PHBII (excluding overpowered stuff)

[Ellisthion]

I just bought the PHBII and (as DM) am planning on including it in my game. However, from reading through it it's pretty clear that, as with any book, there's a few things that are a little bit broken and should be left out of my game.

So. What would be a complete list of everything from the PHBII which is broken, or otherwise overpowered, and should not be included in a game that, other than the PHBII, is only Core books?

[SamTheCleric]

Well, what do you consider overpowering? We can't exactly tell you what is broken unless we gauge your cheese-o-meter.

[AmberVael]

The Arcane Thesis feat.
The Celerity spells.

Those are the two things that instantly come to mind.

[AKA_Bait]

The Arcane Thesis feat.
The Celerity spells.

Those are the two things that instantly come to mind.

Those are actually the only two that spring right to mind for me. I found PHBII to be pretty well balanced on the whole.

[valadil]

The base classes Duskblade and Beguiler are powerful but not broken. At first glance I thought they were too powerful, but the more I see them in use the more I like them. They let a player be reasonably powerful without having to optimize. You can optimize, but neither class will be better than a wizard or druid (you could argue that a shadowcrafter beguiler is broken, but so is a shadowcrafter wizard or sorc). Ever see a newb try to play an arcane rogue? I saw a sorc/rogue. At level 9 he had level 2 spells and 2d6 sneak attack. It was downright pathetic.

Other than that, watch out for Melf's Unicorn Arrow. It does way more damage than it looks like and it's untyped damage. It's my current spell of choice for the sorcerer with a single damage spell.

[Eldariel]

Beguiler is the strongest class in the book and it doesn't hold a candle to any top classes in core (Wiz Dru Cle) due to the limited spell selection. All the feats are great additions save for Arcane Thesis, which is indeed broken, especially if you allow it to reduce adjustments to 0, but even without it. And yea, the spells save for Celerities are interesting; Celerities can do stupid stuff, especially if not reworded to 'skip your next turn' instead of being Dazed - being Dazed is avoidable, just skipping a turn isn't.

The book is less of the 'broken' and more of the 'barrels o' fun'. Also, the balance is decent and there're usable ACFs for almost all classes. Also makes adding depth to your characters easy and the retraining rules are very useful to avoid getting stuck with a character you don't really want to play. And the affiliation-rules give whole new ways to play the game; not just adventuring, but being a part of something greater and raising in ranks and so on. Oh yeah, and thanks to Melee Weapon Mastery and Weapon Supremacy, Weapon Focus-chain may actually be worth picking up for some characters. Archers really love the Ranged Weapon Mastery as they otherwise have issues increasing their damage. A bunch of interesting handy feats and good tacticals along with new groups rounds it all out - very usable material, not too low-powered, but definitely not broken in terms of core.

[Frosty]

One other thing is pretty broken. One of the ACFs for Wizards gives him way too much of a defensive boost. If you trade away your familiar, you can Abrupt Jaunt your Int Bonus times per day. And all you have to do is specialize in Conjuration. Oh noez!!! Da PAIN!!!

[Squash Monster]

Broken:
Celerity

Vastly overpowered:
Arcane Thesis
Abrupt Jaunt

Way less powerful than paranoid DMs think it is:
Duskblade

Way more powerful than Duskblade:
Beguiler

Potentially worth banning:
Celerity
Abrupt Jaunt

Barrels of fun:
The whole book

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

One other thing is pretty broken. One of the ACFs for Wizards gives him way too much of a defensive boost. If you trade away your familiar, you can Abrupt Jaunt your Int Bonus times per day. And all you have to do is specialize in Conjuration. Oh noez!!! Da PAIN!!!

That depends on your level. If the campaign is past level 11 Abrupt Jaunt is so-so to poor. If it's from 7-10, it's better then a familiar, barely. And if it's 1-6 it's a significant improvement.

If you plan on running the whole gambit, I wouldn't recommend it.

[SamTheCleric]

If you plan on running the whole gambit gamut, I wouldn't recommend it.

Fixed that for you...

