly balanced around core spells and core feats, though the fighter still stinks and druids and clerics still win (most of their best spells are core) If you remove spells that overly break time and intiative, or anything that polymorphs or changes shape, you'll be fine, so ban, divine power, or make it limited so it must be cast on someone other than the caster (though I wouldn't put it past me for 2 clerics teaming up casting it on each other). Ban Celerity, or contingency, those add unlimited factors that can mess with initative.

Now that we ban about 30 pct of the spells fighting characters have a slight chance, except for the monk and fighter in core.

[mostlyharmful]

It's often not a matter of finding ways to make a wiz broken as it is to find ways of making themnot broken. The big drawback of a wiz is their squishiness, d4 and no armour and all, yet no dm will punish a newbie with that unless they're meaner than a rabid wombat. Meanwhile the PC is playing with the fun and moonbeams that is the Wiz/Sor list until they get the hang of it.

You don't even need that good a grasp on it. Even the less awesome stuff is still beating one on one slug it out characters, fly, glitterdust and teleport are all shiney and most newbies will try them, along with polymorph (bleh!) and charm/scry/confusion...... theye isn't a whole lot on the list that's a real waste of time and eventhe suboptimal choices like fireball and lightening bolt and magic missile are fun and contribute.

[MeklorIlavator]

Most of this cheese is a result of people who spend a LOT of time reading the rules and shearching for those killier combos.
:snip:
With people who have not played and are still learning the rules, I'd say just go with the current rules and use the unlimited power vested in you, the DM, to cope with anything that crops up. Most of the cheese involving wizards is based on combos of spells that a new player wouldn't know......
In some cases, your right. Many players would willingly use blaster wizards, but even then, some want to make the sneaky wizard using save or suck/die. In other words, Batman. With divinists, its even easier. Many people take natural spell because they believe that its the only way to make Druids playable, while it really makes them overpowered. And some would see Divine power or righteous might, and prepare them so they can assist the Fighter. The only problem is that, it makes them better than the fighter.

[neoweasel]

Unbalanced, abusable, and/or poorly worded spells and feats:
<snip>

The entire Polymorph spell family.

Is Polymorph still unbalanced after the nerf it got in (I think) PHBII? I haven't had a chance to play around with it, but it looked like it got into "high end of balanced" territory.

[Reel On, Love]

Is Polymorph still unbalanced after the nerf it got in (I think) PHBII? I haven't had a chance to play around with it, but it looked like it got into "high end of balanced" territory.

Yes, because the new Polymorph subtype doesn't actually apply to the original spells.

[neoweasel]

Yes, because the new Polymorph subtype doesn't actually apply to the original spells.
Hm. You seem to be right.

Well there's an obvious fix that I'll be implementing in any game I run before 4th Ed comes out.

[shadowdemon_lord]

I'd recommend flat out banning all the polymorph spells (alter self, polymorph, baleful polymorph, change self, polymorph any object), polymorph is just a pain in the ass to restrict, and to easily abusable. You might want to ban natural spell also, and (if you get that high) force cage. Fighter is underpowered because all they get are feats, but that's why their are a multitude of PrC's for the fighter. If you have any fighters in the group, give them maybe the option to rebuild a bit to qualify for a PrC around 6th or 7th level, to keep them in line with the casters in power. The same is true for monks, and barbarians to a lesser extent. These melee classes do not last as well as they should into high levels, and hence many many PrC's have been made for them. However, until you hit about level 10 or so, the arcanists shouldn't be outshining everyone else. Really, level's 5-9 or so is the sweetspot for D&D. The melee classes really shine, the casters have access to some useful spells but nothing gamebreaking (unless you really want to abuse your character), the monsters's haven't scaled to the point where they just destroy tanks who aren't completely twinked yet, the skill monkey's stand a reasonable chance of success. Everyone's happy (except the spiderclimbing, flamestriking, crocodile with a magical bite attack, that's just broken).

