Favourite system breaks and abuses

[Prak]

Inspired by the unconventional wisdom thread.

So we know there are a lot of abuses and breaks in a lot of systems. What are peoples' favourite ones to use when they're playing those systems?

For my part, I'd have to say using "Like rage but different" stuff. I've counted four rage(like) abilities that can all be used simultaneous cumulative boost, and Bear Warrior replaces your Rage bonuses with the Racial Ability Bonus of a bear. So, basically, by tenth level, you can probably have roughly a 50 str in combat after Ability score and a potion.


Weak, I know, but fun. Which may be the crux of these favoured abuses. They're definitely abusive, but they're fun, and not the most game wrecking thing possible.

[MGuy]

Summoning and Scribe Scroll. Before I even thought deeply about the game I realized that, when playing, these were my favorite things to do. I didn't need special magic items because I made scrolls. I didn't need to be "in" the room where stuff was happening because I could flood simple dungeon rooms with summoned creatures. In any MMO I play the game has to provide me with a class that has a competent pet. If it doesn't I lose interest in it immediately. That interest applied to DnD earlier in my gaming career and it still somewhat appeals to me today.

[Vebyast]

I play with mathematical edge cases. For example, DND3.x's template system has a great deal of well-documented weirdness; in GURPS4e, you can build ridiculously powerful characters by exploiting rounding errors in 1-point and 2-point customizable advantages. The vast majority of video games hiccup if you can get a weapon that deals exactly 1 damage with incredible frequency. That sort of thing.

[TheFlatline]

Cross-WOD games always created bizzare game-breaking shit. Mages and Changelings though were the most broken I think. Changelings could do something called "call upon the wyrd" by blowing glamour which would let their fae magic work easier and leave humans kind of dazed and unable to remember what happened. It also made all magic coincidental within it's sphere of influence.

So if a changeling called on the wyrd you could turn vampires into lawn chairs and shit without worrying about paradox biting you on the ass.

I also remember dumping a lot of points into sanctum, which gives you a place where you can practice magic and all magic is considered coincidental, and stocking up on correspondence magic. I forgot the exact way I did it, but I believe I created a magic item that was a portal that I could "cast into" that led directly to my sanctum, which was basically the size of an airline hanger. I'd use correspondence to co-locate my sanctum on top of wherever I was when the shit started happening, so that both my sanctum and the area I was in was essentially in the same place and you could interact with both. Due to my gizmo, that was coincidental since i essentially didn't cast where I was at but in my sanctum (originally I'd just eat the paradox). Once the locations co-existed in the same place, I'd start using all my nastiest, most paradox-sucking spells that I could, but I'd use them in my sanctum and have them effect people in the other area without risking paradox. It's kind of broken, but really that's how correspondence fucked things up. The game stopped being fun when suddenly vulgarity of magic went away.

Mage was full of that kind of shit.

[Josh_Kablack]

Generally, I favor buffing and debuffing characters - as those tend to be stupidly effective in a lot of systems and yet can be played to allow other player characters to shine. In D&D this tends to mean various types of cleric - from the 3.5 cleric who left the archery to the rest of the party to the 4.0 astral seal madness pacifist cleric who had all the divine power stacking penalty powers but couldn't deal damage to playing a White Mage in DC's Sharn Watch game. Likewise, one of my longer-running Champions characters involved a VPP of Aids and Drains - which was stupidly crazy any time we could get the drop on the bad guys and only really good the rest of the time.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Using polymorph any object (I know, I'm bad) to create a giant steel ball to drop on a dragon.

[Josh_Kablack]

Heh.

As MC, I once ran a dungeon where the trapped doorways had been constructed using PaO - so throwing a dispel on the magic traps also caused the ceiling to collapse as the stones reverted to their original size and shapes.

That was the same game where polymorphing critters with various Death Throes (Ex) abilities into other critters happened a couple times.

