Tell me how you broke your favorite class. Any class from any system.

[Don Coyote]

I played Vampire three times. All three times I played a Malkavian. I am no longer allowed to play Vampire.

Apparently it is bad form to use the Auspex power Telepathy in order to torture people by making them listen to the Captain Scarlet themetune which only they can here, and impersonate the Mysterons with a torch and a sheet of cardboard.

All you need for this is Auspex... 4, if memory serves.

(I don't think Captain Scarlet made it to the states, so here is the awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV6m9NlsOJ4)

FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!

AND NOW IT IS STUCK IN MY HEAD AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cain]

The Assassin class in DA:O came pre-broken.  By level 20 you could:

Outright avoid 20% of all attacks
With the right weapons, have a 50%+ chance of a critical hit and do 50%+ extra damage on crit hits
Have three different types of stunning attack
Do automatic critical hits on stunned targets
Do automatic critical hits on flanked targets
Be able to go into stealth in the middle of combat
Dexterity and cunning are the two most important skills for the rogue class...once they're high enough, you can basically ignore armour protecting your enemies.  But you can also add your cunning score to your damage caused, allowing you to essentially use a long dagger to do the same kind of damage as a broadsword, but with better ability to bypass protection.
Have a special ability which causes a particular enemy to take 20% additional damage from any source for 60 seconds.
Do more damage per second than a beserker armed with the most powerful two handed weapon in the game...with standard daggers for your level (dragonbone tier).

And despite all of the above...rogues draw 20% less threat in comparison to a mage or warrior.  Meaning enemies are going to concentrate on everyone else, right up to the point you stick a blade through the back of their skull.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Vampire: The Masquerade

Nosferatu (Old World of Darkness)
9th Gen
Max Socials at 13
Animalism 5
Obfuscate 5
Presence 2
Enchanting Voice (+2 Social traits)
Torn Sap Gloves Fetish (Spirit of Intimidation +2 Intimidation social traits)
Animal Ken 5
Combo Discipline: Animal Magnetism (allows you to add your levels of animalism to a social challenge)
Combo discipline: Mortal Terror (allows you to engage in a social challenge vs willpower, if you win you 'Dread Gaze' your opponents Beast and send them into frenzy)

So I can challenge someone to a Social Challenge at 22 traits vs their Willpower, retest Animal Ken to send them into a Fear Frenzy with me as the object of their fear. Generally this is done with four or five of my Nos Enforcers obfuscated around the target, ready to attack as soon as the poor sod loses it.

Not to mention a Nosferatu that can bid 22 traits in any Social challenge (with the Awe retest)... it makes the Toreador and Ventrue cry themselves to sleep every morning

The game I played in, no one was allowed to have higher than a 3rd gen character, and writing up a new one meant 1st gen.

Also, I hated how you had to rock-paper-scissors in place of dice-rolling for the LARP.

Err, 13th Gen? 1st Gen would be Caine's Children, 2nd and 3rd would be the rest of the Antediluvians. IN Vampire the rating is reversed from most RPG's the Higher your gen, the further away from Caine, the less powerful .

My Nos started at 10th Gen which is considered average for most vampires embraced in the 20th century.  At some point though I hunted down my sire who was terrorizing the city and killed him in the manner he taught me. I diablerized his punk ass and jumped to 9th Gen. Fortunately, my grandsire was an elder with elder power obfuscate so he hid the proof until the lines in my aura disappeared.

In New World of Darkness they've replaced the RPS with a dice roll (or cards depending on the game).

I played Vampire three times. All three times I played a Malkavian. I am no longer allowed to play Vampire.

Apparently it is bad form to use the Auspex power Telepathy in order to torture people by making them listen to the Captain Scarlet themetune which only they can here, and impersonate the Mysterons with a torch and a sheet of cardboard.

All you need for this is Auspex... 4, if memory serves.

(I don't think Captain Scarlet made it to the states, so here is the awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV6m9NlsOJ4)

Malkavians like that tend to get killed quickly in most of the troupe and org games I've played in. The Camarilla almost wiped the whole clan out in the Dark Ages because their 'crazy' was just too much of a liability, and that excuse gets used to whack the Malks that consider "insane" to equal zany

My current favorite Malk is based loosely off of the character Simon Moon from the Illuminatus Trilogy. He was a manipulative guy that 'joined' the hippie movement in the 60's because he realized that he could manipulate them easily and get laid a lot. Eventually he became obsessed with the Illuminati and went to Bavaria. There he found an old castle, which was home to several geniuses. These people taught him all about the 'Illuminati' and then inducted him with a Black Mass.