As long as your cleric either dosen't get time to do pull off his super self buff suite or dosen't really think of it and is content to play the healer/buffer/nuker he wont go overboard untill the inevetiable power creep that comes with high level casters. Likewise, if your wizard isn't completely invested in battle field control, he shouldn't completely outshine everyone else. The wizard also has a super self buff suite, which is a bit higher level but also effective (although harder to see). DONT LET YOUR CASTERS PULL OFF THEIR BUFF SUITES (this counts double for the druid, as the druid not only buffs himself, but animal companion and can already out tank most fighter builds), unless you have something really tough lined up. In general that rule also applies at low levels, your average fighter is going to be quite a bit more powerful after a heroism, bull's strength, enlarge person, and bears endurance are dropped on him. OTOH, if the PC's manage to get the drop on an encounter in an especially ingenious way, don't scale it up to spite them, let them have their glory.

The other problem with higher level play, is that most of the monsters either are tanks, or are artillery peices that can also tank. At higher level play, these monsters need to be scaled up to challenge the wizards, but most of them have to go through the fighter to get their. What's this end up looking like? Fighter charges! Fighter provokes an AoO going in because the thing has better reach then him. Fighter gets off one hit, which does good damage (say 70). Sadly, this thing has over 200 HP's. Now, the thing (let's say it's a marilith) uleashes a volley of ten attacks. The fighters got a decent AC, so the itteratives miss, this leaves only 7 attacks connecting, the fighters in bad shape. The Marilith then gets to initiate a grapple, wins it, and gets another chunk of damage in. The fighters probably nearly dead now, and wil drop next round. Meanhwile he's grappled, making the application of AoE spells from his caster buddies a risky endeavor. That might be the single biggest reason fighters types are underpowered at high levels, the monsters tank better then the PC ever will.

[Kurald Galain]

The short answer to what makes classes unbalanced is having too many options (or, the other way, too few options).

The slightly longer answer involves examining those options; for instance, does the class have impressive offensive options (e.g. cleric with their save-or-die effects, vs. fighters who hit things with sticks) or impressive defensive options (e.g. wizard with fly, foresight, invis, mirror image, et cetera, vs. barbarians who have, well, armor and a mediocre will save).

[Swordguy]

The short answer? Spellcasting.

<assorted general truthiness>


I came here to say this, and since it seems to have been overlooked, I'm quoting it for emphasis.

Game-breaking effects in D&D, almost without exception (Diplomancy), come from spellcasting.

Look at the tiers of D&D thread. The Top Tier stuff is ALWAYS full spellcasters (psions can potentially count). This shold tell one something.

(I found the best fix seems to be arbitrarily restricting spellcasting to no more than 5-6th level spells, and spreading them out somewhat (1 spell lvl/4 levels) and doubling how many can cast per day).

[Rogue 7]

In some cases, your right. Many players would willingly use blaster wizards, but even then, some want to make the sneaky wizard using save or suck/die. In other words, Batman. With divinists, its even easier. Many people take natural spell because they believe that its the only way to make Druids playable, while it really makes them overpowered. And some would see Divine power or righteous might, and prepare them so they can assist the Fighter. The only problem is that, it makes them better than the fighter.

Now here's where I have a question. My cleric's decent enough for me in melee without a great deal of buffs. It makes more sense to me to spend those buffs upping someone who already does more damage (a fighter, for instance), to increase his power even further. Why wouldn't that work.

[KoDT69]

All the best cleric melee type buffs are self-only :smallfrown:

[Santanya]

Really, the whole 'unbalanced' thing depends on the players as well as the DM...


How do you counter a cleric that can enlarge himself and hit hard?

Easy, you attack with another large mob that by himself, is a VERY hard fight for the cleric, but with the rest of the party is doable, even if a hard fight. Throw in a bunch of smaller enemies that the rest of the party has to worry about first and its an interesting fight.

DMing for these classes is difficult, yes, but if you strike that balance, then A) Everyone has fun. B) Everyone feels like they contributed. C) That uber, kill anything character isn't any more special than the monk that took out the 20 smaller enemies before helping to finish off the big bad evil guy.

