The exploit that grants you free XP... and thus can’t be allowed.

[St Fan]

I’ve once discussed on these boards a rule exploitation that can be used to negate some XP costs from spells or magic item creation. However, I have realized it can be abused way much worse... by plain and simply granting free XP.

Here’s the trick. First, you need:

• To take the Item Familiar feat at level 3.
• To be able to cast the restoration spell, or have an ally capable of such.

Then, you can start the process right after gaining a level (that is, having no more than the minimum of XP needed for your current level):

• First, you remove the item familiar from your person and secure it in a safe place.
• Wait a few days, though not enough to sever the link with your item familiar (yet).
• Get a negative level (through whatever means, like summoning a wight and getting hit once) and voluntarily fail the saving throw.
• You are now one level lower, with your XP total mid-way between the minimum for the current level, and the next level.
• Wait further till the link to the item familiar weakens. You thus lose 200 XP/level, plus whatever XP was granted by the Invest Life Energy function of the item. Ideally, this shouldn’t be enough to lose another level.
• Receive a restoration spell before the time limit for it to affect your lost level. You are back to the starting level, with exactly the minimum amount of XP needed for it.
• Retrieve your item familiar. You now regain all the XP invested in it, which ends up a net plus compared to your starting point.

Final cost: 100 gp (material component for restoration) and a few days without your item familiar.

You can rinse and repeat this about every level.

So, tell me, did I make any mistake? Is there anything against this by RAW?

And since gaining XP for free is completely against the spirit of the game, how would you rule to prevent this exploit?

[JNAProductions]

I don't think you need to ban it, as-in, modify the rules to make it impossible. (Item Familiar being potentially banworthy is also something to consider.)
I just think you need to talk to your players and tell them "Hey, I know this is possible-please don't. Let's focus on having a fun game, not breaking the system."

[Gnaeus]

I don't think you need to ban it, as-in, modify the rules to make it impossible. (Item Familiar being potentially banworthy is also something to consider.)
I just think you need to talk to your players and tell them "Hey, I know this is possible-please don't. Let's focus on having a fun game, not breaking the system."

Yeah, Item Familiar is problematic. There are a few ways to deal with it.
1. Ban it because of problem uses (This is mostly bad because there are a handful of not very broken uses where it is helpful, see truenamer)
2. Balance it with risk (DM Steals your familiar). This is really just punishing the player. Most players don't like losing key gear. Rarely fun.
3. Talk it out.

[emulord]

Costing 100gp and several days of downtime isn't exactly free. People can be operating Wall of Iron/Fabricate factories during downtime and get way more benefit.

Once you start doing a degenerate loop during downtime a lot of things are possible, and DMs should probably do some economics adjudications to limit it to reasonable levels, like the restoration material components being sold at an upcharge or eventually out of stock.

Since you need to finish an encounter to levelup you only get a bit of benefit unless you're spending it for crafting XP, at which point Thought Bottles are probably more efficient. For the sake of other players of the game this trick should probably only be done once to not overshadow the rest of the party.

[NichG]

I’ve once discussed on these boards a rule exploitation that can be used to negate some XP costs from spells or magic item creation. However, I have realized it can be abused way much worse... by plain and simply granting free XP.

Here’s the trick. First, you need:

• To take the Item Familiar feat at level 3.
• To be able to cast the restoration spell, or have an ally capable of such.

Then, you can start the process right after gaining a level (that is, having no more than the minimum of XP needed for your current level):

• First, you remove the item familiar from your person and secure it in a safe place.
• Wait a few days, though not enough to sever the link with your item familiar (yet).
• Get a negative level (through whatever means, like summoning a wight and getting hit once) and voluntarily fail the saving throw.
• You are now one level lower, with your XP total mid-way between the minimum for the current level, and the next level.
• Wait further till the link to the item familiar weakens. You thus lose 200 XP/level, plus whatever XP was granted by the Invest Life Energy function of the item. Ideally, this shouldn’t be enough to lose another level.
• Receive a restoration spell before the time limit for it to affect your lost level. You are back to the starting level, with exactly the minimum amount of XP needed for it.
• Retrieve your item familiar. You now regain all the XP invested in it, which ends up a net plus compared to your starting point.

