What are some overpowered things tier 1 classes can do?

[Hyena]

I've heard it all back when I played 3.5 - low tier classes excel at one thing, if even that, while high tier classes can utterly break the game. But having not played this edition for years, I've utterly forgotten what are some specific examples. I remember the Demiplane+Clone trick, but beyond that it's kind of a blur.
So, what broken things can high tier classes accomplish?

[lolcat]

Timestop + a metric sh*tton of delayed blast fireball, planar bind yourself an army of angels/demons/cthulhus little cousins (extra evil points to permanently control them once they're there so you don't need to pay them either), buff yourself to the size category of "holy f*ck" whil carrying your very own self-created light-saber AND still cast spells with half a dozen free metamagics on it, have a dozen spells perma-buffing you 24/7, scry and ask your bff Pelor for all the knowledge you need on upcoming encounters, load the slingshot of your friendly party-gnome with shrunken boulders to deal 20d6 with a sling, or load his crossbow with shrunken sharpened trees and let your DM figure out what kind of damage it deals to suddenly have a tree-trunk in your guts, use teleport to make any travel and random encounters your poor DM has spent weeks preparing for moot, wreck local economies with fabricate, buff yourself until you're charming enough to give a Succubus lessons in how to pick up the ladies/gents, use poison spell and venomfire to deal casterleveld6 with a lvl 0 spell, my personal favorite would be building a "gun" with the spell of Engulfing Terror that actually shoots gelatinous cubes......
The point is that your casters solutions scale insanely to whatever you want to apply it to. And are hilarious :D

[Hyena]

That does sound pretty impressive. What other things are possible, and how specfically do you achieve them?

[lolcat]

Given that there are dozens and dozens of sourcebooks, hundreds of feats and spells and thousands of combinations thereof can you give an area of interest that you have?Utility, melee combat, metamagic casting shenanigans, summoning, pulling Camelot out of your magical butt every time the party takes a rest...?

A personal favorite of my current character for example is an archivist/runecaster who has built an explosive-rune "printing press", meaning that with the pull of a lever and provided she has enough paper, the rune-inscribed mechanism she created can churn out as many explosive runes as she wants (all maximized thanks to the runecaster class ability, empowered due to a wand and sudden-empowered thanks to a feat, so i.e. instead of 6d6 it deals 72 flat out damage for each explosive rune).
Another neat combination she uses is a staff that has a rune for summon desert ally on it, creating a swarm of bird-constructs in a wide area around her. Another item with a rune for baleful transposition on it means that using the actions of her familiar, she can either teleport herself to any of those birds, save her allies with her familiars readied action, or reshuffle her enemies if they fail their save (just in case, one of those birds is about 100 ft. in the air for extra hilarity).

[Rater202]

I don't know if it counts as a tier-one class, but Warshaper is pretty insane.

A shifter or changeling Fighter 4/Warshper 1 can, as a fifth level character, make an infinite number of melee attacks per round via their morphic weapon class feature, which allows you to, as a supernatural ability, produce natural weapons or increase the size of your existing natural weapons by one size category, but does not give you a limit on how many you can make or whether or not they're primary or secondary natural weapons.

Depending on how you interpret things, a Longtooth Shifter Fighter with 18 strength who is currently shifted and took the Iproved NAtural Weapon(Bite) and Longtooth Elite feats could at any point in time as generate an infinte number of fancked mouths that deal 2d6+6(+5 from strength, due to the native 18 and the +2 from shifting and another +1 from having 4 character levels) damage and 1 point of con damage if the attack hits and does at least one point of damage.

Which means that as long as you are attacking an opponent who's AC is not beyond what you can theoretically hit, does not have DR greater than 18(unless that DR is overcome by bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage, which a bite Scouts as all three of) and is not immune to Con damage, then law of portability means that as a full attack action you can pretty much auto kill it either from hitpoint damage or con damage.

It's not the most overpowered thing, but infinite melee attacks at level 5 is probably one of the most absurd things you can get on a non-caster.

[lolcat]

I don't know if it counts as a tier-one class, but Warshaper is pretty insane.

A shifter or changeling Fighter 4/Warshper 1 can, as a fifth level character, make an infinite number of melee attacks per round via their morphic weapon class feature, which allows you to, as a supernatural ability, produce natural weapons or increase the size of your existing natural weapons by one size category, but does not give you a limit on how many you can make or whether or not they're primary or secondary natural weapons.

Depending on how you interpret things, a Longtooth Shifter Fighter with 18 strength who is currently shifted and took the Iproved NAtural Weapon(Bite) and Longtooth Elite feats could at any point in time as generate an infinte number of fancked mouths that deal 2d6+6(+5 from strength, due to the native 18 and the +2 from shifting and another +1 from having 4 character levels) damage and 1 point of con damage if the attack hits and does at least one point of damage.

Which means that as long as you are attacking an opponent who's AC is not beyond what you can theoretically hit, does not have DR greater than 18(unless that DR is overcome by bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage, which a bite Scouts as all three of) and is not immune to Con damage, then law of portability means that as a full attack action you can pretty much auto kill it either from hitpoint damage or con damage.

It's not the most overpowered thing, but infinite melee attacks at level 5 is probably one of the most absurd things you can get on a non-caster.

Now sprinkle some Souleater on that and remove at least one level with each of those natural attacks as well :D Either the campaign suddenly becomes very undead- and construct-heavy, or...... :D

[Anthrowhale]

A simple concrete one is a cleric with Surge of Fortune+Sense Weakness+a Vorpal weapon. The limiting factor here is wealth by level since the vorpal weapon costs 72k gp. According to wealth by level guidelines and a standard policy of only spending half or less of your wealth on a single item, this comes online at ECL 14. So at ECL 14 a cleric can automatically kill a Great Wyrm Prsimatic Dragon (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm#prismaticDragon) (CR66!) in melee.

[Melcar]

I've heard it all back when I played 3.5 - low tier classes excel at one thing, if even that, while high tier classes can utterly break the game. But having not played this edition for years, I've utterly forgotten what are some specific examples. I remember the Demiplane+Clone trick, but beyond that it's kind of a blur.
So, what broken things can high tier classes accomplish?

Well there's timestop, forcecage and maw of chaos, then there is chain gating solars... which always annoys my DM. Then there is the free wish/miracle, which in tun means unlimited stat boost items, which really makes chain gating solars obsolete... But really its about a well played tier 1 being able to pretty much do anything - and do it better than the specialist class of a lower tier! There are variations to the truth of this statement, but that is the general gist...

Like, why employ a rogue, when superior invisibility/ eternalness/ phase door is a thing. Why hire a fighter, when one can shapechange/summon and fight better for it... Why hire a crafter when fabricate does it better and waay faste... and why need fabricate when wish will create things wholecloth for you... remember you have unlimited free wishes! And why need a skill monkey when guidance of the avatar is a thing...

Its not like this is how tier 1s are played at every table or all the time, but if the rules are taken to their logic conclusion, then all other classes are basically being outshone and out performed by a well played tier 1.

It really just boils down to who has access to level 9 spells. Those that do, wins!

[Crake]

So I think people are kinda missing the point of tier 1. They don't break a combat, they break the campaign. They introduce so many different layers of options in how to tackle, not just a single combat, but entire dungeons, or even entire campaign plotpoints. Need to interrogate someone? Mindrape them, you get all the information in an instant, plus a new sleeper ally. Need to bolster an army, planar bind/gate in a bunch of celestials to aid you in the battle. Need to get into some highly secure place? Ethereal jaunt through the walls. Need to be somewhere quickly? Teleport. Need to secure a choke point in a mountain pass? Cast a bunch of stone walls and build a makeshift fortress.

Being tier 1 isn't about being able to throw big numbers, you can get that as low as tier 4. Being tier 1 is entirely about having a versatile toolkit that you can use to near instantly solve just about any problem the DM throws at you.

[Kitsuneymg]

Being tier 1 isn't about being able to throw big numbers, you can get that as low as tier 4. Being tier 1 is entirely about having a versatile toolkit that you can use to near instantly solve just about any problem the DM throws at you.

This is the post people need to read.

Just take teleport as an example. You can go home. You can go shopping anytime. You can leave and re-enter a dungeon at will. You can decide you don’t want to engage with an encounter. Paired with scry, you can just go to the final room.

Teleport is just one spell that lets a player dictate to the GM how the campaign goes. And wizards have hundreds of spells to choose from. They can go anywhere, know anything, and obtain anything they need. They can cast multiple such narrative control spells per day.

A fighter may be able to slay everyone in reach with a standard action, but the wizard only has to even start the fight if they want to.

[Asmotherion]

By level 20 as a Tier 1 caster, you can literally accomplish pretty much everything. Persistant time stop with metamagic reducers and other tricks to long rest between turns, all the while you use all your spells to make a small version of Hell for the enemy, and buff yourself with all your most powerful spells (persisted) comes to mind as an example of how brokenly powerfull you become.

[Gruftzwerg]

Imho first you should get familiar with Pun-Pun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXXr0lG1GE). Note that the video explains the lvl5 incarnation. But you can unlock the build with an optimized lvl1 Kobold wizard to pass a Knowledge Planes DC 25 check. This gives you the info needed that calling Pazuzu's name 3 times will summon him. You then Wish for a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation. Use this to gate in an Efreeti and get three more wishes. One to shift to the astral plane (for the relatively slower time due to the high buff time), and two others on candles. Gate in a Sarruhk, and make it give you Manipulate Form and yadda yadda (rest see video).



If you are looking for overpowered/gamebreaking things in general, I can offer 2 non T1 entries of mine: BoBaFeat (Wu-jen or Wizard build options) and Orochimaru (a craftlock) (links see signature).
They can, if desired, get to Pun-Pun power levels and thus become as gamebreaking.

[Soranar]

Tier 1 have an answer to everything, basically they have an ''I win'' button for every situation.
*Note that an artificer effectively is an arcane spellcaster since he can reproduce any spell through magic items

The difference between tier 1 and tier 2 is that a tier 2 has very good tricks that work in most situations while a tier 1 has a custom made good trick for every situation

So, as an example of this

I need to convince this guy to tell me where ''X'' is
-there's a spell for that (locate whatever, charm person, dominate person)

I need to get past this undead
-there's a spell for that (arcane casters)
-there's turn undead (cleric)
-my bear or my summon can eat it (druid)


I need to disable this trap
-low level summon can eat the trap damage
-find traps spell can find it
-damage spell can destroy some traps
-you can fly over it in some situation
-make a tunnel around the trap in others
-teleport around the trap

I need to beat this monster
-use a fort save spell on a physically weak opponent
-use a will save spell on a physically strong opponent
-use a no save spell on something with good saves (summons, buffs, etc)

Finally tier 1 classes have an ''oh crap'' option when things go wrong, usually with a contingent spell or the like

-teleport away
-fly away
-become invisible
-become ethereal
-was astral projected the whole time and never in any danger
-pull a Jesus

the more ''oh crap'' options a class has, the higher tier they usually are

[AvatarVecna]

I've heard it all back when I played 3.5 - low tier classes excel at one thing, if even that, while high tier classes can utterly break the game. But having not played this edition for years, I've utterly forgotten what are some specific examples. I remember the Demiplane+Clone trick, but beyond that it's kind of a blur.
So, what broken things can high tier classes accomplish?

A fighter 20 walks into a magic item shop, seeking out items of great power. After a good deal of perusing and some failed bartering, he purchases two rings for 200k that are each capable of granting him three wishes. These wishes can't be too powerful due to the 5000 XP limit, but they're still wishes so he figures he's getting his money worth. The Artificer 10 who runs the shop chuckles to himself and plays with the magical fidget spinner he finished last night, knowing that before the day is done, it will grant him power beyond mortal comprehension. He is at least partially chuckling because it only cost him 8k to make.

1) Artificer can craft by replicating the casting of other classes.

2) A "Divine Crusader 9" of the envy domain casts Wish as a 9th lvl spell at CL 9.

3) Ammunition is enchanted at normal price for a bundle of 50, or 1/50th price for a single. This is an actual change in market price, not a change only to crafting costs. Examples of existing magic ammunition do not have their XP costs in fractions, proving they can be enchanted individually.

4) Shuriken count as ammunition. Any ammunition would work for this, but shuriken is the go-to because you can make it a morphing weapon to get super-cheap normal weapons, and also because a shuriken is kinda like a fidget spinner and I find that amusing.

5) A crafter can place restrictions on an item, such that it can only be used by somebody of the appropriate race and alignment who has the appropriate number of ranks in the appropriate skill. Each of these is an additive reduction in market value (as opposed to the multiplicative reduction in crafting cost), so if they were to be stacked, they stack in such a way that the actual effective market price of the item is 30% of whatever the normal market price would be.

6) Magic Weapons that incorporate spells with costly material or XP components do not incorporate those costs as part of the item crafting process directly - it's added into the cost of the item per the Magic Item Creation rules, but unlike (for example) magic rings, it does not also have to be paid directly. So while a ring of wishing costs 15k XP on top of 1/25th of the crafting cost, a magic weapon that grants wishes just pays the 1/25th.

7) Wish can be used to upgrade a magic item. Normally, you spend "5000 + 2X" XP as part of the wish; this improves the XP cost of the item by "X", and thus improves the GP cost of the item by "25X", and improves the effect of the item such that it would warrant its old price +25X. This is by default a safe use of Wish and thus shouldn't result in any twisting. These wished-up items do not need to be items you would be capable of crafting yourself, nor are they limited by the CL of the wish that grants them.

All of that put together:

"Shuriken Of At-Will Use-Activated Wish, CL 9, 5026 XP limit" that can only be used by a CN Human with 6 ranks in Knowledge (Optimization) would cost 16050 gp on the open market if you could find somebody selling one. This means it costs 8025 gp, 642 XP, and 9 days to craft yourself, assuming no feats or abilities that would reduce crafting costs. This magical fidget spinner can be spun to grant yourself a wish; among the many, many wishes it can grant is "I wish this magical fidget spinner could grant more powerful wishes". Doing so does not cost you XP, but improves the would-be XP cost to craft the item by 13 XP, which increases the effective market price by 325 gp. This would be a "Shuriken Of At-Will Use-Activated Wish, CL 9, 5134 XP limit" that can only be used by a CN Human with 6 ranks in Knowledge (Optimization).

Now spin it again, and again, until you're satisfied. Let's say...25 spins, and then we get rid of the shuriken forever. A few minutes of use, let's see how much power we can squeeze out of that.

After 24 spins, your item can now grant wishes of up to 3,394,775,456,757,600,000 XP limit, and can thus just create magic items worth up to 84,869,386,418,940,000,000 gp of market value, or 282,897,954,729,800,000,000 if you tack on "that can only be used by me" for those three market price reducers, or 14,144,897,736,490,000,000,000 if it's a shuriken. Wish for 1 such. This could be something like the following item set:

AC +224760966 (armor/enchantment)

AC +158930003 (deflection)

AC +158930003 (natural)

Shuriken +224760966 (enhancement/enchantment)

Saves +224760966 (resistance)

Attributes +224760966 (enhancement)

200 Skills +71075658 (competence)

(11443857) nonepic feats

(11443857) epic feats

(25258) At-Will Use-Activated Spell (Spell Level 1 million, CL 1 million)

Of course, "haha big numbers" is also kinda missing the main point of this trick: sure, you can use this pile of nonsense to start up your own wish loop that can lead to infinite power in a few minutes, but let's say your DM doesn't allow wish to work that way - maybe he just doesn't let Wish make/upgrade magic items. The restrictions that reduce market price and the shuriken trick can combine to give you a magic item with a market price at 3/500th what it'd normally be. Additionally, you can take advantage of fast-casting PrCs like Divine Crusader, Ur-Priest, Blighter, and Sublime Chord to replicate items that can cast any spell on the bard/cleric/druid/sorcerer/wizard list (at about half-normal caster level, and maybe even reduced spell level too). Artificer 10 has access to basically all 9th lvl spells (maybe Artificer 8, I'm not sure if the CL boost for prereqs counts for this?).

