scrape_r_rational/data/cache/5dst0b.md

[D] Saturday Munchkinry Thread

Post:

Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!

Guidelines:

• Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
• The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
• Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
• We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.

Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Comments:

• u/alexanderwales:

  You have a bracelet that allows you to shape solid stone as though it were wet clay. All stone becomes malleable to you. It's not *actually* wet, nor does it lose its normal properties, so when you're in the process of shaping it someone else could come along, poke it, and feel stone. The bracelet only affects your body; you can't shape stone using tools like knives, scrapers, wires, etc.
  
  (Unless it's really neat, I'd prefer answers that limit tech level to 1700s, since it's for a fantasy story I'm in the middle of writing.)
  

  • u/ZeroNihilist:

    As a material for tools, stone doesn't really have any advantages. It's heavy but not terribly strong, doesn't hold an edge well.
    
    For that use, its only real benefits are that you can probably create your tool anywhere and quickly, and that you can remake them as needed (so it's more flexible). For long-term stuff, you'd probably prefer worked metal every time.
    
    For non-tools, the main uses have been covered by others.
    
    Would you be able to climb a stone wall by forming handholds and footholds? If it is effectively wet clay, it seems likely that it'd just slip and fall with your weight dangling on it.
    
    You could sabotage stairs and the like by pulling a chunk off, then replacing it while not wearing the bracelet. Somebody may trip and die I guess.
    
    Now that I think about it, probably the most effective use would be sealing doorways in stone buildings. Just fold a chunk in front of the door on the side it opens. If you do it enough, you'd effectively make a wall.
    
    Oh, and anybody in a stone room could be sealed in, eventually suffocating in their airtight prison.
    

    • u/gabbalis:

      >Would you be able to climb a stone wall by forming handholds and footholds? If it is effectively wet clay, it seems likely that it'd just slip and fall with your weight dangling on it.
      
      You could wear fingerless gloves or something for climbing. Dig into the stone with the tips of your fingers, hold yourself there with the covered (and thus powerless) sides of your hands.
      

  • u/NotACauldronAgent:

    What is "Stone" in this case? Here's what I got:
    
    Mining Aid-1700s mining technology might be better, but this is more precise.
    
    Castle Crusher-Shield yourself and once you get to a wall, it goes down quickly.
    
    Since only stone is effected, ore refinery by scraping off stone with your fingernails is an option.
    
    Gem carving, if gems are allowed, is probably a good trade. 
    
    Statue Carving, for wealthy patrons.
    
    If it gives feedback, soil sampling/ore quality control. Eg, if it moves easily, it's x%, if its harder, then it's y%
    
    Asbestos is a rock.
    

  • u/crivtox:

    I think you  could easily hide things inside a stone wall   and easily retrieve them . If you are in a prision that has stone walls and still have the bracelet you can easily make tools from the walls to escape  or  make a hole in the wall .other idea would be molding stone around the hands and feet of someone to make improvised  cuffs. Or just make stone items and sell them. You could dig trough  stone and destroy stone walls .You could make  rock knuckles that would be hard  for your enemies but soft  to you.Also you will  always have whatever tools oyour weapons you want that can be made of stone even some that normally can't be made of stone
    

  • u/traverseda:

    >shaping it someone else could come along, poke it, and feel stone.
    
    Hmm, the immediate thought is "soft" armour. Like the non-newtonian foam dow-corning makes, but better. What counts as stone? Anything approaching metal? Would be enough to provide some benefit against non-oathkeepers.
    
    Shove some stone in a lock? Keep keys from working.
    
    Entomb yourself? Decent for stealth against non-mentalists.
    
    Stone tipped arrows? Less of a problem.
    
    Volcanic glass opens up some possibilities, but not much.
    
    Would make escaping constraints easier, as you can fashion simple stone tools. Presuming they don't take it off you.
    
    ---
    
    All in all, it's not that powerful in this setting. The opportunity for a few tricks, but I don't know that there's anything  groundbreaking, except literally.
    

  • u/MonstrousBird:

    If my fingernails and my hair count as part of my body I have a way to engrave in stone and even cut through it if I grow some long enough strands of hair.
    
    I could crush a bunch of smaller gems together to make one large one which would be worth more than the sum of the small ones
    
    As a potter I could throw a super thin marble goblet, or even a gemstone one if that's allowed. 
    
    I can make stone pipes and improve plumbing, though I'd have to use granite or something non-porous
    
    A lot of this depends on how wet is wet clay. THe best pottery techniques use a range of wetnesses for different effects, like you need clay to be drier before you can attache a handle to a jug, but you attach it with nearly liquid clay. If it's wet enough you can make thin edges on clay which might be sharp on an appropriate stone. Moulding diamond would be awesome in this regard.
    