[Larrin]

Game-breaking effects in D&D, almost without exception (Diplomancy), come from spellcasting.



and diplomacy is virtually spellcasting anyway...its an unlimited charm spell except instead of a will save there is an opposed diplomacy check. If you have no ranks in diplomacy, you stand NO chance, there isn't a way to dispell it, you will be the bards best friend, possibly forever, and all he had to say was a few 'magic' words. sounds like a spell to me.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And how doezzat change things? The cleric will just take a turn now and then to use a wand or a spell to heal himself, thus making the attacks of his foe pointless.


The sad, sad truth is that ANYTHING that wants to shine in D&D requires extremely abusive combinations (Whole lotta pluses to init, shocktrooper, all the other cheese, and maybe the airborne version of the feats if you are a fighter who got himself wings), a casting system (Let's face it, the most useful melee classes, the ToBBers, have a kind of casting system, only more effective and less cheesy), or being a spellcaster class outright (Like Duskblade. It only gets partial casting, and even then, it's tremendously better than a fighter). If you try to play it Conan, you'll get smashed, because D&D is a VERY high magic setting.

[Telonius]

Now here's where I have a question. My cleric's decent enough for me in melee without a great deal of buffs. It makes more sense to me to spend those buffs upping someone who already does more damage (a fighter, for instance), to increase his power even further. Why wouldn't that work.

It depends greatly on the situation, but Overkill is a problem. Say an enemy has 50 hp. If your fighter can already do 51hp worth of damage, then it doesn't make sense for you to buff him up to do any more. It doesn't matter if he beats the hp total by one or one million, the enemy isn't going to be any more dead. If, as you say, your cleric is not as good at killing things as the Fighter is, the ability to buff yourself up to fighter-level power could be the better choice.

This problem is most obvious in cases where one class can one-hit-kill and the other can't. But it scales up. Will two hits from the fighter kill it? Will two from the Cleric? Can the Fighter finish off more than one little enemy with a full attack, and can the Cleric do the same? Especially since you're the Cleric, you have to ration your healing among the party members. It's always better to kill stuff that can hurt you before it hurts you, rather than healing people up afterwards.

[kjones]

and diplomacy is virtually spellcasting anyway...its an unlimited charm spell except instead of a will save there is an opposed diplomacy check. If you have no ranks in diplomacy, you stand NO chance, there isn't a way to dispell it, you will be the bards best friend, possibly forever, and all he had to say was a few 'magic' words. sounds like a spell to me.

Mostly true, but you're missing the worst of it. The most broken thing about Diplomacy is that it isn't made as a check opposed to anything, it's made against a fixed DC, one that is trivial to achieve at low-ish levels.

Seriously, though I think you guys are going a little overboard. With new players, the easiest thing to do is keep levels low, which is what you should be doing anyway. You should still ban Alter Self, though - 2nd level sorc/wiz.

[shadowdemon_lord]

Not buffing the fighter becomes an effective tactic after your self buffs alone make you a better fighter then the fighter. What's the solution to Clericzilla? Design encounters so taking the two rounds mid level clerics need to buff is basically a none option because two rounds of the cleric sitting around is going to see his front line critically injured or dead. By 15th level the cleric can quicken righteous might, which will reduce the amount of time to pull off the divine power/righteous might/divine favor buff suite to 1 round with divine favor coming in as a quickened spell on the second round, then CoDzilla is really hard to avoid. But before then, it can be done.

[Reel On, Love]

Clerics buff in one round at all levels. GMW and Magic Vestment get cast in the mornings; after that, either just Divine Favor, just Divine Power, or (at 9+) Divine Power + Quickened Divine Favor.

[mostlyharmful]

and then the fighter types go home and cry, then open a tavern of their very own.... If you really do have divine casters that are obnoxious enough to pull this crap in game on a routine basis then just hit them with the demands of their church, tithes, holy ordained missions, patitioners, temple duties, etc,etc,etc... cutting down their WBL and impossing requirements of their time and energy seems a reasonable response of a god constantly bothered by a suped up cleric running around going crazy-ass on anything in sight. If they only crank out the CoDzilla tactics occassionally then this is a whole lot less of a deal

[Reel On, Love]

So, something like, "Sorry, Bob, the god of Strength and War doesn't like that you cast the Divine Power spell he granted you--the one that makes you stronger and better suited for battle--in order to fight your enemies. He assigns you a quest for penance. Also, this makes no sense whatsoever, and I'm a bad DM for punishing you for using a spell in the book in exactly the way it was intended. Wheeee!"

