Mobility Training
We haven’t seen Monk in a while. I guess he’s been spending the downtime training his unarmored movement ability, because that little dude is crazy fast! I personally suspect him of using performance-enhancing ki, but chances are that’s technically legal as well.
That’s the thing about lawfully-minded characters. As long as they can square it with their personal code, there’s no limits to the kind of chicanery they’ll get up to. The same happens to be true of players.
We talked about this a bit last time we checked in with Summoner, but bending the rules for the sake of power is going to get different reactions at different tables. Where infinite wish loops and peasant railguns tend to raise eyebrows, however, I’ve found that the esoteric and the unconventional tends to pass the sniff test.
Case in point, my favorite strictly-legal trick comes from the Pathfinder 1e mythic rules. I used a non-lethal version to win a wizard’s tourney, then promptly promised my GM never to use it again. Here’s the step-by-step:
1. Be a 20th level wizard.
2. Get to Mythic Tier 4
3. Take Mythic Feather Fall
4. Obtain 40 mice.
5. Place mice in a convenient container.
6. Fly above your enemies.
7. Dump mice on your enemies as a ranged touch attack. (Or as a splash weapon at the easier-to-hit empty square.)
8. While the mice are mid-flight, expend two uses of mythic power to cast Augmented Mythic Feather Fall on the mice.
9. Deal 200d6 points of force damage to your enemies with your mouse grenade.
10. Laugh maniacally. (optional)
I’m sure you could really crank this one, but even if you “just” add the maximize and empower metamagic feats, you’re looking at 200d6 (all sixes) + 80d6 (assuming average damage) for ~1480 force damage, give or take 40 saves to half.
I’ll admit, figuring out how to break the mythic rules isn’t exactly bragging rights, but it is my personal best. What about the rest of you guys? What are the best rules exploits you’ve actually managed to pull off in a real game? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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Wait, Monk is male?! I always thought Monk was a flat-chested female…
I… I think I need some time to process this…
Dude does some killer Rey cosplay.
I have on occasions talked about my high-level 3.5 cleric and his exploits. Todays question, however, brings up a story from is younger days, back when he was a young lad of level 7.
We were defending a meeting of various nobles from all around the world, who were meeting to discuss something that I do not recall. After fighting off various goblins and assassins, the meeting was almost over. Then, the Necromancer arrived.
The leader of the slaughter of our paladin’s village. The one who raised armies of undead with his epic spell casting. Also the one who we were supposed to run away from as he was definitely to powerful for our level how in the world could we kill this guy even in our higher levels.
Fortunately, I had prepared a plan for this event. Not one ago, I had scrapped together some of the cash I had remaining after the duct tape incident (long story, may write it in response to a different question) and bought a portable hole, then sewed it into my inside out bag of holding. And so, when the necromancer came calling, I tossed the bag-hole at him, and our sorcerer flipped the bag into it’s normal orientation, thus shoving the portable hole inside.
Due to teleportation magics, the necromancer got back after a few rounds, but by that point we had been able to evacuate the building and get the nobles out of there, thus saving many from the doom-spell-darkness-destruction-epic-magic-orb-thing.
Hole of holding is a classic. Cool to see it used responsibly in a real-game scenario!
(Post split in half due to size)
Another rules exploit occurred when we decided to duke it out in a battle Royale, where each of use would create an epic character, at level 23, then have ourselves a good old battle. I became a little… obsessed with winning, and spent days creating a finely detailed battle plan that had rules for every contingency, and planned for things to go wrong. The thing was though… I had assumed that things would go wrong. So when I launched my souped-up greater dispel magic… I planned for me to have terrible luck and for me to somehow roll all ones, and I was so wrapped up in my plan that I forgot to take initiative, so I ended up just pelleting one guy with two greater dispel magics and two quickened greater dispel magics when I had removed all of his spells with the first.
So the plan was that I would dispel magic people, then use my maximised energy drains to knock down their hit dice until they were vulnerable to holy word/blasphemy/word of chaos/word of law. If everyone noticed how overpowered I was and ganged up against me, then I would pull out my big gun:
Immunity to everything. I had found away to become immune to EVERYTHING, not just damage but also paralysis, mind-affecting effects, ability drain, dispel magic, you name it, I was immune.
We switched to 5e not long after the battle Royale.
3.5 is a silly place. A glorious place to be sure, but also very silly.
What was the damage immunity trick?