Those three tricks don't require you to have particular feats or borrow spell effects from a friend or have useful magic items or sacrifice somebody to Cthulhu. All of those are things that can make things easier, sure! But if you're playing in a game that plays by RAW even when it gets kinda silly, it is entirely possible for a regular old artificer 10 to spend 900 gp, 36 XP, and 1 day crafting an item that costs up to 150k normally. This can replicate basically any spell in the game (and can replicate quite a few as at-will or continuous effects), can grant you continuous feats, or grant you big bonuses to whatever you want. Spend 1 day pulling this crafting nonsense, and so long as there's a solution in the game, you can probably pull it out of your ass with a tiny bit of downtime.

EDIT: This trick is available to non-Artificers too, sorta: the shuriken and restriction bits can be used by any caster to get that 3/500th, but they only have access to their own list and normal CLs. "Normal CL" tends to mean that they're going to be roughly twice as expensive for a non-Artificer, while being limited to their own list means not having access to early-spell-access lists...and for that matter, not having access to literally all spells in the game. This hurts clerics and druids much less than wizards for the most part, hurts wizards less the bigger their spellbook gets, and hurts bards/sorcerers the most. And artificer doesn't even need to spend feats on getting crafting capabilities, the way casters do, because Artificer gets them as bonus feats.

There is nothing preventing you from having your Paladin or Ranger pick up Craft Magic Arms & Armor and building a stupid-powerful stupid-cheap shuriken mimicking paladin/ranger spells. It's just not as efficient or versatile as an artificer doing the same.

[Crake]

1) Artificer can craft by replicating the casting of other classes.

2) A "Divine Crusader 9" of the envy domain casts Wish as a 9th lvl spell at CL 9.

3) Ammunition is enchanted at normal price for a bundle of 50, or 1/50th price for a single. This is an actual change in market price, not a change only to crafting costs. Examples of existing magic ammunition do not have their XP costs in fractions, proving they can be enchanted individually.

4) Shuriken count as ammunition. Any ammunition would work for this, but shuriken is the go-to because you can make it a morphing weapon to get super-cheap normal weapons, and also because a shuriken is kinda like a fidget spinner and I find that amusing.

5) A crafter can place restrictions on an item, such that it can only be used by somebody of the appropriate race and alignment who has the appropriate number of ranks in the appropriate skill. Each of these is an additive reduction in market value (as opposed to the multiplicative reduction in crafting cost), so if they were to be stacked, they stack in such a way that the actual effective market price of the item is 30% of whatever the normal market price would be.

6) Magic Weapons that incorporate spells with costly material or XP components do not incorporate those costs as part of the item crafting process directly - it's added into the cost of the item per the Magic Item Creation rules, but unlike (for example) magic rings, it does not also have to be paid directly. So while a ring of wishing costs 15k XP on top of 1/25th of the crafting cost, a magic weapon that grants wishes just pays the 1/25th.

7) Wish can be used to upgrade a magic item. Normally, you spend "5000 + 2X" XP as part of the wish; this improves the XP cost of the item by "X", and thus improves the GP cost of the item by "25X", and improves the effect of the item such that it would warrant its old price +25X. This is by default a safe use of Wish and thus shouldn't result in any twisting. These wished-up items do not need to be items you would be capable of crafting yourself, nor are they limited by the CL of the wish that grants them.

All of that put together:

"Shuriken Of At-Will Use-Activated Wish, CL 9, 5026 XP limit" that can only be used by a CN Human with 6 ranks in Knowledge (Optimization) would cost 16050 gp on the open market if you could find somebody selling one. This means it costs 8025 gp, 642 XP, and 9 days to craft yourself, assuming no feats or abilities that would reduce crafting costs. This magical fidget spinner can be spun to grant yourself a wish; among the many, many wishes it can grant is "I wish this magical fidget spinner could grant more powerful wishes". Doing so does not cost you XP, but improves the would-be XP cost to craft the item by 13 XP, which increases the effective market price by 325 gp. This would be a "Shuriken Of At-Will Use-Activated Wish, CL 9, 5134 XP limit" that can only be used by a CN Human with 6 ranks in Knowledge (Optimization).

Now spin it again, and again, until you're satisfied. Let's say...25 spins, and then we get rid of the shuriken forever. A few minutes of use, let's see how much power we can squeeze out of that.

After 24 spins, your item can now grant wishes of up to 3,394,775,456,757,600,000 XP limit, and can thus just create magic items worth up to 84,869,386,418,940,000,000 gp of market value, or 282,897,954,729,800,000,000 if you tack on "that can only be used by me" for those three market price reducers, or 14,144,897,736,490,000,000,000 if it's a shuriken. Wish for 1 such. This could be something like the following item set:

AC +224760966 (armor/enchantment)

AC +158930003 (deflection)

AC +158930003 (natural)

Shuriken +224760966 (enhancement/enchantment)

Saves +224760966 (resistance)

Attributes +224760966 (enhancement)

200 Skills +71075658 (competence)

(11443857) nonepic feats

(11443857) epic feats

(25258) At-Will Use-Activated Spell (Spell Level 1 million, CL 1 million)

Can you cite for me where it's stated that all enchantments on ammunition are divided by 50, and not only specifically weapon-abilities? Because I think you'll find that only weapon abilities are reduced in such a way, and even this is not specifically stated, but rather inferred through the pricing table due to the fact that ammunition is listed as a stack of 50. Nothing about it suggests that you could take an otherwise wondrous item or magical ring effect like that and split the price by 50.

There's also the whole thing about custom magic item guidelines being just that, guidelines. The DM is the final arbiter on if a custom magic item goes or not, and what it's costs should be, so this theoretical item should come with a giant asterisk that says *Warning: Not actually rules legal, good luck getting DM approval.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I don't know if it counts as a tier-one class, but Warshaper is pretty insane.

A shifter or changeling Fighter 4/Warshper 1 can, as a fifth level character, make an infinite number of melee attacks per round via their morphic weapon class feature, which allows you to, as a supernatural ability, produce natural weapons or increase the size of your existing natural weapons by one size category, but does not give you a limit on how many you can make or whether or not they're primary or secondary natural weapons.

I never understood why people think this is legal when almost everything points elsewhere. Morphic weapons says that the ability allows "a natural attack", so only one. The example even says that the warshaper could grow one claw as an ettin, even though claws almost always come in pairs. Plus, there is only mention of how you can "change" your morphic weapons, not add another one. And about the "You can use that monster's broken natural weapon"... No? The class explicitly refers to the MM table that only lists slam, tentacle, claw, sting, bite, gore and tail.

Granted, the class is kinda poorly written, and you could argue you could do anything, but the RAI is extremely clear, with examples and specific cases, and you'd have to consciously want to see it broken to even consider being able to create any number of attacks.

[Rater202]

I never understood why people think this is legal when almost everything points elsewhere. Morphic weapons says that the ability allows "a natural attack", so only one. The example even says that the warshaper could grow one claw as an ettin, even though claws almost always come in pairs. Plus, there is only mention of how you can "change" your morphic weapons, not add another one. And about the "You can use that monster's broken natural weapon"... No? The class explicitly refers to the MM table that only lists slam, tentacle, claw, sting, bite, gore and tail.

Granted, the class is kinda poorly written, and you could argue you could do anything, but the RAI is extremely clear, with examples and specific cases, and you'd have to consciously want to see it broken to even consider being able to create any number of attacks.


As a move action, a warshaper can grow natural weapons such as claws or fangs, allowing a natural attack that deals the appropriate amount of damage according to the size of the new form (see Table 5—1 on page 296 of the Monster Manual). These morphic weapons need not be natural weapons that the creature already possesses. For example, a warshaper polymorphed into an ettin (Large giant) could grow a claw that deals 1d6 points of damage, or horns for a gore attack that deals 1d8 points of damage.

It doesn't say "a natural weapon," it says natural weapons, plural.

If you have more than one natural weapon, you can make more than one natural weapon attack as a full attack action as stated when natural weapons are described. From the SRD
The number of attacks a creature can make with its natural weapons depends on the type of the attack—generally, a creature can make one bite attack, one attack per claw or tentacle, one gore attack, one sting attack, or one slam attack (although Large creatures with arms or arm-like limbs can make a slam attack with each arm). Refer to the individual monster descriptions.

So, barring errata, the most obvious and natural interpretation of the line "allowing a natural attack" is to assume that "per natural weapon" is the intent.

While obvious infinite natural weapons is not the Rule As Intended, your reading on the other seems much more limited than what was problem intended considering that the entire rest of the class is about being a highly versatile shapeshifter. Manifesting one natural weapon at a time doesn't really track with "passively permanently shapeshift your damaged flesh into undamaged flesh," "reflexively shapeshift into a form where your vitals aren't where they're supposed to be as needed a potentially infinite number of times per day," "stretch any part of their body as long as it needs to be in order to attack from five feet away" and the coveted "be able to continuously change forms with a single use of Polymorph, Wildshape, or other shapeshifting spell, spell-like-ability, or class feature that allows for multiple forms."

The art of the class only shows a single natural weapon, but actually looking at the class features the intent seems to be that you turn into a shoggoth.

The only thing that's iffy about my build here is that it assumes that can duplicate your existing natural weapons. The "broken natural attack" is the combination of using two feats and a class feature to buff an existing bite.

[AvatarVecna]

Can you cite for me where it's stated that all enchantments on ammunition are divided by 50, and not only specifically weapon-abilities? Because I think you'll find that only weapon abilities are reduced in such a way, and even this is not specifically stated, but rather inferred through the pricing table due to the fact that ammunition is listed as a stack of 50. Nothing about it suggests that you could take an otherwise wondrous item or magical ring effect like that and split the price by 50.

This isn't 100% explicitly rules-legal and I never stated it was. I'm not the one who invented a trick, so don't get your knickers in a twist at me. You are, certainly, a reasonable-minded person, you're capable of inference.

If literally all you read is that one annotation under that one table, you can pretend that they don't give pricing for individual pieces of magic ammunition elsewhere in the game, but if you you turn the page a few times, you could actually see such examples. Without leaving the DMG, we have Screaming Bolts, Slaying Arrows, Greater Slaying Arrows, and Sleep Arrows. 50 Screaming Bolts would cost 13350 gp.

Screaming Bolts are +2 bolts with a rider effect; 50 +2 bolts would cost 8305 on their own (166.1 gp). The rider effect is an AoE along their trajectory that induces fear; the spell necessary for their creation is Doom, a 1st lvl spell that only targets a single person. How Doom turns into that AoE isn't entirely clear (and likely isn't something you could build if you had to do it as a custom item instead of crafting the example item). But if we were wishing to convince a DM to slap this kind of effect onto a melee weapon (probably just a 20 ft burst around us every time we swing the weapon?), your interpretation of things looks weird: the pricing is either "(Magic Weapon Cost + Spell Effect Cost)/50" as I think it is, or it's "(Magic Weapon Cost/50)+Spell Effect Cost". Under your interpretation, the spell effect costs 100.9 gp - and while DC 14 vs Shaken isn't exactly the greatest debuff, I think it's worth a bit more than that. The given effect is miles better than the 1st lvl spell it's based on, but 100.9 gp is even less than a lvl 2 scroll! For the given CL, it's paying 20.18 gp per caster level. Under my interpretation, the spell effect costs 5045 gp, which is probably worth more than the actual debuff but seems in line with how WotC prices spell effects by default: it's a bit more expensive than a lvl 1/CL 5 wand would be, but the spell effect given is better than Doom so that checks out.

Of course, what's also interesting is the listed cost to craft it yourself: 50 of them would be 13350 gp on the market, so that should cost 6675 gp and 534 XP to craft; if you can craft them individually, they would cost you 133.5 gp and 10.68 XP. The given values in the book, incidentally, are 128.5 gp and 10 XP, both of which seem kinda weird? Like, the gp cost is 5 gp lower than expected. I thought at first that it's maybe that 128.5 is the gp cost for the enchantment and the remaining 5 gp cost is for the bolts, but this is for an individual screaming bolt, so an individual bolt would be .1 gp, not 5. The XP seems weird less because they're rounding (fractional XP doesn't make sense) and more because they're rounding down? Maybe it's just me, but in general in games I've played with crafter characters, XP costs got rounded up - if it cost 10.68 XP to craft before rounding, and you only had 10 XP not 11, you couldn't craft it. It's never gonna be more than 1 XP off, but it just slightly bugs me. In any case, it's not left fractional, and there's no indication given otherwise that you're not allowed to craft them individually. The cost is given for the individual piece, so I'm not sure why you couldn't craft them individually?

We already know that wishes granted to the wielder can be built into weapons - that's like half the point of the Luck Blade. We already know that utility spell effects can be built into weapons outside of the "enhancement bonus equivalent enchantments" - the Trident Of Fish Command grants passive Speak With Animals (or...3/day Speak With Animals? The text implies the former but kinda reads like the latter too). We already know that ammunition can have built-in spell effects, and that it fits WotC price models better when added before the division by 50, rather than after. We have explicit text indicating that while some effects are more appropriate to some slots than others, you can craft an effect into a wondrous item that doesn't have a matching affinity, it just costs more, and we have that same mindset applying to the aforementioned core magic weapons.

What we don't have is literally just an example of ammunition with a passive benefit or utility effect that isn't coming from enhancement-equivalent abilities. That doesn't mean such an ability is illegal by default, even if you don't like it.


There's also the whole thing about custom magic item guidelines being just that, guidelines. The DM is the final arbiter on if a custom magic item goes or not, and what it's costs should be, so this theoretical item should come with a giant asterisk that says *Warning: Not actually rules legal, good luck getting DM approval.

I never said they were pure rules, I never said they weren't guidelines. In fact I basically laid out that this only really occurs in a setting that's hewing pretty close to the books without much in the way of rulings or houserules from a DM. But barring the interference of a DM to change things for good or ill, these guidelines are the default for how magic items are priced; they are frequently stupid, unfairly cheap or unreasonably expensive for what they provide from case to case, but they are the default. Pretending otherwise because you want the game to be more balanced than it is, isn't exactly honest either.

[Gnaeus]

An Ettin can grow a claw or horns for a gore attack. That’s pretty clear it’s one.

If your overpowered combo actually requires questionable RAW and clearly off RAI, it isn’t an overpowered combo. It is in fact underpowered, because not only is it not going to get you infinite attacks, it will destroy your credibility and poison the well for future RAW discussion with your DM, because you have demonstrated that your judgment on rules is questionable. People speak poorly of rules lawyers, but day 1 of law school is not to make stupid arguments that will hack off the judge. The same goes for AvatarVecna’s exploit. Not only is it unlikely to work, it just moved his name into an untrustworthy box that will hurt his character for the rest of game.