And yes, abrupt jaunt loses it's usefulness the higher level you get.. well, not loses... but it lessens.

[Tyrael]

Robilar's Gambit. My DM absolutely refuses to ever allow it in his game.

[DiscipleofBob]

So wait...

You're saying that a class that routinely adds things like Shocking Grasp, Blade of Blood, and True Strike to their melee attacks and can one-shot even appropriate "boss-monsters" is inferior to a class that gets shut down by anything will a decent will save (or has the phrase "immune to mind-affecting spells" in their stat block.)

Now, I'm not as much of an optimizer as most of the people on these forums, so there might be some key elements I'm missing. In that case, I won't claim that the above comments about the Duskblade and Beguiler are wrong, but here's my opinion.

A Duskblade can be VERY overpowered if you don't watch how the character is built and tailor encounters appropriately. What's the main weakness of a caster? Their squishiness. What's the main weakness of a fighter? No casting ability. Duskblade is both a caster and a fighter without either of these weaknesses. That being said, it's not necessarily overpowered as long as you keep the character playing it in mind when running encounters. Otherwise, he'll just mop the floor with anything you throw at it.

A Beguiler is a very fun class, as long as you, the DM, don't mind your NPC's being the target of multiple powerful illusion and enchantment spells. It can also make social encounters interesting, "I think we deserve double our pay." "Your highness can trust me with access to the treasury and the princess' bedchambers." "These aren't the druids you're looking for." "End of the day, and so many unused spells, seems such a waste (proceeds to spam-cast Charm Person, etc. on attractive barmaids, etc. A true Beguiler never sleeps alone. )" But this is nothing you couldn't find from a caster specializing in enchantment spells. Beguilers just do it better. And they can also fill the rogue's function, only without the Sneak Attack. If the Beguiler starts dominating encounters the only real thing you have to do to make things challenging is start throwing constructs/undead/plants at the party. I once played a Beguiler in a game, but since I joined late, by that point all we were fighting were boss monsters who could make the will save, plants, constructs, and undead. I ended up having to retool to a sorcerer/rogue/arcane trickster just so I could deal damage. Still worth it for taking out a group of kobolds with Ghost Sound.

So, in conclusion...
Duskblade you just have to keep an eye on so he doesn't start dominating the combat and making everyone else feel useless.
Beguiler as long as you don't mind an enchantment/illusion-based caster, there's no reason to consider banning it.

[Skyserpent]

So wait...

You're saying that a class that routinely adds things like Shocking Grasp, Blade of Blood, and True Strike to their melee attacks and can one-shot even appropriate "boss-monsters" is inferior to a class that gets shut down by anything will a decent will save (or has the phrase "immune to mind-affecting spells" in their stat block.)

Now, I'm not as much of an optimizer as most of the people on these forums, so there might be some key elements I'm missing. In that case, I won't claim that the above comments about the Duskblade and Beguiler are wrong, but here's my opinion.

A Duskblade can be VERY overpowered if you don't watch how the character is built and tailor encounters appropriately. What's the main weakness of a caster? Their squishiness. What's the main weakness of a fighter? No casting ability. Duskblade is both a caster and a fighter without either of these weaknesses. That being said, it's not necessarily overpowered as long as you keep the character playing it in mind when running encounters. Otherwise, he'll just mop the floor with anything you throw at it.

A Beguiler is a very fun class, as long as you, the DM, don't mind your NPC's being the target of multiple powerful illusion and enchantment spells. It can also make social encounters interesting, "I think we deserve double our pay." "Your highness can trust me with access to the treasury and the princess' bedchambers." "These aren't the druids you're looking for." "End of the day, and so many unused spells, seems such a waste (proceeds to spam-cast Charm Person, etc. on attractive barmaids, etc. A true Beguiler never sleeps alone. )" But this is nothing you couldn't find from a caster specializing in enchantment spells. Beguilers just do it better. And they can also fill the rogue's function, only without the Sneak Attack. If the Beguiler starts dominating encounters the only real thing you have to do to make things challenging is start throwing constructs/undead/plants at the party. I once played a Beguiler in a game, but since I joined late, by that point all we were fighting were boss monsters who could make the will save, plants, constructs, and undead. I ended up having to retool to a sorcerer/rogue/arcane trickster just so I could deal damage. Still worth it for taking out a group of kobolds with Ghost Sound.