Spell compendium has a spell called, “Veil of Undeath”. It gives you various undead abilities, most important of which is the immunities that undead get. These means you are immune to charm, paralysis, energy drain, non-lethal damage, etc. Most important of those is immunity to non-lethal damage. Meaning that you could cast shapechange and then turn into something with regeneration, meaning that most damage you take is turned into non-lethal damage, which you are immune to.
Therefore, it is possible to turn into a solar angel, who have regeneration/evil weapons and evil spells. If someone brings out those weapons, turn into a troll and cast immunity to fire on yourself. If someone brings out acid then you transform into something else, etc.
The best part was, I had a familiar. And familiars have this little rule called spell sharing, meaning that I was able to have my cat share my shape changer and turn into a freaking solar angel wielding some of my magic items and playing support.
I really miss the ability to turn a cat into an angel.
This story is how we exploited the in-game rules for a race, in a similar way to the comic.
We did an evil one-shot where we were paid a lot of money to assassinate an evil person, and the race itself had a lot of prize money. The race was quite costly to enter, however, as it was a dinosaur race, so you had to spend a heap of money in order to by a dinosaur. And the races was really long, taking several days to complete, so you wanted a hardy dinosaur and the equipment for the long ride.
The rules of the race were:
You may only enter if you have a dinosaur, which must be procured for the race’s pens.
Each person must have their own dinosaur.
If you have a dinosaur, you may not cross the barrier between the sidelines and the racetrack.
No teleportation.
No killing spectators, but killing the other racers is fine.
We did notice that dinosaurs were expensive, costing up to 80,000 gp, and it was also costly to get them important equipment like night-vision goggles and flaming tail clubs. But since we could only get dinosaur from race’s pens, what were we to do other than buy them?
Well, go outside the city using shape-shifting magic, slay a tyrannosaurus, chop it up until it fits in your extradimesional storage space, then reenter the pens, return to your normal forms, and resurrect the dinosaur, of course! Since the dinosaur came into life in the pens, just like all of the other baby dinosaurs, it was legal and already owned by us. But wait! There is only one dinosaur, and multiple party members. And if you don’t have a dinosaur, you may not cross the line between the sideline and racetrack.
Well, a bag of holding is just a portal, right? So if, say, some people were hiding in a bag of hold, then they didn’t technically cross the line when the portal crossed the line, right? So if they, say, had broom of flying and were already on the racetrack, there was no stopping them, right? And if they, say, bumped into a certain PCs dinosaur and decided to rest their, that was allowed by the rules, right?
I mean, sure, we could have just bought our own dinosaurs for the entire party, but I really think we saved a lot of money right there.
We then used the actual rules to give us an edge in the race, by noting that the only penalty for not sleeping is exhaustion, and for just 100 gold, a greater restoration spell can cure exhaustion. So if, say, someone rolled in the thirties for animal handling, and we kept removing the dinosaur’s need for sleep, the dinosaur could, perhaps, carry on through the night?
(Man, that evil one-shot really brought out the Lawful Evil rules lawyer in me. I mean, us! Most of those weren’t my ideas, and I definitely am not evil at heart, yep, rest of the party did it, I swear, and you can’t prove anything else)
Lol. That’s my favorite of the lot. It helps that your rules lawyering in-game mirrors the out of game. It’s one of my favorite things in the hobby when my real world shenanigans are mirrored by my character.
Dear Sir, might I interest you in a character capable of reliably beating a DC 50 Int based skill check… at level 1?
Oracle(seer)
Lore Mystery, Legalistic Curse
Int 14
Pick an int based skill that you have as a class skill, put one rank in it. Seer archetype gets you Natural Divination as the first revelation. Take Extra Revelation (Focused Trance) as your feat. Let’s do this:
+1 for skill ranks
+2 for intelligence
+3 for class skill
+4 for a roll made as past of a promise, as per Legalistic (morale bonus)
+10 for Natural Divination (competence bonus)
+20 for Focused Trance (circumstance bonus)
Take 10
Proceed to discover Treerazer’s true name, use your newly acquired pet Godzilla to take over the world.
All joking aside, I am now genuinely considering playing a Seer of Lore skill monkey 🙂
Your shenanigans are cheeky and fun. I approve.
Godzilla… did Witch pay Oracle a heap of money in order to get Brutus?
Brutus’s true name was split into seven parts and hidden away in the deadliest dungeons on each of the world’s continents. In other words, that’s a DC 51 check. No dice. 😛
Truth be told, to place a bet, Chet Lhand-Hurponee only needs a fur coat to disguise himself as a Gnoll.
Is your fighter particularly hirsute?
I hope Vincenzo is a recurring NPC, or I’ll be very disappointed!
