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View Full Version : Game Breaking Cheese as a Villain's ultimate plan (3.5)



Coidzor
2009-05-20, 01:20 AM
Has anyone ever tried this or is it just too fourth-wall-breaking to be used tongue-in-cheekly?

Haven
2009-05-20, 01:37 AM
It would probably be a fun side-quest.

Mostly for the opportunity for the Bond one-liner "You've been errata'd."

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2009-05-20, 02:55 AM
It sets a bad precedent, if a villain could exploit a game mechanic, then one of the players is sure to try the same.

Swordguy
2009-05-20, 03:02 AM
It sets a bad precedent, if a villain could exploit a game mechanic, then one of the players is sure to try the same.

I'd point out it usually goes the OTHER direction in my experience - players are the ones who introduce game-breaking cheese, and thus the villains are free to use it in return. If the PCs didn't do in the first place, the NPCs won't do so in return.

BobVosh
2009-05-20, 03:17 AM
I'd point out it usually goes the OTHER direction in my experience - players are the ones who introduce game-breaking cheese, and thus the villains are free to use it in return. If the PCs didn't do in the first place, the NPCs won't do so in return.

I intentionally tell all my players this when they make thier characters. Think about what you want to do with the rules. You do it, so will I.

Kosjsjach
2009-05-20, 04:00 AM
I personally fell in love with the idea of some villains deliberately crafting a "Locate City Bomb"-wizard from some hapless inhabitant of an isolated northern clime.

There'd be warning signs, like a small town or city suddenly covered in a layer of frost... :smallamused:

Khanderas
2009-05-20, 09:16 AM
It sets a bad precedent, if a villain could exploit a game mechanic, then one of the players is sure to try the same.
Unless the mechanic calls for something villainous as a component. Horn of a unicorn, virgin sacrifice and all those things that classical villains try to do before they are stopped.

I mean why bother with blood of the innocents in summoning demons and whatnot, when you can just summon planar ally ?

Therefore the gamebreaking stuff, that needs to be stopped before the villains attain ULTIMATE POWER is something so vile (or rare) that it will not be a viable tactic for the players.


I'd point out it usually goes the OTHER direction in my experience - players are the ones who introduce game-breaking cheese, and thus the villains are free to use it in return. If the PCs didn't do in the first place, the NPCs won't do so in return.
True this. If the PC's can do something (forcecage + cloudkill as one example), villain casters will have that option as well from then on.

Glimbur
2009-05-20, 10:55 PM
There was a thought experiment on these boards called the Emerald Legion. It was a complex process of making trolls both immune to being killed and mind controlled by Illithids. That makes for quite the ultimate plan.

Tequila Sunrise
2009-05-20, 11:13 PM
To prevent the players from going cheesy after they defeat the Big Cheese (sorry couldn't resist :smallbiggrin:), tell them straight up that you're raising his CR or loading him up with extra usable loot. If the players don't feel "cheated" by a cheesy villain, they might not be tempted to cheese out their PCs.

Ravens_cry
2009-05-20, 11:17 PM
The way I see it, there is two kinds of game breaking cheese. There's in-world cheese, such as the osmium antimatter bomb. Game breaking? Quite likely, but an in-world solution. If one could create that much antimatter suddenly, it would do that kind of damage. In theory, I can see a villain doing such a thing.
Then there's rules cheese, the example I can think of is crafting an infinite amount of free items in no time. While technically Rules as Written, it makes no sense from a in-world perspective. A villain, along with his goals and desires, are part of the game world, so rules cheese is metagaming.

Superglucose
2009-05-20, 11:18 PM
Pull all the stops! As long as a plan has some form of counter I don't mind it being used... by me or against me.

Juggernaut1981
2009-05-20, 11:54 PM
My BBEGs often do "Brain Melting" Plans of surreal and inevitable domination... Like Illithids making a fashion item that gives them a "backdoor" into people's minds while also protecting them from other Will saves....

Game Breaking Cheese... sure, but things like the "Anti-matter bomb" are there for the "watch the world burn" maniacs... They generally don't make awesome BBEGs cause they aren't careful enough to have planned every escape contingency and organised things carefully for years...

I've been involved in some indulgent Cheese (Half-Clay Golem, etc, etc, etc that smashes almost everything in combat less powerful than Epic while maintaining a CR of about 10-12...) but really I don't get into that kind of thing. If the players "powergame" I tend to make their brains dribble out their ears with the broad scope and twists of the story...

