[3.5e] What's Broken?

[Fax Celestis]

...and before this devolves into "ZOMG WIZ BEETS FTR N00B", let me make something clear:

For the purposes of this discussion, "broken" is defined as, "overly complex¹; does not function in the fashion it should²; is not specified within the core rules³; or is nonsensical⁴."

PLEASE stay to core, as that's what I'm going to be working with.

Now, that being said: What is "broken" in D&D 3.5?

FOOTNOTES:

Spoiler

Show

¹Like Turn Undead or Grapple.
²Like drowning rules.
³Like what happens if you lose prestige class requirements.
⁴Like that nothing in the dead condition actually prevents you from moving.

[Crow]

Dude grappling is not that complex.

Anyhow, Celerity+Timestop is broken. *The way the rules are written, you can interprit it as working in order to give the wizard extra turns, or you can interprit it as the wizard being dazed for those extra turns. This leads to a lot of arguments and often breaks the game when interprited the first way.

*I am not taking a stand on this one, but just pointing out that people do interprit it in different ways.

Also under not clearly defined in the rules (please correct me if I'm wrong), it doesn't specify if worn stat-boosting items which increase your ability scores affect benefits gained at level-up (such as skill points, or number of followers allowed by leadership).

[mikeejimbo]

Multiclassing. No, not because it's overly powerful (which we aren't arguing), but because it's complicated. Especially with favored classes and multiclass penalties, and adding prestige classes in there just makes it harder.

(For a minute, I read "OMG BEETS ARE BROKEN" or something to that effect. I don't know, they don't seem too over-powered, although they are very nutritious AND useful in pickling. Mmm, pickled eggs.)

[Fax Celestis]

Dude grappling is not that complex.

Yeah, I know. I just know every time it's come up in a game, it's caused a slowdown as both player and DM added together all their little situational modifiers to determine what actually happens. It's "complex", in that regard, as it causes a delay at the game table, in the same fashion that Turn Undead does: roll, look up information, roll again, look up information, ask your DM for info, determine effect. Frankly, in my opinion, anything more complicated than "roll to hit, roll effect, determine effect" is "complex".

[Starbuck_II]

...and before this devolves into "ZOMG WIZ BEETS FTR N00B", let me make something clear:

For the purposes of this discussion, "broken" is defined as, "overly complex¹; does not function in the fashion it should²; is not specified within the core rules³; or is nonsensical⁴."

PLEASE stay to core, as that's what I'm going to be working with.

Now, that being said: What is "broken" in D&D 3.5?

FOOTNOTES:

Spoiler

Show

¹Like Turn Undead or Grapple.
²Like drowning rules.
³Like what happens if you lose prestige class requirements.
⁴Like that nothing in the dead condition actually prevents you from moving.

1) Dragon Deciple: while it follows from super script 3. You stop qualifying making you re-qualify...stuck in a time loop.

2) Gate items like the Candle: Gate itself functions exactly as it says, but the items are too cheap for a 9th level spell (who prices this stuff?)

3) Mind Blank: doesn't it techniquely block itself?

[Matthew]

The mounted combat rules and mounted combat feats. The wording technically makes no sense, if I recall.

Two weapon fighting needs some sort of correction.

The relationship between armour and dexterity.

(Do I need to explain these?)

[Roderick_BR]

The fact that learning and casting spells have no real cost in D&D. Aside from material components, and XP cost at some spells, most wizards feels nothing when channeling spells that can warp reality through their bodies, and to learn said spells they just need to happen upon a scroll or spellbook, and read it once.
It's easier to learn magic than engineery.

While paladins have a badly worded and strict code, clerics are pretty much free to do anything. Unlike AD&D, there's no difference between clerics of different deities.
Your cleric of undeath can spent his career without ever creating/controling undead, a cleric of peace can open heads to his heart's contents, and a cleric of war can run from battles without any actual rule to make him "fall", except by changing alignment, and DM fiat. Their chosen domains give powers and spells, but no restrictions or codes.

Those are my main pet peeves.

[Proven_Paradox]

One could argue that experience points are broken due to complexity. That may just be me not properly understanding it, but as I recall it's rather difficult to do without a calculator--I find it probable that simpler ways of dividing experience exist.

The CR system in certain instances is broken in that it doesn't perform its specified purpose--giving a number to how challenging a creature is--very well. This is case-by-case of course, but there are some creatures placed in CRs beside certain others that don't even come close to being the same challenge.

