4e - Broken builds, broken combos

[Tengu]

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Did anyone find or invent any ways of breaking this game already?

[wodan46]

Stand a level 1 minion next to a level 30 minion. Attack the first with a Cleave, which carries over to the second.

However, DMs won't let a situation like that happen. As for character builds, don't know yet.

[Zocelot]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1040811

It is very powerful most of the time, and once per day it can unleash hell.

[Emperor Tippy]

LSC Ritual. Check out page 3 of this thread, starting at post #72.

[Gorbash]

With 39.5 average weapon damage, this gives a final average damage of 3097.29 hit points, enough to kill Orcus twice.

Long live balanced 4th edition!

[Kabump]

Long live balanced 4th edition!

Long live balanced 3.5 edition!

[Gorbash]

First of all, I wasn't saying that 3.5 is balanced, I was mererly observing the fact that neither is the 4th, although everyone seemed to believe so.

Second of all, find me a 3.5 rogue build that does 3000 dmg in one round.

[Skyserpent]

First of all, I wasn't saying that 3.5 is balanced, I was mererly observing the fact that neither is the 4th, although everyone seemed to believe so.

Second of all, find me a 3.5 rogue build that does 3000 dmg in one round.

Balanced enough, I think. One build doesn't make or break a system. I mean, Rogues ARE strikers after all, someone just devised a method to make them really frickin' good at it.

Unbalancing to have a character able to kill a God in one round? Sure. Game-breaking? I'm not so sure...

I'm not expecting any system to lack quirks, but it's still more balanced than 3.5 ever was.

[Rutee]

Balanced doesn't generally mean it's not possible to break the game. It generally means it's /harder/ to.

....


BLADE CASCADE!? Well they just lost their claim to being able to reliably solo Orcus, since no matter how good their attack bonus is..

[Kabump]

First of all, I wasn't saying that 3.5 is balanced, I was mererly observing the fact that neither is the 4th, although everyone seemed to believe so.

Second of all, find me a 3.5 rogue build that does 3000 dmg in one round.

Sorry, I was in a foul mood this morning, didn't mean to come off that way on you :) And I couldn't build a 3.5 rogue that way, im far from either a min/maxer, or familiar enough with the splat and rules to do so. I can remember the Hulking Thrower I read about, all RAW legal and doing WAY more damage than that. Also, what I've seen here is a simple house rule from fixing, IE on Blade Cascade a cumulative -1 on subsequent hits is a nice fix without terribly ruining the power. As for the chest, ill admit that one Im not sure about :) On that note off to WWDnD day at my local gaming shop!

[Rutee]

The chest is only broken when RAW impedes Common Sense. Plus, Programmed Amnesia or Mindrape beats it for brokenness by a long shot.

If you want a massive damage build in 3.5, how does Shock Trooper's 1000 damage not suffice? Seeing as it can be done at-will.

Or the rather amusing 800 damage Orbs? They dont' have to deal as much damage as Blade Cascade. They just have to one shot every pre or post epic creature.

[Oslecamo]

Unbalancing to have a character able to kill a God in one round? Sure. Game-breaking? I'm not so sure...

One of the premises of 4e is that battles would last longer and a character wouldn't be able to defeat an ecounter of his level all by himself.

Also, nonbattle stuff was mutilated so horribly that the only thing that the rules really suport in 4e is battle.

And we have here a character who can one turn kill a monster who was suposed to hold the entire party for several rounds.

How could it be more game breaking? Kill Orcus in zero turns? That was something not even a batman wizard/planar sheperd/clericzilla of mishra in 3.X could do.

[Tempest Fennac]

How do you get Orbs and Shock Trooper to cause that much damage?

[Rutee]

How do you get Orbs and Shock Trooper to cause that much damage?

Abuse. Quite frankly, I don't have the books that do it all, and I'd never use it, but with the frequency they're quoted at as dealing that much damage, and the lack of people who /do/ have the books denying it...

Incidentally, I've never considered 3.X broken because of what Forum COs could do. That'd be silly. I considered it broken because simply using PHB-listed spells can break it. Not "I make a complex build revolving around whatever", just "I cast Web and instantly win this low level encounter for us". Or "I cast a Save or Suck, now the boss loses, but we still have to waste the time to attack him."