But it's a fair thing to say "You don't power-cheese your characters, I won't power-cheese EVERY NPC you guys meet... Yes the Inn really is run by a Level 16 Bard... Yes the Head of the City Guard really has maxed out Justiciar and has a set of manacles with your names on them... Yes the ruler of this land IS an EPIC Fighter, but he's paying you cause he can't be stuffed trying to chase down a BBEG and maintain the city budget..."

chiasaur11
2009-05-21, 12:19 AM
You know what would be a great plan?

Cornering the ten foot pole market with cut up ladders.

You'd gain control of all the adventuring guilds in the world!

Zeful
2009-05-21, 12:33 AM
I'd point out it usually goes the OTHER direction in my experience - players are the ones who introduce game-breaking cheese, and thus the villains are free to use it in return. If the PCs didn't do in the first place, the NPCs won't do so in return.

Which is why, as part of the opening statement of every campaign a DM should point out the "acceptable maximum" level of optimization, and the consequences for violating that maximum (which should range from character death to permanent imprisonment).

Keld Denar
2009-05-21, 02:02 AM
Players find posters up all over the country proclaiming large amounts of cash for agreeing to be part of a "social experiment" on a given day. Players naturally check it out, thinking to either score some quick cash, or just because they can't let a good plot hook float by.

Players all show up on the designated day to find a large number of people milling about, being sorted into a long continueous line that stretches as far as the eye can see. A wizard is paying everyone in large quantities of vaguely bovine chunks of salt (made from Transmute Flesh to Salt) to form a line and being prepared to pass something along. The object to be passed is a large, leather bound book. The book has a time delayed contingency dispel magic prepped on it, and every square inch of the book is covered in explosive runes.

Yea...the evil wizard villian is paying commoners to form a Commoner Railgun to pass the magical equivalent of an ICBM with a time delayed fuse at a neighboring country. The commoners don't really know whats going on, all they care about is free salt! Wizo has spent the last month making the book, doing the maths, and preparing for his dastardly scheme to come to fruition. Its too silly not to work, and if the players have ever heard of any of these tricks, they'll probably fall on the floor laughing.

If the players figure out and try to stop this from occuring, the wizard instantly crafts a HUGE mound of quarterstaves and clubs to obscure himself before teleporting out.

Guancyto
2009-05-21, 02:19 PM
Depends on how meta your players are, and how familiar they are with cheese. If you tell them that the kobold villain is on a search for some mysterious progenitor race, they may either drop everything they're doing to kill him RIGHT NOW before he attains infinite power, or they may sit back and say, "so what?" YMMV.

Devils_Advocate
2009-05-21, 03:36 PM
Archivist: What can you hope to accomplish, Pun-pun, that you have not already achieved?
Artificer: Do you not already have everything you desire?!
Erudite: What point is there to wielding your enhanced abilities as an end in itself, without regards to the consequences?!
Planar Shepherd: Your power is without purpose!
Pun-pun: FOOLS! THERE IS NO PURPOSE BUT POWER! AND I SHALL DEFEAT YOU WITH THE MEREST FRACTION OF THE POWER WHICH I COULD POSSESS! SEE, NOW, WHAT I CAN BECOME, AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE AS NOTHING BEFORE ME!

*Pun-pun transforms into a solar*

*A high wind immediately picks up*

*Fast-paced organ music plays*


Unless the mechanic calls for something villainous as a component.
That just requires a player to have a sufficiently evil character in order to break the game.


The way I see it, there is two kinds of game breaking cheese. There's in-world cheese, such as the osmium antimatter bomb. Game breaking? Quite likely, but an in-world solution. If one could create that much antimatter suddenly, it would do that kind of damage. In theory, I can see a villain doing such a thing.
Then there's rules cheese, the example I can think of is crafting an infinite amount of free items in no time. While technically Rules as Written, it makes no sense from a in-world perspective. A villain, along with his goals and desires, are part of the game world, so rules cheese is metagaming.
In most D&D settings, an anti-osmium bomb is blatant metagaming, because it uses knowledge of physics way above the setting's tech level. It makes sense that someone can use that knowledge in the way that it's used, but it makes no in-world sense for them to have it in the first place.

Mind you, it makes no sense for a D&D setting to follow real-world particle physics either. We're talking about a universe with a plane of existence filled with elemental fire; do you really think it has protons in it?

Optimystik
2009-05-21, 03:38 PM
*Pun-pun transforms into a solar*

*A high wind immediately picks up*

*Fast-paced organ music plays*


I laughed at work when I read this, and people looked at me funny... :smallredface:

JeminiZero
2009-05-21, 03:43 PM
There was a thought experiment on these boards called the Emerald Legion. It was a complex process of making trolls both immune to being killed and mind controlled by Illithids. That makes for quite the ultimate plan.