He’s on lone from another campaign setting: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125583/Ponyfinder–Campaign-Setting
I’ve actually been pretty good aboot avoiding rules exploit cheese, as it’s kind of a dickish thing to do to everyone else at your table.
Weren’t you the guy explaining how zone of truth is an instant win button in mystery scenarios? Yeah, I believe that was you back in Witchy Ways:
I think you and Vincenzo would get on just fine together.
Does using a single spell for the direct purpose it is intended for (in this case making people tell the truth) really qualify as a “rules exploit”?
Not that I agree that using that spell would in that way would necessarily always work, but that is neither here nor there.
There’s a difference between playing smart, and breaking the game, and if you can’t see it then you’re part of the problem.
One man’s “playing smart” is another man’s “dickish exploit.” I’m sure your zone of truth shenanigans played well at your table. The mouse grenade played well at mine. I advise reserving judgement.
That’s one thing I would like to unreservedly second.
Know your table! It’s the most important rule for enjoying participating in this hobby of ours.
The most overpowered thing I ever did as part of a real game was also in a mythic campaign, through it barely involved the mythic rules, but that was the reason our social contract was open to us being however overpowered we wanted to be.
I took those traits that made magic item crafting cheaper than the selling price and combined it with Leadership.
Then I just teleported around selling potions of cure light wounds and protection from evil to the entire Mendivian Crusade at extremely low prices while making mad bank.
My production capabilities reached the point where the thing that limited how many magic items I could craft for the personal use of the group was my daily crafting speed simply because the business made so much money.
This was superbroken, even before I took some time and crafted myself a CL 20 Staff of Wish which I could activate without spending any charges by spending mythic power instead, and make cast Mythic wish by spending a few more resources.
I finished this at around level 12, and basically used it as my default combat action.
lol. Such shenanigans! I’m guessing pocket dimensional workshops…?
What were you fighting that gave you a challenge?
I did have a pocket dimension, but that was mostly for food production and my own crafting. My followers mainly worked and lived in this city we had liberated.
Mainly we were fighting the forces of the Worldwound, but mostly we weren’t really challenged.
This did give us great opportunities for character moments and development, since we didn’t have to be 100% efficient tactical masterminds all the time to avoid ourselves or our friends dying horribly could do stuff like have one of our numbers duel a miniboss for control of their shared barbarian tribe, or take the time to talk with some prisoners to ensure that they where all right in the middle of storming an enemy fortress.
The latter case did lead into one of the few times we had any challenge since the Paladins exploration lead him to the Mythic Antipaladins lord of said fortress, who then proceeded to win initiative, smite him, and then full attack him for enough damage that not only did the paladin explode, so did the cleric due to the shield other he had cast beforehand.
Good times.
Was this the mythic AP? I have heard that one gets a bit silly with the powers towards the end.
It was and things did get a bit silly through just from the way the mythic rules work.
It was pretty fun through.
Well i had a pretty mean Pathfinder Combo for my Fighter. I had taken a one Lvl Dip in the Rogue Class with the “Thug” Archetype. I also had the “Dazzling Display” feat. What does this Combo do? Well with Dazzling Display you can make Enemies Shaken as a Full-Round Action by waving your Weapon around. The 1 Lvl Special Ability allows you to Upgrade the Shaken Condition to 1 Round of Frightend Condition, if you would have Shaken your Oponent for 4 Rounds. (Basically your Intimidate DC needs to be a bit higher.)
My Fighter wasn’t the most optimized Guy. But he was great at Intimidating even with Crap Charisma due Skill Points and other Feats.
So Frighten means you have to Run away from the Source of your Fear pretty fast. God damn the Ridiculus things i did with that:
BBEG smashes me into the Negatives in a single friggin Round. So my my Buddies heal and help me up: Dazzling Display, my Fighter yells Insults. BBEG looks at me in Terror and Teleports out. Boss Fight avoided. We Plunder the treasury!
We get Ambushed at Night by an Orc raiding Party. My Fighter gets Pincushion by Arrows and Spells in the Opening Round. (Still3/4 Hitpoints left D10 Hitdice FTW)
We get Sorounded by LOTS of Orcs. Dazzling Display. The Orcs flee In Terror. The Orc Chieften Yells: GET YOUR ASSES BACK HERE YOU WORMS! Scared of their Chieften the Orcs Storm at us again,…. Dazzling Display,… Rinse Repeat.
Basically I and the orc Chieften had a Yelleing Contest while the Orc Horde ran back and forth between us, and then Attacking again. All the While my Party Took their sweet time reducing their Numbers to Zero.