[virgil]

I loved using polymorph any object to transform a small steel cube into a 200' steel stepped pyramid with a high quality trap on the apex (mechanical, proximity, single target, auto-reset, +14 touch attack, 22d6 damage). The thing was placed such that the apex was immediately below the flying BBEG, so it was automatically set off, and the creature didn't move the next round so it got hit again.

[TheFlatline]

Can you *make* complex mechanical forms out of PaO?

*googles*

Apparently yes, yes you can *rubs temples*.

Hi! I use polymorph any object to make machine guns. If I start out with steel, it should be permanent. The ammo should last a week or so. Let's see how well Dungeons & Uzis play now.

Wait fuck that. PaO to make a bomb. There you go.

[virgil]

If the weapon doesn't exist in the setting, I don't see why I can make it. Besides, +14 touch for 22d6 is better than any mundane gun. I liked doing that because not only did I get to use it in actual play, but I didn't overshadow the melee types; I was about par with them in that use.

[CapnTthePirateG]

If there's gunpowder, why not giant gunpowder bombs?

[Aharon]

The DMG has rules for modern and futuristic weapons, so by strict RAW (and the thread is about RAW abuse, after all), these can be PAO'd. They deal far less damage than the trap, though.

[Whatever]

I'm a big fan of the "Frank Cheat". Simple and straightforward, although the 3.0->3.5 transition did limit it significantly.

[Cynic]

What is the "frank cheat?"

Are we talking "Wish and Word?"

[virgil]

Using extend and other such to cast buffs that last longer than 8 hours, so you can buff yourself, rest, and prepare a full selection of spells with level appropriate buffs that don't cost anything for your adventuring day.

[Ravengm]

A glossary.

[Whatever]

Using extend and other such to cast buffs that last longer than 8 hours, so you can buff yourself, rest, and prepare a full selection of spells with level appropriate buffs that don't cost anything for your adventuring day.

Or just cast spells that last for >24 hours, so that they're still in effect the next day. Back when you could stack Extend 2 or 3 times on the same spell, this was easy enough to do.

[fectin]

I followed all the way back. The folks on Nifty were something else.

[erik]

I believe my friend-gaming-group had always assumed that wizards could prep after 8 hour rests, just rarely ever (ab)used it.

[Prak]

I believe my friend-gaming-group had always assumed that wizards could prep after 8 hour rests, just rarely ever (ab)used it.

Hell, I tend to go with a house rule of letting casters refill spell slots after a proportionate amount of rest (ie, if you only have four spells per day, total, and want to refill one expended slot, I let you do so after two hours of rest.)

Yes, I know. My friends tend to suck at playing wizards, or being playing solo, so it's not a huge deal in my groups.

[rasmuswagner]

In GURPS, anything involving the words "Innate Attack" and/or "Cosmic" needs close scrutiny. Starting characters can crack the planet or kill just kill eveeryone without paranormal defenses, in multiple ways, if you let them run rampant in character generation.

[Lago PARANOIA]

My absolute favorite glitch would be the total gameplay derailment of perfect defenses in Exalted. This is probably the greatest example of an exploit that destroys gameplay yet is less worse than playing as intended.

[Koumei]

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!)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I followed all the way back. The folks on Nifty were something else.

Surprisingly, there's no instance of me saying something really stupid on that thread. The height of the "Nifty" board was a really bad time for me (for unrelated reasons), and I said and did a lot of things I regret...

[Maxus]

I tend to go for every conceivable buff and advantage I can muster up when I go that way.

Not a tabletop RPG example, but...

One of my favorite gamer moments over the past few years is when a friend of mine was hanging out and we shooting the shit while I played Odin Sphere. I came up on a boss and he was all "Oh. Man, this boss is IMPOSSIBLE, it took me twenty tries" and then I handled it easily because I burned a lot of potions, buffs, and spells and sort of waxed the boss in two combos (albeit one of the got a critical...when I had doubled attack power...and a spell going that means every hit is replicated two more times as half-strength...)