Ask and ye shall receive: The Mindflayer's Guide to building near invincible super-soldiers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101587)

Yuki Akuma
2009-05-21, 03:46 PM
Archivist: What can you hope to accomplish, Pun-pun, that you have not already achieved?
Artificer: Do you not already have everything you desire?!
Erudite: What point is there to wielding your enhanced abilities as an end in itself, without regards to the consequences?!
Planar Shepherd: Your power is without purpose!
Pun-pun: FOOLS! THERE IS NO PURPOSE BUT POWER! AND I SHALL DEFEAT YOU WITH THE MEREST FRACTION OF THE POWER WHICH I COULD POSSESS! SEE, NOW, WHAT I CAN BECOME, AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE AS NOTHING BEFORE ME!

*Pun-pun transforms into a solar*

*A high wind immediately picks up*

*Fast-paced organ music plays*

This...

You have to run this. Or someone does.

Keld Denar
2009-05-21, 03:54 PM
I dun get it...please provide reference?

:P

Justin B.
2009-05-21, 04:12 PM
I actually did consider running a game that was influenced by the Locate City Bomb. Except, it wasn't called that, it was simply some vague form of magic that an evil wizard had devised as a way of coercing the powers that be to fall in line with his overall plan.

Mikeavelli
2009-05-21, 04:19 PM
I've always wanted to run a campaign that consists of the Players wandering around and fighting individuals who have discovered a loophole in the rules of the Multiverse, and are exploiting that for their own gain.

It would be a Planescape campaign, most of them would be Guvners, and it would start with small-scale abuses, and go from there.

The planned progression was to start with a Cancer Mage who infected himself with diseases that would give him effectively infinitely increasing Strength and Natural armor with no drawbacks, go from there to a Metamagic-Persisting Greater Consumptive Field Cleric who spams Blasphemy, and go from there.

The end boss BBEG would, of course, be Pun-pun.

Ravens_cry
2009-05-21, 04:22 PM
In most D&D settings, an anti-osmium bomb is blatant metagaming, because it uses knowledge of physics way above the setting's tech level. It makes sense that someone can use that knowledge in the way that it's used, but it makes no in-world sense for them to have it in the first place.

Mind you, it makes no sense for a D&D setting to follow real-world particle physics either. We're talking about a universe with a plane of existence filled with elemental fire; do you really think it has protons in it?

This knowledge could come from that individual mage/scientists own personal research. Magical particle accelerators. Oh, the catgirl killing possibilities are endless.
Most Fantasy acts like 'Reality unless noted'. Yes, there's magic. Yes, there are planes of fire,. yes life has at least a mild elen vital component. And the laws of genetics are more then a little screwy. Not to mention thermodynamics. But otherwise I expect it to be the same.

Yuki Akuma
2009-05-21, 04:32 PM
I've always wanted to run a campaign that consists of the Players wandering around and fighting individuals who have discovered a loophole in the rules of the Multiverse, and are exploiting that for their own gain.

It would be a Planescape campaign, most of them would be Guvners, and it would start with small-scale abuses, and go from there.

The planned progression was to start with a Cancer Mage who infected himself with diseases that would give him effectively infinitely increasing Strength and Natural armor with no drawbacks, go from there to a Metamagic-Persisting Greater Consumptive Field Cleric who spams Blasphemy, and go from there.

The end boss BBEG would, of course, be Pun-pun.

Please run this game. On these forums. I will love you forever.

The Gilded Duke
2009-05-21, 04:32 PM
I've been off and on planning a one shot race against time adventure where a bunch of different factions (including the pcs) are trying to find the rare Sarrukh so that they can become familiar with it before anyone else does. The Sarrukh meanwhile is oblivious to all the commotion.

I have had portable hole / bag of holding bombs used in campaigns before, both by players and by npcs.

Keld Denar
2009-05-21, 04:40 PM
The planned progression was to start with a Cancer Mage who infected himself with diseases that would give him effectively infinitely increasing Strength and Natural armor with no drawbacks, go from there to a Metamagic-Persisting Greater Consumptive Field Cleric who spams Blasphemy, and go from there.

The end boss BBEG would, of course, be Pun-pun.

Don't forget about the Hulking Hurler, the Ruby Knight Windicator (Chuck), and the d2 Crusader. Really, you probably wouldn't even see Chuck when you encounter him...just random countries around the world would burst into flame and there would be a few reverse meteor showers as thousands of people were flung through the atmosphere causing them to burst into flames due to atmospheric friction.

Every other round.

Devils_Advocate
2009-05-21, 06:14 PM
I dun get it...please provide reference?