[SurlySeraph]

1. Wish and Gate (especially scrolls thereof and Candles of Invocation), because of the possiblity of infinite wish-loops. Come on, even a five-year-old can tell that allowing you to wish for more wishes is going to let you become too powerful. And allowing you to wish for as many 15,000 gp items as you want, one at a time, is similarly overpowered. No spell should let you get as much income as you want without limits.
2. Polymorph. Do I even need to explain why?
3. Spiked chains. Because by any reasonably standards they should be ridiculously unwieldy, and in practice you can do amazing things with them easily.
4. Diplomacy, because of the fixed DCs.
5. Traps. Barring the abuse possible with weapon traps and portable traps and such, traps are very weak for the amount of time and money they take, to the point that PCs really can't trap anything without magic.
6. Material components and focuses for spells. When's the last time you made a wizard buy or craft a small clay ziggurat before letting him cast Tongues? Does anyone make the wizard sacrifice his dagger - "a small iron blade" and tote around a bag of dirt to cast Move Earth? Do you take away 15 gp for a spoon, model portal, and piece of marble every time the wizard casts Magnificient Mansion? Either these components should be actually tracked, or they should be done away with entirely.

[Crow]

1. Wish and Gate (especially scrolls thereof and Candles of Invocation), because of the possiblity of infinite wish-loops. Come on, even a five-year-old can tell that allowing you to wish for more wishes is going to let you become too powerful. And allowing you to wish for as many 15,000 gp items as you want, one at a time, is similarly overpowered. No spell should let you get as much income as you want without limits.

You still have to pay the Gate XP cost with the candle...not that it fixes it or anything. Spiked chain isn't broken. It's just the one exotic weapon worth spending a feat on.

[Emperor Tippy]

Um, a lot of you need to reread the OP. Fax said "For the purposes of this discussion, "broken" is defined as, "overly complex; does not function in the fashion it should; is not specified within the core rules; or is nonsensical."".

The power level of spells or anything else is irrelevant for purposes of this thread.

As he said in the OP, the drowning rules are broken not because they are game breakingly powerful but because they don't make sense or function in the fashion that they should.

[AslanCross]

The mounted combat rules and mounted combat feats. The wording technically makes no sense, if I recall.

Two weapon fighting needs some sort of correction.

The relationship between armour and dexterity.

(Do I need to explain these?)

I think the issue with Mounted Combat was more of Ride-By Attack contradicting the rules on charge. Ride-By Attack says you continue the straight line of the charge, but the charge rules say you can't charge through another creature's space.

[Crow]

I think the issue with Mounted Combat was more of Ride-By Attack contradicting the rules on charge. Ride-By Attack says you continue the straight line of the charge, but the charge rules say you can't charge through another creature's space.

Do you have to charge directly at an enemy? Or can you charge the square adjacent to him and attack him diagonally?

[Matthew]

I think the issue with Mounted Combat was more of Ride-By Attack contradicting the rules on charge. Ride-By Attack says you continue the straight line of the charge, but the charge rules say you can't charge through another creature's space.

I think it is more of an action issue related to charging (who does the charging, the character or the mount?), but it has been a while since I was looking at the rules for it; I just recall that something did not make sense. There was a thread here about it somewhere, which if I recall correctly Fax_Celestis participated in.

[Lert, A.]

I would put forth that the spells themselves are (usually) not broken.

Casting times however are. A (very) few go the x minutes route but for the most part they are a standard or full round action with the occasional swift. That's it.

Fixing the problem would mean looking all the spells and adjusting casting time on a case-by case basis unfortunately.

[BobVosh]

Peasents passing stuff to break the speed of light.

1d4 for a pick, 1d6 for a heavy pick, 8 hardness on a stone

All the price stuff (ladders vs 10ft poles, spellbooks have more paper than paying strictly for paper costs +a cover, etc)

Aforementioned peasent trick except for mounting and dismounting as free actions with a high enough ride check.

[Eldariel]

Let's see:
-Favoured Class: I guess the point is that "characters of this race are usually this class", but in the end, all it does is give some builds random XP penalty, and since there's only one FC per race, common things like "Elven Rangers" or "Dwarven Clerics" actually aren't supported by FC rules. The addition of similar base classes (Scout/Ranger, anyone?) and PrCs further muddle the mixture. This simply does not accomplish the goal it's trying to (Racial Substitution Levels, on the other hand, do but aren't Core and thus outside the scope of this).