My DM then later asked me to switch out my Feats, since that Combo was a bit too Powerfull in some Situations. Sadly the Campaign died before i could.
That is the kind of combo that should occur from mixing rules. Not overpowered +infinite to hit, or being immortal, but being able to scare away a necromancer in six seconds. Sure, it’s overpowered in some situations, but you can have a lot more fun with it if you don’t abuse it. That combination, when used properly (as it was in the stories) is… beautiful. Or should I say dazzling?
Not that I can use it, since a) I don’t play pathfinder and b) I’ve been trying to move away from such builds, focusing on simpler builds so that I can put more effort into story. Maybe one day, when I have more expire mixing rules and story, and I’ve moved on to other gaming systems… maybe then, I’ll attempt a display as dazzling as that of the Footman.
I’ve had my eye on that build for a while. It looks like a lot of fun for the player, but I know I’d face palm pretty hard if I was GM. Props to you for your shouting match though! Sounds pretty hilarious.
I am currently GMing for a player whose character takes that to the logical extreme, being a Half-Orc Inquisitor with the spell Blistering Invective, which is like Dazzling Display, except it also sets enemies on fire. He recently rolled low on Intimidate and ended up with a 40.
I have dealt with this with, among other things, with packs of ranged enemies spread out over more than 30 feet (the spell’s range), having two waves of enemies (so the second show up after the Intimidate has gone off) enemies hyping themselves up on drugs that make them immune to fear, robots, super-optimized versions of the players’ previous player characters to freak them out (one hit the Inquisitor for 3/5ths of his heath, and he rolled a 1 on one of his attacks), and, I kid you not, a giant cannon.
I also have THRICE scared the players into panic – once with an encounter I admitted was me throwing together 5 of my spare PC builds (the players negotiated rather than fight), once with the aforementioned super-PC who halfed a player’s health in one attack (from range), and once from the cannon (the players just ran for cover). They have been having so much fun.
I’ve come a long way since Builds this Cheesy. My DM counterd it by giving us a lot of Undead and Construct Enemies, who are Immune to fear. I think i ruined a few Scenes my DM planed differently.
However that isn’t even the End of the Line: Now lets add the “Equipment Trick Cloak (Dazzling Trail)” wich adds 1d4 Rounds of shaken, (making you reach the 4 Rounds of shaken much easier) as well as Performance Combat and the “Intimidating Performance Feat.”
And now lets be an Antipaladin instead of a Fighter. Because the Antipaladin gets a Fear Aura at Lvl 3 that lets him remove Immunity to Fear 10 Feat around him.
Basically, through only a Swift Action EVERYTHING must flee from you. Yeah Ultra Cheesy.
That’s why I haven’t done the build yet myself. I like the idea of an intimidate build, but I wonder how to make the balanced, fun-to-play version…?
I must protest against the awful break of rules that Monk is doing. That is a horse race, so even if Monk insist in doing the race in her own foot then she need for his horse to mount she, otherwise she is breaking the rules 🙂
Apparently Vincenzo is considered to be “riding side saddle.” It’s technically legal.
In soviet russia, horse ride you!
Russia? Naw man. Vincenzo is from Philly.
With all the due respect but Vincenzo is from the Nine Hells of Baator, obviously.
I was thinking i don’t usually break or exploit the rules. That said i am far from a rules-abiding player. I personally prefer to twist the rules, to bend them. Thinking with D&D alignments every cheating player is evil, now using exploits without “breaking” the rules, like the peasant railgun, is lawful evil. Now players that break the rules are chaotic evil, self explaining. I prefer neutral evil, twist and corrupt the rules to my advantage. I am the kind of player who’s DM says “That is cheating, you monster” to which i respond “and it is complete legal, p.s. your mother” after turning Knock into a 2nd-level Finger of Death.
Speaking of both rule-bending and your mount riding you, I present this, the one-turn coup de grace build created by not me. The entire build hinges on the fact that your giant snake is riding you, not the other way round.
…I somehow didn’t put the link in that comment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/9th4wj/oneturn_coup_de_grace_a_counterbuild/
I’ve always been amused by the concept of a Bremen Town Musicians party. Everybody takes mounted combat and rides everybody else in a big derpy stack. It almost definitely doesn’t work on account of those “intelligent mount” worries you mentioned, but it could be a fun monster design one of these days.
Anywho, rapid grappler sounds like the next step in your build. Even when you’re built for combat maneuvers, it can be tough to hit some of those CMDs at high level, and the option to try again could be a real boon once you’re counter-charged.
In 5e, you don’t need a feat! We once had a sprite riding a kobolds riding a halfling riding a goat riding a goliath riding a giant goat. I mean, there are no rules against it*.
