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[sambojin]

There's another thread on this board for D&D Next (AD&D 5th edition). To stop it being dragged into various people (me mostly) complaining about flaws in the older editions, I've started this thread to lump all your complaints, loves and hates about the "better" editions of dungeons and dragons.

What are your really broken character builds? What was wrong as a whole with a particular system? What are your fondest memories in the game? The most devious puzzles or situations that your DM put you into (and that you got out of alive or dead)?

If it's about 5th edition, or a reasonable comparison in what you've read about the play-test currently available, put your thoughts into this thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=110197.0

If it's fond notstaglia, rambling gripes, OP'd characters or other stuff from old editions (any of them, even Pathfinder), then feel free to post away right here.

I will

[fenrif]

Well I only played 4th edition once, years after it came out. Generally I thought it was good as an introduction to roleplaying games (which is what we used it for, 4 newbie players and a newbie GM). But it all just felt kind of bland. The at-will/encounter/daily abilties thing was cool, except the limitations on what classes could do was so arbitrary it kinda ruined it for me. I thought it would've been much more dynamic if the powers were broken down into martial/primal/arcane/relgious or whatever the classifications were. And then each class choses out of their grouping. So martial classes could chose from all the martial powers, rather than fighters having seperate powers to warlords (or whatever they're called, it was a while ago ). Things like wizards not having chromatic orb because that was another classes spell just seemed silly.

Generally the whole game was much more combat focused from what I could tell by reading the books. The magic items especially dissapointed me, because they all seemed to be boring stat upgrades or damage types. None of the interesting magic items from previous editions were there, like that gnomish submarine-robot-barrel-thing.

I got the impression it was a D&D game designed specifically for people who either don't like D&D or have never played D&D, instead of WoTCs existing customers. Which is wierd because it really nailed what it was trying to do, but that's exactly why a lot of people hated it. I don't think I'd ever play it again, but I can certainly see why people like it.

[sambojin]

I like really low-end character builds that are overpowered in some way. All characters need to be able to do something well, so I tend to like them doing either one thing really well, or a bit of everything. I'm not an awful roleplayer, I do my best to play as a party member, but I do like having a bit of a killing spree sometimes. I mentioned the "High-dex Human Fighter with a spiked chain and a bow" build in the other thread, here's one that is sort of on the other end of that.

Random broken build #2.

Healy-healy, stab-stab.

This one uses 3 different core books from 3.5ed(PH, Complete Divine, Races of Destiny), so it probably should be a bit mucked up. There's even worse skills, classes, feats and combos between these three books, but this one is sort of a fun build. It caps out it's power-level at about 5th level, then you decide to go either the caster or rogue route, with either one being a nice addition to the other. It relies on high dex to do everything, so it's a bit of a glass-cannon in some situations. No dex bonus? Ouch. But there's nothing like a combat cleric of stabby doom

"Uurkrau" Illumian Rogue/Cleric of Fharlanghn
Place dex as your highest attribute, max the standard combat rogue skills (tumble etc, make sure your skill in spellcraft will be at 4 by third level), take a level of cleric at third level and choose celerity and travel(or time, forget which book that domain was in) as your domains. Grab "Practised Spellcaster" as your third level feat. Keep levelling as a rogue until fifth level.

You end up with +6 casting level spells(total 7th level at 5th) spells running off dex for bonus spells, +10 foot movement, a freedom of movement effect, Expedious Retreat for combat tumbling (70 foot movement for 7 mins, 70 rounds, when wanted), Longstrider for those long journeys, plenty of healing if needed (up to 3x(1d8+5) if you don't need combat movement boosters) and all the things that normally make rogues cool. Basically that one level of cleric and Practised Spellcaster gives you +4 caster level for level 1 healing and movement spells on top of your +2 Illumian bonus. Rogue+fast movement=good.

You then just decide if you want to stick to a rogue for the rest of your development or chuck in some more cleric levels for better and more spells. Any reasonable level of dex will give you free spells as your spell-level increases, keeping you up with the pack even though you're multi-classed.

It's not one dimensional either. Fharlangh is a pretty sick god who actually likes you wandering around doing adventurer-type things, you can change your spell set when needed (7mins of expedious retreat is aways handy), and you're a boon to any party with your rogue skills and high movement sneak attacks. It's a bit of everything, with a place in the world (wandering around for a god, healing stuff, stabbing shit and finding new stuff), with other role-playing chances too. You can scout, you can sneak into places as a tumbling-entertainer, you can shoot a bow, you can help people with their troubles, and eventually, you can be a bad-arse combat cleric if you so please. Stacking a level of sorceror after 5th level is nice as well, just for the extra spells and stuff you get.