-Caster Multiclassing: It's fine for non-casters, but caster multiclassing doesn't work as intended, which is why you always need a dual progression PrC to actually advance the caster abilities while picking up your other abilities. Now, you could argue that this is a power thing and that "there's nothing stopping you from multiclassing between casters", but the fact remains that multiclassing doesn't work as intended for casters (it's obviously intended to be the replacement/simplification for AD&D multiclassing, and that's something it's not; they need some character level-dependent/class level-independent benefits, like BAB for non-casters, to function properly).

-Tumble/Diplomacy: Fixed DCs against characters of any power and no chance of failure with sufficient modifiers generate all kinds of problems. It's hardly rational that you're as easily able to tumble past a master thief knowledgable in all the tricks you know (in regards to Tumbling) and then some, or the legendary fighter who defeated Kiffrag the Great Red, as it is to tumble past a common Orc. It's also hardly rational that the amount of effort it takes to persuade a God to become your bestest friend is the same as the amount of effort it takes to persuade a petty Imp.

-Skill system in general: Setting interesting DCs and basing anything off skills due to the amount of means some characters have to buff their skills, which are unavailable to others, and due to the size of bonuses some spells and effects grant, is impossible unless done on a case-by-case basis pretty much defeating the point of the whole system. Also, the fact that most level 20 adventurers are just as blue-eyed as they were on level 1 is hardly sensical (that is, have the same Sense Motive). And overall, the fact that you need to be an insane genius to be able to learn all the skills you need to survive as a thief.

EDIT:

-Shapechanging and ability modifiers: It's not documented if the shapechange-stats override ability buffs and damage or if it's carried over to the new form. Likewise, it isn't documented how HP is calculated if your Con in your new form is altered.

[Aquillion]

I've mentioned this before, but: Metaconcert. It simply leaves out information essential to ever using it in a game.

What's the ML of the mental entity created with metaconcert? (Remember, unlike with spells, knowing this always essential for psionics, because it determines the number of power points you can spend in a round.) Where do the powers it manifests originate from? Can the other characters in the Metaconcert continue to act individually and use their own powers separately? Can the conductor? How much of their actions have to be devoted to 'directing' it? It mentions that the entity gets a bonus to its saves, but how can it be attacked in the first place? Does it have a location? What if it takes damage or is subject to an effect other than ability damage?

There are other problems, too, but you could go on forever. And these aren't like the "drowning technically can heal you" problem -- Metaconcert is so badly worded that even the intention can't be determined. If the created entity gets its own separate actions and can be directed by the conductor as a free action, it's a fairly powerful spell (although if you compare it to Schism it isn't as amazing as it seems) -- and you still have to come up with houserules for the ML problem and the rest if it comes up. If the conductor has to devote all their actions to control the entity, it's less powerful. Neither of these options are obviously 'wrong.' And while taking the ML of the conductor for the entity's ML is logical and doesn't cause any problems, there is absolutely nothing in the text that even hints at this being what is intended.

Basically, Metaconcert as it stands cannot be used at all without extensive houseruling -- not just houseruling to eliminate silly word issues, but houseruling that basically creates substantial parts of its effect whole-cloth, with no guidance from the text. Now that is broken.

Seriously, though, you'd think they'd playtest these things a little. I can see someone overlooking how drowning technically heals you... but the problems with metaconcert become obvious the instant you try to manifest it, which means that nobody ever playtested it even once. They ought to do something like with software playtesting, and insist that their playtesters try and use every ability in the new book at least a few times...

[Zeful]

Um, a lot of you need to reread the OP. Fax said "For the purposes of this discussion, "broken" is defined as, "overly complex; does not function in the fashion it should; is not specified within the core rules; or is nonsensical."".

The power level of spells or anything else is irrelevant for purposes of this thread.

Point of View Tippy. From my point of view spells are broken because they don't make sense. Not because it's magic, but because the cost[¹] of the spell doesn't match the magnitude of the effect. Magic is too damn easy to use. To the point where there should be nothing but caster classes, in any setting. This is wrong, it follows none of D&D's mythological sources which almost unanimously agree that magic is Nintendo hard.

1: The cost of a spell includes; Scribing time and costs, XP cost, material component cost, casting time and other miscellaneous penalties.