So, in conclusion...
Duskblade you just have to keep an eye on so he doesn't start dominating the combat and making everyone else feel useless.
Beguiler as long as you don't mind an enchantment/illusion-based caster, there's no reason to consider banning it.

Agreed with the whole Beguilers are kinda useless against anything with Will up the wazoo, but The Duskblade isn't really any more combat dominating than anything else that I've seen. I mean, yes he has really good damage abilities, he's approaching Book of Nine Swords abilities in power, but a really decked out barbarian will both out-damage and out-last the Duskblade in a brawl. Well, maybe not out-damage, but come damn close with Power Attack and all that. Duskblades are good, no doubt about that, but I wouldn't call them OP... though they do lean in that direction...

did any of that make sense?

[Frosty]

Duskblades are very good at what they do: Deal burst damage.
They also take very little optimization out of the box to be good at it. The only thing is, damage in general just isn't that good of an option at high levels compared to what some spellcasters can do, so that's why Duskblades aren't overpowered in the higher levels. In lower levels, they dominate just like any other melee class.

Of course, if you want damage, there are also calsses that just do it better. A shock-trooper Barbarian will eclipse that Duskblade's damage output starting at level 6.

The Beguiler does start to lose some luster in the higher levels, but that's ok because standard casters are too powerful anyways. Even if the enemies are immune to mind-affecting,y ou can still screw with them with Illusions, or buff your party with Haste. You can also Slow enemies, since Slow is not mind-affecting as far as I remember. You also have a powerful battlefiled control spell in Solid Fog. Divide and Conquer with that spell so your allies can focus on a few baddies at a time.

[Eldariel]

Agreed with the whole Beguilers are kinda useless against anything with Will up the wazoo, but The Duskblade isn't really any more combat dominating than anything else that I've seen. I mean, yes he has really good damage abilities, he's approaching Book of Nine Swords abilities in power, but a really decked out barbarian will both out-damage and out-last the Duskblade in a brawl. Well, maybe not out-damage, but come damn close with Power Attack and all that. Duskblades are good, no doubt about that, but I wouldn't call them OP... though they do lean in that direction...

did any of that make sense?

If you're implying that Duskblades are in any shape or form 10 miles from imbalanced, no. That simply does not compute.

[Frosty]

If you're implying that Duskblades are in any shape or form 10 miles from imbalanced, no. That simply does not compute.

If you were to rate the Duskblade on a power level of 1 to 10, where would you place him? 1 is Commoner (without Handle Animal maxed), and 10 is Batman Wizard. (Incantatrix and Planar Shepherds break the scale with 15)

[DiscipleofBob]

Agreed with the whole Beguilers are kinda useless against anything with Will up the wazoo, but The Duskblade isn't really any more combat dominating than anything else that I've seen. I mean, yes he has really good damage abilities, he's approaching Book of Nine Swords abilities in power, but a really decked out barbarian will both out-damage and out-last the Duskblade in a brawl. Well, maybe not out-damage, but come damn close with Power Attack and all that. Duskblades are good, no doubt about that, but I wouldn't call them OP... though they do lean in that direction...

did any of that make sense?

Made sense to me. I guess it's that from what I've seen a Duskblade takes a lot less effort to break and, in a party of mostly non-optimizing players, can seem pretty broken quickly (then again, the main campaign I played with one the DM allowed the Duskblade to have a customized legacy armor from the getgo, so that might skew my perception somewhat. That particular DM now believes without a doubt that the Duskblade is completely broken. Yea, it's mostly the DM's fault there, but I can't say his claim is completely unfounded.)

[Azerian Kelimon]

Nah. Duskblades are out-of-the-box powerful, but they're not so easy to break.

No, wait. Lemme rephrase that: Duskblades are EASY to break in a burst of damage, but breaking them and having ANY measure of power remainig for the next encounter is a whole 'nuther can o' worms.