[Indon]

The sad, sad truth is that ANYTHING that wants to shine in D&D requires extremely abusive combinations (Whole lotta pluses to init, shocktrooper, all the other cheese, and maybe the airborne version of the feats if you are a fighter who got himself wings), a casting system (Let's face it, the most useful melee classes, the ToBBers, have a kind of casting system, only more effective and less cheesy), or being a spellcaster class outright (Like Duskblade. It only gets partial casting, and even then, it's tremendously better than a fighter). If you try to play it Conan, you'll get smashed, because D&D is a VERY high magic setting.

I don't think D&D turns into this game until you've put at least some effort into making it that way.

In a world of Blaster wizards, Monkey Grip TWF Fighters, and monsters that attack the nearest threat instead of the squishiest threat, D&D works just fine. But optimization can cause escalation with players who don't have a good grasp on how to control their campaign power level.

[Emperor Tippy]

...It's not optimization in that case. It's called common sense.

[mostlyharmful]

So, something like, "Sorry, Bob, the god of Strength and War doesn't like that you cast the Divine Power spell he granted you--the one that makes you stronger and better suited for battle--in order to fight your enemies. He assigns you a quest for penance. Also, this makes no sense whatsoever, and I'm a bad DM for punishing you for using a spell in the book in exactly the way it was intended. Wheeee!"

Nope, along the lines of, "well done Bob, your god has now noticed you and the work you've been doing... please volunteer for one of these three holy missions ordained for you." Using divine power without consequences makes no sense to me. and if you are a cleric or a druid in an established faith then you aught to act like it. Leading the congrgation or being handed the boring but diplomatically important work makes perfect sense for the up and comer or for the experianced caster that's actually his faiths chief worshiper for several hundred miles. Fighters adn Skillmonkies and Arcane csters aren't reliant on an outside source of power and abuses of those types would require an alternate approach but I see nothing rong in using a divine caster like that. You show yourself to be powerful, you gain fame/noteriety and your church hierarchy will see you as an asset. Put anouther way pulling stunts like that routinely gets you noticed.

[Kaelik]

Using divine power without consequences makes no sense to me.
Put anouther way pulling stunts like that routinely gets you noticed.

What makes Divine Power any different then any other Cleric spell? How is it "pulling a stunt" to Divine Power oneself, but not to heal up your allies after combat?

Why would a special holy mission for the God of War deplete wealth by level?

Why wouldn't a healbot cleric of Pelor get the same type of quest that reduces WBL?

[mostlyharmful]

This isn't just about the spells used in this instance although they may contribute, it's about the divine caster being both powerful and successful. Which on an individual basis is fine and on a larger scale gets you noticed by people who then want you to do stuff. The divine caster effectively has a hierarchy built in, even if it's just them and their god, and calling attention to yourself is far more likely to happen with multiple high power buffs followed by you pounding the crap out of a CR monster that the whole party is suppossed to have fought than by being a member of a team doing the same. If the caster wants to one man party then they can, but there should be consequences of that. Also this isn't about using such things once or twice a month in the course of being an adventuring cleric, it's about doing it four times a day and geting a rep for that.

[Orzel]

Without cheesy items and feats, Divine Power and Righteous might are pretty tame. By the time a cleric can cast these spells 1 time for each battle (3 to 5) to outdo a dedicated martial class, your cleric has to be past level 10. At that point a martial class should have just as strong without wasting the equivalent of 2 spell levels of slots. Every Clericzilla I've seen ran outta DPs by the 4th battle of the day. Those buffs are only 1 round per level so that the most 2 minutes before epic. And you have to waste a round casting it.

