If you were a Wizard...

[Quertus]

That sounds like something from neither D&D nor PF.

I thought a Playgrounder told me that this was a PF thing. That it canonically connected to everywhere.

.....And here we come across a little acknowledged truth of human nature.

Yes, human nature is definitely the problem. Is there finally a problem that even repeated applications of Polymorph Any Object and Mindrape cannot solve?

[Segev]

Thanks to immortality and time travel you really could intervene in every situation though.

I suppose it's theoretically possible at that point, yes. But holy cow, do you really want to spend your time like that? Consider that you'll have to live thousands of years, minimum, per year (if not per day) just to keep up with it all. Even if you clean up 90% of it in the first year (and it would take that long in real time for the message to get through enough skulls), you've spent many, many, many lifetimes doing nothing but dedicating yourself to one month at a time, getting it slightly better, slightly righter.

Maybe you could do it, but I'll say this for you: you're either a hero or a horrific villain for that level of dedication to saving/controlling so many people's lives.

[AnonymousPepper]

I thought a Playgrounder told me that this was a PF thing. That it canonically connected to everywhere.



Yes, human nature is definitely the problem. Is there finally a problem that even repeated applications of Polymorph Any Object and Mindrape cannot solve?

Use Mindrape to fix human nature. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this.

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. INTENSIFIES]

[unseenmage]

I suppose it's theoretically possible at that point, yes. But holy cow, do you really want to spend your time like that? Consider that you'll have to live thousands of years, minimum, per year (if not per day) just to keep up with it all. Even if you clean up 90% of it in the first year (and it would take that long in real time for the message to get through enough skulls), you've spent many, many, many lifetimes doing nothing but dedicating yourself to one month at a time, getting it slightly better, slightly righter.

Maybe you could do it, but I'll say this for you: you're either a hero or a horrific villain for that level of dedication to saving/controlling so many people's lives.

I mean, as a mere mortal I already play copious amounts of savescum style videogaming where pretty much the above plays out.

Doubt my completionist streak would vanish if I were immortal.

[Segev]

I mean, as a mere mortal I already play copious amounts of savescum style videogaming where pretty much the above plays out.

Doubt my completionist streak would vanish if I were immortal.

This goes beyond save-scumming. Remember, you're not just going to be jumping from crisis point to crisis point. Each niggling crime against your New World Order is going to have to be thoroughly researched with Divination magic as well as at least a little bit of interviewing to make sure you get the full picture. By the third real-world week of this, if you weren't practically perfect in getting only the guilty, you'd have villains engineering situations so that when you showed up to deliver justice, you'd wind up being the villains' enforcer, because they'd find ways to make your biases and assumptions and blind spots paint a picture that inverts who's stealing from whom.

They may not even want the stuff they're stealing, at that point. Just to use you to bully others into complying with their will. Want to punish a restaurant for not giving you the special treatment you demanded? Frame them for violating the wizard's strictures, and make it clear to them that you'll keep doing that if they don't kowtow.

Again, you can get around this, but you have to be nearly perfect at your intel gathering and synthesis of information.

There's a reason I think you're looking at something like 1000:1 time dilation for how much time you spend doing this versus how much time advances in the real world the way you want it to.

[Kalkra]

If you don't wanna do it yourself, that's what clones and constructs with magic items are for.

[Vizzerdrix]

stuff

And this is why the ONLY solution is to turn everyone into ferrets.

[Segev]

If you don't wanna do it yourself, that's what clones and constructs with magic items are for.

As I said: you'll need/want an army.

And this is why the ONLY solution is to turn everyone into ferrets.

Impractical. There's no way you need that many familiars.

[Quertus]

This goes beyond save-scumming. Remember, you're not just going to be jumping from crisis point to crisis point. Each niggling crime against your New World Order is going to have to be thoroughly researched with Divination magic as well as at least a little bit of interviewing to make sure you get the full picture. By the third real-world week of this, if you weren't practically perfect in getting only the guilty, you'd have villains engineering situations so that when you showed up to deliver justice, you'd wind up being the villains' enforcer, because they'd find ways to make your biases and assumptions and blind spots paint a picture that inverts who's stealing from whom.

They may not even want the stuff they're stealing, at that point. Just to use you to bully others into complying with their will. Want to punish a restaurant for not giving you the special treatment you demanded? Frame them for violating the wizard's strictures, and make it clear to them that you'll keep doing that if they don't kowtow.

