Items that can be abused.

[SilverSheriff]

Hey, I was just thinking that we should make a Compiled list of items that can be abused in D'n'D (3/3.5 ED) and how the can be abused, I'll start:

1) Decanter of Endless water + Water Tight Room / Underground tunnel.

[Kurald Galain]

Belt of Battle.

Candle of Invocation.

[Draz74]

Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

Starmantle Cloak (BoED).

Nightsticks (LM).

Splitting bow enhancement (CoR).

Manyfang Dagger (SK).

Animated shield enhancement.

Quaal's Feather Token - tree.

[martyboy74]

Anything with infinite uses.

[Reinboom]

Thought Bottle
Rod of Metamagic, Greater
Thought Bottle
Heward's Fortifying Bedroll
Thought Bottle
Tooth of Savnok
Thought Bottle
and an emphasis on the candle of invocation.
anything phallic

[RandomNPC]

lets just say anything with the description "magic item" and half the ones without it.

[monty]

You're obviously not thinking like an optimizer. Everything can be abused.

[kjones]

Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

[mikeejimbo]

Ladders
Quarterstaves

[Eldritch_Ent]

Thought Bottle
Tooth of Savnok

Which book is the Thought Bottle from anyway, and what does a "Tooth of Savnok" even DO?

[RTGoodman]

Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

1. Find a token-sized hole.
2. Insert Tree Token.
3. Activate.

Result - You now have a TREE-sized hole.

I know I've read at least a couple of RHoD recaps where parties had one of the Tree feather tokens and used it to bring down the whole Skull Gorge Bridge with basically no effort. I think it's just smart playing, but I imagine it'd be kind of annoying for the DM.

There are probably other ways to abuse it, also.

[Chronos]

SweetRein, how do you abuse the Tooth of Savnok? All it does is remove the movement penalty for heavy encumbrance, and by the time you're at all likely to find it (it being unique and all), you'll almost always have a Handy Haversack, anyway (and therefore never be encumbered). Were you thinking of one of the other Teeth, perhaps?

[Skyserpent]

Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

The exact same way, frankly. I had an assassin character who exclusively used Feather Token: Trees as weapons. He'd sleight of hand them into peoples belts and shirts, and activate the command word. It's a good getaway mechanism...

and for the coup de gras, place one in someones mouth when they're sleeping.

[Reinboom]

SweetRein, how do you abuse the Tooth of Savnok? All it does is remove the movement penalty for heavy encumbrance, and by the time you're at all likely to find it (it being unique and all), you'll almost always have a Handy Haversack, anyway (and therefore never be encumbered). Were you thinking of one of the other Teeth, perhaps?

Possibly, I forget what I was thinking actually.

Aside, thought bottle shall stand.

-edit-
Oh, thought bottle is from Complete Arcane.

[Silence]

You're obviously not thinking like an optimizer. Everything can be abused.

Win.

At the moment I don't feel like thinking of something that can be abused, but I do have a little cheap stratagy.

Take greatsword.

Add throwing ability.

Add returning ability.

Add viscous ability.

4d6 damage and you have a sword that's 10 feet long.

[Jade_Tarem]

Hey, I was just thinking that we should make a Compiled list of items that can be abused in D'n'D (3/3.5 ED) and how the can be abused, I'll start:

1) Decanter of Endless water + Water Tight Room / Underground tunnel.

Close, but no cookie for you. Spring for the bottle to be made of adamantine, and cast Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere around it after you activate it on "jet" mode. The decanter will fill the sphere in a round or two, and every round after that (for the several minutes that it takes for the ORS to run down) the water is being compressed (remember, liquids don't really compress well like gasses do) at unimagineable pressure. When the ORS does snap off, you will have the equivelent of a small lake explode out of the ORS at great force, making a powerful time bomb that can level large structures or kill things, in addition to the flooding after that. You can also reuse the decanter... if you can find it.

There's a greater version of this same tactic that can destroy a world (2 level 9 wizards are all that is required) , but it doesn't count since it doesn't involve any magic items.

Also, nightsticks. Remember cleric divine metamagic cheese? Enough of these babies let him do it all day long.

[monty]

Add viscous ability.

Did you mean "vicious," or is there some weapon ability that makes fluids flow slowly?

[Jade_Tarem]

I'm pretty sure he meant vicious. And it's actually 4d6+1, since you can't have vicious on it without a +1 enhancement bonus going on there first.

That... probably sounded snotty, but I'm going to leave it anyway and indulge my inner geek.

[monty]

I just like word "viscous," and now I think it should be an enchantment. Also, doesn't Throwing make it a ranged weapon by giving it a range increment (and therefore disqualifying it from Vicious)? Or is that just a cheesy loophole?

[Albonor]

cheesy loophole. Lesser one thus far (you cannot park a hummer in it) but still a loophole.

[Patashu]

Decanter of Viscous Water ftw.

[kjones]

See, I've always ruled that, with the Feather Tokens, you can't activate them unless they have room on all sides to expand... basically, if they would have to push anything around, they just fail to activate. Re-reading the description, this isn't exactly RAW, but the rules don't specify how that would work in the first place, so I think it's a reasonable ruling.

