Ways to convince my GM to let me break the game with Rod of Wonders?


Advice


So, I'm playing a peculiar build. Oracle, Arcanist, Mystic Theurge and Evangelist and I'm going for lich. This is obviously not PFS legal.

My GM has allowed me to take the Leadership feat. Well, my problem now is passing him the fact that Rod of Wonders is PFS legal (which, I have yet to present that to him). Even Michael Brock acknowledges keeping the gems that the Rod can spit out in PFS.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2omtl?PFSOP-regarding-items-that-create-other-i %20tems#4

So, my plan right now is to have my followers fire off the rod in 8 hour shifts. One rod will generate 9,504 gp in 24 hours.

A turn is 6 seconds, there are 86,400 seconds in a day, 14,400 turns in a 24 hour period. There is a 3% chance of getting gems, and they fire 4d10 gems worth 1gp each. (Max+1)/2*# of dice (11/2)*10 = 22gp average per trigger. Final formula = 14,400*.03*22 = 9,504 per day.

Fast forwarding. In a matter of two weeks, I'll be able to pump my Charisma to 30 at level 9 through the use of tomes and a +6 headband, which will give me a leadership score of 19, 46 followers at level 9, cycling out rods, generating 145,728 gold a day.

So....any advice on how to sweet-talk my GM into accepting this? :P

Thanks.


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"Think of how much fun you are going to have kicking the shit out of me and my plan in game! Like a high level villain could come in and take over my operation and dedicate the rest of his life to making sure I'm miserable strictly because it amuses him and he no longer needs to have a day job due to the sweet gem operation I set up for him! Or the gems I'm summoning are actually being pulled from somewhere else in the multiverse and now I've made myself a personal enemy of Mammon as it's been coming out of his vault! Or the use of that much random magic being used with such regularity could cause some permanent rift to the Far Realm to open, beckoning the end times, and now me and all my followers get to get consumed at the rate of 1d6 of us per round! Really the range of possibilities to b$@#~ slap me down in game for my out of game impertinence is staggering! It'll be awesome for you!"


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Or you could not.


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Some things are best left as interesting thoughts and concepts never carried out. I learned that the hard way...


Sweatshops of any kind should get the feat taken away.


I suppose you could find your GM's vice and ply them with that?


You may be forgetting or ignoring one of the effects of Rod of Wonder.

"Reduce wielder two size categories (no save) for 1 day."

This doesn't show any limitations, so your GM could say this stacks. Once your worker shrinks twice in 1 day they would not be able to use the rod anymore unless the rod shrinks with them. If it does, than they could continue to use it until they became dust size (which wouldn't take too many more hits), and then blow away to be killed by any of numerous dangers to a small sized person(see Micro by Michael Crichton), and your rod would be lost, probably broken by an insect's jaw.


Seiryu wrote:

Thanks for the input, but I didn't ask about your feelings or the morality of doing such. I am well aware of this already, and hence I used the term "break the game" in the title. So, unless you're going to give advice on how to do this, please keep the troll answers out of this topic, thanks!

It's not your session, so you shouldn't need to be concerned about how broken the game gets.

I'm not sure what you want here. Get a weak DM and blatantly lie? "Nah bro, it's cool all DMs allow things like this." That's pretty much what you are looking for beyond flat out saying "Yo, this is going to f*$@ your game up, you cool with that?" and having a DM that just doesn't care.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

a 5 page essay on the benefits of rods of wonder and probably some cookies/pizza.


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You could bribe him of course, and then he should kill your caracter with a meteor out of the blue....

Yap, i would do that, acept your bribe and then kill your pc....


Just tell him the rod is legal, dont tell him about the money making scheme, just do it. when asked why you have so much gold then tell him. If you tell your GM about an item he should go research what it can do, if he is smart he will figure out your plan on his own and since he already agreed there is really nothing he can do short of letting you know he will be coming up with something to screw with you because of it. haha.

That is an amazing scheme though. and it works in terms of running a cult.

Also @QuidEst its not a sweatshop, he is giving his followers a job, each person gets one 8 hour shift, with 46 followers each NPC pretty much gets 2 weeks off to do what they want, I dont see how thats a sweatshop.