*By, “there are no rules against it”, I really mean, “nobody could remember if there were no rules against it, and I (the DM) was laughing to hard to be bothered to check.
While they didn’t do this in combat, I was so tempted to throw a random encounter at them while they were in stack formation, just to see what would happen.
Naw man. The feat isn’t a tax. It’s the point. Check it out:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/mounted-combat-combat-final/
You can also use intensify spell from APG to double that for just an increase of 1 spell level.
Nope. I’m not going to google the metamagic stacking rules. Not gonna do it. You can’t make me. Trying to understand it gives me a headache every time… 🙁
Isn’t complaining aboot Monk’s “Performance enhancing Ki” like complaining aboot Usain Bolt’s use of “legs”? Isn’t Ki an inherent energy that flows through all living beings?
One other way to abuse feather fall: in 5e, feather fall causes you to descend at 60 ft per round, and the spell only ends when you land or after a minute. It says nothing of if you are grabbed. So no matter how hard someone grabs you as you fall off the cliff, you will still fall at a rate of 60 ft per round if you have feather fall.
Say you have an adamantine chain. You can cast animate objects on one link, making it a creature and thus vulnerable to feather fall. You could then do several things, such as wrapping the chain around something, then letting go and casting feather fall immediately. The sentient chain link then falls and 60 ft per round, so the object is pulled down by infinite force, until the chain hits the ground, at which point the spell ends. You could use this to snap something, or to pull down a flying creature. Alternatively, you could through the chain at a falling object, thus catching it or breaking it.
And since adamantine is immune to non-magical damage, the chain will be fine!
I’ve got to hand it to you… You’ve got chutzpah. I suspect that a GM would point out that “rate of descent” != an infinite force, but I admire the audacity of the argument.
Oh my gosh. By RAW, a first level spell can provide theoretically infinite force. Lucky I’ve decided to move away from overpowered builds!
Yep… never going back… not even going to do one overpowered build… nope… feather fall won’t…. feather fall won’t make me.
Also, whenever someone says “chutzpah”, I immediately think of trash pandas and wonder why you’re saying that I’m a cunning racoon, and whether that’s a complement or not.
I do not understand this reference. Please explain. Use small words, as I have eaten too much turkey and am very sleepy.
Now I’ve never actually played Mythic, but I can say that the best Mythic story I’ve ever read was Lightwarden’s adventure with Elrond Hubble and pals murdering C’thulu by throwing a boat at him from lightyears away..
http://designofdragons.blogspot.com/2016/04/in-brightest-day-in-blackest-night-no.html
I know that story. Cracks my shit up every time. The concept of the boat itself is a freaking masterstroke.
I love this, the only thing that could make it better would be if it had been a steamboat instead of a supertanker, for the tradition.
Reading the mouse grenade story has given me a burning desire to play a close air support wizard. With a high enough constitution he would be the D&D version of an A-10 Warthog.
Called BERT, of course. Yes, the all-caps are mandatory.
BERT, eh? Bombardment and Evocation Response Technician?
I hadn’t thought much past this: http://i.imgur.com/9oMUS1t.jpg but that makes it even better.
#GigglingAtStarbucks
Haven’t actually pulled this off in a game but it occurred to me that you could store people and animals in a bag of holding as long as you want to without them suffocating. The statement in the rules that “If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate” is actually a meaningless tautology or vacuous truth because the bag’s interior is esplicitly stated to be non-dimensional, and therefore time doesn’t apply
I think Cleric would be proud of you: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/rules-lawyer
My GM doesn’t take well to players utilising rule exploits. It’s nothing compared to the examples presented by others but the closest I’ve come was using the Fey Form spell to transform into a muse. Pathfinder states that when polymorphed you gain a creatures natural attacks. The muse has a ranged touch attack that deals 4d6 sonic damage and can make 5 such attacks per round; there isn’t anything in the stat block to suggest it’s not a natural attack and as such is granted by the Fey Form spell. I’ve used it once and I’m not too inclined to use it again, party due to the GM not reacting too well but mostly because I don’t massively enjoy raw damage dealing.
You might have to go to the boards for this, but I think those sound strikes don’t work like that on account of the damage. Check out the natural attack rules:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules/#Natural_Attacks
It’s the bit that says “add the creature’s full Strength bonus on damage rolls” that gives me pause. That’s a straight 4d6 sonic, where a natural attack would be 4d6+2 from her 14 STR.
But hey, it’s clever rules malarkey, so it definitely counts for the purposes of this discussion!