End of the World

Quite by accident, I believe I have created a world-ending spell. I was thinking out loud, working through a chracter class that can summon permanent mundane weapons, armor, and normal humans (level 0 humans, no armor or weapons), use his mighty charisma to sway them to his side, then use his intrinsic training/leadership skills to train them into a fighting force. Realizing I may be able to summon humans with abilities, I worked through a spell... and realized I had made a terrible mistake.

Now, this may bend the rules a little, since it relies on summoning as an innate ability (spell-as-custom-power), but it stays within the rules as written, at least as far as I can tell. If not, a little tweaking and it will anyway. So, let's start with the worst part; the character summoned is of the following class:

Nuke Class (3 build points)
Fighter 2; Thief 1; 1 thief power: Backstab, 2 custom lvl 1 spells-as-power (1 round casting time, 1 per hour). 1200 XP to level 2 if you're making a player class.

Then, the spell itself (which is also the first spell-as-power):
Multiply
Summons 4 level 1 creatures of Nuke class within 120'; last 1 turn.
Summon 4 creatures. Creature may have up to 1 HD. Creature may have up to 1 special ability (*). Summoning restricted to certain monsters (e.g. djinni). Targets summoned from thin air (alternative plane, etc.). 120'. 1 turn. No saving throw permitted. Arcane.
Math: (150)*0.15 *1 *0.7 *1 *1.25 *0.5 *1 *1 = 9.84 = lvl 1

And the second spell:
Telecom
The caster can throw his voice to up to 100 creatures within 120' of himself; the effect lasts up to 1 turn.
Create illusion, non-visual mono-sensory. Illusion limited to 1 obviously fake, harmless category. Illusion dynamic (animated/moving). Illusion under control of caster for duration. 1-100 creatures within 120' radius. 0'. 1 turn. Beneficial effect. Arcane.
Math: (3)*0.2 *1 *2 *4.5 *0.5 *1.75 *1 *1 = 4.73 = lvl 1

To initiate the nuke, cast the spell and summon 4 copies. Tell them to summon as well, and to tell all their summoned creatures to summon also. After 1 round, there are 4 copies; after 2 rounds, there are 16, then 64, then 256, then 1024 after 5 rounds. 16 rounds in, the summoned creatures likely outnumber humanoids; after 1 turn (10 minutes, or as long as the original spell lasts), assuming there is still anyone to cast anything, there will be 1.329228 x 10^36 copies. Assuming an average weight of about 150 lbs, the copies weigh 45469601 times as much as the sun - enough to create a black hole, and wipe out not only the entire planet, but likely a significant portion of the solar system. While the creatures can be magically dismissed, teleported, warded, or otherwise removed, the sheer number of creatures will likely overwhelm any number of spellcasters.

But stepping back - the character could, instead, summon the 4 copies 120' in front of himself, then tell them to summon only one set of four 120' in front of them, and so on; additionally, the second round after being summoned, one from each set of summoned creatures should activate their communication spell. After 9 minutes, the second from each cluster of casters summons four more casters to keep their number up, thus leaving an uninterrupted chain. Since each summoned creature will only exist for 10 minutes, no single caster will be "awake" longer than that, which means the entire chain can be kept up as long as need be, 24 hours a day. If anything attacks a section of the chain, the third and fourth creatures merely use their summon spells, then charge into the fight; every round, the number of fighters is multiplied by 4, until the enemy is overwhelmed by sheer numbers of backstabbing fist-fighters. Even if they can only hit on a natural 20, they can still land thousands of blows in just a few rounds. Or, y'know, box the enemy in and drop summoned fighters on their head from 120' up.

At 120' per round, after 24 hours of travel, the original caster could send a message through his chain up to 196 miles away, as the crow flies. Which, as a note, the message could be "as soon as you get to Castle Gonnabiteit, summon a horde and destroy the castle. Then just stand around for 10 minutes until you vanish, leaving no trace."