:P
See #188. (http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html) (For that matter, read the rest of the list, too. It's funny, even if you don't play CRPGs.)


But otherwise I expect it to be the same.
Well, my point is that that doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation to me. A world's natural laws are interrelated: If one is different from our own, I'd expect others to be different, too. Yeah, there are surface similarities, but those just fill the story role of keeping the setting familiar, instead of completely bizarre and alien.

Basically, I tentatively assume that the average man on the street's everyday perception of a fictional world is the same as my perception of my world until it's specified otherwise. But I don't assume that precipitation happens in a world where there's an actual weather deity to send the rain. There's no point in a fantastic replacement for the water cycle if the water cycle is still there. Basically, I assume we're rewinding to when people thought water was an element and spirits were responsible for natural cycles and all sorts of things we disbelieve now, and saying, hey, in this world all that stuff is right, and people can observe it to be right. It seems obvious that we should assume that all of our modern explanations of phenomena get tossed out, if we're dealing with a world where the ancient explanations are right.

But I guess that maybe I'm strange in seeing "Just like our world, but also with magic everywhere" as being very counterintuitive, almost contradictory. It makes no sense to me to assume that you can just toss in magic and leave everything else the same. (As I once saw it put: A good fantasy world either has an explanation for why spellcasters don't rule the world, or a group of spellcasters who rule the flippin' world.)

Random NPC
2009-05-21, 06:20 PM
Archivist: What can you hope to accomplish, Pun-pun, that you have not already achieved?
Artificer: Do you not already have everything you desire?!
Erudite: What point is there to wielding your enhanced abilities as an end in itself, without regards to the consequences?!
Planar Shepherd: Your power is without purpose!
Pun-pun: FOOLS! THERE IS NO PURPOSE BUT POWER! AND I SHALL DEFEAT YOU WITH THE MEREST FRACTION OF THE POWER WHICH I COULD POSSESS! SEE, NOW, WHAT I CAN BECOME, AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE AS NOTHING BEFORE ME!

*Pun-pun transforms into a solar*

*A high wind immediately picks up*

*Fast-paced organ music plays*


Win. This needs to be played indeed!!!

Mikeavelli
2009-05-21, 07:03 PM
Please run this game. On these forums. I will love you forever.

That makes me sad finals are coming up.

I'll let you know if I ever have the free time to run a decent game.

Zolem
2009-05-21, 07:14 PM
If the players figure out and try to stop this from occuring, the wizard instantly crafts a HUGE mound of quarterstaves and clubs to obscure himself before teleporting out.

This si going in the signature.

Keld Denar
2009-05-21, 07:45 PM
This si going in the signature.

Yay, I've been sigged!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!

Devils_Advocate
2009-05-21, 09:31 PM
Yuki, if you like that idea for a campaign so much, why don't you marry run it?

A game actually run by me would be... interesting. I have almost no experience playing RPGs (be they pen and paper or electronic), and not much with Tolkienesque fantasy, mythology, nor social interaction. I have to assume that the gameworld would consist almost entirely of various cliches, stereotypes, and archetypes.

One potential upshot of this is that recurring themes in the source material would become recurring themes in the setting. So as a result, for example, no one is overly upset about the BBEG's plot to take over the world, because this sort of thing happens all the time and invariably works itself out.

Yuki Akuma
2009-05-22, 05:40 AM
Yuki, if you like that idea for a campaign so much, why don't you marry run it?

My track record for GMing is incredibly awful.

Devils_Advocate
2009-05-22, 03:07 PM
Maybe you just hadn't hit on the right type of game to run yet?

Eh? Eh? Eh.

quick_comment
2009-05-22, 03:59 PM
I think it would make a great campaign to stop the BBEG from ascending to pun-pun status.

First, they have to find the one sarrukh that exists before the villian does. Then they need to protect it. Then, after they fail, they need to rescue it before the villian can mindrape it into compliance. Maybe add in some ritual he needs to do, because mindrape has a short casting time.

Keld Denar
2009-05-22, 04:17 PM
Maybe add in some ritual he needs to do, because mindrape has a short casting time.

Rule of DMing 304: Events happen at the speed the plot requires them to. No more, no less. PCs will arive right at the end of the ritual, irregardless of how long the ritual takes.

Eldariel
2009-05-22, 04:20 PM
Rule of DMing 304: Events happen at the speed the plot requires them to. No more, no less. PCs will arive right at the end of the ritual, irregardless of how long the ritual takes.

Screw that. Much more awesome for the PCs to pay for taking too long. ****ing slowpokes deserve to die in the BBEG's ritual. Leave the "arriving at the critical point" to CRPGs.

quick_comment
2009-05-22, 04:22 PM
Rule of DMing 304: Events happen at the speed the plot requires them to. No more, no less. PCs will arive right at the end of the ritual, irregardless of how long the ritual takes.


