Ridiculous exploits in RPGs

[MetalCraze]

The funny thing - no.
You just have to start the game with dumping constitution to 2 points and strength to 2 points and properly spending all of remaining points on everything else (Most of them go to Charisma, Luck and Intelligence) then take proper stat upping perks that give you +1 to stats - and after that there are places in a game where you can up your stats as well. Permanently. Also don't forget that modded power armor gives like +4 STR
The game will be difficult at first, but what can stop a metagamer? And besides with 10 Luck you will find that alien blaster very soon or some other encounter with big gun.

 

[RK47]

I thought VTMB had an option where u can just go back n forth in the character generation and get basically unlimited points to max out all skills at the start. Jack would comment that you're cheating during the tutorial though lol.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Troika has a very strange sense of humour.

 

[DraQ]

I remember that exploit in Morrowind, you can create a custom spell which gives you like 1000 in acrobatics, 100 in agility (don't remember the actual numbers) for 1 sec. You cast it and jump (forward!). You'll be flying for around 1/3 of the continent, very high in the sky, over mountains. If you're low level though, you'll die upon landing (but you can use a levitation spell just seconds before the landing to save yourself). This is essentially the best way to travel in Morrowind.

I wouldn't call using magic to bypass walking an exploit.

Self enchanted CE restore health items were a cheat, though.

 

[ghostdog]

Selling and then buying books twice in VTMB was an obvious exploit.

Dexterity in Arcanum was a huge exploit by itself and combining it with teleport and backstab was another one.

In Wizardry 8 you could find a cursed sword in the bank vaults early in the game, that when used it would give the berserk trait to the wielder, this made battles a lot easier.

 

[MetalCraze]

There is another dirty exploit in Arcanum. Feel that you have not enough bullets for your big gun or your tesla rod can't burn your enemies into dust? No worries. Find an empty trash bin - or clean one to make it empty.
Take more than half of your batteries/gold/bullets (but one type of items at a time) and place them in the bin. Now take what's left and drag that to bin - but don't press the |/ symbol yet. Now click "Take all" - and voila the items you've just dragged are multiplied by 2 and returned to your inventory.
Truly a world of magick.

If you don't feel like using magic to advance in this world you can use more earthly ways to achieve some more money. Simply pickpocket Rystezze and take his key. Now just sell him your items - then go to his room - open his chest and take your items back. If Rystezze is running out of money - come back in a day. Repeat until you are rich. Oh and Rystezze will love you more and more because of this. Seriously.

Cheating in Arcanum is not wrong because everything is multiplied in the inventory.

 

[Heresiarch]

In almost all the old first person RPGs, like Throne of Chaos, Dungeon Hack, EotB, your party can run all the way back when things got ugly just by mashing the down key - while monster moving speed are limited.

I find that almost every game with alchemy and enchanting involved will get things seriously imba-ed in the end.

 

[Texas Red]

Some of you guys are confusing bugs for exploitation.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I remember that exploit in Morrowind, you can create a custom spell which gives you like 1000 in acrobatics, 100 in agility (don't remember the actual numbers) for 1 sec. You cast it and jump (forward!). You'll be flying for around 1/3 of the continent, very high in the sky, over mountains. If you're low level though, you'll die upon landing (but you can use a levitation spell just seconds before the landing to save yourself). This is essentially the best way to travel in Morrowind.

I wouldn't call using magic to bypass walking an exploit.

I don't think it was an intended feature.

Also, there's another exploit with custom spells, that I remember. You can create a spell that gives you a huge boost to the Alchemy skill (again, I don't remember numbers) for 1 sec, then you just open your inventory quickly (the game pauses, so the effect stays) and you're able to create any kind of alchemy stuff with out having the actual Alchemy skill.

 

[bozia2012]

I choose BG "trilogy" for the most exploit tempting game. It all comes from IE and imbalanced classes/spells/abilities. Let's name the few most abused:

- killing unaware enemies by shooting fireballs/cloudkills/glyphs/symbols to the edge of FoW
- the ablitity to buff, cast offensive spells and set traps standing right next to a neutral NPC (like his not even remotely suspicious about your party setting traps around him?)
- several things you can do thanks to active pause (like stealing the Ring of Gaxx twice)
- solo powergaming

Sad/Funny thing is that it feels totally normal.

 

[mondblut]

In Daggerfall, if you get a magic school over 100 using skill-boosting items, you can cast any spells of that school, including custom spells of maximum power, for 5 mana points.

In Wizardry 6-7 a faerie can switch classes between thief and bard at will, gaining skills at incredible speed.

In many, many games you can create dummy characters and hand their money and starting equipment to primary party. Sometimes this can also be exploited to duplicate items (goldbox series, f/ex). Outfitting every character with a pair of El's Drinkers in Dark Sun was, well, a game breaker.

In Fallouts you could steal coins one by one, thus getting a lot more xp than stealing them all at once.

... and on and on and on and on. Name any game and I am likely to come up with an exploit for it, heheh.

 

[LCJr.]

If you don't feel like using magic to advance in this world you can use more earthly ways to achieve some more money. Simply pickpocket Rystezze and take his key. Now just sell him your items - then go to his room - open his chest and take your items back. If Rystezze is running out of money - come back in a day. Repeat until you are rich. Oh and Rystezze will love you more and more because of this. Seriously.

