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Aquillion
2008-07-29, 11:33 AM
So, I was flipping through the Eberron Explorer's handbook, when I noticed something. Membership in the Wayfinder Foundation (which is pretty trivial to get) has a number of minor benefits, and one strange one:

You get a free subscription to the Wayfinder Foundation quarterly newsletter, the Rope and Piton. How they manage to deliver this to an adventurer is anyone's guess, but get this:

A character who reads the Piton picks up explorer tips and survival techniques, and for each issue that a character reads, he can apply a +1 insight bonus on a single Knowledge (geography) or Survival check.
From the way this is worded, I take it to mean that you get +1 for each issue you've read -- so read three issues, and you can apply a +3 bonus to a single check. Simple enough.

So. The character is a level 1 Warforged. They join the foundation, then wait a hundred years, accumulating and reading newsletters. They can now get +400 to a single check. Is there any way to exploit this? What's the most you can accomplish with a single obscenely high Knowledge (geography) or Survival check?

...now, I know some people are going to disagree with my interpretation. But wait! The Wayfinder Foundation offers another bonus, one that is even more exploitable. If you disappear while on an expedition, they send out a rescue team, and...

If the rescue team determines that an expedition has been irrecovably lost, the trustees send 100 gp and a lily bouquet topped with a kieros leaf to each party member's next of kin.
Note that only one party member needs to be a wayfinder for this to kick in. So, if I have a party of ten thousand people, they'll get a million gold to their next of kin (naturally, they'll all specify the same person.) Also, ten thousand bouquets.

Clearly there must be some way to exploit this.

Viruzzo
2008-07-29, 11:38 AM
+1 insight bonus, it's named. So it doesn't stack with other bonuses to the same thing with the same name. At best you can get +1 to Knowledge (geography) and Survival at the same time.

As for the second part: they would send those money, but they will not do it no matter how much money they would spend. Any GM would ban this.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2008-07-29, 11:38 AM
Well, insight bonuses don't stack, so you would, in that situation, get a +1 bonus to 400 individual checks. Not really anything extra-special.

Leadership, however, can make the latter ability quite good if...

WAIT.

Thrallherd. If slain, your minions return at an incedible rate, and they're more fanatical than traditional followers. See where this is going?

Better clear some land for that lily garden. :smallbiggrin:

waynethegame
2008-07-29, 11:39 AM
Anyone with a lick of common sense would not allow either of these so-called abuses. They're so ridiculous that they jump well over the common sense barrier that's supposed to be in place in D&D.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-07-29, 11:39 AM
...Now you're just trying way too hard.

The first one could work, assuming the Foundation is still around for 100 continuous years with no paperwork mess ups to stop you from getting your newsletter. However, it's not clear from the rules that the bonuses are cumulative; you may have to use them on separate checks actually, as pointed out above, it is clear they won't stack on one check. As to what you would do with a +400 Knowledge: Geography check...find a route to Dal Quor, maybe?

The second method is a flat no, though. That money depends on the actual NPCs of the Wayfinder's Guild approving your expedition of 10,000 people, which they would never do even if they didn't see through the obvious scam: they'd never be able to afford the "insurance" should something go wrong.

Mewtarthio
2008-07-29, 11:40 AM
So. My character is a level 1 Warforged. He joins the foundation, then waits a hundred years, accumulating and reading newsletters. He can now get +400 to a single check. Is there any way to exploit this? What's the most you can accomplish with a single obscenely high Knowledge (geography) or Survival check?

A single mad robot, locked away in his room, scouring periodicals in desperation to find the answer to THAT ONE BURNING QUESTION!? A room covered in clippings from a centuries worth of magazines? That sounds more like a plot hook than an exploit to me.


Note that only one party member needs to be a wayfinder for this to kick in. So, if I have a party of ten thousand people, they'll get a million gold to their next of kin (naturally, they'll all specify the same person.) Also, ten thousand bouquets.

So, you plan to recruit ten thousand adventurers, lead them to a far-off land where no one can protect you, and slaughter every single one? If you pull that off, then you've earned your reward.

Oh, and don't think you can get them to go along willingly. It only takes one person to screw the whole thing up.

Aquillion
2008-07-29, 11:54 AM
Hmm. I thought it was +1 per issue read, but I can see how seperate +1 non-stacking bonuses is more likely...

I was thinking more along the lines of being an Exemplar, holding a feast with all the most important people in Eberron there (you're 100 years old, they'll come), then using Persuasive Performance to make them all fanatical to you.