Yeah, you can nova with them, just as a psywar or psion can do it. But just like them, don't expect to be able to do that for four encounters a day.

[Eldariel]

If you were to rate the Duskblade on a power level of 1 to 10, where would you place him? 1 is Commoner (without Handle Animal maxed), and 10 is Batman Wizard. (Incantatrix and Planar Shepherds break the scale with 15)

Around 5-6 for the whole journey from level 1 to 20. There'd still be a number of stuff below it; it feels about on the level of Fighter and Barbarian. Fighter may be a bit higher due to the staggering amount of versatility and finished feat chains (do note how a well-built Fighter can even give ToB-chars hard time).

Duskblade's main problem is the weakness of his arcane side; while he has insane spells per day on the levels he knows, he doesn't get higher levels at normal pace and never gets past level 5, leaving his buffs severely lacking and overall causing him to lose out in efficiency. Duskblade actually starts out strong, he just gets weaker very fast as the spell levels sail by - the Bard-syndrome without Sublime Chord to cure it. On level 1, I'd say Duskblade is a 9 or a 10 and for the first 3-4 levels that remains true (heck, even on levels 3 and 4, not having access to spells such as Glitterdust, Web and company, nor to more than 3 feats is a bummer). Then the long feat chainsand higher level spells, powers and maneuvers start to kick in for the other classes (Shock Trooper is level 6, which is when chargers start to really deal damage, lockdown has gotten all the basics including Thicket of Blades if going mostly Crusader, Dungeon Crashers reach their full potency on level 6, Wizards, Clerics et al. are casting level 3 spells and Druids are Wildshaping) and they fly right past him.


Basically, early on a Duskblade is the only really possible Gish since it gets its abilities from the get-go, but once you start to be able to combine Wizard and Fighter, it quickly gets left behind; most Arcane Gishes have 17 BAB and ~18th level Wizard casting to Duskblade's 20 BAB and 9th level Wizard casting (albeit in larger numbers; Wizard has about as many slots, but most of them are in the higher levels).

[Squash Monster]

If you were to rate the Duskblade on a power level of 1 to 10, where would you place him? 1 is Commoner (without Handle Animal maxed), and 10 is Batman Wizard. (Incantatrix and Planar Shepherds break the scale with 15)

Why is Batman Wizard so often cited as the best thing ever on this forum? It's just a way of playing a Wizard competently without being the death of nations. God-style Wizards are much more powerful than Batman-style. And what's more, Wizard is still the fifth best, behind Cleric, Druid, Archivist, and Artificer. And finally, sure, Incantatrix is one of the best three arcane caster prestige classes -- along with Shadowcraft Mage and, to a lesser extent, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil -- but the class has nothing on Planar Shepherd or any of the best three divine caster prestige classes (the others being Dweomerkeeper and Shadowcraft Mage).

/rant.


Back on topic: all the arguments that say why Duskblade is so powerful go something like this: "We all know how powerful full casters are, and this is one that gets full BAB and armor use!"

The reason why this is wrong is that it assumes all full casters are super-powerful. Lots of them, such as Warmage and especially Healer, are pretty sad. It's not full-casting that makes a class powerful: it's the choice of spells. Duskblades just don't get the spells that make other casters terrifying: Black Tentacles and Righteous Might and the like.

[Frosty]

Around 5-6 for the whole journey from level 1 to 20. There'd still be a number of stuff below it; it feels about on the level of Fighter and Barbarian. Fighter may be a bit higher due to the staggering amount of versatility and finished feat chains (do note how a well-built Fighter can even give ToB-chars hard time).

Does that mean Adept > Duskblade, since Adept > Fighter?

[Reel On, Love]

Why is Batman Wizard so often cited as the best thing ever on this forum? It's just a way of playing a Wizard competently without being the death of nations. God-style Wizards are much more powerful than Batman-style.

They're, uh, the same basic idea, except that Treantmonk has too much of a fetish for summoning and for Focused Specialization (which is A Trap).