Again, you can get around this, but you have to be nearly perfect at your intel gathering and synthesis of information.

There's a reason I think you're looking at something like 1000:1 time dilation for how much time you spend doing this versus how much time advances in the real world the way you want it to.

So, if I built my Billion-Eyed-One, connected into the thoughts and memories and souls of everyone, to get perfect information, and time traveled to fix the world, through copious amounts of murder, Mindrape, or whatever, what could possibly go wrong?

And this is why the ONLY solution is to turn everyone into ferrets.

Hmmm... New dystopia: PaO every human being into a rock. Call them "soul stones". Use then to power a new race of beings that lack human failings.

[Andor13]

You know, you could fix a lot of human behavior just by holding a press conference where you announced: "There really are a Heaven and Hell. I summoned a Solar and a Pitlord to tell you all about them. Now I'll turn the mic over to Alastor the Golden, and Baxandor the Disemboweler."

[One Step Two]

I've given this some thought, so here's what I would do: After securing functional immortality/invulnerability, which is more or less a given by the standards of this thread and I undertake the following:

Step One: As a wizard access to Spell research means I can create new spells as desired, so with enough time and effort, one that let's me create a state-save of reality, or other spell that lets me create effects similar to the Psionic Save-Game trick to let me revert things to normal once I begin...

Step Two: Begin to undertake changes to reality using Time travel for fun and profit.

With the safety net of the state-save in place, I can attempt different changes to try and see how reality can change itself, a contingency attached to the save to prevent myself getting wiped out by paradox is a must of course. But things like "What if we gave Lucasfilms Enough budget and time to actually have Wookies instead of Ewoks in the Return of the Jedi?" Would be amazing to witness, as well as getting season 2(or more) of Firefly, and an Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie that was good!

At some point I would get entirely bored of indulging my pop culture wants and desires, and that's when I will take my hand to sociopolitical concerns. With my state-save spell and divination I can try enacting whole cloth destructive changes just to see if I can improved the world without needing my own hand on the reins the entire time. Play the stock market to make Gasoline so hideously expensive to force people to carpool and use public transportation to help improve the environment for example. And if it sparks off a massive global conflict? Re-load the state-save and try something else.

Heck, with the same power, go back and remove the Dark from the Dark Ages just to see how the context of reality can change. All the problems you're trying to fix by hand with mass memory-edits and simulacra might be resolved in a more enlightened age? Again, it might need a better time-travel spell so you don't accidentally remove yourself from existence that way, but you're a wizard, you can do that.

Remember One Step Two's advice for crossing the Moral Event Horizon: Make sure you save early and save often.

[Zanos]

If the first couple pages are an accurate sample, my first act wouls be to do something about the terrible, terrible tyrants in this thread. Which I, of course, condemn.

And so my blood soaked reign begins!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If the first couple pages are an accurate sample, my first act wouls be to do something about the terrible, terrible tyrants in this thread. Which I, of course, condemn.

And so my blood soaked reign begins!

Meh. It's like pitting two Terminators against each other, but they can only attack using Nerf bats.

[Segev]

You know, you could fix a lot of human behavior just by holding a press conference where you announced: "There really are a Heaven and Hell. I summoned a Solar and a Pitlord to tell you all about them. Now I'll turn the mic over to Alastor the Golden, and Baxandor the Disemboweler."

I actually doubt that would be as effective as you think. People have ample evidence, for instance, of the hazards of alcoholism and drug abuse, and yet there are still many who indulge. The lure of immediate gratification, or even temporal gratification in mortal life, combined with a hint of "it won't happen to me"ism and "I'll just stop/repent/give it up before it harms me" rationalizations will likely mean you get only a marginal effect on people's behavior by your demonstration.

And that's before we take into account people just plain not believing you and your two representatives.

[Eldonauran]

I actually doubt that would be as effective as you think. People have ample evidence, for instance, of the hazards of alcoholism and drug abuse, and yet there are still many who indulge. The lure of immediate gratification, or even temporal gratification in mortal life, combined with a hint of "it won't happen to me"ism and "I'll just stop/repent/give it up before it harms me" rationalizations will likely mean you get only a marginal effect on people's behavior by your demonstration.