[Keld Denar]

The problem with Ride By Attack lies primarily in the charge rules.

You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). Here’s what it means to have a clear path. First, you must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. (If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can’t charge.) Second, if any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge. (Helpless creatures don’t stop a charge.)

Emphasis mine.

And

Ride-By Attack [General]
Prerequisites
Ride 1 rank, Mounted Combat.
Benefit
When you are mounted and use the charge action, you may move and attack as if with a standard charge and then move again (continuing the straight line of the charge). Your total movement for the round can’t exceed double your mounted speed. You and your mount do not provoke an attack of opportunity from the opponent that you attack.

Again, emphasis mine.

Now, unless you START your charge slightly off to the side, but no further than the reach of your lance (usually 10'), you can't make a RBA. This is because charging to the closest square where you can reach your opponent is usually gonna cause the line that extends from your starting position to the closest point you can charge to project THROUGH YOUR OPPONENT. Since you can't move through an opponent, you can't continue your movement, thus, RBA is broken, and doesn't work as intended.

[AslanCross]

Do you have to charge directly at an enemy? Or can you charge the square adjacent to him and attack him diagonally?

You must move at least 10 feet (2 squares) and may move up to double your speed directly toward the designated opponent.

I guess this means you can't run tangent to your opponent and slash him as you run by (though it sounds like something perfectly normal, though).

I think it is more of an action issue related to charging (who does the charging, the character or the mount?), but it has been a while since I was looking at the rules for it; I just recall that something did not make sense. There was a thread here about it somewhere, which if I recall correctly Fax_Celestis participated in.

Hmmm. Well, actions while being mounted do beg a lot of questions. My personal favorite is whether a second mounted character who is not holding the reigns can take full round actions or not. Corollary to this is how many of <Size X> creatures can a <Size Y> carry? For example, how many Kobolds can ride on a Bluespawn Stormlizard (Large)? I relish the thought of having a handful of kobolds riding on one, letting loose Rapid Shot repeating crossbow full attacks on PCs.

[zaei]

While paladins have a badly worded and strict code, clerics are pretty much free to do anything. Unlike AD&D, there's no difference between clerics of different deities.
Your cleric of undeath can spent his career without ever creating/controling undead, a cleric of peace can open heads to his heart's contents, and a cleric of war can run from battles without any actual rule to make him "fall", except by changing alignment, and DM fiat. Their chosen domains give powers and spells, but no restrictions or codes.

Those are my main pet peeves.

On the other hand, the Paladin is free to worship Erythnul with nary a word from the rulebooks.

Mystic Theurge + Sorc == no new sorc spells.

[Matthew]

Hmmm. Well, actions while being mounted do beg a lot of questions. My personal favorite is whether a second mounted character who is not holding the reigns can take full round actions or not. Corollary to this is how many of <Size X> creatures can a <Size Y> carry? For example, how many Kobolds can ride on a Bluespawn Stormlizard (Large)? I relish the thought of having a handful of kobolds riding on one, letting loose Rapid Shot repeating crossbow full attacks on PCs.

Heh, heh. Sounds vaguely reminiscent of Dune.

[RelentlessImp]

The 20d6 cap on falling damage is nonsensical, in my opinion, since a high level Fighter or Barbarian can jump from any height and shrug off the damage. And nice to see you posting again Fax. ^_^

[Draken]

Combat options. Bull rush, overrun, both are pointless in comparisson to Charge & attack. Even Disarm and Grapple are much maligned, while they could have a lot more potential.

I will not even go into how Sunder is only an option for DMs, since players wont want to damage what can very well be their loot.

The mere fact that Two-weapon fighting is subpar to two-handers is an issue to be adressed. Also, not only armor-dexterity interaction. The entirety of the AC progression (lack of progression, in fact) should be adressed.

Mounted combat... I would make a simple rule (like the rider uses a move action once a turn to make the mount perform a specific full round action, or the mount simply acts as it sees fit. Both working on the same initiative and yada, yada.)

[Stupendous_Man]

What are you talking about? Core is completely balanced.

[Neek]

I don't think the commoner railgun is at all that weird: You can't do explosive damage with it, because an object thrown does damage without regards to inertia: A spiked chain being thrown does no more damage than it wielded (and does nothing good), same with a dagger, or a great sword.

