Favourite system breaks and abuses

[Koumei]

Yeah, buff-stacking is very important for quite a few boss fights in Odin Sphere, and you might even want it for some of the 5-star stages. Because if there are 20+ mooks on screen, you really want to 1-shot them.

Buff-stacking is obvious for N1 games. You can take out a boss more than double the attacker's level by having a combo of 5x Braveheart (the ATT boost), making sure it hits both the attacker and the enemy so as to build up the combo (which boosts damage) and then the actual attacker unleashing an attack when his ATT is now something like double what it normally is, while getting the damage% boost of a 6-hit combo.

Granted, N1 games are all about that. "Win on turn 1, or die by turn 2."

[Whatever]

I still don't understand how the Difference Engine works on skill-points in a multi-class situation (the previous link). It's probably not important.

It's not, because no one is going to use the Difference Engine in actual play. But here's the basic rundown:

1) Gaining a level of Fighter lets you "buy" Intimidate at a one-for-one rate, because it is a Class Skill
2) Gaining a level of Paladin lets you "buy" Sense Motive at a one-for-one rate, because it is a Class Skill

3) Losing a level of Fighter lets you "sell" Sense Motive at a two-for-one rate, because it is a Cross-Class Skill
4) Losing a level of Paladin lets you "sell" Intimidate at a two-for-one rate, because it is a Cross-Class Skill

So let's imagine a Fighter 2/Paladin 2. On his Fighter levels, he buys 2 ranks of Intimidate, with his 2 skill points. On his Paladin levels, he buys 2 ranks of Sense Motive, with his 2 skill points. He now has 4 ranks in each skill (we'll ignore the 1st level skill bonus for now).

Now he loses a level in Fighter, dropping 1 rank in Sense Motive (since that costs a Fighter 2 skill points). He also loses a level in Paladin, dropping 1 rank in Intimidate (since that costs a Paladin 2 skill points). Now as a level 2 character he has 3 ranks in each skill. When he gains those levels back, he can again take 2 ranks in Intimidate with the Fighter level, and 2 in Sense Motive with the Paladin level, for a total of 5 ranks in each skill. Free skill points for no reason!

[Archmage Joda]

One of my personal favorites back in the day was the H.I.V.E., which usedthe Book of Vile Darkness' hivemind rules, along with a prestige class called Verminlord, which let one establish a hivemind. Add in massive swarms, establish hivemind, and oh hey, there's a stupidly high level sorcerer at your beck and call. I don't know if that trick still works, but when I first read it I liked it.

Another one I liked was the Arcane Nova I saw that is archived here

[Dominicius]

The only trick I ever came up with was something I called the Sasori Necromancer.

For this I prefer to use a small sized race (but I prefer the child necromancer feat if I can get my hands on it). First thing you do is capture a large creature (I prefer to use some sort of reptilian with the body pouch feat) and use Use Magic Jar to take possession of it. Then place your original body along with the jar into body of the host.

You are now the D&D equivalent of Sasori.

[cthulhu]

I still don't understand how the Difference Engine works on skill-points in a multi-class situation (the previous link). It's probably not important.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any real abuses or exploits I use. Generally any character I make is exactly as the writers seemed to intend (if using Den stuff) or exactly as the writers intended except the writers didn't consider that buff spells actually stack or whatever (WotC stuff - hi, Grapplemancer!)

The biggest rules abuse I have ever done is when given a level 1 pregen wizard asking the GM if I could change one spell. Upon assent, I crossed out 'magic missle' and replaced it with 'colour spray.'

[CatharzGodfoot]

Little low-level characters with flying companion animals.

Examples: gnome druid with an eagle companion, hobbit wizard with reduce person and a raven familiar.

[virgil]

I went with using reduce person on my halfling and then casting unseen servant.

[Whipstitch]

Being a mage in Shadowrun. That's pretty much the whole exploit.

[Ancient History]

I just remembered one after taking a gander at the White Wolf Wiki. THer was this really abysmal supplement for Dark Ages called Wolves of the Sea or something, which let you play a vampire viking or some shit. It was mostly worthless, but in the very back was a special merit that let vampires learn Hedge Magic paths and power their abilities and rituals with blood points. It was designed so people weren't supposed to go overboard with that kind of shit, but this was oWoD and nobody cared, so they poked around and found some ruling in the revised Sorcerer book that let hedge wizards learn Mummy the Resurrection rituals as hedge magic rituals.

You following where I'm going with this? Viking vampire blood sorcerers learning Egyptian mummy high-powered necromantic rituals. And it was surprisingly affordable, provided you could get your GM to buy into you stringing together rules from three different books that were never meant to go together.

OWoD had a lot of weird shit like that...I remember one where some Mage supplement for infernalists had a special merit where you could be a sort of half-demon - your mom/dad was possessed by a demon and you inherited 4 points investment infernal power. Which you could spend on a crappy pact like breathing fire or, if you looked farther afield, up to 4 points of Dark Thaumaturgy or any of the rarely-used "infernal" disciplines from Vampire: the Dark Ages. Which meant you could be a half-demon D'habi revenant with more juice than most starting Baali characters.

[Koumei]

You following where I'm going with this? Viking vampire blood sorcerers learning Egyptian mummy high-powered necromantic rituals.

That sounds like a Rifts character.

[Prak]

So, my friend gave me an interesting idea in Mage, and I worked out how to do it:

Spell: "Ferrous Prison of the Body"
You touch the target, and turn them into an iron statue.
Life 5 Matter 2
Difficulty 10 (with witnesses) or 9 (without)

and the lesser version
"Calcify Muscles"
You touch the target, and cause their bones to spring into production of calcium, which shoots through their body, heavily calcifying their muscles, but causing no real damage.
Life 4 Matter 2
Difficulty 9 (with witnesses) or 8 (without)

You can start with Calcify Muscles easily, if you're ok with spending most of your freebie points, but it'll cost you 28 or 32 experience points to advance to Ferrous Prison of the Body, depending on Tradition

However, if you play a Verbena, Life is your primary sphere, and you get an automatic dot in it. You spend your five free sphere dots on another 4 dots Life, and one Matter, then you take 7 points of flaws and throw 20 FP into your Arete, to start with Arete 6, and you can get both spells after two to three sessions of playing a druid.

[TheFlatline]

That's a hell of a lot of XP to do one or two tricks.

How about shit like:

Spell: Supermagnet
You pull all of the iron out of a target. This works down to the molecular level.
Forces 3 (maybe 4), and let's say Correspondence 1 or 2.


Still vulgar, but difficulty is lower, and dropping a vampire straight into torpor is a beautiful thing.