And that's before we take into account people just plain not believing you and your two representatives.

Wow. I was going to post something very similar earlier but did not bother. You ARE fairly cognizant of the human condition. Though, I think you might be understating the rebelliousness at the core of most people. I am pretty sure that even faced with such evidence, humans would simply reject the truth for their own version of it, and damn the person/entity that tried to tell them differently. We humans are a strange bunch...

[One Step Two]

The human condition is awesomely messed up, but thanks to the "World-saver™" spell, you too can attempt different diverse means to alter the fate of mankind, and if it doesn't work, just try again!

Examples include picking your favourite Sci-Fi Author and seeing if his visions of the future come to pass with the same impetus to change! Such as Researching a spell like Laurin's portals, to create instantaneous worm-holes, attach it to stable locations/Magic devices, and let the entire galaxy be attached to a trans-dimensional Railway system. Those that want to explore the stars? Done! Bring a Vacuum Suit, and remember the schedules for your return! Do you have some unique idea of how life should work, that despite it being a modern society that you adhere to a rule set devised before flushing toilets were common? There's a small earth-like planet for you and your followers to head to!

If the whole thing turns into some sort of bizarre galaxy-spanning conspiracy with the Immotiles, activate the World-Saver™ and try again!

[Xar Zarath]

You know, you could fix a lot of human behavior just by holding a press conference where you announced: "There really are a Heaven and Hell. I summoned a Solar and a Pitlord to tell you all about them. Now I'll turn the mic over to Alastor the Golden, and Baxandor the Disemboweler."

Hmm or this could potentially spark off some massive religious war as peoples expectations and own fantasy of what Heaven and Hell would be are proven wrong...you could be sparking off a new Crusade...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Hmm or this could potentially spark off some massive religious war as peoples expectations and own fantasy of what Heaven and Hell would be are proven wrong...you could be sparking off a new Crusade...

What else is new?

[Eldan]

*shrug*

Well, you can stop religious wars. That makes things rather simple.

Though honestly,l if all the planes exist, you're not the only spellcaster in the universe anymore, which makes this thread very different.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

*shrug*

Well, you can stop religious wars. That makes things rather simple.

Though honestly,l if all the planes exist, you're not the only spellcaster in the universe anymore, which makes this thread very different.

You may very well be the only caster with access to this Prime Material Plane, at least until you summon/call other casters in.

[Segev]

You may very well be the only caster with access to this Prime Material Plane, at least until you summon/call other casters in.

Or at least this particular, strangely low-magic crystal sphere.

[Andor13]

Hmm or this could potentially spark off some massive religious war as peoples expectations and own fantasy of what Heaven and Hell would be are proven wrong...you could be sparking off a new Crusade...

Oh, if you actually did it the way I suggested, there is no way it wouldn't be a train wreck. But that's what the +11 Int/Wis and preparatory divinations are for.

[Nifft]

Oh, if you actually did it the way I suggested, there is no way it wouldn't be a train wreck. But that's what the +11 Int/Wis and preparatory divinations are for.

Barakiel, the Terrible Bright Storm-Splitting Spear of Heaven, commander of seven angelic legions: "Mortal, why have you bound me in this circle?"

Wizard: "I want to book you as a guest on The Daily Show."

[Andor13]

Barakiel, the Terrible Bright Storm-Splitting Spear of Heaven, commander of seven angelic legions: "Mortal, why have you bound me in this circle?"

Wizard: "I want to book you as a guest on The Daily Show."

Barakiel: "... With John Stewart or the new guy?"

[Kalkra]

Talking about the Heaven and Hell that exist in a game which isn't even completely internally consist would raise a LOT of theological problems. I mean, what do you do when confronted with proof of something illogical? Unless being a wizard in real life means that Plane Shift takes you to the real afterlife. What would happen if there wasn't one? Or do you meet the DM or reality? How does DM consent work anyway? If you really were a wizard, how would reality rule on RAW vs. RAI? Once you're getting truly munchkinly, is 3rd party content allowed? How about unlicensed 3rd part content? How about the Spells that Fix Everything Compendium that I just wrote? Can you homebrew?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Talking about the Heaven and Hell that exist in a game which isn't even completely internally consist would raise a LOT of theological problems. I mean, what do you do when confronted with proof of something illogical? Unless being a wizard in real life means that Plane Shift takes you to the real afterlife. What would happen if there wasn't one? Or do you meet the DM or reality? How does DM consent work anyway? If you really were a wizard, how would reality rule on RAW vs. RAI? Once you're getting truly munchkinly, is 3rd party content allowed? How about unlicensed 3rd part content? How about the Spells that Fix Everything Compendium that I just wrote? Can you homebrew?

