High OP and 4th wall breaking rules for 3.5 opinions needed please

[Reprimand]

My usually low op DM has started running a game for high op characters recently he says everyone should have spellcasting or psionics by 5th level and maintain at least 15 caster/manifester levels by 20th level.

The thing is this is the same guy that usually calls me out on optimizing a character as munkining. I do want to note he's not a bad guy and definitely not the type to pull the "rocks fall everyone dies" crap

He did also say he would be introducing some mechanics for bad guys and the big bads such as being able to hear out of character chatter, genre savvy villians and taking extra turns every 1-5 minutes in real time depending how powerful the monsters are. (these are some random examples he gave me)

On one hand he's changing nothing about the game other than some of these powers and even encouraging infinite loops to mass resources or defeat enemies but on the other hand Im worried about getting instagibbed by an opponent that can take an extra turn because I can't see the timer. he's even allowing all of us to take leadership among other things.

I kind of want the playground to weigh in on this? is it worth playing in a game where the big bads can use your every trick against you and also go beyond the parameters of the game?

Would you enjoy the challenge or would you back out at it being unfair?

What do you think?

Also worth nothing the game has not started yet and we get a 30 point buy all sources are legal other than specifically pun-pun builds

[theMycon]

To be clear:

He's saying this all in the context of this one campaign, right? Like, he's making recommendations on how to keep up with one bizarre, theoretical-optimization-OK campaign that he has highlighted as bizarre?

If so, I'd jump at the opportunity. I can see times when I wouldn't be in the mood (and I'd say "I'm gonna sit this one out". It sounds like he'd have no issue letting you jump in after a few weeks if you change your mind), but if I've had it set out beforehand I would love to play this.

[noob]

This depends only of you(the first one is extremely important) and then secondarily of your friends and of your GM.

[fishyfishyfishy]

It sounds like it could be a fun and campy game. He's being up front with everyone about it and letting you know exactly the type of game he wants to run. Don't take it seriously, just use the opportunity to let loose and have fun.

[Red Fel]

It kind of sounds like a power trip.

On the one hand, it's not necessarily a bad thing. He's certainly letting you use pretty much whatever tools you can. So you won't exactly be going into the fight unarmed.

But on the other hand, he's basically acknowledging that he will use metagame knowledge to give the baddies every opportunity to beat you, and have them acting outside of turns. Between the two of those, he has basically taken the metagame constructs that create an orderly universe, and announced that they don't apply to his villains.

It's like if you were playing cops and robbers as a kid, and suddenly one of the players announced that he was immune to bullets. The DM isn't saying he will do this, but he is warning you that he can. And that means it's very easy for this to turn into a game of, "Nope, he knew you could do that and prepared a contingency in-between turns."

I'd ask for very specific clarification of what is or is not possible. Because as it stands, you're in a gray area where it's really unclear whether his baddies even have to acknowledge the rules.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'd probably give him a very pointed look while I ask, "are.... you.... suuuuuuuurrrrre?" and, if answered in the affirmative, put together a wizard/ sorcerer/ incantatrix/ ultimate magus. When the DM starts crying at a full-tilt, high-op wizard making his campaign world bend over and take it, I'd remind him, "You said you wanted high-op. I gave you high op."

All the metamagic might of incantatrix and UM, the fullness of the sorcerer/wizard spell list, and somebody that knows how to bring out the power of it all is a frightening thing even for a high-op DM even before you go into the really crazy tippyesque stuff. I'm not that vicious. I'd stick to the more practical stuff; just heavy buffing and silver bullets to squash things. Maybe the odd called creature. It's not like I'm talking about setting up an XP farm for crafting intelligent shadesteel golems or anything.

[Reprimand]

Honestly I feel pretty good about the whole thing and he seemed to be implying his baddies would only have one "gimmick" at a time. (maybe the BBEG would exempt from this but who knows.)

The only thing I'm not sure about is his change in attitude.

Other than that I know everyone in the group and get along with them so I might just do this

[Madara]

Just build something that's immune to being harmed. Because he's going to be able to ignore most any offensive abilities. At the very least, being impossible to insta-gib is ideal. I guess it also depends on the starting level.

That said, don't take it seriously and there can be no harm done. It's not like he's applying this to a normal game. I do know that there was discussion awhile back of using metagame knowledge to more accurately portray really high Int characters (30+)

[AvatarVecna]

My usually low op DM has started running a game for high op characters recently he says everyone should have spellcasting or psionics by 5th level and maintain at least 15 caster/manifester levels by 20th level.

That's an...interesting definition for "high-op", although I suppose it's okay since it's considered the minimum. Of course, most people's definition of high-op, especially around here, is "full caster or GTFO".


He did also say he would be introducing some mechanics for bad guys and the big bads such as being able to hear out of character chatter, genre savvy villians and taking extra turns every 1-5 minutes in real time depending how powerful the monsters are. (these are some random examples he gave me)

This...seems problematic. Normally, the balance between party and DM is that one side has more power, while the other has more action economy (which lets them use their power more often than the more powerful side), which keeps things relatively even. Giving one side extra action economy throws off the balance; it's only really necessary if the side gaining the action economy is much less optimized than the other side. The DM saying he's going to give his villains powers that aren't reflected in the rules is him admitting that he can't optimize as well as you can, so he's going to cheat things to make them "fair" to him.


I kind of want the playground to weigh in on this? is it worth playing in a game where the big bads can use your every trick against you and also go beyond the parameters of the game?