Back to the subject, tier 1 casters aren’t OP because with an infinitely permissive DM there is some wish loop combo that leads to infinite cosmic power. They are OP because the plain, clear reading of spells like animate dead, teleport, invisibility, detect thoughts, polymorph, summon monster etc give them options lower classes can’t match. Along with all the spells that let them win combats if they want.

[Rater202]

An Ettin can grow a claw or horns for a gore attack. That’s pretty clear it’s one.

If your overpowered combo actually requires questionable RAW and clearly off RAI, it isn’t an overpowered combo. It is in fact underpowered, because not only is it not going to get you infinite attacks, it will destroy your credibility and poison the well for future RAW discussion with your DM, because you have demonstrated that your judgment on rules is questionable. People speak poorly of rules lawyers, but day 1 of law school is not to make stupid arguments that will hack off the judge. The same goes for AvatarVecna’s exploit. Not only is it unlikely to work, it just moved his name into an untrustworthy box that will hurt his character for the rest of game.

Back to the subject, tier 1 casters aren’t OP because with an infinitely permissive DM there is some wish loop combo that leads to infinite cosmic power. They are OP because the plain, clear reading of spells like animate dead, teleport, invisibility, detect thoughts, polymorph, summon monster etc give them options lower classes can’t match.

1: I am far from the first or only person to make this argument.

2: The text very clearly says that you grow "natural weapons", plural, not "a natural weapon," singular. The example gives one, but the actual rule part of the text says plural.

At absolute worst, "one natural weapon for one attack" and "as many as the gm will let you get away with for one attack each" are both equally valid readings of the text.

[AvatarVecna]

The given wish loop is just an example of how truly out-of-hand things can get if you're left to run wild. The primary issues are the three allowances that can play off each other: cheaply-enchanted ammunition (which, even if it can't get you wishes can get you very cheap morphing weapons), -70% cost reduction as a result of restrictions (which reduces market price, and thus makes certain things affordable pre-epic that otherwise wouldn't be), and for artificer specifically, broad access to all spell lists, which gives them both the ability to craft spell items based on a lower spell level than normal, and the ability to craft spell items based on a lower caster level than normal (much lower, in some cases).

As an example without depending on the shuriken weirdness, you could get a Ring Of Disintegration (At-Will Command Word "Disintegrate" CL 4 that's triple-restricted to you, gained by mimicking a weird Sublime Chord build). 12960 gp market price, costs 6480 gp, 518 XP, and 13 days to craft yourself (assuming no further reductions). It "only" deals 8d6 damage if you succeed in combat, and by the time you can afford to build it the CL 4/DC 19 probably isn't enough to punch through enemy SR or saves all that often, but it's a fantastic utility item that can delete objects from existence without any rolls. Getting an item anything remotely like this normally would cost 118800 gp. I don't think 13k is a fair price for the effect, but that's partially cuz of the 70% reduction for the restrictions; if your DM rules that they stack multiplicatively (which these particularly ones probably don't, but it's still a fair reading), that changes it to a 55.9% reduction for final cost of 19051.2 gp, or just forbids them and you're stuck with the full 43200 gp...that's still pretty okay price for the utility you're getting to just blast your way through stuff.

[Gnaeus]

1: I am far from the first or only person to make this argument.

2: The text very clearly says that you grow "natural weapons", plural, not "a natural weapon," singular. The example gives one, but the actual rule part of the text says plural.

At absolute worst, "one natural weapon for one attack" and "as many as the gm will let you get away with for one attack each" are both equally valid readings of the text.

1. You don’t have to be. I read this on the internet has never saved an argument from being horrible, or a player or party in court from being tarred with the foolishness of the argument that just came out of their mouth. If I stand before a court and explain why tax laws don’t apply to my client because he is a sovereign citizen, it DOES NOT MATTER that I read it on the inter webs or that some fool makes that argument every 6 months when he rules against my client and permanently regards every argument I make from that day forward as suspect. Someone else said it first will be a poor defense at my malpractice hearing.

2. When RAW is ambiguous, but one side clearly has the overwhelming support of RAI and game balance, that is a poor argument. One that you should not make in a game or assume as a viable tactic across most games.

To put it another way, that is a TO combo. Debatably rules legal but broken on its face with pretty clear RAI. TO combos are fun. But not relevant to game. They are Theoretical.

[Rater202]

2. When RAW is ambiguous, but one side clearly has the overwhelming support of RAI and game balance, that is a poor argument. One that you should not make in a game or assume as a viable tactic across most games.
Yeah, but while RAI isn't nessearily "infinite" natural weapons, it's not as clear cut "only one" as ou seem to think.

Let's look at the Warhashaper's other class features.
Morphic Immunities (Ex): A warshaper is adept at distributing her form's vital organs around her body to keep them safe from harm. Warshapers are immune to stunning and critical hits.Most classes that grant immunity to crits or related abilities either do it inincrements of fortification, as a capstone, or as part of a capstone.

Not as a first level feature of a class you can enter at level 5.


Morphic Body (Su): At 2nd level and higher, a warshaper can use its precise control over its form to make itself stronger and heartier. It gains +4 to Strength and +4 to Constitution.Even as a Supernatural ability, and thus subject to being surpassed by an anti-magic field if you interpret this as a Bonus instead of a permanent improvement, +4 strength at second level is absurd for a melee class and unless you literally don't have a constitution score, there's no way that +4 con isn't a godsend


Morphic Reach (Su): A warshaper of 3rd level or higher can suddenly stretch its limbs, neck, or other appendages outward, giving it 5 more feet of reach than the creature it's emulating. Unlike most creatures, warshapers don't appear to have a longer reach until they actually use it.

Increased reach isn't nessesarily broken, but it's important to note that it says "reach" rather than "reach with natural weapons" meaning that this is a very versatile ability.
Morphic Healing (Su): At 4th level, a warshaper becomes able to change its form where wounds appear, creating smooth skin where once were wounds. The warshaper gains fast healing 2, and if it spends a full-round action and succeeds on a Concentration check (DC equal to the total damage it has sustained), it heals 10 points of damage.An ength level character gets permanent fast healing 2.

The closest comparison to this is the Warlock. An eighth-level Warlock has 2 minutes of fast healing 1 a day. And at most gains 2 minutes of fast healing 5 a day.

So Morphic Haling easily outclasses the closest equivalent class feature hands down.
Flashmorph/Multimorph (Su): A 5th-level warshaper gains one of two class features. If the warshaper has the ability to change form at will, such as from the change shape ability, the shapechanger subtype, or a polymorph spell-like ability, it gains the flashmorph class feature, allowing it to change form as a move action. If it casts the polymorph spell, has polymorph as a spell-like ability usable less often than at will, or has the wild shape class feature, it instead gains the multimorph class feature. Multimorph allows a warshaper to change forms multiple times during the duration of the spell, spell-like ability, or class feature that enables her to change form. For example, a wizard/warshaper could polymorph into a troll for 2 minutes, then change into a red dragon for 4 minutes, and then spend the rest of the spell's duration in the form of a hill giant. Each change requires a standard action, and only the first transformation heals the warshaper. If the warshaper changes into its natural form, the spell, spell-like ability, or use of wild shape ends.Now, obviously, you're not getting this option if you're a Shifter Fighter 4/Warshaper 5, or rather, it's not particularly useful if you are, but a Druid Warshaper...

The balancing factor on Wildshape is that you only have a handful of uses of it a day and can't change to something else without spending another use. This completely breaks an already broken class feature, and it also applies to the Polymorph and Shapechange spells.

Compared to the other class features that a Warshaper has, being ale to make only a single nature weapon seems drastically underpowered.

[Calthropstu]

Locate city bomb. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?238254-Locate-city-bomb)

[Gnaeus]

Yeah, but while RAI isn't nessearily "infinite" natural weapons, it's not as clear cut "only one" as ou seem to think.

Let's look at the Warhashaper's other class features.Most classes that grant immunity to crits or related abilities either do it inincrements of fortification, as a capstone, or as part of a capstone.

Not as a first level feature of a class you can enter at level 5.

Even as a Supernatural ability, and thus subject to being surpassed by an anti-magic field if you interpret this as a Bonus instead of a permanent improvement, +4 strength at second level is absurd for a melee class and unless you literally don't have a constitution score, there's no way that +4 con isn't a godsend

Increased reach isn't nessesarily broken, but it's important to note that it says "reach" rather than "reach with natural weapons" meaning that this is a very versatile ability.An ength level character gets permanent fast healing 2.

The closest comparison to this is the Warlock. An eighth-level Warlock has 2 minutes of fast healing 1 a day. And at most gains 2 minutes of fast healing 5 a day.

So Morphic Haling easily outclasses the closest equivalent class feature hands down.Now, obviously, you're not getting this option if you're a Shifter Fighter 4/Warshaper 5, or rather, it's not particularly useful if you are, but a Druid Warshaper...

The balancing factor on Wildshape is that you only have a handful of uses of it a day and can't change to something else without spending another use. This completely breaks an already broken class feature, and it also applies to the Polymorph and Shapechange spells.

Compared to the other class features that a Warshaper has, being ale to make only a single nature weapon seems drastically underpowered.

But your POINT was that warshaper 1 was broken overpowered because infinite attacks. That’s a terrible argument. If your point was that text was ambiguous and you used that to justify a claw/claw/bite attack routine that’s a much different animal. (Although there is no rule that all of a class’s abilities need to be equal, very much the opposite in practice. That’s like saying the monk 14 ability changing slow fall from 60-70 feet is intended to be equal to evasion or Wis to AC). So if your argument is “Fighter 4/Warshaper 1 is omg overpowered” because rule exploit, it isn’t, and making that argument at table puts you behind where you started. Could you reasonably make the case that rules are ambiguous and you should be allowed X attacks because that matches your tables balance? Sure. But if you picked a dozen DMs at random from the forum you wouldn’t likely find 2 that agreed on what X should be other than 1. At that point you are back to that big asterix because of the 2 clear options, infinite or 1, infinite is pretty clearly wrong, and anything else is a houserule.

[Efrate]

Teleport through time to kill bbeg as a child/fetus/his or her parents. You can just lol nope the campaign. Oh darn some weak inevitibles might come wag a finger at you. You can convince or destroy them so its not an issue.

You command powers in some times largely surpassing most dieties. Since they are statted and we know what they can do. It is entirely possibly to boost yourself to the point where you convince a diety to give ranks to you or ally with you; pick a high divine rank one. Most others will not trouble you.

Barring fiat, by RAW you control the entire flow of the narritive if you so choose. That is what a tier 1 can do. It is why most tier 1s just continue on as needed and have emergency no buttons. Because when you control the narritive the dm is kind of out of work. It takes a very skilled DM to challenge a tier 1 played to the extent of a T1.
And by doing so unless the rest of the party is close in power, they become window dressing, because you do not need a party.

You can adventure often more successfully by yourself without worrying about others. Just astral project after fully scrying the dungeon or sending minions to scout with a telepathic bond from your choice of personal demiplane, impregneble riverine fortress, etc. for total safety.

[Rater202]

But your POINT was that warshaper 1 was broken overpowered because infinite attacks.

Yes, because by strict Raw it does grant infinite. Because while the flavor text suggests only one natural weapon, the actual crunch gives it in plurals without specifying a maximum number.

Beyond that, you might note that I did say
Depending on how you interpret things
When giving my example, so I did in fact admit that it was ambiguous and my example build depended on rulings.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are able to do all the things, or at least a lot more of the things than less powerful classes. Example:

The party meets back up to catch up on what progress everyone has made:
Rogue: I spent three days gathering information and I've got a bunch of details about the BBEG. I know everywhere he went in this town and after thorough investigation I think I know where he's headed.
Wizard: I spent five minutes casting divination spells and I have better information on him than you do, including exactly where to find his lair where he's currently located.
Ranger: Great! With my knowledge of the local terrain I can cut our travel time down by 1/3, plus I can forage for food while we travel.
Wizard: Shut up and join hands so I can teleport us there.
Rogue: I'd better check for traps as we navigate through his lair.
Druid: I'll just use my Summon Elemental reserve feat to make an expendable earth elemental at will, which can go though the floor/wall to scout ahead, unlock doors from the other side, and disable/destroy/Nodwick any traps he comes across.
Ranger: With my archery skills we should be able to make short work of him!
Druid: I have class features that are more powerful than your entire character. *buffs animal companion and sends it in to solo the BBEG*

[Beni-Kujaku]

Yes, because by strict Raw it does grant infinite. Because while the flavor text suggests only one natural weapon, the actual crunch gives it in plurals without specifying a maximum number.


The strict RAW gives you natural weapons (even if we consider it doesn't mean that as a general "you can create pies with this oven" even though each use of the oven can make at most one pie) but only one attack (since the "strict RAW" doesn't say "per natural weapon". It's the same as the threefold mask of the chimera, which gives you natural weapons but with restrictions on which you can use). You would have infinite tentacles but could only make one attack with it. The interpreted rules gives you one natural weapon and an attack with it. Choose one.

[Gruftzwerg]

Yes, because by strict Raw it does grant infinite. Because while the flavor text suggests only one natural weapon, the actual crunch gives it in plurals without specifying a maximum number.

Beyond that, you might note that I did say
When giving my example, so I did in fact admit that it was ambiguous and my example build depended on rulings.

While I do like Warshaper dips and see it super OP (due to the Natural Attacks available), the rules are clear that you can't stack different Morphic weapons, since it explicitly gives you the ability to change em (but not to stack em).

A warshaper can change morphic weapons as often as it likes, even if it is using a shapechanging technique such as the polymorph spell or the wild shape class feature that doesn't allow subsequent changes after the initial transformation.
This sentence cleary explains what happens when you reuse the ability while a previous instance of the ability is active. You "change" the Morphic Weapon. No permission is given to stack em.
The part where it talks about plural Natural Weapons is referring to those types that come in pairs (e.g. Claws) or more (Tentacles, Hydra's Byte..) and doesn't give you the permission to stack the ability multiple times.

[Soranar]

I'm not sure how the warshaper discussion is relevant to the original question... warshaper doesn't make a class tier 1. It's just not versatile enough. There's more to dnd than combat.

It's not a coincidence that every tier 1 class has spellcasting of some sort with a broad amount of spell knowns (or indirect spellcasting in the artificer's case).

While any kind of spellcaster with limited spell knowns drops a tier or two and classes that can't cast spells at all (or manifest psionic powers) are blocked at tier 3.

One of the few prestige classes that can make you tier one, regardless of entry, is chameleon, Ur-Priest or Maho-Tsukai but you're not tier 1 throughout, all of these take a few levels to get enough spellcasting ability to reach that.

And, to be honest, a straight tier 1 spellcaster will be a better playing experience since you'll be tier 1 throughout: not just after you attain a certain level.

There are really good spells at every level

The most broken thing is not so much a class as a combination of spells, spellcasting ability and feats.

And I guess there's always Pun Pun and the like but anything involving a wish requires DM cooperation which is never a given.

[Jay R]

Yes, because by strict Raw it does grant infinite. Because while the flavor text suggests only one natural weapon, the actual crunch gives it in plurals without specifying a maximum number.