Just one of those nice "do-everything" builds. It's not that focused, but by 3rd level your party has a REAL multi-skiller with heaps of growth potential. A sorceror/cleric combo can be done instead of the rogue/cleric combo, but stabbing stuff with rogues is more fun than having a few more spells.

This is why "Practiced Spellcaster" and Illumians are so broken. +6 Caster level, bonus spells off a combat stat, all because you decided to not level into a spellcasting class properly.

[Nulzilcho]

What are your really broken character builds?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

SPIKED CHAIN WILL GET YOU!

As has been talked on about in the other thread. this thread while I was picture hunting, link hunting & typing.

Personally I liked of 3rd and to a lesser extent 3.5th ed the best, but that's mostly down to it being what I played with the most. The thing I'm probably most nostalgic about is the particular dynamic that arose from low level play, the fact that characters could be heroic and larger-than-life without stripping away the grounded realities of earlier play that I always found a little jarring. An Orc or Gnoll with a greataxe was still a credible threat to a 5th level Wizard (at least until he got blasted). There's a particular variant lying around somewhere that seemed tailor made for this. Found it, for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing here are the links for the E6 variant:

E6 on the Dungeons & Dragons Wiki
The most current EnWorld thread concerning all things E6 (I think)

[Solifuge]

I actually started playing AD&D 2.0, and have played campaigns up through 4th edition, as well as a bit of Pathfinder.

My first real character was a Gnome Illusionist/Rogue. I absolutely loved the freeform nature of the 2e illusionist; you could create illusions of anything you wanted within certain perameters, from false walls and pits, to armies of enemies, or even giant dragons. As long as the target believed your illusions, you could misdirect, scare off, incapacitate, or even knock your targets out. Combine that with the stealth and resourcefulness of a rogue, add in a bit of Faustian trafficking with demons, and you have Fenrik the Canny, my favorite D&D character to date. The DM was fantastic, and that was easily one of my favorite tabletop gaming experiences.

Second to him, in 3.5 I played a living relic of a Dwarven Bard/Historian, who had been petrified for a millennium after a Dwarven ritual-gone-wrong. Later in the campaign, he sought out all the distant descendants of his clan, and hosted a reunion of sorts under some ancient Dwarven ruins. One load-bearing plot device later, the architecture proved a bit unstable, and poor Mim Shaleheart managed the accidental genocide of just about every one of his living descendants. Circumstances worked out so perfectly horribly, I couldn't help cracking up at the game table. Black comedy at its finest... and a great personal in-character motivation to take on the Big Bad Evil Guy.

I even got some art done for the character:


Anyway, I have to say that I like the grittier feel and less restrictive nature of the earlier versions of D&D, and am not a huge fan of the focal shift to pure combat and entirely too superhuman heroes in more recent editions. I think it's missing something, and not only in the story department; even the mechanics seem to have gotten more restrictive of characters and actions over time. It's like it's gradually been shifting away from simulation, and more towards game system. I'm trying to rekindle that sort of gritty, creative feel with a heavily homebrewed Pathfinder campaign project, and have enjoyed the process so far (there's a link to it in my sig, for the curious). Homebrew aside, I do dig a lot of the streamlining Pathfinder has done.

[sambojin]

The D&D system relies on a good DM. It's a game where there are rules, there's things that the players expect that can and can't be done, then there's good DMs. They suprise you, they change the rules, they make something impossible highly probable or the very easy very hard. In the end, this makes a great campaign. The rules are only an advisory and should never get in the way of a good story.

I think that the 1st and 2nd editions typified this. People didn't really know what they couldn't do, spells were sometimes open to interpretation, some rules were so complex that it was easier to overlook them and simply roleplay out situations. How many people would use up their entire spell allowance on flameblade and heat metal to burn their way out of a wood elve's prison in 4th edition? Very easy and possible in second. Our rogue almost died from smoke inhalation, we all took a stack of damage from the burning building (ropes and red-hot manacles) and the rushing of guards that wanted to see why the building was burning down, but it worked. 3 flameblade spells cast in succession to start some stuff burning. Low level genius that I thought I was.

Some DMs are cool.