Too broken to use

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Everyone knows Incantrix is the worst thing since unsliced bread. Planar Shepherd and IotSFV are similarly terrible. And no one in their right mind should bring Venomfire to the table. So, what else is out there? What other abilities, PrCs, and spells are there that, really, TO doesn't want to use, because they make things too easy? Not the stuff that just combos with something else to be borked, but the stuff that should never have been printed in the first place, the stuff that makes DMs ban entire books due to a single feat. What are the chemical weapons of D&D?

[arguskos]

Fabricate. It's so bad, I considered banning the book it came from... then realized I can't. /joke lol Osmium

In a more serious light, you hit most of the gross offenders, though Dragonwrought Kobold ANYTHING is basically a chemical weapon.

[DamnedIrishman]

Everyone knows Incantrix is the worst thing since unsliced bread.

What's wrong with unsliced bread? If anything, it's better than sliced bread because you can decide how thick you want your slice to be. Furthermore, the more delicious a type of bread is - such as tiger loaves, tomato & basil flavoured bread, crunchy farmhouse bloomer loaves - the more likely it is to be generally stocked unsliced.
Finally, unsliced bread is more provident as it takes more time to go stale and to grow mold than sliced breads, as well as being far easier to freeze.

EDIT: Also, Pun-Pun.

[evil-frosty]

Whats venomfire, i have never heard of that till now? Oh and i guess to be contributing to the thread i guess polymorph but everytime i used it my DM had us use an older version from a different edition so it really was never overpowered for us. And from what i have heard epic magic was what Wizards created when they were on crack.

I dont have a lot of books or have really played a high level campaign so i have not experienced any of the really broken things.

[Oblivious]

In general, don't bring Forgotten Realms into anything but the most high-powered games.

[Gralamin]

The Wizard, Druid, and Cleric Classes?

[Logalmier]

I'm gonna bookmark this thread and keep it in mind for my next D&D session...

[Keld Denar]

Holy Word and friends
Mordy's Disjunction
Shivering Touch
Ray of Stupid

Thats actually pretty much all on my autoban list. I'll usually allow anything from the [Polymorph] subschool though.

[Doc Roc]

As much as I love it, I've seen War Weaver banned at some tables. Then there's the dragonsblood pool hack I used for algernon, which I don't even like talking about. Ice assassin+fusion comes to mind. Locate cities OR the fimbulwinter bomb.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

As much as I love it, I've seen War Weaver banned at some tables. Then there's the dragonsblood pool hack I used for algernon, which I don't even like talking about. Ice assassin+fusion comes to mind. Locate cities OR the fimbulwinter bomb.

Dragonsblood pool hack?

@EvilFrosty: Venomfire is in Serpent Kingdoms, Druid spell, for hours/level it deals 1d6/CL Acid damage on any natural attack you make that is poisoned. No upper limit on damage, and it applies to all your attacks. Fleshrakers get 3 poisoned attacks on a full attack. Yeah. 2x as much bonus damage as the party rogue, easier to activate, with fewer resistances. And it's level 3.

[Flickerdart]

Complete Champion is generally this. Tome of Battle is often considered this. Tome of Magic is, the Binder aside, the opposite of this, too awful to bother with.
Celerity (PHBII) is a common offender.

[Eldariel]

Dweomerkeeper [CDiv Web Enhancement] should be on the same list as Incantatrix and Planar Shepherd. The things you can do with Supernatural Spell...it's not even funny (and doesn't take much work to figure out; just check what "Supernatural Ability" means). I really wonder what crack they were smoking when they printed it; "Hay, let's make a class features that ignores all costs on a spell, makes it uncounterable and bypass SR!" "Sure, sounds like a smashing idea! How about we give that class the ability to effectively learn arcane spells as divine spells too just to make it obvious that we WANT him to use Wish for no cost whenever he wants to without SR or any peskiness like that!"

