View Full Version : Fixing the Tippyverse (Pathfinder)

2010-05-15, 01:51 PM
So I am about to run a game heavy with houserules, and would like help fixing game mechanics so that there is no potential for my players to create anything akin to the tippyverse.

While I encourage thinking outside the box, re-setting traps that heal and feed the masses do not fit well with the theme of the campaign.

Here are some details:
-Early Victorian Technology with flavor similar to Dark Sun Campaign Setting.
-Using Pathfinder with some rules that strengthen melee characters a bit.
-It is "E8" (Like E6 only to level 8)
-Magic Items are taken from PF Core and the MIC
- Magic Items and Creatures above CL 12 and CR 12 respectively do not exist. (except a few adult dragons)

What I do not want:
-Traps that provide infinite amounts of food or healing.
-Things that would mess up the economy. (Anything that would FIX it would be helpful, seeing as it's already broke anyways)

In short, I want a balanced economy with emphasis on food and water being a medium of exchange. (Kinda like the book dune, only not so extreme)

Anyone in the playground have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

2010-05-15, 02:00 PM
I think the best way of doing it is saying "Alright guys, I don't want that; it's ridiculous and breaks the gameworld in half. Don't do that, OK?".

2010-05-15, 02:05 PM
You don't have permanency since L5 spells are out, so that's ok.

If they're purchaseable from scrolls, even if it takes a minicampaign per scroll, you'll want to look at wall of fire. You can start an industrial revolution from that.

Other than that, ruling that permanent effects get nerfed down to days per level would solve most of the magic problems.

Oh, might want to put a duration on instantaneous spells that have lasting effects. eg. the stone from wall of stone disappears after a while

2010-05-15, 02:16 PM
Ever read the Wish spell description? Just have anything that you don't like turn out twisted in some way - feed the masses poisoned food, instead of healing the masses it gives them 1 extra hit point permanently and hemophilia, that sort of thing. If it's outside the bounds of your universe's power level, just make it fizzle. After they spend the time and money researching it, of course.

Oooh - positive energy plane - read that stuff. You can explode from too much healing.... 3.5 DMG page 157, the Positive Energy Plane, and page 149, Positive-Dominant planar trait. Perhaps their "healing trap" opens a small but dangerous rift to the Positive Plane, causing the Positive-Dominant trait within a certain radius, and we all see where that leads....

"My lord, I had no idea that half of your serfs would explode... No, I'm not sure how to close it... Um, I don't have that much gold... I'll have to work the fields myself...?"

2010-05-15, 02:21 PM
Thanks for the tips!

I like the day per level duration and wish twist ideas.

I didn't just want to tell the players to not do something, because it still would not explain why leaders in that world would not have employed those tactics if they were available.

I know I could just have the leaders not do it, but for me at least, it diminishes the sense of belief.

2010-05-15, 02:23 PM
I think the Tippyverse is absurd enough that it simply not happening doesn't strain belivability too much, but it's your game.

2010-05-15, 02:38 PM
Simply put, just have it no work that way. If there are no self resetting magical traps then there wouldn't be a problem as far as that part goes. If every time a magical trap goes off, some wizard has to 'recharge' it then it pretty soon becomes easier to just grow your own food. And if a high level magic user decides their one goal is to keep a city fed, well gosh darnit, that should be well within their capabilities.

I'm kind meeeeh on the wish twists. Wish should be a pretty big deal, not some kind of high level self destruct button. A too-big wish should at least partially fulfill the original intent, not create some new anti-wish effect. Unless your game world has ancient evils in the underpinnings, secretly granting all wishes :).

Really, the duration on permanent effects might be your best bet. Or a naturally limited caster pool, if few people have the ability to become a caster, and even fewer make it to the heights of power, then there may be too few casters to support the socialist tippyverse.


2010-05-15, 02:48 PM
An interesting twist would be to make magic akin to coal, oil, or any other non-renewable resource. There is limited magic in the world, everyone knows this. Wizards don't just start throwing up permanent walls of fire and crafting resetting traps because they have a very real, measurable limit on their power. Probably rather than 'there is so much magic and there will never be more,' a case that the magic regenerates naturally, unless a certain threshold is reached at which point it is beyond repair (think of a forest - it can recover from a drought, but too many droughts in a row and the ecosystem collapses, and with lasting impacts on the surrounding ecosystems). No (sane) wizard/cleric would risk using up such vast amounts of magic as a permanent wall of fire (uses up over 220 spell slots worth of magic! Per day!). There's enough magic regenerating at all times that it can compensate for adventurers and the like, but that much drain (and such a drain in a single, static location) risks too much.

2010-05-15, 02:50 PM
You don't subvert wishes by making them do the opposite of what they asked. That's just bad for business. Instead, feed the peasants exactly as the wish describes...but the food is coming from one of their rivals, and there's a note saying who took it. They wish for something to help beat that army? Wish granted, there's a legion of wild ogres coming in from the mountains...though once they kill off the attacking army (or it runs away) you might need to deal with that now too. Perhaps with another wish? :smallwink:

The trick is to solve the problem they're wishing away completely, but then to create a slightly larger problem in it's place. If they keep trying to solve all their problems with wishes, they'll just slowly ramp up the stakes more and more until they run out of wishes. Flavor it that the genies granting these wishes are being paid the XP that the players are giving up, so they have a vested interest in keeping the wishers coming back for more. Always leave them wanting just one more wish to set everything right.

2010-05-15, 02:51 PM
The problem with magic is stuff is created out of nothing. Even magic energy.

So long the magic source can run out, infinite crazy stuff can't happen.

Maybe a magic plane where you tap into when you cast spells.

EDIT: Whoa, Ninja'ed

2010-05-15, 02:59 PM
lsfreak: That is very good. Until you remember that a finite but renewable resource simply means that a "normal" drain is ok, which means that permanent usage of magic can still occur, it just needs to be very efficient instead of solving everything with a wave of a hand.

Much like how our power plants today are very efficient.

That said, it might fit the flavour if you made life itself made of magic. So if you use it too much, the very landscape starts dying around you. You can have a sauron-style blasted landscape in the overlord's country with all manners of magical technology as an antagonist too! Run by golems maybe, perhaps even an anti-golem slavery movement gone horribly wrong.