In reality, there was only one person in the castle... an old Malkavian. The Malk played all of the different geniuses and convinced Simon that they were the secret head of the Illuminati. The Black Mass ended with Simon getting embraced. Simon has two majorderangements, first he has Sanguine Animism which means he hears the voices of his prey after feeding; second he has the delusion that he is a member of the Illuminati and "The Camarila" is just a fake organization that fronts for the Illuminati.

He's tricked out as a seer which means he does two things in game. First, he uses his seer abilities and Eyes of Chaos to get useful info from the ST's about what to expect for the evening. That gets turned into beat poetry and sold to the Prince, Seneschal or Keeper. Second he hosts games (cards, chess etc) and then uses Dementation to determine the Nature of his opponents. When I stopped playing him, I had a Nature list of all of the major power players in the city. Any time I wanted anything from them, I used their nature against them and got what I wanted

[Scribbly]

Vampire: The Masquerade

Nosferatu (Old World of Darkness)
9th Gen
Max Socials at 13
Animalism 5
Obfuscate 5
Presence 2
Enchanting Voice (+2 Social traits)
Torn Sap Gloves Fetish (Spirit of Intimidation +2 Intimidation social traits)
Animal Ken 5
Combo Discipline: Animal Magnetism (allows you to add your levels of animalism to a social challenge)
Combo discipline: Mortal Terror (allows you to engage in a social challenge vs willpower, if you win you 'Dread Gaze' your opponents Beast and send them into frenzy)

So I can challenge someone to a Social Challenge at 22 traits vs their Willpower, retest Animal Ken to send them into a Fear Frenzy with me as the object of their fear. Generally this is done with four or five of my Nos Enforcers obfuscated around the target, ready to attack as soon as the poor sod loses it.

Not to mention a Nosferatu that can bid 22 traits in any Social challenge (with the Awe retest)... it makes the Toreador and Ventrue cry themselves to sleep every morning

The game I played in, no one was allowed to have higher than a 3rd gen character, and writing up a new one meant 1st gen.

Also, I hated how you had to rock-paper-scissors in place of dice-rolling for the LARP.

Err, 13th Gen? 1st Gen would be Caine's Children, 2nd and 3rd would be the rest of the Antediluvians. IN Vampire the rating is reversed from most RPG's the Higher your gen, the further away from Caine, the less powerful .

My Nos started at 10th Gen which is considered average for most vampires embraced in the 20th century.  At some point though I hunted down my sire who was terrorizing the city and killed him in the manner he taught me. I diablerized his punk ass and jumped to 9th Gen. Fortunately, my grandsire was an elder with elder power obfuscate so he hid the proof until the lines in my aura disappeared.

In New World of Darkness they've replaced the RPS with a dice roll (or cards depending on the game).

I played Vampire three times. All three times I played a Malkavian. I am no longer allowed to play Vampire.

Apparently it is bad form to use the Auspex power Telepathy in order to torture people by making them listen to the Captain Scarlet themetune which only they can here, and impersonate the Mysterons with a torch and a sheet of cardboard.

All you need for this is Auspex... 4, if memory serves.

(I don't think Captain Scarlet made it to the states, so here is the awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV6m9NlsOJ4)

Malkavians like that tend to get killed quickly in most of the troupe and org games I've played in. The Camarilla almost wiped the whole clan out in the Dark Ages because their 'crazy' was just too much of a liability, and that excuse gets used to whack the Malks that consider "insane" to equal zany

My current favorite Malk is based loosely off of the character Simon Moon from the Illuminatus Trilogy. He was a manipulative guy that 'joined' the hippie movement in the 60's because he realized that he could manipulate them easily and get laid a lot. Eventually he became obsessed with the Illuminati and went to Bavaria. There he found an old castle, which was home to several geniuses. These people taught him all about the 'Illuminati' and then inducted him with a Black Mass.