Final cost: 100 gp (material component for restoration) and a few days without your item familiar.

You can rinse and repeat this about every level.

So, tell me, did I make any mistake? Is there anything against this by RAW?

And since gaining XP for free is completely against the spirit of the game, how would you rule to prevent this exploit?

I just tend to be more explicit on the separation between temporary and permanent things, and treat XP like a substance rather than an abstract indicator.

So e.g. if anything happens that reduces your XP total, but where its still possible to magically restore your XP total to a previous point, that difference is a substance 'stored' somewhere in the world, and Restoration is literally just restoring that quantity of substance to you. E.g. if something 'takes' your XP, then your XP is with the thing that took it, and you can only get that specific quantity of XP back from that thing (removing it from that thing) via whatever process would restore it to you. Similarly, if you lose XP via Item Familiar, that quantity of XP is with the Familiar.

Invest Life Energy is trickier here, but if you think of it as a conversion between one two of natural 'low density XP' and a 'high density XP' that is 10% more effective per unit, then anything which would cause you to apply the transform from low density to high density to XP that is already high density just won't do anything.

So practically speaking what would happen is, you could do this loop, and the amount you get back from recovering Item Familiar is exactly identical to the amount you lose from losing it, regardless of the fact that your level changed in between. Similarly, the amount of XP you get back from Restoration would be strictly bounded by the amount of XP you lost during the level drain, even if that means you don't actually recover the lost level.

[Buufreak]

Costing 100gp and several days of downtime isn't exactly free. People can be operating Wall of Iron/Fabricate factories during downtime and get way more benefit.

Once you start doing a degenerate loop during downtime a lot of things are possible, and DMs should probably do some economics adjudications to limit it to reasonable levels, like the restoration material components being sold at an upcharge or eventually out of stock.

Since you need to finish an encounter to levelup you only get a bit of benefit unless you're spending it for crafting XP, at which point Thought Bottles are probably more efficient. For the sake of other players of the game this trick should probably only be done once to not overshadow the rest of the party.

This seems the most reasonable and realistic to me. I hate playing with the thought that the world stops around you while you go and preform shenanigans. If you have weeks to loop this over and over, everything else existing in the world has that same amount of weeks to make it irrelevant.

[Chronos]

The world doesn't stop, but sometimes what the world is doing is things that any given individual doesn't particularly need to worry about. Not everyone is always on a quest to save the world.

[Buufreak]

The world doesn't stop, but sometimes what the world is doing is things that any given individual doesn't particularly need to worry about. Not everyone is always on a quest to save the world.

No, but the plotting and machinizations of antagonists to the story don't stop spreading their personal brand of bs just because the players decided to sequester themselves in the cheaty xp cave for a month.

[noob]

No, but the plotting and machinizations of antagonists to the story don't stop spreading their personal brand of bs just because the players decided to sequester themselves in the cheaty xp cave for a month.

Or you went in the cheaty xp cave planning to stay a month only to find that the antagonist was already within.

[St Fan]

So practically speaking what would happen is, you could do this loop, and the amount you get back from recovering Item Familiar is exactly identical to the amount you lose from losing it, regardless of the fact that your level changed in between. Similarly, the amount of XP you get back from Restoration would be strictly bounded by the amount of XP you lost during the level drain, even if that means you don't actually recover the lost level.

Probably the best option on a strict rule viewpoint. Since the amount of XP in the item familiar is recoverable, the restoration doesn't affect it.


I don't think you need to ban it, as-in, modify the rules to make it impossible. (Item Familiar being potentially banworthy is also something to consider.)
I just think you need to talk to your players and tell them "Hey, I know this is possible-please don't. Let's focus on having a fun game, not breaking the system."

And this the best option on a simple gaming viewpoint.

You can also put forward the argument that character knowledge and player knowledge should stay separate. The player might know he can get free XP this way, but the character doesn't, and anybody trying to explain to him that he can gain great power/progress faster by risking losing his item familiar and letting himself hit by a wight would sound insane.
(Mind you, I can see it explained as some kind of dark, secret ritual. With a faction trying to recover and abuse of this secret, and another faction trying to suppress it as unnatural...)

