RAW smackdown: Campaign Smashing at Level 2 in Core

[RandomSpectator]

How can core only material be use to make life difficult for the DM? My friend and I are experienced players helping out a game of noobs. That is not an issue. The problem is that recently the DM has said and done things that, quite frankly, defy logic and common sense but are technically RAW.

We want to show him that RAW, even in core, must be subservient to reason. To do this, we have limited resources available to us.

The campaign is 2nd level, and uses ONLY DMG, PHB, MM1. Nothing else. Our party has roughly 10,000GP in liquid wealth (don't ask) at present and my friend can 1v4 the rest of the group if it comes to that. We'd rather avoid PvP, but will fall back on that if it's the only option.

We can afford a Candle of Invocation if the DM is foolish enough to allow, but we're looking for some kind of back up plan for an OP way to show the fallacy of RAW to the DM. I can cast Druid spells, he can cast Sorcerer/Wizard spells, but only of level 1 at present. We can work together over a session or two to enact some kind of plan, but faster is better.

This DM needs to have his head removed from his ass. By the way. There are, in fact, two DM's running this game. A storyteller DM, who doesn't know the combat rules, and a combat DM, who's the one we're talking about. He's doubled down on essentially under CR-ing several encounters despite their being obviously quite difficult because of poor reading of RAW for the skeleton CR rules, because "logic and reasoning don't matter. The books have rules. I have followed the rules. The rules make sense for a standard adventuring party." He has essentially pulled the "**** you, I'm the DM" card. This is grossly unacceptable, and must be dealt with accordingly.

For 2 characters out of a 5 person party at level 2 in core, with ~10k GP, what can we do to show the fallacy of "RAW is balanced?"

[OldTrees1]

We want to show him that RAW, even in core, must be subservient to reason. To do this, we have limited resources available to us.

"logic and reasoning don't matter. The books have rules. I have followed the rules. The rules make sense for a standard adventuring party." He has essentially pulled the "**** you, I'm the DM" card. This is grossly unacceptable, and must be dealt with accordingly.

For 2 characters out of a 5 person party at level 2 in core, with ~10k GP, what can we do to show the fallacy of "RAW is balanced?"

I see an understand your justified frustration. However, a brute force attempt to change this person's mind is going to be a long drawn out battle in a foreign language.

Since he does not already grasp the imbalance and yet has a firm grasp of RAW, expect any demonstrated imbalance either to not register as imbalance on their scales or to be cast as an exception to be banned.

Eventually you would need to convince them that WotC is not a valid judge of balance and do so in a way that either vastly improves their ability to be a judge of balance or causes them to accept an actual valid judge of balance.

However I should still answer your explicit question in addition to addressing the implicit one. With merely 10K gp you can wish for more wishes via Candles of Invocation.


Edit:
However it might be worth mentioning
"The books have rules. You have followed the rules. The rules make sense for the WotC assumed adventuring party when followed in the WotC assumed manner. However we are not the WotC assumed party and you did not apply the rules in the WotC assumed manner(remember Healbot and Fireball were assumed by WotC)."

[AvatarVecna]

And even if you still want to do the brute force argument method, you still have to find a way around the fact that you're 2nd level and Core only. Core has the some of the most serious balance issues in the entire game, and most splatbooks and supplements make it worse because they add new ways to build on/modify Core material to be even more broken...but ultimately, with the limitation of options available and the extremely low level you're asking about, the problems aren't going to be pronounced enough yet to aid your argument.

You want obviously badly broken at 17th level? Wish loops, Simulacrum abuse, metamagic BS, Time Stop, True Resurrection, and many other things are available in Core. You want obviously badly broken at 12th level? One word: Contingency. You want obviously badly broken at 7th level? Core's got combat forms with flight speeds, burrow speeds, swim speeds...or you can just go 7-headed hydra and wreck everybody.

You want obviously badly broken at 2nd level? Uh...Glitterdust?

[Urpriest]

Was it Revived Fossil Baboons? It was, wasn't it?

[Darrin]

To reiterate the obligatory: you cannot fix OOC problems via IC browbeating.

That being said... some areas of RAW you can give your DM headaches about:

TWF can be used as a standard action (specific trumps general, according to Tippy).

Double weapons are treated as one-handed/light only for the purposes of determining attack penalties. For damage purposes, you're gripping the weapon (or rather both weapons) with two hands. What exactly this means for determining damage is still a bit of a head-scratcher.

Mounted combat. Seriously, set yourself up with a horse, lance, and a medium-sized target. Now attempt to use Ride-By Attack. First, a mounted rider can't use the charge action himself because he can't move while sitting in a saddle. Second, the mount has to charge to the closest square, which often prevents any subsequent movement because a creature (your target) is blocking any further movement "in a straight line". Third, once you reach the closest square, the target is inside the reach of your lance and you can't attack with it. Fourth, assuming your mount was allowed to continue moving past the target, it can't attack the target until it stops moving, at which point the target is out of reach.