In reality, there was only one person in the castle... an old Malkavian. The Malk played all of the different geniuses and convinced Simon that they were the secret head of the Illuminati. The Black Mass ended with Simon getting embraced. Simon has two majorderangements, first he has Sanguine Animism which means he hears the voices of his prey after feeding; second he has the delusion that he is a member of the Illuminati and "The Camarila" is just a fake organization that fronts for the Illuminati.

He's tricked out as a seer which means he does two things in game. First, he uses his seer abilities and Eyes of Chaos to get useful info from the ST's about what to expect for the evening. That gets turned into beat poetry and sold to the Prince, Seneschal or Keeper. Second he hosts games (cards, chess etc) and then uses Dementation to determine the Nature of his opponents. When I stopped playing him, I had a Nature list of all of the major power players in the city. Any time I wanted anything from them, I used their nature against them and got what I wanted

WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US EARTH MAN

YOU ATTEMPTED TO DESTROY OUR VESSEL ON EARTH

NOW YOU WILL PAY DEARLY

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The biggest issue I've seen with people RP'ing Malks is that they miss Malkavian 'madness' is generally something more along the lines of Hannibal Lecter. Malkov, their founder was the childe of Caine that came close to tearing away the veil of reality.

TGRR, for example might make a good Malkavian

[Scribbly]

The biggest issue I've seen with people RP'ing Malks is that they miss Malkavian 'madness' is generally something more along the lines of Hannibal Lecter. Malkov, their founder was the childe of Caine that came close to tearing away the veil of reality.

TGRR, for example might make a good Malkavian

I understand what the game was going for in concept.

What you get is superheroes in leather with katanas and Mysterons.

I do not see a problem with this.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The biggest issue I've seen with people RP'ing Malks is that they miss Malkavian 'madness' is generally something more along the lines of Hannibal Lecter. Malkov, their founder was the childe of Caine that came close to tearing away the veil of reality.

TGRR, for example might make a good Malkavian

I understand what the game was going for in concept.

What you get is superheroes in leather with katanas and Mysterons.

I do not see a problem with this.

Heh, well that lies with the ST. If the ST wants to run that sort of game, bully for them

When I ST a Vampire game, its all about the dark personal horror

[kingyak]

My friend Clayton worked for White Wolf when they were working on the Adventure! system (I think he was on the design team, but don't remember for sure) and hooked a group of us up with playtest copies. We never actually got around to playing the game, but we did make up characters. I decided that I wanted to play a Spirit type super-hero and through creative use of of the rules (mostly merits and flaws) managed to create a character who was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. When Clayton heard about the character, he asked me for a copy to show the design team because they thought they'd written the game in way that would make it almost impossible to create supernatural characters.

[Freeky]

The Assassin class in DA:O came pre-broken.  By level 20 you could:

Outright avoid 20% of all attacks
With the right weapons, have a 50%+ chance of a critical hit and do 50%+ extra damage on crit hits
Have three different types of stunning attack
Do automatic critical hits on stunned targets
Do automatic critical hits on flanked targets
Be able to go into stealth in the middle of combat
Dexterity and cunning are the two most important skills for the rogue class...once they're high enough, you can basically ignore armour protecting your enemies.  But you can also add your cunning score to your damage caused, allowing you to essentially use a long dagger to do the same kind of damage as a broadsword, but with better ability to bypass protection.
Have a special ability which causes a particular enemy to take 20% additional damage from any source for 60 seconds.
Do more damage per second than a beserker armed with the most powerful two handed weapon in the game...with standard daggers for your level (dragonbone tier).

And despite all of the above...rogues draw 20% less threat in comparison to a mage or warrior.  Meaning enemies are going to concentrate on everyone else, right up to the point you stick a blade through the back of their skull.

Damn.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

My friend Clayton worked for White Wolf when they were working on the Adventure! system (I think he was on the design team, but don't remember for sure) and hooked a group of us up with playtest copies. We never actually got around to playing the game, but we did make up characters. I decided that I wanted to play a Spirit type super-hero and through creative use of of the rules (mostly merits and flaws) managed to create a character who was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. When Clayton heard about the character, he asked me for a copy to show the design team because they thought they'd written the game in way that would make it almost impossible to create supernatural characters.