And what's more, Wizard is still the fifth best, behind Cleric, Druid, Archivist, and Artificer. And finally, sure, Incantatrix is one of the best three arcane caster prestige classes -- along with Shadowcraft Mage and, to a lesser extent, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil -- but the class has nothing on Planar Shepherd or any of the best three divine caster prestige classes (the others being Dweomerkeeper and Shadowcraft Mage).

/rant.

Artificer I'll grant you. Wizard is only behind Archivist if you allow "Well, a Warlock 12 made me a divine scroll of this arcane spell" shenanigans. Frankly, you'd be lucky to even get Divine Bard spells, in most games. Wizards are fully as powerful as, or more powerful than, clerics and druids, with the balance fluctuating based on the level.
Dweomerkeeper has (Su) Wish/miracle cheese, except if you're getting free wishes, you might as well be doing it via Planar Binding. Planar Shepherd doesn't count.

[Person_Man]

PHBII is the model for balance as far as I'm concerned. It's useful and flavorful, but with the exception of Arcane Thesis and Celerity, nothing is really broken.

Duskblade: Excellent at hitting things and dealing plenty of damage. Not good at anything else.

Beguiler: Excellent at sneaking, scouting, and Mind Affecting effects. Almost no direct damage, limited battlefield control.

Knight: Excellent tank and battlefield controller. Nothing close to a ToB maneuver though, no magic, and a somewhat limiting code of conduct.

Dragon Shaman: OK, this one is garbage.

Adaptable Flanker is helpful for Rogues who don't want to invest in Greater Invisibility or a Ring of Blinking.

Brutal Strike and Combat Panache are helpful for Hexblades.

Combat Acrobat is useful if your DM is fond of using terrain.

Defensive Sweep works well with Thicket of Blades (ToB).

Leap of Heavens is useful with Battle Jump (Unapproachable East).

Smiting Spell is useful for Gish and Duskblade builds.

Steadfast Determination is useful for anyone with high Con and low Wis.

Wanderer's Diplomacy is good for Diplomancers.

Rob's Gambit is great for any melee build, but requires enemies to make melee attacks (many don't), gives you an AC penalty, and requires high Dex and Combat Reflexes to use properly.

One of my favorite overlooked combo's is Combat Focus + Combat Vigor + Combat Stability. +4 Will Saves, Fast Healing 4, and +8 to resist (but not initiate) bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts.

[Frosty]

I myself would rate the classes as such:

Beguiler 7.5
Dragon Shaman 4
Duskblade 6
Knight 6.5

Knight would be a 7 if it got a few maneuvers and some more bonus feats.

[Eldariel]

Does that mean Adept > Duskblade, since Adept > Fighter?

I'm not sure if Adept > Fighter really. A properly built Fighter can be a valuable asset to a party and certainly fill the Tank and the Glass Cannon-slots at the same time. The problem with Fighters is the fact that with just Core, they used to suck since there weren't enough feats to use all the bonuses they accrue. With all the splat books, that's no longer an issue, and since Fighter's power is directly proportional to the amount of powerful feats available in the pool, with sufficient splatbookery, the Fighter reaches playable levels.

In fact, as long as Polymorph is banned, I'm fairly sure Adepts don't hold a candle to Fighters and are indeed outmatched. The spell list has a few SoDs, but beyond that, it's mostly healing, and those few SoDs alone aren't enough to push the Adept through - there's none of the evasive power of a Wizard, nor the 'save-and-still-suck's and 'just-plain-dies' a Wizard wins things with. Basically, Fighters are belittled, but when properly built, they're actually pretty high up the tier scale and definitely a good addition to any party if you can find someone who doesn't get bored by the monotonous course of action Fighters generally follow. That said, a Dungeon Crushing AoO Charging Tripper with a few tactical feats is plenty interesting to play few levels into the game, so yea, much of the Fighter-hate comes from the time when it was indeed a commoner with HP.