Well, without the ritual, there isnt any beliveable reason for the ascension to take more than a few rounds after the BBEG obtains the sarrukh.

Oooh, an interesting idea would be to have the final battle take place during the ascension. If the players take too long, suddenly his abilities start to shoot up exponentially. Suddenly he starts gaining abilities he shouldnt have, and so on.

Mikeavelli
2009-05-22, 09:40 PM
I lied.

I'm going to run it. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6138414#post6138414)

chiasaur11
2009-05-22, 11:07 PM
Screw that. Much more awesome for the PCs to pay for taking too long. ****ing slowpokes deserve to die in the BBEG's ritual. Leave the "arriving at the critical point" to CRPGs.

Ah, yes.

Because just telling the players that rocks fall and everyone dies is just too subtle. Besides, if you can't waste time starting barfights and carousing with wenches, what's the point of adventuring?

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-22, 11:29 PM
Ah, yes.

Because just telling the players that rocks fall and everyone dies is just too subtle. Besides, if you can't waste time starting barfights and carousing with wenches, what's the point of adventuring?DM: Lord Puppykiller Von Rape has gathered the 9 shards of MacGuffin and is starting the ritual to end the world! What do you do?
Party: Eh, we're low on spell slots. We rest 8 hours and go after him in the morning.
DM: ...You die.

Really, do you expect anything else? Yes, the party should get downtime, and be allowed to rest at a reasonable pace, but the DM shouldn't allow the world to wait for them. It ruins the feel of the game.

chiasaur11
2009-05-23, 12:50 AM
DM: Lord Puppykiller Von Rape has gathered the 9 shards of MacGuffin and is starting the ritual to end the world! What do you do?
Party: Eh, we're low on spell slots. We rest 8 hours and go after him in the morning.
DM: ...You die.

Really, do you expect anything else? Yes, the party should get downtime, and be allowed to rest at a reasonable pace, but the DM shouldn't allow the world to wait for them. It ruins the feel of the game.

Quite reasonable.

On the other hand, the only possible result for late here is "world exploded", and that wrecks campaigns quite as well as an eight hour naps every couple of encounters. Now, if there's a good medium state that punishes without exterminating...

Eldariel
2009-05-23, 04:59 AM
Quite reasonable.

On the other hand, the only possible result for late here is "world exploded", and that wrecks campaigns quite as well as an eight hour naps every couple of encounters. Now, if there's a good medium state that punishes without exterminating...

Meh, they should have enough brains to realize that the friggin' ritual isn't waiting for them. I mean, if they arrive on the right day, sure, the ritual might already be underway when they get there if you feel that's climatic (provided no other information has been given), but if they let the BBEG ascend to godhood or some such, it's their own damn fault and they'd better die for it.

I mean, why bother stopping a ritual if it doesn't have bad enough repercussions to lead to the PCs dying in the first place? The big last fight is a campaign end-point anyways; deciding not to fight that final fight doesn't really make the campaign last any longer.


My personal rule of DMing: PCs may do whatever they want (within the rules laid out in the start of the game) with no intervention from me, but they will experience the consequences whatever they decide to do.

Just because they decide to attack the king doesn't mean the guards should suddenly be a CR appropriate encounter. It just helps them to moderate themselves.

Zeful
2009-05-23, 05:29 PM
Quite reasonable.

On the other hand, the only possible result for late here is "world exploded", and that wrecks campaigns quite as well as an eight hour naps every couple of encounters. Now, if there's a good medium state that punishes without exterminating...

There's a lot you can do without out-right killing the party. You can simply have whoever hired them send out a new group and then refuse to pay the party. Tribes move. Villains die or fake their own death. Kings die and are replaced.

imp_fireball
2009-05-23, 06:02 PM
Game Breaking Cheese... sure, but things like the "Anti-matter bomb" are there for the "watch the world burn" maniacs... They generally don't make awesome BBEGs cause they aren't careful enough to have planned every escape contingency and organised things carefully for years...

You sure? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OmnicidalManiac) I'd hope that according to the examples, a lot of them do in fact make plans.

In rainbow six (first novel) at least.

Yuki Akuma
2009-05-23, 06:46 PM
There's a lot you can do without out-right killing the party. You can simply have whoever hired them send out a new group and then refuse to pay the party. Tribes move. Villains die or fake their own death. Kings die and are replaced.

Campaign antagonists ascend to godhood and exterminate the PCs that they have a personal dislike of by now...