But that's mostly just to annoy the DM. For breaking the game... I'd try some Falling Object abuse. By RAW, if you drop an object on a creature from above, you get 1d6 damage for every 200 lbs and 1d6 for every 10' it falls beyond the first 10'... and in Core, there's no way to avoid this damage (DMG pg. 303). No attack roll, no Ref save, just roll those six-siders and take your lumps. In the DMG, there's a max cap of 20d6 for the distance fallen, but no damage cap on the weight. If you're using the Rules Compendium, then they changed this to 20d6 max regardless of weight/distance.

Given your resources, you'll probably want to start small, maybe work up to more elaborate shenanigans, but to get things started see if you can purchase some potions of fly (750 GP) and a bunch of Feather Tokens: Tree (400 GP).

You may run into a sticking point determining the weight of the tree, but the item description gives us the dimensions of the trunk and tells us it's an oak. Given a 5' diameter oak tree that is 60' tall, you've got about 1177.5 cubic feet of wood in the trunk alone. Fresh green oak weighs around 61 to 63 pounds per cubic foot, so... you've easily got at least 71,827 pounds of wood right there, not counting the branches, roots, etc. All you need is 4000 pounds for 20d6. If the DM insists that the 20d6 only applies to the distance fallen, then 71,800 pounds = 359d6 falling object damage (average 1256.5).

10K buys you about 8 potions of fly and 8 Feather Tokens: Tree. If your sorcerer/wizard has a flying familiar, or you can train a flying animal companion to activate these tokens, then you may be able to skip the potions. It's not clear from the description how the tree token is activated, but since it doesn't specify, then it defaults to use-activated as a standard action by RAW. If you're trying to activate these tokens with ravens/eagles/hawks, then there might be an argument over whether these creatures can activate magic items, but I don't see anything in the Core rules that says they can't.

So... assuming the DM lets this fly and these items are available for purchase, you may run out of funds quickly. If a 13th level NPC spellcaster is available, consider hiring him to cast summon monster VII for 910 GP, which would allow you to conjure up a djinn. This might set off alarm bells with the DM getting fidgety about wish abuse, but this is just an ordinary non-noble djinn and that's not what we're after. What we want is the major creation SLA 1/day, which has the parenthetical notation: "created vegetable matter is permanent". Have the djinn create 20 cubic feet of saffron (trade good, 15 GP per pound, PHB p. 112). According to this link (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight), 20 cubic feet of saffron weighs 177 pounds, 177 x 15 = 2655 GP. Repeat every day to build your funds up.

If your DM gets blubbery about this, tell the djinn to create 20 cubic feet of Black Lotus Extract instead. Assuming a single dose is about an ounce, then 1 cubic foot = 957 fluid ounces, 20 x 957 = 19140 vials of Black Lotus Extract with a market value of 86,130,000 GP. Even if you get only 50% market value, 43 million GP should be more than enough to wreck any annoying local economies.

[atemu1234]

Just show the guy these forums. Seriously, we've poked so many holes in RAW you couldn't use it as a dishrag.

[AvatarVecna]

Just show the guy these forums. Seriously, we've poked so many holes in RAW you couldn't use it as a dishrag.

There is literally a series of threads dedicated to pointing out all the ways RAW is extremely silly, and that's just the official Dysfunction threads, and does not include the multitude of other threads no doubt buried in the archives. Hell, here's a couple ideas just off the top of my head:
Polymorph is based on HD, not on CR or ECL; thus, a Hydra (an already formidable HD 7/CR 7) is just as valid a form for Polymorph as a Pyro- or Cyro-Hydra (HD 7/CR 9). And with how long a hydra can take to kill conventionally, and how often the breath weapons recharge, that's a lot of breath weapons to tank.
In fact, let's calculate: assuming an ECL 9 PC with 18 Dex/14 Con, a d8 HD, and a good Reflex save (but no evasion), getting ambushed by an 7-headed pyro/cyrohydra means taking an average of ~48 damage from all the heads...out of your average 62 HP. If the party was grouped together, the others likely did even worse (barring evasion), and the whole party is now below half HP and next to a hydra in a swamp. Sure, they can't do the breath weapon trick again, but they kind of don't have to; you're dead if you can't escape next round anyway.
Let's get away from hydras, and talk about massive strength: namely, a character capable of lifting the planet onto his shoulders. How much Str would that take, to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders? Assuming a planet equivalent to Earth, you need a carrying capacity of 1.317*10^25 lbs; for a medium character with no increased capacity from extra legs/magic items, that's a heavy load if you've got Str 394. Sound impressive? Well it's not, because that weak ******* can't even destroy a massive tree in one blow, since that tree has 600 HP.