If nothing else go with Chaoseffects idea, give him some suggestions on ways he can then mess with you in the game because of the item.


are you talking about this item?

rod of wonder:

Rod of Wonder

Aura moderate enchantment; CL 10th; Slot none; Price 12,000 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
DESCRIPTION

A rod of wonder is a strange and unpredictable device that randomly generates any number of weird effects each time it is used. Activating the rod is a standard action. Typical powers of the rod include the following.
d% Wondrous Effect
01—05 Target affected by slow for 10 rounds (Will DC 15 negates).
06—10 Faerie fire surrounds the target.
11—15 Deludes the wielder for 1 round into believing the rod functions as indicated by a second die roll (no save).
16—20 Gust of wind, but at windstorm force (Fortitude DC 14 negates).
21—25 Wielder learns the target's surface thoughts (as with detect thoughts) for 1d4 rounds (no save).
26—30 Stinking cloud appears at 30-foot range (Fortitude DC 15 negates).
31—33 Heavy rain falls for 1 round in 60-foot radius centered on the rod wielder.
34—36 Summons an animal—a rhino (01—25 on d%), elephant (26—50), or mouse (51—100).
37—46 Lightning bolt (70 foot long, 5 foot wide), 6d6 points of damage (Reflex DC 15 half).
47—49 A stream of 600 large butterflies pours forth and flutters around for 2 rounds, blinding everyone within 25 foot (Reflex DC 14 negates).
50—53 Target is affected by enlarge person if within 60 feet of rod (Fortitude DC 13 negates).
54—58 Darkness, 30-foot-diameter hemisphere, centered 30 feet away from rod.
59—62 Grass grows in 160-square-foot area before the rod, or grass existing there grows to 10 times its normal size.
63—65 Any nonliving object of up to 1,000 pounds of mass and up to 30 cubic feet in size turns ethereal.
66—69 Reduce wielder two size categories (no save) for 1 day.
70—79 Fireball at target or 100 feet straight ahead, 6d6 points of damage (Reflex DC 15 half).
80—84 Invisibility covers the rod's wielder.
85—87 Leaves grow from the target if within 60 feet of the rod. These last 24 hours.
88—90 10—40 gems, value 1 gp each, shoot forth in a 30-foot-long stream. Each gem deals 1 point of damage to any creature in its path: roll 5d4 for the number of hits and divide them among the available targets.
91—95 Shimmering colors dance and play over a 40-foot-by-30-foot area in front of rod. Creatures therein are blinded for 1d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 15 negates).
96—97 Wielder (50% chance) or the target (50% chance) turns permanently blue, green, or purple (no save).
98—100 Flesh to stone (or stone to flesh if the target is stone already) if the target is within 60 feet (Fortitude DC 18 negates).


Because I see several death/death-like effects which are likely to cost you all of your followers LONG before they make you rich. With the amount of people that you are killing/incapacitating hoping to roll 88-90 your cohort will probably abandon you too. Flesh to stone, fireball, and lightning bolt are outright killing followers and you are three times as likely to get that instead of gems (which could also kill a follower).
That said (and to stay on topic) just ask him and when he looks it up I'm sure he will say yes (unless I'm missing something).


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…okaaaay.

What are you planning on doing about the other random effects? The Stinking Cloud, Heavy Rain, summoned rhinos and elephants, butterflies that blind everyone, monstrously overgrown grass, the fact that every object nearby would be turning ethereal, or the fireballs? Even though your GM gave you Leadership, that doesn't give you control over their actions; they're still NPC's. As soon as something unpleasant happens, they'll probably want to stop doing it, and the effects above aren't even getting into some of the weirder house-rules with Rods of Wonder. Some GM's have custom lists of random effects, and I know I'd certainly make such a list if a player came to me with this idea.

So to answer your question, I would advise telling your GM that you are ready for any and all terrible consequences of your actions that they choose to throw at you. They'll probably jump at that. =]


So many people failing their dc 15 knowledge(local) check


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

Hmmph. Your DM should take a cheese grater to your 'cheese'.