Other, Divine Metamagic [Complete Divine]? Celerity/Greater Celerity [PHBII]? Any kind of Polymorph-effects [Draconomicon, PHB, etc.]? Spells-to-Powers Erudite? Uh, Sarrukh [Serpent Kingdoms]? Artificer [ECS] and Druid [PHB] in general? Divine Impetus on Ruby Knight Vindicator [ToB]? Fleshraker [MM3]?

[Doc Roc]

I disagree, and find comp champ generally very palatable. I agree on the other points. Poor poor truenamers :S

[Eldariel]

I disagree, and find comp champ generally very palatable. I agree on the other points. Poor poor truenamers :S

Likewise; Complete Champion gets bad rap unnecessarily. There's a bunch of quality material in there (I'm still of the opinion that's only poorly edited, which goes for much of their material, and that the ease of getting Pounce, and enabling Swift Hunter are merely positive things).

The only bad part really is the fact that it caters to Clerics most who really didn't need a power boost to begin with (well, that and the fact that things are really typed like **** at some points). The good part is that these boosts are less impressive than the ones Clerics got from Complete Divine (WTF were the writers smoking again...).

[Doc Roc]

In my opinion, Comp Div is one of the worst balanced gaming books ever laid to paper by a major company with actual proof-readers.

Divine Metamagic? In the same book as a reprint of Ur-Priest?
Yes, that's a flawless plan, unlikely to cause any problems. :|

[Eldariel]

Don't forget that Dweomerkeeper is indeed from its Web Enhancement. 'cause the book wasn't dumb enough without it.

[Keld Denar]

Even something like Divine Oracle was pretty strong. Evasion is palatable, but the capstone of DO is undispellable Persisted Foresight. Screw clerics, take this class as a wizard and you'll never be parted from your Celerity + Time Stop again!

Probably not really in the "too broken to use" catagory, but still significantly strong and oft overlooked in CD.

[Worira]

I actually kind of like Venomfire. With the simple houserule that it discharges on the first successful attack, it becomes a reasonably well balanced pre-combat buff, and a cool assassination spell.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I actually kind of like Venomfire. With the simple houserule that it discharges on the first successful attack, it becomes a reasonably well balanced pre-combat buff, and a cool assassination spell.

Yeah, changing it from 'every attack you make, all day today, deals your level*d6 damage' to 'one attack deals CL*d6 damage' makes it much more balanced. Though no upper limit on the damage dice, especially since it doesn't require an in-combat action, still needs to be looked at very carefully. Especially since it is so easy to metamagic.

[Thurbane]

The BoED contains some brokenness, Touch of Golden Ice, for example.

[Doc Roc]

{Scrubbed}

[Duke of URL]

The BoED contains some brokenness, Touch of Golden Ice, for example.

Golden Ice has such a low DC that it's only game-breaking at low levels.

[Flickerdart]

Oh, the infamous Thought Bottle, that must also be mentioned.

[Chronos]

Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.

[Lycanthromancer]

Well, there's gate, of course. Shapechange. Clone. Astral projection. Simulacrum. Explosive runes. Shrink item. Wind wall. Find traps. Knock. Summon monster X. Lesser/greater planar binding. Lesser/greater/planar ally. Symbol of X.

[Keld Denar]

Golden Ice has such a low DC that it's only game-breaking at low levels.

Its broken in the fact that your DM will throw the BoED book AT YOU after having to roll 6-7 Fort saves per round to see if a 1 comes up...

[Doc Roc]

Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.

It actually just normally lets you swap existing feats around.

[Flickerdart]

Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.

It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.

[JaxGaret]

Going to third the opinion on Complete Champion. It has IIRC a very small number of broken things, and many well balanced entries.

[Douglas]

It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.

Now combine it with Legacy Weapons. Perform a ritual with a legacy weapon and you get Least Legacy. Which is a feat. Cue the Chaos Shuffle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This isn't quite free, as performing the ritual does cost some money, but that doesn't mean it's not broken.