    If you want more ideas I'd suggest looking at some pottery videos :-)
    

  • u/Jiro_T:

    If you push stone into a mold, does it count as you shaping the stone (permitted) or using a tool (not permitted)?
    

• u/vallar57:

  I have a challenge for you, fellow RF and WoD fans.
  
  World of Darkness, be it the old or the new one, is a very well-written setting, describing several very different magical entities and their relationship within themselves and between each other. Mages, werewolfes, evem mummies and, of course, vampires - everything actually exists, if in a different form from the common myths, and every conspiracy theory you heard about is true. Yes, even that one.
  
  However, different those entities are, they all share a common point: something the vampires call the Masquerade. That is, they are hidden from normal, low-magical people. And excuses for continuing to maintain the Masquerade are quite often pretty flimsy. And generally boil down to everyone wanting to maintain it, even those like Sabbat, who openly disdain it.
  
  The challenge is simple: destroy the Masquerade. Use a party of no more than 2 characters who may be fairly powerful, but not very (something like basic character +15 exp, perhaps?), from any book as long as those can reasonably meet and team up and have an actual motivation to destroy the Masquerade. Be prepared that other magical creatures will not be amused. To make things fair and even possible at all, the Internet is not completely under control of supernatural, and even the New World Order or Virtual Adepts can't edit the whole Net on the fly.
  
  What do you think? Also, should I make it a separate post or keep it here?
  

  • u/MagicWeasel:

    The Masquerade is one of those things that you have to basically accept as suspension of disbelief, IMO. You just need to get your party on live TV, and say turn into a werewolf or whatever else would be convincing.
    
    OK, I'll go with a werewolf party because werewolf transformation is easy to do and demonstrate. Apply for the James Randi prize (I don't think it exists anymore, but there are alternative ones - or contact Penn Jillette, Richard Dawkins., whoever is respected in the scientific/skeptical community), tell them you're werewolves, prove it under test conditions, and bam! the masquerade is broken. You'd explain the Masquerade and swear them to secrecy until a Big Reveal where all the people you've told announce it at once on their websites. 
    
    Of course nWoD werewolf rules say that there's "lunacy" and people forget the werewolves/misremember them, but that requires a failed willpower roll, so we're just going to naively assume that you'd eventually get enough respected scientists/etc to succeed their willpower rolls that it'd work out.
    

    • u/vallar57:

      Going on live TV, and TV in general, imo, is an extremely bad idea. Whatever you can do there would be merely a stunt that is fairly easy to replicate with CG, and people are far more likely to believe in an unconventionar PR move than in real supernatural (and live TV is often not as live as it's presented). And in time you would need to convince people that it's not a stunt, you'll get all kinds of angry enforces, starting with the Technocracy and you won't see the rest)
      
      Yeah, my plan also consist of talking to popular and respected scientists. What I am stumped about is how to ensure secrecy until reveal. Some of those scientists might be more than they seem)
      

• u/Kilbourne:

  You are afflicted by reverse body dysmorphia; your body will always be in the condition/shape/etc. that you expect it to be in. However, you are initially unaware of this. Therefore, if you get shot, you suffer from what you *think* are the effects of a gunshot wound. This also means you cannot be anesthetized and murdered in your sleep or while unconscious, because you would not be aware of it and therefore it would not happen to your body.
  
  Otherwise, normal human psyche and and body.
  

  • u/Iconochasm:

    Hypnosis or pathological affirmation exercises?  I'm invincible enough, I'm unstoppable enough, and gosh darnit, people find me undeniably attractive.  Not sure how to become aware of it, unless you needed some kind of surgery where the disconnect between your beliefs and surgical reality made a surgeon say something that gave you a clue.  But that would likely just lead to a distrust of doctors, instead of thinking your body was psychomorphic.
    

    • u/Kilbourne:

      Possibly you could affirm it; your power comes down to a funny sort of self-determination in a way, and by a manner that one's mind has never practiced before. We spend a lot of time learning to accept reality, not to impose our will upon it.
      
      Not sure you could become superhuman, or be perfectly (supernaturally) attractive, as you are bound by normal human biology. You could, however, be the most terrifying acid trip partner of all time.
      
      Any obvious abuses you can think of?
      

      • u/MonstrousBird:

        Could you hurt me by showing me a fairground mirror unexpectedly?
        

        • u/Kilbourne:

          Hahaha oh man, perhaps if you did not also realize it was a fairground mirror - psychotropics would be more effective. That'd be crazy though. It would warp you, but I don't know if it would harm you.
          

  • u/gabbalis:

    When you say... normal human body... does that mean, normal 'normal' or, no stronger than an Olympic weightlifter on steroids 'normal'?
    

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