I'm Mr. Meeseeks! Optimize me!

[TheIronGolem]

I'd like to explore ways to optimize the use of a Meeseeks Box (http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Meeseeks_Box).

Now admittedly, there's probably nothing Mr. Meeseeks can do that any T1/T2 caster couldn't do, so he would have little to add to a Tippyverse or other high-magic world. But it seems to me that a Meeseeks Box is essentially a turbocharged Chicken Infested, and just look at what people have done with that.

Let's begin by setting some parameters for safe and happy Meeseeksing:

Assume a world that is RAW-compliant, but not TO-level.
You exist in this world as yourself; you have your real-world knowledge and of course your knowledge of RAW, but you're a 1st-level commoner with no resources other than the Meeseeks Box.
Assume that you are the first person to find/discover the Box, and you know what it is and what it does.
Mr. Meeseeks can access whatever skills or abilities he needs to accomplish his task, but only for the purposes of his task, and nothing beyond that.
Mr. Meeseeks' competence may fail him in tasks that require action on the part of others. For instance, he may not be able to help you take two strokes off of your golf game, because the task depends as much on you as it does on Mr. Meeseeks.
Assume there is no limit to the number of Meeseeks that can exist at a time.
To mitigate the chance of Mr. Meeseeks going insane, his tasks should be limited to no more than a few hours in duration.


I'll start with something relatively simple (by TO standards): a perpetual motion machine.

Start with some kind of hand-cranked machine, like a mill. If you don't have one, you can have Mr. Meeseeks build it for you. Next, summon Mr. Meeseeks and give him the following order: "Operate this machine for two hours, then summon a new Meeseeks and pass these orders on to him". You now have a machine under constant operation by a limitless supply of fresh workers - a modest source of free energy. The only limitation is that you need to keep the Meeseeks Box handy, and of course you can always initiate a new line of Meeseeks with the same procedure to guard the box itself.

[Renen]

Well point 7 really is mitigated just by having Mr. Meeseeks do something for a few hours and then just summoning a new one to replace him. Just gotta have the box around.

[Ashtagon]

Start with some kind of hand-cranked machine, like a mill. If you don't have one, you can have Mr. Meeseeks build it for you. Next, summon Mr. Meeseeks and give him the following order: "Operate this machine for two hours, then summon a new Meeseeks and pass these orders on to him". You now have a machine under constant operation by a limitless supply of fresh workers - a modest source of free energy. The only limitation is that you need to keep the Meeseeks Box handy, and of course you can always initiate a new line of Meeseeks with the same procedure to guard the box itself.

I'm not sure this can work. From what I know of the cartoon, a meeseeks can't vanish until the overall task is complete, at which point all the meeseeks must vanish. You also can't change a meeseeks instructions once they have been given.

I haven't seen evidence either way as to whether the user can directly instruct a meeseks to summon more meeseeks, but in those episodes I saw, it only ever happened at the discretion of the meeseeks.

[eggynack]

I'm not sure this can work. From what I know of the cartoon, a meeseeks can't vanish until the overall task is complete, at which point all the meeseeks must vanish. You also can't change a meeseeks instructions once they have been given.

I haven't seen evidence either way as to whether the user can directly instruct a meeseks to summon more meeseeks, but in those episodes I saw, it only ever happened at the discretion of the meeseeks.
They never really gave any tasks of that partial form. As long as the actual task is to do a particular thing for a certain length of time, then it should be fine. If not, then you can always tie the task to some sort of external object, like turning the crank until some meter is some distance beyond where it was when they started. As for a meeseeks summoning other meeseeks, I don't really see why that'd be impossible. There's no apparent difference between a human summoning one and a meeseeks doing it, and using a meeseeks box is a viable task. I mean, all of this would inevitably go horribly wrong, for such is the show, but it sounds good on paper.

[Inevitability]

Can Mr. Meeseeks create new Meeseeks Boxes? If so, that would make this far more interesting.

[Taelas]

Be very, very careful with creating an infinite loop of Meeseeks. Your perpetual motion machine would never be able to STOP working. If you remove the machine, the latest summoned one goes insane and probably kills you.

[eggynack]

Be very, very careful with creating an infinite loop of Meeseeks. Your perpetual motion machine would never be able to STOP working. If you remove the machine, the latest summoned one goes insane and probably kills you.
True. If you don't want it actually infinite, you'd probably want some end condition, like, "And then call upon another meeseeks to perform this same task unless that light over there shines blue." We're still working with a show that's fundamentally about unintended consequences, so there's really not much you can do to avert the horror wrought by toying with things beyond our understanding, but as of right now, I suppose it again works on paper. You'd really want to define the objects in general terms too, lest the specificity of the objects causes their destruction to bring about meeseeks insanity.

[Ashtagon]

These meeseeks are essentially a free source of manual labour. Build a factory. Give them orders each morning that essentially say "operate those machines until the sun sets". If there is more than one machine, the meeseeks will automatically call on more meeseeks to operate the remaining unused machines.

The only way this would go wrong is if the sun never sets. At which point you've probably got bigger problems.

[Inevitability]

The only way this would go wrong is if the sun never sets. At which point you've probably got bigger problems.

Father Llymic says hi.

[TheIronGolem]

True. If you don't want it actually infinite, you'd probably want some end condition, like, "And then call upon another meeseeks to perform this same task unless that light over there shines blue." We're still working with a show that's fundamentally about unintended consequences, so there's really not much you can do to avert the horror wrought by toying with things beyond our understanding, but as of right now, I suppose it again works on paper. You'd really want to define the objects in general terms too, lest the specificity of the objects causes their destruction to bring about meeseeks insanity.