But if you rule that tossing one in someone's mouth and activating = instant death, then yeah, b0rken.

[Dan_Hemmens]

See, I've always ruled that, with the Feather Tokens, you can't activate them unless they have room on all sides to expand... basically, if they would have to push anything around, they just fail to activate. Re-reading the description, this isn't exactly RAW, but the rules don't specify how that would work in the first place, so I think it's a reasonable ruling.

But if you rule that tossing one in someone's mouth and activating = instant death, then yeah, b0rken.

As always, most "broken" or abusable items essentially rely on the "it doesn't say you can't" school of rules design. Same with the Resilient Sphere / Endless Water thing. The rules don't say that the container doesn't continue to create water even when there's nowhere to put it, so it must produce a tidal wave of hyper-pressurized water.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Decanter of Endless Water + Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell + Flesh to Ice spell (FB) + Snowcasting feat (FB) = +10 DC; works with Snowcasting and any Fort-save spell, but Flesh to Ice is just so fitting. Use the spell Summon Component (CM) if there is no snow on hand for Snowcasting.
"increases the DC of all Fortitude saves to avoid taking damage from cold or resisting cold-based spells and effects by 10 until the character and his clothes become dry." (FB p10 under Hypothermia)

[Chronos]

You can also reuse the decanter... if you can find it.

Just how much pressure do you think is necessary to destroy a decanter? Whatever it is, it'll almost certainly be reached not long after you fill up the sphere. Liquids are very difficult to compress, which means that squeezing even a little bit more water than "fits" into the sphere would result in truly tremendous pressures.

And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

[monty]

And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

Fly over someone and drop it on them?

[Jade_Tarem]

Just how much pressure do you think is necessary to destroy a decanter? Whatever it is, it'll almost certainly be reached not long after you fill up the sphere. Liquids are very difficult to compress, which means that squeezing even a little bit more water than "fits" into the sphere would result in truly tremendous pressures.

And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

Thus, the note that you should spring for the decanter to be made of adamantine, the mythical substance that's supposed to be darn near invincible - and remember that enchanting an object makes it inherantly harder to destroy, no matter what the enchantment actually is. While not completely indestructable, magical adamantine is going to be pretty much the hardest thing you'll see in the entire game of DnD to break, crush, or what have you. There's also the distinct possibility that the pressure inside the decanter is increasing too, which means that to destroy it you would have to start compressing adamantine... molecules, I guess? There's a solid chance that it will hold up to the increasing pressure for a few minutes.

Of course, your DM can always rule that the decanter can't be made from adamantine, at which point you're sunk. Then again, that's how it is for most of these tricks.

[martyboy74]

For coup de gracing with a the tree token, you could just put the token on their face. I'm pretty sure that having a tree appear on your face is going to kill you.

Heh, put a token on each eye. Call it a funeral rite. For greek pequeninos.

[Aquillion]

Win.

At the moment I don't feel like thinking of something that can be abused, but I do have a little cheap stratagy.

Take greatsword.

Add throwing ability.

Add returning ability.

Add viscous ability.

4d6 damage and you have a sword that's 10 feet long.

Wow, a whole 4d6 damage, at ten feet? Color me unimpressed.

The thing you're overlooking is that because of the way returning works (it comes back to you just before the start of your next turn), you can't use it for an iterative attack without buying another copy of the sword for every iterative attack you want to make -- this is what really kills your idea. In order to throw multiple copies, you'd probably need Quick Draw or something similar, and at that point you're wasting huge amounts of cash and a feat on what boils down to a fairly small damage bonus in the long run.

If you don't have yet another weapon aside from all the ones you throw, you'll be unarmed after throwing them (until the start of your next turn), too.

In fact, using multiple returning weapons has other issues, too. Catching one when it comes back is a free action -- but sheathing it or otherwise putting it away isn't. So if you have five throwing returning greatswords coming back to you in the same round, you can probably catch one or two at most, and the remaining ones fall on the ground.

Also, you've overlooked something else. Nowhere in the Vicious description does it say you can avoid the damage it does to the wielder in this fashion; so you can't. The person who threw it is still the wielder, the 'flash of disruptive energy that resonates between the opponent and the wielder' happens at about the five-foot mark if you threw it ten feet, and somehow it still deals 1d6 damage to you.

As always, most "broken" or abusable items essentially rely on the "it doesn't say you can't" school of rules design. Same with the Resilient Sphere / Endless Water thing. The rules don't say that the container doesn't continue to create water even when there's nowhere to put it, so it must produce a tidal wave of hyper-pressurized water.

Dust of Sneezing and Choking requires no special interpretations, though. 5d4 rounds of stunning with no saving throw.

(Technically you can argue from the exact text that you only get the massive stun if you succeed on the saving throw against the con damage... but that's kind of a moot point given how massive the con damage is, making it mostly a matter of "die this way or die that way.")

[_Puppetmaster_]

As for the decanter+ resilent sphere, make the decanter out of riverine. Also, cast transute water to acid on the sphere ( I assume it's smaller that 10ft-diameter) in the round before you get run/teleport/fly away.


PS: Both riverine and Transmute Water to Acid are in Stormwrack.