You're always playing in a game where the big bads can use your every trick against you; the NPC villains can be built to use the exact same tricks...and usually, they have more levels to work with. The part that makes it unfair is where the DM arbitrarily gives them OoC knowledge and extra actions because he wasn't really ready for high-op.


Would you enjoy the challenge or would you back out at it being unfair?

There's a build in my signature titled "Khepri"; that build is focused on getting to Vermin Lord 10 ASAP, and then abusing the combination of the 3.5 swarm rules and the 3.0 hivemind rules (the latter of which has never been updated, so is still legal), and uses these things to basically gain ultimate power: Khepri, upon reaching Vermin Lord 10, can spend the next minute or so casting Gate to summon a swarm of wasps, merge those wasps with her existing swarm, and summon more wasps; after that minute or so of casting like this (using multilayered Time Stops to pull it off quickly), Khepri and her swarm have Int, Cha, bonus feats per HD, bonus skill points per HD, effective levels of Sorcerer casting, bonus spells of every spell level, and action sets per round somewhere in the rough neighborhood of (2 googol)3. Using various spell/feat combo tricks, she has every spell in existence on her spells known list, and she can have her swarms cast every spell in existence with every conceivable metamagic combination (using Arcane Thesis for every spell, Easy Metamagic for every metamagic feat, Practical Metamagic for every metamagic feat to reduce the metamagic cost as much as possible). With a bit more work, and a lot more time, you could pull this same trick with Vermin that have enough HD to take epic feats, and then the entire game system becomes your bitch, even more than it already was. Against Khepri, you never really fight: if you ever, at any point in your life, consider for a fleeting instant that you should maybe try and inconvenience her, you'll find yourself hit by a few trillion spells (to make sure she gets past all your defenses). My favorite way of putting this is "just start rolling d20s until you don't roll a natural 20; the first time your don't roll a natural 20, you're dead and your soul is sealed away in a gem".

And this whole build, which is basically one step below Pun-Pun, is completely pointless in this kind of game, because the DM will just "nu uh" whatever Khepri does. These kinds of rules claim to support your attempts to optimize, but for that to really be the case, the DM has to be playing by the same rules as you; even if the DM is using a mountain of houserules, as long as they apply to everyone involved things are still fair.

If you approach this game with a "let's see who can optimize better" mentality, you're going to lose. Just be ready to have fun, and accept that if things get tense, the DM will bring out the Fiat Hammer to smite his foes dead.

[vasilidor]

my advice, give it a shot. if it becomes unfun, do not hesitate to let the game master know. worst comes to worst drop out after the dm decides to ignore your complaints but before they decide that you are simply a stick in the mud or some such.

[Tohsaka Rin]

He did also say he would be introducing some mechanics for bad guys and the big bads such as being able to hear out of character chatter, genre savvy villians and taking extra turns every 1-5 minutes in real time depending how powerful the monsters are. (these are some random examples he gave me)

Well, there's your golden ticket to victory.

Lie. Lie like a bearskin rug that's fifty years old. A character literally cannot make sense motive checks on a player. Mock the NPCs out-of-game constantly. They can hear everything, after all. Troll the HELL out of them. Make up fake plans, mix in your real ones. Remember that for you, talking is (mostly) a free action, but for any counter-plans the NPCs would make, they need actual time to invest in making those things happen.

Most importantly, have fun with it.

Looking up Deadpool might help, too.

[TheCrowing1432]

Well first off, having a high manifester/spellcasting level isnt "high op" and if by level 20, your caster/manifester level is 15, you screwed up somewhere.


Second, It sounds like you're getting into an optimization arms race with your DM, which is never a good thing. Considering you claimed he was a low op DM, and wants to counter your optimization by giving "extra turns" to his baddies, it sounds like he doesnt know the first thing about actual optimization and hes going to use the extra turns to come up with a counter to whatever you have, rules legal or no.

The only way to counter high op is with equal op.

But in a world of infinite wish loops on both sides, what even is the point? Whoever goes first wins. Thats why high level optimization ends up being rocket tag.

[Reprimand]

Well first off, having a high manifester/spellcasting level isnt "high op" and if by level 20, your caster/manifester level is 15, you screwed up somewhere.


Second, It sounds like you're getting into an optimization arms race with your DM, which is never a good thing. Considering you claimed he was a low op DM, and wants to counter your optimization by giving "extra turns" to his baddies, it sounds like he doesnt know the first thing about actual optimization and hes going to use the extra turns to come up with a counter to whatever you have, rules legal or no.

The only way to counter high op is with equal op.

But in a world of infinite wish loops on both sides, what even is the point? Whoever goes first wins. Thats why high level optimization ends up being rocket tag.

there's no arms race he's starting a completely new game to cater to me and some other people from our low op game that enjoy finding infinites and exploits in raw or the rules in general.

But in order to make certain monsters still challenging to a group full of spellcasters and manifesters he's introducing new mechanics to make encounter challenging in a different way.

@avatarvenca he's an okay guy but whats makes this interesting is that he's TRYING to play our game and that counts for something. He's a pretty good sport and I don't think we really have to worry about him abusing metagame stuff too hard. He actually has a high level of system mastery he just usually implies that it's against the spirit of the game to use exploits and infinites in a game where everyone should be doing their best to cooperate. He wants to create a world in which every villian has the tools we have and more. He's letting us cut loose into everything short of pun pun and I think some of these mechanics would make for interesting fights.