Druid. I ain't talking 'bout druids.
Polymorph. Not talking 'bout that either.

[cody.burton]

Every Clericzilla I've seen ran outta DPs by the 4th battle of the day.

Good point, there. If you do the standard 3-5 encounters of the appropriate CR per day or less, full casters own. period.

However, if you do an endurance run, say, 12 encounters of CR 3 less than the party level, spellcasters have to be more careful with their spell slots, and melee classes become relatively more powerful.

[Jack_Simth]

Well said sir! My hats off to you, except i'm not wearing one.
If your hat is not worn, how is it not off? Is it electric and you left it running?

In general, things that make an ability high powered; having more than one, maybe two of these, is going to make a character fairly breakable ... but, in a group-game, "broken" really only means "outside the rest of the group's power curve" (on either side - in a group of 20th level characters, the Commoner-1 is broken due to being too weak, in an extreme case)

1) Extra Actions.
Combat actions are one of the most valuable things in D&D. Being able to act more often (or again now at a cost of doing so later, such as in the case of the Celerity line) means your opponent is that much less like to be able to act at all. Tends to make encounters even more of a matter of who goes first (and the Celerity line is particularly bad, as it can be used to bypass initiative). Time Stop is the only core such spell you need to worry about; the killed 3.0 haste for a reason.

2) Cherry picking.
The ability to go through a dozen books and pick exactly the thing you need for the situation you happen to find yourself in on short notice is very strong. The Core Divine spellcasters get this - which is one of the reasons they're on the high side of the power curve. Even when you can only peruse one or two books, there's still a pretty major advantage in that ability. Wizards get this to a goodly extent as well - the only limitation being that it has to be in their spellbook (the Polymorph line, the Planar Binding line, Gate, and the Planar Ally line also do this).

3) Polymorph.
Yes, it shows up under cherry picking, but it's worth it's own category. The thing that makes polymorph overly strong is the you+ nature of the spell line. It's you, plus a bunch of abilities taken from that creature over there. Polymorph a rogue into a Hydra, and any sneak-attackable critter is dead in one full attack (or, depending on the reading of the abilities, when provoking when retreating!). Why? Well, the rogue gets rogue class features (sneak attack) combined with Hydra racial features (lots and lots of attacks at a high attack bonus). You get similar things with the Wizard who turns into a Roper. I know of three basic ways to fix it that have a reasonable chance of working (other than banning, that is):
a) Variant summoning. You don't tack the abilities of the form onto the character - you replace the character with the monster, minus some of the monster's abilities (but NOT plus that type of ability in the character!). Limit forms by CR. Turning the rogue into a hydra gets the rogue a lot of attacks... but no sneak attack dice to add to them. Balanced based on CR - you're replacing one character with another of same or lower CR.
b) Limited forms. In the extreme case, each form is a separate spell. In the non-extreme case, you get something similar to the Summon Monster line (a short list of specific forms the spell can grant). You can balance the abilities the form grants against the spell level directly. Can be combined with (a) fairly readily.
c) Mostly illusion. Polymorph becomes a buff spell. You take a list of abilities the spell can grant, and pick X of them to apply to the target, making a disguise check to make observers think that you've changed the target into that creature. Balanced similarly to other buff spells, like Fly or Mage Armor; there's only so much you can do with it.

4) Open-ended Calling/Summoning.
Core, that's the Planar Binding line, the Planar Ally line, and Gate.
Yes, this is mentioned as part of cherry-picking, but it's worthy of a separate category. When you get something that costs you very little, can be disposed of at no real loss to you, and is HIGHLY effective at what you want it to do (generally, there's an outsider that's very good at any one type of task) suddenly there's a lot less in the way of in-game need for other characters in the party - controlled NPC's do the job. Especially when you can Call up something over the CR of anyone in the party, and keep it around for several days. Combat becomes... well... what battle?