[Gorbash]

I'm not expecting any system to lack quirks, but it's still more balanced than 3.5 ever was.

Well, we just have to wait. Builds like this will be more and more common with time...

Also, what I've seen here is a simple house rule from fixing, IE on Blade Cascade a cumulative -1 on subsequent hits is a nice fix without terribly ruining the power.

Well of course, everything is prone to fixing. Even 3.5 wizard. You just have to be a reasonable player and not do that. I play a Batman wizard, and I'm not a polymorphing monstrosity that anahilates everything, but the point is that I can be if I wanted to. I really doubt (and hope) that no one will actually use this rogue build, but it still can be done. So, 4th edition has the same problem as 3.5, it's prone to game-breaking combos (if doing 3000 dmg in a round isn't gamebreaking, I don't know what is), and people should really stop using the argument that 4th > 3.5 in terms of game balance.

If you want a massive damage build in 3.5, how does Shock Trooper's 1000 damage not suffice? Seeing as it can be done at-will.

Or the rather amusing 800 damage Orbs? They dont' have to deal as much damage as Blade Cascade. They just have to one shot every pre or post epic creature.

3000 > 1000
3000 > 800.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thanks for explaining. I was just wondering due to he Orb spells having a clearly stated damage limit of 90 HPs.

[SamTheCleric]

So is this how its gonna be for the next few months... someone is going to want to talk about 4e, since, ya know, the rules are out... and people are gonna jump in with snide remarks and trolling comments?

I mean, I can understand it pre-rules when everything is speculation... but now we're actually talking about the -game-.

[Oslecamo]

Abuse. Quite frankly, I don't have the books that do it all, and I'd never use it, but with the frequency they're quoted at as dealing that much damage, and the lack of people who /do/ have the books denying it...

Shock trooper whole combo falls apart with a single feat(elusive target, denies power attack bonus damage). Put it into your monsters. Make the shock trooper cry. Hey, if the players are optimizing their characters, it's only fair to you to optimize your monsters.

Orbs dealing 800 damage with only lv20 in a single turn? Never heard or saw it.
And I've been watching a battle between a wizard and three mage slayers, where the wizard uses orbs to attack from the protection of his shaped AMF, and he only deals 100-200 damage a turn, hardly enough to one sot epic oponents.

[Rutee]

3000 > 1000
3000 > 800.

First off:
3 x 1000 = 3000
4 x 800 > 3000

Both easily doable. SEcond, dead is dead. Once you've done enough damage to OHKO pretty much any creature, further optimizing is pointless except for one's ego.

Thanks for explaining. I was just wondering due to he Orb spells having a clearly stated damage limit of 90 HPs.

If I recall correctly, it involves Energy Admixture, Twinning, and the like, all made possible with Arcane THesis and other easy metamagic toys. Certainly, neither is Core, I'll grant that. But save or sucks are.

Shock trooper whole combo falls apart with a single feat(elusive target, denies power attack bonus damage). Put it into your monsters. Make the shock trooper cry. Hey, if the players are optimizing their characters, it's only fair to you to optimize your monsters.

How lovely. Either I make my optimizer useless or let him be godlike. Binary Monsters doesn't sound like any more fun then instantly dead ones.

Maybe I don't want an Arms Race, and any player who tries that **** with me is going to change or leave, regardless of system.

[Skyserpent]

One of the premises of 4e is that battles would last longer and a character wouldn't be able to defeat an ecounter of his level all by himself.

Also, nonbattle stuff was mutilated so horribly that the only thing that the rules really suport in 4e is battle.

And we have here a character who can one turn kill a monster who was suposed to hold the entire party for several rounds.

How could it be more game breaking? Kill Orcus in zero turns? That was something not even a batman wizard/planar sheperd/clericzilla of mishra in 3.X could do.

The Build is ridiculous, we get that. If it takes 30 levels of gaming to get to this point, the point where you are at MAXIMUM level, I'm not actually so amazed that this character just happened to one-shot Orcus...

Yes, it breaks that cardinal rule of 4e that no character should be able to outshine the others, they messed up a little... I'm not at all surprised. However, it's ONE build, so far anyway... more are on their way I'll bet.

Also: Your gripe with the game destroying Out of Combat gameplay is a little odd considering I haven't heard anyone actually PLAY 4e and complain about Roleplaying being limited... maybe I haven't been looking in the right places... From all my experiences we've had half our sessions chock-full of really interesting skill-challenges and the like...