Cheating in Arcanum is not wrong because everything is multiplied in the inventory.

Thieving in Arcanum was pretty much one big exploit. As you pointed out no one was able to recognize their own merchandise. I'm guessing firearms in Arcanum didn't have serial numbers.

Exploit or extremely poor design? Your character can follow a shopkeeper into their bedroom to rob them easier. Saved you picking locks on the shop and bedroom door. You just enter the shop and advance time to night. The shopkeeper goes to their bedroom and all you have to do is walk right behind them and they hop into bed and go to sleep with you standing right there. Now you sneak around their room with no chance of getting caught and rob them for all you can carry. Then advance time to morning and walk back into the store behind them. If you left them any money, which you shouldn't have, you can even immediately sell them their own stuff back.

 

[DraQ]

I don't think it was an intended feature.

Presence of three scrolls doing this exact thing on some clueless fuck plumetting to the ground says otherwise.

Anyway, I prefer 100pts of jump instead.

Also, there's another exploit with custom spells, that I remember. You can create a spell that gives you a huge boost to the Alchemy skill (again, I don't remember numbers) for 1 sec, then you just open your inventory quickly (the game pauses, so the effect stays) and you're able to create any kind of alchemy stuff with out having the actual Alchemy skill.

This is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that accessing inventory pauses game.

 

[MetalCraze]

Thieving in Arcanum was pretty much one big exploit. As you pointed out no one was able to recognize their own merchandise. I'm guessing firearms in Arcanum didn't have serial numbers.

a plague of FO1 and FO2 as well

 

[bgillisp]

What about the cane of corpus in Wizardry 8? Once I got my hands on that most fights in the game became really easy

 

[Jasede]

It's hardly an exploit since it is a very rare drop, and also, only usable by a very specific and not all that desirable race/class combo that is a BITCH to roll up in 6 and 7, and has a slow start in 8. Definitely not an exploit, to me. But now that you mention it, getting infinite Diamond Rings in 6, recharging thermonuclear apples in 7 and selling them for $$, getting 2 cane of corpus in 7, that might qualify.

 

[Gerrard]

Another one with Morrowind's magic, you could add a 1 sec drain 100 intelligence on self to a spell to have it completely restore your mana, unless you had resistance to magic (or more than 100 int obviously)
This didn't have as much use as abusing alchemy though.

 

[Texas Red]

I remembered one exploit in Arcanum. If you use magic or tech to raise your stats, you can put points it skills for which you wouldn't normally have enough attributes. So you can have 3 in melee with 10 dexterity even though it requires 12.

 

[DraQ]

Another one with Morrowind's magic, you could add a 1 sec drain 100 intelligence on self to a spell to have it completely restore your mana, unless you had resistance to magic (or more than 100 int obviously)
This didn't have as much use as abusing alchemy though.

It's quite useful if you play an Atronach character (stunted magicka), ironically severity of this exploit was alleviated by beth's trademark lousy coding - draining effects behave partially like damaging ones if drained attribute is fortified, so no quick recharge in combat if your spellcaster was wearing, for example, Necromancer's Amulet.

 

[Zomg]

I hate it when games let you use potions or potion analogs instantly from your inventory. Darklands, Fallout, I think some of the IE games and Aurora games, etc. Anything that can't kill you in a single hit or round will inevitably lose.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Only Torment allowed for multiple use of stuff in the inventory from the IE games.

 

[Zomg]

VtM:B did it too, with bloodpacks, although at least there the packs were pretty hard to get a hold of and you never have an indefinite supply of money.

 

[LCJr.]

Thieving in Arcanum was pretty much one big exploit. As you pointed out no one was able to recognize their own merchandise. I'm guessing firearms in Arcanum didn't have serial numbers.

a plague of FO1 and FO2 as well

True, very true. Guess some developers just can't learn.

 

[Gerrard]

It's quite useful if you play an Atronach character (stunted magicka), ironically severity of this exploit was alleviated by beth's trademark lousy coding - draining effects behave partially like damaging ones if drained attribute is fortified, so no quick recharge in combat if your spellcaster was wearing, for example, Necromancer's Amulet.

Oh yeah, that was especially annoying with items that had fortify strength (which was way more effective than feather) and bonewalkers, you had to remove everything to fully restore your attribute.

Which leads to another one: instead of enchanting a shirt with constant effect fortify strength 12 you could make fortify strength 1 to 23 and just equip/unequip until you got a good value.

 

[MisterStone]

In FO1 I once got my hands on the alien blaster which appears through a special encounter. I had already gotten the traits that enhanced shooting things with one hand, and improved by crits ( I think). As soon as possible I tagged energy weapons and started pumping skill points into it. By the end of the game I was disintegrating two supermutants per round with a single shot each.

And then there was Morrowind... the most unbalanced game ever created probably. I started out with a spear-using lizard with no armor, and still managed to pwn anything in the game pretty easily before long, once I made a few custom spells, got a couple of useable items, and the like. Kind of a letdown.... I never finished the game because after a certain point I decided that it was just too badly balanced to make it interesting.