5) The ability to duplicate other class's role.
This is a biggie, and is actually touched on with some of the above (3 and 4, primarily). If you can quickly arrange to fight better than the Fighter (Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, Magic Vestments, and Greater Magic Weapon are the keystone spells of a Cleric who does this, Core), sneak better than the Rogue (Silence, Invisibility), scout extremely well (Divinations - Clairvoyance, Clairaudiance, Prying Eyes, Scrying, and so on), locate and avoid or otherwise neutralize traps better than the rogue (curiously, all this takes is Unseen Servant, Detect Magic, a bag of rocks, and some tied-up chickens; Arcane Sight makes it better, but is not required until you start running into Symbol spells with their 60 foot trigger range; it helps to be able to make wands, too; a Cleric can pull it off with Find Traps or Find the Path), get around most obstacles (Spider Climb, Fly) and be almost impossible to catch unawares (a Bat familiar with Blindsense makes for a killer lookout, and such things as the Rope Trick spell (Extended, prior to about 9th or 10th level) and that Magnificent Mansion) then the Fighter and Rogue become redundant.

For something to be actually broken, it merely has to cut down on the fun factor for someone at the table. Generally this is done by one or more of the above (overpowered characters), but it can also be done by way of underpowered characters dragging the rest down. The key is that the players must be balanced - not against the monster manual, but against each other; if you've got a party of four equally skilled batman Wizards (or four equally skilled CoDZillas), the group isn't broken - they can't step on each other's toes (okay, they're walking over +4 CR monsters; no problem, just break out mosters at +5 or higher CR). Likewise, if you've got a party of four poorly-built monks, there's no problem (oh, they're getting trampled by half the challenges of their CR? Okay, time to tone it down a CR or two...). As long as the party is balanced against itself, even a fairly mediocre DM can adjust fairly readily. It's generally when one or two players are significantly out of sync with the power level of the party that issues occur - one or more players at the table aren't getting a "fair share" of good "spotlight time".


Good point, there. If you do the standard 3-5 encounters of the appropriate CR per day or less, full casters own. period.

However, if you do an endurance run, say, 12 encounters of CR 3 less than the party level, spellcasters have to be more careful with their spell slots, and melee classes become relatively more powerful.
He's just never seen a Cleric invest in the scrolls/wands of Divine Power (it's character level, not caster level) to properly pull off an endurance run that way. Then there's Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) cheese.

[cody.burton]

He's just never seen a Cleric invest in the scrolls/wands of Divine Power (it's character level, not caster level) to properly pull off an endurance run that way. Then there's Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) cheese.

True, a cleric can do that, but assuming that no-one is actively trying to break the game, adding more encounters will decrease the caster's relative power level.

[Jack_Simth]

True, a cleric can do that, but assuming that no-one is actively trying to break the game, adding more encounters will decrease the caster's relative power level.
Someone who does that sort of thing is not usually actively trying to break the game (or at least, isn't thinking in those terms) - they're trying to cover a weakness that they've noticed. After the first endurance run where the character ran out of useful spells, the player is going to start thinking about ways to not run out of useful spells as often (especially if the player thinks another endurance run may be coming up). Wands and scrolls accomplish this, and are a fairly obvious way to go about it. Breaking the game is a side-effect. Even with such measures, more encounters per day reduce the Full Caster's effectiveness (as it's resources spent on temporary things, rather than enduring boosts) but not by nearly as much as otherwise (and some amount of that is assumed in the standard treasure distribution tables).

[cody.burton]

Fair enough.

[horseboy]

Good point, there. If you do the standard 3-5 encounters of the appropriate CR per day or less, full casters own. period.

However, if you do an endurance run, say, 12 encounters of CR 3 less than the party level, spellcasters have to be more careful with their spell slots, and melee classes become relatively more powerful.

But then comes the problem of how do you do that without it turning your campaign into one long, tedious hack and slash grind?

[Frosty]

If you want to bring Clerics and wizards down a tad, then all you need to do is bring more Dispel Magics (and Greater versions too) to the table. This can beat even Divine Metamagic cheese.

also, ban cheap magic items that rasie Caster Level so their buffs aren't nigh0undispellable. WIth buffs dispelled left and right, the overpowered magic classes will be brought down to earth.