I'm more bothered about the Craft skill. For instance, a level 5 Expert Boywer with 18 Intelligence (+17, +4 int, +3 Skill Focus, +8 skill ranks, +2 masterwork tools) can make a mastercraft composite longbow in one month. From what I recall, making a Welsh Longbow, which would simply be a masterwork longbow, would take 3 years, not because the difficulty in it, but because to ensure the wood is properly cured to the curve it needs to be.

Per weekly,
400 gp (100 base, +300 masterwork) == 4,000 sp
Average check (10) on DC 15 makes 27 (27 * 15, as per the Craft chart == 405 sp/progress)
Average check (10) on DC 20 makes 27 (27 * 20, as per the Craft rules = 520 sp/progress).
That's, on average, 925 sp/progress a week. It takes a four weeks and a third (28.33~ days) of a day to complete the project!

The rules for Craft, and determining how it's handled, are a pain in the ass as well. First figure out the base price, pay a third of that in gp, then take that same amount, and times it by 10 (or 100 for working 1 day in a week, which apparently working 7 days a week leaves less progress than working whatever you do on your weekly check!) Make your roll, and consult the chart. If the DC * check earned in silver pieces (or copper pieces) exceeds the sp cost of the item, you passed, otherwise it's just progress (and less progress/day*7 than progress/week). Of course, as per the SRD, you cannot make more than one item per day, because even if you were to succeed the check three or four-fold (like say an equivalent bonus, on average, will grant 405 sp of progress, and you were attempting to craft sunrods, you wouldn't be able to craft 20 of them in a day. Nosiree!)

It's bulky, requires a lot of math, and the bit about Alchemy? I've never seen it become a problem if you weren't.

I have a complaint, also, about the Profession skill. A Profession (Smith) doesn't make any more money than an equally skilled Lawyer or Ditchdigger--but the Smith, Lawyer, and Ditchdigger aren't definably doing anything smithily, lawyerly, or ditchdiggerly--they could goof off for a week, and still all make the same amount of money.

As for the issue of Tumble, there are alternative rules in the DMG that turns the Tumble check result into your AC for determing the attack of opportunity when moving through a threatened square. This was detailed in the DMG 3.0, I'm not sure if they included it into the DMG 3.5

[Ryuuk]

Hmm, I don't have access to the book, but I've read that the Divine Mind from complete psionics falls under the "nonfunctional" definition of broken.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Point of View Tippy. From my point of view spells are broken because they don't make sense. Not because it's magic, but because the cost[¹] of the spell doesn't match the magnitude of the effect. Magic is too damn easy to use. To the point where there should be nothing but caster classes, in any setting. This is wrong, it follows none of D&D's mythological sources which almost unanimously agree that magic is Nintendo hard.

1: The cost of a spell includes; Scribing time and costs, XP cost, material component cost, casting time and other miscellaneous penalties.

If you're familiar with second edition, then ignore me. If not, then I think 2e was trying to stay true to the "Nintendo hard" school of thought, even to the point of being arbitrarily unfair sometimes.

But in any case, spellcasting was far more rigid in 2e. It's much easier to disrupt spells in 2e, you get no metamagic feats and higher level spells actually gave you a penalty to your initiative roll (which you rolled each round). There were simply no feats, just class abilities. Likewise, crafting magic items didn't have any specific rules to them, that was the domain of DM improvisation, and might've required a side quest of some sort. So you don't get a cheap supply of scrolls. I think you also had to spend more time memorizing spells, but I don't remember the details.

Haste aged you a year. As did Gate, if I remember correctly. You also had to bargain with the Gated creature to either not eat/punish/ignore you. Wish didn't have any pre-defined abilities per se. That was completely up to DM adjudication, where he was also permitted to screw you on the wording. If Fly cut out on you, you took fall damage instead of having a built-in safety mechanism like they do in 3e. Fireball was also intended to be something of a trade-off, since the large-blast radius was as much a liability as an asset that you didn't get to route around by a certain PrC ability. Polymorph spells also ran the risk of killing people by "system shock" and a chance that your target would permanently lose her identity if she remained too long in a certain form.

Actually, I think a forumite pointed out that Haste also had a "system shock" roll involved with it too, as ruled by official errata. This was silly because you could then end up using it as an *offensive* spell.

There were also plenty of benign spells, but these were probably less potent than other spells that did have "side effects."

[Zeta Kai]

I think a better question might the corollary: What does 3E do well?