But, maybe destroying the world isn't your thing. How about the entire omniverse? Use the following class instead:

Fighting 1; Thief 2 (5 powers): Backstab; spells-as-powers: Multiply and Telecom as above; Teleport (1 round casting, 1 per month), Adaptaion (1 round casting, 1 per month)

Then cast Adaptation, Teleport, Multiply. There is a small chance that the creature will be "lost" to some unknown plane, and can start creating copies there; otherwise, they teleport into space, and start replicating. Eventually, they fill all space between planets, and trigger a super-massive black hole; still, they can teleport away faster than the hole can draw them in, which means that soon, they fill the entire known universe. And the unknown universe, since they've "accidentally" teleported there, too.

Is my math wrong somewhere, or did I just end the world with a first level spell?

ACK's assumes a heavy DM's hand in his game. For example someone made and posted a low level wall spell and Alex said something along the lines of not counting the weight of the wall or the need for air. There are many flaws that can be found in game that's not on paper.


For example, if a player came to me with this spell it would work for a little bit. But sooner or later someone is going to roll a 2 on a reaction roll. You have to sway them to your side for one. That means as a charm spell or a reaction roll. Then the new people summoned have to be dealt with the same way. As henches you can only control so many and people of the same level can't be henches so you can't form an organization. Someone that's summoned will want to take power and have a lucky reaction roll. Soon an endless battle of people that summon more people fighting. Kind of like MOBAS where the minions just spawn and attack. Sooner or later a lucky few will have gained levels from the constant fighting and start to lead the others, possibly to kill you as you have the spell.
 

TLDR: By Raw yes you have created something that could in theory break the game but its still up to the DM to allow the spell in the first place and I don't see any giving you a army for an first level spell.

The class creation and spell creation spells are not meant to be put into the hands of players, much less min-maxers.  If any player in my game came to me with classes or spells like this I would immediately stop letting them design the spells directly.  If I can trust a player to start with an in-world concept and try to build a spell that fits that, I'd let them.  If they're just going to try and break the game world in two, they can go do it to an MMO.

One objection (out of several):  I don't take summonings to create beings ex nihilo.  (So yes, I'm already making a GM call rather than finding something in print to point to, but then again the rules seem to assume GM calls, so only looking at what's in print would be failing to take seriously what's in print...)  I'm aware there's a "from thin air" multiplier, but the model spells even for that multiplier include djinni and invisible stalkers, and the usual take in D&D has been that these creatures have independent existences on other planes that they're yanked away from.  We don't bother generating their total population when it's a high level spell summoning a single creature (although I'm sure there's a way, this is ACKS, after all).  If I allowed any kind of summon commoner spell in the first place, they'd be "real" commoners yanked from some other location to serve the caster, and really dead if they fell in service.  (I take as precedent a Ring of Djinni summoning becoming worthless if it's bound djinn is killed, so I assume summoned creatures can be killed.)

And the same for multiply, your limit would be the number of 1st level characters of that class in existence somewhere.  Which raises two questions: one, why anyone would knowingly train in it, and two, what happens if some other character of that class summons you first?  And, really, what are your odds going to be that you're the alpha in the chain?  Congratulations, I'll be taking that npc now.

Otherwise your math looks right, right up until the GM beats you to death with a rulebook.  :)

Hi Arman! Your spell is pretty awesome.

The summoning rules weren't intended to allow the spellcaster to create new monsters. The "out of thin air" multiplier is intended to contrast with spells that summon a nearby creature to you. Contrast summoning a genie v. calling a giant eagle from a nearby peak. With no "Nuke" class the spell doesn't work well. Now if your Judge were so foolish as to allow the "Nuke" class to be created in his game, then ... heh.

In general, as the commenters above mentioned, we do assume GM moderation. It's not Champions were we claim that anything you can possibly create with the rules is permissible.

 

 

Oh, I don’t intend to ever use this. Though I can picture a mage inventing this spell, or possibly forming a magical crossbreed, then suddenly realizing what he has done, burning his lab and library, and joining the silent monks. It’s just a flat-out bad idea.

That said, part of the reason I enjoy making such horrific spells, classes, and so on (as Demons_Eye noted about the shield spell - that was me, too) is simply as self defense; my players are going to do the same one day, and I’d rather get there first!