Game Breaking Cheese as a Villain's ultimate plan (3.5)

[Coidzor]

Has anyone ever tried this or is it just too fourth-wall-breaking to be used tongue-in-cheekly?

[Haven]

It would probably be a fun side-quest.

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

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

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]

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]

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]

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...

[Khanderas]

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]

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]

To prevent the players from going cheesy after they defeat the Big Cheese (sorry couldn't resist ), 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

*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...

[JeminiZero]

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

[Yuki Akuma]

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]

I dun get it...please provide reference?

:P

[Justin B.]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I dun get it...please provide reference?

:P

See #188. (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]

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]

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.