In Discussing Balance/Mechanical Qualities..

[MeklorIlavator]

In discussing balance/mechanical qualities should it be considered relevant to bring up cheese, cheese in this case being builds from the Campaign Smasher's Thread? I ask this because in the Monk...Any Good? thread, I mentioned that a barbarian was show to do more damage on average than the ToB. The reply was that no, the Barbarian was clearly out damaged by BassetKings infinite Damage combo. I replied that I meant that excluding cheese, the Barbarian did more damage on average, but this effectively became the other poster saying that until a barbarian was fount that could do infinite Damage, that the ToB did more on average(average of infinity=infinity). Is this how things should be discusses? Is the correct answer really Pun-Pun?

[The Rose Dragon]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Unless you're willing to go to the ends of your potential, no.

[Solo]

All classes can cheese themselves out, but that doesn't make them balanced.

[Indon]

Many are the layers of cheese - while infinite damage/stats/whatever are a pretty obvious case of exclusion, the decision should be made on a case-by-case basis.

Example: Nightsticks. Without this humble item, the ClericZilla goes from very powerful, to relatively reasonable - now the ClericZilla must build his character around divine metamagic in order to get the full benefits, rather than simply taking three feats and buying a cache of feats-in-a-can.

[sonofzeal]

I agree.... sorta. See, Cheese comes in a continuum, from a light mozzarella of undead barbarians with no rage duration limit, to the heavy limburger of pun-pun, and everything in between. Where you draw the line is entirely up to you and your gaming group, so saying "cheeseless" in debate is more or less meaningless. Almost any good build has at least a sprinkling of parmesan somewhere.

That said, it's perfectly reasonable to try to limit the high-end cheese when debating damage output.

[MeklorIlavator]

Generally, I'd consider anything from the campaign smashers thread on the wizards forums non-applicable (here), as well as anything that uses an infinite combo(though most of those are on the campaign smashers, so I guess that's a bit redundant).

[AKA_Bait]

I agree with the OP in that the very high end of cheese, as typified by that forum, should not be part of discussions of the overall balance of a class. Just because a build can reach some game breaking level using one of the classes does not mean really much of anything in terms of class balance.

If the criteria is simply, with X build I can achieve Y, then all classes are equal as per the latest pun-pun formulation (using the candle of invocation).

[Tsotha-lanti]

Nothing tick me off like people bringing up Pun-Pun, the stupidest and most useless meme ever to plague a roleplaying community. Yes, yes, we're all aware that there's this stupid build that's actually irrelevant to the entire game since it relies on so many faulty assumptions; now let's all clap and howl like trained seals and go back to something useful.

Other stupidly broken builds are the same, just proportionally less annoying.

So no, "infinite damage" builds have no relevance to anything. It's like saying "WELL MY 1st-LEVEL CHARACTER HAD 100105 HIT POINTS AND +134 ATTACK BONUS BECAUSE THE DM LET ME SO THERE FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS CAN BE TOUGH."

[Chronos]

Actually, the existence of Pun-pun is a huge boon for folks for whom optimization is not the be-all, end-all of D&D. Now, whenever anyone goes overboard on the munchkinry, you can just say "It's been done", and get on with the real game. You can't beat Pun-pun, so you might as well not try.

[Telonius]

If a player starts getting overly munchkinny, I'll send him a warning: a nut hits them on the head, for 1 damage. There's a message attached to the nut, that reads, "Do not aspire to the power of the God of Exploits. ~ His Holy Squirrel." If the munchkinning persists, then Pun-Pun, Overdeity of Cheese, Exploits, Metagaming, and Whatever Else He Feels Like, will pay the character a visit. "Heh, nice one, I thought of it awhile ago. But sorry, this just isn't going to work. I'll grant you another power in its place, this time. Don't do it again."

[streakster]

Nothing tick me off like people bringing up Pun-Pun, the stupidest and most useless meme ever to plague a roleplaying community. Yes, yes, we're all aware that there's this stupid build that's actually irrelevant to the entire game since it relies on so many faulty assumptions; now let's all clap and howl like trained seals and go back to something useful.

Other stupidly broken builds are the same, just proportionally less annoying.

So no, "infinite damage" builds have no relevance to anything. It's like saying "WELL MY 1st-LEVEL CHARACTER HAD 100105 HIT POINTS AND +134 ATTACK BONUS BECAUSE THE DM LET ME SO THERE FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS CAN BE TOUGH."

Just a question. What faulty assumptions? Last time I checked the CO boards Pun-Pun still seemed to work. I like the build, by the way. I'd never play it, but it's a great reference to use.