*snerk*

I have yet to see a White Wolf system that doesn't have holes big enough to drive a truck through

[kingyak]

My friend Clayton worked for White Wolf when they were working on the Adventure! system (I think he was on the design team, but don't remember for sure) and hooked a group of us up with playtest copies. We never actually got around to playing the game, but we did make up characters. I decided that I wanted to play a Spirit type super-hero and through creative use of of the rules (mostly merits and flaws) managed to create a character who was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. When Clayton heard about the character, he asked me for a copy to show the design team because they thought they'd written the game in way that would make it almost impossible to create supernatural characters.

*snerk*

I have yet to see a White Wolf system that doesn't have holes big enough to drive a truck through

In this case, it wasn't really a broken system so much as me using the open-ended aspects of the system in ways that weren't intended. I don't remember all the details, but some of my ghost powers came from a "secret base" type advantage that could be mobile and that (IIRC) you could use to improve healing. It was meant to cover something like a zeppelin with a sick bay, but for my character I interpreted it as an extradimensional pocket universe kind o thing. This is a fairly common problem I've seen, where game designers try to use the rules to restrict the tone of the game rather than just explaining that certain types of characters/stories/whatever don't really fit the intended play style.

[Cain]

Experimenting with Dragon Age II...I don't know if I broke any individual class, but I've definitely broken the game system.

Playing on Nightmare mode, I can have a party that can rip apart pretty much any enemy in under a minute - including notorious bosses such as the Deep Roads Dragon and the Act 2 Varterral.

The basic point, I've discovered is this: fuck vulnerability and survivability, it's all about maxmising damage output within the shortest space in time.  Ironically, this means parties which initially look weak, such as a Mage Hawke along with Anders, Merrill and Varric (three mages and an archery-based rogue, for non-players) can actually pretty much decimate any enemy.

One of the key things is to abuse the hell out of cross class combos.  An upgraded Winter's Grasp, followed by Punishing Lance can kill pretty much any elite-ranked opponent outright - especially if you throw in a Hex of Torment on top of that.  The other is, using the Force Mage specialization, use crowd control spells, most notably gravitic ring and pull of the abyss, to put the enemy where you want them, and then drop AoE spells on them without worrying about friendly fire on pary members.  Done correctly, this combination can decimate enemy ranks before they even get within striking range, negating the need for a character to "tank" at all.

The other combination I've found that works well is playing a Rogue, having the above two mages and Aveline as tank.  By making your rogue a dual wielder and specializing in assassin and duelist, you can overcome the initially low damage output of a rogue to become a class that kills quicker and harder than anything else.   The mages in particular set up cross-class combos by making enemies brittle - a rogue with maxed out cunning, the assassin specialization, the Mark of Death ability (upgraded, of course) and the Assassination skill can then put down almost anything in minimum time.  Even the most difficult bosses, such as the aforementioned Deep Roads Dragon, or Hybris, will lose about 30-50% of their health in a single attack.  On Nightmare mode.  Aveline can stagger enemies in a number of ways, setting them up for Explosive Strike (the cheap man's Assassination, though still deadly if combined with an upgraded Hex of Torment or the Mark of Death).  From there on in, mage buffs such as haste, valiant aura and elemental weapons make up the difference.  Even basic attacks for the assassin, after about level 12 or so, should be resulting in almost automatic critical hits, so these skills push you over, pump up your attack speed to insane levels and ensure that you're able to put the hurt on the enemy as much as possible.

The only problem with the above builds is the very low margin of error they represent - especially for the rogue, which is why a tank is necessary for that build in particular.  At least if you play a mage, you can have a good reason to bump up your willpower and your constitution - for a rogue, pretty much every point needs to go into dexterity and cunning to be successful.  But the best defense is a good offense is especially true here, and, more often than not, concentrating on killing as many of the enemy, as fast and as hard as possible, results in victory.  That at least one of the support mages is more healer-orientated, while the other can take on a more offensive role, certainly does help in this regard.