As far as Duskblade vs. Adept goes, Adept is mostly a healer so Duskblade should win in a combat; Adept can try SoDs, but again, an Adept's attack is very one-dimensional and doesn't have too strong defenses, so Duskblade has little trouble hacking into the flesh and burning it up. That said, Duskblades have a crappy spell selection, which further hampers their growth and power. Early on their lack of versatility is forgivable, but as they progress in levels, they'd probably want to be able to do something other than hit things with a sword and a spell each turn.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

One of my favorite overlooked combo's is Combat Focus + Combat Vigor + Combat Stability. +4 Will Saves, Fast Healing 4, and +8 to resist (but not initiate) bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts.

Whenever you mention this combat you should always mention it only works in combat for in this case 12 rounds(usually enough to finish a combat) and that it requires 13 WIS or people will start shouting it's overpowered.

BTW you just picked Combat Stability to double the other two bonuses, it isn't really that great on it's own right?

[The_Snark]

Combat Stability is pretty decent, although its primary purpose is getting you to that 3-feat point where all the bonuses double. Being able to resist grapple attempts is valuable, and resisting trip and disarm attempts can help a lot against specialized human opponents. I've also always liked Combat Awareness, but the high level requisite and the extra feat it requires are annoying.

I'd agree with what has been said here. The Beguiler is a nice class, although the fact that it generally relies on save-or-lose effects makes it annoying for DMs. It's not nearly as useless against enemies immune to mind-affecting stuff as you'd think; their spell list includes enough helpful spells—Haste, Improved Invisibility, Freedom of Movement, Displacement—that they can contribute to a combat against zombies or golems simply by buffing allies. Or they can use Slow, Solid Fog, and dispels, either one. If they don't have allies to buff, they have a choice of going and getting themselves allies, or sneaking past the problem. They're quite potent when cleverly played.

Abrupt Jaunt is probably too powerful, although a high-level wizard who's doing things like giving his familiar spells and UMD ranks is probably getting more cheese out of that. It's certainly much more powerful than any of the other options, which range from decent to weak.

Arcane Thesis is a little too good. If you allow that absurd trick where you apply things like Energy Substitution to get -1 spell level and then balance it out with other metamagic feats, it's broken.

Celerity is broken if you're using it in conjunction with Foresight, anything that lets you recover after the daze, or Twin Spell. Without those, it's only potentially broken, and I'd allow Lesser Celerity to be used.

I liked the book. They've managed to put polymorph effects back into the game in a format that isn't broken and doesn't require tons of flipping through the monster manual, most of the feats are interesting, and I like a lot of the substitution features.

[weenie]

What a lot of people usually forget is that Duskblades can use metamagic feats too. They suffer while doing so until level 12, but afterwards they can pick Rapid Metamagic(Complete Mage) and casting time is no longer a problem. Pick the following: Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Easy Metamagic(Empower Spell), Easy Metamagic(Maximize Spell), Arcane Thesis(Vampiric Touch). Suddenly you can deal an average of 54 damage to all those you hit in that round(assumed lvl13 and not counting weapon damage), and "heal" yourself simultaneously for the same ammount. Sure, Duskblades suffer from a terrible lack of spell selection, but they are far far better than a Fighter.

[Frosty]

What a lot of people usually forget is that Duskblades can use metamagic feats too. They suffer while doing so until level 12, but afterwards they can pick Rapid Metamagic(Complete Mage) and casting time is no longer a problem. Pick the following: Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Easy Metamagic(Empower Spell), Easy Metamagic(Maximize Spell), Arcane Thesis(Vampiric Touch). Suddenly you can deal an average of 54 damage to all those you hit in that round(assumed lvl13 and not counting weapon damage), and "heal" yourself simultaneously for the same ammount. Sure, Duskblades suffer from a terrible lack of spell selection, but they are far far better than a Fighter.

Right. So basically using the cheesiest feats (and one from Dragon Magazine, which many DMs will not allow), you can have one decent trick. No thanks. I'd rather take a Lockdown/Charger Fighter.

[Kizara]

If one did feel that the Duskblade was a tad too powerful and wanted to reduce that somewhat without destroying key elements of the class, how would one do it?

Same with beguiler.