Beyond that, you might note that I did say
When giving my example, so I did in fact admit that it was ambiguous and my example build depended on rulings.

While I don't approve of using RAW to generate a clearly absurd result as you're doing, if you insist on RAW, then you have to use RAW.

"a warshaper can grow natural weapons such as claws or fangs, allowing a natural attack"

The same rule that, as written, specifies a non-defined plural number of weapons, also specifies "a natural attack". You have to violate the exact rule as written to generate what you want.

Note that a paw with five claws, or a mouth with four fangs, still only gets a single attack, so your notion that more than one natural weapon must automatically grant more than one attack is false already. And claws and fangs are the exact examples in the rule as written.

[Rater202]

Note that a paw with five claws, or a mouth with four fangs, still only gets a single attack, so your notion that more than one natural weapon must automatically grant more than one attack is false already. And claws and fangs are the exact examples in the rule as written.

A paw with five claws is one natural weapon, singular, not five natural weapons, plural, much the same way that a trident is one manufactured weapon, not three stuck together.

At the absolute most, it's ambiguous wording that can be interpreted either way, but realistically since they use natural weapons plural the most natural interpretation of the text is "a natural attack(per natural weapon, as is normal)"

[Silva Stormrage]

Ya some of this discussion seems to be going on some super non related tangents. We don't need to deal with shuriken price reduction on magic items or any kind of TO optimization to answer the OP's question.

To actually answer the question asked here are some basic examples of things you can do with T1 Classes.

Planar Binding: You can essentially call any outsider with HD that can be called by the spell and make it your minion. A charisma check forces it to accept your demands or pact even if you don't offer it any reward. You can cast various debuffs that nuke the outsider's charisma score making the check automatically successful. Once you do this you have a permanent loyal ally of any outsider printed in any book. Also there is no cap on how many outsiders you can have under your control at once. Some of the basic stuff you can get are at will greater teleport for the entire party (Barlguras), 20 CL permanent animate object (Ravid), At Will Free Animate Dead and Hold Person (Maurezhi) at will Fabricate (Rejkar), infinite food and water, at will death ward, multiple high level divinations and free raise dead 1/day (Monavic Deva), at will healing and disease removal and high level free enchantment spells such as geas and mass charm monster (Emprix). And all of those are from LESSER planar binding, aka a 5th level spell achievable baseline at level 9. An artificer can get all of that at level 5 with no questionable rulings needed at all. The stuff you get at higher levels is just as insane. The Spirit Binding line of spells does the same for incorporeal undead and fey.

Necromancy: Reanimating your enemies as bone creatures and rebuking them is pretty easy with some investment of items to reduce their turn resistance/boost your own rebuking level. You can easily at level 8 have a 17th level wizard under your control if you can somehow find such a corpse. Even just reanimating a miniboss can shatter campaigns as they retain memories and thus you can just order your new thrall to tell you everything the BBEG is planning that the miniboss knows. Also you now have a former boss under your control, it can get out of control very quickly. Even without intelligent undead necromancy can be gamebreaking, at level 5 you can easily have 30 + zombies with 126 HP and an attack of +16 to hit with (1d8+15) damage. This is done with the spell command undead (Completely control a mindless undead without a saving throw for a day per caster level) and a variety of ways to get free animate dead.

Polymorph: Or as it basically works "Pick any monster and gain their abilities". There are an obscene amount of monsters who spawn permanent minions as an extraordinary special attack. If you pick up the feat "Assume Supernatural Transformation" from savage species you can grab supernatural abilities as well of which there are many many abilities which are balanced under the assumption players will never have access to them. Polymorph any object can easily give any creature basically any physical stat block amongst other things.

Crafting: As noted earlier there are a lot of random ways you can reduce crafting costs via feats, items, or similar stuff. You can also use SLA or SU wish spells to get infinite wealth. Even without that though you can create infinite crafting XP and GP via ritualistic sacrifices or factories that produce liquid joy/pain which can be used in place of XP for crafting. With dedicated wrights you can have a golem spend the time craft for you as well, throw them onto a demi plane with a different time rate and you can craft basically infinite gear.

Buffs: A tier 1 spellcaster can either persist buffs to make them last all day or just only venture out into combat with an obscene amount of buffs rendering them basically immune to damage. Greater Mirror Image is an immediate action that can make melee have a 11% chance of even attempting to hit the caster. They can cast things like Iron Guard or Energy immunity to just render them immune to certain types of damage or things like elemental body to give them a wide range of immunities to various effects and conditions.

Celerity and Immediate Defenses: Celerity is a 4th level time manipulation spell that can be cast on other people's turn that lets the caster cast any standard action spell immediately. Like say, teleport. If you don't catch a wizard flatfooted you pretty much can't kill them as at any time they can cast celerity and teleport back to their base. Even at 1st level a wizard can have abrupt jaunt which lets them automatically dodge any melee or ranged attack by teleporting 10ft away as an immediate action. And there are ways to make yourself immune to being flatfooted such as foresight or weapons of legacy.

Safe Houses: Starting at level 2 spells with rope trick and level 7 with Mage's Magnificent Mansion tier 1 spellcasters can just produce areas of "Haha no, the enemies can't reach me" letting them regain spells and prepare appropriately. At 9th level spells they have Genesis which makes them basically untouchable as they can decide to only interact with the world via astral projection copies rendering them basically immortal.

Divinations: A wide arrange of divinations let them prepare for what is coming up or just break mystery campaigns wide open. Contact Other Plane lets wizard ask any question, Commune works similarly. Path of the Exalted is essentially a 3rd level spell that just gives them a solid suggestion on what to do next. Identify Transgressor lets them ask and receive the answer to a single question beginning with "Who". Like "Who committed that murder". Divination, and other spells are likewise super general and can basically let a tier 1 caster always know generally what threats are coming. With Scrying they can target a particular creature, teleport in the party and ambush them from anywhere. The strategy of "Scry and Die" is well known for a reason.

No save just die: There are plenty of options that tier 1 casters have that just result in "Haha no, you die or lose". Blinding spittle is a 2nd level druid spell which permanently blinds a target without a saving throw. They can remove the blind condition by rinsing their eyes with water... Most fights however don't take place near a stream so it basically instantly takes out any enemy that doesn't have an extra sense. You can apply enough metamagic to enervation to one shot kill any enemy not immune to negative levels, same with damage options if you want. There are also spells that just stun/daze a target without giving them a saving throw or even on a successful saving throw. Flesh Shiver, Final Rebuke, Stunning Ray, Otto's Irresistible Dance, etc. If given time to prepare you can find some combo that instantly deals with an enemy that they probably can't deal with. Unless of course that enemy is also a tier 1 caster who can apply buffs to negate those attacks.

Wide Range Battlefield Control Spells: Tier 1 casters can also negate a wide swathe of enemies from doing anything with a single spell. While melee is basically just limited to a single target each round even at 1st level the spell entangle can cover a 40ft radius and prevent anyone from inside it from moving. Even those who succeed on their saving throw move at half speed and take penalties and have to keep making saves or get stuck. Solid Fog can just prevent a creature from basically moving at all without a saving throw. At 9th level druids can cast Control Winds and create a huge 400ft radius of hurricane level winds and level a town. They can also cast blizzard and cover a 1000ft radius circle with 10ft of snow ALSO crushing a town, and any mundane army in that area as well. With things like obscuring snow and the spell snow sight they can create huge areas of concealment that enemies can't see through but allies can, rendering most enemies harmless at best. Both of which are 2nd level spells and last for hours per casting.

High level spells: At 9th level you basically get to the point of having to deal with absolute nonsense spells like Shapechange (Turn into any monster get all their SU abilities and swap forms every round for free), Gate (Summon and control basically any creature), Ice Assassin (Make a duplicate of any creature which is perfectly loyal to you), Teleport Through Time (Time Travel...), Genesis (Make a demiplane with any trait you want, including giving you free metamagic or arguably messing with time traits), or Hide Life (You straight up can't die from hit point damage forever). This is nowhere near an exhaustive list.

Basically tier 1 casters can do anything with prep time, can use essentially everything in the D&D rulebooks for their advantage (Spells, Magic Items, Monster Abilities, Other classes via minionmancy, etc) and have the abilities to get them. Even at level 1 they have absurd defenses and abilities even if their versatility is a bit less. The combo charm person + hypnotism makes a target essentially your permanent mind slave as long as they fail both saves and are weak enough to be targeted by hypnotism.

Most D&D campaigns don't actually deal with this for a variety of reasons, a gentleman's agreement to not try to abuse the game, not understanding the options available, or houserules banning or nerfing some of the more egregious options. Still even then tier 1 characters can shatter campaigns accidently.

[gijoemike]

I am really surprised we got this far in the thread and no one has mentioned true mind switching ice assassins. There is an idiotic trick where you create an ice assassin of an Aleax using eschew materials to avoid having a no cost but unique and rare material component. This then makes you 100% immune to everything. Because you are an ice assassin of something that is a template that only deities can grant.

I would never ever let that happen in my game but it is a thing mentioned on these boards many times.


There is also multiple spells that prevent surprise and also add initiative. Skittish nerves, Moment of Prescience(spelling?), Clarity. Just accept the fact that the wizard will go first on the surprise round when the rogue tries to stab him. And that rogue will then die. No save, no attack roll.

[Crake]

This isn't 100% explicitly rules-legal and I never stated it was. I'm not the one who invented a trick, so don't get your knickers in a twist at me. You are, certainly, a reasonable-minded person, you're capable of inference.

If literally all you read is that one annotation under that one table, you can pretend that they don't give pricing for individual pieces of magic ammunition elsewhere in the game, but if you you turn the page a few times, you could actually see such examples. Without leaving the DMG, we have Screaming Bolts, Slaying Arrows, Greater Slaying Arrows, and Sleep Arrows. 50 Screaming Bolts would cost 13350 gp.

Screaming Bolts are +2 bolts with a rider effect; 50 +2 bolts would cost 8305 on their own (166.1 gp). The rider effect is an AoE along their trajectory that induces fear; the spell necessary for their creation is Doom, a 1st lvl spell that only targets a single person. How Doom turns into that AoE isn't entirely clear (and likely isn't something you could build if you had to do it as a custom item instead of crafting the example item). But if we were wishing to convince a DM to slap this kind of effect onto a melee weapon (probably just a 20 ft burst around us every time we swing the weapon?), your interpretation of things looks weird: the pricing is either "(Magic Weapon Cost + Spell Effect Cost)/50" as I think it is, or it's "(Magic Weapon Cost/50)+Spell Effect Cost". Under your interpretation, the spell effect costs 100.9 gp - and while DC 14 vs Shaken isn't exactly the greatest debuff, I think it's worth a bit more than that. The given effect is miles better than the 1st lvl spell it's based on, but 100.9 gp is even less than a lvl 2 scroll! For the given CL, it's paying 20.18 gp per caster level. Under my interpretation, the spell effect costs 5045 gp, which is probably worth more than the actual debuff but seems in line with how WotC prices spell effects by default: it's a bit more expensive than a lvl 1/CL 5 wand would be, but the spell effect given is better than Doom so that checks out.

Of course, what's also interesting is the listed cost to craft it yourself: 50 of them would be 13350 gp on the market, so that should cost 6675 gp and 534 XP to craft; if you can craft them individually, they would cost you 133.5 gp and 10.68 XP. The given values in the book, incidentally, are 128.5 gp and 10 XP, both of which seem kinda weird? Like, the gp cost is 5 gp lower than expected. I thought at first that it's maybe that 128.5 is the gp cost for the enchantment and the remaining 5 gp cost is for the bolts, but this is for an individual screaming bolt, so an individual bolt would be .1 gp, not 5. The XP seems weird less because they're rounding (fractional XP doesn't make sense) and more because they're rounding down? Maybe it's just me, but in general in games I've played with crafter characters, XP costs got rounded up - if it cost 10.68 XP to craft before rounding, and you only had 10 XP not 11, you couldn't craft it. It's never gonna be more than 1 XP off, but it just slightly bugs me. In any case, it's not left fractional, and there's no indication given otherwise that you're not allowed to craft them individually. The cost is given for the individual piece, so I'm not sure why you couldn't craft them individually?

We already know that wishes granted to the wielder can be built into weapons - that's like half the point of the Luck Blade. We already know that utility spell effects can be built into weapons outside of the "enhancement bonus equivalent enchantments" - the Trident Of Fish Command grants passive Speak With Animals (or...3/day Speak With Animals? The text implies the former but kinda reads like the latter too). We already know that ammunition can have built-in spell effects, and that it fits WotC price models better when added before the division by 50, rather than after. We have explicit text indicating that while some effects are more appropriate to some slots than others, you can craft an effect into a wondrous item that doesn't have a matching affinity, it just costs more, and we have that same mindset applying to the aforementioned core magic weapons.

What we don't have is literally just an example of ammunition with a passive benefit or utility effect that isn't coming from enhancement-equivalent abilities. That doesn't mean such an ability is illegal by default, even if you don't like it.



I never said they were pure rules, I never said they weren't guidelines. In fact I basically laid out that this only really occurs in a setting that's hewing pretty close to the books without much in the way of rulings or houserules from a DM. But barring the interference of a DM to change things for good or ill, these guidelines are the default for how magic items are priced; they are frequently stupid, unfairly cheap or unreasonably expensive for what they provide from case to case, but they are the default. Pretending otherwise because you want the game to be more balanced than it is, isn't exactly honest either.

All of the unique ammunition effects are single use effects, since they require actually firing the ammunition to use it, which then subsequently breaks the ammunition, and many of them are holdover items from previous editions that were shoehorned into the 3.5 magic system and approximated in price. As for the disparity in price for a single bolt, a single masterwork arrow does indeed cost 6g.

In any case, even if you didn't come up with the trick, by perpetuating it, you're supporting it, and it's stuff like this that people see at a glance without checking themselves, and then go around complaining about how broken 3.5 is, which drives people away from the system, making it harder for the rest of us to find people interested in playing it, when really you're just twisting the rules into a pretzel.

[Karl Aegis]

Use the Extend Spell Metamagic Feat on the spell Quick Potion. Make a potion that lasts for part of the day tomorrow after resting for 8 hours and regaining your spell slots. You now have more resources than you did yesterday. You can do this starting at level 5, but is more useful at level 6 or 8.

[Endarire]

If you can imagine it, a tier 1 class can almost certainly do it no later than level 20 (possibly including PrCs that advance casting/manifesting) - and more!

Yes, really.

[Aharon]

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are able to do all the things, or at least a lot more of the things than less powerful classes. Example:

The party meets back up to catch up on what progress everyone has made:
Rogue: I spent three days gathering information and I've got a bunch of details about the BBEG. I know everywhere he went in this town and after thorough investigation I think I know where he's headed.
Wizard: I spent five minutes casting divination spells and I have better information on him than you do, including exactly where to find his lair where he's currently located.
Ranger: Great! With my knowledge of the local terrain I can cut our travel time down by 1/3, plus I can forage for food while we travel.
Wizard: Shut up and join hands so I can teleport us there.
Rogue: I'd better check for traps as we navigate through his lair.
Druid: I'll just use my Summon Elemental reserve feat to make an expendable earth elemental at will, which can go though the floor/wall to scout ahead, unlock doors from the other side, and disable/destroy/Nodwick any traps he comes across.
Ranger: With my archery skills we should be able to make short work of him!
Druid: I have class features that are more powerful than your entire character. *buffs animal companion and sends it in to solo the BBEG*

I think this is uncharitable towards mundanes. Gather Information actually works better than divinations in some situations, since it can't be blocked by magic, like divinations can. (Well, the BBEG could try to leave no trace at all that can be picked up with Gather Information, but if he is good enough to do that, he probably has an equally easy time to block those divinations).
Similarly, teleporting only works if you were able to scry the location you want to teleport to - that assumes that the BBEG doesn't have protections in place/makes his save.

