How would the "Dream of Metal" Trick mess up this campaign?

[BlueStorm]

Okay, I've got a basic campaign idea that I came up with that I mentioned to some guys on another site. The campaign's premise goes something like this:

The Main Villain has control of time, and knowing the entire history between the beginning and end, he has a foolproof plan to further his goals.

Safe in the Outer planes, he forces his younger self to pull off a perfect campaign to take over the world. And worse, thanks to the dynamics of time in my setting, anything that manages to somehow stop him despite his perfect plan that will break the timeline.

...The only way to even begin to defeat him is to gain assistance from the Outer Planes (being outside the timeline, and safe from its effects) and even that will still kill everything if they don't have a way to suck the entire world into the outer planes handy.

...

Now, as I mentioned, I brought this up on another site; and they said:

Quote:

Expect your players to try to pull off the "Dream of Metal" Trick.

...what?

I have no idea what they mean by that... Any ideas?

[AndIMustMask]

well, just reading the intro of your linked topic, I would guess it would ruin everything plot-wise because they'd simply ignore BBEG's plan entirely and make a new one for everyone to live in while effectively destroying the old universe that he (the BBEG) is in.

[BlueStorm]

AndIMustMask wrote:

well, just reading the intro of your linked topic, I would guess it would ruin everything plot-wise because they'd simply ignore BBEG's plan entirely and make a new one for everyone to live in while destroying the old universe that he's in.

One thought I had was that if they did try it, the villain could hijack it and use it for his own plans.

Still broken?

[AndIMustMask]

nah, i think the objective of the dream of metal was to make a semi-invincible BBEG lich (with nebulous time effects), potentially infinite planar cosmology, and kickass plot hooks. makes sense if that was your BBEG's plan all along.

note that to actually pull it off, you'd have to be playing using psionics with all these powers available with the same effects (i.e. 3.5), and be using the planescape cosmology (that dreams are a real tangible place, meaning a plane of it's own), and have access to immortals the player can bring under their control (like warforged, which are rather particular to the eberron setting, iirc).

so no 3.5 material psionics = no dream of metal to (potentially) thwart your plans.

also, all the dream of metal really does is A) makes you a 1000 year-old lich with a 108-layer defense, B) gives you your own demiplane to play with (until all 108 layers are destroyed), and C) unmakes all of that 1000 years' history of the prime material plane instantly (from the dreamer's perspective).

the ONE way (it seems) to stop the whole thing would be to antimagic field the dreamer when he steps out of the clock, and kill him before he can cast forced dream, or to stop the completion of the plan altogether (which foils pretty much any plan).

[BlueStorm]

AndIMustMask wrote:

nah, i think the objective of the dream of metal was to make a semi-invincible BBEG lich (with nebulous time effects), potentially infinite planar cosmology, and kickass plot hooks. makes sense if that was your BBEG's plan all along.

note that to actually pull it off, you'd have to be playing using psionics with all these powers available with the same effects (i.e. 3.5), and be using the planescape cosmology (that dreams are a real tangible place, meaning a plane of it's own), and have access to immortals the player can bring under their control (like warforged, which are rather particular to the eberron setting, iirc).

so no 3.5 material psionics = no dream of metal to (potentially) thwart your plans.

also, all the dream of metal really does is A) makes you a 1000 year-old lich with a 108-layer defense, B) gives you your own demiplane to play with for those 1000 years, and C) unmakes all of that 1000 years' history of the prime material plane instantly (from the dreamer's perspective).

the ONE way (it seems) to stop the whole thing would be to antimagic field the dreamer when he steps out of the clock, and kill him before he can cast forced dream.

I see, Thanks; I guess that means my campaign should (logically) have little to fear (one way or another.)

Again, thanks.

(Still, if my players do attempt it, I guess at that point I should be worried my campaign isn't interesting enough. But that's a different topic.)