Batman Wizard could one-shot far more things at far lower levels. Overall game balance-wise, 4e is STILL more balanced as a system. It broke under the strain at level 30... OH NOES! It's a single method to one-shot a single enemy. Once Per Day, at Maximum level, a little unbalancing since he can, himself decide to kill his party as well, but I'm honestly less than worried.

Gimme a few splatbooks and we'll see some REAL cheese. I'm impressed, but not surprised, and still support 4e as a phenomenal system.

[Skyserpent]

Shock trooper whole combo falls apart with a single feat(elusive target, denies power attack bonus damage). Put it into your monsters. Make the shock trooper cry. Hey, if the players are optimizing their characters, it's only fair to you to optimize your monsters.

Orbs dealing 800 damage with only lv20 in a single turn? Never heard or saw it.
And I've been watching a battle between a wizard and three mage slayers, where the wizard uses orbs to attack from the protection of his shaped AMF, and he only deals 100-200 damage a turn, hardly enough to one sot epic oponents.

So you're either Godly and game-breaking or weeping because you suck? Isn't that fun!?

Wait...

Oh right... it's not.

I don't know about the Orb spell combo, but Wizards in 3.5 could one-shot things since level 12. Maybe not one ROUND, but the remaining "cleanup" rounds aren't exactly pulse-pounding action.

[SamTheCleric]

Also... how is the ranger/rogue getting to make his blade cascade? Orcus can fly and teleport... and if anyone moves or shifts next to him, he gets to tail slap at a +36 bonus that stuns the target until the end of his next turn...

Yeah, its theoretically possible... but it would never happen in a game.

[Skyserpent]

Also... how is the ranger/rogue getting to make his blade cascade? Orcus can fly and teleport... and if anyone moves or shifts next to him, he gets to tail slap at a +36 bonus that stuns the target until the end of his next turn...

Yeah, its theoretically possible... but it would never happen in a game.

Immediate Action, once per round I think, send a party-dummy in to take the tail slap, then fly/run in and Cascade away...

I think that was the strategy anyway...

or maybe it was saving the Rogue's Deadly Trickster "Hey, you roll a 1" ability for that instead of Initiative.

[Scintillatus]

I'm glad it at least takes you to be partially fused with divinity and an inter-planar legend of deadly tricksterness before you start whupping the universe's ass.

Rather than just being Tim the Tenth Level Wizard.

[InaVegt]

That 3000 damage build fails to account for 1 thing.

The dmg lets you treat 1 d20 roll as a 1 1/day,

Assuming he does it at the first opportunity to do so, the average damage has been lowered to 2600.

Still quite a lot, but not even close to what a 3.x core 30th level wizard can do if properly optimized.

[Tengu]

I'm glad it at least takes you to be partially fused with divinity and an inter-planar legend of deadly tricksterness before you start whupping the universe's ass.

Rather than just being Tim the Tenth Level Wizard.

Scintillatus has discovered the purpose of this thread.

Keep the broken stuff coming, folks. Real broken stuff, not things that work by RAW but not RAI - I want to see elements that are broken due to bad system design, not because some things weren't spelled clearly.

And, of course, I'd like the anti-4e trolls to git off me lawn.

[UserClone]

I'd just like to say Thank the gods that GitP posters don't treat each other that way. I reiterate: I am happy to be here and not on gleemax.

[Scintillatus]

An easy way to fix blade cascade is to make it so each additional attack takes a -2 penalty to the roll.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Scintillatus has discovered the purpose of this thread.

Keep the broken stuff coming, folks. Real broken stuff, not things that work by RAW but not RAI - I want to see elements that are broken due to bad system design, not because some things weren't spelled clearly.

And, of course, I'd like the anti-4e trolls to git off me lawn.

Does the fact that a properly twinked (But not cheesily so) fighter can do more damage than a rogue count?

[Animefunkmaster]

First, this may or may not be game breaking. Not many people knew what game breaking was with 3.x right out of the box. It is over kill, lets not get that wrong, but whether or not it is game breaking is the question.

Also, stop comparing 3.x and 4e, they are different animals. One has far more content, which is prone for more abuse, the other is too new to know all of it's abuses. Just give it a few months, they you will see how balanced 4e is.