[elliott20]

this does segway into another question though. What criteria do you guys use to judge class balance?

from what I've seen, there are several major schools of thought

1. role: class A can fill multiple roles better than class B. class B was meant to fulfill the role that Class A is ironically more proficient at. Therefore, Class A is not balanced against class B.
2. PvP: pretty much combat prowess.

I don't even think you can consider the rule breaking, common sense squashing builds to be legit arguments for that. I mean, that's not how the game is supposed to be played. That's not what the designers had in mind when they designed the game.

[Mr. Friendly]

It really all depends on what we are talking about.

Obviously your Pun-Puns (and the Omniscifier, e.g.) are out the window; however some cheese isn't that obvious to spot right off the bat. White Raven tactics comes to mind. Although they (I think) changed it to not let you give yourself infinite turns over and over, a normal DM and a normal player with a normal crusader could accidentally create this campaign breaker naturally without any help from the CO boards.

That isn't even talking Diplomancers and Marshal/UMD-monkeys.

Artificers, Wizards, Clerics and Druids all get out of hand exponentially fast, even without optimization or net-building.

Sure, you can hang your whole campaign on the crutch of "but the DM has to approve it!!!!" but that doesn't work. Especially in the some of the above cases where the brokeness isn't necessarily obvious at first or even second glance.

[Aquillion]

Just a question. What faulty assumptions? Last time I checked the CO boards Pun-Pun still seemed to work. I like the build, by the way. I'd never play it, but it's a great reference to use.

Probably the logical thing to object to is this:

A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it.

Pun-Pun relies on interpreting that to mean any ex, su, or spell-like ability... but that isn't what it says. The wording just says that Manipulate Form can grant abilities, without giving any examples or guidelines as to what abilities. While certainly interpreting that to mean it can grant any ability is one valid interpretation, I'm not convinced it's the only one. Nowhere does it say, in fact, that the surrukh gets to choose what ex, su, or spell-like ability the target gets.

Basically, it's a case of "just because the rules don't say you can't do that, doesn't automatically mean you can." IMHO, it requires DM adjunction to determine the limits of the incompletely defined manipulate form ability.

Without the assumption that it can grant anything, it's still an extremely powerful ability (you can raise ability scores, perhaps even still infinitely, although it's going to be exponentially more difficult without being able to just grant the abilities and spells you need for the stat trick via manipulate form itself. Plus, you won't be able to just grant manipulate form to your familiar, so you're going to need two characters at a minimum.)

[streakster]

Thank you! I never thought of that.

Another way to get around that would be to grant your Sarrukh a huge number of randomly chosen abilities and stats, then use a PAO to turn it into a desk, Haunt Shift into it, and then when the duration expires, be your souped-up sarrukh. Not as impressive that way though, and requires quite expensive scrolls.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Probably the logical thing to object to is this:Pun-Pun relies on interpreting that to mean any ex, su, or spell-like ability... but that isn't what it says.

So we all agree that the statement "Wizards prepare their spells from spellbooks" doesn't allow Wizards to choose which spells?

And people claim Wizards are OP. But look, they have to prepare random spells.

[Aquillion]

So we all agree that the statement "Wizards prepare their spells from spellbooks" doesn't allow Wizards to choose which spells?

And people claim Wizards are OP. But look, they have to prepare random spells.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm

A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A wizard must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time (see below).

Unlike a bard or sorcerer, a wizard may know any number of spells. She must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting a good night’s sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the wizard decides which spells to prepare.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A wizard must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time (see below).

Unlike a bard or sorcerer, a wizard may know any number of spells. She must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting a good night’s sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the wizard decides which spells to prepare.

I am well aware of the actual spell preparation rules, I am merely pointing out that saying "it doesn't say any ability they want so therefore it must be an ability they don't want, or a random ability" amounts to being anal for no reason.

The same level anal retentiveness applied to the entire set of rules is bound to produce hundreds of monsters that have abilities they can't use.

In fact, that same level produced exactly that effect on the Sarrukh,

"It doesn't say they get to choose the ability, so it must be random."

"It doesn't say they get a random ability, so it can't be random."

Look, now it can't be any ability, so they must gain an ability that is not random and not picked by anyone.

The bottom line is there are many random effects in D&D, and for all of them, the text clearly indicates that they are random and gives you examples or a table to adjudicate the outcome.

If the Sarrukh entry said they can teleport at will (but did not specify "as per the spell") would anyone argue that they teleport to a random location each time? Of course not. This is just being anal about one thing because they don't want to accept Pun-Pun, even when the actual intended ability is clear.