Surprising unbalance....

[Johnny1A.2]

I've asked about this sort of thing before, but it's a subject that always interests me. For GMs, I'm curious, what is the most harmless-seeming, or silly-seeming, PC power, item, skill, background, whatever, that quickly turned your entire campaign or game world upside down?

Not superpowers out of scale with the game or too many levels of multimillionaire, but something that seemed totally innocuous until it blew up the game?

[thorr-kan]

My player's DnD 2ED Al-Qadim Priest of Kor (god of wisdom) with a mediocre Charisma who bought the Religion and Debate nonweapon proficiencies.

When he decides to evangelize, his dice get red hot and he get super-eloquent. He has inadvertently begun building a following for Kor among the dao of the elemental plane of earth.

It's freakin' *awesome.*

[RyanW]

Had a character in a recent one-shot who was well on his way to unionizing the entire Star Wars universe by the end of it.

[mlangsdorf]

One of the PCs in my Fantasy game is a blacksmith Metal Control (Cosmetic), which she uses to make translucent, super-high DR visors for the PCs' armor.

It's not hugely unbalancing, but when everyone is cranking around in DR 12 armor except for their DR 5 eyeslits and then suddenly the PCs don't have eyeslits at all, it's a little weird. Especially since the PCs are supposed to be relative novices at magic and the Evil Magic Empire hasn't thought of this trick.

[Kromm]

Two campaigns ago (fantasy): The player of a legionary officer decided that actually being a good officer would be more interesting than the hackneyed RPG approach of "Rah! Me good at fight! Me general!" For the first couple of years of gaming, it was mostly color – and, this being GURPS, a point-soak. When the scope of the campaign grew more sweeping, though, and he started to lead troops in action, he turned easy victories into zero-casualty cakewalks, even matches into easy victories, meat-grinders into victories with acceptable losses, and even what should have been tragic last stands into hard-won victories. It fit the campaign's tenor for sure, but it definitely accelerated the endgame and changed the aftermath from "Good has prevailed, but at what cost?" to "A new golden age for the forces of Good!"

One campaign ago (espionage/technothriller): The player of a medic for a team of secret agents really went to town on the Housekeeping skill (more GURPS). Again, this was color at first: "She worked as a maid to make ends meet after fleeing Chechnya." But the player wanted to use the skill to "clean" after messy ops, and I allowed it. By the end of the campaign, I believe that was her highest skill and one of the highest skill levels on the squad. Even at considerable penalties, she would use it – in conjunction with her medical skills – to wipe traces of things like break-ins and assassinations so thoroughly that the group more often than not acted with impunity. This resulted in the campaign changing from a gritty post-Cold War spy drama to something more akin to a story about modern-day ninjas.

I should note that I pretty much invite this kind of thing. As the GM, it's part of my fun to be surprised occasionally. It's easy for me to surprise the players. It's much harder for them to surprise me, which is why I love it when they do!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kromm

One campaign ago (espionage/technothriller): The player of a medic for a team of secret agents really went to town on the Housekeeping skill (more GURPS). Again, this was color at first: "She worked as a maid to make ends meet after fleeing Chechnya." But the player wanted to use the skill to "clean" after messy ops, and I allowed it. By the end of the campaign, I believe that was her highest skill and one of the highest skill levels on the squad. Even at considerable penalties, she would use it – in conjunction with her medical skills – to wipe traces of things like break-ins and assassinations so thoroughly that the group more often than not acted with impunity. This resulted in the campaign changing from a gritty post-Cold War spy drama to something more akin to a story about modern-day ninjas.

For... reasons, obviously unconnected to playing a character in a current technothriller game who has Housekeeping, what is a high enough skill level to be able to wipe traces fairly reliably and allow PCs to act with impunity?

I assume that it's a Quick Contest against the Forensics of the crime scene techs, if they are brought in, with them possibly receiving equipment and extra time bonuses, at least in wealthy nations with relatively low crime rates, where even suspected homicides may call for nultiple experts spending hours or even days going over crime scenes.

What skill does a detective use to notice whether someone is a crime scene or not (and thus whether to call in Forensics at all)? Criminology (floated to Per, maybe), Observation or Search? QC against Housekeeping, if that is used to remove traces.

What base time would we use for Housekeeping cleaning a car where someone was shot? (The Wolf was clearly absorbing hefty penalties for reduced time due to the Bonnie Situation, but his cinematically awesome skill made it okay)

What about wiping away traces of a burglary using Lockpicking and the Search of an office?

And which medical skills do you use/need for concealing evidence of crimes?