For extra fun, make the check you actually use something completely trivial, like figuring out where you are. Note that it will take a full minute to do it, to use Persuasive Performance (or 10 minutes, if you don't want to rush.) Then announce your conclusion in a dramatic voice, using all 100 years of information gained from those issues in one fell swoop ("We are... IN EBERRON!" No, wait, that's Knowledge: The Planes...), and everyone will immediately start worshipping you.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-07-29, 12:00 PM
You know, you could probably get away with the insurance scam by using a series of smaller parties rather than 10,000 all at once, and a carefully selected set of fronts and false identities. The most you'd really get away with at a time is ten or so, though. Also, this is more like a plot hook leading to a scheming if rather petty villain than a plot a PC should use.

kamikasei
2008-07-29, 12:07 PM
What's the most you can accomplish with a single obscenely high Knowledge (geography) or Survival check?

You could predict the weather for a little over 11 weeks in advance, precisely and correctly for every day. Maybe you could turn that into a profitable party organizing and agricultural consulting business.

Viruzzo
2008-07-29, 12:10 PM
You could predict the weather for a little over 11 weeks in advance, precisely and correctly for every day. Maybe you could turn that into a profitable party organizing and agricultural consulting business.
With a 100 year / 11 week ratio, it will take some uber financial skills.

kamikasei
2008-07-29, 12:16 PM
With a 100 year / 11 week ratio, it will take some uber financial skills.

Especially since you could just make the check every day, so long as you can hit a 20. +19 to a skill is easy to achieve, even at low levels, especially if aid another is allowed.

Aquillion
2008-07-29, 01:17 PM
Also, can you share the Piton with other people? Can I collect 400 issues, then share them with the rest of my party, or with a thousand hired commoners? Can I go back through the archives, or buy old copies from other people?

This matters. With 400 issues (assuming the bonus is +1 per issue), you could hire someone, have them read them all (quickly), then have them do whatever you want at +400. And you can do this as often as you want, for the very small price of hiring a commoner (or maybe an expert, since they have to be literate. And technically you can only do it as often as there are non-literate people in Eberron who don't already read the Piton.)

...I suppose reading it aloud to people doesn't give them the same bonus, though. It says they have to read it.


Anyone with a lick of common sense would not allow either of these so-called abuses. They're so ridiculous that they jump well over the common sense barrier that's supposed to be in place in D&D.Honestly...

Even though it's the more questionable rules one, the 400-issue trick doesn't seem that illogical. You read a whole bunch of issues, then put together all the information you got from them to solve some extremely difficult knowledge problem about geography. Sure, there are some stupid things you could do with it (like predicting the weather for 11 weeks -- but only once), but divining the location of the lost city of Quibble (a likely epic knowledge: geography usage) is perfectly logical and thematic.

Now you just need a way to say "Hey, guys, can we have a hundred years of downtime? I want to read issues of the Wayfinder Foundation Newsletter for a while." Might be a hard sell to any humans and such on your party. (DM response: "Fine, you do that. Meanwhile, we'll follow the adventures of the rest of your party until they catch up to you chronologically.")

shadow_archmagi
2008-07-29, 01:25 PM
If the bonuses stacked, you could use it to provide food for 200 people. Get your whole party to do this and have a city maintained by its five legendary hunters.

kamikasei
2008-07-29, 01:50 PM
If the bonuses stacked, you could use it to provide food for 200 people. Get your whole party to do this and have a city maintained by its five legendary hunters.

But only once.

Treguard
2008-07-29, 03:04 PM
The exemplar example made me smirk, and considering the above.. :smallbiggrin:

100-year-old Warforged: "Ah, my large gathering of filthy masses, you mock my powers to provide, but worry not as I can feed you all! Using the sumptuous bounty of.. ah.. umm" :smalleek:

*casts about quickly*

"..THAT FARM OVER THERE! yes, they're bound to have some eggs and stuff!" :smallamused:

Unwashed masses: ".... Oh. My. Non-existentent gods, he's right!! HALLELUJAH! We're not worthy! we're not worthy!" etc

Aquillion
2008-07-30, 12:41 PM
But only once.You just have to have a different person read all 400 back issues of the Newsletter every day. It lets each person get the bonus once, so there you go.

Chronicled
2008-07-30, 04:55 PM
The spell Scholar's Touch (RoD) would certainly help with this endeavor.