I totally agree that Tier 1s have access to a far greater arsenal - but the power disparity isn't as glaring in the low/mid-level examples you provided as later on.


If you can imagine it, a tier 1 class can almost certainly do it no later than level 20 (possibly including PrCs that advance casting/manifesting) - and more!

Yes, really.

Fight a Hecatoncheires that has kidnapped the princess and hides within 100 miles of The Spire :smallbiggrin:

[Bohandas]

Look up "Locate City nuke"

[Segev]

On the "fidget spinner:" magic ammo does have the 1/50 cost reduction, but it also has the assumption that it's expended after one use. And while you could try to argue that the rules don't explicitly tie the two things together, we're back to the fact that the item creation rules are guidelines, and the guidance given combined with the examples shows that this cost reduction is to account for the one-shot nature of them. If you want an item that has more than a single use, you don't get the 1/50 cost reduction on its crafting cost.

Yes, because by strict Raw it does grant infinite. Because while the flavor text suggests only one natural weapon, the actual crunch gives it in plurals without specifying a maximum number.

Beyond that, you might note that I did say
When giving my example, so I did in fact admit that it was ambiguous and my example build depended on rulings.

Actually, by the strictest reading of the RAW, Warshaper's Morphic Weapons can add a maximum of one natural weapon of every type. It can then increase the size category of every natural weapon the warshaper has. It specifically states that if you use it on a natural weapon you already have, it increases its size (a maximum of once, IIRC), and thus if you had no - for example - tail strike, you could add one, but then you have one, so you can't add another; instead, you increase its size.


Tier 1 characters are powerful, even broken, but we shouldn't start trying to "prove a point" by using extremely sketchy rules interpretations to try to make them seem even more powerful than they likely would be permitted to be at most tables.

[Crake]

Tier 1 characters are powerful, even broken, but we shouldn't start trying to "prove a point" by using extremely sketchy rules interpretations to try to make them seem even more powerful than they likely would be permitted to be at most tables.

A very apt way to put it. People are looking far too much at these individual broken tricks, which really, anyone can do these tricks. What makes a character tier 1 isn't any one of these little tricks, it's about having powerful options at your disposal that let you dictate the narrative, rather than letting the narrative lead you.

[Calthropstu]

Look up "Locate City nuke"

I already posted that. With the link no less to the original(?) thread.

[Gusmo]

It feels like very little of this thread actually touches on real table experience, instead focusing on stuff you can do at level 15-20 which will never see real play. Honestly, T1 characters in the hands of a skilled player are just something you need to experience in person. Sure the DM can change whatever is needed to keep balance and order at the table, but the whole point is that they're going to need to do this way more to keep clerics, druids, and so forth reined in than monks and fighters.

[Segev]

The big thing about level 5-10 tier one PCs is that they are the main pressure for DMs to try to meet the encounter quote every adventuring day, and to go for a fifteen minute adventuring day as a party.

They also have a lot of tools to let them dictate encounter conditions. Rope Trick, alone, at level 8+ (or level 5+ with Extend Spell) can permit deciding it is time to sleep for 8 hours, and takes some extra work from the DM to do much about. Especially without seeming like he's engaging in Diabolus ex Machina.

Tier one characters are often overestimated by forum discussions, but easily underestimated when at a table with a DM who isn't aware of the memes and the reasons behind them.

[Calthropstu]

It feels like very little of this thread actually touches on real table experience, instead focusing on stuff you can do at level 15-20 which will never see real play. Honestly, T1 characters in the hands of a skilled player are just something you need to experience in person. Sure the DM can change whatever is needed to keep balance and order at the table, but the whole point is that they're going to need to do this way more to keep clerics, druids, and so forth reined in than monks and fighters.

The locate city bomb is a 1st level spell. You can get all the riders by 7th.

But plenty of other stuff comes to mind. Lesser planar binding is a 5th lvl spell and comes online at lvl 9. Summon monster gives great versatility at lvl 1. Then there is levitate, fly, teleport, invisibility...

""Guys, we may be 10th level but fighting an army of 10,000 is suicide. Let's cut through this cavern system and I, your trusty fighter, will make a heroic stand resilting in a noble death."

Wizard: Wall of stone. "Ok guys, gather in a circle and let's teleport. We'll come back tomorrow with an army that I will conjure to beat these guys back."

[Beni-Kujaku]

It feels like very little of this thread actually touches on real table experience, instead focusing on stuff you can do at level 15-20 which will never see real play. Honestly, T1 characters in the hands of a skilled player are just something you need to experience in person. Sure the DM can change whatever is needed to keep balance and order at the table, but the whole point is that they're going to need to do this way more to keep clerics, druids, and so forth reined in than monks and fighters.

That is in no small part because people here know that if they use T1 to their full potential, the game would not really be that balanced, so they don't use much in actual game and just post theoretical things that they could do.

But even at low level, druids are basically two characters in one, with their unoptimized animal companion stronger than the party fighter, and sleep/web just shut down entire encounters in an action if the DM is not prepared. Teleportation makes every time constraints in the campaign basically irrelevant. Something I once used as a cleric in an end-of-campaign situation is just planar ally a Bar-lgura to teleport everyone where I wanted and change a desperate "there is no way we're gonna save the world, we have no time" situation into just a "we need to win this". An illusion mage can just infiltrate basically anywhere, or make anything look like anything else to avoid consequences. An evocation mage can do any fight encounter be basically irrelevant just by blasting any enemy. An abjuration mage does it by just negating anything the enemy wants to do, buffing the party until they're basically invincible and negate the any ongoing spell or curse that might be essential to the DM's scenario. A necromancy mage can make infinite minions and replace the entire party. A divination mage can just know the scenario, with the good questions, and just not play the game. An enchantment mage can just remove any social situation, and even worse, prevents the DM from sending low-level enemies because they will just turn into allies of the party and make even more problem. And a transmutation or conjuration mage can do all of the above, plus move the entire party anywhere or change into the most broken creatures in the book. Any single one of the schools of magic can just delete an entire part of the game if played smartly. And tier one casters can use next to all of them at will.

The bottom line is just that the tier 1 can choose not to play the game and still win. It's just not fun for the DM to have any challenge they can make up except vastly overpowered combat encounters just be handwaved away in a handful of spells.

[Segev]

I disagree with some of that. An evocation mage actually doesn't do better at murder zing things than a tier 3 or 4 fighter. If you're looking at damage, you're not seeing the points that make tie new classes infamous. Damage is something tier 4s can do extremely well.

[Quertus]

Tier 1 isn't OP. Because something cannot be op in a vacuum. To be OP, there must exist a baseline for comparison.

There are plenty of individual tricks that are able to go infinite; (many/most of) these tricks do not require a tier 1 caster. Those with such tricks are undoubtedly stronger than most Tier 1 characters at actual tables.

There is a definite question of, "for how many questions will / can you have one or more answers, and how good will those answers be?". If the adventure takes place under water, there's a much greater chance that a Tier 1 party will say, "I've got an app for that", whereas a Tier 5 party has a much greater chance of shrugging and going home. But not all characters / parties exactly match that expected potential - some tier 1s may shrug and go home, some tier 5s Mary pull out items and have an app for that. Which of these states is broken is a matter of opinion.

What broken abilities are *unique* to Tier 1 casters? Between Candle of Invocation, Pazuzu, and magic item shops / paying people to craft items for you (especially if custom items are on the table)? Not much. Immediate action spells, maybe?


Fight a Hecatoncheires that has kidnapped the princess and hides within 100 miles of The Spire :smallbiggrin:

Teleport Through Time, kill the Hecatoncheires before it kidnapped Princess / before it made it anywhere near the spire?

[AvatarVecna]

All of the unique ammunition effects are single use effects, since they require actually firing the ammunition to use it, which then subsequently breaks the ammunition, and many of them are holdover items from previous editions that were shoehorned into the 3.5 magic system and approximated in price. As for the disparity in price for a single bolt, a single masterwork arrow does indeed cost 6g.

In any case, even if you didn't come up with the trick, by perpetuating it, you're supporting it, and it's stuff like this that people see at a glance without checking themselves, and then go around complaining about how broken 3.5 is, which drives people away from the system, making it harder for the rest of us to find people interested in playing it, when really you're just twisting the rules into a pretzel.

If TO nonsense would drive people away from the rules, they wouldn't get very far in 3.5 regardless of my assistance - this particular part of this trick might be debatable, but there's a reason you're arguing about 1/50th cost shuriken items, and not the wish loop they were perpetuating. The fact of the matter is, the questionable shuriken thing is just making it easier to break the game, but it's not the culprit. Planar Binding --> Infinite Wishes Of Infinite Power is a core combo.


It feels like very little of this thread actually touches on real table experience, instead focusing on stuff you can do at level 15-20 which will never see real play. Honestly, T1 characters in the hands of a skilled player are just something you need to experience in person. Sure the DM can change whatever is needed to keep balance and order at the table, but the whole point is that they're going to need to do this way more to keep clerics, druids, and so forth reined in than monks and fighters.

Artificer shenanigans start pretty early, but I'll break down what I can about the tricks I mentioned, and the questionable bits about them:

I should start out with an apology: for some reason, I misremembered the Blighter as casting spells from the druid list, so your access to that is going to be a lot less complete than I initially thought - or rather, your access to it at lower CLs than normal is less complete. You can still obviously mimic druid casting directly, there's just not tricks for accessing the whole list at lower CLs, but Artificer gets to access when their class level reaches the right CL, even if the given build wouldn't get that CL for another half-dozen levels or whatever.

Cleric List
Ex-Cleric 5/Ur-Priest X seems to be the intended entry: Cleric, Druid, and Monk get the base Fort/Will in time in core, with the former having the most real reason to take Spell Focus (Evil) for their own casting, and having the better access to knowledge skills (both via the knowledge domain directly, and via Cloistered Cleric if they need extra skill points). Ex-Cleric levels don't count for an Ur-Priest's CL, so the straightforward build for an Ur-Priest has minimum CL equal to spell level (except for 0th lvl spells, which have minimum CL 1).

Bard/Sorcerer/Wizard
A straightforward Sublime Chord build is Bard 10/Sublime Chord 10. For such a build, 4th/5th lvl spells from the Brd/Src/Wiz lists are min CL 11, +2 min CL per +1 spell level after that. This will mostly just give you low CL for a few bard spell levels while leaving the src/wiz stuff at higher minimum CL than standard. To get those cheaper, we have to get a bit tricky:

Bard 9/Wizard 1/Sublime Chord X is also a perfectly cromulent build. If they choose to base their SC CL on Bard, minimum CL is 1 lower than in the previous example. If they choose to base it on Wizard, though, then it's 9 points lower. Now the minimums are CL 2 for 4th/5th lvl spells, CL 4 for 6th lvl spells, CL 6 for 7th lvl spells, CL 8 for 8th lvl spells, and CL 10 for 9th lvl spells. Generally speaking, if somebody were to build their Sublime Chord this way, they'd be shooting their day-to-day casting in the foot, in exchange for the ability to craft much cheaper items. And an artificer can mimic that benefit without having to pay the price. Now on the one hand, this is generally useful for getting utility effects cheaper and isn't going to affect combat very much, but now it's getting into "mimicked builds" that are a bit less defensible - the fact that artificer can mimic any casting doesn't necessarily mean "any build's casting" as much as the intended build for a given casting progression.

Domains
Divine Crusader is in a similar boat to Ur-Priest, where the way the rules shake out, they gain access to a spell level when their CL is equal to that spell level. Each DC only gets access to a single domain, but we can mimic the casting of any DC so that's fine. Because most domain spells tend to be the same level as their original, and tend to be on the cleric list, Ur-Priest will cover most of this, and standard Sor/Wiz casting (or tricky Sublime Chord casting) will cover the rest. What you're here for is two things: first, domain spells that are at a lower level than they'd normally be for a standard caster, and second, 9th lvl spells stolen from the wizard list. Cheaty sublime chord build gets 9th lvl spells at minimum CL 10 from the sor/wiz lists, but Divine Crusader with the right domain can get one at CL 9, and is far more defensible. Envy domain gets Wish, as an example I've already mentioned.

Values in parentheses are with the Sublime Chord cheaty build. Classes not on the chart don't have early access that I've mentioned, although there might be other early access methods elsewhere in the edition - there's quite a few fast-casting PrCs.



Artificer Level
What Can You Craft?
Cleric Spells
Domain Spells
Bard Spells
Sorcerer/Wizard Spells


1
Scrolls
0th/1st
1st

0th/1st


2
Potions
2nd
2nd
1st (4th/5th)
(4th/5th)


3
Wondrous Items
3rd
3rd

2nd


4

4th
4th
2nd (6th)
(6th)


5
Magic Weapons/Armor
5th
5th

3rd


6
Wands
6th
6th

(7th)


7

7th
7th
3rd
4th


8

8th
8th

(8th)


9
Rods
9th
9th

5th


10



4th
(9th)


11




6th


12
Staves






13



5th
7th


14
Rings






15




8th


16



6th



17




9th


18







19







20








Even without a questionable reading, by the time you get Craft Wand you can build any cleric/domain spell wand possible; if you're going with strong interpretation, you can do the same with bard/sor/wiz spells. Strong interpretation will see you potentially busting out 4th/5th lvl bard/sor/wiz spells at Artificer 2 in the form of scrolls or potions. It'd still be expensive (250 gp for a Lvl 5/CL 2 scroll is a lot of money at lvl 2), but it's in your wheelhouse of options, DM allowing.

[AvatarVecna]

Straightforward spell use can be quite powerful as well, although "overpowered" is difficult to say because 1) there's always a counter, and 2) what counts as "too much" is just gonna vary an awful lot from table to table. Polymorphing into a dragon is cool, but probably not exactly a strong option. Polymorphing into a Hydra gives you a lot of attacks you can make on a move (and potentially a bunch of breath weapons), but you've got slightly slower speed than normal, and "lots of damage" can be mitigated with "lots of HP". Somebody mentioned something like this up-thread: being OP isnt about "big numbers", it's about tactical and strategic options that just plain wouldn't be available to most people. A character with enough ranks in Diplomacy can just ask anybody they meet to confess to any crimes they've recently committed and eventually find the killer, but a low-level cleric can just ask the murder victim directly. A monk with enough levels can run The Ring from the Shire to Mordor in an hour, but a mid-level wizard can just teleport (it might take a few tries, but...yeah). If you're ever watching a movie or TV show and something happens that results in a character traveling through time, or coming back to life, you kinda wince cuz you're not sure if the qualify of the media is about to take a steep nose dive. You wince like that because that happens a lot, because stories where death and causality can be overcome, it's a lot harder to have meaningful stakes. And both are available to high-level mages, or even just mid-level mages who are cheating pretty hard.