I don't think that's correct. Mr. Meeseeks and the Box are imports from the Rick & Morty world; we're still operating in the D&D world where RAW is king. So I don't think it's fair to say that any venture involving Mr. Meeseeks must inevitably fail, at least not on grounds of narrative causality. If disaster is inevitable, it's more in a Dwarf Fortress kind of way. And I'm not even sure that that's a given, since a) the Box can theoretically hold off entropy indefinitely, and b) Mr. Meeseeks genuinely wants to help; he only goes Jackass Genie if he's forced to stay around too long.

[ComaVision]

Since it's a RAW world:

Summon Meeseeks, tell him him to sell 5 chickens and bring the gold back to you. (Obviously, you're a chicken-infested commoner.) Repeat infinity times.

[TheIronGolem]

Since it's a RAW world:

Summon Meeseeks, tell him him to sell 5 chickens and bring the gold back to you. (Obviously, you're a chicken-infested commoner.) Repeat infinity times.

Better yet, have him run the ladders-to-poles exploit (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?34124-D-amp-D-Glitches-and-Powerbuilds). That makes it hands-off for you, and removes the Chicken-Infested requirement.

It occurs to me that you wouldn't want Mr. Meeseeks to bring the money directly to you, though. You'd end up being constantly hounded at all hours by Meeseeks trying to hand you coins, Sorcerer's Apprentice style. Have him deposit the money somewhere safe; a bank is ideal if the world has them, but in a pinch you could even just use a big box under constant guard by another chain of Meeseeks.

[Taelas]

A ten-foot ladder may be split into two ten-foot long wooden poles, but that doesn't mean those poles are the equivalent of the ten-foot pole from the PHB. A ladder-made pole has holes for the rungs, for one thing.

[The Random NPC]

A ten-foot ladder may be split into two ten-foot long wooden poles, but that doesn't mean those poles are the equivalent of the ten-foot pole from the PHB. A ladder-made pole has holes for the rungs, for one thing.

Do we know the ladder doesn't look like this?
http://www.bsatroop780.org/skills/images/full_ladder.gif
The are much easier to make, after all.

[Inevitability]

If the ladder exploit doesn't work, how about smelting iron pots into bars of iron, then selling that iron?

Alternatively, have the Meeseeks constantly harvest silver from a spell component pouch. The material component for the Blinding Glory spell is 'a polished rod of pure silver'. No cost is given, however, so the component is essentially free and thus available in a SCP. Meeseeks can take out an infinite number of rods per turn (tell him to stop once a certain amount of silver has been taken) then smelt it into silver bars and sell those.

[Taelas]

Do we know the ladder doesn't look like this?
http://www.bsatroop780.org/skills/images/full_ladder.gif
The are much easier to make, after all.

There's an image of the ladder in the PHB, so yes, we know it doesn't look like that. :smallamused:

Clearly the prices aren't too robust (the iron pot example is pretty silly). You could probably get away with the ladder "trick" in some situations. But I tend to balk at that kind of stupidity.

[TheIronGolem]

Eh, ladders and chickens aside, you can always send Mr. Meeseeks into town with orders to work as a day-laborer using and return with the money.

But is there a way that a commoner can leverage Dark Crafting XP/gold, as per the sacrifice rules from BoVD? Because...

I'm Mr. Meeseeks! Sacrifice me!

A Meeseeks Box could get you a lot of positive modifiers for a sacrifice roll. Assuming you start with max ranks in Knowledge (Religion) - not unreasonable given we're positing a D&D player in the D&D world - you get the following modifiers:

+4 ranks in Knowledge (Religion)
+2 INT mod (probably fair to assume you're of above-averge intelligence)
+1 for 1 hour cermony (may as well take your time since you can only do this once a day)
+2 for using an altar (easy enough, Mr. Meeseeks will be glad to build you an altar)
+1 for public sacrifice (you're surrounded by loyal Meeseeks, you're in no danger as long as there aren't any pesky heroes about)
+2 for 100 or more followers (Mr. Meeseeks and his friends the Meeseeks will be glad to witness your sacrifice of Mr. Meeseeks)
+3 for willing sacrifice (And Mr. Meeseeks is even happier to [I]be the sacrifice!)
+1 for pure/virginal sacrifice (Debatable, but by a literal reading Mr. Meeseeks must be a virgin when first created, right?)
+2 for a sacrifice with 6-10 HD or levels1

That gives us a +18 before rolling, which means we'll average a 28-29 for our checks, giving an average or 84-87 DCXP or 140-145 DC Gold. You could instead opt to get a planar ally since your check results will be reliably high enough to get at least a lesser, but I'm not sure that would be any more useful than Mr. Meeseeks himself would be.

If Mr. Meeseeks is capable of creating magic items2, you could simply donate the XP/gold once you'd banked enough to have him create whatever item you wanted. Of course, most good items take more than a day's work to create, so you'd need to tell him to do only 8 hours worth of work on the item, then bring in a new Meeseeks at the end of that shift to pick up where his predecessor left off - rinse and repeat until done.

1This one is hard to judge, but going by how Mr. Meeseeks was able to convince an audience of several hundred people that they want to be friends with a particular person (a substantial Diplomacy check), I'd say that implies he has at least 10 HD just to have that kind of max skill rank.
2It's hard to say whether or nor Mr. Meeseeks would have spell slots or a caster level, but maybe he would if he was specifically ordered to perform a magic-related task.