I'd say that you'd be dealing with The Great Wheel, for simplicity's sake, there is no DM (as such), and you could use any 1st and 2nd party supplements, as well as any already-published 3rd party supplements out there. And you could always perform spell research, so...

Though I'm not the OP, so this is just what I'd want.

[Eldonauran]

Talking about the Heaven and Hell that exist in a game which isn't even completely internally consist would raise a LOT of theological problems. I mean, what do you do when confronted with proof of something illogical?

Two things could happen. You refuse to accept what has been shown to you. Or two, your current way of thinking is utterly shattered until you are able to piece together how to make sense of this 'illogical proof'.

Unless being a wizard in real life means that Plane Shift takes you to the real afterlife. What would happen if there wasn't one? Or do you meet the DM or reality? How does DM consent work anyway?

There is no such thing as DM/GM consent in that kind of reality. If you met the supreme overlord of the universe, their will is reality and you are merely a piece of it. Arguing about it would be entirely pointless.

If you really were a wizard, how would reality rule on RAW vs. RAI?

Considering that things tend to obey certain laws (in so far as how we currently understand the universe), you might find out that your new magic powers follow a higher law that can change some of the lesser ones (wizards do study magic like our scientists, as it obeys certain rules). Twisting things past a certain point is likely to bring consequences from those higher laws, and maybe the universe itself.

Once you're getting truly munchkinly, is 3rd party content allowed? How about unlicensed 3rd part content? How about the Spells that Fix Everything Compendium that I just wrote? Can you homebrew?

I'm not going to bother hypothesizing on that. We have enough on our plate with just 1st party material.

[Calthropstu]

The rules of reality would exist. So basically all content compatable with reality would work.

The real problem? Finding spells for your book. You might know spells exist, but figuring out how to cast them would basically be next to impossible.

Take magic missle for example. You might *know* magic missle exists. You know, from the rulebook, that it requires verbal and somatic components. But what are they?

My guess? You start as a 20th lvl wizard with no spells at all. You'd need to research, basically through trial and error, how to cast each and every individual spell. Since there's no one to teach you, every single spell will take painstaking effort.

As each spell is figured out, you basically write it into your spellbook... And most spells will simply never be reached. When you try to "cheese the system," you will likely find it just doesn't work. Either the spell will fail or it will have unintended results.

[Segev]

The rules of reality would exist. So basically all content compatable with reality would work.

The real problem? Finding spells for your book. You might know spells exist, but figuring out how to cast them would basically be next to impossible.

Take magic missle for example. You might *know* magic missle exists. You know, from the rulebook, that it requires verbal and somatic components. But what are they?

My guess? You start as a 20th lvl wizard with no spells at all. You'd need to research, basically through trial and error, how to cast each and every individual spell. Since there's no one to teach you, every single spell will take painstaking effort.

As each spell is figured out, you basically write it into your spellbook... And most spells will simply never be reached. When you try to "cheese the system," you will likely find it just doesn't work. Either the spell will fail or it will have unintended results.

This is why I specified, in my own first post in this thread, that I would assume I started with wealth-by-level appropriate to a level 20 wizard, too. Since generally speaking, the WBL is part of being a certain level, at least in theoretical discussions.

Though at absolute minimum, a 20th level wizard should have 4 spells of each level 2-8 in his spellbook, and 6 of up to 9th, plus however many his Int mod makes his total number of 1st level spells be. Pick those carefully enough and you can use various shenanigans to orchestrate the time and wealth needed to research all the others in little to no real-world time passed.

[Nifft]

The real problem? Finding spells for your book. You might know spells exist, but figuring out how to cast them would basically be next to impossible.

You get 41+Int bonus spells for free thanks to leveling up as a Wizard 20 -- or a lot more, with the right feats.

What you do is you use those spells to bootstrap more. For example: use the planar binding line to bind spellcasting Outsiders & Elementals and bargain with them for more spells. Another example: use plane shift to visit somewhere with a WBL-Mart.