These kinds of things don't break the numbers, they break the stories, and they need to be accounted for if you don't want to risk your game getting bypassed by a clever spell. And sure there's almost always a counter, but it's generally going to require that the villains have good in-universe system mastery, which doesn't always fit the story either. You could have a god be the one shutting down the obvious win buttons, but at that point your story is literally built on Deus Ex Machina to keep the plot from being solved in 5 minutes.

[Gusmo]

The locate city bomb is a 1st level spell. You can get all the riders by 7th.



I will once again rant that I consider locate city bomb to be the worst example possible example that you could give in threads like this, and is precisely the sort of thing I'm objecting to mentioning in the post you quoted, even if it comes online at low levels. The number of DMs who would allow that at a table with a mere sanity check is probably close to zero. Though I have seen it happen. But I have also never seen any discussion of it end with a consensus of people saying 'oh, yeah, clearly legal.' Locate city is not a valid spell for flash frost, and without flash frost the whole thing and all its variants collapse. Now, we don't need to go down this road about whether it's legal, I doubt anyone here is going to change their mind about anything. My problem is that much like Pun-Pun, it's basically a TO meme at this point, yet somehow gets treated as as a serious solution, and unfortunately multiple people have brought it up in this thread without any sort of proper disclaimer.

[Calthropstu]

I will once again rant that I consider locate city bomb to be the worst example possible example that you could give in threads like this, and is precisely the sort of thing I'm objecting to mentioning in the post you quoted, even if it comes online at low levels. The number of DMs who would allow that at a table with a mere sanity check is probably close to zero. Though I have seen it happen. But I have also never seen any discussion of it end with a consensus of people saying 'oh, yeah, clearly legal.' Locate city is not a valid spell for flash frost, and without flash frost the whole thing and all its variants collapse. Now, we don't need to go down this road about whether it's legal, I doubt anyone here is going to change their mind about anything. My problem is that much like Pun-Pun, it's basically a TO meme at this point, yet somehow gets treated as as a serious solution, and unfortunately multiple people have brought it up in this thread without any sort of proper disclaimer.

It's an extreme example that is famous on these forums. But, as has already been stated, even without extremes you have an absurd amount of solutions that render challenges meaningless. Wall of stone used properly can halt armies. Teleport makes escape a breeze.

Magic is literally messing with the laws of the multiverse, a feat swinging a sword can't compete with.

[Gusmo]

It's an extreme example that is famous on these forums. But, as has already been stated, even without extremes you have an absurd amount of solutions that render challenges meaningless. Wall of stone used properly can halt armies. Teleport makes escape a breeze.

Magic is literally messing with the laws of the multiverse, a feat swinging a sword can't compete with.

This is the stuff that the OP is probably looking for, and what I've actually seen cause havoc at real tables. Creative use of prestidigitation, silent image, alter self, and polymorph have also barely been touched on in this thread, and each one of those could justify a thread unto itself.

[gijoemike]

Gusmo has a very good point.

prestidigitation can be used to pick up small objects in a 10ft space and place them in a container. It is a listed suggestion in a published source. This means that with a standard action using a cantrip the arcane caster can remove 4 squares of marbles, caltrops, or flour/dust from a space. Imagine throwing a bag of flour in the air to cover an invisible foe but the wizard "couterspells" it with a cantrip. The cloud just gathers itself up in a small pile over there in the corner.

Silent image over a small corridor can act as invisibility for the entire party 2 whole levels prior to having actual invisibility.

Polymorph is so broken it was one of the largest changes in the 3.5 --> pathfinder conversion. PF slaps down wild shape/polymorph hard. Yet it is still freaking amazing. Become everything you ever wanted and more.

[Calthropstu]

This is the stuff that the OP is probably looking for, and what I've actually seen cause havoc at real tables. Creative use of prestidigitation, silent image, alter self, and polymorph have also barely been touched on in this thread, and each one of those could justify a thread unto itself.

Mage hand is another. I ran a sorcerer who exhausted 2/3 of the party's spells against a guy with a wand of mage hand standing behind an illusionary wall. He manipulated objects in the room making it seem like there was an invisible opponent. Threw his voice with ventriliquism. They tried employing "see invisibility"but the guy bluffed them saying he had magic that counteracted that. So they started pounding any source of sound. A little minor object manipulation and bam. When they started complaining they were running low, he stepped out of the wall and got serious. Party had to retreat, he put 2 into negatives. After they ran, he grabbed all his stuff and retreated to continue his work elsewhere.

Boy were my players pissed. But that just shows you how low level spells can be super effective used creatively.

[Crazysaneman]

Here you go, a good list of broken bs.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?258580-Famous-optimized-character-builds

[Gusmo]

Creative use of a raven familiar can be absolutely bonkers, as well. I've enjoyed multiple games where people made fun of me for picking one of the worst familiars. Appraise is terrible, they all say! They all eventually see the power of having a second character that can talk, fly, and shares all your skill ranks. Start treating your familiars as additional character if you're not already. Always roll their skill checks, always roll their saves. In one campaign where I played a single classed wizard just to keep things simple for everyone, I sandbagged most of the way and played the raven more than I played the wizard. We leveled into the teens, and the point at which the raven has comparable or greater intelligence than most people, but a boatload of knowledge skills and whatever else, gives you an awesome opportunity to roleplay some version of Blackwing. My wizard rarely left their quarters, instead opting to be haughty and aloof and interact with the world through the raven. To save the party at one point I pulled out the guns, and polymorphed myself and my familiar into hydras. Mage armor was already active, of course, and with a quickened shield and polymorph, suddenly we were unstoppable. I could have thrown on more buffs if needed. Or polymorphed the both of us into any number of suitable monsters depending on the situation. Thanks share spells!

[King of Nowhere]

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are able to do all the things, or at least a lot more of the things than less powerful classes. Example:

The party meets back up to catch up on what progress everyone has made:
Rogue: I spent three days gathering information and I've got a bunch of details about the BBEG. I know everywhere he went in this town and after thorough investigation I think I know where he's headed.
Wizard: I spent five minutes casting divination spells and I have better information on him than you do, including exactly where to find his lair where he's currently located.
Ranger: Great! With my knowledge of the local terrain I can cut our travel time down by 1/3, plus I can forage for food while we travel.
Wizard: Shut up and join hands so I can teleport us there.
Rogue: I'd better check for traps as we navigate through his lair.
Druid: I'll just use my Summon Elemental reserve feat to make an expendable earth elemental at will, which can go though the floor/wall to scout ahead, unlock doors from the other side, and disable/destroy/Nodwick any traps he comes across.
Ranger: With my archery skills we should be able to make short work of him!
Druid: I have class features that are more powerful than your entire character. *buffs animal companion and sends it in to solo the BBEG*

But this actually showcases how the power of tier 1, while great, is often exaggerated. And so is the lack of power of lower options.
Magic is powerful and stuff. But magic can also be blocked, fooled or mislead more easily by other magic.
For example, the bad guy may be easily protected from scry. Gather information may reveal details that divinations cannot.
Teleport may be blocked, or may drop you into a trap. Walking there, while less convenient, is reliable.
And buffing can do great things, but if you buff someone who's already good at the job, it's better. I'm from mobile and can't post links, but i'd refer to haley with the potion of glibness.

Of course, the fact that other classes must struggle to stay relevant in their own fields of expertise - or must depend on your buffs to stay relevant - shows the power of tier 1.
Even after you remove all the stupid RAW exploits that are actually Rules Awfully Warped or Rules Abused Wantomly, even after you ban the most stupid and overpowered spells, tier 1 still has all the versatility to make invaluable contribution in all situations

[Batcathat]

Magic is powerful and stuff. But magic can also be blocked, fooled or mislead more easily by other magic.

I feel like this is part of the problem. Magic can be stopped by more magic, but much more rarely by mundane means (there are exceptions, of course). Meanwhile, some sort of magic can counter pretty much anything a mundane character can do.

[Godskook]

An example of optimization primarily driven by tier 1 classes:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)

[Quertus]

prestidigitation can be used to pick up small objects in a 10ft space and place them in a container. It is a listed suggestion in a published source.

Is there a list of these listed suggestions anywhere? And… as "suggestions", do they carry the weight of RAW?


I feel like this is part of the problem. Magic can be stopped by more magic, but much more rarely by mundane means (there are exceptions, of course). Meanwhile, some sort of magic can counter pretty much anything a mundane character can do.

Now, this is partially my biases, but… conceptually, isn't it kinda dumb for mundane means to block magic?

I don't think Bo9S was "too anime" - my biases don't go that far. But… how can one allow muggle science to best magic without the Warblade haters going into seizures?

A thin sheet of lead (or 3' of rock, or…) blocks most Divinations. And nobody forms a torch-wielding mob. What other mundane means are similarly thematic? Burning sage¹ to ward off evil spirits / possession alla Protection from Evil? A draught or salve or stone to see the unseen. There's probably some painted symbols in legends to ward off teleportation. Maybe wormwood and asphodel are good for something?

But how far can we go before people just reply with "too anime", or "that's magic"?

¹ Elminster is not amused by the peasants trying to burn him

[Crake]

Now, this is partially my biases, but… conceptually, isn't it kinda dumb for mundane means to block magic?

Depends on your definition of mundane. Previous editions had things like gorgon blood stopping ethereal travellers, and even 3.5 has lead encasement stopping scrying effects. I dunno if gorgon blood would count as mundane for your purposes.

[Batcathat]

Now, this is partially my biases, but… conceptually, isn't it kinda dumb for mundane means to block magic?

Why would it be?

Now, whether or not people would complain is another issue. Some would, of course, but if "people might complain about it" is a reason not to change something nothing would ever get changed ever.

[Calthropstu]

Why would it be?

Now, whether or not people would complain is another issue. Some would, of course, but if "people might complain about it" is a reason not to change something nothing would ever get changed ever.

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

[Gavinfoxx]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

So you are arguing that magic should have infinite power and versatility and should utterly obsolete mundane effects and not be resistable by mundane means? No salt overcoming summoned air elementals or things like that? Why would a cooperative, non-intentionally asymmetrical game that lets you play a magic using character even allow a non-magic using character in this situation? Also, why the hatred for 'hard' magic systems that are knowable and limited and specific in their capabilites?

[Batcathat]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

That is, at best, a very narrow and subjective definition of magic. Not to mention that in D&D magic can very much be studied. Wizards are basically people with a PhD in it.

Also, how come it's okay for magic and nature to have a real tangible connection when it's magic affecting nature but not when it's the other way around?

[Crake]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

Whats your take on a mundane metal like lead blocking divinations then?

[Lucas Yew]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

Then what are the non-magic classes in the game for? Crutch characters until your caster heroes level up enough to be not fragile in a hostile situation?

In a classless game I might agree that "Magic + Reality > Reality" is a thing. Yet D&D is a class based game, and all classes should at least not get completely overshadowed by an another entire class categoty in an average in-game situation...

[Calthropstu]

Wow, a lot of hate for my post. Lead blocking divinations is actually a point I consider a point of study for mundanes. Why does lead block divinations? Is there something special about it? Is there magic in leiad? Does lead absorb magic? Why can lead be subjected to shrink item but blocks divination?

It's an anomaly for study that can further research into magic and turn it from magic into science. The more such avenues that exist, the less it is magical.

[JNAProductions]

Wow, a lot of hate for my post. Lead blocking divinations is actually a point I consider a point of study for mundanes. Why does lead block divinations? Is there something special about it? Is there magic in leiad? Does lead absorb magic? Why can lead be subjected to shrink item but blocks divination?

It's an anomaly for study that can further research into magic and turn it from magic into science. The more such avenues that exist, the less it is magical.

Well yeah. The game is already tilted vastly in favor of magic-no need to make it worse.

[Gavinfoxx]

Wow, a lot of hate for my post. Lead blocking divinations is actually a point I consider a point of study for mundanes. Why does lead block divinations? Is there something special about it? Is there magic in leiad? Does lead absorb magic? Why can lead be subjected to shrink item but blocks divination?

It's an anomaly for study that can further research into magic and turn it from magic into science. The more such avenues that exist, the less it is magical.



Why should d20 magic be 'magical'?

[Batcathat]

Wow, a lot of hate for my post.

Not sure I would call "You're stating unfounded subjective opinion as some sort of absolute fact" hate but I suppose that, too, is a matter of opinion.


The more such avenues that exist, the less it is magical.

Again, that's a subjective opinion. I'm sure it makes it less magical to you, but quite a few people enjoy magic that makes at least some degree of scientific sense and have some sort of underlying principles rather than just "it works like this because magic!" Personally, I'm not really a fan of D&D magic (partly because its occasionally arbitrary "because magic!" nature) but it's already a pretty organized, logical type of magic even from an in-universe perspective, so saying it would feel less "magical" if mundane methods could affect it more (rather than just the other way around) seems odd.

I'm still curious why "lead can affect magic" is bad but "magic can affect lead" is good.

[Jay R]

At the absolute most, it's ambiguous wording that can be interpreted either way, but realistically since they use natural weapons plural the most natural interpretation of the text is "a natural attack(per natural weapon, as is normal)"

The most natural interpretation of "a natural attack" is "a natural attack".

It is not "a natural attack (no, something else)"

RAW means "rules as written", not "rules as modified by Rater202".

[Rater202]

The most natural interpretation of "a natural attack" is "a natural attack".

It is not "a natural attack (no, something else)"

RAW means "rules as written", not "rules as modified by Rater202".

At this point we are not talking about "rules as written" but "rules as intended" and "rules as interpreted."

RAW is not "You can produce a single natural weapon allowing for a single natural weapon attack" and it is not "you can produce natural weapons, but no matter how many you have you may only make a single attack per round with weapons produced with this ability."

Raw is "you can produce natural weapons, allowing you to make a natural attack," and that's ambiguous enough that you would logically default to he standard rules.

Standard rules are "you may make a single attack as an attack action, which consumes one of your standard actions, or you can make a single attack per natural weapon as a full attack action where in your primary natural weapons hit with your full base attack bonus and use your full strength score when calculating damage and your secondary natural weapons hit with a -5 penalty and use half your strength score, which consumes your entire turn."

We can quibble all day over whether arbitrarily high numbers of natural weapons are kosher, but "more than one" is the most natural reading and looking at how absolutely bonkers the rest of the class is I don't think something as underwhelming as a single natural weapon was intended.

[AntiAuthority]

Now, this is partially my biases, but… conceptually, isn't it kinda dumb for mundane means to block magic?

I don't think Bo9S was "too anime" - my biases don't go that far. But… how can one allow muggle science to best magic without the Warblade haters going into seizures?

A thin sheet of lead (or 3' of rock, or…) blocks most Divinations. And nobody forms a torch-wielding mob. What other mundane means are similarly thematic? Burning sage¹ to ward off evil spirits / possession alla Protection from Evil? A draught or salve or stone to see the unseen. There's probably some painted symbols in legends to ward off teleportation. Maybe wormwood and asphodel are good for something?

But how far can we go before people just reply with "too anime", or "that's magic"?