Best of all, both of these builds are especially adept at killing enemy assassins - the most annoying of all game enemy types.  The Assassin build in particular makes an excellent assassin-hunter because, with just a single skill, the moment you see them stealth, you can do the same - which means they will invariably target Aveline, who can take it, or Dog, if you're especially lucky.  Once they leave stealth, they're then open to being stabbed in the back themselves.  In fact, stealth is pretty much the only defensive skill a rogue needs - if they're getting pounded on too hard, they can go into that and recover for a bit before striking out again.  For mages, their large choice in AoE attacks can generally knock an assassin out of stealth before they can make it into striking range - and then it's just a case of using Winter's Grasp, a Glyph of Paralysis or Petrify to keep them in place while you beat the shit out of them.  That two of those set the assassin up for a cross class combo and so an almost certain insta-death is just a bonus.

You can also pretty much automate your party using the tactics options to do most of the above automatically, allowing you free reign to use your character to respond to the particulars of the situation.  Anders, for some reason, is utterly pants and will almost invariably wander into the middle of an AoE attack, or try duelling an assassin with his staff, but that aside, it seems to work very well.

[Freeky]

"Utterly pants." 

That sounds like a kick ass game, what platform is it on?

[Cain]

Xbox, PC and PS3.

And yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with Anders, as many fans of the games do.  He was introduced in an expansion pack for the first game, and he had a great voice, was well-acted, and was very funny.  In the setting, mages are highly distrusted, and are locked up in towers by religious zealots for their own safety, and the safety of the population of large.  Anders had escaped seven times, and the only reason he hadn't been executed for it was that he was considered a lovable scamp by all involved.

In terms of gameplay, his tactics for that game were much better thought out, as he was primarily in a support-healing role, with limited AoE and offensive properties, depending on exact build, but tactics for the first game were a lot easier, as there were no cross-class combos and characters did not have special skills available to only them.  All he had to do was hang around at the back, hitting group and individual heal, and occasionally boiling the blood of enemies inside their veins, and he did it very well.

In the second game, he's a moody, unshaven, somewhat sullen apostate mage, living in a sewer and plotting revenge against the order of religious zealots local to the area.  His change in character is somewhat justified, but the original Anders was such a loveable scamp, so it is disappointing to see.

In terms of gameplay, you have a lot more fights where hanging out at the back isn't an option, because a second wave will hit you from there. Also, healing spells and in particular group heal have been nerfed to the point that it's almost pointless using them outside anything except a boss fight (this is why focusing on damage output is a superior method).

Anders still suits a support role better, but because of the way healing has terrible cool-down times (and you cannot, unlike in the original game, craft thousands of healing potions by utterly abusing the game system), you have to give him a more combat orientated role.

Now, in theory, a mage should attempt to stay out of close combat, even with the much improved combat mechanics for mages in the second game.  Their armour is always going to be the weakest, and they cannot afford to put points into cunning to give them a greater defense bonus.

A mage who has a specialist spell which allows him to increase his damage output but, in return, does 50% extra damage to him and makes him immune to conventional healing, should definitely try to avoid combat.

So, naturally, Anders, with all of the above, just waltzes into the middle of fights and stands there, like a noob.

Also, if you play on nightmare mode, your own party's AoE attacks can harm you, if you get caught up in them.  Anders in particular likes to walk in front of enemies targeted by Punishing Lance - a very powerful archery based attack that basically puts an arrow through several enemies in a line.  He may also occasionally wander into an Apocalyptic Firestorm or, when surrounded, unleash a fireball directly under his feet.

I put this down to him being suicidal, which makes sense when you know his backstory.

On the other hand, Aveline and Dog have fantastic tactics, and tank like champions.  Throw them into a fight, and everyone will focus on the big, scary lady with a sword (and the dog), while the two mages decimate them from a distance and you position yourself to attack from behind.  This is especially useful when you consider you get critical chance bonuses for attack from behind (which already add to the rogue's incredible odds of a critical hit) and that rogues can pick up a talent that gives them a 120% damage bonus against enemies attacking other targets for a single point, with no further investment in the skill tree needed.

[Cain]

Here are a couple of videos detailing The Method: Dual-Wield Assassin in a couple of trash fights

Taking down the Sundermount Dragon in 30 seconds.

One-minute kill on the Deep Roads Dragon.

And here are a few Force/Blood Mage vids:

Roughing up some Templars.

The Glass Cannon Party in the Deep Roads.

Qunari aint so tough.