[Jay R]

This kind of thing is exactly why the DM has final authority, even over the rules. This is not a toy or free privilege to change the game at whim; it’s a heavy responsibility to make the game go right, and to be fair to the players, even when the rules aren’t right for a specific situation.


And since gaining XP for free is completely against the spirit of the game, how would you rule to prevent this exploit?

"That's very clever. No. No method of regaining XPs will leave you with more than you started with. Restoration will restore your experience points, but not the 10% bonus ones from the item familiar. If you don't have the item familiar, then you don't get that 10% bonus."

I would probably allow restoration to restore the additional 200 xp/level lost when you lost the item familiar, but never the 10% bonus ones that you never earned in the first place. And if you got those 200 XP/level back from restoration, then you would not get them back again from the item familiar.

[pabelfly]

Yeah, Item Familiar is problematic. There are a few ways to deal with it.
1. Ban it because of problem uses (This is mostly bad because there are a handful of not very broken uses where it is helpful, see truenamer)
2. Balance it with risk (DM Steals your familiar). This is really just punishing the player. Most players don't like losing key gear. Rarely fun.
3. Talk it out.

Reason 2 is why the Item Familiar feat is bad. You either have no risk and all reward, or you lose your item familiar, a risk you accepted when you took the feat, and end up permanently crippled. Thus is probably one of the few feats I'd outright ban if it ever came up.

[Jay R]

Yeah, Item Familiar is problematic. There are a few ways to deal with it.
1. Ban it because of problem uses (This is mostly bad because there are a handful of not very broken uses where it is helpful, see truenamer)
2. Balance it with risk (DM Steals your familiar). This is really just punishing the player. Most players don't like losing key gear. Rarely fun.
3. Talk it out.

First, there are times when an Item Familiar makes more sense. The only time I took one, it was for a PC with a +4 LA. The Item Familiar wasn't so he would get ahead of the others in character levels. Its primary purpose was to reduce the XP hit for the LA, so he wouldn't be as far behind the others in level.

Second, your point number 2 assumes that it's all or nothing. The way to balance the risk is for the PC to lose it once, maybe twice, and have to find a way to get it back.

There was an old comic in which Batman lost his utility belt. The story was about tracking it down and getting it back. Kirk occasionally loses his phaser and communicator (and therefore contact with the Enterprise). But he gets them back by the end of the episode. Ron Weasley's wand broke in one book. Thor saw Mjolnir destroyed.

Losing an Item Familiar for a short while is a challenging adventure, and justifies the bonuses that the Item Familiar provides. Losing it permanently is just a frustrating loss. No resemblance.

[And, of course, part of the cost is the Feat itself.]

[Crake]

First, there are times when an Item Familiar makes more sense. The only time I took one, it was for a PC with a +4 LA. The Item Familiar wasn't so he would get ahead of the others in character levels. Its primary purpose was to reduce the XP hit for the LA, so he wouldn't be as far behind the others in level.

I once played a kitsune beguiler with an item familiar acting as the kitsune spirit orb, which in mythology, holds a lot of a kitsune’s power, and they fiercely protect. Mechanically, I think it was just a custom runestaff that gave me a few off-list daily spells, as well as a few of the item familiar benefits, but if it was ever lost, it would have been an instant segue into a “recover the spirit orb” quest.

[Promethean]

Why do we have a new "item familiar is broken" thead every couple months?

Item Familiar is firmly established as a TO item with a few non-To niche uses(mainly making underpowered classes more competent).

You might as well complain about other TO-only mechanics like thought bottles, tainted scholars, circle magic, or wizards

[Darg]

Restoration doesn't restore lost XP. It only reverses level drain. Invest life energy is not a level drain. It's straight up XP loss. This trick doesn't work as written.

[Rebel7284]

<snip>or wizards

... I am not sure that "Wizard" alone is TO. Sure prepared casting can lead to some ridiculous things when you have enough knowledge and time to prepare accordingly, but that's a bit more nuanced that just Wizard.

[Promethean]

... I am not sure that "Wizard" alone is TO. Sure prepared casting can lead to some ridiculous things when you have enough knowledge and time to prepare accordingly, but that's a bit more nuanced that just Wizard.

...do you know what a joke is?

You may have been speaking to the modron rules lawyers for a bit too long my friend.