About the mundane stopping magic part... No, it's not really lame per say when there's a precedent for it. Plenty of mundane things can stop the supernatural in some capacity across fiction, folklore and mythology, such as simple iron being able to deter malevolent supernatural entities or, if you're being particularly cruel, could beat a fairy with a loaf of bread... Though I suppose could hypothetically argue that bread, iron and salt are magic if they can harm such beings, but that opens the door to "everyone is magic" since humans have both iron and salt within their bodies and... Yeah.

As for the line between where "too anime" and "that's magic" begins and ends... That's pretty subjective and depends on the person. The thing is, a lot of the stuff seen as "magic" or "anime" usually have roots in mythology and folklore, which D&D and the like try to replicate to some extent, in addition with fantasy stories. So in a sense the term "too anime" really should be "too mythological" and even more, in mythologies, the line between magic, the supernatural and mundane was... Blurry to put it lightly (such as Beowulf's insane strength/endurance, Arachne being a better weaver than an actual goddess and a regular person hypothetically beating up a reality warping fairy with a loaf of bread). Along with, over time, magic becoming synonymous with certain people to mean "omnipotent" but this wasn't always the case.




Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

Not necessarily, "because magic" doesn't really tell us anything about magic. It's not a definition and what is and isn't magic depends on the setting. Magic to one person is "I can destroy a planet with a wink" and magic to another person is, "I can sometimes make candles flicker for a moment."

About mundane means stopping it and no longer being magical, not really, this ties back to magic varying across various iterations on what magic can and can't do. Iron and salt could protect one from various supernatural beings in mythologies, it didn't mean the scary magical beings were now not-magical.

About magic being studied and the interaction between nature and magic making it no longer magic... D&D/Pathfinder both have done that to their magic in mechanics and in setting. In terms of mechanics, we understand that 1) spellcasters have a limited number of spells per day 2) spells have "slots" 3) the spells require specific components and 4) there are different categories of magic (Arcane, Divine, Druidic). From a setting standpoint, in-universe, the settings have magical academies and/or apprenticeships. Adding on, the concept of hard magic exists and there are people who look for stories with hard-magic systems in them, it doesn't stop being magic because it has hard rules on what is and isn't possible.

There isn't a universal definition for magic, or what makes magic magic, there are as many reasons for what magic is and isn't as there are people living.

[Fouredged Sword]

They guys running crazy optimisation loops are missing the point. Tier 1 breaks the game with zero optimization. It does this to the point that after about 10 levels a tier 1 caster defines a campaign. Everything must be designed around their ability to just shut down whole catagories of adventures.

Just take Greater Teleport. Travel is a solved problem now for the most part. Any part of an adventure base around getting from point A to point B? Basically solved, and when it's not Overland Flight solves it.

The game rapidly becomes a contest between the tier 1 caster and the DM, where the martial characters are basically pieces on the board that play themselves. They cannot enguage any adventure that can challenge a well played wizard without the wizard's help.

[awa]

I find druid is a better example at explaining tier 1 than wizard because druid has very some very clear very obvious OP abilities that come on very early.

Say a ridding dog wearing armor at level 1 its basically a free fighter with the scent ability. Add war trained from mm2 to get an extra 2 hd and some free stat boosts and it is objectively better than the level 1 fighter its competing with.

9th level spells are basically TO because so few games actually get to that level but druids are very obviously breaking the game much earlier than that.

In terms of simple broken spells their are a lot of spells that with out interpretation are just broken, lacking non-magical counters. Spells like shivering touch which is a touch attack that deals 3d6 dex dam, combine with sudden maximize you can one shot anything that lacks the cold type and/or a 19+ dex.

force cage, force simply cant be broken by the vast majority of creatures.

Solid fog wildly reduces a foes movement allowing allies to easily shoot it to death
entangle while not as dramatic is similar and much lower level

rope trick is also a problem allowing parties to simply rest in the dungeon or a little less obviously used to fire on enemies with near impunity (depending on their type)

[Segev]

Just take Greater Teleport. Travel is a solved problem now for the most part. Any part of an adventure base around getting from point A to point B? Basically solved, and when it's not Overland Flight solves it.This can be true, but need not be:


...you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting. If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location.

I know it's a 5e adventure, but if we imagine it run in 3e, Tomb of Annihilation would still not be trivially solved by greater teleport. Nobody has a reliable description of the destination. While there are several places you can get the target location identified, even those aren't "known" but rather places you need to hunt down. You could use greater teleport for a number of known places if you had reason to explicitly visit them, but that's it.

Overland flight is nice, and helps ease the hardships of travel as well as accelerate it, and 6.4 hexes per day (~13 hexes if they travel for 16 hours a day, which definitely qualifies as a forced march) is very impressive, but it won't get them everywhere trivially. Just faster. And they need to carry supplies for it, unless the plan is two greater teleport spells per day. Oh, and overland flight is self-only without some sort of trick (i.e., some optimization, which the thesis of the post Fouredged Sword made says is not necessary). So if the overland flight-enabled casters are the only ones exploring, that means they're on their own. A full party of 9th level sorcerers and wizards is not unviable, of course, but is going to face more difficulties getting to 9th, let alone 13th, level than people like to admit.

And that's just one example. Now, at 13th level, divination magics might give you more answers to your question of searching things out, but they do still come at costs and with failure chances. Moreover, there are explicitly powerful spellcasters on the other side who know the capabilities of high-level casters and will take specific precautions. (These precautions aren't written in ToA because it's not meant to go beyond level 11, and is meant to get you to the destination that mid-level divinations could ease the discovery of before you reach level 9. It's also a 5e module, so different spells are available.)

Overall, my point is this: greater teleport eases travel iff the destination is well-enough known that the caster can get a reliable description, which means both needing said description and knowing what the location of the thing(s) you want is/are. Overland flight isn't really a solution at all without at least some optimization to make it share-able. And travel at higher level can easily involve things more esoteric than simply traipsing across mundane ground terrains.

[awa]

This can be true, but need not be:



I know it's a 5e adventure, but if we imagine it run in 3e, Tomb of Annihilation would still not be trivially solved by greater teleport. Nobody has a reliable description of the destination. While there are several places you can get the target location identified, even those aren't "known" but rather places you need to hunt down. You could use greater teleport for a number of known places if you had reason to explicitly visit them, but that's it.

[
Overall, my point is this: greater teleport eases travel iff the destination is well-enough known that the caster can get a reliable description, which means both needing said description and knowing what the location of the thing(s) you want is/are. Overland flight isn't really a solution at all without at least some optimization to make it share-able. And travel at higher level can easily involve things more esoteric than simply traipsing across mundane ground terrains.

People hate it but teleport also has this clause "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible"

Now I'm not familiar with this tomb of annihilation but it sounds like the kinda place a DM could very reasonable say is an area of strong magical energy.

[Eldan]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

But magic already has tangible effects you can study. Fireballs deal 5d6 Damage in a 20ft. radius. Things burn. That's quantifiable.

[Gnaeus]

This can be true, but need not be:



I know it's a 5e adventure, but if we imagine it run in 3e, Tomb of Annihilation would still not be trivially solved by greater teleport. Nobody has a reliable description of the destination. While there are several places you can get the target location identified, even those aren't "known" but rather places you need to hunt down. You could use greater teleport for a number of known places if you had reason to explicitly visit them, but that's it.

Overland flight is nice, and helps ease the hardships of travel as well as accelerate it, and 6.4 hexes per day (~13 hexes if they travel for 16 hours a day, which definitely qualifies as a forced march) is very impressive, but it won't get them everywhere trivially. Just faster. And they need to carry supplies for it, unless the plan is two greater teleport spells per day. Oh, and overland flight is self-only without some sort of trick (i.e., some optimization, which the thesis of the post Fouredged Sword made says is not necessary). So if the overland flight-enabled casters are the only ones exploring, that means they're on their own. A full party of 9th level sorcerers and wizards is not unviable, of course, but is going to face more difficulties getting to 9th, let alone 13th, level than people like to admit.

And that's just one example. Now, at 13th level, divination magics might give you more answers to your question of searching things out, but they do still come at costs and with failure chances. Moreover, there are explicitly powerful spellcasters on the other side who know the capabilities of high-level casters and will take specific precautions. (These precautions aren't written in ToA because it's not meant to go beyond level 11, and is meant to get you to the destination that mid-level divinations could ease the discovery of before you reach level 9. It's also a 5e module, so different spells are available.)

Overall, my point is this: greater teleport eases travel iff the destination is well-enough known that the caster can get a reliable description, which means both needing said description and knowing what the location of the thing(s) you want is/are. Overland flight isn't really a solution at all without at least some optimization to make it share-able. And travel at higher level can easily involve things more esoteric than simply traipsing across mundane ground terrains.

I agree. We have had several high level campaigns involving travel that teleport didn’t break. There was one where we had to follow a golem. Another where we were following stars to make observations at certain points, so measurements like follow Sirius 2 days, then at the rune carved in the rock (which couldn’t be seen from above) follow aldebaran for 4 nights. Another where we were collecting magical doodads that couldn’t cross planar barriers, even for an instant. In all cases teleport was USEFUL (like to zip back to market) but not scenario invalidating.

Yes, this involves some DM planning. But most good DMs are planning around the capabilities of their parties anyway, unless they run hard sandboxes where PC ability is unrelated to the challenges he’s they face. And in that case it’s probably more accurate to say something like “open sandbox games are more favorable to high tier classes due to greater PC control of the timing and nature of encounters and downtime” rather than “spell X is OP.”

[King of Nowhere]

Because magic. Magic is magic. If mundane means stops it, it ceases to be magical and can be studied. Why does this mundane ability/stone/metal block magic? At that point you have a real tangible interaction between nature and magic, magic ceases to be magic.

I have a strong dislike for this concept of magic. This seems more like a support for lazy storytelling
"I swing my magic sword"
"your sword transforms into a pigeon. The pigeon chirps loudly, dealing sonic damage to everyone in the area"
"huh? what the hell?"
"it's magic"
in fact, most people who dislike the fantasy genre will give justifications like that on why they don't like magic. they equate magic with ass-pull.

no, in order for a story to make sense, magic must make sense. it must have rules.
and incidentally, everything we know in the universe makes sense in its own way. everything has rules. it may not make sense in a way that makes sense to us, its rules may be strange and bizarre and practically impossible to solve, but it has rules nonetheless. I can imagine a story with a natural phenomenon that causes effects of power if someone utters specific words while performing hand gestures, and I can enjoy a story made with that premise. I cannot imagine nor enjoy a story where there are completely chaotic elements making no sense whatsoever.

And this is exactly how mundane means can sometimes beat magic. Because magic has rules. And if you know those rules, you can turn them to your advantage.
well, i don't know magic all that well, but i know technology. So, you have your cool airplane with advanced missles with enhanced sensors that will see past camouflage. Impressive. As you fly over your target, you fire a missile at an enemy tank.
The enemy, knowing you have your cool airplane, has prepared a metal tank with a bit of fuel inside. They lit up the fuel. Now, your cool sensors are set to seek the heat of a tank engine, and your little fire will provide heat. Your cool sensors won't be fooled by that, they also look for sources of metal. hence your metal container. The missile senses metal and heat, thinks it found the enemy tank, and hits your decoy. With a few dollars in fuel and some scrap metal you fooled a missile costing thousands of dollars. How? by knowing how it works, and taking appropriate countermeasures. a regular soldier with a regular rifle woulnd't have been fooled so easily.
Or, drones are wonderful reconaissance tools. you can scout from above, watch a large area that would require hundreds of men to patrol. But suppose you must find someone hiding in the woods, your sight from above will only bring you so far. An old time trapper, the kind that will find a thread dropped from your clothes and from it tell exactly how long since you were there, where are you going, and what you ate in the last three days, for all his skills he can't match the scouting capacity of a guy with a dozen drones, but he has a better chance of finding the guy in the woods. In any case, you'd want to have both the trapper and the tech specialist, for both can give a meaningful contribution that does not overlap with each other.

And so, it stands to reason that if you have magic, and magic produces some verifiable and predictable effects, then knowing what those effects are you can protect yourself from magic. You can at least mitigate your vulnerabilities. And in some cases defending against may be easier than defending against mundane means.

I recall a story about the tomb of horrors, where a group managed to defeat it by hiring a bunch of miners to dig a tunnel through the rock with completely mundane means, bypassing all the traps that were cunningly set to prevent all manners of magical infiltration.
or another group that knocked down the doors - so carefully warded to prevent bypassing of the dungeon - and carted them back to town, selling them for rare metals and magical reagents that could be salvaged from them. those are mundane solutions.
you find a magical trap, you pass and you dodge the ensuing fireball, that's a mundane solution. and if you got a rogue or monk, it's probably easier and cheaper than trying to disable the trap. Or you send a chicken through it, that's also a mundane solution, unless the chicken was summoned. but maybe that trap also has some detection spell to avoid being fooled by summoned creatures, in which case the mundane chicken is the better soluton.
you can fly with a spell, or you can fly with a griffon or other flying mount. The griffon is immune to dispelling, so that's better than the spell. Though the griffon can be killed or disabled by a variety of other means, so, there are drawbacks too.
You can hide yourself with invisibility, all nice and well, then you try to walk in front of someone with a see invisibility spell, you get caught immediately. Or, you may try to sneak the mundane way, it's certainly harder, but the guy with see invisibility still won't see you.
You can get on the king's good side with your noble deeds, or you can use compulsion. the second is easier and faster, but eventually the king is going to pass a will save, or is going to aquire some immunity. and then he'll be pissed
So, now that i had some time to think about it, i did actually come up with many ways that mundane solutions can be better than magic.

and, personally, i try to enforce this kind of situations - where mundane and magic means are both potentially effective, but both can potentially fail - as much as i can, starting from the worldbuilding level and power level setting of what magic can and cannot do. And no, i will not claim the game is balanced for it, because a lot of those are creative interpretations of some missing points on the rules, when they are not straight houserules.
I do it because it makes for a much more interesting game. "i have a bunch of options, both magic and mundane, that can be used to solve problems. I must ffigure out some creative ways to use them to solve some bigger problem" is a much more interesting story than "i cast this spell and solve all problems, everywhere, forever".
Works well enough for my table.
Works for most tables, actually, because there are very, very few tables that use the full power of tier 1 classes without limitations.

[AntiAuthority]

I have a strong dislike for this concept of magic. This seems more like a support for lazy storytelling
"I swing my magic sword"
"your sword transforms into a pigeon. The pigeon chirps loudly, dealing sonic damage to everyone in the area"
"huh? what the hell?"
"it's magic"
in fact, most people who dislike the fantasy genre will give justifications like that on why they don't like magic. they equate magic with ass-pull.

no, in order for a story to make sense, magic must make sense. it must have rules.
and incidentally, everything we know in the universe makes sense in its own way. everything has rules. it may not make sense in a way that makes sense to us, its rules may be strange and bizarre and practically impossible to solve, but it has rules nonetheless. I can imagine a story with a natural phenomenon that causes effects of power if someone utters specific words while performing hand gestures, and I can enjoy a story made with that premise. I cannot imagine nor enjoy a story where there are completely chaotic elements making no sense whatsoever.