You could hit his/her copy of the rulebooks with the rod until the covers break, I guess? Otherwise, as mentioned, the whole fact it's random can bring some holes into your gem factory. Try selling ethereal gems (same odds as getting the gems). And the fights when someone's sure they made gems but someone else must've taken off with them because they aren't there anymore (enough delusions of it making gems). And try telling me any workplace is going to survive detect thoughts showing up among the workers.

And if nothing else, the gem market is NOT going to survive this influx. Sooner or later you're going to be literally making pennies on the deal.

Thus, I think in the long run my suggestion on breaking the game is the most likely to succeed one :)


Actually, looking at the Rod of Wonder, I don't see anything that would kill the weilder, and you could use an object as the target (just needs to be not so hard that the gems shatter on it), so you don't even need followers (or Leadership) as long as you don't mind being permanently turned weird colors and are smart enough to knock it off for the day if you get shrunk 2 sizes. This item has no charges, which is a major buff relative to its Wand of Wonder incarnation in AD&D 1.x, to the point that I would call it broken.


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If you pull this off, your GM sucks and needs to retire.


I'd let the player go on with his cheesy plan, but his workers will react "realisticly" to it.

There are several very unpleasant effects for the wielder. Id see them on the level of slapping your waiter for spilling a glass of water. --> Permanent Malus on the effective Leadership score for the gross mistreatment of his Followers.

Also after flooding the market with thousands of ultra-cheap (1 GP each) gems the market is saturated and their price collapses to slightly above nicely colored peebles. Which is incidentally slightly less than the cost to feed the Followers trying this get-rich-quick-scheme. I'd set the price-collaps threshold at ... 6.000 pieces (= GP cost to Craft the Rod of Wonders).


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Why on earth would you desire a broken game?


Tell him he can invent his own table for the Rod.

In one of my games we love Wild Magic. When I GM I make my own table and regularly replace entries or move them around. Things like the Rod of Wonder and Wild Magic should be completely unpredictable IMO.

I had a wizard once who cast a spell and had a wild result. He woke up in a forest glade covered in fatty, grey tissue and blood. Next to him was an altar with figure from a race he'd never seen before. The back of it's skull looked as if something had exploded out of it.

Surrounding the altar in the glade were 7 or 8 stone monoliths that if you squinted real hard, kind of looked like owls. I say 7 or 8, because regardless of any attempts to count them, you always got a result of 7. Or 8. Or maybe it was 7.

He left the glade and found himself in a lushly carpeted valley. It took him some time to walk out of it, he maybe traveled 5 miles, and he wasn't at the center. When he got to the lip of the valley he looked back and it only looked to be a mile across. Below him on the other side of the hill was a farmer looking in stunned disbelief. The farmer was pointing at the valley and talking about how that's where his farm was. That the valley hadn't been there this morning when he left for the village. I should point out that the region surrounding this valley was a desert (where the campaign was taking place).

Eventually the wizard made it back to the city where the party was. After a few days rest he mysteriously found one of his highest level spell slots was replaced by a spell called "Owls". When he cast it his body fell over unconscious and he dreamed about being back in the glade with the owl-like statues. Unbidden, a thought entered his mind that it might feel nice to smash his skull against the alter.

A week later, a second spell slot was occupied by "Owls".


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As a GM, I would allow it, but on the condition that I get to compensate for your actions in any way I choose for as long as I choose. I believe that would stop most players from trying. That's really what would convince me to allow it.

Now, assuming that this is a game where everyone is experimenting at that level, you shouldn't have to do any convincing.

I am curious how to came up with your formula. If I read it correctly, you're assuming that all followers continue daily with their job, but there are several effects that would basically cause someone to "go home sick." So you may not get the number of charges per follower per day that you're hoping for.

Grand Lodge

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As mentioned above, the results on the table are "typical" powers. Start using the wand that much, and you are probably going to get some of the atypical powers eventually.

If you push it hard enough, you might even get the very rare "summon terrasque" power. :)

Or wait for him to find this...


FLite wrote:

Or wait for him to find this...

I use this in a PlaneScape Game I am running (it's a S&W and 2ed DnD mashup). The players love it. I let them roll the d10 4 times, and then I tell them the result....as appropiate.


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Honestly, you GM probably shouldn't allow this...