And this is exactly how mundane means can sometimes beat magic. Because magic has rules. And if you know those rules, you can turn them to your advantage.
well, i don't know magic all that well, but i know technology. So, you have your cool airplane with advanced missles with enhanced sensors that will see past camouflage. Impressive. As you fly over your target, you fire a missile at an enemy tank.
The enemy, knowing you have your cool airplane, has prepared a metal tank with a bit of fuel inside. They lit up the fuel. Now, your cool sensors are set to seek the heat of a tank engine, and your little fire will provide heat. Your cool sensors won't be fooled by that, they also look for sources of metal. hence your metal container. The missile senses metal and heat, thinks it found the enemy tank, and hits your decoy. With a few dollars in fuel and some scrap metal you fooled a missile costing thousands of dollars. How? by knowing how it works, and taking appropriate countermeasures. a regular soldier with a regular rifle woulnd't have been fooled so easily.
Or, drones are wonderful reconaissance tools. you can scout from above, watch a large area that would require hundreds of men to patrol. But suppose you must find someone hiding in the woods, your sight from above will only bring you so far. An old time trapper, the kind that will find a thread dropped from your clothes and from it tell exactly how long since you were there, where are you going, and what you ate in the last three days, for all his skills he can't match the scouting capacity of a guy with a dozen drones, but he has a better chance of finding the guy in the woods. In any case, you'd want to have both the trapper and the tech specialist, for both can give a meaningful contribution that does not overlap with each other.

And so, it stands to reason that if you have magic, and magic produces some verifiable and predictable effects, then knowing what those effects are you can protect yourself from magic. You can at least mitigate your vulnerabilities. And in some cases defending against may be easier than defending against mundane means.

I recall a story about the tomb of horrors, where a group managed to defeat it by hiring a bunch of miners to dig a tunnel through the rock with completely mundane means, bypassing all the traps that were cunningly set to prevent all manners of magical infiltration.
or another group that knocked down the doors - so carefully warded to prevent bypassing of the dungeon - and carted them back to town, selling them for rare metals and magical reagents that could be salvaged from them. those are mundane solutions.
you find a magical trap, you pass and you dodge the ensuing fireball, that's a mundane solution. and if you got a rogue or monk, it's probably easier and cheaper than trying to disable the trap. Or you send a chicken through it, that's also a mundane solution, unless the chicken was summoned. but maybe that trap also has some detection spell to avoid being fooled by summoned creatures, in which case the mundane chicken is the better soluton.
you can fly with a spell, or you can fly with a griffon or other flying mount. The griffon is immune to dispelling, so that's better than the spell. Though the griffon can be killed or disabled by a variety of other means, so, there are drawbacks too.
You can hide yourself with invisibility, all nice and well, then you try to walk in front of someone with a see invisibility spell, you get caught immediately. Or, you may try to sneak the mundane way, it's certainly harder, but the guy with see invisibility still won't see you.
You can get on the king's good side with your noble deeds, or you can use compulsion. the second is easier and faster, but eventually the king is going to pass a will save, or is going to aquire some immunity. and then he'll be pissed
So, now that i had some time to think about it, i did actually come up with many ways that mundane solutions can be better than magic.

and, personally, i try to enforce this kind of situations - where mundane and magic means are both potentially effective, but both can potentially fail - as much as i can, starting from the worldbuilding level and power level setting of what magic can and cannot do. And no, i will not claim the game is balanced for it, because a lot of those are creative interpretations of some missing points on the rules, when they are not straight houserules.
I do it because it makes for a much more interesting game. "i have a bunch of options, both magic and mundane, that can be used to solve problems. I must ffigure out some creative ways to use them to solve some bigger problem" is a much more interesting story than "i cast this spell and solve all problems, everywhere, forever".
Works well enough for my table.
Works for most tables, actually, because there are very, very few tables that use the full power of tier 1 classes without limitations.

Pretty much. Soft and hard magic have their places in fiction, and I enjoy both... But in a game, rules are probably the biggest thing stopping a TRPG from becoming a game where a bunch of kids give themselves characters that just so happen to spontaneously get powers that counter their immediate situation and have no known limitations beyond what the kids can imagine, eventually becoming, "I don't care if you said my character was vaporized by a god, I say they're immune to it so they are", leading to omnipotence.

By nature, magic in TRPGs is usually closer to hard magic.

[awa]

Pretty much. Soft and hard magic have their places in fiction, and I enjoy both... But in a game, rules are probably the biggest thing stopping a TRPG from becoming a game where a bunch of kids give themselves characters that just so happen to spontaneously get powers that counter their immediate situation and have no known limitations beyond what the kids can imagine, eventually becoming, "I don't care if you said my character was vaporized by a god, I say they're immune to it so they are", leading to omnipotence.

By nature, magic in TRPGs is usually closer to hard magic.

I would point out that depending on your system its not uncommon for PC magic to be defined rules but npc magic may be a lot more wibbly wobbly and ill defined.

[RandomPeasant]

Bringing up the Locate City Bomb or whatever is missing the point, IMO. Yes, there's crazy broken stuff you can do as a T1 caster. But 3e is not so robust as to make that impressive. You can abuse planar binding as a Wizard, but the fastest path to Pun-Pun starts out with a level in Paladin. The fact that your TO infinite loop involves taking levels in some particular class doesn't really say anything about that class, because there are plenty of other infinite loops, and they all get you to the same place (infinity).

The reason T1 casters are good is much simpler than whatever TO trick you happen to enjoy: they cast spells that make them win encounters. That's the whole thing. You don't need to go off onto a tangent about how polymorph lets you abuse a huge range of abilities (remember, the T4 Adept also gets polymorph) or making twinked-out Bone Creatures. The Wizard is good because you cast color spray at 1st level, glitterdust at 3rd level, stinking cloud at 5th level, and evard's black tentacles at 7th level, and all of those spells cause your team to win a fight. And unlike the Rogues or Warblades of the world, it's really hard to shut you down without it appearing very heavy-handed.

The non-combat thing is more complicated. A lot of people describe spells like scrying or teleport as "campaign breaking", but truthfully that's not quite the issue. You can fairly easily write plots that are robust against teleport or scrying (consider that Schlock Mercenary gave its protagonists teleport in like the third arc and then continued to run for 20 years). The issue here isn't really anything to do with T1s directly, it's to do with how they (and, to be fair, many T2s) relate to lower-tier classes. If you look at a Wizard or a Cleric, they have a bunch of utility spells that allow them to go out and drive the plot. They can say "I want to know more about the BBEG's plans, I'll cast commune" or "we should head over to the Fanged City to investigate, I'll cast teleport" or any number of other things. Conversely, your Barbarian or Marshal is limited to "I make a skill check" when skills are A) generally much less definitive than spells B) generally much more subject to DM veto than spells and C) not role-protected to them. Even if you're in a situation where the party Barbarian can usefully contribute by rolling Survival, chances are the Druid can do it just as well, and she has a whole suite of other abilities to back that up.


Why would it be?

I think at a certain point, you start making the distinction between "magical" and "mundane" meaningless. If I'm "mundanely" scattering sacred herbs to protect from demons, what I'm doing is not (IMO) meaningfully distinct from simply casting magic circle or forbiddance or dimensional anchor. And I think once you get to that point, you're better off just letting everyone get some sort of "magic" because that lets you simplify the lists of abilities, and avoids getting stuck in a trap where everyone spends their resources turning off other people's abilities instead of going out and doing stuff.


Then what are the non-magic classes in the game for? Crutch characters until your caster heroes level up enough to be not fragile in a hostile situation?

ChadYes.jpg

Less provocatively, that is exactly what the Fighter was originally designed to do. You played a Fighting Man because you didn't roll good enough stats to play a real character, and the expectation was that the brutal meatgrinder of AD&D would get him killed and you could roll another character that would hopefully be better. And while we've moved away from the meatgrinder part of that, we kind of haven't moved away from the idea that mundanes are replaceable chumps.


Just take Greater Teleport. Travel is a solved problem now for the most part. Any part of an adventure base around getting from point A to point B? Basically solved, and when it's not Overland Flight solves it.

So what? greater teleport is a 7th level spell. You get it as a 13th level character. It seems to me that it is probably okay if "get from point A to point B" stops being a hugely significant challenge at that point. IMO, the more problematic spell is teleport, because it is for some reason lower level than spells that are substantially more limited than it. The idea of the party trying to decide whether they should use shadow walk or overland flight or a hypothetical greater tree stride for a journey seems pretty compelling to me, but the fact that teleport gives you what is almost always the best fast travel magic as soon as you start getting fast travel magic strangles that in the cradle.


I agree. We have had several high level campaigns involving travel that teleport didnÂ’t break. There was one where we had to follow a golem. Another where we were following stars to make observations at certain points, so measurements like follow Sirius 2 days, then at the rune carved in the rock (which couldnÂ’t be seen from above) follow aldebaran for 4 nights. Another where we were collecting magical doodads that couldnÂ’t cross planar barriers, even for an instant. In all cases teleport was USEFUL (like to zip back to market) but not scenario invalidating.

There are also whole swaths of adventures you could go on where teleport just doesn't matter at all. If your adventure is "deal with intrigue and backstabbing in the royal court of Genericia", it doesn't matter what teleport does, because none of the challenges you have involve getting from point A to point B. Even for a relatively traditional dungeon crawl, all you need to do to stop teleport from breaking it is change from the quest being Get The McGuffin to the quest being a Bug Hunt or Exploration mission.


I have a strong dislike for this concept of magic. This seems more like a support for lazy storytelling

I don't necessarily think it's lazy storytelling in general (lots of good stories have soft magic), it's just that it's a really bad fit for a TTRPG, particularly one as rules-heavy as D&D. In a TTRPG, you need a certain level of predictability for roleplaying to be possible. Roleplaying is, fundamentally, answering the question "what would my character do". If you don't know the possible outcomes of actions, you can't answer that question. Stuff needs to have predictable effects (or at least predictable ranges of effects) for you to make informed decisions about your character's actions. Otherwise you're basically playing Paranoia, which while it can be fun is a very different kind of fun from D&D.

[Segev]

You played a Fighting Man because you didn't roll good enough stats to play a real character, and the expectation was that the brutal meatgrinder of AD&D would get him killed and you could roll another character that would hopefully be better.Technically, if you truly didn't roll good enough stats to play anything better, you played a Thief. It was the only class with no stat requirements.

[Smegskull]

Persistent time stop. 500 years. Cover planet in explosive runes. Profit.

[Firechanter]

I feel it's pretty pointless to look at what crazy things Tier 1 (or any) classes can do at levels 17+. To me it's much more interesting what they can do at, say, level 9. Or more generally, what the "crazy overpowered" spells are at each spell level -- without relying on silly or arbitrary rules interpretations that any DM will nix without blinking anyway.

[Silva Stormrage]

I feel it's pretty pointless to look at what crazy things Tier 1 (or any) classes can do at levels 17+. To me it's much more interesting what they can do at, say, level 9. Or more generally, what the "crazy overpowered" spells are at each spell level -- without relying on silly or arbitrary rules interpretations that any DM will nix without blinking anyway.

Agreed, at 17th level you can basically just describe casters capabilities with "Can do anything". That's why I tried to list some more early/mid game stuff in the thread.

Things like at 1st Entangle shutting down entire encounters (40ft radius completely stopping or seriously hampering 80% of enemies), charm person + hypnotism combo (Charm person setting them to friendly, hypnotism boosting them 2 categories higher to fanatic) and abrupt jaunt are great examples of early game caster dominance in combat, utility and defense.

Even things at mid level with combos like Snow Sight + Obscuring Snow to completely block enemy vision while allowing your party to act fine, Solid Fog and Sleet Storm acting as more huge aoe no save battlefield control and even things like polymorph and lesser planar binding giving an absurd amount of versatility and power to casters.

People tend to focus on the higher level spells because they are more impressive and they are for obvious reasons. But the enemies/threats at those levels are also proportionally stronger. At level 1 if the players need to investigate a thieves guild there is basically nothing the DM can do to prevent a caster from using charm person + hypnotism on a flunky and getting all the information they want from him. A low level criminal organization isn't going to have all of its members continuously protected from mind affecting magic, they shouldn't have those resources. That makes some of the lower level combos actually more effective since there are fewer options to counter them at that level.

[RandomPeasant]

Or more generally, what the "crazy overpowered" spells are at each spell level -- without relying on silly or arbitrary rules interpretations that any DM will nix without blinking anyway.

This is a pretty compelling point, especially considering that the post before yours is proposing a trick that does not actually work. Honestly, a lot of the weird TO tricks are things that either have enough holes in them that your DM can put his foot down (planar binding has a bunch of "your DM can probably screw you" clauses, and polymorph as enough errata that your DM can find an interpretation that nixes whatever trick you wanted to use). Like I said, the thing that makes T1s good is not any of the famous CharOp tricks, it's the fact that they cast spells that make them win against the opposition they expect to fight.


That makes some of the lower level combos actually more effective since there are fewer options to counter them at that level.

But at the same time, the relative upside is also smaller. You could burn a couple of 1st level spell slots to get whatever intel you can out of a low level gang member (which represents like half of what a 1st level T1 can do that day), or you could just beat him up or bribe him and find out what he knows that way. And that might be less effective, but it's also a hell of a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot more repeatable. The game is actually quite balanced at 1st or even 5th level. That's why E6 is so popular.

IMO, the point where T1s really pull ahead in this area is 4th to 6th level spells. That's where you both start to have enough spell slots that you can afford to pop off low level spells at problems (it's a lot more reasonable to spend a knock on the door to the bad guy's study when it means you don't have a second backup of your fifth-best buff then when it means you don't have 1/3 of your offensive firepower) and where you start to have spells that lower-tier characters just can't replicate (charm person is just a more reliable Diplomacy, but there's nothing a Rogue, Fighter, or even a Warblade can do that comes close to teleport), and it's before the game really goes off the rails.

And there are a lot of really impressive spells in that range. planar binding doesn't need to be abused to what the limits of RAW allow to overshadow non-casters, you just have to do in-kind trades for services (effectively expanding your downtime spell list to "every spell any eligible outsider gets as a SLA") and bind one or two reasonably strong things as combat minions. teleport, scrying, commune, plane shift, raise dead, contact other plane, legend lore, and more allow a level of strategic agency that forces the DM to design campaigns in a very different way than the tools available to T3 or T4 characters. Casters have enough spells that they will seldom run out before a typical adventuring day ends (and have enough build resources that they can adapt if the DM consistently throws marathons at the party).

[JyP]

I've heard it all back when I played 3.5 - low tier classes excel at one thing, if even that, while high tier classes can utterly break the game. But having not played this edition for years, I've utterly forgotten what are some specific examples. I remember the Demiplane+Clone trick, but beyond that it's kind of a blur.
So, what broken things can high tier classes accomplish?
magic.

*drops mic*

[Tvtyrant]

I've heard it all back when I played 3.5 - low tier classes excel at one thing, if even that, while high tier classes can utterly break the game. But having not played this edition for years, I've utterly forgotten what are some specific examples. I remember the Demiplane+Clone trick, but beyond that it's kind of a blur.
So, what broken things can high tier classes accomplish?

There is a psionics trick for it. Get a psionic item of time regression (a single use one will do). Now activate it until you are back where you want to be. Sadly you can only regress time back as far as you getting the item this way, but along with time hop it can let you time lord pretty well.

Alternatively get time regression as an Sla and go back to whenever you want.

2016 doesn't feel like 5 years ago...