Your formula blissfully ignores the 97% of the time that the staff doesn't produce gems, where the effects range from bizarre to outright dangerous. The formula doesn't account for all the variables that those random effect would introduce. Are they really going to be able to use the wand every six seconds when they are suddenly growing and shrinking, getting effected by slow and fireballs are randomly shooting everywhere? More importantly, followers aren't mindless slaves. Realistically, they are going to make it about a minute before not wanting to do this anymore. Even if you take away all the side-effects, its still a monotonous task to do for eight hours a day.

I wouldn't try to convince him at all for your own sake too. He might allow it just to screw you over. Believe me, he has a lot of options.


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As the rod produces more gems, the price of a gem drops; as the rod always produces gems that are worth 1 gp, the gems it produces become larger and larger, until you are making gems that immediately crush everyone in your sweatshop from sheer size.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Okay for all those who've accused me of being a nasty person, I'll actually honor the OP's request.

Hey GM, Can you please give this player permission to wreck your campaign? I'm sure he'd appreciate it a whole lot, and maybe get you some cookies.

OP: You're on the hook for the cookies.


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LazarX wrote:

Okay, I'll actually honor the OP's request.

Hey GM, Can you please give this player permission to wreck your campaign? I'm sure he'd appreciate it a whole lot, and maybe get you some cookies.

"Trust me bro, a random dude on the internet said it was a great idea!"


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Rod of Wonder also makes grass grow. The first time, it's normal grass. Subsequent times, existing grass grows 10x bigger.

According to your formula, the number of times grass growing is triggered is:
14,400 * 0.04 = 576
The first time, normal grass will grow. Subsequent times, the existing grass increases in size by a factor of 10.
According to Google, the average size of common Bermuda grass is 1 inch. Each time grass growing is triggered, the size of the grass is multiplied by 10.
Thus, the size of the final grass is:
1 inch x (10 ^ 575)
In comparison, the size of one lightyear in inches is:
3.72 inch x (10 ^ 17)
In comparison, the diameter of the milky way is 100,000 lightyears, or
3.72 inch x (10 ^ 22)
In comparison, the size of the known universe is 46.6 billion lightyears, or:
1.73 inch x (10 ^ 33)

Thus, by the time you get 9,504 gold after having your slave swing the rod for one day, you will also be surrounded by a massive field of grass where each grass dwarfs the universe as we know it.

Grand Lodge

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I knew it. Cthulu is a herbivore! He has just been waiting for a mage to try this so he can have lunch. He is also much, much bigger than we thought. We were thrown off by the size of the fields of grass in the depictions of him.

Of course, when your whole planet is less than the size of a grain of sand on the grass the herbivore is eating, the fact that it doesn't eat meat doesn't matter a whole lot...

The Shoggoth are actually Cthulu's gut bacteria. And there are a lot more of them than we thought...


So in my game last night, my DM gave me one of these....yeah...he also said "Make a will save." I failed, and I can no longer put it down. I'm thinking I need to be worried.

Grand Lodge

Heh.

I did something similar once to a group of players. Or rather I got them to do it to themselves (Which is even better.) Only with a deck of magic things...

Story Hook: (to one player, in a LARP) you found this old deck of cards, it seems to be highly magical, but gravely degraded. It looks like you could use it once, but it would be worthless after that. Or you could find someone to repair it.

Several people in game had the skills to repair it (though not to make a new one.) We had also previously established that there was a mad enchanter outside the edge of town, who had secret knowledge and who made items that were powerful, dangerous, and hard for their owners to part with. (Basically every item he made was better than what you would otherwise get for the price, but also had a curse, was nearly indestructible, and *wanted* to be used...)

Guess who the PC we gave the deck to took it too... Yeah.

For the next year one of the major plot points was everyone fighting to get the deck in between running around cleaning up it's messes. We basically had three groups: One who wanted to get the deck and take turns using it. One who wanted to get the deck and bury it somewhere safe. And one who wanted to get the deck and find a way to destroy it. And every time someone got the deck for the first time, or had the deck and ran into a serious problem they had to fight the compulsion to use it. And since anyone could only use the deck once, any who had used the deck had to fight the compulsion to carelessly lose it or give it away...

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